eye spy...a discovery

Here's something we discovered recently -- a bee nosing around the one small stand of flowers (snowdrops) we've got in the garden right now. I went to take a photo of the flowers, and while snapping...out from one of them popped this little guy! Every little sign of spring is welcome right now.

This week's eye spy theme brought to you by Megan of The Byron Life!

winter's last hurrah

There is our last mug of hot chocolate (unless we get some crazy weather!) for the season...and the ultimate mug-full! After a few years of trying various homemade hot cocoa recipes with no success (I mean, they all made hot cocoa, but none of us really liked any of the results) I finally discovered the secret. Don't mess with cocoa! Go for the chocolate....it's so simple, but so much better. Why I never thought of it (and why everyone keeps pushing the cocoa) I do not know. Here's how we like it:

For each mug, put 1 cup of a rich whole milk into a small saucepan (got so-so whole milk? make your cup up out of 2 ounces of cream and 6 ounces of whole milk) and heat until just bubbling. In a larger saucepan, put 1 tablespoon of water and 35 grams of a decent milk chocolate and melt together over low heat. Add heated milk and stir until smooth. Dark chocolate would probably be good too, but milk chocolate works for us. (I use the 99 cent bars from ikea, you need 1/3 of a bar per mug.)

And to top your chocolate? Homemade marshamallows!



I have wanted to try making marshmallows for years, and only now finally got around to trying it. So easy -- if you have a candy thermometer, a stand mixer, and the patience to leave the pan of marshmallow along overnight. I used the Alton Brown recipe and they are ridiculously good. (Vegetarians -- from what I have read online, you can sub 1 T of agar-agar for each packet of gelatine.) We'll definitely be trying flavored ones in the future.

And they melt amazingly, witness the result in Emily's favorite dessert, Pixie's Delights (basically, baked s'mores, from a vintage kid's cookbook we have).



I cannot wait to toast these! And....while I can wait for next winter, when it does come back around I will be well-prepared.

eye spy...a slacker!!

Well, actually, this week's theme is "something beautiful in my back yard", although I'll have to cheat with an out-of-season photo here:



But, time for my confession of guilt, I enthusiastically signed up for eye spy but I have not been playing along, sorry to say. Things have been very hectic and my online time is slashed to a minimum. It all started with the theme "Eye Spy ... My secret (Food) Shame", because I was totally stumped. When it comes to food, I have no shame and no secrets! Maybe things that aren't common knowledge, because how often does "do you like milk?" come up in conversation? But I didn't have an answer. And then it just snowballed from there. So here's a quick summary of what I didn't spy.

Wait, actually, it all started with "Eye Spy ... Something Delicious", because I couldn't find the photo of our favorite cake that I wanted to post. This isn't the photo I wanted, but it is our favorite cake:



That's Japanese-style strawberry shortcake, which at Xmastime comes with lovely decorations on top. We get one every year!

Then after "something delicious" and "secret food shame" came "Eye Spy ... Love" and "Eye Spy ... Something that makes me Happy" and "Eye Spy ... Something that make me Laugh", and really, the answers are Emily, Emily and Emily, and you see enough photos of her, right? But now you know the answers.

And then last week, I actually had a few moments and worked on a post...then my server went down and I couldn't post it! it was "eye spy...my favorite color". And the answer (for purposes of this meme) is:

Pink!



Actually, the entire cool part of the spectrum is what I like (pink, purple, blue and green), but pink's been a constant. Plus, Emily has declared it my absolute favorite and who's arguing with her? She has also declared Evam's favorite to be red, and hers to be orange. And she's not kidding about the orange, it's been her favorite since...as long as I can remember, really. She loves orange like crazy.

And look! I'm all caught up! So, eye spy someone who will try harder to stay on top of things she signs up for!! (Just don't mention any "year in color" or anything to me right now, 'kay?)

an explosion of cute!

so, I've been trying to blog for weeks, but time has been even more limited than usual. twitter is about all I have spare time for! instead of trying to finish any of my pending posts, let me just race through a few quick things:



check out that box of cuteness! I treated myself to a load of stuff from ichiban kan, where you can get all the cute little bento-y things you've seen on ebay for about $1 a piece (instead of $5 or so on ebay!) Favorites so far are the ultraman forks and the silicone pancake rings (they work amazingly!)

Also amazingly cute -- this little pegdoll I won from one of my favorite blogs, creative breathing. She's on my desk right now, and the only thing bad about her? She looks like she needs company!!

Final cuteness? Emily, who is now cooking at the stove. (Don't worry, closely supervised.) She is so proud of herself, it kills me!

happy valentine's day (weekend)!

Hope you all had a good weekend, Valentine-y or not. We had fun, lots of valentine's and these cupcakes. Emily found the sprinkles at Target and loved them, so she and I made cupcakes Saturday! I have to admit, I don't love the recipe I used (I don't make cupcakes that often, so I haven't been able to try many recipes, and so far none of them are keepers). It's for chocolate-banana cake and while it sounded good in theory, not so great in practice. Really I should have remembered that I have a red velvet recipe stashed somewhere I've been meaning to try -- that would have looked perfect!

Well, there are a lot of sprinkles left, so....more sweetie cupcakes soon, I think!

the mushroom invasion: I defeat them!

As I mentioned, after slaying the encroaching alien mushroom creatures I covered them with a tea towel and stashed them in the fridge. The next day for lunch I picked over them (a few were a little too dry), sliced what was left and then sauteed them in butter with a teeny bit of salt. And they were SO TASTY.



Seriously, the freshness of the mushrooms was noticeable. I can tell I am going to be so picky about mushrooms from now on! Not to mention, become addicted to growing them!

Emily wouldn't eat them (her loss) and Evan was a bit freaked out but enjoyed them. (He had some crazy theory about how "average americans" think food they grow themselves is not real. Of course, he considers himself an "average" american even though he has never lived outside the five boroughs of New York City! reeee-diculous.) I thought they were delicious and only wished I had more.

At the moment I'm following the instructions to dry (for a week) and then soak the log, rewrap it in plastic and attempt to grow them again. (Supposedly you can get even a 3rd flush of mushrooms!) This time I'm going to cut several slits in the plastic instead of 2 X's, so that the plastic can stay on the rest of the log even if it is bursting out all over. And we'll see what happens!

the mushroom invasion: they try to take over!

So, Saturday night, I took a quick photo of the mushrooms:



Notice that the big one has grown barely 1/2 an inch past the edge of the bowl. Sunday, we all went back to the NY Comic Con, came back very tired, ate, looked at stuff we'd brought home, and just before scooting Emily upstairs I looked over at the mushrooms:



AAAAAAAHHHHH!!! So, we decided they had to be stopped for our own protection that minute, and I sliced off the mushrooms. Once they were all on a plate, they seemed so much more friendly. Food-like. And even pretty.



But still -- that thing was huge. See? Almost the size of a very tired 4-year-old's face.



I checked my big food book for storage tips, and covered them with a tea towel and stashed them in the fridge for the next day. Tomorrow, the results!!

In the meantime, a few more notes -- I will in the future probably buy my kits here. I didn't this time because their kits are bigger and I didn't know where I could park a big one. They also have a "kid's" kit that grows enoki mushrooms and can apparently be pretty neglected and stil produce, so for a winter blahs project for little ones it might be a good bet. If you are even slightly interested, go and request their catalog, it's amazing -- if I'd had their catalog in hand before I ordered my kit, I'd have gone with one of theirs, too big or not. And now that I have looked through it a bit, I personally want to inoculate outdoor logs and have my own mushroom forest someday!! (Maybe a few more indoor kits would be a good idea first, though!)