Project 365: Days 1-12

Here's the first post of many for my 365 project I'll be attempting this year, where I'll be taking a photo every day in 2015.  I'm trying to push myself to use my camera for this, instead of my phone, not because it's better or anything but because there's still a lot I need to learn about my camera and its settings.  And about photography and lighting, in general.  I'll go ahead and admit, that the first 12 days were a challenge.  Remembering to take a photo everyday is tricky.  Not to mention the fact that it's freezing and gloomy outside so I've been pretty much limited to indoor photography.  And not just that, many most days I find myself taking photos at night, indoors, which is about the worst time to take photos.  During the work week, when I leave the house in the morning it's still dark outside.  Then by the time I get home and feed/care for the animals, it's dark again.  I look forward to the days when I don't have to go home for lunch everyday to let Mabel and I can use my lunch-break to take photos.

I've noticed that one of the things I'm going to struggle most with is not getting a photo everyday, but posting just one photo for every day.  Well, I might as well just admit defeat now...I can't do it!  I'm going to post more than one photo per day, that's just who I am.  I've accepted it, now you have to.  Anyway, here's the first 12 days, hope you enjoy.

Day 1:  What better way to start off the new year than by frying up some homemade donuts!  No?  I hadn't made donuts since high school and had been aching to whip up a batch during my time off, so I decided January 1st was the perfect day to do it!  Actually, it might have to become an annual tradition.

Day 2:  Mabel

Day 3:  I think I was feeling bad for Cheesy, like he was feeling neglected because of the new puppy, so I apparently decided to dedicate several days to Cheese! 

Day4:  Doing what our family does best...being lazy.  That's my hip/thigh covered in the quilt and Cheese is cozily nestled in behind my legs on the sofa.

Day 5:  Cheese loves all food, but his favorite veggies and fruits (which are the majority of the human-foods we give him) are probably carrots, bananas, and clementines.  Every time I eat clementines I have to share some with Cheese.

Naturally, Mabel wanted in on the actions so she proceeded to lick Cheese's jowls!

Day 6:

Day 7:  Our street is currently a work-zone (and has been for about a month now) while they work on the gas lines.

Day 8:  Cheese has learned that if I'm in the kitchen then there's probably some sort of food being made or chopped.  In this case, he's checking out the cake I was making for my boss' birthday.

Day 9:  Pistachio cream cake (with a pistachio mascarpone filling and chocolate ganache).

Day 10:  Tiki mask we got while in Hawaii!

Day 11:  For Christmas my mom made us a basket filled with all kinds of goodies (from homemade treats to a cool cutting board to bulk food store goodies).  One of the things in the basket was this bag of peanut butter cookie mix, which you just add water to, scoop and bake!  So easy and so tasty!

Day 12:  Continuing the fur-kid trend:  a picture of Gui looking down disapprovingly from his perch at Mabel.  And Cheese being a total ham!

Pumpkin Picking '14

Where did Fall go?  One second the leaves are changing and the next it's snowing and in the 30s!  I'm not a winter-hater by any means, but I Fall is by far my favorite season and it also seems to be the shortest one!  But let's talk about traditions, which seems appropriate since it's nearly Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here before you know it.

By far my favorite Fall tradition is pumpkin picking!  It started when my best friend, Amanda, and I were roommates in college.  We'd pack some bacon sandwiches and spend the day in Yellow Springs picking pumpkins, hiking, and eating ice cream.  When Antoine and I started dating he was more than happy to carry on the tradition with me, and I breathed a giant sigh of relief that pumpkin picking didn't fall to the wayside, because it makes me so freaking happy!  This year we planned to go to our usual spot, Peifer Orchards in Yellow Spring but as a bonus Amanda and Aaron (and their dog Gatsby) decided to trek down from Cleveland to meet up with us!  We arrived at Peifer a little before Amanda and Aaron (not surprising since it's much closer to YS from Cincinnati than from Cleveland!), but decided to make our way to the field since pumpkin picking for me tends to be a very intense and time-involved process.  The lovely people at Peifer warned us before we headed out to the field that they had had a lot of rain the previous week which flooded their fields, so there might not be any pumpkins to pick.  Still we remained optimistic that there'd be some pumpkins to pick.

 "Come on, guys!  To the pumpkins!"

Unfortunately, only a couple pumpkins survived the flooding of the field and I only found one pumpkin to pick...

Still, we wandered around for a while.  I snapped some photos while Cheese smelled everything imaginable!

 And then I spotted a couple ducks with a bunch of little ducklings trailing behind them...

 How cute is that?!

 Basset butt.

Next to Peifer there is a greenhouse/farm with a variety of different animals.  Shortly after we arrived at the fields we saw this guy.  He really wanted to be Cheese's friend...Cheese wasn't so sure he wanted to be his though! 

 Cheese would get close and then when the horse bent down to sniff his head Cheese would hurry off!

We were definitely bummed that there were no pumpkins to pick, but after Antoine did a little calling around he found that Young's Dairy (which was on our list of activities for the day anyway), just a half mile down the road, also had pumpkin picking.  So we told Amanda and Aaron there was a change of plans and to meet us at Young's.  As we were leaving the fields I spotted another duck with a big group of ducklings following her.

 

I've been to Young's Dairy many, many times (it's actually one of my most favorite ice creams!), but I've never actually been pumpkin picking at Young's.  Let me just say, it was awesome!  There were so many pumpkins and their field is so large!!  I really had a hard time narrowing down which pumpkins to actually take home, because I loved so many of them.

"Oh, mother."

Antoine and I (mainly it's me!) always pick way too many pumpkins to actually take home, so we always line up the candidates in a row to survey possibilities for the keepers in the bunch.  A year or two ago we started another tradition, we make Cheese pose with this assortment of pumpkins.  Because really, what's cuter than a basset hound posing in front a ton of pumpkins?! 

Oh wait, maybe this little family in front of a bunch of pumpkins!?  That's pretty adorable too!

Once we chose all our pumpkins, paid (thanks again, Amanda and Aaron, for the perfect wedding present!), and packed up trunks full of pumpkins we were all ready for a some delicious ice cream and fried cheese curds!

Mmm!  My personal favorite, chocolate peanut butter in a freshly made waffle cone.

Despite the little hiccup at Peifer, our pumpkin picking adventure turned out to be very successful and fun!  And we now have another place in Yellow Spring for pumpkin picking.  After Young's we did a little hiking before parting ways and heading home, but I'll share those photos later this week.  Until then, happy Tuesday!  Are you as ready for the long weekend as I am?!

On a little sidenote, Antoine and I have been married for exactly six months today!  Six years and six months ago today, he picked me up for a date, 45 minutes late, and we ate fondue together while I'll babbled on and he listened.  Now I can't imagine my life without him!  He's such a caring, funny man and I absolutely love the life and home we've created together.  Happy six-month-anniversary, Tran!

July 4th Weekend in Instagram

I hope everyone had a nice long weekend!  Mine had its ups and down, but overall there was lots of good food and time with my little family.

 The weekend started a bit early at work with a birthday celebration of one of my coworkers.  I whipped up this chocolate cake with chocolate frosting from Completely Delicious.  It went over pretty well!

 I started off my Fourth with a very patriotic yogurt bowl.  It was pretty and delicious!  Then we headed over to French Park for a nice leisurely walk through the woods, which is always a good time.

 Then we headed over to my sister's, though they were out of town, to grill some food and hangout with Cheese on their new patio! [Above: blueberry lemon white wine spritzer I made for myself]

 Cheese had a blast playing fetch...look at that smile!

 Antoine grilled up some steaks and fresh corn, but the highlight for me were the grilled honeyed peaches with vanilla bean ice cream....SO GOOD!!

I couldn't resist a little nightcap once we got back home, it was the Fourth after all!  [Above: a blueberry mojito, made with fresh blueberry simple syrup]

 Saturday morning Antoine spoiled me with probably the best breakfast hash he's made yet!  He's a wizard when it comes to breakfast!! [Rosemary-garlic-chive breakfast potatoes, with Turk's bacon, cheese and a perfectly fried egg (at least how I like them), sprinkled with some fresh parsley!]

After breakfast, while Antoine was doing some yard work outside, I decided to go to Spring Grove to take some pictures.  And of course, because it's me and I'm apparently an expert at hurting myself, I fell and twisted my ankle.  I was walking by the pond, taking pictures and not paying attention, and I stepped into a hole and "CRUNCH!"  Then I hobbled back to my car and by the time I got home I had a swollen, sore ankle.  So the rest of the night was spent icing my ankle and watching tv.

 But no worries, I had this guy to keep me company...he even held my hand!

 With my ankle still swollen and sore my Sunday pretty much looked like this [me and Cheese taking it easy on the sofa]...though I'm not complaining!

Oh, and that husband of mine went ahead and spoiled me again with a delicious homemade breakfast:  homemade biscuit/bacon/egg/cheese sandwiches and breakfast potatoes!  He actually made the biscuits from scratch and they were AWESOME!!  I'm too lucky!

So, that was my weekend in a nutshell [ie Instagram]!  How was your 4th of July?  Did you do anything fun?!

Montreal-style Bagels

When we went to Montreal for the first time this past February, we found ourselves craving bagels as soon as we returned home.  But not just any bagels though, Montreal-style bagels.  I quickly did some research and found out what made these bagels so different from others I'd had.  Namely it's the addition of malt powder and egg, the lack of salt, the risen bagels are boiled in honey-water and then fired in a wood oven.  The wood-fire gives the outside this amazing, crusty texture and the malt powder and eggs brings a richness to the soft, chewy dough, while the honey bath makes them slightly sweet and unlike any bagel I've ever had before.  It's magic!

Well, I knew I couldn't recreate the wood-fire oven, not without a lot of money that is, but I could take care of the rest.  So I began searching for a recipe and quickly found this one, which had pretty good reviews.  Of course, I needed to get my hands on some malt powder first.  Not such an easy task!  I scoured grocery store shelves trying to find this elusive malt powder.  But Biggs didn't have it.  Kroger didn't have it.  I couldn't even find it at Jungle Jim's.  So in the end I got some from Amazon.  Now I was ready.  This past weekend I decided to make a half batch/test batch to see how they turned out.  The recipe was pretty easy, though a little time consuming...but I like making bread so I'm used to wasting a little time in the kitchen kneading and letting things rise (note: it's not nearly as time consuming as some of the breads I've made!).  A half batch makes 6 bagels.  I actually formed one of mine into a pretzel, so I ended up with five bagels and a pretzel.

 Each bagels gets a dip in the boiling honey water for 90 seconds before they get baked in the oven.  I was a little concerned because they didn't rise much before the bath, but then they plumped up while they were in the boiling honey-water, so no worries!

 As I said I made one pretzel with a little kosher salt on the top, which was tasty.  Then I made one plain, two cheese (using some sliced fontina we had), one cinnamon sugar, and one salt.  All were delicious!

I think the cinnamon-sugar and the salt were actually my favorite.  The dough is nice and chewy, and the honey-water gives it a great subtle sweetness.  

Since my best friend is coming into town this weekend (YAY!!!) so I'm going to give another batch a go.  I'll definitely be adding chocolate chips into the mix, since that's my favorite type of bagel!  Have you ever had Montreal-style bagels?

Piece of Cake!

What's a girl's weekend without a little dessert?  Answer: crappy.  Well, lucky for us we happened to be celebrating my friend's recent birthday, which means one thing...birthday cake!  Just a day before we headed to Hocking Hills my darling HLP turned 29!  So we naturally celebrated with a gifts, balloons and a big cake.  When Amanda and I were roommates in college, I would usually pick up a box of yellow cake and a tub of chocolate frosting from the store and assemble it into an oh-so-classy sheet cake for her.  We were lazy college students, what do you expect?  I don't even think we did candles or anything to decorate it...I just "made" the cake and then we ate it!  And it usually didn't last long. 

This year I wanted to do something a bit more special, so I decided I was going to make a cake from scratch! As much as I like to bake I've never actually made a cake or frosting from scratch, so I was really looking forward to it.  I did some research and found a cake recipe and a chocolate frosting recipe (one my sister, who is allergic to cocoa butter, could have) with pretty good reviews and then I just jumped right in...

It's not the prettiest cake in the world, but I think it's not half bad for my first real cake.  I think it tasted pretty good too!  I was worried that the cake would be dry, but it wasn't.  (FYI, I took a suggestion from one reviewer and immediately put the cakes in the freezer from the oven to halt the cooking process.)  It ended up having a great rich, buttery flavor to it, probably from all the egg yolks.  And the frosting was also pretty rich and chocolatey, though in hindsight, I wish I would have thinned it out a bit more since it didn't spread on very well.  As for the lettering: I, unfortunately, couldn't find my piping bag for the life of me so I had to do the lettering with a ziploc bag.  Oh well, it'll do. 

Now I can't wait for the next birthday to come up so I can find another cake to make from scratch.  I've already pinned a couple sound delicious...

[sources (left to right): strawberry dream cake, lemon blueberry cake, strawberry + chocolate cake, & Billie's Italian cream cake (not the prettiest, but it sounds amazing)]

Stay tuned tomorrow for some highlights of hiking/walking in Hocking Hills.