SNOW-MAGEDDON!

By Brit on February 8th, 2010 Posted in Other

It snowed a lot on the East Coast over the past weekend (oh how I wish I was there!). Finally!!! Tomorrow, we’re supposed to get our own snow storm in Michigan. Ok, as of right now, the Ann Arbor area only has a Storm Watch (COME ON WARNING!) and I am STOKED. I can’t wait for tomorrow and Wednesday. Ugh.

I LOVE snow. I miss Muskegon where it’d snow almost every day. I don’t know why there’s so much of a difference in the 160 miles between Muskegon and Ann Arbor. It’s a pain in my ass. Even in Kalamazoo, when I was there for college, it snowed all the freaking time. I loved it. I hated it when I would de-ice airplanes and crap, but pretty much everything about snow makes me excited.

I love the waking up to the first snow of the season, especially when it’s unexpected.

I love drinking hot cocoa watching the snow fall.

I love that it’s cloudy ALL day when it snows.

I love warm, homemade food when it snows.

Basically, I LOVE SNOW. I can’t wait for tomorrow. I’m hoping there’s a good opportunity for pictures to be taken in the sn0wy-ness that I’m anticipating.

For now, I’ll leave you this picture, it’s about the most snow we’ve had fall at one time this year (how unfortunate!).

4 Comments

Photo Safari!

By Brit on February 7th, 2010 Posted in Photography

Yesterday, I went out with Ginny on a photo safari. It was amazingly fun. The boys (Matt and his dad) had to go to a basketball game and dinner before so we spent the day driving around Toledo taking pictures.

We started at The Anderson’s Market because they had some big food sample thing I saw and, well, The Anderson’s is awesome.

More pictures from The Anderson’s Market.

Then we went out to the Middle East Market because we could make whatever we wanted for dinner, and of course it’s going to be Middle Eastern. Duh.

More photos at Middle East Market.

We came home for a bit, said good-bye to the boys, threw Lucy-dog in the back of the car and ventured out to take pictures. Ginny knew of a train engine, so that’s where we headed first and then we went searching for a good view of the sunset.

More pictures of the train and the sunset.

2 Comments

Big Decisions

By Brit on February 5th, 2010 Posted in Photography

For the last few weeks, I’ve been using one of Ginny’s old cameras (one given to her by a dear friend who passed recently), which is an extreme honor, but I can’t lie: I am extremely scared of this camera. The camera itself doesn’t intimidate me, but the history of the camera scared the shit out of me.


image from Steves Digicams

The Fujifilm S1Pro is the camera I’ve been using. By looking at it, you can tell it’s more of an established photographer’s camera. It’s been awesome to learn on this camera, but I think it’s probably time to make the move to something more my skill level, and have I mentioned I’m SCARED TO DEATH of doing anything to this camera? Ginny’s told me more than once that it’s mine to use, and something to the effect of that ‘I don’t need to worry about it.’ I do worry. It’s not mine and it has ridiculously RIDICULOUS sentimental value.

Why am I trying to rationalize this? Because I want this:


image from PhotographyBLOG

The Nikon D3000. It’s small and pretty and red and it’s everything I want in a camera.

So, the question remains, do I splurge a little bit on this camera with my incoming tax refund, or do I keep using the camera I’m almost, kind of, scared to use. I think it’s a no brainer.

7 Comments

Pizzadillas

By Brit on February 3rd, 2010 Posted in Food

Pizza + Quesadilla = THE BEST IDEA EVER! Ok, they weren’t like the best thing I’ve ever eaten, and they were ridiculously similar to Firehouse Pizzas (only cooking in a pan on the stove and with 2 tortillas).

Ohdeeoh, the awesome kid’s blog of Apartment Therapy, featured pizzadillas yesterday, and well I made them today. I adapted the recipe and well, I’d make them again, ’cause I have leftover pizza supplies.

Pizzadillas

tortillas (we used A2 Corn Tortillas, YUM)
pizza sauce
ricotta cheese
toppings

Spread the ricotta on each of two tortillas, place toppings on each and cover (lightly) with the pizza sauce. Place on a hot greased pan (I used PAM spray) and cook until the filling is warmed.

Note: The tortillas I used were small, so they fit perfectly in the pan, you might have to halve the tortilla for it to fit.

4 Comments

Photo Walk

By Brit on February 3rd, 2010 Posted in Photography

Today, after MUCH (!!!!) urging from Aparna, I finally took a photo walk. A photo walk is one in which you go out with your camera for no other reason except for to take pictures.

I finally got off my ass this morning and did it, mostly because it snowed a bit last night and it was sunny this morning. These are some of my favorite shots, as always, there are more at my flicker page.

Yay pretty pictures … AND! a new watermark, superly awesomely cool.

2 Comments

Now This is It!

By Brit on February 3rd, 2010 Posted in Food

This is what the cookies from last night were supposed to look like …


Pictures like this are why I need to actually cook during the day … just for that natural daylight. It’ll never ever happen, but things look so much better in this light! Can I just say YUM about 5000 times? Yeah, ok, I am. I only had one today (I can’t really tell you why), but I’m about to have about 3 more for dinner (oh and some pizzadillas … oh yeahhh).

No Comments

Milk Chocolate Cookies

By Brit on February 3rd, 2010 Posted in Food

Late last night I realized that I had EVERYTHING to make chocolate chip cookies, so I made them. I used the mixer Ginny got for me on SUPER clearance at Target a few weeks ago and I was off. The cookies turned out fantastic, even if I did, um, almost kill the mixer in the process.

Warning: 800 pictures (ok, not that many) follow … which normally isn’t my thing, but I just HAD to show how this cookie scraper works!

Ginny also gave me this while going through her kitchen drawers. She told me the name of it, but hell if I can remember. It’s a cookie scraper to me, and honestly, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever use it. I tried it out tonight. It worked like a charm. Or, you know, like two teaspoons.

First, you dip the curved edge (the side without the moving parts) into the cookie dough, and get a huge glob (of course! who likes small cookies?!).

It looks all fancy when it’s on the scooper, and all that jazz.

Then, with your thumb, you push down the move-y part …

And, magically the cookies fall perfectly off …

And you do it 3072498273498273423 times …

And you have that many piles of cookies. Really, the thing is pretty awesome. I could dip, scoop, and smush the cookies off with one hand while I was taking pictures with the other. It was also a whole lot cleaner than using two spoons. I don’t know if I would have gone out and bought the tool, it’s very unitasker, but you know, it’s awesome because it was Ginny’s and now it’s mine.

The only cooking tip I ever got from my mom was that when you made cookies (or brownies, or anything that was cut up and put into a container) if you put a piece of bread into the container with the baked goods, it kept them fresh and moist longer.

The bread, takes all of the dry air and becomes quite stale. It looks weird, and I always get strange looks, but honestly, it keeps the cookies fresh for a lot longer than they would be in a regular container.

The cookies are ridiculously good. I finally have tweaked a few recipes into one good recipe and they are aaaaamazing.

Even the bottom is good, not burned and oh-so-tasty. (Please don’t notice that chocolate chip that magically fell from the cookie when I turned it on the pan because I don’t have any cooling racks).

Milk Chocolate Cookies

3 cups flour
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips
2 teaspoons hot water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Soften the butter and cream together with both sugars. Add in the eggs, vanilla, and salt. Mix. Combine the hot water and the baking soda, until dissolved. Add in the flour and chocolate chips.

Bake for 12-14 minutes, watch carefully.

Makes approximately 3 dozen cookies.

I should probably also mention that NO MATTER how good vanilla extract smells, you should never, EVER taste it. EVER.

7 Comments

Tomato-Lentil Stew

By Brit on February 1st, 2010 Posted in Food

I found this recipe on Budget Bytes (one of my new favorite websites!), and I had to make it. I can’t remember ever having lentils before, but I’ve really been trying to branch out with the foods I’ve been eating. I actually kind of LIKE green onions (please don’t tell?) in some things, and I’m really liking this new trend. So, I guess this week’s new food was lentils. YUM. The stew was fairly fantastic. I did have to half the recipe though, it made SO MUCH and Matt (as of yet) is still maintaining that he doesn’t like lentils so I’m the only one eating it, which I am definitely ok with.

Tomato-Lentil Stew

1 can diced tomatoes
2 stalks celery
1/2 bag frozen corn
1 cup lentils
1 tablespoon garlic
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 tablespoon hot sauce

Add lentils to 2 cups of water, boil. Once boiling, turn the heat off, cover and let sit for about 20 minutes.

Soften the celery and garlic, add the tomatoes (including juice), corn and spices. Let simmer.

After the lentils are softened, pour the entire contents of the pan into the simmering tomato mixture. Smush the lentils to break them open (or, you could use an immersion blender; however, I am not cool enough to own one).

Serve very warm with cheese and tortilla chips.

Serves 6. Recipe adapted from Budget Bytes.

YUMMM!

6 Comments

Winter in Michigan

By Brit on February 1st, 2010 Posted in Home

Ok, January’s over and February has started. The fact still stands:

Winter in Michigan SUCKS.

Sucks, sucks, sucks. Not only for the 12 degrees I woke up to this morning, but the $200 heating bills, and the absolute lack of daylight.

There is about 4-5 hours of usable daylight for taking photographs everyday. Ok, generally it’s less than that. It’s cloudy almost every day, making daylight ridiculously hard to come by. It also doesn’t help that our kitchen is on the east side of the house and the early morning sun is mostly clouds.

I can’t take a damned food photograph for the life of me after about 11:30am, and that’s when I’ve been up and moving enough to cook.

It also doesn’t help that the kitchen, no matter how ridiculously nice it is, is pretty dark. I found some under cabinet lights when I was at IKEA a few months ago and finally got them installed this past weekend.

I can’t tell you how much the lights have helped cooking in the last couple days. I guess I never realized how much I needed more light in the kitchen until I started trying to take pictures of the foods I made and now I’m considering getting more lights for under every cupboard.

4 Comments

My Spice Rack

By Brit on January 31st, 2010 Posted in Home

When Matt and I moved into the condo last April, one of the first things I got set up was the kitchen. I’d never really had a kitchen like this (pretty much everyone who comes over is ridiculously jealous of it) and I was so excited to get everything into it.

I had made a pilgrimage to IKEA with Ginny right after we moved in to get curtains and shower rods and all the stuff you need to buy when you move into a brand-new home. I can’t tell you how long I looked over the IKEA catalog. It was seriously hours. The pages were getting dog-eared and crinkled pretty bad. I finally made my choices (and subsequently threw them all out the window as soon as we walked into that bright, shiny building).

One thing I didn’t falter on was my spice jars. I fell in love with them as soon as I saw them in the catalog and have never regretted the choice.

The jars are the Rajtan jars from IKEA. They’re ridiculously cheap ($3 for 4 jars) and they’re absolutely cute (especially when stuffed with amazing spices). I even use one jar for my vanilla (mostly because Ginny brought me some amazing vanilla from Mexico and I didn’t have anything to put it in – she wouldn’t let me have the whole bottle, psh!)

The problem of the spice rack lies with the actual rack. I don’t have one. I have a shelf I bought one day at IKEA, which conveniently, they don’t carry anymore.

I also have been cooking a lot more since we moved in, and collecting more and more spices, which no longer conveniently fit on the single shelf anymore. I have no idea what to do with this. I don’t want the jars hanging out on the counter, it’d be amazing I could have found that shelf again.

So, you’re probably asking WHY THE FUCK DON’T YOU BUY A SPICE RACK!? Good question. The space between the bottom of the cabinet and the countertop is 16 inches, oh and there’s that 3.5 inch “backsplash.” All of this means there is absolutely no space for a spice rack.

I do have to admit that I haven’t been to Home Depot or Lowe’s yet to look for a spice rack, or hell, just a shelf that I could use to store them on – but I’m not sure how well that’d go for me anyways (I’m probably the most picky person in the world).

My question to you: How do you store your spices? Do you hide them in a cupboard? Do you display them proudly? Do you even use them?

Oh, and if you have any ideas for my conundrum, PLEASE please PLEASE! Do tell!

PS, there’s a brand new design for you three people who read Yuppish on your reader … so, check it out!

6 Comments