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new favorite.

8 May
Raw oatmeal.
The old-fashioned oats soaked in cold almond milk for a matter of minutes (or put in the fridge overnight) and devoured.  
So delicious.
No cooking.  No forcing myself to eat a hot breakfast when it’s not cold out.  A little chewy with the perfect taste.
I so love oatmeal – I think I’ve sang my oatmeal song here before – and love that there is yet another new way to eat it.
Do you want the recipe?  Ready?
[1/2 cup old fashioned oats.  1/2 cup almond milk.  Mix.  Eat.]

mac- mac- macarons.

3 May
Starbucks is killing the cakepop and I’m moving on.  The seven stages of grief are still very real in my baking world but I’m looking for a new focus.  It’s time to settle with the past and look to the future.
Macarons.
[Don’t freak out.  I’m not ditching the cakepop.  Calm down, I say!  I will continue to make, share, and if Melissa has her way, she will be managing my etsy store that sells them.  But I’m ready to try something new too.]

Macarons are rising in popularity, one of the newest trends, much like the cupcake has been the trend of the last year.  [Ever watch DC Cupcakes?  I want pink boots and the skill to do the signature swirl.]  The petite dessert has been named as one of the top food trends of 2011 by this unfamiliar [trusted?] source.  I honestly think I’ve never even heard of this French dessert until the past year, and I certainly had never ate one before.  Have you ever ate one before?  They started appearing on Pinterest and there were too many pretty pictures to stand before I was determined to try them myself. 
I bought a macaron cookbook and it consumed me.  Must make macarons.  And it was so.
I did a trial run last night of lemon macarons with a lemon curd filling.  [You know, instead of homework.]  I have promises to make macarons with friends too, in the next few weeks, but to have a trial run under my belt will help facilitate success in later endeavors.  They worked … but I have practice to do.
A macaron is basically ground almonds [note: leave in the food processor longer], powdered sugar, egg whites [note: beat in mixer longer], and caster sugar [note: find some].  I’m not quite sure where to find caster sugar; any ideas, friends?  Apparently it’s a superfine sugar.  Maybe I’ll try to make my own with the trusty food processor.  The recipes require only three tablespoons of this type of sugar, and last night I substituted regular sugar.  I also need to purchase a proper cookie sheet that fits my silpat for ease and functionality.
Once the batter is mixed, it is transferred to the silpat using a pastry bag and tip.  I’ve never used one of those before – you know, the bags people use to decorate cakes with fancy tips.  It felt awesome, like I was on some fancy cooking show or something.  I loved it.  My macarons turned out anything but perfectly round and the right shape but that can be improved, and I’m happy to practice with the pastry bag.  
They’re light and airy, unique and colorful with lots of possibilities and flavors.  [Much like what I love about cakepops, minus the light and airy pieces.]  Macarons, I think we can be friends.    

links.

30 Apr
As I sip my smoothie for dinner [yeah.  it’s late.  but when you don’t go anywhere all day and have nothing to keep you on schedule, meals are all out of whack.], I scroll my way through Pinterest.  I’ve been abandoning the site as of late, being more focused on schoolwork and busy with other running about.  *pets computer screen*  I’ve missed you, old friend.

First, know this –

If I ever get married, I want the reception that follows to be in a barn.  *sigh*  Please?

This [baked brie in a bread bowl] looks delicious and perfect to make for another dinner party.  Or living room dance party?

yes.

And lastly, need a place for garbage in your car?  Use a cereal container.  [flippin’ genius.]

Source: bhg.com via Lindsay on Pinterest

easter crafting.

26 Apr
Easter is my favorite holiday and has been since I was younger.  As a middle schooler, I threw Easter parties.  [I looked for many excuses to throw parties.  Halloween parties, camp-outs, Easter parties – all with designated projects, crafts, and invitations.  Looking back, that explains a lot about where I’m at now in regards to my party-throwing beliefs.]  We pinned the tail on the Easter bunny, went on egg hunts, and had themed food and prizes.  [I was a weird kid.  Weird.]
I’m all about egg-shaped fun.  This year, I tackled homemade kinder eggs with two different groups of friends.  Kinder eggs, you wonder?  You can purchase kinder eggs in Europe.  I first was introduced to them as a sophomore in high school when I journeyed to Spain for two weeks.  Hollow chocolate eggs – a layer of milk chocolate and one of white chocolate – wrapped in foil with a toy inside.  We were obsessed with these in Spain – OBSESSED.  When I found a website with directions to make your own kinder eggs inside of a real egg shell, I was totally on board.
 

It was really fun to do and to watch others make these.  You scoop melted chocolate into the hollowed and sterilized egg shell and then shake the shell, move it around, and peer inside to see that the chocolate coats around the entire shell.  We were all so quiet as we did it as we concentrated so hard!  I traveled home for break and repeated the chocolate craft with friends from high school, including this little guy, Ryan.  He liked to stuff the chocolate eggs with two m&ms and then eat one.  Two m&ms and then eat one.  Two m&ms and then eat five.  He was sent home quite full of sugar!
There were also cakepops to be made while I was home.  My cousins always wonder when we’ll make them and they want to do it every time I’m home.  Sam [seventh grader?  eighth grader?  I can’t keep track.] and I had this text exchange in regards to cakepop making –
“O my gosh lindsay.”  I love it.  We tackled chicks, easter eggs, and did a test run of the graduation cap cakepops.  It was a busy, messy, and fun night with nearly everyone pitching to help, or at least pitching in to eat a few.
Molly made an easter bunny and crazy alien with a mohawk dude.

Logan’s double fisting it with funfetti chicks.

there once was a party.

18 Apr
It started here.  An article I found online made claims that the dinner party was dying.  Think about it.  Are you more apt to go to someone’s home for a fancy dinner or meet friends at a restaurant?  If you are normal [always debatable, right?] and stand with the majority of society, chances are you do the later before the former.  
The dinner party is dying because of you.  
[Like that twinge of guilt thrown in?  Thought you would.]
I posted that very article to one Lauren’s facebook wall on the first of March.  Comments followed from Megan, Cassie, Marie, and Amanda.  We vowed to not let this death continue or to at least bring about a resurrection.  [It is nearly Easter.][Bad seminary joke?  Yup.  Maybe even a little distasteful?  Probably.]  Thus began the plans for our very own dinner party.
The location was settled and menu planned.  
Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres were decidedly key parts of the evening.
Guests were invited and dress code established.  
This past Friday, our dream came true.  It was the grandest of 1960s-style dinner parties.  Cocktail dresses, lamb, cosmos, bowties, shrimp cocktail, wine, and baked alaska.  We spent our evening in style and in great company.  Fun was had by all around the table that seated eleven.   
No group pictures took I but these photos will give you a taste of our elegant evening as we saved the dinner party from further death.
Joel and Melissa.  Shrimp.  Cheese.
The men gather, sadly without cigars.
lamb, risotto, carrots, and asparagus.  (not pictured: delicious salad course.)
dessert: baked alaska with Lauren’s delightful
personalized center pieces in the background.

links for the wkend.

15 Apr
Start here for a post that I wrote on armpits.  [You so want to click that link, don’t you?  I knew it.]
Then, let’s talk about this – homemade candy buttons!  I LOVE candy buttons!  
[Not so much the taste of them at all but they certainly are pretty.]

How simple and genius is this?

I think I love shutters.  Both for this use below and for this.

I want to make this wreath.  And these.  [Good thing there are pictures because that is a language I do not understand!]  Okay.  These too.

And what do you think of this?  Cake batter bark!  Nom nom nom.

Now I must nap in preparation of a happy dinner party this evening and a weekend of thesis-izing/textile garage sale-ing.  Happy weekending, friends!

four pictures.

13 Apr
Four pictures that showcase the joy of my day:

My brother, Ben, on his way back from Alaska via MSP, stopped at my apartment to teach me all about car fuses and replace the broken one that killed my radio, clock, and cigarette lighter.  I helped him find the spare fuses in the fuse box that was under the hood.  I asked, “How do I get it out?”  I had no needle nose pliers in my belt.  [I tell you, the ONE time I’m caught without them!]  There is a tool – a little plastic pincher grabber – in the fuse box to grab the fuses from their places!  Who knew?!  [Okay.  Maybe you did.]  I was certainly impressed.  He changed the fuse but I’m confident I could do it in future situations.  [Maybe.]
A letter from my penpal, C., was found in my mailbox today, complete with a flower!
A box of cakepop chicks and easter eggs sent off to my favorite staff members in Dawson.  Here’s hoping the sugar rush helps them get through the craziness that is holy week in a church.
Excuse me?  Say that one more time, please.  The world’s largest textile garage sale?!  I think I found my Saturday study break!  [I’m pretty sure this is the sale you told me about last year, Karen?  Maybe?  I totally happened upon the poster at a store in Stillwater this afternoon and, boy, am I glad I did!  To think I almost missed it!]

adult relationships.

20 Mar
My younger-by-a-year-and-a-half brother stopped over tonight.   With his girlfriend.  [Yes.  You heard that right – he has a girlfriend.  Here’s hoping I don’t jinx it … but he seemed really happy about it too.  Exciting.]  It’s funny.  Really, it’s just humorous to me to think about how my siblings and I have grown up and now have these adult brother-sister relationships.
I grew up on the farm, having mudball fights, shooting bb guns with my younger and older [a year and a half on either side of me – they have the same birthday] brothers, and playing baseball with lots of ghost runners.  I always got along with Ben; never with Matt.  [Sometimes that remains the truth.  But there are times when it’s not; we’re growing up slowly.]
Then there is Emma, nine years younger than I.  I was the live-in babysitter; I loved watching her and dressing her up.  I remember carrying her around in clothesbaskets and being angry that one time she got a hold of a box of kleenex and spread them ALL over the living room floor.  Now she’s 18, preparing to graduate from high school and go off to college.  We exchange scarves and books, and we’re planning a sister trip to Seattle in the month of June [hoping it works out to celebrate both of our graduations].
So my brother stops over.  This is a week after he called me to see if I wanted to have coffee.  I never thought such an invitation would pass through the lips of my bike-riding, lettuce-with-mustard eating brother.  He was in the Cities, visiting formerly mentioned girlfriend, and wondered if we could get together for coffee before they took off for a camping trip to Arkansas for her spring break from school.  [Because everyone thinks of Arkansas when they think of spring break, right?]
I think tonight, as Ben stopped over to my apartment, I got a glimpse of what it might be like someday when we visit one another in each other’s homes for holiday, birthdays, or whatnots.  This is how it went – Ben walked in.  He walked nearly immediately to the stove, on which sat the tuna noodle/green bean/broccoli concoction I had thrown together for dinner.  [Mind you, it’s after 8pm at this point.  Late dinner.]  “Oh, yeah, what’s this?”  I explain.  “Well that sounds good.”  [pause]  I asked if he wanted some.  “Oh, sure, that’d be good.”  Ben helps himself to the hotdish.  Then to something to drink.  Then to the candy in the canisters on the counter.
I simply acknowledge and not complain this comfort level.  I think it’s humorous … and good.  [It reminds me of cousins, Brent and Mike, who would walk into our farmhouse and straight to the fridge.  They lived in our house as much as we did.]  Perhaps it won’t ever really matter that it’s not the farmhouse we grew up in, or the house on the hill our family built and in which we currently reside.  A family member’s house is a home for each of us.  
It’s hard to tell where those homes might eventually settle.  Matt’s in Colorado and Ben has upcoming plane tickets to Alaska to search the possible job market outside of the continental forty-eight.  Emma’s future is yet unknown, knowing only that next year Carroll University will be the place she resides.  I’ll be somewheres in southeastern Minnesota.  I think it’s kinda fun to dream about where life will take us all, and where we’ll settle down to open our homes to each other in the future.  Now I know to have a hotdish of some odd kind waiting when Ben stops by.  And old Starburst for him to chew.  [He’s pretty easy to please.]

cakepop competition.

10 Mar

Have you heard?
Cakepops are now being sold at Starbucks.
The novelty of cakepops will be lost.
But I’ll keep making them because mine will taste better.  Right?
Here’s your job.  Both tomorrow and Saturday, from 2pm – 5pm, Starbucks is giving away free cakepops with the purchase of a drink.  I think you should go.  (If you can.  Sorry, Dawson folks, to tease.  I know your closest isn’t too close!)  THEN, please comment with your reactions, whether you’ve had one of mine or not.

My first reaction from a friend was that the coating is too thick, they’re a bit dry, and too sweet.  Second reaction: “I just ate one.  Yours are way better.”  Okay, okay.  I’m feeling a bit better about this … I went after class to snatch one and taste the competition, and … yeah.  I think mine are better.  [Naturally.]  But I’m still curious to hear what you say!  
Since we’re talking cakepops, want to see another Cooking Pastor cakepop video?  [If you don’t, simply don’t click play.]  I planned and taught a group lesson in my mission practices class this afternoon.  Since the class is taught by the same professor who asked me to make the original holiday Cooking Pastor, we thought this would be a good way to kick off our presentation.  [But please know that we realize the metaphor doesn’t work.  It’s a joke, people.  And, this may be another video where if you’re not in seminary, it might not be funny.  Play at your own risk for boredom’s sake.]

pinterest: my new interest.

9 Mar
Pins, boards, repinning and following.

Those are my pinterest words.
Pinterest? you wonder.
Pinterest is a site on the interweb [just ipod it] that – if I dare say myself – is a heavy contender to replace my google reader.  It’s like google reader for pretty things.
I don’t even know how to explain and don’t care to admit how much time I’ve wasted on it in the last few days.  I read about this site initially many months ago, requested an invite to the Pinterest community [I feel like that comes with a nose snub of sorts.], and, once I received said exclusive [not really] invite, it was lost in the waves of endless emails that is the constant moving sea of my inbox.  Basically, I forgot about it.
Until yesterday when I got lost in the beauty of this new site and online community.  You create boards of different subjects/items/themes.  For example, I have a ‘recipes’ board on which I pin recipes I find on the web.  When I pin a website to my board, a picture from said website shows upon the board.  There’s little text initially on my board – just pretty, pretty pictures.
You can follow other people’s boards.  See something you like on their board?  You can repin it to yours.  [And this is how it becomes the pretty google reader.]
Confused?  I was at first too.  If anything, take away from this conversation that Pinterest is pretty.  You can visit my boards [I tried to upload a screen capture of what it looks like but failed.] and, if you’re even further intrigued, message/comment and I can send you an invite [raise nose in air] and you can join the Pinterest community too [if you promise to follow me].
Until you visit [or not] my Pinterest site in its beginning stages, see here three of the favorite things I’ve found so far via my latest pinning:

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