Tag Archive for Practice

Day 4 AEDM: Pizza Soup and Focaccia

November 4, 2010 / Abbi / 4 comments

I’ve always been impressed with people who can make homemade yeast breads really well. I’ve asked several different people, “How’d you get so good at making bread?”

They all give me the same lame answer: Practice.

Ugh. Why is that always the answer?! :)

With the cold weather approaching, I’ve added “become a better bread maker” to my list of winter to-dos. You see, I like to hibernate stay busy during the winter, and I don’t like to get out in the weather much.

Today Baby Beau and I started “practicing” by making a batch of focaccia for AEDM.

I always make my kitchen helpers swear by oath that they won’t drool into the dough. :)

chefoath

We also whipped up a batch of Crock Pot Pizza Soup. Some friends of ours had a baby last week, so we delivered this meal to them for dinner tonight (along with some of those sinful cookies from yesterday!)

The dough was made using the good ol’ Betty Crocker cookbook that’s in its gazillionth printing. The dough after rising:

dough

Beau helping stretch the dough to prepare it for baking:

kneading

The raw dough after being poked:

forked

Whenever Beau is in the kitchen with me, I let him take a whiff of spices, zests, cut fruit, etc. He apparently likes Emeril’s Italian seasoning blend. BAM!

emeril

Here’s the final product. It turned out better than the last batch I made (not enough kneading that time, I think), but there’s still some room for improvement.

loaf

However, they do look and taste pretty darn good…and they will be PERFECT for dunking in pizza soup!

foccacia

Now that you’ve seen the final result, check out this exclusive interview with my sous-chef, Beau.

Category: AEDM2010, Challenges, Cooking / Tags: , , ,

Day 3: Art Every Day Month

November 3, 2010 / Abbi / 4 comments

You know those sinfully delicious sugar cookies that are always right inside the door at your local superstore? The ones with the half-inch-thick icing that seem like they are just waiting for the right moment to pounce on you and permanently attach themselves to your thighs?

Well, I ran across a recipe that would allow me to make them at home (yikes), and I haven’t been able to get them off my mind since.

The result:

IMG_2811

HEAVEN.

IMG_2812

The recipe said to cover the cookies in cling wrap and let them sit overnight, but I didn’t read the entire recipe until I was ready to start baking (oops) and I didn’t have the luxury of waiting that long. I took them to bible study and they were delicious anyway. I brought home the leftovers and will let them sit and see how they taste tomorrow. (You mean I’ll have to eat another one?! Oh, shucks. I guess I will, in the name of scientific research!)

I learned a few things, and even had some ideas on changes/substitutions I’d like to try (i.e.: how about chocolate cookies with minty icing? Or white cookies with lemon icing?)

But these “originals” ain’t bad, folks!

IMG_2814

Category: AEDM2010, Baking, Challenges / Tags: , , ,

Day 2: Art Every Day Month

November 2, 2010 / Abbi / One comment

Today has been a full day: working out at the gym, grocery shopping, picking up books at the library, etc. However, I do have something creative to share!

Several years ago, my sister Arica got me a Magnetic Poetry picture frame. Since then, it’s had the same photo and words on it (shame on me! That was, like, 8 Christmases ago!)

BUT THAT’S ALL CHANGED!

I replaced the previous photo (of me and my sisters) with a photo of my son when he was just 5 days old. Naturally, the prose had to change as well. I also added a blue border now that digital pictures are printed in a silly size, rather than the normal 4×6. Sigh.

poetry1

While the limitations of the Magnetic Poetry bits often frustrate me, today it was a fun challenge to try and say what I wanted to say using the available tiles.

I also talked to my SIL about borrowing her Pazzles Inspiration digital cutter to do some projects this month. I brought home the installation CDs and manual and quickly discovered it won’t work on a Mac…unless I run a Windows platform. ((Doesn’t that totally defeat the purpose of having a Mac?))

What I wanted to do was create some designs in Illustrator and have the Pazzles machine cut them for me. Looks like I’ll be over at her house a lot so I can actually use the thing…Glad we’re neighbors! :)

At any rate, AEDM has inspired me to try some new things or re-visit some old interests. Excited to see where this leads!

Category: AEDM2010, Challenges / Tags: , ,

Day 1: Art Every Day Month

November 1, 2010 / Abbi / 5 comments

Now, what do we have here?

1upclose

For today’s art adventure, I followed the tutorial from How About Orange, a great blog by Jessica Jones, a fellow designer. I ended up with three of these fun babies:

6multi

Recycled paper flowers!

7multi

For years, I have been saving paper sample catalogs thinking I’d use them for a collage or some such purpose. Today’s flowers were the perfect time to start putting them to use!

I started with a “blue steel” one:

2blue

And a red/black combo.

3red

I was curious to see what they’d look like mixed together, and here was the result. It had a bit better contrast.

4redblue

5redblue

These would be so cute to use for gift toppers, or maybe even CUPCAKE toppers! :) I think they’d also be really cute in a vase.

8group

Excited to dive deeper into AEDM! Check back and see what I create tomorrow!

Category: AEDM2010, Challenges, Paper / Tags: ,

I’m Baaaaaack!

October 31, 2010 / Abbi / 8 comments

It’s been several months since I posted anything new here at Z as in Zebra. But I have a really great (read: CUTE) excuse:

baby

My first baby was born on June 23, and we’ve been pretty busy since then getting used to each other. :)

But now he’s 4 months old and getting better every day at entertaining himself while I cook or clean. I haven’t made time to create over the past few month, so I’m going to jump back into it with the Art Every Day Month challenge, which starts tomorrow! The goal is to do something creative every day in November.

Since I believe creativity can be defined very loosely, I will be exploring several avenues: the bookmaking and baking that you’re used to seeing as well as other ventures including cooking, painting, collage, stationery design, drawing/doodling, writing, makeup, fashion, photography, video, music, organizing, sewing, scrapbooking, and so forth.

I’ve been wanting to open myself up to other artistic pursuits and AEDM is the PERFECT opportunity to do so. I hope you’ll stop by throughout the month and see what I’m creating. You can even join the challenge yourself if you need a little kick in the pants to get motivated! :)

Learn more by clicking on the AEDM button!

Learn more by clicking on the AEDM button!

See you tomorrow!

Category: AEDM2010, Challenges, Company / Tags: , ,

#41-Piña Colada Cupcakes

May 7, 2010 / Abbi / One comment

In September, I started a cupcake adventure. If you haven’t read about it yet, you can do so here.

***

Today is my dear friend Megan’s birthday!! It’s been 9 years since we first met in a Survey of Western Arts history class in college. We hit it off immediately and it didn’t take us long to become close pals, especially when we figured out our apartments were just one mile apart! So many of my fond college memories (and beyond!) include Megan. She has such a sweet disposition and is the kind of friend a friend would like to have. Despite the several states that separate us now, she has continued to put forth the effort to keep in touch and continue our friendship…including traveling to Oklahoma to be one of my bridesmaids!

0484

After nearly a decade, Megan remains one of my favorite people to talk to and spend time with. She’s an incredible artist and if she were here, I would make here these cupcakes! :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGAN! These are for you! ((After this baby is born, we should get together for REAL piña coladas…and maybe some turkey/spinach tacos! haha))

***

The first step was to cream together butter and sugar and then add eggs one by one.

01butsugegg

Next, pineapple juice and rum combined to make the ‘liquid’ part of the batter.

02pineapplerum

Dry ingredients and the pineapple/rum mixture were alternately added to the butter/sugar/egg mix.

03stir

Pretty yummy looking batter, huh?

04batter1

Next, a scoop of coconut was added to increase the Piña Colada effect. :)

05batter2

Then, egg whites were beating within an inch of their lives…

06eggwhite

…until they formed stiff peaks:

07stiffpeak

The beaten egg whites were gently folded into the batter.

08foldwhites

And the little suckers were ready to be baked.

09ready

Mmmm.

10baked

Then, there was more beating of egg whites…

11beateggs

to which powdered sugar was added…

12powsug

to create the icing.

13icing1

And, yup, more coconut.

14icing2

Then, these morsels of sunny goodness came into play. Oh man, do I LOVE dried pineapple!

15pineapple

Each cupcake was iced and topped with a wedge of dried pineapple.

16group

Yes, ma’am. This round’s on me!

17cupcake

And just to be sure they were tasty enough to share, I took one for a test drive.

18yum

All that’s missing is a little paper umbrella!

Category: Cupcakes / Tags: , , , ,

#70: St. Patrick’s Day Pistachio Yogurt Cupcakes

April 13, 2010 / Abbi / No comments

In September, I started a cupcake adventure. If you haven’t read about it yet, you can do so here.

***

I guess I can bake faster than I can blog! That said, here are the shots from the cupcakes I made for St. Patrick’s Day.

The dry ingredients are the typical ones you’ve likely come to expect: flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder.

01dry

And, naturally, the batter starts by creaming together these two studs: butter and brown sugar.

02buttersug

Mmmm.

03cream

Perhaps the name of this post gave you a clue as to what else comprises the batter: pistachios!

04pistachios

No St. Patrick’s Day treat would be complete without green dye!

05dye

To round out the batter, I alternated adding sour cream and the dry ingredients from the first photo.

06wetdry

…and then the chopped pistachios.

07nutbatter

Yummy!

08batter

Then, the suckers were baked until brown around the edges.

09baked

To make the icing, I started by melting a little bit of butter and water.

10meltbutter

Next came the powdered sugar.

11powsug

And, naturally, more green dye and some vanilla extract.

12dyevan

Green, green, green.

13icing

Here’s the final product as a group:

14iced

…Better make sure these taste good.

15single

Um, YUP! They sure do!

Sláinte!

Category: Cupcakes / Tags: , ,

One Third Behind Me

April 9, 2010 / Abbi / 2 comments

In September, I started an adventure. The goal was to work my way through an entire cupcake cookbook, one recipe at a time. The whole book features 113 recipes, and to date, I have baked, tasted, and posted about 38 of the 113 types; roughly one third of the book.

Done Cupcakes

Some have been extra-tasty-ooh-let’s-make-these-again-sometime recipes while others have been ‘never-agains’. No matter how they taste once finished, each batch has taught me a little more about cooking (and myself). I’m telling you, there are life lessons to be learned in the kitchen!

You can find the corresponding post to each one of these batches here. Thanks for following along and commenting as I make my way through the book. The feedback I get from you makes this crazy idea all the more worthwhile. :)

Cheers,

Abbi

Category: Challenges, Cupcakes / Tags: , , ,

#102: Cupcake Kabobs

April 6, 2010 / Abbi / 3 comments

In September, I started a cupcake adventure. If you haven’t read about it yet, you can do so here.

***

What, you’ve never heard of a Cupcake Kabob before?!

00intro2

The first thing I did to prep the kabobs was grab a bunch of these:

14skewers

And a bunch of these:

06fruit

If I could help it, I didn’t want to repeat colors on each kabob, so I skewered the candied fruit slices on the sticks so I could get a feel for how things would pan out.

00sticks

The next several steps are the same ones I followed to make the Lamington Mini-Cupcakes. In fact, the same mini-cuppies were used, so I just repeated the photos here in case you missed the Lamingtons post (shame on you, by the way).

01butsug

02wet

03batter

04mold

Like I mentioned before, it made a BIG batch…which is good when you have lots of kabobs to create!

05many

The icing was a simple paste made of warm milk and confectioner’s sugar.

07fondant

Each mini cupcake was hand-dipped in the icing,

08dip

and the excess was given a moment to run off.

09excess

Here’s the tricky part…you have to refrain from just gobbling these up after they are dipped. It’s difficult, let me tell you! Especially since they are so miniature and cute!

10dipped

Since I managed a sliver of self-control long enough to add some sugar sprinkles, this was the final result:

11sprinkled

Now, repeat a million times with various colors of sugar sprinkles.

11sprinkled2

Okay, maybe not a million, but MANY times nonetheless.

12many

Mmm. If you are the impatient type, you could just stop here, slap these babies on a plate, and call it a day. You just wouldn’t be able to call them “kabobs.”

13many

I then added one cupcake of each color (orange, yellow, pink) to a skewer, alternating fruit slices in between.

15kabobs

And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat….

16kabobs

Since these were for a bake sale, I wrapped each one in cellophane, tied the ends with cheerful yellow ribbon and called it a day.

17wrapped

They were absolutely darling.

18set

And I was absolutely spent.

Category: Cupcakes / Tags: , , , , ,

#79: Halloween Orange Juice Cupcakes

April 2, 2010 / Abbi / 2 comments

In September, I started a cupcake adventure. If you haven’t read about it yet, you can do so here.

***

Halloween?! Yes, I know it’s April now. I didn’t choose the names for the cupcakes I make…I’m just working my way through the book. Never mind the timing, or the title for that matter, if it bothers you that much. :) Besides, the finished product doesn’t look Halloweeny at all. So there.

First, of course, I creamed together butter and sugar.

01butsug

If you EVER need to zest something, get yourself a microplane zester. It will change your life (at least in the kitchen). Promise.

02microplane

I zested the living daylights out of this orange, being careful not to shave down into the bitter pith.

03zest

Then, I squeezed the juice from the zested orange,

04oj

added some lemon juice,

05lj

and then added some water to make 2/3 cup.

06wet

I gathered together my dry ingredients, including the orange zest.

07dry

Dry and wet ingredients were alternated into the mixer with the butter/sugar combo to make the batter.

08alternate

The zest was folded in,

09addzest

and red food coloring was added to make the batter a deeper orange color.

10batterdye

Now, if these aren’t the most fun papers…makes me feel like singing and dancing around in the summer sunshine! (oh, wait, it’s only April.)

11papers

The final batter reminded me so much of the orange sherbet push-up-pops from my childhood.

12creamsicle

And the color was so pretty after the cupcakes baked, too.

13baked

Next, orange juice and powdered sugar formed the basis of the “icing”, which you’ll soon see isn’t much like a frosting at all.

14syrup

In fact, after it boiled, it was more like a jelly.

15cooked

Few things make a cupcake cuter than a jellied fruit slice.

17orange

Each cupcake had a corresponding slice and they waited to be merged using the jelly topping.

16slices

Again, to deepen the orange color, food dye was added.

18syrupdye

THAT’S more like it!

19orangesyrup

A dollop here, a dollop there, here a dollop, there a dollop, everywhere a dollop dollop.

20dollop

Ta Da! Looks like a tropical drink of some sort!

21single

So many neon orange cupcakes…

22set

and they just looked so cute, I couldn’t stop myself from posing with one of them.

23cutie

Nor could my husband avoid jumping in the shot after I peeled the paper in preparation for the “bite shot”. Ha!

24hubs

25bite

The jelly topping definitely made for a different experience, but if you like orange-flavored foods or jelly-filled donuts, you’d probably dig these.

Boo! (had to get some sort of Halloween reference in there!) :)

Category: Cupcakes / Tags: , , ,
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