Pensive Frog

Hey, remember the Chantico? That gooey, ultra-concentrated hot chocolate Starbucks sold months ago? Well, I unfortunately never had a chance to try it, but Trader Joe’s has something similar. Their Sipping Chocolate is made with only 1/3 C milk and 3 T powdered mix, so this potion is strong and thick. [...]

I had been wondering about the possibility of creating my own version of Fran’s delectable salty chocolate balls.. er.. caramels. I’ve made caramel before, but never individual caramel candies. How hard can it be? I found this recipe for French caramels with fleur de sel, but it doesn’t say anything about coating [...]

… because it was force-fed goodies from my Christmas baking basket! Now that’s some sweet foie gras. So here’s what I’ve got the this year:
These gingersnaps are probably my favorite out of all the cookies I make. Don’t tell the chocolate chip cookies, they tend to get jealous. I just love [...]

Here are some pictures from the candied orange peel I made for my holiday goody bags. I used the Il Forno recipe, and I think these turned out much better than previous batches. Usually, I cook it too long and the orange pieces crystallize, which isn’t necessarily bad, but not what I’m going [...]

I just found this photo from Christmas a few years ago. We made gingerbread houses (from scratch, of course) and decorated them tastefully. Then we set up my Mulder and Scully action figures to investigate an unusual sighting of a translucent alien in the holiday village. What, you think that’s weird?

Citrus is king at my house. But sometimes the king needs to be drawn and quartered and simmered in hot sugar syrup. I give you recipes for candied citrus peel:
A version at Il Forno.
Another at Simply Recipes. Check the comments for a reader’s amusing plan to substitute Splenda for the sugar in [...]

I know these aren’t the most dramatic pictures of Seattle’s windstorm out there, but here you go.
Campus is littered with huge tree branches.

I usually wait for the bus at this shelter on the UW campus. The tree that did this damage has been taken away, it was about 2′ in diameter.

You can sort of [...]

That’s right! It’s America’s Test Kitchen sweetheart, Christopher Kimball! I “met” him at a book signing several weeks ago, and it was thrilling. You can tell CK was thrilled to pose for a picture with me. In the uncropped version, I’m off his right shoulder grinning like a goofball. It’s [...]

Here’s some even more detailed information about post-power outage food safety. I’m very lucky that my power was restored after only 12 hours, but others are still without power going on 48 hours. As my sister pointed out yesterday, it’s kind of romantic (in the literal sense of the word) to take a [...]

You know those “Guess whose lips these are” pictures that are always published in US weekly? Well, I’ve got one of my own.
Guess whose bow tie this is?

No, it’s not Lisa Rinna.

A jolly windstorm knocked out power in my neighborhood for 12 hours, so for my Seattle friends, here’s a link to my post about power outage food safety from January. Enjoy!

I just shared my recipe for chocolate rum balls with some friends, and I figured that my loyal readers deserve some rum-soaked holiday fun as well.
Combine:
3 1/4 C finely crushed vanilla wafers (or, more likely, ‘Nilla wafers)
3/4 C powdered sugar
1/4 C cocoa powder
1 1/2 C finely chopped walnuts
Then mix in:
3 T corn syrup
1/2 C rum [...]

All hail You Tube. Although I wasn’t able to find a certain secondhand smoke PSA in its hallowed halls, I did find this silly little Peanuts/Outkast video (via Ken Jennings’ blog). I giggled for about 20 seconds, and then realized holy crap, this thing goes on for another 4 minutes! I appreciate [...]

Looking at this picture makes me feel warm all over.
Or maybe it’s the whisky.

I don’t think I ever posted pics of some yarn I dyed over the summer. Whoops. Anyway, I used a new, top-secret technique. I think it came out pretty great, although I have yet to turn the skeins into socks. Here are the skeins, and then the skeins wound into balls. [...]

For all of you who are waiting with baited breath for my Equinox Yoke pullover to appear… keep waiting. I’ve just got too much going on the needles to start something new and intricate. However, I might be persuaded to brush up on my color work skills with this fantastic hat pattern [...]

Forget about no-knead bread. How about some fresh buttermilk pan bread?

I love my ‘Secrets of a Jewish Baker’ cookbook. Sometimes I’ll make this bread with a swirl of cinnamon for French Toast. Yummy.

I don’t know why I fell for this. The mystical No-Knead Bread recipe tore around the blogosphere like wildfire a few weeks ago. Everyone was doing it. People with a life-long fear of yeast were singing the praises of this “ancient” recipe. I figured I’d give it a go, even though [...]

It seems that every blog has a holiday gift guide. But so few blogs tell clueless consumers what not to buy for their unsuspecting relatives and friends.
In the media category:
The “artist” formerly known as Mr. Spears (I’m so glad that Amazon lets customers add their own product tags)
“Dagummit, all these iPods [...]