Don’t worry, they weren’t all eaten on the same day.
3 reasons why I don’t have a 6 pack
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Willie’s Crawling
This kid has more pictures on this blog than almost anyone else…..aside from Mochi. We had a mini photo shoot over the weekend, and this was one of my faves.
Thankful Thursdays
1. Airplanes – we complain a lot about airplanes (and airports) but its only going to take me 7 hrs to get across the entire country this morning. If I was going by covered wagon, it would take months and I’d probably die of cholera.
2. Shake Shack. Enough said.
3. Dry climate. I’ve been sweating like a crazy person out here in the DC “humidity” (and its not even that bad)
Best Soft Boiled Egg Recipe
Are you a fan of soft boiled eggs? I really enjoy them.
But they aren’t exactly a cinch to make. Mostly because the timing has to be just right. They are easy to over or under cook.
I make them so infrequently, I always have to look up the recipe (timing). This past weekend, when I was looking up a recipe, I noticed that Cook’s Illustrated had one.
A quick sidenote on quick’s illustrated. if you EVER see a recipe by them, use it. They are the scientists of food. They try out a million different combinations of a single recipe until they get it just right. Other people get lucky and get end up with good recipes, cook’s illustrated get’s them by experimenting and trying out every possible combination.
Ok, back to the soft boiled eggs. I like this recipe because it makes complete sense.
If you have a pot of boiling water and add 1 or 2 eggs to the pot, it’ll likely continue to boil. If you add 4 or 6, it’ll stop boiling for a little bit and eventually come back. Here’s the problem. Most soft boiled egg recipes are independent of the number of eggs you are cooking. BUT the number of eggs is critical when you are using a pot of boiling water.
How do we solve this problem?
Use steam to cook the eggs.
Fill a pan (or a pot….anything with a lid) with about 1/2″ of water. Put it on the stove and bring to a boil. Gently place the eggs into the water and cover. Set a timer for 6 minutes. At the end of 6 minutes, rinse the eggs under cold water. Then crack them open and enjoy! I like mine with a tiny bit of butter and salt.
Why does this work? The cold eggs – because they are curved – don’t touch very much of the water so whether you cook 2 or 6, the pan keeps steaming.
Now you may be thinking, “Oh Bryn, perhaps your right, but I still love my recipe.” Well, does your recipe take 7 minutes? Didn’t think so. Getting 1/2″ of water to boil takes less than a minute. Your pot of water takes a lot longer.
So give it a try! What are you waiting for?!
Cups, just cups
This past weekend I helped a friend throw a baby shower. As you may recall, I really enjoy planning parties 
My job was simple, bake some cupcakes and make some spinach dip. Easy peasy.
I have a vanilla cupcake recipe that I LOVE! And was super excited to have an excuse to bake them (I try not to bake as much anymore because Nick and I end up eating WAY more sweets than we should).
So on Saturday morning I got myself all ready to go – it was going to be 100+ so I knew I needed to get these out of the oven before it got too hot.
The batter was delicious…..it seemed a little firmer than usual, but I hadn’t made them in awhile so I just kept going. I even added some orange zest to add a little punch.
And when they came out of the oven…..they looked like this…..
Cups. Just cups. They actually looked fine in the oven but as soon as I pulled the pan out they sank. Completely deflated. I was sooooo confused.
I re-read the recipe and realized what I had done. I completely forgot the eggs. Completely. Science lesson for the day – eggs make cupcakes look like cupcakes.
Have I ever mentioned I’m not a fan of wasting? Nick’s even worse. So there was NO WAY these weren’t going to get eaten.
We eventually decided to try them out as cups for strawberries and whipped cream.
Seemed pretty tasty, so we decided to go with it.
We used cool whip and a slice of orange. And they were a hit! People had no idea they were a mess up. Brooke (partner in party planning crime) decided she liked them better than cupcakes. She liked the crunchy-ness. Who’d have thought?!
This is by far the best mistake I’ve ever made.
Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.- Coco Chanel
Recipe – completely my own but “adapted” from Billy’s Vanilla, Vanilla Cupcakes
- 1 3/4 cups cake flour, not self-rising
- 1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes (they seemed a but too buttery to me, but others liked it…..might try 1.5 sticks next time)
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (I just got this and it’s very tasty, but you can use 1-2 tsp vanilla extract depending on how much vanilla you want)
- Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a stand mixer. Mix until just combined.
- Add the butter and mix until the flour/sugar mixture is crumbly and the butter has evenly distributed.
- Combine the milk and vanilla, adding it in 3 separate additions. Scarping down the sides after each addition. Mix until just combined.
- Spoon into lined cupcake tins. This makes about 24 cupcakes. So I evenly distributed the batter. About 2/3 full ish – the batter is thick so it’ll sit like a mini scoop in the bottom of the liner.
- Bake for about 17-20 min at 325 until the edges are golden.
- The cupcakes won’t sink until you remove them from the oven.
- Remove from the baking tin and let cool.
- Add chopped strawberries and top with a dollup of whipped cream of cool whip.
The Poop Gauntlet
Yep, you read that right. I just said, “the poop gauntlet.” FYI – I will be using the word “poop” and “shit” throughout this post. You’ve been warned.
What is a poop gauntlet? At our house, it’s the poop that lines the entry to our front door.
You see, we have a small bird that decided to make his/her home above our front door. Said bird and baby birds have taken to pooping in front of the entrance to our house.
How do we know it’s a swallow’s nest? Let me tell you how.
We live in a community with an HOA. As a result, we have people we can call when “shit goes down” – you like how I did that?
Nick called the HOA to let them know we had a bird problem (not the first time we’ve had a bird problem, mind you). The HOA took forever to respond…..so we waited…..and the poop piled up….and we waited….and then finally they got back to us.
We needed to take a picture of the nest. Because apparently, it’s against the law to remove certain kinds of nests.
Seriously? We were pretty sure this was something the HOA made up to get out of their job. But we took the picture and sent it to them.
And guess what? Our nest was a swallows nest. And guess what else? As part of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 (yes, 1918), it is illegal to remove the nest of nesting swallows. You’ve gotta be kidding me.
So, here we are. June. Nesting swallows. Poop gauntlet. Happy Monday!
Thankful Thursdays
1. S’mores and friends
2. Cherries – we went picking this past weekend and have been enjoying them ever since!
3. My tomato plant is still alive! Black thumb be damned!
Grape Juice
Yep, this is a post about grape juice.
We make curried chicken salad a lot in our house. I make a huge batch on Sunday and it’s easy lunches the rest of the week. The recipe calls for grapes and a costco chicken. So often times we just get a package of costco grapes while we’re picking up the chicken. Which means we have grapes coming out of our ears for the rest of the week.
Recently, we’ve been on a juicing kick. We borrowed a juicer from a friend and have been making healthy juices for breakfast. You see where this is going, I hope.
Well, in an effort to “get rid” of the grapes, I decided to juice them!
I would say it was roughly 8-10ish cups and yielded 36ish oz of juice.
The juice is actually a really pretty reddish pink color and tastes AMAZING! It tastes like nothing you drank growing up. The closest comparison is white grape juice. It’s like dessert. Super sweet and basically tastes like drinking a grape. Ironic how I’m so impressed by this…..when it should actually be our reality. In any case, trying juicing a grape, I think you’ll be impressed.
What’s your favorite juicing recipe?
Yogurt Cheesecake Souffle for Two
I was perusing Pinterest Sunday night and happened upon a Yogurt Cheesecake Souffle. I have this habit of thinking everything made with greek yogurt is good for you. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1 Tbs of greek yogurt + 3 cups of sugar + 7 sticks of butter. If it has greek yogurt, I think it’s healthy. I also have this same problem with anything organic. Organic cake? Totally good for you. But I digress.
The yogurt cheesecake souffle sounded tasty and I hadn’t eaten any dessert yet. And no, I don’t count the medium sized bowl of cherries as dessert.
So I whipped up a batch and it really hit the spot. Here’s the recipe, modified for 2 (because leftover souffle isn’t very good).
Yogurt Cheesecake Souffle (originally from HERE)
1/3 c plain greek yogurt (I had non fat Fage in the fridge)
1 large egg yolk
1 large egg white
1 tbs flour
a pinch of salt (the recipe calls for 1/8, and I cut it down by 1/3….so 1/3 of 1/8 which is 1/24….literally a pinch)
1/3 tsp vanilla (but the more the merrier, 1/2 tsp will work just fine)
a pinch of cream of tartar (again, the recipe calls for 1/8 tsp and I cut by 1/3, so put a small amount in)
1 1/2 tbs sugar + more for dusting
PAM cooking spray or your favorite greaser of choice
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees
- Mix together the yogurt, egg yolk, vanilla, flour, salt and vanilla
- In a stand mixer, combine the egg whites and cream of tartar. Mix until foamy. With the mixer still on, start adding the sugar a little bit at a time. Then continue mixing until soft to stiff peaks form.
- Gently fold the egg whites into the yogurt mixture. Be careful not to let the whites flatten. Like I said, gently.
- Grease 2 ramekins and dust with sugar. You want to make sure you get sugar up the sides of the ramekins as well as on the bottom.
- Divide the mixture in 2 and pour into each ramekin.
- Set the ramekins on a cookie sheet and place in the oven for 15 minutes. Don’t open the oven door once you put them in. Use the light to check on them. They should be puffed up over the edge and a little brown on top when done.
- Eat immediately. I added some strawberries for a little extra flavor.
I think this is a pretty impressive dessert for very little work – less than 10 minutes of prep and then 15 minutes of cooking. Out the door in less than 30 minutes. You could shave some chocolate on top for added classiness. Keep in mind, the yogurt makes it a smidge tart, and kind cheesecake-y – hence the name. If you try it, let me know if it works for you!
S’mores Mallows
If you’re a “regular” follower, you might recall that I kinda like s’mores.
I’ve talked about them before, HERE & HERE.
We weren’t a big camping family growing up, so I did not roast as many mallows as your average kid (don’t feel bad, I got to do a lot of other things). I’ve roasted plenty of mallows as an adult – catching up for the lack of mallow roasting as a child. Sometimes my friends even let me roast their mallows for them. I never understood how someone could want to EAT a s’more but not ROAST the mallow, but I don’t question it. More roasting for this girl!
It finally started to warm up here in California, so it was clearly time to make some s’mores! We were in charge of picking up the marshmallows. We headed to Target and grabbed the normal, large, jet puffed variety. And then some chocolate-mint mallows also jumped into our cart. As we headed to the checkout, I noticed more marshmallows on the end cap. I looked closer. O.M.G. They were mallows specifically designed for s’mores. What?! Yeah. So of course we got those as well.
We literally walked out of Target with a bottle of multi-vitamins and 3 bags of marshmallows.
Here’s what the bag looks like. Take note of the “limited edition” in case any of you out there want to try them.
And then it was time to roast.
And we needed to make sure it was a fair assessment, so all mallows were going to be roasted and taste tested. So scientific of us
We had our staples – nutella, grahams (splurge for honeymaid and don’t cheap out on the target brand), and the normal marshmallows. And we added the s’mores mallows and the chocolate-mint mallows (note that they are somewhere in between the mini mallows and normal mallows).
Roasting was a bit tricky. They roast ok on a single poker, but were much easier to roast using the double stick method – or a 2 pronged poker.
The verdict? Delicious! But I’ll caveat this statement with, “must love mallows.” I prefer a high mallow to chocolate/graham ratio. I can eat a roasted mallow all by itself and I’m perfectly happy. So a extra mallow is great. They roasted really evenly and got nice and warm all the way through. And as you can see, they fit the graham really well. Even the dogs wanted a taste! (Kudos to Karen for this posed shot – I didn’t get it the first time and made her repeat the motion for the blog picture)
The regular marshmallows were still delicious, but I was left wanting a little more mallow
And the mint chocolate? Also a tasty alternative. We were pretty stuffed after the s’mores taste test, so we ended up using 2 mallows and half a graham to try out the mint chocolate.
Not a bad start to the summer! Ready for more s’mores and more fun evenings with friends!