On Sunday, after a really lovely brunch, Ryan and I went to the store and spent the afternoon washing, chopping, roasting, and sautéing.

All set for the week!

We went on a nice walk too.

Lovely weekend.

It’s now Wednesday, and I have to say, this made it so easy to prepare lunches and dinners. Most excellent.  Now I think I’m getting sick, so I’m going to go chug this green smoothie.

Start with two sticks of softened butter.

Beat those with the paddle attachment. Add in 3 1/2 cups of powdered sugar (sifted, unless you are lazy like me). Do this on low speed so it doesn’t go everywhere.

Beat in 1/2 cup of cocoa powder.

Once incorporated, you can increase the speed to medium, and add in 2 tablespoons of vanilla, and a generous pinch of salt.

Add about 4 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream and keep beating.

Keep the mixer going until it looks creamy and delicious like this:

This frosting is really sweet, so it’s best paired with a less sweet cake. Feel free to experiment with the ratios of sugar to cocoa powder – next time I’d use more cocoa and less sugar.

Enjoy!

We celebrated Christmas early this year with Ryan’s famliy, and I wanted to make a special dessert that the kids would like too. I have always wanted to make a Buche de Noel, or Yule Log, which is a traditional French cake that is rolled up and decorated to look like a log.

Julia Childs has a hilariously amazing (as usual) episode where she makes one.

I used a recipe from JoyofBaking.com for the cake and filling, and then frosted it with a simple chocolate buttercream (recipe coming soon!).

And here we go!

Start with 6 eggs.

While they are still cold (which makes this a lot easier!) separate them.

Yolks

Whites. See that little sliver of yolk in there? You aren’t supposed to do that. Whoops.

Cover the two bowls and let them come to room temperature (about 3o minutes). Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Spray a rimmed baking sheet or jelly roll pan with cooking spray, and then lay parchment paper over the top. I sprayed the top of the parchment paper with cooking spray too. I really didn’t want the cake to stick.

While everything is getting ready, chop up 4 oz. of chocolate.

4 oz. is just one of those big bars that are in the baking section of the grocery store. I got a semi-sweet one, but you could definitely use a milk chocolate or even a really dark chocolate (yum!).

Chop up that chocolate. Melt it over a double boiler, or in the microwave (only in 30 second increments!) if you are lazy like me. Once it’s melted, let it cool to room temperature.

This is where things get wild.

Using your mixer with the paddle attachment, combine 1/4 cup of sugar with the egg yolks and beat until light and fluffy.

In old fashioned cookbooks they will say beat until ribbons form, which just means that if you take the paddle out and lift it up, it will look like ribbons are dripping down. Just let it run for about 5 minutes and you will be just fine.

Beat in 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla.

Keep scraping the sides of the bowls. Add the chocolate and beat until just combined.

Put this chocolate mixture into another bowl and wash and dry your mixing bowl. Unless you have two mixing bowls. But that’s just fancy! Make sure it’s completely dry before you begin this next part!

With the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites until foamy. Add 3/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar and beat on medium speed until soft peaks form.

That’s what it will look like. Now add 2 Tablespoons of sugar, and beat until stiff peaks form.

Not quite…

There we go.

Now fold the egg white mixture into the chocolate mixture. That just means stir it together softly until everything is incorporated. Be gentle! You don’t want to deflate the whites. Actually I was probably too gentle, but it turned out just fine.

Spread onto the parchment covered pan and bake at 350 for 15-17 minutes, or until it’s lost it’s shine, and bounces pack when you touch it.

While it’s baking, you can whip up the filling. I did a chocolate whipped cream,  as the recipe suggested, but you could do a number of things.

For the chocolate whipped cream, I just beat (with whisk attachment) 1 cup of whipping cream, 1 teaspoon of good vanilla extract, 3 TB of sugar, and 2 TB of unsweetened cocoa powder until stiff peaks formed. You could definitely do just a basic whipped cream, or add some bourbon to jazz it up. I think even jam would be good inside of this cake. Sky’s the limit.

Once the cake has cooled, remove the cake from the pan (keep it on the parchment!) and spread your whipped cream on the top. Save a bit for assembling the log (reserve about 2 TB at least)

Now is the fun part! Take one edge and gently roll up the cake, using the parchment paper to keep things together as you roll.

Yay!

Now it’s time to decorate!

Cut off the edges with a serrated knife on an angle, and attach (with the reserved whipped cream) to look like a log.

You can see how the cake looks swirly! That’s because I didn’t fold in the egg whites as well as I should have. Whoops. No one noticed though, because I covered the entire thing in chocolate buttercream frosting (recipe coming soon!).

I stuck the unfrosted cake in the fridge as a made the frosting, which really helped firm it up and made it easier to frost. I wanted it to have grooves like a log, so I used a tiny spatula.

And then used a fork to give it grooves.

I dusted a bit of powdered sugar on top to make it look like snow. Fun!

Ryan really liked it. Ha.

This cake was actually not that sweet – probably because I used semisweet chocolate. I really liked it not sweet, and because the frosting was really really sweet, it offset nicely. Oh, and this is totally gluten free!

Next time I’ll attempt meringue mushrooms to go with it!

Happy belated holidays!

Before you start, get a big cookie sheet, spray it with cooking spray, and line it with parchment paper. I think it’s easiest if you use a rimmed baking sheet, just to keep things tidy. You want to spray the sheet before laying down the paper so it stays in place when you are spreading the chocolate.

Only 3 ingredients!

Get a bag of chocolate chips, a bag of white chocolate chips, and some candy canes. I got these candy canes at Whole Foods, so they are all natural and don’t have any artificial coloring. Which was a regret! Artificial coloring would have made this bark a lot prettier! So go for Red 40 and high fructose corn syrup for this recipe!

Put the chocolate chips into a microwave-safe bowl.

Microwave the chocolate until it’s melted. You want to do this in 30-second increments, and stir after each time. You could get all fancy and melt the chocolate using a double boiler, but if you are lazy like me, just use the microwave.

There we go. All melted.

Using a spatula, spread the chocolate as evenly as possible onto the cookie sheet. Then just pop it in the freezer for about 20 minutes.

While you are waiting, unwrap those candy canes.

Put them into a ziptop baggie, and crush into little pieces using whatever you have (a mallet, heavy glass, wooden spoon, etc.)

Put the white chocolate chunks into a microwave safe bowl and melt the same way you did the chocolate pieces. Note: if you are using the same bowl, after you wash it, make sure you dry it really carefully. Water can mess up chocolate. Remember??

Once the white chocolate is melted, mix about half of the crushed candy canes into it.

Working quickly (so it doesn’t melt!), spread the white chocolate and candy cane mixture onto the frozen chocolate.

Sprinkle the remaining crushed candy canes onto the top. Using the back of a big spoon or your clean hands, press the candy chunks into the white chocolate. Pop it back in the freezer for another 20 minutes.

Once it’s frozen, take it out and break it up into small pieces. The least messy way to do this is to turn over the entire frozen piece of chocolate, and break it up while it’s upside down. This way, little tiny pieces of candy cane don’t explode over your kitchen.

And there you go! It’s super easy and delicious!

It will keep at room temperature just fine, but if you are making it in advance, you might want to store it in the freezer until you are ready.

Enjoy!

December 7

coffee up!

Gerodi’s new favorite spot (above the heater vent)

Lunch with this guy

Got my hair cut! I love it.

December 8

These are delicious.

December 9

Videos projected onto the School of Social Work building at night.

December 10

Holiday party! So much cheese on that cheese plate.

The only one I got of Ryan’s amazing sequin bow tie.

I wish I had taken pictures of the appetizers! I put together a big cheese plate and had lots of crackers, but I also made a few special things. Dates stuffed with fontina and wrapped with bacon, Puff pastry pinwheels with cheese, arugula, and lemon zest, Cucumber cups with white bean puree and pimentos, Crostini with apple, raisin, and onion chutney and blue cheese, Crostini with caramelized onion dip, and Dried apricots with mascarpone cheese, almond, and honey. I also made eggnog which was incredibly easy and delicious. People brought snacks and drinks too. Fun fun fun!

So many hotties!

December 11

Megan gave us an amazing little table for our shed. Thanks Megan!

Stay warm!

I worked. Got some lunch.

Met up with a friend.

Had a gross glass of wine and watched the cold

Roasted up some amazing brussels sprouts (with olive oil, shallots, balsamic, and salt). Roast at 400 for about 30 minutes. So delicious.

This is my favorite tea right now. So good!

I went to a cat show with my friend Celeste!

We even got to hold one! I learned a lot about fancy cats!

There were a lot of cat ladies!

This judge was wearing a head to toe leopard print outfit. It was amazing.

We took Ryan’s mom out to dinner at the super delicious Screen Door. I had a really amazing dish with chanterelles and celery root. Yum.

I baked up come oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to cheer some people up.

And spent the rest of the evening with this guy. He just wrote a new blog post. You should check it out if you are feeling nerdy.

snuggly kitties

Walk to the hardware store in the (almost) freezing weather!

Our new cute chickens.

This shed is almost finished! I just need to finish painting it, and then we will install storage for tools and plants.

Cover crop is growing!

Hanging lights on the huge Dawn Redwood

More kitties

I really really love Christmas lights. I love them even more now that we live in Oregon. Oregon is so much colder and darker than San Francisco.  After Thanksgiving, once people started hanging up their Christmas lights, I felt warmer and more joyful.