Art from the Heart 2013

Rem and I exchanged our annual Art from the Heart Valentine projects.

Read more about this tradition that we started about 11 or 12 years ago here with pictures of many previous creations.  See the 2012 heart-art here.

I had my idea but didn’t start on it until the Sunday before Valentine’s Day.  Luckily it came together fairly well.  My original idea was simply a dartboard with a heart in the center or maybe I should call it a heart-board.

Rem listens to some British radio shows and I heard a chat about darts one day and that got the seed of an idea planted. I picked up some cork tiles and wire and looked up images of dartboards.

This isn’t meant for real games of darts but I wanted to capture the look of a genuine dartboard.  It is a little less than 12 inches across (the size of our dinner plates, one of which proved handy for tracing a large circle).

I hadn’t planned on making a dart but when the board was done I realized it needed one to hit the bullseye.

Half of a bamboo chopstick, wire for the point with washi tape and some gold embossing powder for decoration and red paper hearts for the flight – or what I thought of as the feathers at the back end and I had a dart.

Wire numbers and letters spell out the date and my simple message.

I asked Rem about his creation, which he calls the Love Shack.

He was inspired by some aluminum loaf pans we have in the cupboard and he thought of making a little house.

Rem wanted a larger surface to work with than the loaf pans and found disposable aluminum cookie sheets at the grocery store.  He liked the textured surface.

A small heart punch (he knows his way around my craft desk) worked well for windows with red and pink paper glued on the inside of the shack.

He devised a series of tabs and slots to hold the folded foil house together.

Both of us spent hours on these creations which will be added to the walls on either side of the bed.  Some of the projects over the years didn’t lend themselves to being on a wall, but many are there.

Creations I’ve made for Rem are on his side.

And the ones he’s made for me are on my side.

Rem also made dinner for Valentine’s Day using a recipe from the cookbook I gave him for Christmas, Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, The Basics.  We had Pasta with Sausage and Broccoli (delicious.)

He surprised me with deep, dark chocolate brownies for dessert, also from the cookbook, and homemade vanilla ice cream.

Warm, gooey and really chocolatey.

Which is directly related to my decision to trot trudge up and down these stairs Saturday morning.

Oh, we also made cards for each other.

I used a strip of pictures from a photo booth we visited at the Groundspeak offices in Seattle while we were on vacation last fall.

Thanks for the visit.

 

Portland Wrap Up

Our last full day is Portland was relaxing and delicious: brunch at Mother’s Bistro and Bar was the first order of business.  But we had to wait  for a table

While Diana and Lisa held our place in line, Sarah and Julie (above) helped Rem and I search for a geocache but we were unsuccessful.

Mother’s interior is a contrast between rough brick walls and lots of gold-framed mirrors all lit with crystal chandeliers.

I like the attention to detail.

And the attitude.

The menu had a nice selection of traditional breakfast dishe and beverages like this Bloody Mary with practically a whole salad for a garnish.

They offer slow -cooked comfort food like meatloaf, pot roast and macaroni and cheese and local ingredients like Apple Crisp with at least 7 different types of heirloom apples.

A group sitting near us included a mother with her baby.

After brunch we strolled Hawthorne Avenue and visited fun and interesting shops including a branch of Powell’s book store.

This one was tiny compared to the main store, aka Powell’s City of Books, and was a home and garden shop with cookbooks, decorating and remodeling books, gardening books and yes, more craft books.

Like this gorgeous book on paper cutting.

In addition to all of these wonderful books there were also lovely cards, notebooks, candles and tools and utensils for home and garden.

An adjacent shop was equally enticing with beautifully displayed produce, pasta and other food items.

A drive took us around author Beverly Cleary‘s neighborhood and an elementary school named after her.  We saw Klickitat Street which appears in some of her books including my favorite, Beezus and Ramona.

We also met a gnome in a tree, a location that just calls for a geocache.

We ended the day with phenomenal ice cream at Salt & Straw a farm-to-cone ice cream shop.

This is one of those times when you just need to taste it and reading what I write about it will fall short.

The flavors are interesting and unique and tastes are offered so if you aren’t sure about Pear Blue Cheese, Brown Butter Popcorn with Pink Peppercorn, Coffee and Bourbon or Aquavit Beet Ice Cream, you can try it first.  I tried about six flavor and though I found all of them good, some were just not what I wanted in a cone.

The most strange one, Foie S’Mores, was from their Chef Series collaborations where they invite local chefs to work with them to develop special flavor.  I admit this flavor had me pretty skeptical and in the end I decided it wasn’t for me, but I’m glad I tasted it.

Husband and wife owners and chefs of Argentinian restaurant Ox, Greg Denton and Gabrielle Quinonez, created this flavor: Toasted foie gras marshmallows and smoked vanilla ice cream ribboned with veal chocolate sauce and hazelnut graham cracker crumble.  The first taste was of a not-too-sweet S’more with chocolate and vanilla flavors laced with other subtle notes of toasted marshmallow and nutty graham cracker.  I didn’t catch the smokiness that represents the campfire, then when I swallowed there was a distinct flavor of meat.  It was really kind of amazing and like something out of Willy Wonka!  It was also better than it sounds.

The one I decided on in the end, Malted Plum, was absolutely delicious: a rich plum ice cream flavored with amber malt from  FH Steinbart Co., a Portland homebrew shop.  I didn’t know what was in it besides plums when I ate it but it was a fantastic cone.

Lisa had the Malted Plum too.  She looks happy with her choice.

Our visit gave us a taste of some of the best Portland has to offer.  Just a taste, but it was delicious.

Thanks for your visit. Stop by soon for a taste of Seattle.

Day 7: Lemon Custard Ice Cream

I’m ending the first week of 30 Days of Creativity with a delicious dessert: rich, creamy Lemon Custard Ice Cream.  I saw the recipe at Good Life Eats who adapted it from Tartelette.

Before I went to work in the morning I put together the base – in two parts.  The first part is a combination of lemon zest, lemon juice and sugar.

The second part is 4 egg yolks (guess who had scrambled egg whites with spinach and mushrooms for breakfast – yup, me!) combined with warm milk and heated again until thickened.

Heavy cream is added and the  two bowls go into the fridge to chill and I go off to work.

Before going to Jazzercise I blended the two mixtures and tasted the creamy results.  Oh, my.

Pour the cold ice cream base into your ice cream maker and watch it turn into a sweet, lemony ice cream.  I put it in the freezer so it could get a bit firmer and had a dish after dinner.  So good!

We’ve made a custard style vanilla ice cream in the past and it was delicious but this particular combination: the bright  hint of tartness, bits of sunny lemon zest and the richness from the heavy cream and egg yolks  really stands out as a wonderful dessert.

Update: I’ve added links (above) to Good Life Eats where I saw the recipe that I adapted and to Tartelette where Katie Goodman from Good Life Eats saw the recipe she had adapted.  When I went to Tartelette I saw that with the *changes I made, I had pretty much made it back to the same as Helene at Tartelette but without a pinch of salt.

* Changes: I didn’t use any half and half (I didn’t want a container of heavy cream and another of half and half in my fridge) and I omitted the xantham gum that Katie added to keep the ice cream from being too icy and hard.  I didn’t have any xantham gum in my pantry and maybe my freezer just doesn’t freeze as cold because it wasn’t a problem with the batch I made.

 

Lemon Custard Ice Cream

Ingredients:

finely grated zest from 3 lemons

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

3/4 cup sugar

4 egg yolks

1 cup milk (I used 2% milk as that is what I have)

2 cup heavy cream

Directions:

Combine the lemon zest, lemon juice and sugar in a glass or other non-reactive bowl and refrigerate for an hour or two (or in my case, all day).

In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks slightly.  Heat the milk in a large saucepan on medium until it is just starting to simmer and pour slowly over the yolks, beating until well combined.  Return the milk and yolk mixture and heat gently until it thickens and coats the back of the spoon. I strained the mixture at this point because there were some lumpy bits, but that is optional.

Combine the thickened milk and yolks in the bowl with the heavy cream.  Chill at least an hour but several hours would be even better.

Combine the lemon juice and sugar mixture with the cream mixture and pour into your ice cream maker.  Process as directed by manufacturer.  Get ready to enjoy this luscious treat!

Last year on Day 7 I created Refrigerator Word Magnets.

Thanks for stopping by!

Pancakes and Pizza

Here are two cards I’ve made recently: a stack of pancakes with a pat of butter and golden brown maple syrup pouring over the top.  The pancakes are simply polka-dot paper (it seemed like the best color) with an edge of pale yellow paper.  I’m really proud of how the syrup turned out.  I colored the shape for the stream of syrup with markers on heavy vellum card stock than used dimensional adhesive (I’m pretty sure it was Diamond Glaze but it might have been Crystal Effects from Stampin’ Up! – I have both) to make it look shiny and translucent. Once it was dry I cut out the syrup and adhered it to the card.

Maybe you’d prefer a slice of…

pizza!  I saw this tutorial from Create with Christine and used that as the basis for this cute slice of pizza card.  I particularly like the olives (punch the holes in black paper using a regular size hole punch, than punch the circle around the hole with a circle punch) and the speckled slices of pepperoni.   I punched the pepperoni using a circle punch and made them a bit convex by embossing them on a mat with a stylus then added little spots of white gel ink, and brown and yellow markers.  A little brown ink sponged on the edge of the pepperoni makes it look crispy.Finally, I attached them to the pizza with foam adhesive dots.

The lid of a yogurt container makes a great template for the curve of the crust and I embossed it the same way as the pepperoni.  A sanding block rubbed on the crust and some ink sponged on makes the crust look like it is dusted with flour and a bit toasty.  Are you craving pizza yet?

Oh, what the heck, here’s a reprise from another post.  It fit with the theme of today’s post: cards that look good enough to eat: an ice cream cone card.  This was actually has scratch ‘n sniff chocolate sauce and a scratch ‘n sniff cherry (I wrote about scratch ‘n sniff  here) with an embossed waffle cone.

Thanks for stopping by.   Coming later this week: another GIVEAWAY from the 30 Days of Creativity projects!

Day 30 (at last!): Honey Vanilla Ice Cream with Caramel Sauce

It’s over.  It’s all gone. Hallelujah!  Am I talking about 30 Days of Creativity or the amazing honey vanilla ice cream with decadent, dark, buttery caramel sauce?  Since I still have more ice cream and sauce to enjoy tomorrow I’ll tell you, it isn’t that.  I have to admit that I’m glad to be at the end of the 30 Days project.

But let’s talk about my project for today, my final creative offering for the month.  When I assisted with a cooking class, the teacher, Tom Hudgens taught us to start with dessert because he said no matter what might go wrong with dinner, if you have a great dessert, that’s what you’re guests will remember.  You want to be sure and get dessert made before you worry about the rest of the meal. Likewise, I wanted to have a sweet finish to what has ultimately been a sweet experience.

That seemed like a pretty straightforward idea but this has been one of my most frustrating projects!  One of those that seemed to go wrong at every turn. My original idea was to make a really good vanilla ice cream, a really good caramel sauce and swirl the sauce into the ice cream. I also wanted a crunchy add-in and considered pretzels, peanuts, and toasted almonds before deciding on crushed waffle cone bits. That is how this has become a “Do as I say, not as I do” post.   Don’t stir crushed waffle cones into your nice ice cream.  They just become soggy bits and do nothing to improve the pairing.  And please disregard the bits in the pictures.  I love my readers, but it’s Day 30 and I don’t have the time (or energy) to whip up another batch of ice cream.

Luckily I started on the caramel sauce last night because the first batch seized up and had to be thrown away.  I’m sorry, I didn’t capture any photos of it but you’ll have to take my word that it was a mess. When you get to the point that the sugar is melted and caramelized, you don’t have time to look for the measuring cup.  It will continue to cook and can quickly go from done to burned.

I read a few more caramel recipes and notes about making caramel and this morning I tried again.  YAY!  It worked and boy, is it good.  I mean this is why we go to Jazzercise!  So we can enjoy the occasional dish of homemade honey vanilla ice cream drizzled with caramel sauce.

But Rem some people don’t like caramel sauce, finding it too dark and bitter.  We agree to disagree on this because I think it tastes wonderful, especially with this ice cream – the two seem to become greater together than they are individually. Anyway, back to Rem.  If he doesn’t like caramel sauce that means more for me!  All is not lost if you are not a fan of caramel.  Just make the honey vanilla ice cream (which is pretty incredible by itself) and have it on a cone.

Or in a dish.  Both are good. But remember, don’t stir in any crushed waffle cones.  Best to eat the cones as they were designed to be eaten: not crushed into the ice cream but with ice cream in them.

This is a custard-style ice cream with egg yolks in it.  Many ice creams have more heavy cream in them but this is icy yet the cornstarch keeps it creamy, letting the honey-vanilla flavors shine.

Honey Vanilla Ice Cream

Adapted from The Commonsense Kitchen Cookbook by Tom Hudgens

Ingredients:

1/3 cup sugar

1 Tbsp. cornstarch

3 1/4 cups half and half

2 Tbsp honey

pinch salt

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped out

4 egg yolks

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix sugar and cornstarch together in medium sized heavy saucepan until there are no lumps. Pour in half and half, and add the honey, salt and the seeds and pod of the split vanilla bean. Slowly bring to a simmer over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, until foamy on top and steaming.

Whisk the egg yolks in a small bowl.  Very slowly whisk in about 1 cup of the hot half and half mixture, then slowly whisk this mixture back into the saucepan of hot half and half.  Cook for 1 to 2 minutes more over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, until steaming hot and slightly thickened.

Remove from the heat and let cool, continue to stir frequently for about 5 minutes.  Remove vanilla bean pod and discard.  Let cool to room temperature.  Stir in the vanilla extract and chill thoroughly, preferably overnight.  Freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturers instructions.  Serve immediately, while still soft and creamy or pack the ice cream into a container, put in the freezer, and let it freeze hard.

My first try at caramel sauce ended in disaster.  In the version I tried both cream and butter were added with the cream going in first.  Well, the volume of cold  heavy cream going into the super hot pan of molten, melted sugar ended up causing the whole thing to seize and stay separate instead of blending into the decadent dessert I imagined.

When I compared several caramel sauce recipes one thing I noticed was most added the butter first and then the cream, and one also suggested warming the cream before melting the sugar.  This should prevent the problem I had with my first batch.  The other important tip is to have everything ready to go when you reach to point to add them, so you want your butter and cream measured and ready.

I didn’t read anything about making a larger batch but I doubled the following recipe and found I was having a problem with sugar crystals that I ended up having to strain out of the sauce.  I think it was from having too-large a batch.  It is possible that the heat was uneven or the pot not thick enough.  But in the end I got the results I was looking for: a flavor akin to the caramelized sugar that tops Creme Brulee.  Delicious.

Caramel Sauce

Adapted from Elise at Simply Recipes

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

5 Tbsp butter

1/2 C heavy whipping cream

Heat sugar on moderately high heat in a large saucepan.  As the sugar begins to melt, stir vigorously with a whisk or wooden spoon.  As soon as the sugar comes to a boil, stop stirring.  Swirl the pan a bit from this point on.

As soon as the sugar crystals have melted and turned a dark amber color, add the butter to the pan and whisk until the butter has melted.
One the butter has melted, remove the pan from the heat.  Slowly add the cream to the pan and whisk to incorporate.  Adding the sugar and the cream will cause foaming in the panWhisk until caramel sauce is smooth.  (if necessary, pour sauce through a fine mesh sieve to remove any lumps of sugar).  Let cool in the pan for a few minutesThis will keep nicely in a jar in the refrigerator.  I saw a note that said it would keep for a month.  Not at my house!

The 30 Days of Creativity have come to an end.  I was in great company with so many other creative people.  I loved and continue to enjoy looking through the wonderful photos on Pinterest.  I’m delighted with all the great comments and support I’ve received and also with my growing list of subscribers.

I will certainly continue to be creative and share that here.  But not every day.  And not tomorrow.  I will be having a giveaway of some of my 30 Days creations, so watch for that and thanks for stopping by.

Banana Nice Dream

Making healthier choices in my life means eating differently. Ice cream has been a staple and this recipe gives me something to enjoy that is still sweet, cold and creamy but is not as loaded with sugar and fat, even when I add the optional peanut butter.

It is hardly a recipe and it isn’t ice cream.  But it really is yummy and if nothing else answers the occasional question “what am I going to do with all of these ripe bananas?”   Yes, you can freeze them for banana bread (and I do) but this give you another option. It is also a fun recipe because it seems to involve just a pinch of magic.  The bananas are sliced, frozen and then whirled in a food processor or blender and they  transform from an icy slurry of banana to a pale, creamy frozen dessert.

I found the recipe at the kitchen and decided to call it Banana Nice Dream because it is like ice cream even though it has no dairy and you don’t use an ice cream maker to make it.  In fact, the basic recipe is just ONE ingredient.  If you are vegan or know someone who is or someone who is avoiding sugar or can’t tolerate lactose, give this a try.  Or even if you are just trying to make some healthier choices, this recipe is worth knowing about.

Banana Nice Dream

Ingredients

3 to 5 really ripe bananas (if the bananas aren’t spotty and even over-ripe, your Nice Dream won’t be so nice and may taste a little green)

(really, that’s it!)

Optional Ingredients

Peanut Butter

Honey

Cocoa Powder (unsweetened)

Instructions

1. Peel and slice bananas into chunks.
2. Put on a plate or tray covered with parchment paper or plastic wrap and freeze uncovered for 1.5 to 2 hours.
3. Put frozen banana  chunks into bowl of food processor (or into blender)* and process until smooth and creamy. Stop and scrape down sides of bowl as needed.  This will take about 2 or 3 minutes.
4. If desired, add some or all optional ingredients.  It depends on how many bananas you start with but for 5 bananas I use about 2 rounded tablespoons of peanut butter, a drizzle of honey and 2 tablespoons cocoa powder.

*Note: Sorry, I didn’t test it in the blender and the comment from my mom said when she tried it, it didn’t work, so I can’t recommend it.  I saw other online recipes that suggested using the blender but for now I suggest using a processor.

You can eat it freshly made and soft or scrape it into a container, freeze it and scoop it like ice cream later.

The basic recipe is good and I buy extra bananas to have ripe ones on hand for making a batch.  It wasn’t a hit with Rem but he likes the chocolate-peanut butter version.   I hope you give it a try!