Banana-Date Tea Cake

Banana-Date Tea Cake tastes much better now. Well, this is a typical pound cake and just takes time to get ready to be eaten. So, I decided to upload my “sunken” tea cake to remind myself a failure. I have to remember that I should use all-purpose flour instead of cake flour to make the texture firmer.

Playing in the Snow

It snowed on Monday and Tuesday. Sophie and Misha loved it! (I didn’t like it if I need to drive.. eventually, I canceled my piano lesson because of bad road condition) A.A. and I took them to parks for three days in a row. We went to Fuller Park near our house on Monday and took them to the Eagle Island State Park on Tuesday. Since the incident (she almost drowned) at the Eagle Island, both were on leash. But, it seemed like they still could enjoy running on the snow. And again, we went to Fuller Park today. There were still snow on the ground at the park, and Sophie and Misha couldn’t wait for running. Actually, Sophie hardly ever stopped running, but Misha. She usually gets excited and jumps around for a few minutes and that’s about it. It’s very interesting to watch them playing together.

Experience is the Best Teacher

This Fried Rice was successful.

I was pretty excited to try new recipe this morning: Banana-Date Tea Cake. All my bananas were ready to be baked and I had lots of dates in the fridge. This recipe is from Tartine by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson. This book is nicely organized and well explained. I have baked Lemon bars on Brown Butter Shortbread before, and it was fantastic. Though I used a half cup of almond flour instead of pine nuts (optional), the crust was amazingly tasty (Sadly, A.A.’s colleagues didn’t like it because of the lack of sweetness). But, as far as the recipe for this particular tea cake, the direction was different from the one I’m used to: blending eggs into banana & vanilla extract mixture. I usually add eggs one at the time to whipped butter cream with sugar; add banana mixture and dry ingredients. But, this recipe says to add the banana and egg mixture to whipped butter cream slowly and beat until incorporated. I was suspicious and interested in the method. So, I tried; as a result, the butter cream and this mixture actually got separated! Well, I didn’t want to throw away, so I just folded remaining ingredients and baked. I knew it was not going to look O.K. Result: sunken center, but tasted good. I loved the ingredients, so I will redo this tea cake soon.

Seeking New Recipes

Here are things that I made yesterday: fried rice with lettuce & black beans; chocolate macarons; sablée cookies. I’m so happy to try this cranberry cookies by Panipop-san. (Panipopo-san’s blog is right here) I actually baked this right after Christmas, but I was too tired to take pictures of them and I needed to find out the portion I liked. The recipe calls for 30-40 pieces, but I could make only 20 of them even though I doubled the original recipe. So, I tripled this time, and yes, I had 44 pieces!  Since I converted grams to ounces or cups, I also wanted to make sure the baking time. I know it all depends on the ovens and it took 17-18 minutes to have desired color and texture. After baking, I realized that I forgot to add lemon peel. Chocolate macorns’ recipe is adapted from “French Chocolate Macaron Recipe” by David Lebovitz. This mcaron was unsuccessful. I was careful about the size and filling: smaller size and different and more reliable cream frosting. The size looked almost perfect, but I didn’t think about the baking time, which was much shorter than I thought: It took only 6-7 minutes. I overbaked nearly 40 macarons and only a dozen survived (that was the last pan). I was so disappointed when I tasted those unsuccessful ones. The taste and texture will change next day or two (usually and hopefully), so I guess I will expect that. 

Trying new recipe is very exciting and fun, but I want to taste them, especially if I want to take them to someone. I know I don’t have to taste them, but I get so nervous if I don’t do it. So, this is my huge and critical issue as a dieter. This issue is not actually new; I felt same way a couple of years ago. At the time, I baked something almost every day and my pastries were sent to the freezer, because no one wanted to eat! A.A. is not a big fun of sweets (he loves candies, that’s about it.) and I was satisfied with just baking and didn’t want to eat much. Those pastries were frozen for a few months and sadly sent to the trash can. I don’t want to repeat such thing, so I have to find a solution.

Chocolate Macarons

I made macarons for the first time, and it was fun! Since three egg whites were still in the fridge after baking cookies, I had decided to try this French neat sweets. Result? I think it turned out pretty good. But, thing is that I have never eaten “real” macarons (“real” means by “store-bought,” in this case). So, I really don’t know how the texture or taste should be as a French macaron. It tasted good, though. I made almond butterscotch cream, but I didn’t have exact recipe for it. So, it took forever to become like “cream.” I guess I put too much heavy cream in it, or I was just inpatient to wait for cream to get thicker. I put cream on macarons and it was too soft. I made a mess not only kitchen but macaron itself. I wiped excess cream off after a little while and it looked O.K., but I need to remake sometime soon. I will probably make different cream, like cream cheese frosting, or something can be made quick.

A Happy New Year!

I would love to say, “Happy New Year” to everyone. My new year resolution: update my blog regularly. I just posted my journal that went back to six months ago at once. I think it’s kind of ruin the whole purpose of easy blog system if I update like this. So, here I am still trying to refresh my mind as new year started. Today’s weather was silly: raining in the morning and cloudy all day. This kind of weather gives me migraine and makes me feel very tired. I wanted to take Sophie & Misha for a walk, but somehow (?) I fell asleep and got up around 8 p.m. I felt so bad that they didn’t go anywhere today. Maybe because of the weather, they even didn’t want to play at the backyard; they slept pretty much all day today. I will take them to the park tomorrow. 

I believe that I made pasta casserole with garlic bread a couple of days ago and A.A. has been eating same meal since then. Well, it’s time to cook something. I have some ideas of what I want to cook, but I’m too lazy to go grocery shopping.. oh, I will tomorrow.  

What’s Happening Since June?

 

Events in June: Staying at kennel for the first time! A.A.’s parents invited us to go to the Hells Canyon Dam Tour on the 14th of June, and of course, we couldn’t take Sophie and Misha with us, so we decided to board them at Escape the Crate in Boise for two nights. As you see the service on the Escape the Crate Web, they are not open for 24 hours. We had to leave early in the morning and came back late at night, so Sophie and Misha were boarded on the day before and picked up on the 15th. I believe that it was a good opportunity for both to socialize other dogs and be in the different environment without us. According to the staff at the boarding, they behaved well. Overall, I rate this boarding facility 8 out of 10 and recommend to others if someone doesn’t mind to leave dogs alone at night, around 8 to 6 in the morning. Yes, only thing I didn’t like was that nobody stays there after 8 at night to 6 in the morning. Honestly, if I can find similar boarding facility with 24-hour service, I might consider those, because I’m still concerned about leaving dogs themselves for almost 10 hours. When we boarded Sophie and Misha, the staff said they were working on setting up WebCam, which was good. I hope it is available now. Back to the story about Hells Canyon Tour: it was very nice and enjoyable tour. Of course, because of A.A.’s family plan, there was a little happening in the beginning. Our boat delayed almost one hour!!! If there were only A.A. and me, we would have left. A.A.’s parents were more patient, and we waited and waited and waited. At last, we saw the boat and thought that they would pick us up, BUT they didn’t. We were so disappointed, but we could do nothing. A.A.’s parents were very patient and we just kept waiting. Then, finally, after almost two hours since we got there, tour guides picked us up!!! We were so glad that we didn’t leave.  We enjoyed entire tour and got so wet. I thank A.A.’s parents that they offered us such incredible opportunity! 

Back in Boise, A.A. and I picked up Sophie and Misha next day. They were soooooooo happy to see us and seemed like their tales were almost ripped off by wagging so much.

Second important event in June was 1st Great Dane-meet up at Morris Hill Park. There were quite few, 10 to 15 danes got together for the first time. Sophie was so small among them; probably she was the second smallest dane there. But, of course, she enjoyed socializing with other big ones. We cannot forget about Misha, too: she just loved it!! Even though she was small (weighed less than 100 lb), she was so excited that she chased other danes, or was chased by them.

Events in July: One thing we enjoyed in this month was the second “Dane-meet up” at Morris Hill Park. 

Events in August: On the 7th was A.A.’s 30 some birthday. This year, I didn’t bake anything for him, because he wanted Ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery. It was delicious.

Events in September: School got busier and busier. I wonder why I was kind of stressed out: I have only one class and most of my students behaved. Oh, I remember that I had an intern, who was troublesome. I gave him some work for first a couple of weeks of this semester, and then I let him go as I felt uncomfortable having him in my class.

Events in October: First snow on the 10th! I saw snow on the Foothill.

Events in November: Sophie & Misha enjoyed playing @ Eagle Island State Park quite a lot. I’m so glad that we live pretty close to the park. It’s not a off-leash park, but with 15-foot leash or occasionally w/o leash, they ran like a horse (Sophie) and a cow (Misha). 

Events in December: A.A. and I went cutting down a Christmas tree on the 12th with Sophie & Misha. We could find a decent tree at Grimes Creek. There was an almost accident: Sophie almost jumped into the frozen river!!! Unbelievable.. well, A.A, said yes, it’s believable, because it’s Sophie. I saw her front paws were in the water, but probably frozen and very cold water scared her, so she came back right away. And, Sophie & Misha had to stay in the car while we were ting a tree on the top of our car. She ruined her play time. I’m glad she didn’t drawn in the river and A.A. and I never expected that we would see similar accident near future.

On the 16th, A.A. and I took them to the Eagle Island State Park again. It was the day after snowing and chilly, but sunny day. Both of them were off leash and running around like crazy at the park. While we were walking on the path, Misha, somehow changed the direction and just went toward the frozen pond. We called her name, but no response. A.A. raised his voice, “Misha!” And then, she turned around looked at us, suddenly, the ice broke. I was so scared to see her face was under the water. A.A. walked into the frozen pond and broke some ice to help Misha swim or walk back to the bench. We were planning to enjoy a sunny day in the snow, but things changed. Misha’s coat was a half frozen (she is a double coated, but still..) and of course, A.A.’s pants were all wet. We headed back home immediately (Sophie & Misha still wanted to play, though). We won’t be back to the park until the ice melts. They are so unpredictable. At least, I knew both Sophie & Misha were safe with us. 

Overall, I pretty much concentrated on my school work, dogs & cats and my diet for six months. Fall semester is now peacefully over and I’m getting closer and closer to the goal of my diet. I now need to focus on losing at least 10 more pounds within a couple of months. Misha turned one on the 29th of November and Shoe turned 8 on the 27th of December. I wanted to make a birthday cake for Misha, but too much things were going on around the time, so I couldn’t. For Sophie’s birthday,which is on the 9th of February, I hope I will be able to make something. Last a couple of months, I have been feeding Sophie & Misha human consumption such as hamburger, chicken and salmon with their dog food. It works great: I don’t need to wait for them to finish eating meals, which means that they just love to eat the mixture of meat & dry food. The idea of feeding such cooked meats came to my mind when their dog food was out and store was closed the day. I cooked vegetables and meats with rice or homemade pasta. I did make meals for a few times, but I figured that it cost  and took time. So, I decided to cook partially, like adding cooked meats in their regular food, and it was successful. 

I hope it will be a happy year for everyone.