this happened. file under beverages.

i'm taking a break from all things wedding to share what happened of the weekend.
it was a good weekend.

saturday night i talked G into taking me to a movie, like a real date night! we headed out a bit early to seek out a powerball ticket (don't ask). sadly, we missed the 8pm drawing cut off. so, we went to bailey's taproom for a pint. i had a pint of Burnside Berlinerweisse. it was light, citrus-y and refreshing. i could drink it all summer. G had Sierra Nevada Ovila Dubbel. it was dark, he liked it.

we had some time to kill before the movie so we stopped for a drink at The Zeus Cafe, a new spot across the street from our apartment that is quickly becoming our local. don't get me started on why we no longer go to clyde common...... i digress. at Zeus's i had a lavender mojito. i asked for a cocktail low in alcohol and the lovely bartender came up with the lavender mocktail pictured below. it was actually quite nice!

we saw Conan O'brien Can't Stop at Livingroom Theaters, a great theater with food, drinks, and big comfy seats. i would highly recommend seeing Can't Stop. It's very funny, as it should be, it's Conan O'Brien after all.

sunday night i had a killer craving for a milkshake. thankfully G not only tolerates my ice cream habit, but enables me (within reason). we went to The Original for my fix. I had my favorite - chocolate malt, and G had wait for it....wait for it....BOURBON BACON MAPLE. yes, a milkshake. no words.

so basically what happened was we had two date nights. two. how lucky am i?

back to wedding stuff.

pulling the wedding card

yup, i'm doing it.

i'm pulling the 'holy sh*t it's 24 days to the wedding and i'm way too busy to blog' card. 

there it is.

sorry.

be back soon.

promise.

till then check out this awesome site. 

4th of july 2011

we went over to our friends the kramers to celebrated america day. george and i had our garb on, him a USA mens soccer kit and i wore my america shorts. red, white and blue shorts i had gotten at anthropologie years ago, i only wear them once a year and it's on america day.

i decided that i would make a cake, aside from beer, burgers and hot dogs, what better way to celebrate independence than cake?! well, there is this.

i decided to give this a shot. it was actually pretty easy, the assembly of the 3 colored cakes wasn't that bad once i had a visual idea of what i was cutting. the only thing i would have changed would have been the cake recipe, the one i used was on the dry side and it was very crummy. i was low on vanilla extract so i used more almond, i think it tasted pretty good.

thanks iphone

here is a visual on how to cut the layers. i had a 4 inch round cutter that i used, make it super easy.

white cake recipe
adapted from here

makes 2, 8 or 9 inch round (double the recipe for flag cake). all ingredients should be at room temperature.

8 table­spoons (1 stick) unsalted but­ter
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 table­spoon bak­ing powder
1 3/4 cups sugar
3/4 tea­spoon salt
1 tea­spoons vanilla extract
2 tea­spoon almond extract
5 large egg whites
2 3/4 cup cake flour
1 cup milk

pre­heat oven to 350 degrees F. pre­pare cake pans, set aside.
combine the flour, salt, baking powder in a separate bowl.
In a mix­ing bowl, cream together the but­ter and short­en­ing until incor­po­rated and light in color. add the sugar slowly and continue to mix until light in color and fluffy. add fla­vor­ings. add the egg whites, one at a time, it should be light and fluffy by this time.

incorporate the flour and alternating with the milk, add about 1/3 of the flour, and then 1/3 of the milk. continue like this ending with the flour.

divide the batter into 3 bowls. add red food coloring to one, blue to the other and leave one white. you may need a lot of red to get the right color, sometimes a tiny bit of black can help achieve this. pour into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-30 min, depending on your oven. you will probably have some batter left over. no biggie, make a few cup cakes.

when done, let cool 10 min­utes on a rack. remove from pans and fin­ish cool­ing on a rack. when com­pletely cooled, wrap in plas­tic wrap and store flat in fridge.

cream cheese frosting
3 (8oz) pack of cream cheese or neufchatel
1 stick (4oz) softened unsalted butter
2-3 cups powdered sugar depending on sweetness and consistency you want

cream the cream cheese and butter until combined. Gradually add in the powdered sugar until the desired consistency/sweetness is reached.

can be kept covered in fridge for 1 week.

saturday farmers market

yesterday we woke up to gorgeous clear skies and warm sun. it was welcomed and needed in my book. we took a stroll to the PSU Farmers Market to pick up provisions for the week. thankfully we live within walking distance to this great market. every saturday (except for a few winter months) the market is filled with local seasonal produce and tasty food. you can get everything from flowers to baked goods to fried chicken on a biscuit. we brought home yak and boar sausage, grass fed hangar steak, ground elk sausage, huge artichokes, walla wall sweet onions (!!!), dill, fresh caught coho salmon, new potatoes, carrots, blond morel mushrooms, wonderfully sweet strawberries and raspberries. we ate almost all the raspberries before we made it home!

artichoke and cotija cheese tamale from salvador molly's

olympic provisions stand. picked up some saucisson d'alace

lot's of performers, one had a sign that read "cash and produce tips accepted" 

the farmers market is near the Portland Art Museum which has an exhibit on classic cars going on. they had blocked off the street to showcase quite a lot of cars. these were my favorites.

with the sun shining so bright and it being so warm out, we decided to enjoy a few cocktails on our 'veranda'. G was playing bartender and a very good one at that. i made a batch of vanilla simple syrup for the cocktails. the hint of vanilla was unexpected but not too sweet. it was wonderful in the mojito. plus it will be very tasty in soda water later on in the week.

raspberry mojitos

improved cucumber vodka gimlet

we were in need of a few ingredients for the cocktails, so G went out and came back with not only everything on the list but this as well!

amazing fried chicken and biscuit from flogenes home cookin

vanilla simple syrup
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup h20
1/2 vanilla bean scraped

combine all ingredients into a small sauce pan. bring to a boil. heat until all the sugar has disolved. remove from heat and let cool. remove vanilla bean. it can be kept in the fridge for a week or two.

till next time,
amanda

summer pops

we are still in what LA'ers call 'june gloom'. dark, not so warm, rainy, yuckiness. boo.

i keep seeing recipes for popsicles and boy does it make me want to try some. only problem is that i don't have an popsicle maker, posh or otherwise and our freezer is pretty tiny. until one of the two variables change, i will swoon over recipes like these.

via

via

via

via

i hope it's sunny where you are.

till next time,
amanda

daydreaming on a rainy day

the weather this weekend made it feel like summer was here to stay, but when we woke up (super*) early this morning it was raining. ugh. i'm SO ready for some sun. being a colorado girl, growing up in a state that gets more sun in a year than california, the pacific northwest is a bit of a challenge. i just keep looking for the light, the light at the end of the bad weather tunnel. i know summer is coming. it has to, right? right?

on the stereo: the new pornographers

lunch: smashed avocado on toast.

last night we made this for supper.

daydreaming about:
i'd really like to go to a drive-in movie. there is one nearby after all.

next year i'd really like to take my wellies to Glastonbury.

after the wedding, i'd really like to make these. don't they sound/look amazing! do they really belong on that blog though?

this might be a really good way to incorporate a 'man cave' into our future home.

maybe i should do this with my spoon collection (but maybe only to the ugly conquests)

till next time,
amanda

*G had a 6am flight this morning and yes, i am the resident taxi driver.

friday = pizza night

when i was growing up friday was not pizza night. apparently in g's house it was. now i'm not saying we never had pizza growing up, we did, we ate a lot of pizza, lots of homemade pizza! we always had "make your own pizza" parties and my mom made her dough from scratch! in g's house, pizza friday meant going out for pizza. so i guess we've combined the best of both our childhoods into our very own pizza fridays.

to be honest, there has been a lot of pizza fridays in our house, on tuesdays, wednesdays, thursdays.....i pick up pre-made dough at whole paycheck whenever i walk down that aisle with the intention of making rolls or garlic bread, but it always turns into pizza. tuesday last week is was shrimp with broccoli and white sauce. white sauce being garlic, butter and olive oil.

i really need to work on my iphone pictures

friday night we decided to make a calzone instead of a pizza. spicy pork sausage, mushrooms, fresh ricotta, mozzarella and tomato sauce. serve with extra tomato sauce on the side. and it was amazing.

fresh out of the oven

ooey gooey yummy

g is excited

the next morning, i used the left over sausage, mushrooms, asparagus (from the blue cheese risotto) and soft polenta (from last weekends breakfast) to make a quick breakfast. i fried the eggs instead of poaching, i just wasn't in the mood to deal with all that when frying is so quick.

creamy polenta with sausage, mushrooms, asparagus and fried egg

i don't have any recipes because these meals were all pulled out of my arse. basically, you need pre-made pizza dough*, pick your sauce - red or white, pick your toppings, bake in a REALLY hot oven** for about 10-15 minutes, open up some wine and enjoy with your honey. easy peasy.

as for the breakfast - any veggie tastes good when its paired with pork sausage and a runny egg.


*whole foods generally always has it in stock, its in the prepared meals section, if you're lucky they will have whole wheat dough too

**ours only goes up to 475 before it sets off the smoke alarm. awesome.