Daring Bakers November 2011 Challenge: Filipino Desserts - The Sans Rival

Catherine of Munchie Musings was our November Daring Bakers’ host and she challenged us to make a traditional Filipino dessert – the delicious Sans Rival cake! And for those of us who wanted to try an additional Filipino dessert, Catherine also gave us a bonus recipe for Bibingka which comes from her friend Jun of Jun-blog.



I loved this months challenge. It was a cake that took some time to make, but it was not crazy, and it produced some of the best frosting I've ever made (its the butter).




I loved it so much I made the cake TWICE. Once for a gathering at a family friends place and once for thanksgiving. I tried doing it with larger and smaller pieces of cashews and I liked the smaller ground better actually.

I will most definitely be making this again.

Check out the recipe here.

August Daring Bakers - Candy!

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

The two candies I made were truffles Pate de Fruit. I had made truffles before, but they were always the rolled kind, so tempering them was a new thing for me. I can't say I was too good at it - I think I needed some better apparatus for getting the truffle out of the chocolate bowl. Mine were getting too coated and odd looking. But they tasted great! I prefer rolled truffles though - the tempered ones are just too rich.



The pate de fruit were super easy to make. Mix up the mixture, let it set, cut it up, roll in sugar. So easy! They were also delicious and amazing replacement to candies like this that I have bought oh-so-many-times.



Overall - I loved the candy challenge. Thinking of trying some of the recipes I didn't do at a later time. Delicious!.

You can check out all the recipes here.

Blue Angels

The Blue Angels visit Seattle at least once a year for SeaFair. They do their main show over Lake Washington, but they do fly-bys around the whole city. Last year I watched it the show from Lake Washington. It was loud and intense, but the weather was overcast so they could not do any of their most impressive fly-up moves.

This year was all clear skies, but I didn't have to time to venture to the lake. This photo was taken from the roof of my building on extra-zoom. The Blue Angels are questionable in their advertising of the military and the amount of fuel they eat up in their performance among other things, but they are fun to watch. I am impressed at the engineering an the pilots that zoom by in crazy formations.

Reviews of Eva and Habesha

A new exploration place for me was Eva's Restaurant. I would say it was love. The venue is delightfully small yet beautiful. The service was friendly and patient. The food was amazing. We started off with pate - which was great! I did scoop of the fat layer off the top - not appealing, but what was underneath was divine. Next for me was the steak - oh so delightfully medium rare and sizzling with flavor. I ate up every last piece of sauce.

The dessert, featured above, was the peach, blueberry and raspberry tart with hazelnut crumble. The hazelnut didn't come through too much, but overall the tart was delightful. Jon actually didn't like his raspberry brownie so we ended up trading, but I loved them both. :)

I would most definitely return to this restaurant - perfect for a long dinner of wonderful conversation.



Pardoning the horrible photo, this was an amazing dinner at Habesha of Ethiopian food. This was a 'for two' portion that could most definitely feed three. Mouth drooling amazing.

Hiking at Rainier and St.Helens

This has got to be one of my favorite photos. I love the flower, bee and Rainier combination. The essence of summer. The photo was taken on the Goat Mountain trail that is between St.Helens and Rainier. We spent the weekend camping in Iron Creek Campground and exploring the area. The weather was fantastic the entire time, and the wildflowers were in full bloom. I did not count how many there were on this hike, but on a hike to St.Helens last weekend I counted 28 .



The following day we actually went up to Paradise to do some hiking (almost snowshoeing, does it count as snowshoeing if you're not wearing snowshoes but are slopping through super deep snow?). On the way we drove past this amazing canyon. I had not noticed it during our previous drives and loved how it contrasts with the whiteness of the mountain. The deep crevasse compared to the openness of the rest of the landscape.



This was at the start of a hike to Harry's Ridge at St.Helens. Unfortunately this was the only time that the top of St.Helens decided to come out of the clouds. Still, the weather was only partly cloudy, the wild flowers were in full bloom and the scenery was magnificent. I love the geography/geology of St.Helens. Seeing the trees that are left over from when it blew up, and the desolate landscape is absolutely mind blowing.

Weekend in Colorado

Two weekends ago (I know...) I went to Colorado to visit my mom, who was on a conference there. We started off by going into the Rockies toward Vail, then up to see Stillwater Reservoir and Flat Top Mountain, and up to Steamboat Springs. The second day we went through Rocky Mountain National Park to Boulder. It was an amazing trip and unbelievable that so much can be squeezed into just two days. I have the full set on flickr, but here are a few glimpses.



The wildlife was the highlight of the trip for me. I do not see much wildlife hiking in Washington State, so seeing some in the Rockies was a real treat for me. We saw two giant heards of elk, a couple of moose, some pikas and a marmot. Delightful! I wanted to see more marmots, but we saw so many last year I think some elk is a great treat this time around.



I also loved the great expanses and lakes all around. So beautiful! The bright blue sky all day long, with beautiful thunderstorms in the afternoon. Such a dynamic weather range!



On the flight there, Rainier was close up. I mean we flew right over it. I could see the bends of the glacier and even spy Paradise Inn on the south side. Amazing! I love the circular crater (is it a crater?) on the top of the mountain. I also love that it is so diverse with such different formations on each side. I really have to explore more sides to it (though getting to the top is a little too intimidating for me).



I spied Rainier on the way back again (pardon the double plane photo, but it was the most interesting thing I saw all day in my morning flight home). It was further away but still beautiful, and I got to examine it from the north side. I also got to spy on Crystal Mountain Ski Resort (left middle part of photo) and the road up to Sunrise part of Rainier. Love it!

Seattle glimpses

I was grabbing some dinner one evening and eating it outside at the Seattle Center before heading to the opera. To my luck, the sun was shining in the perfect location to give me a bit of a rainbow. A rainbow combined with the Space Needle? What more do you need in life? Oh, I was also eating sushi at that time. Yes, now life is good.



I love Seattle in the summer. The weather is not too hot, and the skies are blue and the trees green. The vibrancy of the colors is love for me. Unfortunately, this is the coldest summer we have had since the 50s... so I'll have to treasure the few real summer days we get. This view is from the top of the Columbia Center.



This is a block away from my apartment. This dog has two different color eyes and has a habit of looking out the window. It also amuses me that he lives on top of the bookstore that has a cat as a mascot. This is a glimpse of the neighborhood I live in.



This photo is very simple, but I took it while wandering in Downtown Seattle. The tree canopies were in full stretch and you could only see the sun peering through the top of the leaves. I might have upped the vibrance of this photo a lot, but I love the bright green color.