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.

Iceland in a photo a day

It is impossible to sum up Iceland in so few photos, but I will try. Ryan has the full set (processed by him, these were processed by me) on his flickr. So two weeks late, I'll try to make a bit of a summary.



The first day was the flight - it was a red eye from the US to Iceland so I am taking a 'guess' that when I was flying by Greenland it was the previous day, but I have no idea (and it most likely was not). But lets pretend that I was still on US time. Anyways - it was awesome to see the mountains of Greenland rising out of the ocean. So beautiful! Also much less green than ICEland.



The first step for us after getting the car was to go to the Blue Lagoon - about the only thing our brainpower could handle after being awake for 20+ hours. The Blue Lagoon is a tourist trap, but it is a super awesome tourist trap. Giant pool of warm water in a lava field? Yes! And a bunch of saunas of various degrees of steamyness? Yes! The smell of sulfur was a little overwhelming but worth it. The only problem is that the sulfur does horrible things to your hair - mine was a tangly mess for a couple of days after we went even though I shampooed and conditioned twice. I loved the Blue Lagoon - the Myvatn Nature Baths are the cheaper version of it but not quite as impressive - smaller and not as good of saunas. After this we just went and collapsed at the hostel with a little bit of wandering around the city in between.



The next day we did the 'Golden Circle'. The geyser area was a lot of fun because Strokkur erupts every 5-10 minutes so it is not very long to wait until the next one. I LOVE this photo for capturing the water just coming out of the ground.



The following day was fairly bad weather. We did get to see some beautiful waterfalls but the highlight was going to the Jokulsarlon lagoon and looking at the icebergs. Hundreds of icebergs float in the lagoon and are of the most magnificent color. We even did a boat tour in order to get closer to them - no Titanics were pulled in the making of this photo.



Seeing sheep is not specific to the next day - we saw sheep every day. In quantities larger than people, horses and cows combined. They wander the countryside/highlands in the summer and then the farmers gather them up in the fall to get inside for the winter. I think they are adorable.



I ADORE this photo. This is Viti crater in the Myvatn area. That is Ryan walking away toward the crater. I think the wide angle shot really makes this photo look 'epic'. Capture the beautiful crater and the landscape. It even kind of looks like Ryan is going off to run into the lake?



The next day we spent a while in the Myvatn area again. These craters are on the south side of the lake, but they are not actually craters. They are this shape because they gathered up steam I believe and then dried in this shape, and not because they were all erupting volcanoes.



This is Hvitserkur - an amazing rock formation on the northern coast of Iceland. The white color on the rocks is all bird droppings - the area is filled with all types of birds. We decided not to go down to the beach in front of the rock because of the amount of birds present. One of the birds of that area has a tendency to dive bomb humans and pierce their skull (or other part of your body). Their eggs get stepped on by beach dwellers so it is understandable why they hate humans. Anyways - we didn't take a chance and admired the rocks from afar.



The highlight of the trip for me was seeing puffins. We went to Latrabjarg, which is the western-most point of Iceland to see the great puffin colonies there. The birds do not have land predators so they do not mind when you get inches away from them. They are clumsy and adorable. And they come out in thousands every evening when they come home from fishing. This was by far the highlight of the trip - to be sitting on top of bird cliffs surrounded by puffins (and other birds). A must for any Iceland visitor (from mid-June to mid-August when the puffins are there).



We actually loved the puffins so much that we came back the following day to visit them again. There are many more puffins out during the sunset hours, but there are a few puffins each day that decide not to go fishing. :) Most of them were actually laying and dozing off.



The last day in Iceland was spent in the Snaefellsjokull national park (and peninsula). The park is centered around the volcano/glacier pictured and is filled with amazing lava fields, chasms and rock beaches. I though it was the perfect relaxing end of the trip day. I wish we were there when the snows had melted a little more though so we could have driven up closer to the glacier. But this was the case for the whole country - it was a cold summer so the snow line was a lot lower than usual for the time of year.



And to finish off - these are our bags headed back from Iceland on the light rail in Seattle. An end to a beautiful trip.

Sorry for the short summary - I have been procrastinating on this for long enough. There are a lot more photos on flickr, and a lot more things that we did, but this is a short summary/advertisement of Iceland.

Daring Bakers July 2011: Fresh Faisiers

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.


I am a little behind on posting this guy - but I was out of town and then forgot to post the photos. But better late than never!


I had a LOT of fun making this cake. I love the layers and how easy it is to make a cake that looks beautiful, styled, and generally fancy without knowledge of how to decorate a cake well. Complete win!





I filled my cake with two pints of strawberries. That is A LOT of berries. I loved it though - gave the cake a huge amount of berry goodiness. My only regret is using store bought berries instead of the ones at the farmers market - those are a lot more delicious.





I love how even the sliced cake looks great - usually when I slice a cake it falls apart and the beauty is gone. Not with this one. This recipe is a KEEPER. I will be making this again, and again in the future. Anyone have any occasions that they need a cake baked for? I am not picky. A good mood is a good enough reason. 

Post-Iceland, but non-Iceland, photo dump

Pardon the long absence from photo posting - the trip to Iceland was wonderful, but it also involved an intense amount of time by the camera. This means that when I got back... I had no desire to get anywhere near a camera. So this means patchy photos for the past week and a half. But I think I am recovered now I am getting back in the swing of things. To celebrate that... I am not going to post about any Iceland photos (because I have not processed any... Ryan processed them all), but I'll post the random shots I have taken since returning.



My first weekend back there were two things that had to happen: a bike ride and a hike in the mountains with real trees. I did not get any photos of the first activity (though it was a wonderful ride of 26 miles!), but this photo was snapped on our hike to Kachess Beacon. The hike was featured in the 'not snowy even though it is super snowed in everywhere else' section, so I went for it. Seattle is about a month behind in the whole 'summer thing' so there is a huge amount of snow in the mountains. This hike was snow-free and delightful (and very steep). There were very few people and amazing wild flowers at the top. Loved it! Perfect hike to get back into the Cascades. :)



This.... is some mushrooms growing in my apartment. My friend Kallie got me some seeds to plant some herbs and got some soil so it would be super convenient for me. Well.. being the lazy person that I am I have not done this... a month and a half later. So then Ryan looked over at the bag of soil which is poofing up a big. Turns out some mushrooms started growing in there! Pretty awesome! This means I had a living thing survive in my apartment without putting in any effort! Amazing! This was a shot before I let the mushrooms loose in the back yard.



I was surprised to find last Thursday that there was a farmers market right in the middle of the Amazon campus. Turns out that Pikes Place is going there every Thursday for the summer. Amazing! No effort to get fresh fruits and veggies? I am in! That day I bought some strawberries, raspberries and cucumbers. :)



I was attempting to get some shots of the sky today.... but no matter how I tried to tweak the settings, the clouds would end up being clipped white. After many unsuccessful shots I tried going to auto mode. Perfect shot immediately. Why do I bother trying to set my own settings on a nice camera again....?

Pre-Iceland Photo Dump

I am leaving for Iceland in an hour - and since I know there will be a LOT of photos to process when I get back in a week, I want to post up the photos I am behind on. Granted I do not have a photo of the day for the last two days... but that is because I kept forgetting to put in a new battery into my camera. Whoops? Maybe I'll upload some camera phone pictures later... but that just seems lame..?



This was at afternoon tea at Queen Mary's Tearoom for Rama's baby shower. Delightful! What a classy place! Perfect place for a baby shower, or just a place to chat and spend some time. Beautiful decorations and tea cups, delicious teas, sorbet, tea sandwiches, scones and all so much more. Wonderful. I am definitely going to return there (or find some more tea rooms in Seattle). It has been oh so too long and makes me think of the amazing tea in London when I lived there.



Next up is Quirkle - a new boardgame. I've been researching games that do not involve much or any english that my family can easily play and this one was recommended to me. Love it! The tiles you see here are the ONLY component to the game. The game can be played with kids of adults and is extremely simple but.... sly? A scrabble with tiles possibly? Anyways - I really recommend it. It is great both with two and four people.



Then there are my first homemade truffles. I have wanted to make them for a while and decided to start off with a classic chocolate recipe. Of course I will turn first to see what smitten kitchen has to offer - and it delivers! Absolutely soft middle, a bit of a hard coating and delightful cocoa powder to top. They are not too sweet - even a bit bitter if you inhale the cocoa powder first. Perfect. I want to try some more iterations - with pistachios, mocha and hazelnut to start? So much to try! It did involve latex gloves and getting the kitchen covered in chocolate... but worth it in the end. I may add that even Ryan (who does not like most of my sweets) loved them and ate about 70% of the almost one pound batch. :)



The above photo is one of the many murals on the fence around my neighborhood construction project - the future CapHill light rail tunnel. I love how they decorated the walls - it made the project look so much more friendly. This particular mural is on the other side from where I usually walk so it was the first time I saw it. On that sunny day it really shone. :) I am looking forward to the light rail tunnel, but for now I am excited to look at the fun paintings.

Natury snippets

Ryan has digested the hint that I love flowers so he picks me up some when we go to the market on Sundays. I love that the bouquets that the sell every week are different. This particular one had a lot larger flowers than usual and awesome 'twigs'. I am not sure what they are called but they are great. :) And the bouquet lasted in good shape for a while - I am only throwing it out today after a week and a half of gracing the apartment.

Also have I mentioned that I get a bit obsessed with the 'vibrance' slider when I am editing photos? Yeah....



This was a shot while sitting in happy hour. It is simple - but I really like how the leaves sort of blend with the background. It has a beautiful eerie feeling for me. And didn't involve any post-processing, something that makes my life easier at the end of the day. :)

Seattle goes to Parade time: Solstice and Pride

Summer in Seattle means finally nice weather and lots of parades. One of them is the Solstice Parade - known by many as the 'Naked Bike Ride' (ps, if you put naked in the title of your flickr photo you'll apparently get an intense amount of views). Unfortunately, the past two years that I have gone... the weather has been less than stellar. This year - it was positively cold (as you can see from the spectators in the back) and I could see the goosebumps on some of the riders. But they kept going!

I love the intricacy with which people 'dress' for the parade - that is some awesome ideas and painting. No, that is not clothing they are wearing there - they just pain it good (though I think the woman in the middle has some clothes on).

After the bike ride - the parade continues in similar fashion - lots of insane floats and crazy costumes. By far the best parade I have ever been to. Love it. :)



The parade last weekend was much less interesting. It was part of Pride Week in Seattle. I thought it would be of the similar plan as the Solstice Parade - freaking crazy. No... not really.

There were fun floats - like this amazing Flying spaghetti Monster. I got to be touched by his noodely appendage. :P

Most other groups were just various companies in the area marching down with their support. That is all great and stuff... but not very interesting to watch. BECU, Alaska Airlines, Starbucks, Orbitz, Amazon, Microsoft... etc. When will it end...? After two hours of watching I bailed on the parade. It is fun and I love the energy but if I am going next year I'll march with the Amazon float and then go home - no need to watch the whole of the parade.



Maybe if I march I could even be one of the box dudes? Pretty awesome indeed. :P

Daring Bakers June 2011 Challenge: Baklava

Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.





The main challenge here was... rolling the phyllo dough. That is some THIN dough that has to be amassed. I was not very successful in rolling - I was supposed to get 18 sheets and I only managed to get 9 or so. This means my sheets are twice as thick as needed... whoops? But they kept ripping and falling apart if I tried to go thinner.





I did like how their recipe called for a huge amount of different nuts - I'd only made it with walnuts before and it added a little something extra... at least in the smell (I never tried the finished product). Something I would try in the future. 


This is most definitely not something I would try again. I enjoy baking baklava, and I want to try making one that does not involve honey (honey sends me into a spazm of itching). But I will not be rolling my own phyllo dough. Too my effort for something I can buy in better quality in stores. My counters were way messier after this adventure than making my own truffles and that was MESSY. So I'll take truffles over baklava. 


You can find the recipe (as well as photos of people who made prettier baklava than me as usual) here.