Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day! I thought I'd pay a little tribute to the woman who:

-introduced me to my love of baking

-taught me to cook

-instilled my love of flowers

-showed me how to be a great teacher

-and so so much more...

with a nice 2nd-grade-style poem.

MOM, who 

Acts rational even when I'm not,

Really gives good hugs,

Cooks amazing meals,

Is the best listener and advice-giver I know.. I couldn't

Ask for a better mother!!

I love you, Mom!!

Little Pea

This is the story of Little Pea, Mama Pea, and Papa Pea.

Little Pea, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, is hands-down my new favorite children's book. Little Pea loves to do typical ...little pea... things. Except for one thing. 

He hates candy. 

You see, Peas eat candy for dinner and spinach for dessert.

Five pieces of candy. NOW can I have dessert?

This is the cutest book I've read in awhile. Next time you're with a bunch of three-year-olds, read it to them. They'll eat it right up!

Avocado pound cake

I bought a 4-pack of avocados at Trader Joe's last week (that's a lot of avocados). Then I stumbled upon yet another FAB Joy the Baker recipe: Avocado Pound Cake. Avocados? Cake? I like both of those things! Combining them? Genius! Here is the recipe.

Avocado Pound Cake
3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup yellow cornmeal

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

3 cups sugar

4 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3/4 cup buttermilk

flesh of 1 1/2 ripe avocados, just over a cup to a cup and a half of avocado, mashed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour two loaf pans and set aside.  

In a medium sized bowl, sift together flour, cornmeal, salt, baking powder and baking soda.  Set aside.  Set the four eggs out on the counter to come to room temperature while you beat the butter and sugar.  

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter on medium speed until softened and pliable.  Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes.  Add the avocado and beat another minute to incorporate.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure that everything is thoroughly mixed.  

Add the eggs one at a time, beating 1 minute after the addition of each egg.  Beat in vanilla extract.  

Reduce the mixer speed to low and add half of the flour mixture, all of the buttermilk, and then the rest of the flour mixture.  Beat just until combined.  

Divide the dough between the two loaf pans and place in the oven.  Turn the oven down to 325 degrees F.   Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean.  I checked my cakes every ten minutes or so after the 30 minute mark.   Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

I cut the recipe in half and only made one loaf. I have to admit I don't really taste any avocado in the cake, but it is super moist and yummy! Try it out!

Sunny Sunday brunch

How great has the weather been for the past few days? Okay, maybe it's a liiiittle too hot. Maybe I got a liiiittle bit sunburned. Maybe I haven't been able to sleep because its 900 degrees in my room. But I will take this sunshine over rainy, windy, cloudy typical Boston weather ANY day. The sunshine inspired a brunch picnic Sunday morning (resulting in said sunburn). I cooked up some Joy the Baker buttermilk pancakes, with my own little added twist of pecans and bananas.

Ohhh MAN were they good! Here is the recipe.

1 cup buttermilk

2 eggs

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

1 cup all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

4 teaspoons light brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt

Whisk together milk, eggs and vegetable oil in a medium bowl, then whisk in the butter.

Stir together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in another medium bowl. Whisk in egg mixture until combined.

Spray a griddle or skillet with nonstick vegetable spray. Working in batches of 3 (or 6 if your griddle will allow) pour 1/3-cup measures of batter onto skillet and cool until bubbles have formed on the top and sides of the pancakes and broken, about 2 minutes. Flip pancakes with a spatula and cook until undersides are golden, about 1 minute more. Lower heat if pancakes brown too quickly. Serve with maple syrup or molasses.

We had ours with some maple syrup, strawberries, and... nutella. LoveloveLOVE!

Eaten while enjoying the Sunday edition of the NY Times - with my favorite section: wedding announcements! No, let's not get ahead of ourselves; I like to look for people from Cornell, Binghamton, or fun "how we met" stories.

It's about time I discovered we had a front yard: perfect little Sunday morning/afternoon! 

Stella

Saturday night Mike and I had our date night at Stella in the South End. Usually "date night" means cooking dinner for ourselves at my house, so this was a nice change of pace. We were celebrating the official end of Mike's first-year law school classes - wooohooo! We got a nice seat on the patio (for patio meal numero tres).

We started out with some hummus and bread. 

Due to the Boston water *crisis*, I replaced my water with a pink guava lemonade :)

I ordered the ricotta balls a buffalo mozzarella center - ohhh sooo creamy and cheesy and good.

With a side of asparagus -

grilled to perfection!

Mike got the seafood saffron risotto.

I do NOT like seafood and even I thought this was delish!

Except for this little friend lingering on the side.

Yuck.

We got warm pecan pie with vanilla gelato for dessert

Then we walked FIVE MILES from the South End --> home. So I don't even feel guilty about dessert!

Reason #63 why I love my job

Lately, we've been learning about farms in our classroom. It's been a really fun unit; playing in the mud, "milking a cow", making our own ice cream, and an upcoming trip to the farm! But we also obviously had to bake. For Christmas, Josie gave me these GREAT cookie cutters:

 cow,

 sheep,

 and bunny! 

I found the barn cookie cutter on my trip to Concord. Friday we spent the afternoon baking, decorating, and playing in the sunshine. And I get paid to do this??

Kudos to Ali for the adorable cow and sheep decorations. Here is one of the kids' magical creations!:

Five new purses

My mom just listed five more purses on etsy , so go check them out! Here is my favorite:

Hurry up and buy it, before I get it for myself!

Bottega Fiorentina

Friday night after work I met up with Fina for one of three sequential outdoor patio meals, the first at Bottega Fiorentina on Newbury St. This weather makes it pretty impossible to be inside!! We had the perfect spot for people watching, and, of course, sipping Sangria.

Fina ordered the Butternut Squash Tortellini in a sage butter sauce.

And I got Linguine with pesto

Toooo much pesto for my tastes! 

So I filled up on bread instead.

Definitely recommended for a super cheap, super authentic Italian meal!

Happy Friday!

The weekend is almost here!!

This morning's oatmeal mix:

Banana

Coconut

Chunky peanut butter

If you've never had PB in your oatmeal, do it NOW! Thanks for the idea, Kaitlin!

Open for business!

I am so happy to announce that my mom just launched her etsy site!:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/emmepurses 

Above is the purse she made for me. Here are some examples of the ones she has for sale:

Apricot silk with an adorable dragonfly pin

Black, white and hot pink!

They all have super cute liners, too.

Right now there are five up for sale, but she is making more and will post more soon. Each one is original. Check out her site, buy a purse, and check back soon for more!!

GO MOM!!!!

I DID IT!!

I made it on cutestfood.com!!!!!!

I submitted my Rainbow Cupcakes to cutestfood and they posted it!

Go look, go look, go look!!! I am a real baker blogger!!!

Ricotta gnocchi

Tonight I made homemade ricotta gnocchi. I've been wanting to make my own gnocchi forever, but always put it off because I thought it was really complicated and hard. Here's what I learned: it's actually so easy! Well, at least ricotta gnocchi is. I have yet to try making traditional potato gnocchi. Literally, you just combine your ingredients:

16 ounce container ricotta cheese, strained

1 egg

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 - 1 cup flour

That's it!

Okay, okay, it's slightly more complicated than that. But honestly, the hardest part was smooshing the dough into gnocchi form. Here is the full recipe:

Easy Ricotta Gnocchi
Serves 4

1 (16-ounce) container of whole-milk ricotta
1 large egg
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan or pecorino cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 - 1 cup flour

Set a strainer line with three coffee filters or paper towels over a bowl. Add the ricotta and let the cheese drain for about an hour. (This can be done several days in advance.)

In a large bowl, mix the strained ricotta, egg, cheese, and 3/4 cup of the flour until all ingredients are incorporated. Cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Check the dough by rolling a bit in your hand. It should be a bit tacky. If it clings to your fingers like bubble gum, incorporate more flour one tablespoon at a time until you reach a tacky, workable consistency. Refrigerate for another 15 minutes.

Before shaping, put a large pot of water on the stove to bring to a boil. Sprinkle a baking sheet with flour and set it close to your work space.

Sprinkle your hands and work surface with a little flour. Break off a tennis-ball sized piece of the dough and roll it into a thick log about 3/4-inch thick.

Using a bench scraper or sharp knife, cut the log into 3/4" pieces. You can leave them as little 'pillows' or shape them into the traditional grooved gnocchi by rolling them off the back of a fork with your thumb.

Transfer this batch to the baking sheet and toss with flour to prevent sticking. Repeat rolling process with the remaining dough.

Add 1 tablespoon of salt to the water and half of the gnocchi. Gently stir the gnocchi to make sure they don't stick. Once they bob to the surface, let them cook an additional 2 minutes. Remove gnocchi with a slotted spoon and transfer to a colander set over a bowl to finish draining.

Repeat with second batch of gnocchi.

Toss the gnocchi with sauce and serve immediately.

It doesn't look quite as delish in the photo, but trust me - they were soooo good. 

Make them, NOW!

Nantucket Daffodil Weekend

On Friday I made my very first trip to Nantucket! I went to babysit for Daffodil Weekend, which I looooved. Flowers EVERYWHERE!

Saturday was totally gorgeous, and we went to the beach to collect shells, then in to town to watch the parades.



First we watched the antique car parade.

Then, my favorite parade ever - dogs!

There was even a french bulldog!! Adorable :)

Unfortunately, on Sunday it rained. 

But, we made the best of it with a trip to the Whaling Museum!

Call me a nerd, but whales are kinda cool? This one is only a baby - not even fully grown!

Cute kids, nice weather, a trip to the beach, a french bulldog in a daffodil costume - all in all a great weekend on Nantucket!