Posts Tagged ‘photography’

I’ve been wanting to make chocolate chip cookies for several days, but the butter just wouldn’t soften! (I don’t like to microwave my butter to soften it, as it usually melts some and then the cookie dough isn’t the right consistency.) After four days, it was finally to a reasonable mush-level . . . then I realized that the brown sugar had gotten left in the car, which Michael had at work.

Nothing, however, was going to stop me from making cookies. So I went on a search for brown sugar-less cookies and found these. They looked sooo tasty, and I had all the ingredients on-hand. Or so I thought.

Apparently we used the last of the baking soda (along with the last of the vinegar), while unclogging sinks recently. Which meant I didn’t have the proper leavening.

Not one to give up easily, especially when I already have half the ingredients mixed together, I decided to try a substitution. I know, I know, there isn’t a substitute for baking soda. But I went ahead and added more baking powder and figured it was worth a try. If it didn’t work, the worst that would happen would be flat cookies.

But it wasn’t a failure! The baking powder worked! Actually, when Michael came home, after he came back from Cloud 9 when he tasted the first one, he asked how I made the cookies so fluffy. Success!

I made the cookies 4 different ways – with m&m’s, with white chocolate chips, with miniature chocolate chips, and plain. The ones with white chocolate chips look the prettiest, but our favorite is the miniature chocolate chip version. I also want to try them with chopped bits of Andes mints. Mmmmm. That sounds delicious.

The original recipe can be found here, but I made a couple of very small tweaks to my batter and cooking time to come up with this:

Double Chocolate Cookies

• 1 C. soft butter (not melted)
• 1 1/2 C. sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 tsp. vanilla
• 2 C. flour
• 2/3 C. cocoa
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• mix-ins, as desired

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Beat together butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla till creamy.

Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. Gradually stir into the butter mixture.

Mix in the chocolate chips, candies, nuts, etc.

Shape into 1″ balls and place on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes.

Let the cookies sit on the cookie sheet for a minute after removing them from the oven, then let them finish cooling on a wire rack.

We had our 20-week ultrasound yesterday. It was absolutely incredible to see the baby. We got to watch his heart beating, and see him wiggling around, his hands up over his face as if he were trying to hide from the paparazzi. I had to fight not to cry, since the tears were blurring my vision so that I couldn’t see the screen.

Seeing our little one has taken away the feelings of surrealism, those moments when I’ve wondered, “Have I just been dreaming and I’m going to wake up soon and realize I’m not actually pregnant?” It’s made it more real for Michael as well . . . last night he began really talking to the baby (which, of course, sent tears spilling down my cheeks). And being able to refer to our little one by name, rather than as “he or she,” or even as “the baby,” is also amazing.

Here are the very first pictures of our beautifully knit together little boy.

Well, Michael and I have been married for 14 months now and I’m just getting around to putting together a photo book. Although, if you factor in that we didn’t get the photos until about 6 months after the wedding, I guess I’m really not so far behind after all.

{photo from our friend Rachael J.}

I’m actually planning on creating two different albums – one with all the professional photos and one with all the photos that friends and family took. (And I’m going to put together a small book with the photos from my 3-year-old niece.)

 {photo of the pro photographer, Caroline Ghetes, by 3-year-old Sophia, taken with Rachael J’s camera}

 

How many wedding albums do you have? How long did it take you to put them together?

As I mentioned earlier, I spent last weekend in Oregon to see a friend who was getting married. While I was there, I made the bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages for the wedding. Unfortunately, my camera battery charger didn’t make it on the trip with me, but I was able to borrow a photo from the reception photographer to share here.

The wedding colors were red, black, and white, and the bride chose red roses and red and deep purple (the closest she could find to black) miniature calla lilies for her bouquet. So I arranged them, cut them to her desired length, and wrapped up the stems with ribbon.

{via}

I can’t wait to see the rest of the pictures!

Yesterday I moved the bowl of fruit from my dining room table to the kitchen counter and brought in a tiny bouquet of daisies. Set into a small creamer  and placed atop a couple of vintage readers, they make a lovely, simple centerpiece for our table (and a cheap one, too!).

Daisies are such happy, friendly flowers. Even these miniature ones are bright and cheerful.

Sometimes I just can’t decide whether I prefer b&w or vivid color.

 

“If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.” {Nadine Stair}

 

{I’m playing with some new watermark ideas and toying with the idea of getting back into photography.}

This past Saturday I took part in my second dance recital of the season . . . my first recital as director of my own studio. Immediately following the performance we had dinner together, potluck style. The whole thing went beautifully from start to finish and I was so proud of all my dancers!

These roses were a gift from my students, presented to me at the very end of the recital.

Last week while he was cutting the grass, Michael noticed a bunch of berries in our side yard and called me out to look at them. At first glance they looked like blackberries, but they were growing on a huge tree, rather than a bush, and they’re more elongated than blackberries. We also had a group of berries that looked like teeny-tiny blueberries (though most of them weren’t yet ripe). I grabbed a handful of each, along with some of the leaves and looked them up online. A few websites later I had my answer . . . we have a mulberry tree and a huckleberry bush!

The mulberries are delicious and I think I want to try making a peach-mulberry cobbler or pie, and maybe some mulberry lemonade. I haven’t tried the huckleberries yet since they’re not quite ripe but, from what I’ve read, they can be used in any recipe that typically uses blueberries . . . muffins, pancakes, buckles.

Have you ever had mulberries or huckleberries? Are there any great recipes I should try?