Dailyish Pictures: March 2008 Archives
It was multicultural night last night at Kyna's school. When I went in to help set up the night before I was handed a paintbrush that had obviously been lovingly hammered against the table for awhile and a palette of primary colors, then pointed towards a large section of wall covered in blue craft paper. 'Make a sea scene' were the instructions and this, this fabulous masterpiece, is the result. They even gave me credit!
Somehow I have to fit in my clothes too. This is the pile of random photos I've collected over the years plus the recently printed ones that I plan to miraculously put into some chronological order in the next two days. Yet another fine example of my generally over-confident nature.
Spring!
I came across a recipe for sticky toffee pudding in an old Martha Stewart magazine and immediately had a craving for the delicious rum caramel sauce that usually accompanies the spiced date cake. Unfortunately I couldn't find the exact recipe on her site (Martha must be slipping, the magazine was only from 2007) but here is a version that looks close.
I substituted a 8x8x2 square baking dish instead of individual ramekins, and only used 2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, and 2 eggs. I also boiled the dates in 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup rum.
In addition, I used the following sauce instead of the one listed on the website, because that one is missing the rum, which was the whole point of baking the cake in the first place:
1 cup cream, 1/4 cup butter and 1 cup brown sugar all boiled together for three minutes over medium heat, followed by the addition of 1/3 cup rum and an additional minute of boiling.
Kyna recently received a pack of marshmallow chicks and was terribly disappointed that she couldn't add them to the ever growing menagerie of stuffed, plastic and wooden animals we have slowly taking over the house, due to their stickiness and tendency to chemically decompose into whatever petroleum derivatives they were originally made from. So for Easter I bought these little pipe cleaner chicks and put them in eggs along the treasure trail
I promise to let you know what our characters are after next Wednesday.
There were these amazing fruit (?) hanging off of rampant vines rambling all over the place which, to the best of my research are wild cucumber. The seeds are poisonous. Not that you'd ever guess that would you, I mean all those prickles just scream Eat Me!
Kyna and I went for a wonderful hike in a nearby park and I have two hundred more pictures coming up...
I love the undaunted fearlessness of kittens. Never mind that I weigh forty times more than they do, or that I tower over them like a house, they still plot to take me down with brazen obviousness and deluded confidence that they will succeed.
My mother and I recently went to the dollar store which was quite the eye opening experience. Along with some pickled mushrooms (only a dollar!) I bought these chinese almond cookies purely on the basis of the pinkness of their packaging, which more than makes up for the mediocre quality of the cookies inside.
This is my first ever coconut cake. Kyna and I made it the other day, and yes that is purple icing. Baking is nothing without a little color. The crumbly side was cut when the cake was still warm and the flat side after it had come out of the fridge. I highly recommend the recipe if you like moist dense cakes. We used a cream cheese icing which, as much as I love it, I don't recommend. I ended up scraping off the icing and eating the cake with cut up mango and vanilla ice-cream. It was perfect.
Recipe: www.epicurious.com
Subsitutions I used:
- canned coconut milk instead of real milk
- 1 cup dessicated coconut instead of 1 1/2
Not that I've ventured into making it myself yet, but I'm totally into macrame. I hear it's in for a revival. I swear!
This is a heart coin purse that my sister Lovage gave to me. I love, love, love it and I keep it on my desk under my cork board. It holds the pins.
From my morning walk.
La Jolla Shores at sunset.
I've had this cartoon clipping for as long as I can remember, and I still smile at it.
This has not been altered in photoshop at all, the bag really was that orange, and in the bright midday sun I couldn't help but notice it stuck there under the bush.
