Category Archives: Cooking

A wintersport i can get into

January 28, 2013

Last week I was invited to go cross country skiing with my neighbor friend and a friend of hers. I have been itching to see some snow and cross country skiing is much for my speed. If you know me at all you know I’m not super adventurous especially when it comes to risking my life so downhill winter sports aren’t really my thang.

We got all of our equipment rented and headed about an hour outside the city. It’s so cool that you can drive a little ways away and bam it’s winter and you’re in the snow! It’s kind of awesome. The sun was shining and the snow was beautiful and I was with good company.

We skied a little ways down the trail chatting and looking around at all the snow and the beautiful lake we were skiing along side. After maybe an hour or so we stopped to have lunch and turned back around. Then we headed back home and said bye to the snow.

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A little bit of baking

January 24, 2013

I must be in a baking mood because I want to make just about every tasty thing I see. Over the weekend I made the most delicious meyer lemon bars and most recently I made Pepparkakar. It’s a traditional Swedish spiced Christmas cookie. I got a recipe from a good friend while I was visiting in Austin and forgot about it until recently. I searched it out and discovered I had all I needed (almost-I’ll explain) and got started.

The recipe is as follows:

-1 cup butter                                 -I TBSP water

-1 1/2 cups sugar                          -3 1/4 cups flour

-1 egg                                           -2 tsp baking soda

-1 1/2 TBSP grated orange peel   -2 tsp cinnamon

-2 TBSP molasses                        -1 tsp ginger

-1/2 tsp ground cloves

-I only made a half recipe and to deal with splitting 1 egg I weighed it, beat it, and weighed out half (it worked really well).

-The recipe calls for dark corn syrup but I only had molasses on hand so I used that instead.

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-First I creamed the butter and sugar, then I added the egg, orange peel, water, and molasses.DSC_1237

-Next I sifted the flour with the baking soda and all 3 spices. I slowly added the flour mixture to the wet ingredients until combined.DSC_1240

-Then I chilled the dough in the fridge for a few hours.DSC_1243

-I rolled out the dough very thinly and used my smallest biscuit cutter to make rounds (you can make any shape you like). I then used my spatula to lift them from the counter to the cookie sheet. I set the oven at 350 F and when they were slightly browned I took them out. I didn’t set a timer but I would guess it took around 7 minutes.DSC_1246

-The Pepparkakar ready to eat! I bet they would go so well with a cup of tea! DSC_1248

A bakery treat

January 22, 2013

I had some business downtown the other day and on my way I noticed these delicious treats in the window. On my way home I decided to splurge. I chose a coconut cream pie bite and a peanut butter chocolate cupcake. I patiently waited until I was home to indulge. I was especially happy that one of my treats came in the super cute and tiny boxes. They were both equally delicious. I hope I have business downtown again soon!

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