Double Dekkerdoodles

For Jeff's Dad's birthday last week Sunday, we wanted to bake homemade snickerdoodles for his gift.

We ran out of sugar in early January but luckily I had a ton of left over Splenda from my attempt to make Apple Cinnamon Jam as a Birthday gift for someone with Diabetes... 'This should work,' I told myself, 'after all its just like sugar.' Unfortunately, I kept waiting for the jam to become jiggly but it never did. So I looked over the packaging to make sure I had followed all the steps.... I had. It wasn't until I put the box in the recycle bin that I realized my mistake. The pectin box states very boldly on the front and sides, "DO NOT USE WITH IMITATION SUGAR," Oops...

***
'Baking cookies would be doable with Splenda,' I told myself, 'after all its just like sugar.' When mixing Splenda with the the ingredients it created wet clumps that were the consistancy and color of runny scrambled eggs rather than cookie batter. We stirred in the flour and baked them anyway but they stayed in the shape of the round balls that we had rolled them into instead of expanding, puffing, and flattening out as the recipe promised. Jeff and I reluctantly ate the batch of dry, sickeningly sweet, and crumbly cookies. In fact, I saved the last one for him!! I hid it in the cooled oven forgetting about it until one week later (after preheating the oven for this second batch of Dekkerdoodles.) This made for one hard, chard cookie. You can imagine our disappointment. ;0p

I bought just enough sugar to make these Dekkerdoodles:








Even the ones that I had to roll in splenda/ cinnamon are equally as tasty. I was hesitant to do this as my track record using Splenda so far had been quite poor. But thankfully they turned out fine. Phew.

Roses are... frosting?

While working at Marble Slab Creamery, as their cake creator/ brownie baker/ and cookie dough maker, I discovered my passion for decorating cakes. It was working there that I also discovered the deliciousness that is buttercream frosting... (For our per shift free treat I sometimes used a tiny helping of buttercream as my ice cream mix in) soooo delicious.

However, I had never attempted homemade buttercream frosting... nor had I tried making a rose from frosting before. Lets just say making a frosting rose is one of the most very challenging kitchen crafting projects I've ever attempted. Part of what made it difficult was that I could not find the proper tool: a rose pin. So, I used a meat thermometer instead because it was similar in shape (but not size) as the tools used in the frosting rose making demonstrations I had seen on youtube. I was proud of my craftiness until it didn't work so well. The raised rim around the circular thermometer platform made it impossible to lift off to place on the cake with ease. After many failed attempts and many globs of frosting in my tummy later, I finally got one good one (after about 10 tries) which ended up not so centered on Jeff's birthday cake... Oops.


Happy Birthday Jeff! :0)

End of November Review

November was kind of a blah month for us. We were both ill for the majority of November. Yeah, there were a few days when we felt better... being sick is exhausting. It is fine when one of us is sick as the well person can take care of the sick one, but we learned we can manage to take care of each other even though neither of us felt great. I remember thinking how I was thankful that we are usually pretty healthy and I was happy that we would both feel much better in a few days. But the few days turned into a few weeks... the sickness continued without reprieve. Our 1 year anniversary was low-key because of this. It was just nice to relax together. We finally got Jeff in to see the doctor on the 30th because he was so sick and has some lumps on his neck. The doctor thinks he probably has swollen lymph nodes from a sinus infection so he is on antibiotics for the next week or so. :0( Here's to hoping they work!

Our apartment looks as ill as we do. Thats all I'm going to say about that.

Our dear friend Hope visited us mid-November! This was a huge highlight for us as we really enjoy her company. It was just like the old days at Calvin- our sophomore year, the three of us hung out all the time. :0)

Thanksgiving was nice. We spent it with Jeff's family, had a nice traditional turkey dinner, and I fell asleep on their couch after the meal.

I started reading the book Hot Flat and Crowded. It is interesting so far and I'm on page 300 out of like 400.

On Our budget: We did really well this month and saved 1/3 of our income again this month. This of course doesn't reflect the fact that we paid off ALL our loans: for school and my car. But these special transactions came out of savings so they were not pulled from our monthly income. Jeff's and my anniversary gift to each other is being Debt Free!! We saved up our money and decided we would start our second year of marriage off right! We are both relieved not to have to take these moneys out each month and more importantly, now we can continue to save up our money for a house, and kids, and exciting endeavors like that! :0)

I finally mailed my sister's birthday gift on the 30th of Nov...... a month and a 1/2 late. I'm such a bad sister. We hope they like them though.

Birthday Pizza

Jeff came home with beautiful flowers and a the Beatles 1 CD for my birthday.

After listening to the CD and slow dancing together in our living room we couldn't figure out what else to do to celebrate. The day before, we had already gone out for breakfast at Bread and Ink to celebrate my 26 years. We agreed we didn't want to spend too much more money and figured we were both hungry for pizza of the homemade variety. After going by Winco to pick up the necessary pizza ingredients I realized I was hungry for birthday cake. We quickly scoped out Fred Meyer's dessert selection and picked out two frosting filled cupcakes with gigantic frosting flowers each proportional to the cups of cake.


It was around 7:15... too late, we thought, to start making the pizza if we were to stop by his family's house later. So, we decided to head on over to the Dekker family's house for Josh's beef and vegetable curry. Although I didn't get around to making the birthday pizza until tonight, I did take a few photos of the garlic, basil, shallot, yellow & red tomato, gruyere & mozzarella cheese pizza. It's in the oven now wafting heavenly scents of tomato, spices, and cheese through the kitchen...I can't wait to taste it!




The tomatoes used on the pizza were from Jeff's mom who gave me this beautiful box of fruits and veggies complete with a small bouquet of autumn colored mums. I can't wait to use the rest of this fresh produce in my cooking!

Our Breakfast Place

This morning I spontaneously suggested to Jeff that we go to Bread and Ink for Breakfast. Thankfully, he thought that was a great idea! We usually go on special occasions like Birthdays and monthly anniversaries. And because we didn't go out to eat on our anniversary this month, we thought we should celebrate my going to California... a last hurrah together if you will. We love this restaurant because of its commitment to using delicious local foods and the atmosphere is fantastic.

Sarah and Jeff @ Bread and Ink!


I got a Citrus Avocado Salad and Jeff got Asparagus Risotto. MMMMmmmmm! We also decided on 2 desserts. Coffee Ice cream (the best I'd ever had) and this Cassatta lemon cake with chocolate ganache frosting (we are saving it for after dinner tonight-can't wait). Money well spent!

We also window shopped on Hawthorne street, which is one of the neatest places to do so.

Birthday Boy!

Jeff turned 25 this past week!


I had a busy but fun time preparing for his birthday. I made for the main course: basil, parmesan and onion meatballs, corn, red potatoes mashed with rosemary and gruyere cheese; funfetti birthday cake for dessert; and sweet riesling wine to sip. I didn't use any one recipe for either the meatballs or the mashed potatoes.

Tasted better than it looks.

I also made a trip down town to Powell's Book store and bought a few books for his birthday.
* The happiness Project
*A couple's cook book
* Born to Run