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Recipe: pistachio macarons

I seem to be taking a bit of a risk blogging tonight. We have crazy wind storms raging around us, shaking our house and flickering our lights. Actually, our power went out last night right after my post, so I was lucky to hit the Submit button when I did. We’ve had several power dips throughout the day already. That and my right shoulder is jacked up for whatever reason, so hanging out on the computer isn’t such a good idea (at least not for long).

The power dips didn’t matter too much today because I was making Chinese dumplings. It’s something we eat every New Year (both western and Chinese new years). I made both the pork and shrimp fillings and cooked them into potstickers and steamed dumplings.

filling the steamer

felt great to sit down to eat

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Recipe: mussels in white wine sauce

My dad skyped me this evening and I was all giggles because Jeremy and I had already broken into the champagne. Even though we stay up past midnight most evenings, we usually turn in before the year flips on New Year’s Eve. We enjoyed a bottle of bubbly with our dinner tonight.

i know this is a favorite of squid, barbara, and mollie

The typical thing to do at the close of the year is to reflect and perhaps list favorites or tick off milestones of the year. I feel I got a very good look at 2008 during 2008 – like traveling the road with my face 2 inches from the pavement. All of the bad times are quite fresh, but more importantly all of the good times are also vivid in my mind. I am really happy to not only be alive, but to be more or less healthy (it’s hard to really know), and definitely living on my terms. In volleyball, we always used to tell each other, “on your toes!” so you’d be ready for anything the offense would dump over the net – a dink, off the block, hard line, cross court, six-pack in the face. I feel as if I live my life “on my toes” now. That comes with the territory when you lose someone close to you or don’t know if you will survive your disease or experience one of those curve balls (I like to think of it as a wicked floater serve instead) that life pitches and sends you sprawling on your ass. Keep your eye on the ball.

back to breckenridge with my honey

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Recipe: french yule log

It’s that time again… time for another Daring Bakers Challenge! This month’s challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.

daring bakers: we knead to bake!

I very much have a love-hate relationship with the Daring Bakers these days. I love learning new techniques and skills that I would otherwise never think to try on my own and there are some really fantastic bakers in the community who inspire me to keep coming back each month for more punishment. I’m almost always glad to have completed a challenge no matter how many disastrous steps along the way, I just don’t know how long I will continue to keep it up.

At first blush, I rolled my eyes when I read that our challenge was a yule log. We did that last December. However, after reading up on the difference between this month’s French yule log and its jellyroll cousin, I was game. It’s a more complex assembly and required some fast thinking when various components didn’t work out. I felt the instructions were overly simplified in many places and just plain vague in others. In the end, it came together nicely, but I won’t lie to you and say I didn’t do a fair bit of cussing along the way.

**Jump for more butter**