use real butter

Recipe: chocolate caramels

First off: that puppy is not mine. She belongs to my friend’s new beau. Her name is Sonora (I like dogs named after geological provinces or features) and she is 100% mutt.

Second: My shoulder and neck issues are more or less under control now, thanks! I gave up on the marathon coding sessions and now take breaks every couple of hours – which is great because I have resumed my 1-2 hours of cardio and that makes me uber happy. In addition, it is a great excuse to get back to some baking and cooking. Oh, and I ice my shoulder a couple of times a day and that reduces the inflammation. Heat always seems to aggravate the pain.

To the topic at hand: Fellow food bloggers have often wondered aloud (or on their posts) why they bother spending hours writing up entries if people don’t bother reading them? How do they know that some folks don’t read the entry? It’s pretty obvious from the content of certain comments. I am not all that concerned with whether or not people read my posts in their entirety or at all for that matter. It’s cool. I understand that some folks just like to browse the pictures (and if you’re a Daring Baker, who the hell has the time to read over 1000 entries describing the SAME recipe?) If someone wants to comment without having read the post, then that’s fine, although I might get a tad snarky in my reply if I’m running low on patience.

**Jump for more butter**

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

**Jump for more butter**

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**