Getting ready for Christmas

This year Amado and I felt a little bit more festive than usual. Stockings are hung on top of the fireplace also known as our TV. I just have to fill them with something. Windows are trimmed with garlands but it's still missing something. I might add more ornaments to it this week. We both agreed to include ourselves in our Holiday cards this year. Kudos to USPS for next day delivery! This is the first time you'll hear me praise USPS publicly.

We tried to be a little funky with our Holiday cards. I hope people get that we were going for the Awkward Family Portrait theme. Amado's expression in our photo is priceless. He had the "too happy while gazing off camera" look pinned down while Kami (wearing reindeer antlers) was clearly not having it.

Made our very first gingerbread house. Trader Joes have some really cool and easy to put together kits. I kinda wish we bought 2 because we finished decorating the one we bought so quick. 

We also got a Christmas tree, well kinda. We have Ikea to thank for our glow-in-the-dark Christmas tree curtain. I didn't realize it was glow-in-the-dark until I was shutting down everything before going to bed. They were sold out at the store closest to us and online so Amado insisted that we drive all the way to Costa Mesa that same day or else he wouldn't have been able to sleep.

Solvang

Sometime last week, Amado woke up early and really hungry (no surprise there). We could have just walked down the street and grabbed some bagels and coffee but we thought why not go for a drive.

That hunger lead us all the way to Solvang. Yep, Solvang! I've never been there before and was curious enough to see what I've been missing out on, so why not drive for 2 hours for some Danish adventure.

I was stalking this house. Nothing special about it but I love that it was all white and just highlights everything thing with color around it.

If Eggs Benedict is on the menu, I'm getting it. I might make it a home for breakfast one of these days specially after seeing Ree Drummond (Pioneer Woman) make it.

They were not happy with our next destination. We thought it would be a fun one since we've never seen ones before but the girls just growled, barked and jumped the whole time.  

Instead, Amado and I took turns holding the girls while the other one walked around the ostrich farm. That's a lot of Birkins and Kellys, just kidding. But those giant birds are really aggressive.

Tres Leches Cake

I was working on some images last Wednesday when I got an IM from Amado. I think we're the last two people on earth who still use AIM to chat.

Amado: Ok I, we have a project for tomorrow. I need you to make a Tres Leches Cake for Friday.
Me: Uhm, I never made one before.
Amado: I know! That's the fun part :) It's for my Manager's birthday.

I had a feeling he's already committed to the task even before he asked me so the only option for me was to say "yes". I knew it wasn't going to be a hard one to take on anyway.

Like the rest of my most recent recipes, I looked for one by Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman). Her recipes are really simple but really good. You can follow her recipe below. The cake in the first photo was made out of scrap pieces. Can't waste the good stuff! 

I wasn't able to take a photo of the finished cake because I wanted to wait for Amado to figure out how he wanted to decorate it. You can check out his Instagram photos here and here for the finished product.

It took every ounce of energy to hold myself back from licking the remnants of condensed milk off of that teaspoon. 

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour

1-1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

5 whole eggs, separated

1 cup sugar, divided 3/4 & 1/4

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/3 cup milk

1 can evaporated millk

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup heavy cream

Icing:

1 pint heavy cream

3 tablespoons sugar

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Beat egg yolks with 3/4 cup sugar on high speed until yolks are pale yellow. Stir in milk and vanilla. Pour egg yolk mixture over the flour mixture and stir very gently until combined. 

Beat egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. With the mixer on, pour in remaining 1/4 cup sugar and beat until egg whites are stiff but not dry. Fold egg white mixture into the batter very gently until just combined. Pour into prepared pan and spread to even out the surface. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Turn cake out onto a rimmed platter and allow to cool. 

Combine condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream in a small pitcher. When cake is cool, pierce the surface with a fork several times. Slowly drizzle all but about 1 cup of the milk mixture—try to get as much around the edges of the cake as you can. Allow the cake to absorb the milk mixture for 30 minutes.

To ice the cake, whip 1 pint heavy cream with 3 tablespoons of sugar until thick and spreadable. Spread over the surface of the cake.

Antthony Video 3

Antthony for HSN video number 3.

Homemade Hummus

Once in a while, Amado drops some not-so-subtle hints when he wants me to cook him something. Last weekend it was "Oooh, homemade hummus would be good right now!" Since we got our new blender, I thought I'd put it to use and make some homemade hummus.

Ingredients

1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup tahini
1 large garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 to 1 teaspoon kosher salt, to taste
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 can chickpeas (15oz)
2 to 3 tablespoons water
Dash of ground paprika and olive oil for serving

Drain the chickpeas, rinse under cold water and set aside.

Blend lemon juice and tahini for about 1 minute until creamy. Scrape the sides of the pitcher with a spatula (something you will do atleast 10 times or so making hummus) and blend for another minute.

Add the garlic, salt, cumin, olive oil and blend for another minute. Again, scrape the sides to make sure everything is incorporated well.

Add in half of the chickpeas and blend for a minute. Scrape the sides (again!), add the remaining half of the chickpeas and blend for another minute or two.

A table spoon at a time, add some water until the consistency is to your liking.

If there's some chunks remaining, pass the hummus through a sieve. Drizzle some olive oil and sprinkle on some paprika to serve.

*You can roast the garlic in some olive oil, salt and pepper first before mincing.

Dobash Birthday Cake

For my family, King's Hawaiian cakes are the go-to cakes for any occasions. It's always been a toss up between Dobash and Paradise cake. A Dobash cake has been on the top of my To-Do list and I finally had the opportunity to make it for Amado's birthday. If you haven't tried one yet, it's pretty much like taking a huge bite off a fluffy cloud. Oh and it's a chocolate cloud with each layer frosted and the top drizzled with chocolate milk ganache. Heaven, right?!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to take photos of each step while making the cake because I was preparing 2 other dishes at for that night so this one of Amado blowing out his birthday cake will do for now.

Homemade Cannoli

Last year our New York trip was cut short because of the hurricane. While we got to squeeze in as much as we had planned, one thing that was left unfulfilled for Amado was devouring a Veniero's cannoli. Since then, he's been on a mission to find a good (local) Italian bakery but he's given up after a couple of months so I decided to tackle making some myself.

The shell is pretty easy to make. It calls for the very basic ingredients much like a pasta dough. I did cheat a little by using my pasta maker instead of rolling out the dough by hand. The filling on the other hand took me 3 different tries to get it right. There are tons of the ricotta cheese filling recipes online but I couldn't get over the gritty texture. I also tried folding in some whipped cream in the second batch to lighten the filling but it still wasn't quite right. The ricotta and marscapone combination finally did the trick. Perfect consistency and you can control the sweetness with powdered sugar.

Cannoli Recipe:

4 cups sifted flour

3 tbsp butter

2 egg yolks (save the egg whites)

2 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup white wine

vegetable oil (for frying)

Combine the sifted flour, sugar, and salt a bowl. Cut in the butter into the dry ingredients. Add the egg yolks. Stir in the wine a tbsp at a time, until a doughlike consistency forms.

Roll the dough into a ball. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for at least 1/2 hour.

Cut the dough into 4 smaller portions for easy handling. Roll dough balls with a rolling pin on a floured  surface until it's thin. Cut in 4" circles. Wrap the circles around the cannoli forms and seal the ends with an egg white wash. Fry in vegetable oil until brown for about 1-2 minutes. Drain and gently remove the forms. Let it cool completely before filling.

Filling:

2 16oz ricotta cheese

2 8oz marscapone cheese

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 tbsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate 

He finally got his homemade cannoli!