Yesterday I had the pleasure of photographing Nicole and Colin’s beautiful wedding at the Morrison House in Old Town Alexandria. It was such a chilly day (thankfully sans three feet of snow like our northeastern friends!) so it was nice to stay warm and cozy inside this wonderful venue.
Nicole’s aunt, helping with the jewelry. (Nicole, you have the best skin ever! Gorgeous.)
Mom joins in – getting ready is always a team effort!
Nicole and Colin opted to see each other before the ceremony, so we met in the library for this incredibly sweet moment.
We stepped outside for approximately two minutes – with a wind chill in the 20s, and quite a strong breeze, we stayed close to the door!
The ceremony in the parlor was beautiful and intimate, with friends and family standing close by.
I loved the setting in the Louis XVI dining room, where everyone was seated together.
Guests took home these adorable heart-shaped cookies. Love my cute little helper here!
One more quick portrait outside. It was even colder once the sun set, of course, but I think it was totally worth it!
Nicole and Colin, thank you so much for inviting me to join you on such a special occasion, and for trusting me to capture your wedding day memories. It was so nice meeting you both, and I wish you a lifetime of joy together!
So, usually my lessons are on Sundays – that’s the easiest day for me to cook and photograph, but this weekend is going to be a little busy. Therefore I’m showing you something I made last month! And I’m going to count this as an extra credit lesson because 1.) it wasn’t on my original list, and 2.) I made it over the holidays before my resolution officially began. In any case, I ran across this recipe for fudge that I knew Chris would love, so I wanted to give it a try. Making candy is actually kind of hard! And sort of intimidating. I did a little research before I got started, and I read that making fudge requires precision and exact timing, so already I knew this would be a challenge for me. I have a really hard time with the timing of everything in the kitchen because I get distracted so easily while reading a recipe. I’m all, “step 5, pour the… ooo look, a shiny thing!” And there are a lot of shiny things in the kitchen.
Where was I?
Oh yes, timing. I bought an inexpensive candy thermometer (I don’t see myself making candy very frequently) so I could bring the ingredients exactly to the temperature of the soft ball stage, which incidentally has nothing to do with sports. I was terrified not only of passing up the correct temperature, but also of burning myself. Amazingly enough I didn’t! And I just watched that thermometer until the mercury rose to the “soft ball stage” line and then followed the next steps.
Here’s where I ran into an issue. When I added the vanilla, butter and flour, the recipe didn’t explain what to do with it. Stir it until smooth? Whisk it quickly? If you look at the original recipe it just reads, “Remove from the heat and add butter, vanilla extract and flour. Pour into a 9×13-inch pan and let sit for 20 minutes.” The flour immediately lumped up, and in my research I had read that if you stir at the wrong phase you can ruin the fudge, so I wasn’t sure what to do! I decided to just whisk the lumps as much as I could because I didn’t think they’d work themselves out, and then I continued the recipe. (Note that I added this step to the recipe below.) It was very awkward scraping the fudge out of the pan and into the stand mixing bowl and I was only able to scrape it in chunks, but it did eventually whip up into a ball (which wouldn’t have been possible without my new stand mixer).
What I learned: Candy really does require precision! And I learned about the soft ball stage of candy.
What went well: I had all of my ingredients ready to go before I started. This helped tremendously with the timing of everything. And I didn’t burn myself!
What I can do better next time: When it was time to press the fudge into the 8×8 pan, I wasn’t sure what to press it with. I scrambled around looking for something – I should have been more prepared. I ended up using the bottom of my largest measuring cup, which worked fine.
Chris and I thought the fudge was really good, although it didn’t taste exactly like cookie dough. I think I got the texture right though! Lesson complete.
Cookie Dough Fudge
Author: Adapted from wildeinthekitchen.blogspot.com
Ingredients
1 3/4 cups sugar
3/4 cups dark brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup 2% milk
1 tbsp corn syrup
1 tsp kosher salt
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup chocolate chips
Instructions
In a 4-quart pot, combine sugars, heavy cream, milk, corn syrup and salt. Insert a candy thermometer and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, to 242 F. Remove from the heat and add butter, vanilla extract and flour. Whisk together until smooth. Pour into a 9×13-inch pan and let sit for 20 minutes.
Coat an 8×8-inch pan with cooking spray, wipe out excess oil with a napkin. Scrape the hardened candy syrup into the bowl of a stand mixer and beat with the paddle attachment until the fudge comes together into a ball. Scrape fudge into the prepared 8×8 pan and press into a flat layer. Add chocolate chips and press into the fudge.
Let sit at room temperature to crystallize, do not put into the fridge as it will disrupt the natural crystallization process. Once the fudge is cooled and the chocolate chips are set, place in the fridge for 1 hour (this will make the fudge easy to cut). Cut into 1-inch pieces and serve!
It’s another breakfast lesson this week! I made Huevos Rancheros this morning, and before today I didn’t even know what Huevos Rancheros was, so I’m putting that in the “what I learned” bucket for sure. And, I had never cooked or eaten a sunny-side-up egg before. I found the recipe at Annie’s Eats. She has a ton of yummy-looking recipes I’d like to make!
I followed the directions in the original recipe, except I didn’t want to use my new food processor because Chris was still sleeping and I wasn’t sure how loud it would be. I decided to use my hand blender instead, and that worked just fine since it was just mixing beans and spices. Oh and I didn’t have a heavy cast iron skillet to heat the tortillas, so I just used a regular skillet. I also copied Annie’s food presentation almost exactly because I have no idea what this usually looks like.
What I learned: I learned what Huevos Rancheros is, and I learned that sometimes it’s totally fine to use another appliance instead of what the recipe calls for – a hand blender instead of a food processor, for instance.
What went well:It was delicious!
What I can do better next time: I made a huge mess. Maybe I can work on cleaning as I go?!
Huevos Rancheros
Author: adapted from annies-eats.com
Serves: 6
Ingredients
3 cups cooked black beans, divided (or 2 15-oz. cans, drained and rinsed)
Juice of 1 lime
¾ tsp. ground cumin
½ tsp. cayenne pepper
½ tsp. kosher salt
2-3 tbsp. chicken or vegetable broth (optional)
2-3 tbsp. butter, divided
6 (6-inch) corn tortillas
6 large eggs
To serve:
Shredded cheese, such as pepper jack, white cheddar or Monterey jack
Fresh salsa (about 1½ cups)
Sour cream
Hot sauce
Sliced avocado
Cilantro, for garnish
Instructions
In the bowl of a food processor, combine 1½ cups of the black beans, lime juice, cumin, cayenne, and salt. Process until smooth. If necessary, add broth 1 tablespoon at a time to achieve an even consistency. (Alternative method: you can use a hand blender to process the beans, spices and lime juice.) Transfer the mixture to a bowl or saucepan and mix in the remaining 1½ cups of beans. Set aside.
In a skillet, melt ½ tablespoon of the butter over high heat. One at a time, add the first three tortillas to the skillet, flipping once, until slightly charred on both sides. Transfer to a plate. Melt an additional ½ tablespoon of butter and brown the remaining tortillas. Set aside.
In a large non-stick skillet, melt the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter over medium heat. Gently crack the eggs into the pan. Season with salt and pepper and let cook until the white is fully cooked through but the yolk is still soft. (Cook eggs in batches if necessary.) Meanwhile, heat the bean mixture until warmed through either in the microwave or on the stove.
Place each tortilla on a plate. Spoon some of the bean mixture over the top and sprinkle with shredded cheese. Top each tortilla with a cooked egg. Top with salsa, sour cream, hot sauce, and avocado as desired. Garnish with cilantro.
Chris and I were in Colorado for Christmas a few weeks ago, and while we were there we took a trip out to Steamboat Springs for some snowboarding with my sister and brother-in-law. They are locals and longtime skiers, and they love Steamboat so we decided to give it a try with them. The resort is huge, and the skiing/snowboarding was amazing. They had just received something like 14-inches of new powdery snow, so it was definitely the softest, snowiest ride we’ve ever experienced. And it was COLD. The base of the mountain was 12 degrees, so you can imagine that as we went up (and up and up) the lifts, it got really chilly even with lots of layers on. Plus there were flurries throughout the day. Here we are, smiley but cold!
The view from the lift was just so pretty. The view down the mountain:
And the view up the hill. Plus an action shot of me! I’m happy to report that my skills are improving vastly – I can link turns consistently and make it down a run without really falling. I do still have a little trouble when the trail is really really narrow – that kind of spooks me because my turns are wide, but I’m sure I’ll continue to improve this season. We have several trips planned – I’m obsessed with our new hobby.
Most importantly, while I was in Colorado I got to spend quality time with my family for the Christmas holiday. I love them so much! We chatted a lot, and I personally ate a lot, so thank goodness for the snowboarding to burn off the calories.
And I got to see my nephew, Andy the Weimaraner (pictured below), and my niece, Fiona the Snowshoe Siamese kitty! So that’s always nice.
Counting down the days to our next trip out there!
Okay, so let’s get cooking! This is the first of my Learning To Cook posts, and I’m a little late in getting started. When I first created my lessons list I intended to do one lesson a week (in no particular order) throughout 2013. Well, unfortunately the first two weeks of this year I was battling a cold, and who wants to cook while sniffling, sneezing and coughing? But I’ll do my best to play catch-up. I’m starting this weekend with an easier lesson – oats.
In the search for a breakfast that meets my challenging array of dietary restrictions (lactose-intolerance, wheat-intolerance, and an egg allergy), I have finally grown to like oatmeal which I actually used to detest. I found this clean-eating recipe for Slow Cooker Sweet Potato Oatmeal and thought, well that’s different. I’ve never had sweet potato anything for breakfast. And I’m not super skilled at making steel-cut oats, so I figured this should be good practice.
I gathered my ingredients and followed the directions word-for-word. I used the correct size slow cooker, I measured everything exactly, and I gave it the proper amount of time to cook. By the end of the 2.5 hours on low, it was still incredibly liquidy. The oats seemed cooked even though they were all afloat in there, so I ended up just putting the whole batch through a fine mesh strainer to drain the extra liquid. The remaining oats were the consistency I prefer, so this recipe turned out fine in the end! Can I chalk this up to developing good instincts in the kitchen?! Or maybe some people just like liquidy oatmeal. The original photo does look soupier than mine.
Short of draining the liquid after the cook time was up, what else could I have done? Should I have let it cook longer? Was there a way for me to know from the start that this was too much liquid? I suppose if I make it again, I will try cutting the milk and water in half, or maybe just leaving out the water altogether.
What I learned: Liquid apparently does not evaporate much if at all in a slow cooker. The ingredients have to absorb the liquids or else the results are soupy.
What went well: I didn’t grate my thumb while preparing the sweet potato! Success!
What I can do better next time: I actually didn’t have cinnamon in my pantry like I thought I did (I usually do?!), so when I was ready to cook, I didn’t have all the ingredients needed. Chris ran to the store for me while the oats were cooking. So next time I’ll physically gather all the ingredients ahead of time to make sure I have everything.
This will be good with some walnut pieces mixed in. Chris also suggested marshmallows (like in the traditional sweet potato side for the holidays), but I think I’ll keep it clean and wholesome. Well, okay…I did sprinkle a little brown sugar and extra cinnamon on top. Lesson complete!
Slow Cooker Sweet Potato Oatmeal
Author: adapted from skinnyms.com
Ingredients
1 cup steel cut oats
2 cups low-fat milk
2 cups water
1 cup grated sweet potato
2 tablespoons unrefined sweetener, more or less to taste. I used honey, but some other options are: coconut palm sugar, sucanat, or 100% pure maple syrup
Kosher or sea salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
Instructions
Combine all ingredients in the slow cooker, cover and cook on low 2 to 2 1/2 hours, or until desired consistency is reached. Recommend 4-5 quart slow cooker.
If desired, add chopped nuts and/or raisins.
Stovetop Method: Add all ingredients to a medium saucepan, bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and cook approximately 20 – 25 minutes or until desired consistency has been reached.
