The Wednesday Links from Around The Web 4.27.11 Edition

Homemade Granola Bars

Stand where you work

Check out this awesome Toilet!

DIY Garden Markers

Cool Quilt!

Delight of the Week - Lemon Pound Cake

I've been dreaming about quick breads. I love how quick they are and how tasty they turn out. Take a few simple ingredients and in a few short minutes, voila! you have a delightful treat.



I like to line my bread baking pans with parchment paper as it helps with the clean-up. This recipe can be easily adjusted. Instead of lemon, you can add lavender or berries or whatever you can dream up.



Lemon Pound Cake
Makes 1 Loaf

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon lemon zest
3 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
5 large eggs, beaten
1/2 teaspoon salt

Glaze:
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 Tablespoon lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare a 4 1/2 by 8 1/2 inch loaf pan by lining with parchment paper.
2. Beat butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy.
3. Add vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice to the mixture. Mix again. Gradually add eggs, beating well and scraping down the bowl.
4. With the mixer on low, add salt and flour. Beat until just combined.
5. Pour mixture into prepared loaf pan. Bake in the center of your preheated oven for approx. 65 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack for an hour before icing the top with the glaze.

A la Ped

Months and Months ago, I started knitting on the Wayfarer Scarf. I was intrigued by the contrasting vertical and horizontal lines which make up the pattern.



For some reason though, the pattern tried time and time again to outsmart me. I had to keep reminding myself that I was smarter than the pattern. It is really well written but charts are extremely difficult for me to read and cause me trouble.



I love my new scarf though which is ready just in time for Spring!

Winner!

The winner of The Newlywed Kitchen: Delicious Meals for Couples Cooking Together is Rachel W whose favorite cake is Raspberry. Yum!

Rach - can you email me your mailing address to reebecki (at) gmail (dot) com so I can get your cookbook out to you?

The Wednesday Links from Around The Web 4.20.11 Edition

Paper Mache Easter Eggs

Baked Oatmeal

More Baked Oatmeal

Cookies! In Defense of Paltrow

Well Designed Children Spaces

Writing recipes from scratch

Catherine Tate's Posh People - HILARIOUS!

Delight of the Week - Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

I had my parents over for dinner on Sunday and as I planned the menu, I knew it was time for Strawberry Rhubarb Pie. I love making pie. I love eating pie. Having my parents over for dinner meant it was time for pie.



Whenever I make pie, I turn to my favorite pie book, Pie: 300 Tried-and-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie. If you love pie (heck if you only like it), this is a must-have book. It tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about pie. How to make the best crust, what works for fillings and then it gives you 300 recipes to try!



I'll be announcing the winner from last week's contest on Thursday so there is still time to tell me what your favorite wedding cake flavor is!

The Wednesday Links from Around The Web 4.13.11 Edition

Last year at this time, Scott and I were in Paris on our Honeymoon. Oh the memories!

Sarah Jane Studios - Adorable Children Prints

Instant Oatmeal

A Favorite's List from 101 Cookbooks

Dooce + Video = Hilarious

Vintage Bake Sale

Sweet Giveaway!

Declare Your Level Show Sponsored by Seattle's Best Coffee

Seattle's Best Coffee recently released their "Coffee Level System" which is absolutely fantastic. I have love in my heart for level 3 but did find the other levels good enough to be BFF's with. Bascially the different levels indicate the strength of the coffee blend from mild and light to dark and intense.

To celebrate their new product launch, they are hosting a 24 hour virtual comedy smorgasbord starting tomorrow at 1 p.m. eastern.

The “Declare Your Level Show” will be hosted entirely on facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/SeattlesBestCoffee. The world-famous improv troupe, Second City Communications will be the focus of this first-of-its-kind comedy and coffee extravaganza. From their press release, "Just like a traditional improv show, the Facebook audience will participate by providing content that will inspire personalized, one-of-a-kind sketches, songs, and one-liners."

I'll be checking in and hope you will too. I also hear that the first 100,000 people to participate will receive a free sample of the Level coffee of their choice.

P.S. Don't forget to leave a comment about your favorite wedding cake flavor to be eligible to win a copy of The Newlywed Kitchen: Delicious Meals for Couples Cooking Together

Delight of the Week - Anniversary Red Velvet Cake

Scott and I celebrated our 1-Year Anniversary on Sunday so I decided to recreate our wedding cake. We had two flavors for our official wedding cake, red velvet and cheesecake. Since I made a cheesecake a few weeks ago, I decided to focus on the red velvet cake.



Luckily for me, Lorna Yee created a fantastically wonderful red velvet cake in her cookbook, The Newlywed Kitchen: Delicious Meals for Couples Cooking Together. I did decide to make a smaller version of the cake though to reduce the amount of cake leftovers in our house. I found some great small pans at Williams-Sonoma. They were meant for deep dish pizza but the sales guy and I decided they would work for cake. Luckily they worked great!



The cake came out delicious and moist. My only problem was that my icing was a bit lumpy. But that was my fault. I tried to mix the cream cheese and butter together before they softened. Let that be a lesson to you. Soften thy butter!

In celebration of my one-year anniversary and such a delightful cake! I'm giving away one copy of The Newlywed Kitchen: Delicious Meals for Couples Cooking Together. I'll use a Random Number generator to pick a winner. All you need to do is leave a comment saying what your favorite wedding cake flavor is (married or not, we've all eaten wedding cake and we all have our favorites!).

The Wednesday Links from Around The Web 4.6.11 Edition

My Current Flickr Favorites

Deskorheea - a new terrifying disease!

Business Cat - I think this might be Mel-B

Creamy Macaroni and Cheese

Sweet Potato Biscuits and Maple Butter - This is so being made this weekend!

Sweet Whale of a Store - a tearjerker, my friends!

Modern Log Cabin Quilting and a Giveaway!

Creamy Thai Shrimp Soup (aka the Great Soup Stock-Up)

I had this idea that I should make up a bunch of soup and freeze it for meals later on. I still think this is a brilliant idea except that I don't have a very big freezer. Once I made up one batch of soup and went grocery shopping, that freezer was packed. It doesn't help that I store my ice cream bowl in the freezer for emergency ice cream making sessions or that the ice tray takes up a good 1/4 of the freezer.



But I'm still glad that I made at least one batch of soup and froze it because it has been a great time-saver, especially on Wednesday nights when I go to Yoga and don't get to dinner until after 9 p.m. at night.



Freezing soup is also a tricky thing. You can't freeze soups that have eggs in them or potatoes or a whole list of other ingredients. So when I stumbled upon a recipe for Thai Shrimp Bisque, I was hooked.