Unpacking...Three Months In

It's great to be back! Blogger, the site that hosts this blog among others, was down on Thursday and Friday, making it impossible to post. In fact, for awhile my Thursday post was deleted, but now that's back and Blogger is back, so we're in business.

Our friends moved around the corner a couple of weekends ago, and this weekend we popped over to check out their new place and bring them a little welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift. (Their house is beautiful, but much like ours, they have a lot that they want to do to it. It's been fun to swap DIY stories!)

Seeing their room (yes, they only have one) full of boxes reminded me that we still have a few too many rooms in states of unpacking, and it's really time to get rid of those remaining boxes. I mean, we have been here for 3 months now.

Do you all remember this corner?

 
Well, as of yesterday morning we were down to two boxes; one full of china, and one full of crystal and other glassware.

Now the boxes are gone and the china is all washed, put away, and ready to use.

So is all of our stemware.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a spot I am happy with for the crystal, so I stashed it in a corner cabinet (with a lazy susan, no less), until I can find a better place to hopefully display it.

Now I just need to get rid of the horrible mini fridge that the hubs uses for his beer - it's a long story that deserves it's own post - and the dining room will be looking decent.

Almost Guiltless Carrot Cake

The piece de resistance of our Mother's Day meal was an almost guiltless carrot cake. My mom loves carrot cake, and let's be honest, so do I, but after the rich meal we had (read more about it here and here), it didn't make sense to make an equally heavy dessert.

So I called upon a oldie but a goodie, a Shape magazine recipe for carrot cake that I hadn't made since before our wedding. It substitutes applesauce and buttermilk for more traditional fats without sacrificing the moistness, and the egg whites bind it all together just as whole eggs would.

Disclaimer: I was in full cooking/baking mode, trying to get dinner ready for the moms, so I was negligent in my picture taking. Sorry for not photographing each step; I'm such a bad blogger. If it makes you feel better, it's not a particularly pretty cake until it's frosted!

Ingredients

• 1 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 c. whole wheat flour
• 1-3/4 c. sugar
• 2 t. cinnamon
• 2 t. baking soda
• 1 t. nutmeg
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1 c. applesauce (I use the natural kind with no sugar added)
• 1/2 c. buttermilk
• 6 egg whites
• 3 c. shredded carrots (or 1 pre-shredded package)
• 2/3 c. chopped walnuts (optional)
• 2/3 c. shredded or flaked coconut (optional)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two round cake pans with parchment paper and set aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat together applesauce, buttermilk, egg whites. Add sugar and spices until well combined. Add flours and remaining dry ingredients one quarter at a time until just combined. Stir in carrots, walnuts, and coconut, if using.

Pour batter into prepared cake pans. Bake 20-30 minutes, or until fork inserted near the center comes out clean. Allow to cool fully before frosting.

Let's talk frosting...I have to be honest, I had some leftover cream cheese frosting from a batch of red velvet cupcakes I had made. My recipe is already lower in fat than the original because I substituted neufchatel cheese for cream cheese, which has 1/3 less fat, and then I reduced the amount of powdered sugar by two cups. But I went a step further by using the frosting sparingly, frosting only between the two layers and the top of the cake, not along the edge. (Yes, this is the same teaser picture from above.)

Basically, I am okay with substituting applesauce for oil or butter in the cake itself, but there is something really wrong in my opinion about using light butter to make a frosting. I know, I know, there's not a lot a logic there, so if you totally disagree with me and want Shape's recipe for light cream cheese frosting, let me know and I will send it to you.

Do you have any low fat recipes that taste like the real thing? If so, please do share!

Wednesday Eye Candy: Large, Moody Landscapes Behind Sofas

I finally finished TradHome, and in the last 150 pages, I was struck by how many homes featured large, moody art behind sofas. Check it out:

But then again, it doesn't even need to be a moody landscape, as this last image proves. How fun is that map with all those blues, greens, and yellows?

Via

I think the huge wall behind our sofa would be the perfect place to showcase some similarly large-and-in-charge art and inject some color.

That wall is just crying out for something (besides paint). So now I need to go through my photos to see what I already have, and I am thinking of searching ebay for old classroom maps.

Happy Wednesday!

Crispy Oven Fries

I had to share the garlicky, rosemary goodness that are these oven fries! (See them hiding out on the left there?)

Mmmmm... Okay, so here's how you make them. (Note: the recipe is enough for 4+ spud lovers, so if you are making it for 2, just halve the amounts below.)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Wash and slice 3 lbs of yellow new potatoes - or really any potato variety that you like - and place in a bowl. Add 1/4 cup olive oil and 2 Tablespoons melted butter. Season with salt and pepper to taste (I like coarse Kosher salt), and mix together.

(This is when the moms arrived and I stopped snapping pics. Sorry.) Mince 4 garlic cloves and 2 Tablespoons of fresh rosemary (use 2 teaspoons if using the dried variety), and mix those in with the potatoes.

Spread out on a baking sheet and bake for 30-45 mins, or until golden and your desired level of crispiness. We like them really crispy over here.

Enjoy with any meat dish. Be careful: they are addictive!

I'll be sharing the final recipe, Low-fat Carrot Cake, on Thursday. We are gonna need it after the last two posts. Yikes!

Mother's Day Meal

We had both of our moms over for dinner last night to celebrate Mother's Day. I decided to make a dish I love, but that we only have on very special occasions: BBQ filet mignon with blue cheese and crispy shallots.

Ryan is the master of the grill, but I prep the filets with some olive oil, kosher salt, and pepper, which I rub into the filets. Ryan then cooked the filets for five minutes per side (we like them pink in the middle in this family), and when they were done, we let them rest for 10 minutes while I fried up the shallots. More on that in a second.

While they were resting under some loose tin foil, I placed a little slice of Point Reyes Blue cheese on the filets to melt like so:

Then I got to work on the crispy fried shallots. I sliced 2 shallots into long, thin slices and then dredged them in corn starch.

Then I heated some vegetable oil over high heat, and when it began to bubble away, I added the shallots, letting them fry up until they were golden brown.

Lastly, I removed them with a fork and let them drain on a paper towel.

The last step was to add them to the filets right away so they remained crispy. Soggy shallots are no fun.

The sweet shallots were the perfect contrast to the sharp blue cheese. Yum. Oh, and the Crispy Oven Fries and homegrown salad on the side was pretty good too. (More on that and the low-fat carrot cake we had for dessert in the days to come since this post is getting a bit long.)

Here's the table all gussied up with our gemini roses, which are in full bloom these days.

I would have loved to use our china and crystal, but it's still in boxes since we don't have as much storage in our new place. But hopefully those big roses, which my mom said were so perfect that they looked fake, distracted attention away from our everyday plates.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms, moms-to-be, aunties, and grandmas out there! What did you all do to celebrate Mother's Day?

Candid Conversation

I have been feeling uninspired lately. Perhaps it's because I haven't completed any projects since spring break, and haven't done much cooking in the past week or so since we have been out of town and still have yet to go grocery shopping. Or maybe it's just the tired talking.

So I have been thinking about how to re-inspire myself, and what I do to get out of these occasional ruts. Of course, the first thing I do is check out other blogs I love and see what projects are going down all over the blogosphere. You should check them out too if you haven't already; you can find them under my "Blog Crush" list. My newest favorite is Little Glass Box. The way Courtney makes over Craiglist finds has me trolling Craigslist in the hopes of hitting the jackpot soon.

Witness the following exhibits:

 

The colors she chose are just gorgeous! It makes me want to get my paint on. 

Magazines, both traditional and online, also get me going. You can check out my required reading here, here, and here. 

Lastly, I love to stop by Pinterest when I am feeling uninspired. Pinterest is the most brilliant idea: an online bulletin board with some of the most beautiful images on the web. You can follow people, or just check out what's the most popular. Oh, and did I mention that they have recipes too?

Here's what I am loving right now: 

That last picture makes me want to finally order our wedding photos and create a gallery wall in the entry. At last, inspiration! 

What do you do to snap out of a funk? 

Weekend Redux

We spent our weekend celebrating Megan and Matt at the top of Mt. Tamalpais in Marin. The breathtaking views of the entire bay area looked a little something like this:

If you can believe it, the views from the ceremony site were even better.

It was a wonderful weekend spent amongst great friends, and our hearts feel full. Is it just me, or do weddings always seem to do that to you?

Happy Monday!