Chocolate Ginger Bread

It seems that on my days off I like to do a lot of dishes and bake things. We made a nice big dinner tonight, as it was the first day off for both Mike and me in a long time. It started with salad and then we had our crock-pot pulled pork and mashed sweet potatoes. Even more exciting was the Chocolate Ginger Bread I made after that. I think I found the recipe from a pin on Pinterest, but I modified it slightly. This is the first new kind of sweet bread I'd made in a while (my staples are Pumpkin Nut Bread and Cranberry Orange Bread), so I'm really glad that it turned out so well.

Delicious chocolate ginger bread

Chocolate Ginger Bread
1 cup + 1 Tbsp flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
pinch of nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
4 Tbsp butter or margerine
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup molasses
3/4 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F and grease a 9x4 loaf pan.

2. Combine flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt.

3. In a seperate bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg. Mix buttermilk and molasses, then add to the butter mixture. Add dry ingredients and mix until the batter is smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips.

4. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, 25-30 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

The original recipe called for crystallized ginger as well, but it's not exactly something I have in the house and it seemed like it would make it overly gingery. It also called for "coarse chopped chocolate," but I made it simpler by just using chocolate chips. Two other notes- I "made" buttermilk the milk + vinegar way, and my loaf took almost 45 minutes to cook all the way through (but I find I almost always have to cook sweet breads longer than the recipe says). I ate it with a little bit of margarine, as I do with all bread. :)

Too cute not to post

Lilly got the package with the bibs in it yesterday. Here are a few photos she sent me. :)

Uh, what is this thing?

I guess it's okay.

I am a cutie pie.

What do you do when you're stuck inside?

Sunday I blogged about the blizzard. Today I figured I'd blog about what I did during the blizzard. As you may or may not have realized, I'm on a bit of a knitting kick. Instead of working on my fingerless gloves, though, I decided to try out some random projects while we were snowed in. I had some leftover yarn from a couple of different projects that I put into use. The first things I made were two bibs for Parker.

I told Lilly that if the peach one was too girly she should re-gift it.

I made them using this pattern from Ravelry. The pattern calls for you to use the yarn doubled throughout, so for the one of the left I used two strands of a variegated cotton I had laying around and for the one on the right I used the white yarn from the boy's hats and the leftover denim colored cotton from my nook case. I think they turned out pretty nicely. I accidentally put the buttons on different sides of the work, but I don't think it makes much difference. For the peachy one, I also decreased the strap width by two more stitches before I knitted it to length, as the strap on the denim one seemed wider than necessary. I threw them both in a flat rate box Thursday and sent them off to Lilly. I hope she likes them!

Hardly a perfect specimen of knitting, but I still like it.

The other thing I made was a card cozy for my CharlieCard. I got the idea from this pattern on Ravelry, though that pattern uses smaller needles and a lighter weight yarn. It's not a traditional card case where you can open it up and access whatever cards are inside, but more of a sock that you sew it into. The pattern seems to imply to do the kitchener stitch on both ends, but I only did it on one so that if I ever need to get the card out, I don't have to destroy the knitting. The reason why it can be closed is because you never have to "swipe" a CharlieCard, you just tap it on a reader to add value or use it. In a little cozy, though, it is now easier to keep track of and, if I wanted to, I could hook it onto my key ring or carabiner. I haven't yet gotten a chance to use it in its new form yet, so we'll see if I actually like it or not. The cozy took me hardly any time to make, though, so I won't be heart broken if I hate it and end up taking it apart.

Blizzard of '13

Last weekend there was a huge blizzard that broke a bunch of records. Sir (Daddy) had texted me and requested updates. I ended up making a blizzard album on Facebook that chronicled it. I figured it wouldn't hurt to replicate it here. And so I present, the Blizzard of 2013.

2/8/13 12:55PM: Lightly snowing, no snow sticking to the balcony yet.

2/8/13 2:05PM Starting to look more like a white-out. Snow is blowing sideways. Still not managing to stick much to the balcony.

2/8/13 5:20PM Almost dark now. A few inches has accumulated. Balcony is still miraculously clear. Seems like people are mostly obeying the edict to stay off the road.

The Governor of Massachusetts, and I believe of Rhode Island as well, issued a driving ban to keep everyone except emergency workers off the roads.

2/8/13 8:00PM Totally dark out. Snow is starting to make drifts because of the quantity + wind.

2/8/13 9:50PM It officially looks like a blizzard now. Snowflake size and quantity has increased. The wind is even more crazy than before.

2/8/13 11:50PM Much the same as before, except that the snow is getting deeper. Still too windy for any snow to accumulate on the balcony.

2/9/13 2:35AM *Yawn* Time for bed. Still snowing furiously. Hopefully tomorrow's pictures will be higher quality.

2/9/13 10:10AM Rise and....well, not shine, because it's still snowing.

2/9/13 10:10AM You may be able to see that the snow has come up to and covered most people's bumpers.

Delicious, delicious cinnamon rolls for the Blizzard morning.

2/9/13 12:30PM View of our parking lot as it gets plowed. Our car is the one three from the far end with the wipers up.

2/9/13 12:30PM Other side of the parking lot. Looks like the people who's balconies weren't being hit by the wind got a pile of snow on them.

2/9/13 5:00PM Snow piled up on the front of the car. It's so high because the wind caused big old drifts.

2/9/13 5:00PM Clear view down the street. There were so many people digging out/clearing off their cars.

2/9/13 5:00PM There's a planter under there somewhere...

We tried giving the boys some snow. I know this photo is blurry, but Neal was being so cute.

Mozzie trying the snow.

Neal trying the snow.

The day after the blizzard (most of the snow was on Saturday) Mike and I had to drive in to Boston to work at Speakeasy. There was a parking ban in effect so that they could properly plow the streets, but it was a mess. Most of the sidewalks hadn't been cleared, so people (including us) had to walk in the street. And the streets themselves weren't great. The main roads were drivable, but often there was only one lane where there should have been two. And the side roads clearly hadn't been plowed at all/since the snow had actually stopped.

2/10/13 9:15 AM Side road in downtown Boston. The blob in the middle of the road is a bunch of people trying to push a car that is stuck in the middle of the road.

2/10/13 9:15 AM Another side street in downtown Boston. Somehow I doubt these people will get tickets for violating the parking ban...

And that was the blizzard. It was kind of fun to be inside and cozy, not having to worry about the crazy weather outside. However, there is still a TON of snow everywhere, despite the relatively warm week we had. There are lots of places in Lowell where there is still too much snow in the street, either preventing two lanes, or parking. It makes driving a bit interesting, but it is loads better than right after the storm. We actually got a bit more snow last night, but just a dusting. Super windy out right now too. It amuses me that winter decided to show up in February.

The day after...Sugar Cookies!

Accidentally left them out all night, but they still taste fine!

Valentine's Day sugar cookies

I made these using Mum's recipe. It is THE BEST sugar cookie recipe ever. I usually make at least one batch every Christmas. I made heart ones for Lilly's wedding shower as well.

Mum's Sugar Cookies
1 cup butter or margerine
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp soda
2 1/4 cups flour

1) Beat butter/margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla to mixture and cream. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture and mix til combined.

2) Chill dough for at least 30 minutes (can be chilled overnight).

3) When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350F. Remove portion of dough (not doing it all at once makes it easier to roll and cut out) and roll out on floured surface until it's about 1/4 inch thick (may be a bit thinner, but not by much or they'll be too crispy). Use cookie cutters of your choice to cut out shapes. Rotate out the dough portion you're using when there is not much left/it warms up too much. Leave at least 1/4 inch between cookies when you lay them out on the cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes (edges should just barely start to turn golden).

4) Let cool completely on a flat surface before frosting. (Frequently I wait a day before frosting them.) I usually frost them with a mixture of powdered sugar and milk, thin enough to spread on with a brush but thick enough not to run all over the place. Decorate as you like. Wait for the frosting to dry before stacking them to store or present.

Hope you too have a lazy day after Valentine's Day filled with delicious goodies.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Mike kept walking when I stopped to take a photo.

Mike and I are not fans of Valentine's Day crowds, or really much of the Valentine's Day hullabaloo. So we decided to do our mini celebration a day early. That way we missed the V-Day crowds as well as the weekend crowd. We also chose a restaurant nice and close to home. We went to Beer Works Lowell. It's a brewery/pub type place with its own brewery on site. I went ahead and got one of the house brews. Mike was sad because they didn't have a full bar, only beer and wine. But we both got delicious burgers and fun fries (I got sweet potato and Mike did onion rings). It was very nice and laid back, which was exactly what we wanted. Best part was, we were home in plenty of time to catch Big Bang Theory and feed the boys their dinner on time. My lovely photo also shows all the snow piled up in their outdoor seating area. And that is after two days of 40 degree temperatures. (Oh yeah, I guess I should have mentioned the huge blizzard we had...)

Heart necklace, heart earrings, heart bracelets

Mirror pics are so classy.

I got into the spirit of things with my outfit last night, though I did make some compromises for the weather (I wore my all black Chuck's instead of heels).

I also did something a little different with my hair. I did a twist to keep my bangs up and out of the way, put half of my hair up into a little bun, and let the rest hang down loose. I didn't feel like putting all my hair up, so this was a cute and more special style than just doing it half up like I do so often.

Be my Valentine?

Once we were home, I took the time to do my nails. I did a riff on Kandee Johnson's Valentine's Day nails. The stripes on her nails were a bit much for me, so I just went with a simple, solid background and used her bobby pin trick to make the hearts. I think they turned out pretty well! I did yell at Mike though when he sat down on the couch next to me and started trying to hug me mid-heart. :/

Now I'm off to run some errands and then make Mike some Valentine's Day sugar cookies. I will of course post the results!

Air popper!

If you know me at all, you know that I'm addicted to popcorn. I've gone through more microwave popcorn than I can account for. Mike and I have been thinking about getting an air popper for some time. We decided to use some of the Target gift card from Mum and Sir to get one. I'm super excited to start using it. We also got some Butter Flavored Popcorn Salt the other day that is totally going to make the popcorn even more delicious.

While I was a Target I also got this adorable pillow as a Valentine's Day present for the piggy boys. I've spent the rest of my day making delicious, delicious food (aka Chex mix and Toffee).



Last random thing, I usually don't like Mike's Mom's decorations, but she had the cutest salt and pepper holder. Made me wish I had access to a welding torch because it would be super easy to make.

Hi! Let me hold your seasonings for you.