phew

I feel so busy right now!!! Wow. Work is really busy right now. Life is busy. I did take some time out today to go on a behind-the-scenes tour of the OSU football stadium (work-organized, but also part of the reason I feel so crazy - it ended up taking 2 hours!). It was so cool. I'll steal some pics form my friend/coworker Dave and post them. We got to do all kinds of things - go in the locker room, walk on the field (barefoot for me!), go in the press box, a suite, etc.

I'm in the midst of making biscotti for one of my favorite security guards at work. He's retiring tomorrow and he loves my biscotti, so I'm making some for him. I also wanted to get my herbs potted tonight, but since it's almost 9 and I still have work work to do, I think it will have to wait until tomorrow night. Plus I have a walkthrough with a bride and her mom tomorrow (wedding is Saturday) so I need to make sure I'm prepared for that.

Hope everyone is having a nice week and had a great Memorial Day weekend!

No More Books. Baking Instead!

I finished reading "Something Blue" this morning. No more reading for a while. I've got other things to do. :) It surprisingly snowed quite a bit today so I just wanted to hunker down. So I read and then made several batches of biscotti. One of the guards at work had asked me to make him some (and paid me, even though I tried to refuse), and I finally got around to it. I also thought I'd make some for my mom, who is pretty much homebound after having her hip replaced last Monday. I was planning to head out to visit her today but the roads seem crappy enough that it's not a good idea. So I'll go out tomorrow after work instead.

Several people have asked me for my biscotti recipe, so I'm going to post it on here. I'm not a huge fan of ginger, but these are pretty tasty. I get quite a few compliments on them, so I have to recommend them. The recipe is from Cooking Light.

Gingered White-Chocolate Biscotti

Yield: 2 dozen (serving size: 1 cookie)

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons minced crystallized ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 (4-ounce) bar premium white chocolate, finely chopped (about 3/4 cup)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 egg white
• Vegetable cooking spray

Preparation

Combine first 6 ingredients in a large bowl. Combine the vanilla and next 2 ingredients, and add to the flour mixture, stirring until well-blended (dough will be dry).

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead lightly 7 or 8 times. Shape dough into a 16-inch-long roll. Place roll on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray, and flatten roll to 1-inch thickness.

Bake at 350° for 30 minutes. Remove roll from baking sheet to a wire rack, and let cool 10 minutes.

Cut roll diagonally into 24 (1/2-inch) slices, and place slices, cut sides down, on baking sheet. Reduce oven temperature to 325°, and bake for 10 minutes. Turn the cookies over, and bake for an additional 10 minutes (the cookies will be slightly soft in center but will harden as they cool). Remove from baking sheet, and let cool completely on wire rack.

Now I'm going to be like my Grammy Lucy and go into all of the things that I've learned from making this a gazillion times.

-This is better if you use bar white chocolate (I use Lindt which is sometimes on sale at World Market. I've got to find a cheaper source online). If you must use white chocolate chips (which I did today), chop them up a bit first. The chips are too big and will make big holes or burn after you slice the biscotti.

-I always add more white chocolate and ginger than what they say. I add "very heaping" in front of those two measurements. :) I heap the vanilla a bit too.

-I mix everything in my Kitchenaid. You don't have to do much kneading if you do that, which I like. It can be a pretty sticky dough so it gets stuck to your counter or Roll-pat. Don't be afraid to use flour though - it doesn't hurt the consistency.

-I actually never do the diagonal cutting because I want to get as many same-sized biscotti out of the recipe. I'm sure this looks less authentic. :)

-If you're like me and don't have a fancy stove, use an over thermometer. I burned the first several batches I made in this apartment because I later realized my oven is almost 50 degrees too hot. Gross.

-I get my ginger at Williams-Sonoma. I've used both the Ginger People ginger chips and the WS brand slices. Both are less than $10 and have tons, if you're making more than a batch. I once bought a little bottle in the spice section at the grocery store and it was so much more expensive than buying these. I mince both of them, even though the ginger chips might be small enough to use as is.

-I read somewhere that you can stand the biscotti on their flat bottoms and cook them that way so you don't have to flip them midway through, but I've never tried it. I'm too afraid the bottoms would burn too much.

Happy baking!

It's Sunny!!

What a beautiful day! It's brisk out but the sun is shining. I had a great run this morning, just shy of 9 miles. I could have done more but I had to run to get to my Hip Hop Dance class! This was week 2. Week 1 was pretty hard. I didn't feel like it was much of a workout, the class was too big, I had no idea what I was doing, and well, I'm white with no rhythm. This week was much better. I still have no rhythm but I managed to stay with the teacher much better. We know have about 24 whole beats of a song. :) I'm still working on my "attitude" as our adorable instructor keeps calling it. It's tons of fun.

I've been lying in bed reading (AGAIN! Now I'm re-reading Something Blue for the umpteenth time.) and am trying to make myself do some housework. Ick. But I really need to put some laundry away, vacuum, and clean up the kitchen. The dogs thought it would be super fun (AGAIN, second time in a week!) to pull out all of my spatulas and spoons and chew up a few of them. Luckily, after losing seven last time, I think I only lost two this time. But now there are shards of wooden spoon all over the living room. Good thing my days at Williams-Sonoma left me stocked with a plethora of cooking utensils. However someone (Abbey!) also laid into one of my Silpats (grrr....) so I'm probably going to have to replace it. I trimmed the ripped parts off, but now it's smaller and the edges are exposed. For those who don't know what a Silpat is, they are amazing. They're made of silicone and are basically reusable parchment paper sized to fit your cookie sheets (or half sheet pans, as mine are technically called). No need to grease or spray, just throw one of these bad boys on there and wipe it off when you're done. Love them. Apparently Martha does too. :)

Ok, that's probably enough procastinating for now. Off to domesticate myself!

You're it!

Tammy tagged me...
here is how it goes: go to your 4th folder (where your pictures are stored) and find the 4th picture….and post it. then explain it.




This was actually a picture I took for you, my dear blog readers. All 3 of you. :) These are the Christmas cookies I made and decorated, and I had planned to post the results. As per the usual, I got bored of doing it several cookies in, so the later cookies aren't very exciting. I sent a handful to my sister Laura in Korea, and then ended up sending some more to one of Todd's friends at this request, and he and I probably ate the rest. :) I love me a frosted sugar cookie!!

I'm not sure I have 4 people reading this who will see it, but just in case, I tag Sarah, Liz, Melissa and Suzanne. I picked all of you because I know you've read my blog at least once. :)

TGIF!

Yesterday was not boring. I took the day off to go Christmas shopping with Todd. After I went for a cold run while he took a work call, we headed over to Easton where we met my mom and stepdad for lunch at Panera. Todd had never eaten at Panera before! I was shocked. Consequently, he did not pick the best sandwich, which is the Sierra Gobbles, in my humble opinion. That's Sierra Turkey for anyone who wasn't instructed on how to speak by my college roommate Chris. I also had their new chicken tortilla soup, which was pretty decent. After fueling up, we did some grueling shopping for a few hours before heading home.

I had week 5 of my beginner yoga class last night. It was just me and Adriane, as Shannon had a party or something. I'm not beginner, but last night was fairly hard. Maybe they just turned the heat up in there or something, but I got a little schvitzy.

I also got my cookies baked. I still need to frost them. Who knew it was going to be such a long ordeal??? Speaking of cookies, I also got a fabulous package of them from Sarah! I was sooooo excited to see that. I think I've already eaten 3. WTF? Sarah, this is NOT going to help my weight loss mission! :) It was extra exciting because last year my entire box of cookies got eaten by my dogs. My dad happened to stop by my house the day they arrived and took them inside for me. Not knowing what the precious box contained, he set it on my dining table. I arrived home later to a tattered cardboard box and little shred of baggies and ribbon scattered around the living room. It's funny now, but at the time, I was livid.

Hmm, maybe I should do some work now. :)

Made it to day 2!

Last night Todd and I went to a law firm's holiday party. It was very fun (we got to hang out with our friend Andy) and the food and drinks were delish. Then I came home and made cookie dough in preparation for making Christmas cookies. I love decorating sugar cookies but I get really sick of it after about 4. :) My lil sis is in Korea for a year though, and she needs some down home cooking, so I'm sending them to her. (surprise!) Maybe if I can figure out how, I'll post a picture of some of the finished product.
This is my current favorite sugar cookie recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Soft-Christmas-Cookies/Detail.aspx
I use half butter and half margarine (margarine makes the dough easier to roll, sorry about the trans fats!!!) but otherwise follow the recipe.

Today has been a busy day at work. We're working on an upcoming architecture exhibition that is pretty slow in the planning. Some budget numbers kind of hit the fan today, but we keep getting reassured that everything will be all right.

I also ran on the treadmill before work this morning, and had a great run, yay! It's so interesting to me how some runs are so much better than others. I drank a lot of wine last night, so one would have expected a crappy run. Apparently I function better with antioxidants of the fermented type. It was a short run, but I did speedy intervals. The only complete annoyance was when I accidentally hit the stop button midway through. GRRRR!

Speaking of running, I need to sign up for a race. MIT (my marathon training group) starts again this weekend, and I find I train better when I actually have a goal in mind. And no, I don't mean signing up for the Flying Pig 4 weeks before the race (ahem, 2008). I heart my running group. :)

While I don't sound all the boring to myself, anyone reading this (no one yet since I haven't told anyone!) is probably bored to tears. Happy Hump day! :)