Chicken and Waffles

Last Thursday, it became clear that we were going to get an epic snowstorm. It became clear to me that I needed to engage in an epic cooking project, so on Friday before they shut down the T, Elizabeth and Sara adventured over to my house to make chicken and waffles.

I had never deep-fried anything before, and honestly, Elizabeth did most of the work. There were a lot of steps involved, but none of them were that complicated, and the chicken was some of the best I'd ever had.

(I absolutely gave them a hard time about the Ivy League sweatshirts. Actually, they gave themselves a hard time.)

I have the BEST waffle recipe, so of course it made sense to have waffles with our fried chicken. I'm not sure why they're such a perfect combination, but they really are, especially when the world outside is quickly turning into a winter wonderland.

We felt extra cozy indoors.

Drunk Blondies

I haven't had much time for baking lately, plus I've been eating so much ice cream there isn't really room for cookies and things in my sweets arsenal. Still, though, when I fell asleep dreaming about these  bourbon chocolate-chip blondies for four nights in a row, I felt like it might be a good idea to turn the oven on.

I was right- they were amazing. I browned the butter and left out the coconut, but still, man-oh-man, were they delicious. They came together really quickly, too, which is one of my favorite things about brownies and blondies. I'm pretty sure that you should make them, too.

Item Number 9? Check.

So, I did it.

I turned 26. It was kind of exciting, actually. I sometimes freak out a little bit about getting older, but as I learned from my list, getting older's not so bad if you think about all the fun stuff you get to do. Like buy a fancy new camera.

Number nine on the list was Buy an SLR and Learn How to Use It. I bought the SLR as a 26th birthday present. I haven't quite learned how to use it yet, but I have a teacher all lined up, and I can't wait to practice. In the past year, as I've gotten busier, I've kind of forgotten how much I love to take pictures. I'm pretty excited to remember.

(I've done an okay job of recording some of the items on my 25 in 25 list as I've checked them off. I didn't get to everything, but I did do a surprisingly large number of them, and I found the list to be a surprisingly transformative exercise. I'll write more about it in the coming weeks, including posts on the funnest things from the past year.)

True confession: I may have stayed up until nearly 2 o'clock in the morning last night, knitting this hat.



Oops.

At least today is Friday, and I will get to sleep lots tonight. If all goes according to plan, by Monday I will have checked something big off twenty-five in twenty-five. Other than that, I'm laying low this weekend. How about you?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, Friends!

I've been fretting needlessly over stupid things and haven't gotten a chance to make my valentines this year. Tonight I have big plans to go home, enjoy the spring-like weather, make some dinner, and sit down with some paper and glue.

Anybody who wants a belated valentine, send me your address! abigail.cyr@gmail.com

I Love Pudding

I am waiting for it to start snowing.

We are supposed to get a huge blizzard tonight, so as soon as I was done with work and errands, I came home and got all cozy in my house. I put on my pj's, and then, because mushy food is the coziest food* in my book, I made some pudding.



I combined two recipes (this one and this one), and what I got was so cozy and chocolatey and delicious, I think I might have to make it again tomorrow. (Oh yes. Maybe there isn't any left. There's nothing wrong with eating pudding instead of dinner, is there?) Because it's been a while since I shared a recipe, and because apparently the whole eastern seaboard is about to get a whole lot of snow, and so I thought you might want some cozy food, too, here's what I did:

Chocolate Pudding

1/4 c cocoa powder
2 1/2 T corn starch
1/4 c brown sugar (packed, of course!)
1/4 c white sugar
1/4 t cinnamon
1/8 t salt
2 1/2 c milk
1 t vanilla
2 T butter

Combine all the dry ingredients in a heavy soup pot. Whisk them together really well- try to break up the brown sugar if you can.

Add the milk, and bring to a boil, whisking continuously, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. I found it helpful to scrape the bottom of the pot with a rubber spatula sometimes, too, but if you are a more conscientious whisker than I, that shouldn't be necessary.

When the pudding is thick, remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla, then divide into little tiny bowls. Chill, if you are more patient than I am. Otherwise, eat it warm. I have it on authority that both ways are pretty delicious.



Curling up on the couch with pudding, a glass of wine, and a good book is the perfect way to wait for the snow to come, I think.



*I love mushy food so much that Cait and I are having a casserole-themed dinner party in a couple of weeks. I am so excited I can barely contain myself.

Tacky Gingerbread

Last night, I went to Emma's house to help her and Jon decorate the gingerbread village that they had laboriously constructed. They let me trick out one of the houses with frosting lights. It looks very festive, don't you think?

P.S. All of the other houses were much more refined. They looked festive, too. . . sort of.

P.P.S. Jon's recap of their gingerbread-village-making process was much more thorough. So many pictures!

My Own Personal Christmas Tree

The other day, I decided my bedroom needed some holiday spirit. So I drew a Christmas tree on my wall.

I've been adding to it when the inspiration strikes, and it makes me happy. We have a real tree in the living room, and that is lovely, but there's something about having a Christmas Tree in my bedroom that feels magical- a lot like Christmas when I was tiny. I love seeing it when I wake up in the morning.

Happy Friday, Friends!

Bran Muffins

You know how sometimes, you make a recipe and it is completely, surprisingly good, and then you get obsessed and make it four times in the next week? That's how I am about these muffins. Except a recipe makes twelve, so I've only made them twice. Even including my recent muffins for dinner episode, forty-eight in one week is a bit much. Anyway, they're a Weight Watchers recipe, so I was skeptical at first, but they're moist and sweet and well, they're bran muffins. Adding whole wheat flour isn't going to change them that much.

Apple Bran Muffins

Adapted from here

1 cup whole wheat flour

2/3 cup uncooked wheat bran

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 cup butter, softened

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

1 cup buttermilk (I just add lemon juice to regular milk and let it sit, since I never think ahead enough to have buttermilk on hand)

1 medium-to-large sized apple, peeled and diced

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Combine flour, wheat bran, salt, baking soda and cinnamon.

3. In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and the sugar, add egg and beat thoroughly.

4. Add 1/3 of bran mixture and 1/3 of buttermilk, mix until just combined. Continue, alternating bran mixture and buttermilk. Fold in apples.

5. Add to prepared muffin tins. Place in middle rack of oven, and cook until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, about fifteen to twenty minutes.

I like to eat them and pretend I'm still in San Francisco, where I used to go here to eat a bran muffin and drink a cup of tea before work on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Last night when I got home from work, I decided it was too lovely outside to get straight to cooking dinner, so I sat on the front porch and tended to my plants, instead. It was so relaxing to spend a little while with my hands in the soil, repotting a clipping my mother made for me, cutting back plants that had started to bolt, and enjoying one of the last warm nights before the weather gets too cold.

Then I went inside and baked some apple bran muffins.

Then I ate a bunch of them for dinner.

They were tasty.

But I didn't take a picture. It was too dark in my kitchen.

I feel loved.

A couple of weeks ago, my mom and sister attended the Union Square Paper Party here in Somerville. I couldn't go, but (two-thirds of) my family brought me a souvenir, and it's quickly become one of my favorite things.

When I made a garland of felt flowers two weeks later, it seemed like draping it over my favorite thing was a good idea. I still think it was.

{When I was a little girl, my mom taught me that you could start seeds in eggshells. It's my favorite trick now.}

Every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is go downstairs and talk to my plants.

Someday, I will have a huge garden where I grow strawberries and tomatoes and eggplant and peppers, but for now, the herbs on my windowsill fulfill my need to be surrounded by green things.

I love them.

On Inspiration

I am a huge magazine fiend.

I love buying them at my favorite newsstand (I know subscriptions are so much cheaper, but seriously, who wouldn't want an excuse to go to this place whenever possible?). I love reading them while I drink a latte on the patio at Hi Rise. When I'm done reading them, I love cutting out all of the most beautiful pictures and sticking them in the back of my moleskine, then gluing them down in exactly the perfect combinations, creating portable inspiration boards for every mood.

Lately, though, I've been so busy I haven't had time to go through and pick out the images that spoke to me, so my magazines have been piling up. The stack was getting to be nearly a foot tall- just thinking about it overwhelmed me. This is not ideal for something that's supposed to be inspiring. So last night, I came home, changed into shorts and a t-shirt, threw open my windows, and sat down.

I haven't been this inspired in quite some time.

Seriously, you should try it some time.

Sometimes I think a personal assistant would be helpful.

{My kitchen isn't quite this bad anymore. But almost.}

Man oh man, you guys.

I have been so busy lately. Work is busy, and for the past week or so, I have been on a cooking bender. Just tonight, I made two cakes, challah, and then my whole dinner (salmon, green beans, asparagus and brown rice). And I didn't even get home until 8.

Sometimes, I am crazy.

p.s. I am a very lucky girl- my dad lent me his kitchenaid. It really does make baking a million times easier! He won't notice if I never give it back, right?

Important Announcement.

I might have just invented a new recipe for Chocolate Pudding.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Sometimes at work they talk about things I don't understand.

So then I draw a picture on a post-it note.

(I recommend trying it sometime).

Monday

As it turns out, it's hard to blog and work.

Especially when your sick.

Even ignoring the blog, I've been failing at life lately:

This morning, I got up super early to go to the gym. I stumbled out of bed, threw my clothes on, then ran around getting everything I would need and stuffing it into my gym bag.

I had a great workout and a really perfect shower (the water was just the right temperature and my muscles got all relaxed and it was just absolutely excellent), and then, as I was opened my locker, I realized that I'd forgotten half my clothes at home. Oops.

(Needless to say, I was a little bit late for work.)

This weekend was excellent and I made the most perfect halloween costume, and maybe tomorrow I'll actually upload all the pictures. I sewed ten yards of tulle. I was very fluffy. It was fantastic.

Now, though, I'm going to bed.

Sweet dreams, internet!

Look what I found!

Sometimes I like to make lists of Things That I Want. These things run the gamut from little and easily obtained (the September issue of Vogue, clean laundry) to huge (a vacation home on a Greek island). It's an interesting exercise in articulating my worldly desires, but mostly it's just fun to dream about things I'd like to own.

Recently, after seeing lots of pretty pictures people had taken with Holgas, I added the camera to my list. While it tends towards the more affordable, I'm still trying to avoid unnecessary expenses, so I figured I'd ask for one for Christmas, or maybe buy one as a present for myself when (if) I get a job. Imagine my surprise when I was describing the latest Thing That I Wanted to my mom and she said "oh, we have one of those! Dewey used it in high school when she took photo!"

I am so excited to have temporary custody of such a quirky little camera! I'm going to a Red Sox game with Sara tonight, and I think I'll bring the Holga out for its maiden journey. I can't wait!

I started a quilt last spring, and now that I have plenty of free time (and my mother's sewing machine), I thought I'd resume working on it.

I don't really want to do that right now, though. I don't want to try to find a job, either. I just want to sit on the back porch with my coffee and my book, enjoying the early fall weather. It's so lovely outside.

I am covered in millions of tiny pink threads.

Now that I've started working on this damn quilt, I have to finish it.
I haven't even finished cutting everything out yet, and I don't have a sewing machine. This is going to take forever.