Thursday, December 27, 2012
Dining Out: Yes, I had Christmas Dinner at Ikea
In my teens and twenties, I lived at Ikea. Ok, in my teens I begged my mom to stop there whenever we were anywhere near Elizabeth, New Jersey, but in my twenties I lived close enough to a different Ikea to get there fairly regularly and I did just that. I loved Ikea. I can walk into your house and name your Ikea pieces. Who doesn't have a Poang chair or a Billy bookcase floating around?
A few years ago, I moved and now there is an Ikea at the end of my street. Seriously, right there.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Cranberry Orange Bread
I make a lot of "quick breads." I try to always have banana bread or blueberry bread in the freezer for a quick breakfast. Blueberry bread is just blueberry muffins without the worry about whether they'll come out of the tins properly. I buy extra berries in the summer and keep them in the freezer for as long as I can stand it. I keep whole bananas with their skin on in the freezer (stash them just when they're too brown to eat raw). But sometimes, the season catches up with you and you're out of nanners and blueberries and you're *so over* things like pumpkin and apple. What then?
Cranberry bread. Cranberry orange bread. Seasonal but not squash.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Hot Tip: Save your spoon with a clip
So I make these Norwegian cookies. I told you all about them last year. Krumkake. They take over my kitchen for two weekends each December. There's smoke and fire and grease and burned fingers and spilled batter and in the end, lacy, crisp, amazing sugar cookies. Still, a huge mess.
Well, this year I figured it out. No, this doesn't prevent small kitchen fires and burned fingertips, those are going to happen either way, but oh does it save on cleanup.
Sure, you don't make krumkake. I understand. Maybe you make pancakes, or pizzelles or something else with a drippy batter?
This is a bag clip, but a standard binder clip would work too. Clip it on the edge of your bowl and your spoon won't sink down into the batter. Everything is right with the world.