Look at a picture of today’s weather in Los Angeles:

Why don’t we replace it with this?

Yum! Did that make you smile? (Or hungry?)

I’m sitting here warming up with thoughts of the wonderful B4D (Breakfast For Dinner) Party we had with friends last weekend.

This kind of party is easy to put together and is a cinch to host. I thought maybe if I could think of breakfast fare that can all go into one oven and cook together, it would make hosting that much easier. So on the menu for the evening was: Spinach Cheese Frittata, Baked Chicken Sausages, Homemade Waffles and fresh fruit. And oh, Mimosas! Because who doesn’t like champagne + orange juice on a Saturday night?

The Baked Chicken Sausages were a healthier alternative to pork ones, picked up from Trader Joe’s. The dish was actually an experiment. I tossed some halved fingerling potatoes (no peeling, so easy!) with some sliced onions and green peppers with some olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder.

Laid those in a pan around the sausages that had little diagonal incisions on top. Baked at 375 degrees covered for 20 minutes (so the steam thoroughly cooks the sausages) and another 30 minutes or so uncovered (for browning). They came out full-flavored from the browning, with the peppers nice and soft, the onions caramelized and the potatoes thoroughly seasoned. I’ll be making this several times from now on.

As for the Spinach Cheese Frittata, would you like the recipe? Fancy a Frittata for your Friday? Here ‘tis!

Spinach Cheese Frittata
8 large eggs
4 large egg whites
2 cups spinach, fresh, baby leaves, chopped
4 Tbsp scallion(s), finely chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 cup shredded fat-free or lite cheddar cheese

Spray an 8×8 baking pan with cooking spray. In a large bowl, beat together eggs and egg whites; stir in spinach, scallion, salt and pepper. Pour mixture into pan, top with cheese. Bake at 375-degree oven. Mine took a while, maybe 30-40 minutes, because the eggs had to set and the cheese had to turn a golden brown. You can probably test at 20 minutes to see how “behaved” your egg mixture is. Let stand for a bit before cutting into wedges. The next time I make this I plan to throw in some red peppers and mushrooms, too! Another one for the recipe box.

The waffles were fun to make with this home-use, personalized waffle maker, the Presto Flipside (lots of great reviews on Amazon). You wait for it to heat up, pour in the waffle mix, flip it over to the other side and a beep goes off telling you your waffle is done.

Hello, Waffles. I believe it’s time you met my tummy!

We topped ours with peanut butter and real maple syrup. Yes, peanut butter. It’s an oddly awesome combination that E. introduced me to—he grew up with peanut butter + syrup on his pancakes and waffles. You should give it a try the next time you have these breakfast treats. It’s uncommonly yummy.

We finished the evening with more Mimosas and rounds of Super Mario Wii—which I’m bad at, but it’s ok. In the kitchen, I’m good. Avoiding poisonous mushrooms and snapping monster plants, not so much!

I hope you get to throw an omnommnomy B4D party of your own, too!

I woke up last Saturday morning thinking that I wanted, no needed, to make this:

I had made an Egg In The Basket before, but thought that with Valentine’s Day coming up I could give my idea of making this variation a go. Sometimes these are also called Toad In The Hole (beats me why), but I’ve nicknamed in this version the Heart In A Hole (at least it isn’t the other way around, huh?). I literally got up and zombiewalked to the kitchen in my pj’s to make this, because I had been thinking about it all the night before, wondering if it would work.

So, I took a slice of bread, which turned out to be multi-grain because there was nothing else in the house. This one is Milton’s multi-grain, which I have an unabashed affection for. I buttered both sides (the world would be a sad place indeed without butter!).

Used one of my heart cookie cutters from this mega collection that I’ve had for many years, and cut out a heart from the middle.

Put a little more butter in a pan (what? Julia Child LOVED butter!) and waited for it to melt.

Set the bread slice in the middle, and carefully broke an egg into the heart shape.

I covered the pan so the steam would allow the top of the eggs to set a little.

Flipped it over when I thought the yolk was sufficiently set and waited for that part to toast a little. I also toasted the cut-out heart itself in the same way.

The final outcome wasn’t as pretty as I wanted it to be, but I’m picky like that. I would have wanted the yolk a bit runny, so I’m probably going to take it out of the pan a little earlier than I did the next time I make it.

It was a hearty (oh puns, I love you so) dish that was as much fun to eat as it was fun to make! I hope you get to eggsperiment on your own, too!

These ornate Korean decorative towers adorned the main table at a birthday party we attended just this afternoon. My friend Bona made them for her son Joshua’s first birthday. Traditionally, they’re made of stacked colorful “dduk” (rice cakes), though hers were meticulously handcrafted from candy. A Korean baby’s first birthday (or “dol”) is a celebrated in a grand way, as my friend Connie told me, because in the old days it was challenging to raise an infant even up to his/her first year. I love learning about cultures other than my own, and when there are food and craft traditions that go with them, it makes the learning that much more interesting.

EDIT: Here are more cute photos from the birthday party!

Bona even made these animal figures from fruit! Cute!

I always wanted to go to one of these as a kid. I thought getting invited to a Tupperware Party was the height of an exciting social life!

My childhood was filled with Tupperware. My grandmas and aunts used them to store flour, leftovers and rice, among other things, and I often took lunch to school in them. I even have memories of using one of the rectangular red containers with compartments inside and a white top as a sewing box for home ec in school. So my recent fascination with Tupperware from days of yore comes as no surprise. It combines two things I love: vintageness + domesticity!

This old-school obsession actually started with seeing this pic of E. when he was younger.

Yes, that is a Smurf Cake, which he decorated himself! (Happy Smurf Day, lol!) My eyes widened when I saw the cake carrier underneath it. I remembered one like it EXACTLY from a neighborhood kid’s birthday party when I was little. I couldn’t type the words “vintage Tupperware” into Google fast enough!

I’ve been feeding my old-school obsession at a steady pace for several weeks now. The Internet is great for foraging for these vintage gems and has lots of devoted collector groups, some of which are over on Flickr. (How things from when I was growing up are now considered “vintage” is subject to another day’s discussion!)

Rummage through the kitchen cupboards from your childhood with me! Remember these?

* Canisters with center buttons that you had to “pop” for freshness

* Classic orange jug—always filled with ice-cold Tang!

* Yellow-and-cream food containers with that little swirly insigna

(Photos via **tWo pInK pOSsuMs**.)

eBay also has lots of excellent finds. Naaliw naman ako!

* Stackable lunch carriers

(Via mykraft.)

* Hours of endless fun with the Shape Sorter toy!

(Via froggrrll.)

And look, I found the exact kind of red case I used in home ec class in 6th Grade!

(Via sutton459.)

The biggest collection of vintage Tupperware ads, catalogs and posters is hosted over on the amazing Tupper Diva site. I’m obsessed with looking through it.

And, oh, yes Tupperware is apparently still alive and thriving. Here’s their website, along with their now-modern designs, like these awesome food keepers for chilis, avocado halves, onions and garlic.

I don’t have the space to start my own collection, but I’d like to find some of these as storage bins for my craft area. I think it would be great if I could organize all my stuff in all these retro cases. I’m really hoping to scour the next Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market for them!

I’ll be blogging about my old-school domestic obsessions every once in a while. It’s a growing list! (Next up: Good ol’ Pyrex!)

In a perfect world, I would have the chance to cook (and eat) every imaginable pasta shape out there. I’ve been thinking about pasta a lot recently, and this may be because I’m trying not to eat too much of it. Last night, in fact, I dreamt about making rigatoni with sausage and peppers. With homemade marinara sauce from ripe, plump Roma tomatoes, made bold with healthy servings of garlic, fresh basil and thyme, finished off with a hunk of warm, crusty bread.

In my hankering for all things pasta, I’ve unearthed these photos from one of the more memorable pasta meals I’ve made. It’s a no-holds-barred Chicken Alfredo (modified from this recipe), the kind you only make once every two years or so for fear that you’ll keel over after the last bite. The kind of pasta dish you hold in your memory—for the joy in making it as much as the joy in eating it!

I remember making this after discovering the pasta Shapes Library (yes, there is such a thing) over at the National Pasta Association website. I was looking through all the shapes and realized I’d never worked with Cavatappi before, so I promptly set about to remedy the situation by declaring dinner as an excuse to test-run this particular pasta shape.

There’s so much more out there to try! How about these interesting-looking ones for your next meal? I think learning to pair which pasta shape to what sauce is an unexplored culinary art form, and I’m hoping to get several chances this year to uhm, “enrich my studies” (read: Cook and eat more of these things!). Look, there’s even a pasta shape for a curlyhead like me!

If YOU dreamt of pasta, what kind of dish would it be?

Making headway today on my red scarf for The Orphan Foundation while watching the US Figure Skating Championships–can’t wait for the Winter Olympics. (That’s Belbin and Agosto on screen!) And I’m loving my very useful cupcake tote. It was a Christmas gift from E.’s mom T. and I now use it for my portable projects. Hope this Saturday finds you loved and warm and crafty!

Today is a good day to blog about these sunshine-y cupcakes. Because it’s been raining in Los Angeles. A LOT.

We need a little reminder of the (almost) perennial Southern California sunshine around here. The weather is getting people all depressed! I personally love all this rain, but the fact that most Angelenos are mopey and boo-hooing this strange weather is the perfect opportunity to write about these yummy, summery cupcakes.

I made them for my friend Sara’s birthday. We were all going to have dinner at Loteria Grill, a Mexican restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard (awesome food!) I wanted to bring dessert that would pair well with all the enchiladas and tacos we’d eat with wild abandon, and at first I thought I’d make a Mojito Birthday Cake. The lime and mint in it, typical Mexican flavors, would do just the trick. And oh, yes, the rhum!

But as a lot of restaurants in the city, Loteria was going to charge me a (stupid) cake-cutting fee. Simply said, if you bring a cake into a restaurant that observes this policy, they’ll charge you for cutting and plating your dessert. Why would I or my friends have to pay to eat something I baked? Ridiculous! I called up the restaurant and countered, “Well, if I brought in some cupcakes, they won’t need cutting…would you charge me for those?” The person over the phone admitted no, they wouldn’t charge me if I chose to bring in cupcakes. Ha! HA!

These cupcakes were so much fun to make. I first set about making cupcakes with my favorite vanilla cupcake recipe (out of the Magnolia Bakery cookbook).

I used these really pretty cupcake liners from Bake It Pretty.

I then modified the rhum syrup from this recipe. This was the sweet, alcoholic kick that really elevated these from sweet, innocent vanilla cupcakes that they were to the sinful indulges that they became. I mean sugar + alchohol? Come on now, that’s debauchery in a cupcake right there!

After poking holes into the cupcakes and spooning the syrup on top, I waited a bit to make sure the syrup was throughly absorbed, infusing each little cupcake with the bright flavors that inspired the popular cocktail.

With a little help from Nonna, my little grater girl, I made a cream-cheese frosting with lime zest mixed right in.

After garnishing the tops with lime slices and sprigs of mint, I decided the cupcakes still kind of looked naked. Ayayay.

I realized I had some green sanding sugar in my decorating “toolboox,” and sprinkling those on completed my sweet, little sinful things!

¡Salud!

I hope it’s bright and sunshine-y where you are, and that you’re enjoying a mojito in the sun and thinking about me.

Pardon me.

Contrary to what you may be thinking, I’m not flipping you off!

I burned three fingers on my right hand yesterday. And what you see above is my hand with burn cream on it. The stuff was supposed to sit in a thick layer on the burns for a good half hour. Which resulted in my weird (and kind of obscene) crab hand. If I wasn’t careful, I’d get the cream on everything, so I had to hold up my hand and fingers like that. Fun times.

Well, not really. I burned my fingers on a bowl from a microwave, out of all things. I heated up some food, the bowl got super heated and I picked it up without thinking. I couldn’t imagine a supposedly microwavable bowl would get that hot, but it did. It got SEARING hot, and it gave me the NASTIEST burns I’ve ever had (and I’ve been burned in the kitchen A LOT). They were so painful I had to focus all my energy into not going into shock. My brother’s girlfriend said that it probably hurt that much because fingers have a lot of nerve endings, because we use them to touch and feel surfaces, temperatures, etc.

I had to grip a bag of fake ice as we half-frantically dashed in the rain to the nearest pharmacy where I found this Burn Jel stuff. There was a whole bunch of other burn remedies on the shelf, but between you and me I picked this one out because it has a picture of a baking lady on it. Hee.

I didn’t get it on the burn immediately, so it took about an hour to really work. It has lidocaine in it and some aloe vera.  I had to use it for a long time before it finally worked—some cushy gauze helped. I had to wince my way through a stirfry and the simplest things, like turning the key in a lock or zipping up my jeans.

Today my fingers are doing better, but I had to wrap them for  a good part of the day because I kept hitting the sore parts. But the Burn Jel has really helped—as I write this I have no blisters and the pain is almost all gone.

I’m writing about this because I realized last night if I had damaged my fingers beyond repair, I wouldn’t be able to cook or craft. It’s my cautionary tale to you—PLEASE don’t be a klutz like me in the kitchen (well, anywhere for that matter)! Believe me—you need your fingers!

Just a quick post to let you know that Craft Hope Project 6 is underway. The deadline is February 14, 2010.

Craft Hope is a collective crafting movement. The site sets up projects that anyone can make handcrafted gifts for. In the past year, they’ve sent dresses to little girls in Mexico, dolls to children in Nicaragua and quilts for homeless children in Michigan (among others). Each one of those projects were loving gifts, handcrafted in a unique, special way. I haven’t had the chance to jump in and join in all the craftgoodness, but this time I’m going to join Project 6. How timely it is—it’s a crochet (or knitting) project, and I had just written about the grandma who taught me how to crochet.

Project 6 will be in partnership with The Orphan Foundation’s Red Scarf Project.

The Orphan Foundation serves thousands of foster teens throughout the U.S. They provide college scholarships, connect them with mentors and internships, send them care packages, and testify for them before Congress. Each year 25,000 students ‘age out’ of the foster care system and the Orphan Foundation is committed to helping them become tomorrow’s successful citizens. They launched the Red Scarf program in 2005 to send red scarves to warm the hearts (and necks) of college-bound youth. They began taking these donations to include in their Valentines Day care packages.

I’m excited to work on my first project for a cause this year! I’ll keep you posted (and you can keep me accountable!) of my progress.

I’m missing the holidays, even if they DID drive me mad. I decided to make most of my Christmas gifts, and my hands were busy all the time. Sometimes, I’d even fall asleep with bits of thread and cloth in my hair. But all in all, I really DO love making gifts for friends and family, no matter how chaotic it all gets.

I’m sitting here thinking about all the lavender sachets I made for friends (so easy because I used precut charm packs from Moda):

And the all tha packaging fun as I made this version of Bake It Pretty’s Russian Friendship Tea (lemonade+orange drink+instant tea=yum!):

After all that craftmadness, I’m kind of itching to make something again, and soon. Oh, wait. Isn’t Valentine’s coming up?