do you take cream and sugar?

My friend recently scored a rad vintage sugar bowl on Etsy, and it renewed my once-vigorous search for an cream and sugar set. Here's a round-up of ones I like on Etsy. Forgive the mustard & brown color theme; it was, for the most part, unintentional. That's just how I roll. Click on the photo to go my Etsy Treasury page with individual links to each item.

And yes, of course, still on the hunt for vintage Pyrex of all kinds and other ugly-beautiful housewares. Love love love.

Past Etsy round-ups:
All things gold & mustard-colored in Golden Winter.
Capital Region Etsy Round-up by All Over Albany.
Terrarium Love, including a rude little gnome.
Spruce Up Your Workplace, which I shared over at Whole Living last year.
And tic toc, a round-up of clocks.

mushroom mole mini tacos

Mushroom Mole Tacos. These were planned to be the centerpiece of our New Year's Eve party.* We had other snacks-- chips, salsa, crackers, hummus, sriracha party nuts, a cheese plate-- but we planned just two hot dishes for the night. We made empanadillas with spinach, raisins and veggie chorizo and then we made these tacos. Oh, these tacos. These spicy, chocolate-y, mushroom-y tacos.

Inspired completely by a wild mushroom taco we tasted at Bobby Flay's The Art of the Taco Night, Chris and I furiously searched for recipes to recreate a mushroom taco wonder. We settled on this recipe, modifying it slightly to swap in button mushrooms and leaving out the water in order to get a thicker taco filling. We made it ahead of time and even scoured the interwebs to hunt down the same exact Taco Traps that they provided at the Bobby Flay taco night. Yup, we really like our guests to have a great time and we knew that little tiny taco holders were the way to make that happen.

We used a 3" round cookie cutter to cut mini taco shells out of large tortillas. We bought the fixins. We had it all planned out: it was to be a grand moment of the party, brought out and served later in the evening as a milestone event.

Except, that didn't quite happen. As a tip for you party-throwers out there: don't wait until nearly midnight at a New Year's Eve Party to bring out your best dish. That's a better time for... say, grabbing a slice of pizza around the corner or switching to water for the rest of the night. We brought the tacos out, completely forgot the little Taco Traps, and generally let them get lost and largely overlooked. Son of a jackal!

So we decided to make ourselves our own mini taco meal today, complete with our own Taco Traps. It was awesome.

*Our New Year's Eve party was actually a New Year's WEAVE Party. At our request, all of our guests wore crazy wigs. Mine, if you were wondering, was a hot pink bob.

cheese & the wall street journal

If you happen to grab a copy of today's Wall Street Journal, go ahead and flip to the front page of the Personal Journal section. There I am! Making cheese! What?!

(Click images to enlarge.)

Yes. Because the world is a crazy place, I am featured in today's Journal story on home cheesemaking and DIY dairy products. Guess I won't be cutting out too much dairy, at least not this month :) After making sure the reporter knew that I was a total novice at cheesemaking, relying primarily on the sangria-fueled cheesemaking party of last summer for my experience, she confirmed interest and sent a photographer to document the making of mozzarella in a less-than-40-square-foot kitchen. I tell you people, if I can make mozzarella in my kitchen, you can make it in yours. I asked Sister to come over and act as my sous chef. With the click click of the camera, we whipped up a ball of fresh mozzarella in under an hour with only minimal nervous laughter.

If you are a WSJ subscriber, you can read the online article here. Anyone can check out the entire photo slideshow, and you are allowed to politely giggle at the funny faces I'm making.

Thanks to Alina Dizik, Erica Beckman & John Francis Peters who made my WSJ debut so comfortable and easy. And for somehow including little ol' me in a story with DIY rockstar Ashley English. Thanks also to the ladies of FSC for throwing that cheesemaking party.

our local bar

Last year, Chris built us a home bar. A gorgeous, from scratch, lovingly-designed and created mini-bar. I am obsessed with it. It was a labor of love that was constructed in the middle of our tiny living room, in the beautiful park across the street, in the back shop at Chris' work and in his parents' backyard up north. He sketched out several design iterations, settling on this one that fits so perfectly in our apartment but is versatile enough to follow us to wherever our next move brings us.

The bar holds four bottles of wine, two shelves of spirits, four wine glasses and a drawerful of bottle openers, cocktail napkins, coasters and knick-knacks. It's nestled in between our couch and our stereo in our living room.

Chris built the bar so that it houses our mini-fridge. We store extra drinks in there (beer, kombucha, seltzer, mixers) and between the fancy bar and the fridge cover, we are somehow able to pass it off as age-appropriate and, dare I say, classy?

Most of the bar is made from white pine, including the bar top that Chris bought as a natural cut from a nearby lumber yard. He spent a lot of time squaring it off and cleaning it up because, in his words, "it was a freakin' mess." The drawer and side inlays are maple.

There are no screws, nails or brackets of any kind in the bar. Just wood and some wood glue. In fact, the only metal in the bar is on the drawer knob, which he found at a salvage store. Once it was constructed, we (yes, I actually helped a little bit) painted it and stained the trim and bar top.

I can't believe I waited so long to show this off to you! It's been finished for a good six months at least, and every day I look at it and am blown away by it. I wouldn't even know where to start if someone told me to build a bar. I'd probably see if there was some sort of kit I could buy and even then I'd still be completely overwhelmed and clueless. Fortunately I'm with someone who is not only a talented designer, but can actually figure out how to build his designs. Neat-o. There are old-school cocktail parties in our future, for sure.

catching up, making cookies & goals

I've been posting 'round the internet this week and thought I would catch you up...

Are you going through holiday cookie withdrawal? Learn my tips for hosting an epic cookie-bake-thon over at ShopRite's Potluck blog!  Relax, you don't have to make 40 dozen cookies like we did.

Also, I shared my food-related goals for 2012 over at From Scratch Club this week, which include hosting small dinner parties and making more condiments. Head over and check them out if you like!

the can can sale

You guys know I'm a blogger for ShopRite's Potluck blog, yes? Well this will be my first time experiencing the craziness of the famous ShopRite Can Can Sale. Apparently many of you know the Can Can sale jingle already and have fond memories of it from years past. Bring it on. So, basically, ShopRite hosts an annual mega-sale on canned goods and other non-perishables. This year, ShopRite will donate one can of food up to 50,000 cans for each fan on its official Facebook page. Soooo, all you have to do to help raise awareness for the fight against hunger, is "Like" ShopRite's FB page.

The Can Can Sale runs from Thursday, January 5 through Saturday, January 21 but you can "Like" their Facebook page anytime during the entire month of January to help ShopRite fight hunger.

If you are feeling particularly cheesy, you can become a virtual ShopRite Can Can dancer, which is both ridiculous and secretly awesome. You know those dancing elf things that people send around during the holidays? With their heads stuck on a cartoon dancing elf's body? Yes, this is the same idea. You can upload a photo at www.ShopRiteCanCan.com and giggle at it when your boss isn't around.

ps- Don't roll your eyes at the canned goods. We regularly keep a good variety of canned beans and legumes in our pantry (which, if you remember, is actually just a small bookcase in our kitchen). They make it easy and affordable to prepare healthy, whole foods recipes. I mean, I won't be running out to buy Spaghetti-Os, but chickpeas, black beans and kidney beans? Yup.

the top posts of 2011 + my favorites

Here are the most popular posts of 2011. Some of them are popular because of solid link love throughout the interwebs, some are presumably popular because they're awesome and some of them are are this list for reasons unknown to me.

DIY Kitchen Pegboard. People are always expecting a tutorial. Sorry, folks.
Beet and Brown Rice Veggie Burger. Awesome awesome.
Small Batch Peach Jam. This got some homegrown.org link love.
Hip Girls Indeed. FSC link love.
Boozy Amaretto Pound Cake. I don't know. It wasn't even that awesome.
Our First CSA, Lessons Learned. Dissertation on being a CSA member.
Your first CSA season, tips and advice. Part Two.
A Haircut & a Trip to Atlanta. People also like pixie cuts.

And because the most popular posts seldom reflect my favorite posts, here are a few underdog posts of which I'm particularly proud.

Surprisingly good tempeh reuben. Give tempeh a chance, people.
Frilly aprons and policy briefs. A brief on why I'm fine with kicking ass at work and then coming home and baking cupcakes.
One little egg's journey. I sent a plastic Easter egg through the mail.
Vegetable observations. I think these comparisons creeped people out, but I stand by them.
Ones who are mad to live. This quote still gives me shivers.
A wedding quilt. A quilt for my sister and her husband.
Tales of a food journey, part one and part two. Jointly-authored posts of Chris' experience volunteering on organic farms in Nova Scotia.
Banned book week. I'm a bookworm.
Kombucha what? I know it's weird, but come on, explore kombucha homebrewing with me!
Non-dairy milks, an exploration. This one gets steady traffic, but didn't have enough airplay in 2011 to make the top posts list.

There we have it! Now I can officially move forward from 2011 and jump into the new year. After all, I've got a big blogiversary to celebrate soon and this requires some party planning. Happy Weekend.

2011, looking back & looking forward

Another year has come and gone. Unlike those anti-resolutionists out there, I love love love making new year's goals and lists and plans. I typically do a lot of that planning on my birthday, but I like the crisp break that a new calendar year brings. Right now, though, I feel like I'm just trying to keep my head above water. Just swimming along, taking it all one day at a time and whittling away at what needs to be done. It took me days just to write this recap, and so the thought of listing out a year's worth of new challenges and projects  feels like the wrong move today. I came up with a few ongoing priorities that I want to continue to keep in mind, and that feels good enough to me. Now let's just take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

2011 was a better year for me than 2010. Last year I was featured in Martha Stewart's Whole Living magazine, cut my hair off and got a new job. I spoke at a conference in Atlanta, frolicked around Portland, spent a night in Old Montreal & ate my way through the NYC Wine and Food Festival. I also ran a few races- a 5K, 15K & something around a 10K. Our tiny kitchen came in second place in the rental category in a national Small, Cool Kitchens contest and a few months later I bought a huge, crazy blender to put it in. I saw some great live music. I read 22 books and approximately one million magazines. This summer, I spent many of my Saturdays helping out at a bakery and then napping outside in the park. Though I don't write about it here, a lot of great things happened professionally for me in 2011. Because yes, as I must remind people, I have a full-time job that doesn't involve baking quiches or photographing my dinners.

On a personal note, last September my family lost someone who we loved very much, my Nan. When I finally figure out how to adequately tell you about her and what she means to me, I will.

2011 was a year of food. I sewed, knit & crocheted less and cooked more, although I'm trying to find a better DIY balance this year. We joined a community-supported bakery and a community-supported agriculture program. I became a new contributor to two food-focused blogs, my dear From Scratch Club and the ShopRite Potluck blog. With the support of my FSC soul sistahs, I jumped into the world of food swapping, super small-batch canning, pickling, cheesemaking and kombucha-brewing. Chris volunteered at organic farms in Nova Scotia. I detoxed and experimented with eliminating certain foods in January and again in November, feeling really awesome after each and gaining a new understanding of which foods make me feel good and which ones make me feel... not good. With our deepening interest in food- where it comes from, what it does for us, how to prepare it- came a shift in the focus of this blog. I hope you've enjoyed taking the journey with me and learning along with us as we go. If there's anything you want me to try out so you can learn from my mistakes, just let me know. I'm here for you, peeps.

Last year I wanted to make our own bread, do more yoga, stop whining, floss more, be more patient and relaxed, cut out high fructose corn syrup, run faster, and simplify. I did pretty well at most of those. What are your goals for the year? Big or small, tell me about them. One of my goals is actually to figure out how to start a better two-way dialogue in this space, so I'm not just talking at you all the time :) Cheers to 2012! Later this week I'll share the top posts from last year as well as a few underdog favorites.

infused liquors: making cheap booze classy

Infused liquor. It's so easy it's almost not worth mentioning, but here I am, buckling under a self-imposed sense of obligation to share this magic with you. I started infusing liquors this year and bringing them to food swaps. Wow, was I a popular swapper. Good lord, they love their booze. I had them fooled for a few months and then people started to catch on to how simple it is to infuse their own liquors. I've infused tequila with strawberries & lime and raspberries & honey. I've made peach-infused vodka with agave syrup. Most recently, I followed these instructions from Martha Stewart for a Cranberry-and-Orange Vodka and gave bottles of it away for Christmas. The best part is, you can just make up your own recipe once you get the basic formula.

To infuse liquor you need:

A) Liquor. The liquor doesn't need to be expensive. It really doesn't. You are dressing it up so nicely that you won't be able to taste that it came from a giant plastic bottle that you had to stoop down to get in the liquor store. This is a place where you can get away with being a bit cheap.

B) An "infusing agent" (I think I just made that term up) & an optional sweetener. The "infusing agent" can be fruit, herbs or something else I haven't thought of yet. I hear there garlic-infused vodkas out there, but that's not really my thing. In fact, it makes my stomach turn just thinking about it. I like to use fresh berries, when possible, but thawed out frozen ones work just fine too. Juicy fruits work best; I would be skeptical of a banana- or apple-infusion but if you try it, tell me about it, ok? Fresh herbs are key in herbal infusions; check out this post on Herbal Digestif for more info on that. The recipe I used for my Christmas vodka essentially calls for making a cranberry simple syrup, which allows the sugar to dissolve and the cranberries to split and release their juices. If you are using honey or agave as your sweetener, you can add it directly to the liquor without heating it, although warming it up a bit makes it easier to mix in. If you aren't heating your infusing agents, give them a light smash with a fork to break up some of the juicy bits. You don't want to make fruit puree of it, but a bit of a crush will help the infusion process.

A few ideas for infusions...

• Raspberry & Lime Tequila
• Peach & Vanilla Bean Vodka
• Cranberry-Orange Vodka
• Lemon & Lime Gin
• SO MANY MORE...

I let my infusions sit for a minimum of three days and up to two weeks. After a few days, I usually move it to the fridge where it can be safely stored for months. If you keep it in the freezer, it will keep for a very very long time. In a pinch for New Year's Eve? Make it tonight, let it sit for 24 hours & then break it out for a midnight toast. Even though it will be a young infusion, the flavor will still be strong, especially if you heat up your berries and sweetener before adding them to the liquor.

Happy New Year, peeps! See you in 2012 :) I've got some resolutions to think about, a NYE party to finish planning and perhaps another Whole Living Action Plan to start. Even though I tend to do a lot of my annual goal-making and looking-back on my birthday, I still like taking the time each December/January to think about the past year and wrap it up neatly in my mind. 

Coming up in January: A very special blog anniversary, if you acknowledge such milestones. I do, so we'll be celebrating in style here on the ol' blog.