And So It Begins...

2012... sounds so ominous. I don't think the world's going to end this December 21st, but it's still a crazy year. A graduates from medical school and starts his 6-year residency. We are taking a big trip to Peru -- super excited! My youngest sister graduates from college. What a year.

To start off on the right foot (or left, whichever is your preference), we cooked up a fancy New Year's Day dinner. It was our first time making lobster tail, which was delicious. With that we had zucchini risotto. And for dessert I managed to time the souffle perfectly! Well, it was actually a good amount of luck.

Don't be fooled... these were not ordinary chocolate souffles. They were made with Nutella! If you know me well, you know I'm a sucker for that chocolate hazelnut spread. It's so addictive.

I also made a chocolate hazelnut sauce to spoon inside. I wish I could say we saved the third souffle for the next day, but we definitely ate it right then and there. No shame.

That first week of January our good friends D & C were in town for a job convention. They stayed one night in our apartment and took us out to dinner as a thank-you. Judging by the amazing-ness of the dinner, you'd think we lived in a penthouse overlooking Michigan Avenue and the lake. We went to The Purple Pig for the first time. They do small plates and specialize in all things pork.

They had a cheese menu with descriptions and definitions on the lamps.

Quail with cranberry sauce. Yum.

It was so good to see them and just get to catch up in person. We're crossing our fingers they get jobs in Chicago! (Though we'd visit them wherever they end up.)

We finally got a good amount of snow a few weeks ago. About 5 inches! But it only stuck around for a couple days, then melted away as our temperatures hit the upper 40s. Again. This is the weirdest winter ever.

Orion loves to jump in the snow! And eat it.

Because A is special, he chose to go into Urology. Because Urology is special, they do their own match apart from the official Match Day. So A had his own Match Day last week. We are super excited to be staying in Chicago for the next six years! (Yes, six! It's madness, I know!)

To celebrate, we went out to dinner with a bunch of our med school friends. We chose a Polish restaurant, but I chose unwisely because it apparently closed about a month ago. But never fear, there was another Polish restaurant in the same area which also had great reviews.

It had so much character. It looked like a dinky restaurant, but inside was all wood and brick, a beautiful bar, rustic decor and a long communal table. And the food was outstanding!

Their VIP "Room" (just a section of the restaurant) had an animal pelt hanging on the wall. There was much debate over what animal it had come from. After resorting to petting the fur, we broke down and asked the server. She told us she didn't know what it was, but that it wasn't from a bear. Apparently many other people have asked the same question!

I hope your new year has started off well and winter is treating you well! :)

Not-So-White Christmas

This past Christmas was the first one A and I spent alone. We didn't travel to our families, and they didn't come to us. That sounds really sad. Let me explain. One of my sisters was working over the holiday on a cruise ship, the other spent it with her boyfriend's family, and my dad also worked over the holiday. Plus A had E.R. shifts right up until Christmas Eve and then the day after Christmas. So... yeah, we weren't going anywhere.

Since we were in Chicago for our first Christmas, I had my fingers crossed for snow. It would rock my socks to have the always-hoped-for white Christmas. Things looked promising as we had snow a week before, but then we moved into this strange weather pattern where temperatures are 20 degrees above normal. It all melted. :(

Not to worry - we still had a great holiday, even with Mother Nature withholding the fluffy white stuff. 

In college we started the tradition of building a gingerbread house during the holiday season, usually coinciding with Hanukkah. We would buy a kit at a store, then go crazy with the decorations. As last year we were traveling and the year before we were getting married and on our honeymoon, we haven't made a gingerbread house in a while. I decided to bring it back this year, but with a twist. 

We would bake our own gingerbread.

Yes, you heard right. I did some research (thank you internet), and found most people recommending amateur bakers not attempt gingerbread dough. I've been baking for quite some time, so figured I could handle it.

We started out by making a pattern for the house. Many ideas were sketched on a handy whiteboard, but then A had a breakthrough. Why would we go with a typical design? If we're going to make our own dough, we might as well go all out and make...

The Hancock building.

(If you look closely at the above sketch you can see where we have an issue later!)

Next step: Actually making and baking the pieces. Building gingerbread dough turned out to be the most difficult thing I've ever made. It is a "hot dough", meaning you roll it out while it's warm. When I first started mixing it, it was crumbly and refused to come together. I started to panic and scanned multiple comments on the recipe I was using. Thankfully the combination of additional water plus the microwave gave me something I could roll out. Crisis averted! A went to work cutting out the pieces using a pattern we made.

He also did a little free-styling for our backdrop.

The dough went into the oven, while we watched carefully. Would it burn? Fall into pieces? Once again we lucked out - it browned (only slightly - we didn't use true molasses) and was very solid!

Once we had all the pieces, I whipped up some frosting to glue them together. We lined up all the pieces. Or so we thought. See what's missing now? We forgot to make a roof piece! However, we were able to use some of the extras A baked for the backdrop to improvise.

We let the pieces sit for a few hours so the frosting could dry. Once that was solid, we went a little crazy with the decorations.

We attempted to reproduce with candy some of the trademark architecture on this famous Chicago skyscraper.

Much candy was used.

It turned out great! (Well, we like it.) A commented that we need to up our decorating skills as our building is comparable to work done by a kindergartner. 

We admired it some more. Then we ate it!

Just kidding! The thing about building gingerbread is it doesn't taste particularly good. And it's hard as a rock. It's better to appease your visual appetite.

Here's a closer look at the backdrop... we wanted to add a skyline, and also ended up using extra candy to construct a road.

And of course we added our initials!

Our gingerbread building was so well constructed it lasted three weeks! (Mostly because A couldn't bear to throw it out.)

Warning: This post now moves into Orion overload. If you have an aversion to cute dogs, stop reading now. :)

While we were decorating, Orion was observing from her usual position - lounging on the couch.

O is one lucky puppy... she received multiple holiday gifts! One she doesn't really like that much yet because it's a thinking toy. We like to give her things which force her to use her brain. We're so mean.

You put treats or food inside the plastic bottle, then your dog has to move it around to get it out. There's an opening at the top with a piece of rope that can move in and out.

She didn't know what to do with it at first.

Then she realized she could tug on the rope.

A was excited since he's always trying to get her to play tug-of-war!

She quickly abandoned that toy and moved on to one much more desirable - a peanut butter-flavored chewing bone from my parents. (Actually from my parents' cat, Barcardi.) Here's what we imagine she was thinking:

This smells amazing! Can I really have it? Really? All for me?

Which end do I start on? It's bigger than I am! Yum!

She loved that bone. Took her a long time to finish it, and she jumped up and down, spun round in circles and generally went crazy whenever we brought it out.

But by far her favorite present was another from us. A new dog bed! She hasn't had one since she was sick at the beginning of last year and we threw the old one in the trash. As soon as we gave it to her, she curled up in it and stayed there almost all day.

This is by far the most amusing way she sleeps in it.

Not entirely sure how that's comfortable, but if she's happy it's all good!

Hope you had a great holiday season!

Someone Hates Showers

"Please, won't you save me from these crazy people?"

Experimentation: Chocolate Noodles

During our second attempt at molecular gastronomy we attempted to make chocolate noodles. However, we didn't want to make the amount on the recipe, and we wanted to try a couple different flavors, so some math was involved.

It's sad when an engineer needs a calculator.

We eventually figured out the math and moved on to the creation of some tasty noodles. Again we used agar agar as the key chemical. You heat up the agar agar in water, then add chocolate and melt that too. We made two varieties - one with Frangelico and one with rum.

After you have everything melted down, you suck up the mixture in a syringe, then squeeze it into a long plastic tube.

The tube then sits in an ice water both for a few minutes. Next you squeeze out the noodle! This was the tricky part - you have to wait long enough, and then squeeze air into the tube with the syringe.

It was well worth it - they were so tasty! We put them on pancakes. Total yum.