housing for all

i was absolutely enchanted by these tiny gingerbread cookie houses, because after all, i am a sucker. a total and complete sucker. and after reading that blog post and marveling at the cuteness of the pictures, i decided i had to make some. had. to.

but i'm not enough of a glutton for punishment to do it completely from scratch. i still had half a tub of dough left over from decorating cookies with the bean and the teen, plus a tube of ready-made gingerbread dough just chillin' in the fridge. and i always have the ingredients for royal icing in the pantry, so i was good to go. i printed the template from the website onto a piece of cardstock and cut out the pieces:

rolled out some sugar cookie dough on a piece of foil:

and started cutting pieces out with a paring knife.

i'd only cut out about two houses' worth of pieces when the bean decided she was bored and wanted some attention. she hadn't yet had a nap, so i set the stuff aside and snuggled with her on the couch until she fell asleep.

once she was peacefully snoozing under a comfy blanket, i slid off of the couch carefully and went back to work. it was a pain in the ass to cut those pieces out and pull out the excess dough from around them, but i managed. i found that rolling the dough between two pieces of foil and then sticking it in the fridge to firm up again made it easier, though.

i also found that the dough puffed up considerably in the oven and lost most of its shape. eff. i ended up having to re-cut the pieces using the templates after pulling them out of the oven. gah!

but by the time i got to the final sheet of baked foundation pieces, i was over it. i trimmed enough to make the doorways and left the rest of them as-is.

i mixed up the "cement" and put it in a ziploc, and then snipped a corner off.

gluing the pieces together was pretty easy, and they fit together perfectly. whee!

not too bad, right?

i looked at the website again, and when i compared the originals to my sad little attempts, it was like driving from millionaire row into shantytown. oh, well. in no time, i had a entire village of little ghetto cookie houses lined up on my tray.

once they were all assembled, i started decorating to make them a little more festive-looking.

they looked a little better than before, right?

before we scooted out to christmas eve service at church, i perched one on the rim of a coffee mug to see how it fit. and then i squealed and clapped my hands with glee at my handiwork. dork.

after church, i scurried into the kitchen to grab something, turned around - and then the unthinkable happened:

i yelped so loudly that the teen came running out. "you knocked them all over, didn't you?" thank goodness it was just one casualty - not the entire dozen. that would have sucked in the biggest way. my little village was still mostly intact.

after that, i got and stayed out of the kitchen before i did any more damage. sheesh.

mallowin' out

i'd had a recipe for homemade marshmallows bookmarked for ages, and thought christmas would be a great time to give it a shot. "why bother?" you're probably thinking. "the ones in the bag are just fine."

true enough, but after those chocolate-covered marshmallow cookies i made earlier this year, i knew there was a difference. a HUGE difference. and so after perusing the instructions a few times, i got my pan ready by spraying it with a little nonstick spray and sifting some powdered sugar to cover the sides and bottom.

except that i pulled out my box of unflavored gelatine and realized i only had enough to make half a batch. wah waaaah.

so i pulled out a smaller pan and prepped it like the first one.

i sprinkled the gelatine over some ice water and let it sit while i prepared the rest of the recipe.

i carefully measured sugar, corn syrup, water, and salt into my saucepan and stirred it over low heat till the sugar dissolved.

and then a second "d-oh!" moment came as i realized that the pot i'd used was too big for my candy thermometer to register the temperature. dammit. so i scraped the mixture into a smaller pot and just resigned myself to having to do a shitload of dishes later.

the mixture came up to 240 degrees quickly, and i poured it into the bowl with the dissolved gelatine.

using my trusty pink kitchenaid hand mixer, i whipped that concoction into quite a frenzy.

next, i washed off the beaters and got to work beating my egg white into oblivion. since it was just one sad, lonely little egg white, it reached stiff-peak stage pretty quickly.

i had half of a vanilla bean left over from my last batch of almond-vanilla rice pudding. it'd been a while, and although it was safely nestled in the jar i'd bought it in, time had left it quite brittle. it broke into pieces when i split it with my paring knife, but that was okay. it was still usable (and really fragrant).

i scraped the beaten egg white and the vanilla bean into the sticky mixture and whipped it with the mixer until everything was nicely mixed together.

i poured the whole thing into my prepared pan and then sprinkled the top with more powdered sugar.

like others who have made this recipe, i'm rather an obsessive bowl-scraper. i like getting every last bit out of a bowl whenever possible. this was most definitely not one of those times - the mixture was so sticky and messy. every time i tried to scrape the sides to add to the pan, i ended up with long marshmallowy strings that threatened to cover me from head to toe, and so i gave up.

after a few hours of chillin' in the fridge, my marshmallows were ready to come out and play. i pulled the pan out, slid a knife around the edges, and turned it upside down. it was pretty stuck in there, and i had visions of yanking big, jagged, ugly chunks out. but i was pleasantly surprised to find that it just took a little prying to get the whole sheet of mallows out in one piece. yay for me!

(i'd started slicing it with an oiled pizza cutter before i remembered to take this picture, oops)

see how nice and clean it left the pan? the leftover sugar and nonstick spray washed out quite easily, with no mallow residue to be found anywhere.

the recipe says to place the cut pieces back in the pan and toss with more powdered sugar, but i figured i had enough cleaning to do and just threw it all into a gallon-sized ziploc bag. it worked perfectly.

look! springy and fluffy, just like the recipe promises. and such a lovely texture! they're so good. the bean and i are addicted. the hub's not a huge mallow fan, and the teen liked them but not as much as the two of us.

next time, if i halve the recipe again, i'll probably use an 8" square pan instead, so that they're thicker and bouncier. and maybe i'll try using different flavors, too.

SO much better than store-bought. really! not that i'll quit buying those, though. we all know my ass is far too lazy to make these whenever i have a recipe that calls for marshmallows. heh.

merry menace!

that's bean-speak for "merry christmas!" hope you were nice enough for santa to bring you everything on your wish list.

i probably wasn't, but that's okay. heh.

may all your wishes come true, and i hope you're lucky enough to spend the holiday with the ones you love most in the world.

and my wish is for the joy and love of the season to last all through 2010 and beyond!

happy christmas eve!

phew. i managed to get through my last day at work till the new year - i'd asked for this week off too, but was denied. "it was already short notice that you were taking the week of the 28th off. we need you this week." bah! i had so much to do and not a whole lot of time to do it in. of course.

i spent the majority of the afternoon running around like one of santa's elves with his head cut off. i needed to pick up something for the teen that was only in old town pasadena, and while i was dreading it, i bit the bullet and headed out right after work. i was happy to find a parking spot relatively quickly, and then got in and out of the store i needed in no time.

and because i'm a true glutton for punishment, i hit up the mall for a few things. again, i was happy to avoid fighting to park the car, and navigated my way through the hordes of folks easily. shopping solo makes it pretty nice for scooting through small openings and speed-walking through the aisles.

my last stop was target to find stocking stuffers, and by the time i was done, i was spent. i hadn't had a thing to eat all day aside from a delicious winter dream tea latte from coffee bean, and i was feeling a little weak. and what could be better after a long afternoon of christmas shopping than a delicious mcrib from mcdonald's? heh.

oh, here's a random bean picture, because i love that hat. and the smirk.

i picked up the teen and headed to the grandparents' house, where they were hanging out with the ILs and the bean. i was amused to see this on the table:

the local edible arrangements shop had tried to deliver this the other day, while we were at our restaurant depot extravaganza, and apparently had major difficulty in finding the house. these days, with GPS and navigation on cell phones - hell, a simple thomas guide! - i found it ridiculous that a delivery guy couldn't find an address that's been in existence for about 40 years. and the shop was literally just up the street and around the corner! good gracious.

oh, another random bit - check out the gift that in-n-out gave to each and every associate (they don't call them "employees," i don't know why but that's just the way they roll):

after dinner, FIL and the hub took off with the teen to do some last-minute shopping, leaving me, the bean, and MIL to finish off the last of the grocery-ing for our christmas dinner. going that late was actually a blessing, because there were no crowds to fight through and we got it all done pretty quickly. the bean had a blast riding through the aisles in this cart:

and this morning, i've already whipped out a batch of homemade marshmallows:

and i'm about to get started on another cute little project. i hope they're as easy to make as they look.

stay tuned for the recap.

shopping where the restaurants shop

i don't know what fascinates me about things that either miniature or supersized, but i dig it. little teeny-weeny trial-sized products are irresistible to me, as is the idea of giant vats of hershey's syrup or sacks of potatoes taller than i am. i love shopping at costco and smart & final, and not just because you get a great deal on lots of things. i know, i'm weird. what else is new?

so when we started talking about christmas dinner this year and lamented the fact that large cuts of meat are such a pain in the ass to get from regular grocery stores, the hub turned to a friend and got us access to restaurant depot. it's a wholesale joint typically available only to the food service industry, and bills itself as "where the restaurants shop." yesterday, we piled in the car with the bean and the ILs and headed out to do some shopping.

see? big ass sacks of potatoes and onions, more than you'd ever need.

FIL teased me with the prospect of digging into a huge box of crab legs all to myself. yum. too bad none of us currently have the freezer space to put it.

the refrigerated/frozen stuff is housed in a ginormous walk-in cooler that is so frigid, they put these at the entrances.

FIL and i were equally entranced by the vast selection of food, utensils, appliances, and everything else you can think of to run a restaurant. we wandered up and down every aisle, pointing at things here and there, completely entertained. meanwhile, MIL, the hub and bean dragged along, taking up the rear, rolling their eyes and totally amused by us.

need some latex gloves? they had them in every size, color, thickness, etc. i know you're freaky. you need these now and then.

the baking aisle offered ginormous quantities of flour, sugar, and 5-pound blocks of chocolate.

the bean enjoyed her fun ride on the cart.

i broke my "no pictures" rule (it didn't take long, and you knew that would be the case) to show off that awesome orange jacket i pulled on before walking into the meat department. hot and sex-hay, huh?

i stopped for a moment of silence as i encountered this WALL o'bacon.

and then we finally found what we were there for - a giant slab of prime meat, ready to be seasoned and put in the oven for hours on end.

you know what a carnivore i am, but the sight of so much ground meat had me slightly grossed out.

as did this - whole goats and lambs hanging from hooks. ew.

and this. EW. gah-ross.

as the hub and FIL debated over what cut of meat to buy, i wandered around and found the selection of italian meats. although i'd just had lunch, it totally made me crave an italian sub.

aisles upon aisles of cold cuts, cheese, potato and pasta salad, and more.

when we finally got outta the meat locker and hung our jackets back up on the rack, i found yet another fun aisle - chef's uniforms. i was hoping to find a pink chef coat, but the closest i got was red.

some of the restaurant-quality appliances. there was some serious equipment here.

more fun restaurant supplies - baking pans, squeeze bottles, sugar/creamer serving pieces in bulk, tongs in every size you could ever want.

it took me a few seconds to figure out what these were - need an immersion blender? these ain't no wimpy proctor-silex $20 dealios. you can't get this shit at target.

want to set up a fast-food kitchen in your house? here, you can do just that.

i totally wanted a deep-fryer and a cheese sauce dispenser. come on, that'd be fun!

rice for days, folks.

those crappy wooden high chairs you find at most eateries were here, too. $35 buys you one.

back in the utensils section, the bean thought the giant potato mashers were kind of fun. i thought it was comical that they were almost as tall as she was, and MIL found this enormous strainer, bigger than her head.

if i had that deep fryer at home, i would totally get these. serve up fries and cute taco salad bowls? okay!

i smirked at that sign - if i saw that posted somewhere i was working, i'd tag that shit.

we goofed around in front of the security camera while the men, uh, handled the meat. heh.

outside, i thought it was cool that they provided these when shopping during hot ass southern california summers.

after all that browsing around, this is what we walked outta there with:

well, that and a box of vanilla chai tea bags.

and now i totally want to open a restaurant just so i can shop there more often. ha!