Sierra vs. Ciara

This post is a digression from our usual subject, the domestic arts, but it is a question that must be answered. Who is better? My roommate and fellow writer of this blog, Sierra, or the R&B/pop singer Ciara.











VS.














I will compare some of the important arguments in favor of each:

Ciara made me like an R&B ballad ("Promise") when usually I do not. On the other hand, Sierra made me a calzone for dinner the other night.

Sierra often makes goodies (such as the molasses cookies she made the other night). On the other hand, Ciara made "Goodies."

Sierra will sing along to "Fergalicious" with me. On the other hand, every single Ciara has put out except "And I" is better than "Fergalicious."

Sierra is a real person with emotions and a sense of humor. On the other hand, Ciara is a wonderful unfeeling robot who is probably made of metal.

Well, I guess it's a tie. And the only tiebreaker is who would win in a fight. I think we all know that is Sierra. I will post a picture of her beating me up as proof.


Sorry, Ciara, but Sierra wins this one. I guess you will have to be content with being a famous millionaire.

Cataloging and Cookies

Tonight, in true Martha fashion, I made molasses crinkle cookies. The recipe is an old favorite, taken from Molly Katzen's Still Life With Food, which is currently filed under 641.5636 in accordance with the Dewey Decimal System. Because the cookbooks had to make room for cupcakes at the party last night, Spencer got the extra treat of re-organizing the reference and cooking shelf:

(Watchful readers will notice that Spencer is shelving The Joy of Cooking)

We have since coined the term "have a 640 day!", which is the code for domestic arts and sciences. The cookies turned out very well, and taste great:

Don't let the picture fool you - I'm really enjoying myself...

If you decide to make these cookies, do NOT skip the last step of rolling them in sugar - this pushes the cookies from delish to divine, and adds some sparkle for bonus presentation points.

Mrs. Buerschaper's Molasses Crinkles
Prep Time: 25 min. Bake Time: 12 - 15 min.

Wet Ingredients:
1/2 c. Butter
1/4 c. Blackstrap Molasses
1 c. Sugar
1 Egg
Dry Ingredients:
1/4 tsp. Salt
2 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1 tsp. Allspice
1 tsp. Ground Ginger
2 c. Unbleached White Flour (also works to use half whole wheat)
1 - 2 tbsp. sugar

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a cookie sheet.
2. Melt the butter in a glass bowl, add wet ingredients and stir until combined
3. In a separate bowl sift together dry ingredients (except the additional sugar), then add to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.
4. Form 1-1/2 inch balls of dough, roll them in the sugar until coated, and place on baking sheet.
5. Bake 12-15 minutes until firm to the touch. Cool and enjoy!

If anyone makes this, tell me how it goes - I'd love to know!

Cleaning Comes First

Last night, we had the closest thing we've ever had to a raucous college party. There were a bunch of people crowded into our kitchen and dining room, there was loud music, there was even dancing. Needless to say, it was a mess afterwards. But did we leave it for the morning? Of course not! Celia and I knew we just couldn't sleep if the house was a mess. Here are pictures of our kitchen and dining room a mere 15 minutes after the last guests departed.




I'd say that's pretty good. Maybe it's not perfect, but neither are you.

Marthalicious!

In the spirit of all things domestic, I began to wonder why we haven't posted a photo of our 'marthalicious' house yet. So here it is (taken on a rare sunny day), the lovely yellow house on the corner. Come and visit us sometime, and we'll bake you cookies!

Also, here is a picture of our kitchen, where we devote entirely too much time to random acts of domesticity:

A Treat for Cold Weather

okay, so as an obsessive knitter (a title that anyone I know will verify), I tend to go a little overboard. The latest manifestation of this has been a ridiculously easy yet extremely gratifying pair of fingerless gloves, found in the summer 06 edition of Knitty (the best online knitting magazine EVER!). For the gloves I was feeling cheap, and instead of the cashmerino blend advised (which admittedly felt like a dream) bought a skein of Lamb's Pride worsted weight yarn in avocado green which is a personal favorite. As an added benefit, I have so much of it left over that I might just make another pair! There was some cabling involved, but it is minimal and easy, and the end result is pure magic. The pattern can be found here, and is definitely worth the effort. The only thing I modified was to extend the knuckles to accommodate my hefty hands, and that was done by repeating the last five rounds again (including the cable).

Also, please note the "Anthrax Kills" mug that I am holding - Spencer found it at Value Village last year, and it adds just the right sense of doom in the mornings... maybe it wouldn't be Martha's first choice, but it works just fine for us!

Month of Muffins

Last night, Celia, our wonderful other roommate, made pumpkin apple muffins. They were, of course, delicious.



What you should know is that last winter, before Sierra lived with us, Celia and I baked muffins every day for over a month. This phenomenon has become known as the Month of Muffins, and basically corresponded with the 36 straight days of rain we got here at the same time. We used a wonderful and adaptable recipe from the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics cookbook:

wet ingredients:
6 tablespoons butter or vegetable oil
1/2 to 3/4 c. sugar
1 egg
1/2 c. plus 2 T. milk
1/2 t. vanilla
2 c. chopped fruit, and/or nuts, and/or chocolate chips (or other combinations, see below)

dry ingredients:
2 c. flour
1 t. baking powder
1/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil a 12-cup muffin tin. Cream together the butter and sugar in a medium bowl, then mix in the other wet ingredients. In a separate large bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients and fold together with a rubber spatula. Divide into the muffin tins and bake 30 minutes.

For this recipe, I think Celia put in a cup of pumpkin and a cup of chopped apples. Our favorite from the Month of Muffins was 1 c. frozen raspberries and 1 c. chocolate chips. We kept a log of all the muffins we tried, and here are a few that turned out well:

* blackberry almond
* strawberry chocolate almond
* banana walnut
* strawberry granola (1 c. strawberries, 1 c. granola)
* zucchini strawberry (grate the zucchini)

Zucchini as a muffin ingredient is really amazing. Replacing half the flour with cornmeal also makes good corn muffins. These muffins are also really good when made vegan, just use vegetable oil instead of butter, egg replacer, and soy milk. You won't be able to tell the difference.

Oh, and that's a box of satsumas behind the muffins in the picture. Satsumas are my favorite fruit, and it's the time of year they have them in stores - go get some.

Check It Out!

This evening, I felt like making a coffee cake, so I found this recipe from marthastewart.com. I pretty much followed it exactly, except I used butter instead of vegetable shortening, buttermilk instead of milk, and half whole wheat flour. It turned out really well. Martha definitely came through.

Cutting in the butter:

Stirring in the wet ingredients:

Ready to go in the oven:

Done:

6 Degrees of Separation

In our eternal quest for greatness by association, Spencer and I often swap stories of who in our family knows someone famous. There are the usual small-time associations, but our favorites of all time are the following:

Spencer's mother's friend is friends with Martha Stewart, and
Sierra's great-grandparents lived across the street from Irma Rombauer on Cabbane Avenue in St. Louis.

See? We're clearly destined for greatness.

The Great Waffle Bake-Off

Sierra and I both like to make waffles for our friends, and Sunday morning waffle brunch has become and intermittent tradition for us. In fact, that was how I convinced Sierra to come live with me. My signature waffles are cornmeal waffles that a family friend makes every year when my family visits (for the Logger's Jubilee, in fact). Sierra's signature waffles are made with yeast. She got the recipe from her father. I had never actually had Sierra's waffles before, and we decided that it was time for a bake-off. We invited some friends over and each made a batch of waffles.


Sierra's waffle batter rising in the oven.



Spencer adding buttermilk to his waffles.


Sierra made some hashbrowns in case a vegan showed up.


Just one of many excited guests.

Unfortunately, once the guests arrived, we were having too much fun to remember to take pictures of the finished waffles. In the end, this bake-off resulted in a tie. Every last waffle was eaten.

Spencer's Cornmeal Waffles:

Beat together:
* 2 cups buttermilk
* 2 eggs
Add:
* 1 c. whole wheat flour
* 3/4 c. cornmeal
* 2 t. baking powder
* 1 t. baking soda
* 1/4 c. wheat germ
* 2 T. sugar
* 1/4 t. salt
Blend until smooth
Add:
* 6 T. oil
Cook in your waffle iron.

Sierra's Yeast Waffles

Warm the oven
Mix together:
* 2 c. warm milk
* 2 T. oil
* 2 c. flour (mix of whole wheat and white)
* 2 eggs
Add:
* 1 t. sugar
* 1 T. hot water
* 1 T. yeast
Put into the warm oven for about an hour until it rises, then cook in the waffle iron.

Haloween Costume Biznatch

I was a praying mantis for halloween, and this was the result:

The head was created by covering a baseball cap with green fabric, hot gluing styrofoam balls covered in sparkly fabric onto the sides, with a couple of metallic pipe cleaners to top it off.

Flannel-icious

In my never-ending quest for ways to avoid homework on a rainy Saturday, Spencer's suggestion that I make a donkey out of scrap flannel ended up being taken far more seriously than it was probably intended to be. Instead of following some sort of pattern, I cut pieces resembling a donkey, reversed them, and sewed them together. The legs, tail and ears were sewn individually and attached, with some help from the internet to find out what a donkey tail actually looks like... pretty straightforward, overall.

And I know, it kind of looks like a dog with rain boots, but it totally rocks my socks!

NYT Article about Joy of Cooking

Here is an article from Wednesday's New York Times about the Joy of Cooking. Sierra and I have the 1975 edition of the Joy of Cooking and bake from it often. We refer to it as "Irma," after the original author, Irma Rombauer. We'll say things like, "These cookies are from Irma." There's a new edition of the Joy of Cooking coming out soon, and this article discusses the various editions over the years. If you don't know why Irma first started writing the Joy of Cooking (hint: it's shocking and scandalous, sort of) or about the controversies over the 1997 edition, you need to read this article. Like the author, Kim Severson, we will be sticking with our 1975 edition, mostly because we're college students and don't have much money, but also because it meets our needs.

Hello

Welcome to the College Student Martha Stewart Wannabe blog. My name is Spencer and I will be writing this blog with my roommate Sierra, who is currently sewing me a tiny flannel donkey. Basically, we are college students who want to be Martha Stewart, and we will write about our journey to becoming amazing homemakers here.