Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Roses are Red
A $50 Shopping Spree at La Cuisine
Earlier today we told you about a few ways you can get creative and show your significant other just how much you care this Valentine's Day. The tips and tricks we learned to make beautiful and professional looking cookies were all part of a demonstration put on by La Cuisine , a wonderful culinary store here in Old Town. In addition to the cookie decorating, we also hinted at (okay, flat out told you about) a giveaway we'd be holding for a chance to win a $50 gift certificate, either in store or online, to use for a shopping spree at La Cuisine. Well, now's your chance to win that gift certificate.
To me, nothing says Valentine's day like a romantic candlelit meal shared between two love birds, and nothing says you're a DIYer like cooking that meal yourself. But just like any good DIY project, you need the right tools for the job, otherwise your project may be more difficult than it needs to be or the results lacking.
You may know about Alex's obsession with his power tools, but bakeware, dessert decorating accessories, and kitchen goodies are my weakness. I love to drop by La Cuisine to look at the various cookware and dream of where it will eventually live in our fully renovated kitchen. Ahh, new kitchen -- can't wait!
Sorry, I drifted off there for a second. Anyhow, back to the Reader Reward.
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Wednesday, February 1, 2012
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, we’re in the mood to do a little celebrating. My desire to celebrate Valentine's Day got me thinking….what can you do to create something special for your honey without breaking the bank? Well, this is a DIY blog after all, so we thought we'd put together a tutorial so that you can create a little something to show someone special how much you love them.
Thanks to our friends at La Cuisine , a destination kitchen and cookware shop here in Old Town, we received a demonstration on how to make a professional looking sweet treat for your sweetie this Valentine’s season. They're also giving one lucky reader a $50 gift certificate to use online or in store, perfect to stock your pantry with Valentines must haves. (Keep reading for details.)
It all started last week when Alex and I headed down to the store where Val Lishack, known by friends and colleagues as the “Hungarian Hurricane,” put together an informative demo on cookie decorating. Val has logged many years as a pastry chef, and she graciously shared some of her culinary skills to demonstrate how one simple butter cookie can be transformed into a multitude of Valentine's Day goodies. Here she is in action:
If you're interested in trying this out at home, here's a list of ingredients and tools Val recommends that will allow you to decorate the cookies in the styles seen in this post.
Heart shaped cookie cutter
Meringue powder
Fondant and icing sugar (can be substituted with well sifted powdered sugar)
Disposable pastry bags
Coupler and tips for pastry bags
Squeeze bottles for dyed icing
Red food coloring
Green food coloring
Gloves to keep the dyed icing from staining your hands (optional)
Sparkling sugar (optional)
Once you have all of your supplies you're ready to get started. Using your favorite (or any basic) butter or sugar cookie recipe, bake off a batch of heart shaped cookies using the heart shaped cookie cutter. When your cookies are out of the oven, set them aside to cool fully (and resist to urge to eat all of them). If you try to apply the icing before the cookies have sufficiently cooled, you'll end up with a big mess on your hands since the heat of the cookie will wreak havoc on your designs.
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Nor was our basement cleaned in a weekend. But thanks to your votes in our poll on Friday , I was at least able to put a serious dent in cleaning up the disaster zone that is our basement . It may not be anywhere near complete, and you may have seen the "it gets worse before it gets better " style video from the weekend, but I wanted to give you an update none the less. I was true to my word and listened to your votes, working only on this house-related endeavor over the weekend. Thanks for the inspiration that helped me to get my rear in gear on cleaning/organizing.
I'd also like to apologize to you if you're tuning in today expecting a big storm window build and reveal post. (You might remember, it's the project I publicly declared to my wife and the world would be finished by January 31 .) If so, I've sadly let you down...and that makes me a Sad Panda. A few of our other 2012 resolutions got in the way of that one. I'm still very much working on them, but it's going to be a little while longer before they're complete. I'll start posting about the storms next week to show you some of our progress. Speaking of, does anyone know of a good place online where I can order low E coated glass? I'm having a hard time finding a supplier.
Anyhow, in lieu of major storm window progress, here's an update on what we were able to accomplish in the basement. Prior to this weekend I was able to make some progress on cleaning out a whole bunch of trash. More than anything I was able to free up some much needed space to move around. Even though I've been viciously called a wood hoarder by my wife, I was able to overcome my illness (it's an illness you know) and bundle up a collection of sticks I wouldn't be needing any longer to put out for the trash.
And I did all of this without having a breakdown or stomping off in a verbal tirade. It's no Hoarders-style dumpster full of trash, that's for sure. But I just want to know one thing...Wendy, are you proud of me?
One of the worst issues with our basement from the before photos was all of the wood laying on the floor or stacked up along the shelves. It accumulated over time and was arranged in such a manner that I couldn't easily access anything that was actually being stored on the shelves. If we ever needed the crock pot or a tube of caulk, it would involve about 15 minutes of delicately moving items until I could reach what we needed. It was not fun, nor was it an efficient method of storage.
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One of the worst parts about our kitchen when we bought our house was how horribly dark it was. The dark wood cabinets and severe lack of lighting meant the whole area was like a cave. (And not in a cool man cave sort of way.) As soon as we bought the house one of our first tasks was to tackle an inexpensive kitchen makeover , using the little money and skills we had at the time. We started to fix part of the problem by painting the cabinets white and resurfacing the nasty green counter tops with a textured spray paint . But that only solved the first half of the problem. As soon as the sun went down, the room went right back to dark due to the fact that all light in the room came from a single overhead ceiling fan/light combo, and an ugly one at that.
In this photo, I think I'm laughing about how disgusting that fixture was.
To solve this issue of a significant lack of light and to add some visual interest to the room, we wanted to install some under cabinet lights. Aside from providing the lighting we desperately needed in the room, it would also provide task lighting directly on the countertops, an imperative item when cooking.
Without much knowledge of how to attempt this, or even a real plan, we embarked on what was ultimately the first "electrical" project in our home, and boy are we glad we did.
We headed out to Home Depot and looked around the lighting aisle for something we could use as under cabinet lighting. We weren't sure of the style we wanted, or even what kind of lights to buy, but we happened upon a pack of Westek "Puck Lights" similar to the ones to the right.
This was well before the days of LED or even Xenon, so the decision on a halogen bulb was easy. The package we chose touted quick installation and surface mount application, so it seemed to be absolutely perfect for our needs. We bought a single five pack of lights for the five cabinet bottoms we needed and excitedly went to our house to work on the project.
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After all votes were tallied from our poll on Friday asking you to tell us what to work on this weekend , the task of cleaning the disaster that is our basement won out. Lots of good justifications for why we should do this, and I can't say we disagree.
Here's a quick video I took when I heard bangs, crashes and general commotion coming from the basement. Is this the sound of progress? You be the judge.
VIDEO
I hope we're able to say we have a clean basement, but I'm not holding my breath. What do you think our odds are?
Hope your Sunday is a productive and enjoyable one thus far.
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