grasshopper brownies.

I'm back and it feels really, really good. The past few weeks have been such a flurry of activity that I forgot how important it is to stop, slow down, and get out the mixing bowl and wooden spoon - a variation of stop and smell the roses, if you will. Getting married can make you feel a lot of things - excited, nervous and, in my case, hungry.



Unfortunately, all the wedding hullabaloo made it near impossible to spend a decent amount of time in the kitchen, really just a few minutes here and there for a slice of wheat bread smeared with peanut butter or a pomegranate popsicle on my way out the door. I spent a few weeks in between houses, shifting from my parents to my shared home with Justin, thus creating a split kitchen as I tried to make dinner come together at both places on any given night. It's a frustrating thing to open the drawer for your favorite knife only to find its familiar slot amongst the forks and spoons empty. That's why I don't have the recipe ready for these grasshopper brownies ready for you just yet - the cookbook has gone missing in the shuffle of moving and I don't want to bamboozle you by trying to remember it off the top of my newlywed-head. But I promise I will post it soon.



In the meantime, have a look at my new favorite part of the house: the cookbook nook. It's my favorite not only because it's one of the few places of the house that isn't stricken with plumbing problems, but because it's all mine. As it turns out, there is a lot of sharing in marriage - the shower, the sheets, the chores, the toothpaste. But this nook? This is not for sharing. There are no screwdrivers or scraps of sandpaper, no shotgun shells or animal pelts tucked into the corners of the shelves - only page after page of delicious, buttery, belly-filling goodness. And it makes me happy.



In the past eleven whole days of marriage, I've collected a grab-bag of thoughts that I ponder throughout the night as I struggle to sleep in my still unfamiliar new room. Like - will Justin continue to bring me every single bobby pin he finds on the floor, the pillowcases, or the counters? Once totaled, that could be years of his life spent bringing me loose bobby pins. I knew he was a sleepwalker (and sleep shouter), but how could I have known he'd be muttering police codes in his dreams? The muffled 10-4, 10-86, 10-8 (codes not actual) makes me wish his brain would take off the bullet-proof vest from time to time. Obviously, there is some serious spiritual introspection going on here.



I haven't done much baking the past few weeks as evidenced by the home-owning trauma going on at our house, but I did volunteer to whip up all the desserts for our rehearsal dinner. I got a lot of crazy looks, that raised eyebrow that says, "Oh honey, you want to do all that? You've lost all your marbles." And maybe so, but it was my wedding and I'll bake if I want to. Hmph. We hosted the dinner at our new cabin with my Dad serving up thirty (!) pounds of pulled pork on checkered table cloths stacked with frosty beer bottles and sweet wine - it was a picture perfect picnic smack in the center of our living room.



And I made raspberry oat bars, monster cookies, a peanut butter pie that is still stuck to my hips and these brownies - grasshopper brownies, buttercream mint brownies, crème de menthe brownies - whatever you like. My brother, David, came home with a bottle of crème de menthe, accused me of being an alcoholic by "sneaking it into food," and gave me some long winded explanation about why the liquor wasn't green. If your crème de menthe is of the clear variety, you can add a few drops of food coloring, or go au naturel as I did.



Putting these into the Brownie category is really selling them short - they are so, so much more than that. The brownies is simply the base - a chocolaty, fudgy, chewy vessel for carrying an inch-thick layer of minted buttercream to your mouth, held down by a snap of bittersweet chocolate that cracks under your teeth with each bite. They are quite sweet in the best way, and you'll do well to keep a cup of coffee in one hand and a brownie in the other. Also, the liquor alone isn't enough to give the buttercream its minty boost, so you'll need a bit of peppermint extract. I made the mistake of buying mint extract which turned out of be a combination of spearmint and peppermint, and the very smell of spearmint makes me gag worse than strep-test. Do as I say, not as I do.

It's best to keep them in the fridge or else you run the risk of the buttercream becoming too soft and oozing all over your fingers. We even ate them straight from the freezer where they'll keep for a few weeks, tightly wrapped.

and so we are married.

See you next week.

homeownership.

I knew that owning a house would be a big responsibility. I knew that houses cost money and time and effort and sometimes that money you saved for a dream dinner at The French Laundry would end up going to buy lightbulbs or repair the fence. But somewhere in there, I thought all those things would happen after a few years, after the house had been a little lived in and a little loved, when we would be able to shrug and say, "Welp, that fence gave us ten good years!"



When I left work today, my brain was bustling with last minute wedding plans and thoughts - when to pick up my dress, if I should have my ring cleaned again, to drop the cake topper off with my friend and baker of delicious wedding cakes. I was itching with excitement for all the guests coming into town this weekend, thrilled to show off our new digs. I was ready to clean, Windex - make it sparkle and shine. I didn't expect to have Justin call me on my way home to say, "Please don't panic, but the basement is flooded."



The words "don't panic" and "flood" do not mix well in my mind.



Naturally, the insurance companies were less than helpful on all accounts. We live in an area not at all notorious for floods, and a sump-pump failure somehow falls under "flood damage" - coverage we do not have. And the "you just paid an obscene amount of money for this house, so we got your back" insurance found themselves a loophole in the pump being outside the foundation so it's not covered. It's great how they really try to help you out, isn't it?



So in lieu of wedding shenanigans today, Justin and I rolled up our jeans like Huck Finn and bailed freezing cold water out of the basement until we couldn't feel our toes. Because when the insurance company tells you that a plumber will be there "sometime within the next 6 hours," you have to take matters into your own hands.



So all the boys spent the evening ripping up the flooring that now magically seeps water each time you step on it, and poor Cory split his hand wide open, and I cried on the phone to my Auntie Trish until my Mom arrived and promised it would all be okay.



I think that's enough for today. Sleep tight - I'm getting up early to pick out new carpet.

housekeeping.

I feel a bit guilty about not having a recipe to share with you today, but my desire to write is still there, so I feel I must do something about it. With everything else happening these days, I decided I ought to take the pressure to bake-bake-bake off my shoulders and learn to savor the flavor a bit more. Life happens so quickly, doesn't it? So I gave my blog a bit of a face-lift in honor of my mini-revelation, and I do hope you'll stick around. Don't worry, there will still be copious amounts of butter and sugar around here, but in just nine short days, the only people at my table on a regular basis will be Mr. Policeman and his little wife, and there's just not enough stomach room for all that cake. I've got dozens of savory recipes lined up, I even grilled a steak last weekend!



But lately, I've been up to my gills in cowboy wallpaper.



Some might say I am way in over my head in trying to redecorate a room while we are still moving in and planning the wedding - but when I go into our house cabin, it still feels like someone else lives there. When I stand in the foyer and see the kitty-printed wallpaper, I cringe knowing we are "dog people." And somehow I missed the rodeo room, the guest room that was covered with lasso-slingin' Westerners from floor to ceiling. I assume the little boy who lived there had quite an imagination.



But my heart pines for vintage, shabby, chic, rustic decor, something Justin could never understand since he is currently taking measurements for where to hang his deer head on the wall. I so want it to feel like ours, a place where we live and sleep and make memories. So my Mom and I spent hours scraping and peeling the paper off the walls only to find the paper was actually under the trim and baseboards and we had to use a razorblade to get it out. Thank you, previous owners.



And if that wasn't enough, Justin is refinishing an antique dresser my parents gave us, a dresser that has gone through more members of my family than I can remember. I suppose I could figure out who has previously owned it based on the pencil doodles and chewed gum that line the drawers, but some things are better left a mystery. God bless him, he spends hours each day sanding, stripping, dusting, wiping, and staining the dresser and I spend hours...well, cheering him on.



Perhaps we'd been huffing too much paint thinner or the fumes of the wallpaper remover finally infiltrated my brain, but halfway through the day on Saturday we found a 1920's porcelain-top stove for sale and brought it home to our garage within the hour. Now this book you have to judge by its cover, because the innards are so incredibly rusted and rotted you'll get lockjaw just by looking at it. But we are equipped to restore, my friends!



And so our life together begins so very soon. Hallelujah.

lemon glazed madeleines.

The light at the end of the wedding tunnel is rapidly approaching and heck, I'll be honest, it's sort of blinding. At least five times per day, someone asks me if all the planning is done and, after weeks of this, I finally realized that I was telling big fat lies each time I smiled and said, "Just about!"  So sorry if you have been one of those people, but the planning is almost never finished. It's sort of maddening, really. Being asked to make decisions on the tiniest of matters is a new form of torture -  like what color the ribbon around the top of the ceremony program should be. Would I like sage green, parsley green, kelly green, mint green, celadon green, fern green, jungle green...for heaven's sake - just give me green!

Thankfully, my sweet mother has held my hand and refilled my wine glass every step of the way. She didn't even judge me when I poured myself a glass at eleven in the morning on a weekday (creating a seating chart is particularly stressful). To top off the bridal blitzkrieg, Justin and I closed on our house this week, which is equal parts exciting and terrifying - the  exciting part being the electric dustpan built into the bottom of the kitchen island that sucks up dirt with the click of a button (never gets old), and the terrifying part being the heart-stopping large numbers on the papers we signed at settlement. If I never do that again, I'll be just fine. And while we're here, the next person to ask when we're having a baby gets a frying pan to the face.

Somewhere in all the hustle bustle, I made these madeleines. As I was packing up the 457 baking pans I own, I dug up the seashell shaped pan from the bottom of the cabinet and was instantly panged with guilt - I made such a fuss over getting it for so long and I'd only used it once. Madeleines are the sort of cakey-cookies you can pull off even when you're a lamenting a lack of food in the house - it's a simple batter of eggs, flour, sugar, and butter. Now I don't want to be the type that joins in the never-ending battle of baking powder or no baking powder because lately I have other things occupying my time, but I skipped it completely in this recipe and the tiny tea cakes still had quite a bit of puff to them.

Now I really, really like lemon. Justin says he doesn't, but that doesn't keep his hand out of the cookie jar. So once these cookies are cooled, I dunk them into a tart lemon glaze, let them dry, then dunk them again. It takes a pit of patience for the glaze to set up in between each dip into the lemon pool, but for your time you'll be rewarded with a tender cake coated in a crackly citrus crust, the type that you can hear shattering under your teeth if you're very, very quiet.

Lemon-Glazed Madeleines
Adapted from David Lebovitz

3 large eggs, at room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
Zest of one lemon
9 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature, plus additional melted butter for preparing the molds

For the glaze:

Juice of 2 lemons
Zest of 1 lemon
2-3 cups powdered sugar

Brush the madeleine molds with melted butter then dust with a bit of flour. Shake off the excess flour and put the pan in the freezer while you prepare the batter.

In the bowl of a stand mixter fitted with the whisk attachment, beat together the eggs, granulated sugar and salt until the mixture is thick and frothy - about 5 minutes. Sift the flour over the mixture about 1/2 cup at a time and gently fold the flour into the egg mixture with a large rubber spatula. It may seem a bit stubborn in absorbing into the liquid, but I promise it will.

Add the lemon zest to the cooled butter and add the butter to the batter a few tablespoons at a time, mixing after each addition. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour and up to 12.

When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Remove the pan from the freezer and scoop a small mound (about 2 tablespoons worth) of batter into each mold without smoothing it out - they will fill the molds as they bake. Bake for 8-9 minutes in the center of the oven, each madeleine should be lightly colored and puffed up just a bit. Allow the cakes to cool in the pan for about 2 minutes before removing each one to a cooling rack.

While the cakes are baking, make your glaze.  Whisk together the lemon juice and lemon zest in a medium bowl. Add the powdered sugar about 1/2 cup at a time and whisk until it is a smooth, glossy, pourable glaze.

Once each cake is cool enough to handle, dip both sides into the glaze, shaking off any extra glaze. Allow each cake to cool on the wire rack until the glaze is set and then dip again.

Madeleines are best the day they are made, but they will keep in an airtight container for 2 days.