A Day Off = Class Time

My job gave me the day off to go to another property to attend an excellence class.

It was long and boring and thanks to two of my awesome co-workers that attended the class with me, the class was bearable.

Class wore me out so, below are a few snaps from the day.

The hotel was large and beautiful.

I ended my day with a simple meal.

Curry croquettes with honey dipping sauce.

Homemade Kimchi ramen soup with fish cakes and veggies.

Then straight to bed. I haven’t woken up that early since we moved to Georgia.

Volcano Chicken @ Home

I attempted to make one of my every weekend meals from back home.

I crave it almost everyday so I made my own version of  it.

Thai style Volcano Chicken.

Almost every weekend for about six years this was the dish I had to have.  I still think they put some kind of addicting ingredients in their food.

I miss our Rock-a-Bangkok Thai Restaurant.  I am going through withdrawals.

My version had a kick to it, and very tasty, but it wasn’t the same. Back to the drawing board =)

Hello Chihuly, Thanks for Following Me to Atlanta

One of my favorite places to walk around when I was in Miami was at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.

Since we were members we would go often and it was there, one beautiful day that we were introduced to the glass work of Dale Chihuly.

His work makes me happy, so elegant and creative.

The other day when Luis was showing me the buildings to which he has classes in, glass work hanging from the ceiling caught my eye.

Located at the atrium of the College of Management building at Technology Square.

Chihuly chandeliers.

A shot of Technology Square.

Thanks Mr. Chihuly for giving me a little piece of my favorite place from back home here on the Georgia Tech campus.

Feeling all fuzzy inside.

 

 

Little Heart Cakes

My aunt Elaine gave me a cake decorating tool box for my bridal shower last year.

She is amazing in many ways.  One of her many talents are her beautiful cakes.  Below is a shot of my bridal shower cake that she made.

Valentine’s Day is around the corner which means it’s been one year since my bridal shower and I still have not opened up my cake tool box and played with all the little gadgets and cake making supplies.

With love in the air and hearts being one of my favorite images I decided to make individual mini cakes for Luis, his friend Hoki, and myself.  To be honest almost everything I make is heart shaped.  Might be an issue, but I think it’s a cute way to express my love to serve Luis food and my love for him.  Good thing Luis loves me back and doesn’t mind heart shaped pancakes or toast!

Endless supplies, I wanted to play with everything.

Luis loves cakes that have fondant on it instead of my favorite buttercream frosting.  I met in the middle and decided to try out a marshmallow fondant that promised to taste better than the regular fondant mixture.  The recipe warned that it would be a huge mess and it wasn’t lying.

Red Velvet of course!

The kit came with an adjustable cake slicer, making the cake sheet perfectly leveled.

I decided to bake the cake in a long pan and cut out the heart shape so I could use the left over pieces for a second dessert, heart shaped cake pops.

And now for the fun and messy part.

It was a difficult task and it gave me a headache.  I don’t think I would ever make it again.  Luckily, it was fun enough just to play with all the tools.

Isn’t my fondant smooth?  The kit came with a fondant smoother.

I dyed a small piece of the fondant and rolled it out and cut a ridged heart out with a cookie cutter to add to the top of the cake. I whipped cream cheese frosting to act as a glue for the fondant and cake and also to “glue” the red heart on top of the white cake.

Then painted it so it could be red and shiny.

Tah-Daaa!

Small, but not bad for my first ever decorated cake. Thinking about it now, I should have used one of my 15 piping tips to have created some sort of design around the bottom of the cake.

Next time, heart cake pops!

Obsession

I am totally in love with window clings.

Target has all different types for whatever occasion or holiday.

With Valentine’s Day, our six year dating anniversary, and our one year wedding anniversary coming up within the next few months, love and hearts and anything sickly over-the-top cute is in order.

And since fall has come and gone, Luis and I have taken down our falling leaves window clings and replaced them with these…

The little birds are saying “Love!”

and the dinosaur is thinking about love.

Soon, our paper snow flakes in our living room window will be replaced with another little something to get us in the loving spirit.

Valentine’s Day is especially special to me since my bridal shower was held on that day.  I’ve never felt so loved until that day.

It’s also the same day my grandparents on my father’s side met (at a dance) and later engaged on Valentine’s Day.  My grandmother has told me she would have gotten married on that day as well but, she wanted to get married with a warmer temperature =)

Here is a sneak peak…

A celebration of love.

New Kitchen Goodies

Thanks to my wonderful cousin for sending me Potterybarn gift cards for Christmas I was able to buy some new kitchen gadgets.

Love Williams-Sonoma.. I can’t help but walk into the store every time I am at Lenox Square Mall.

I’ve been wanting a torch forever. Torch some cheese.. or sugar.

Thankfully Potterybarn and Williams-Sonoma are in the same family so I was able to use the cards for three new toys; a kitchen torch, rolling pin, and a microplane grater/zester.

Luis has a favorite soup, French Onion and my new torch was screaming to be used.

I found this recipe in a Cooks Illustrated magazine from the 80’s.

Luis enjoyed using the torch as well.

Yummy goodness.

It came out good. Luis, Hoki, and myself ate two bowls each.. nothing was left so I guess we all liked it.

I spent the whole day in the kitchen. Over 9 hours!  After our meal Luis and Hoki treated me to a night out on campus to play a few games of pool. Which I kicked their butts in!

I wish I had more days off, I really did enjoy my day in the kitchen.  I made the soup, Korean steak with bok choy, and little mini cakes with a new marshmallow fondant recipe that I wanted to try (more like play with).

More on my little cakes later.