Red Velvet Cake--take 2

So, in my second attempt at red velvet cake, I wisely avoided the "natural" food coloring of Whole Paycheck to get the proper blood red look a traditional RV cake demands.


Otherwise, I think it turned out pretty well. There certainly wasn't much left after the students and faculty got a hold of it at the ODE reception yesterday afternoon:

Pictorial Update

So, this week is our last week of classes and I have been busy attending senior economics majors' presentations, coordinating the Econ Club picnic, arranging the ODE inductee reception, in addition to wrapping up the semester in my classes, doing last minute grading, and writing final exams. Whew.

So, here are a few random pictures from the past week or so that I wanted to share:
the Sacramento Farmers Market






a stir fry dinner that I was anxiously loathing but actually turned out quite tasty (including turnips, spinach, AND broccoli!)




a few pictures of our garden (one of the few benefits of living someplace where the current temperature is over 100 degrees)

Bockbierfest

This past weekend, Derellek, Esen, Jess, and Sophia joined Gropius and me for the Sacramento Turnverein's Bockbierfest. It was a less crowded, more sedate version of Oktoberfest last fall. So, there was a biergarten outside where we all met up and then traditional German dancing around the Maypole on the main dance floor, as well as a koffee klatch (sp?) upstairs with tasty desserts. A few pictures:

Gropius enjoying his bock bier

Derellek enjoying their pig knuckle dinner and bock bier

Jess keeping an eye on Sophia

Esen enduring German kultur


And some traditional maypole dancing (I ran out of space on my video card for any more, but it was almost the end!).

Chicken freakin-fried steak

Derek, I'm so sorry you missed this:

Even though we had mashed potatoes as part of our "meat-n-three," I think you would've enjoyed our meal last night:


But now it's all gone:

Pretzel Experiment Results

Gropius and I concluded our pretzel experiment today. I took both out of the freezer this morning and left them in the fridge while we were gone. This evening, we finished preparing them and compared the results. Just to re-cap:

Last weekend, I made half a batch of Martha Stewart's pretzel bites and divided my dough into two parts. One part I cut into little bites and boiled before IQF'ing them (Individual Quick Frozen) and putting them in a Zip-Loc. The other half I cut into bites, IQF'd and froze without boiling them first.



So, I put the pre-boiled bites on a baking sheet, brushed them with egg white, sprinkled some kosher salt on 'em and baked them until golden. The others, I boiled then baked.

Here are the results:

The one on the left is from the boiled/baked this evening batch and the one on the right was boiled before it was frozen. Gropius and I agreed that the boiled/frozen/baked batch definitely had better texture than the frozen/boiled/baked batch. So, the conclusion was when preparing to have a stash of pretzels in the freezer, boil them before freezing them so you just have to pop them in the oven (although, unfortunately, I think you have to defrost them first).

Regardless, we enjoyed both with a spicy, whole grain mustard. Mmmmm!

Breakfast

Because my loyal readership expects food photos, here are a couple of pictures of our breakfasts from this weekend: chocolate cherry scones and almond poppy seed muffins:

Lasagne and Schnitzel

Gropius and I made lasagne and asparagus on Thurs evening for dinner and it was very tasty. I've been craving tomatoes and cheese lately.



Last night though, I made spatzle and a mushroom-cream sauce while Gropius cooked schnitzel. Also very, very tasty!
the spatzle-maker

cooking spatzle

finished spatzle

our full meal

close-up of spatzle with sauce and schtnizel