Pretty in Pink

This week I received this beautiful handmade baby quilt from my grandmother. I love it - the design is really neat, and fabrics are subtle and sweet. Can't wait to use it! Need to purchase some nursery furniture next....

Muffin Mania

I tried a few new recipes over the last week. First, I made 2 different types of muffins from the muffin book I got for Christmas - apple cinnamon (pictured), and lowfat blueberry. Both were very tasty, and healthy too. The apple cinnamon used part wheat flour, part white flour, and the blueberry muffins used lowfat yogurt and only egg whites.

Last night I tried Giada's Tuscan Salad recipe, which I saw yesterday's Everyday Italian featuring 'light and healthy' fare. It was extremely good, and I will definitely make it again. It includes romaine lettuce, blanched green beans, cannellini beans, black olives, red onion, parmesan curls, and is dressed simply with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt pepper.

Then on a not-so-healthy note... I decided to try a recipe for a Cranberry Upside-Down Cake. Over the holidays, I was flipping channels and saw this cooking program 'Weir Cooking in the City' on a new digital public TV station called Create. The cake was inspired by a chef at Chez Panisse, and looked very fesitive. However, one glitch - it seems no one has fresh cranberries stocked after the holidays. So I reverted back to the standard upside-down cake fruit, pineapples. Will sample the results this evening - it smells very good and I just love that gooey carmely top.

Holiday Bake-off

Have a few posts to catch up on from the holidays... We had fun one Sunday baking Christmas cookies to send to family and friends. We made 6 different kinds this year - including sugar cookie cutouts, spritz, star-shaped shortbread, espress shortbread coins, chocolate chip, and ginger snaps. All-in-all, they seemed to turn out pretty well. We spent the next evening wrapping and prepping them to mail out :)