Biology Raps

I saw this posted on facebook awhile ago and it's so funny.

I went to their YouTube site and they have two other videos, one on DNA and another on TAQ (some other DNA bio thing from what I watched). But the one posted above was the best.

Kind of made me wish I was a science person so I would actually understand what they were saying. Or wished my business professors had been this creative...

What A Pretty Girl

My sister bobby pinned some pink bows to Soba's head the other week and it was so adorable. However, the bobby pins do not stay on very well because Soba has very short hair and it's very soft and silky.

We went to the mall last weekend and picked up cute little flower clips at Claire's. I was a total tomboy when I was younger, but I loved that store. We had to get two packs because each one came with two different colors (makes no sense at all). They make Soba so pretty.

She does not really like to wear them though and always shakes them off. Guess she doesn't understand the price of beauty.

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But you can get them to stay on if you clip them while she is eating.

She now weighs in at hefty 36 lbs (31.1 lbs more than when we adopted her).

My Very Own Croquembouche

I went home this past weekend to run the Great Urban Race with N in downtown Phoenix and to celebrate Chinese Lunar New Years with my family. When I got home Sunday afternoon, I found this on the counter:

T had made me my very own croquembouche! A croquembouche is a french dessert piece that is a cone of cream puffs and then decorated with spun sugar, nuts, caramel, chocolate, and whatever else.

T's version was a complete tower (no holding structure in the middle- that's skill) of cream puffs filled with strawberry whipped cream, sugar cookies, and spun sugar. I was most impressed with the spun sugar because it not only looks really cool, it tastes really good. It was a nice treat and a surprise because T rarely ever makes desserts and when he bakes, its usually bread. But his cream puffs are delicious and of course, I could eat spun sugar all day long.

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday weekend. It was a big one. Happy late Valentine's Day, Chinese Lunar New Year, and Arizona's Birthday!

Light Box

I finally made my light box! I have been talking about making one forever so I finally got around to it a few weekends ago. I googled "how to make my own light box" and followed the DIY instructions from the site Digital Photography School. You can find the directions by clicking here.

I went to Joann's Fabric and picked up four yards of the cheapest white fabric I could find and a .59 poster board from Walgreens. I took a large UHaul box I had laying around in the garage and carefully drew out even rectangles on four sides. The most tedious task was cutting out the holes, but other than that, I think it only took about an hour to get the whole thing put together.

The poster board was actually shorter than the size of my box, but I figured I only needed the bottom half to be covered, it should not matter too much.

I wanted to take a photo of something right after I got it up, but since I had not made anything, I thought these tomatoes will do. This only had one small lamp on it. The coloring is yellow and not pure white at all. Not good at all.

This has two small lamps on it, but it still does not look too good. I think I am going to buy a bigger and brighter lamp and continue to play around with it some more. Overall, I am really happy with it and excited to take some nicer food photos!

I Want One: Decorating Pen

I am horrible with piping so that's really why I rarely ever make cakes. But I saw this Cuisipro Decorating Pen on Serious Eats last week and I want one! Reading the SE review, it doesn't seem nearly as useful and cool, since the two tips only fits certain viscosity so it's more for saucing rather than frosting. I still want it. It's only $9.99 on Amazon.

Puppies

My sister took these photos on her new SLR camera about a month ago. Soba has now grown to double Obie's size, weighing in around 25 pounds. She is really sweet and adorable. I'm glad we saved her life.

Lemon Thyme Sea Salt Shortbread

I heard this recipe on NPR a few months ago and thought it sounded delicious. I love lemon flavored things and thyme is my favorite herb. I thought the sea salt would make an interesting addition to the savory biscuit.

I had really high hopes for this being really delicious, but unfortunately, I did not like them. They were very dry and I didn't think the lemon or thyme flavor really stood out. But maybe I just could not get over the very dryness of a usually very buttery shortbread.

It was weird that I blended the butter into the flour at room temperature. Typically, when making a dough, the butter should be ice cold. I might try these again sometime with some tweaks to the instructions. I made these the same night as the gorgonzola and leek creme brulee so I may have been distracted working on two separate thing. The best part about them was the nice salty finish on top.

Recipe from Savory Baking by Mary Cech. Click here.