Victory is getting ready to celebrate it’s princess birthday, turning 15 years old, on February 15th.  Just under two weeks away, we all have been busy and now the excitement is settling in!

Introducing Headwaters Pale Ale

The night promises some great food and entertainment, and of course, the quality beer many of you have grown to love with a special, new addition.  Headwaters Pale Ale will be poured for the first time at the brewpub at 5pm, to kick off the evenings’ events.  Tours starting at every hour, special additions to their brewpub menu (your old favorite may make a one-day re-appearance!), the release of their newest flag ship beer, a video honoring their 15 years of character, and the cake cutting ceremony!

It’s pretty cool to see things coming together, I have to say.  The video tribute will feature a few familiar faces in the craft brewing world, like Greg from Stone Brewing Company, and Sam from Dogfish Head.

Headwaters Pale Ale, what can I say… I think you guys are going to love it!

What I’ve had fun keeping tabs on is this cake…  As the Victory Beer Blog mentioned, it’s going to be a model of the brewing process, all the way from tanks to a working tap!  Our Chef Lynn has been working hard; from sketches, to models, to building the supporting frame,  it’s going to be fantastic!  Here’s a sneak-peek!

Blue prints

Not intended for outer-space

hungry?

Hope to see you there!

I made it again tonight, with the beer I had originally intended to make. Nope, definitely not the one.  I’m not sure if it’s the beer in combination with the spices or if I missed something but it’s good, but not the giddiness-inducing fantasticness of the last run.  I’m not devastated, just disappointed.  Good thing I made a normal sized recipe… Next week I’ll make it *right* and that’ll be it!

Bring me to the next weekend quickly!! (And snow, please don’t complicate things =P)

Chili bento with cheese/prosciutto roll, cheezits and a hello kitty-pressed egg.

Well, on the horizon for VBC is the Chili Challenge, on Feb 27th, and though I haven’t been there long I’ve decided to give it a shot! On Sunday I made my first batch of chili, starting my quest to finding the one I want to compete with, and this was an encouraging start for me… I have enjoyed it so much, it’s in my lunchbox with rice (since it’s a bean-less chili), shredded cheddar and sour cream. All mixed together, it’s definitely a cold-weather favorite!

hello kitty pressed egg!

So along with the chili and bento fun, I’ve been making more homemade butter, this time with wild flower honey and white pepper.  It’s awesome.  Try it.  And the hard boiled eggs.  I honestly set out to make egg salad, but instead I ended up playing with my food ^_~  Hubby won’t take them to work because they’re pressed to look like the head of hello kitty. =d

I was also busy *ahem* baking again, I made another chocolate layer cake (see the previous post for a lovely picture of that)  For Christmas the number of wrapped gifts were fewer, but there were plenty of edible ones!  Cranberry-orange pinwheel cookies, cinnamon-sugar puff cupcakes, and my favorite ‘car-bomb’ cupcakes!  I didn’t have anything to bring home… *sniffle* But the New Year is off to a tasty start!  Good thing I’m doing yoga a little more lately…

What are your cold weather favorite foods?  Soup? Casserole? Pie?

The last year (adding in a few months) has been so exciting for myself and my husband.

We bought a house and slowly turned it into a home… I was lucky enough to break the place in with an impromptu New Years party with some good friends!  A few weeks later, we kicked off 2010 with an awesome ski trip in the Pocono Mountains.  That trip rekindled my interest in cooking, especially since we had been working in and out of boxes with the move.  Through the spring I started to get further and further into cooking and started this blog!

We got deep into wedding planning during the summer months and had a lot of travel back and forth from Philly to State College for that… Went to Mexico for my cousin’s wedding, which was my first trip out of the country!  That was so exciting, so much great food, and some beautiful scenery.  Oh, and of course, a few awesome trips to Atlantic City for the Bachelorette party and Honeymoon!  Suuuuch good food…

And finally on the professional front, I changed jobs.  Not once, but twice!  Now I work with the amazing family at Victory Brewing Company, and all I can say is that every day has been exciting, and the people are just wonderful!  It’s been a crazy busy few weeks with starting the new job and the holidays, both past and coming, but I *think* the dust is starting the settle!

I am excited for the holidays which are only weeks away, though I must admit, January will bring a welcome slow time.  Who knows, maybe I’ll even update more frequently!

So, with the past year as busy as it was (possibly the most action-packed year of my life, thus far!) I’m looking forward to getting back to ‘normal life’ and cooking, baking and designing my heart out!

As a parting eye-candy treat, here’s a shot of the home-make chocolate layer cake I made about 2 weeks ago for my mother in-law’s birthday!  … Hah… as if I needed a *reason* to bake!

Chocolate cake!

No one *ever* mentions the 10lbs you’ll gain from eating fantastic food on a honeymoon!  After all the effort of trying to lose weight to look great in the dress… we ran off to Atlantic City for a weekend of pampering and good food… Ruth’s Chris the first evening, and Buddakan the second night!

Ruth’s Chris

So first, I’ll say that I didn’t think I liked oysters.  Cooked, on the half shell, raw, didn’t matter, I am not one to eat them… I usually find them chewy.  But for thinking this is our romantic honeymoon I figured why not give them a try!  At Ruth’s Chris they have Oysters Rockefeller which is out-of-this-WORLD-good!  There’s no picture because we didn’t, and couldn’t wait.

a perfect medium-rare

This filet was phenominal.  Some people have raved about their steaks, others were ‘ho-hum’ but I’ll side with the people who were blown away!  They partially cook the steaks and they are set on a 500-deg plate to serve and it sizzles away in front of you as you start to carve into it.  Trust me, like I did, you’ll probably burn your mouth on the first few bites, the smell makes it very hard to have patience!  And don’t pre-cut your bites, when they lay down on the plate, they cook and you’ll lose your lovely red-pink center!

lovely with a filet

This wine was a perfect fit for the filet dinner!  It’s tough when you don’t recognize anything on the wine list, but there were a few good recommendations. ^_^  this one we’ll definitely look for in our next trip out to the W&S store.

our surprise dessert, complements of Ruth's Chris

Our server surprised us with this desert!  When we arrived we had mentioned that it was our honeymoon to the host who seated us, and right before she took our desert orders she arrived with this!  a very decadent chocolate cake!  Eric dove in before I could even get a picture!

to go with dessert!

And the perfect “cheers” to end our night out, some champagne on the house.  If you ever go to AC and are looking for a romantic dinner experience, go here, you’ll looove the food, and of course, the people are really nice.

On the early part of day 2, we walked around a little, had a great breakfast at the hotel, and decided later on to go back to get a lunch to take up to our room for a little picnic.  The weather was a little dreary with all of the rain, but we made a good time out of it!

Buddakan

The second night we went to Buddakan, interested in some asian food, and of course looking to be impressed again by another Steven Starr restaurant.  The appetizers were probably the best part of the whole night!  We had the chef’s choice sashimi plate, which was very good, though I don’t remember the choice of fish.  It had a light spicy sauce with scallions.

edamame ravioli

But the best thing that we had that night, by far, was the edamame ravioli!  Oh-my-god it was good.  (we went back on our last afternoon just to get just the ravioli for lunch!)

honor and serenity cocktails, and sake, of course!

Our drinks were great, had a few cocktails… the warm sake was sooo good.

butter poached lobster and wasabi crusted filet

And our entrees!  I got the butter poached lobster with veggies, and Eric got the wasabi crusted filet.  Both were very good, but sadly, unlike their descriptions, not very “wow.”

Eric’s dessert of choice was the cheesecake.  It was tasty, had and had some interesting fried toppings… but not as good as:

cream-filled doughnuts with banana/redbean and chocolate dipping sauce

… these doughnuts! Their signature dessert for a good reason!  Sadly it’s hard to share they give you 5!  What a shame ^_~  more for me!  The dipping sauces are both good, but the red bean/banana sauce is heaven!

Okay, so maybe we didn’t gain a whole 10 lbs, but it felt like it at times!  All the food was excellent, and what I wouldn’t give to eat like that more often! ha… Guess I need to bribe a few chefs to give me these recipes! ^_^

green tea ice cream with a ginger snap cookie!

I had to race to take the picture because it was melting before my eyes!  So, soooo good though!  Perfect with a ginger snap on top!

First flavor?  Green tea!

For those of you who haven’t tried it before, yeah it looks like a pale mint ice cream, but it’s got the perfect sweet flavor of green tea, just the best!  I remember getting my first pint of green tea ice cream from an asian foods market back at home, and it was very expensive, about $6.50 for just one pint!

This was so cheap to to make, mainly because it’s mostly staples you need to keep on hand anyway!

1 cup whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
little salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

…

I estimated by taste and color on how much matcha (green tea powder) I added to the mixture.  I added it in stages, so I think it was about 1tbsp!  ::O_O::

I know sounds like a lot, but to compete with the cream, it’s necessary!  I recommend using a stick blender if you have one, it’s way better than using a electric hand mixer for the matcha.  It doesn’t incorporate easily since it is such a fine powder, it just wants to clump up.

I had a few tastes out of the mixer, but now it’s hardening in the freezer… 10pm can’t come fast enough!

Getting adjusted to a new job, changing branch locations, preparing for a wedding, going to weddings, and more wedding planning made for a very *very* busy summer!

By May and into June it was constant dress shopping until we found the perfect one (which I did!!)  July it’s holidays, and we escaped to Mexico for my cousin’s wedding!  Then it was more trips home, more fittings when my dress arrived, caterers visits, florists visits, venue visits, and pepper in some family time here and there!

Finally, the week of the wedding I had one of the best, most relaxing weeks (as I could figure being the bride to be!)  The wedding went beautifully, considering the impending threat of rain for the entire time I was home for the wedding.  We had clear, bright blue, sunny skies from Friday afternoon, until we unpacked our last bags on Sunday night!

The wedding itself was a wonderful time, only real snag was that my beautiful, delicious cake tumbled to the floor right in front of me as we prepared to cut it!  Pictures will soon follow!

So now, I’m Mrs. Anderson!

It was wonderful to have everyone celebrate with us, those of you who were able to make the trip!  Those who could not, were definitely missed!

We went to the Cherry Blossom Festival on Sunday, and went to their first annual “sushi experience” by Ms. Saito, who teaches sushi classes at Temple University.  Her claim to fame is naming the Philadelphia Roll: Smoked salmon and Philadelphia cream cheese.

It was a good time, a decent little bento for the sushi event, and some live performances and shopping =D  Pictures to come!

Easier said, than done.

I found a few recipes that state the same process:

scoop the ice cream into balls and refreeze, make the dough, cool the dough, flatten the dough and cover the frozen ice cream, and freeze again.

Simple, right?

Well, first attempt to make the dough was unsuccessful and very, very messy.  Too sticky and elastic; it was hard to wrap anything in it.  I made a smaller batch, following the directions to a ‘T’ this time (I added the flour too quickly before) and it made the perfect dough.  The most difficult problem was that the ice cream melted so quickly, it was hard to get the mochi ‘wrap’ to seal around the ball without slipping because the ice cream was melting so fast.

Finally, success!  At the end of the night, I made sushi, which was a very minor success (burned the rice because I was distracted) but I made California rolls… Lunch to come!  If only the mochi ice cream would travel for an hour via train without hassle!