Link Love

Are you excited about my giveaway tomorrow? I am.

Until then, I would like to commend a couple of ah-mazing websites to you. (And yes, I meant to say commend, not recommend - English teachers, be proud)

First. Bluelines - the now defunct, yet archived blog of Blueprint Magazine. Another experience with the magazine curse (I like a magazine, decide to subscribe to it, it bites the dust - other examples include New Attitude and Domino - watch out MSL, Shape, and Lucky...you're next).
Even though it's all old info, it's beautiful, just like Blueprint was. Also, many of the contributors have left their internet footprint, so you can keep up with all the great design work they're doing.

Second. Cookie's Nesting Blog - I think a good reason to have kids is so I can subscribe to this magazine without feeling weird about it. It's like Domino for moms. Of course, all the moms are just like me with their Brooklyn townhomes and mid-century ranches. But it's not too smarmy to keep me from loving it, and the nesting blog has these great house tours.

See you tomorrow for the contest!!!!

Giveaway...in 3,2,1.

On Wednesday, I will begin my first giveaway contest, so tell all your friends to subscribe in time to partake in the fun!
Also, if you have an iPhone, I want to recommend an App called Yowza, which gives you coupons based on the GPS reading of the area you're in. Anything that helps me out at the Container Store is a winner.

make a cake!

This past week, I made sour cream chocolate cake. It was unreal. The pictures are pretty unrepresentative of how delicious it was. This made me realize how I really need another camera.

Sour Cream Chocolate Cake

Cake:

2 cups all purpose flour ¾ cup dairy sour cream
1 cup water 1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup butter or margarine 1 ¼ teaspoons soda
1 teaspoon vanilla ½ teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs 4 oz. melted, unsweetened chocolate, cooled
2 cups sugar

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an oblong pan (13x9), or 2 9-inch, or 3 8-inch round layer pans. Line bottom of pan(s) with wax paper. Measure all ingredients into a large mixer bowl. Mix 30 seconds on low speed, scraping bowl constantly. Beat 3 minutes on high speed, scraping bowl occasionally. Bake 40-45 minutes for an oblong pan, bake layers 30-35 minutes or until the top springs back when touched lightly. Cool. Frost.

It's important that the chocolate is cool before adding it to the other ingredients. Otherwise, little bits of it will harden in the batter when it comes in contact with the cold eggs and sour cream. Another way to possibily avoid the hardening of the chocolate is to allow all the dairy ingredients to be at room temperature before mixing.

Sour Cream Frosting:

1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened ½ cup dairy sour cream
3 oz. melted, unsweetened chocolate, 2 teaspoons vanilla
cooled
3 cups powdered sugar

Mix butter or margarine and cooled chocolate thoroughly. Blend in sugar. Stir in sour cream and vanilla. Beat until frosting is smooth. The comments above about the chocolate apply to the frosting as well.

Frosting in progress

Yay for my mixer!

Naked cake. A little rough coming out of the pan, but still delicious.

Mmmm, Green Tea Lemonade to get me through the final stretch.

Hooray for a finished cake! Chocolatey goodness!

yummy

These look unreal, and might be my next baking endeavor. I have recently found this site, Distillate, which is an Australian design/cooking/fashion blog. Everything on it make me want to move to Australia.

paella

This is the second time I've made this delicious paella that I found on AllRecipes, and modified to pescaterianism. It's amazing, and a little spicy. Pair it with New Belgium beer.

INGREDIENTS (serves 8)

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 2 cups uncooked short-grain white rice
• 1 pinch saffron threads
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 bunch Italian flat leaf parsley, chopped
• 1 quart chicken stock or vegetable stock
  
• 2 lemons, zested (or 1 teaspoon lemon pepper
  
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 Spanish onion, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
• 1 pound soy chorizo sausage (Trader Joe's)
  
• 1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
  

DIRECTIONS

1. In a medium bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons olive oil, paprika, oregano, and salt and pepper. Stir in shrimp to coat. Cover, and refrigerate.

2. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet or paella pan over medium heat. Stir in garlic, red pepper flakes, and rice. Cook, stirring, to coat rice with oil, about 3 minutes. Stir in saffron threads, bay leaf, parsley, chicken stock, and lemon zest. Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat to medium low. Simmer 20 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a separate skillet over medium heat. Stir in onion; cook 5 minutes. Stir in bell pepper and sausage; cook 5 minutes. Stir in shrimp; cook, turning the shrimp, until both sides are pink.

4. Spread rice mixture onto a serving tray. Top with meat and seafood mixture.

atomic!

I found this blog called East Nashville Atomic, which loves mid-century ranch houses. I love it not only for the fact that they're in my old neighborhood, but because they do cool DIY stuff like this.
Please teach me your ways, ENA.
Expect an update on sour cream chocolate cake in the near future. I have great memories of this from growing up, and the fact that the one time I handled most of the baking of it, it was the lightest and fluffiest the cake had turned out to date (and we made it several times per year).
Also, perhaps you noticed the header is new. It's my first foray into CS4, so expect even better things in the coming weeks.
If you're new to my site, please subscribe, because a giveaway is coming soon, and I wouldn't want you to miss it!

a thing for whales

I've had a thing for whales lately. Okay, not just lately. The whale thing started with this skirt:
















I bought it in college at a resale store, and no one else I knew liked it. That's okay, I was also the only person I knew who was buying clothes off eBay, and look who's laughing now...or whatever.

I don't know how whales came to define preppiness, but they're there, from the iconic Vineyard Vines whale to all the JCrew whales.

So anyway, it seems to me that whales have been making a comeback in my life. For example, Patagonia. Also, I think the Twitter Fail Whale is just about the cutest thing ever, and I get the giggles every time I see it. I saw this amazing whale chalkboard posted over at ISuwannee, and I feel like it's telling me something. Something like "buy me."