You say it´s your birthday!

Oh yeah, as of today, I´m closer to 30 than to 20, yikes!

And I have been planning on writing all day, but today has been crazy busy so far, my guests arrive in less than 4 hours and I still have to make my own cake (yes, I do that, I don´t mind one bit) and wrap up the other dishes that are halfway done in the fridge.

So this is going to be a quick one just to let you know that I´m old and to share two hilarious pics of Phoebe:

Yes, the poor thing had to be neutered this week (that´s a surgical jacket to make it harder for her to mess with her stitches) because the cataracts she had can be inherited, so I wouldn´t want to do that to some poor puppies. But she´s doing great, and tonight she´s going to have a great time surrounded by tons of hands to pet her (though I have yet to figure out how to keep her jumping to a minimum).

Anyways, off I go, I hope you all have a fantastic weekend! I promise to post pics of the birthday parties and the food sometime next week. Love you!

How did you get so big?

And no, I´m not talking about my hips, I´m talking about Phoebe. I´m still trying to figure out how she managed to go from 1 pound to 64 pounds in just a year, and from adorable puppy to adorable adult dog… or semi-adult really, especially if we take her behavior into account.

But anyways, she turned 1 on Xmas day, and we celebrated in style, birthday hat and all. But before you all kill me and call animal services, I swear I didn´t make her wear that just to laugh at her… well, yeah, that did play a part, but it was mainly because my older brother (the one that´s visiting from Spain) says he hates dogs (oh yeah, can´t figure that one out either), so he complains about how spoiled Phoebe is and everything. So my younger brother and I decided it was a good idea to tease him by buying Phoebe a bday hat and sing her Happy Birthday, and oh yeah, it worked like a charm, though he didn´t get so annoyed really, it was more of a mix of “can´t believe my eyes” and “this is hilarious”.

So this is a photographic journal of Phoebe´s first year, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Random

No, the Daring Baker challenge didn´t kill me or induce a blissful buttery-chocolatey comma, I just haven´t been cooking that many note-worthy recipes lately.

But since I don´t like to leave you empty-handed for longer than a week or so, I´m gonna share some images of my “little” brother making sushi in an attempt to make him stop bugging me about it and show that everyone, and I mean everyone, can make sushi… this is what I call multi-purpose writing, ladies and gentlemen!

And then there´s this broccoli sauté from Giada´s book that I loved, and this wonderful broccoli tortilla I invented (in fact, that´s another one of my problems as a food bloggers, there are many times when I just improvise a meal in 20 or 30 minutes so I can´t be bothered to slow down and record the amounts and the whole process.

But I´m glad to announce this might be my very first sucessful tortilla endeavour… in terms of presentation I mean and the tortilla actually being a whole when I´m done cooking.

Oh, and another one of my excuses for leaving you stranded without much in the way of food or a recipe is the fact that my baby, aka Phoebe, had cataract surgery on her left eye last week so I´ve been occupied with puppy-nursing activities as well. But everything went fine, and even though “the cone” is now gone, it has left us with precious pics like this:

hahaaha I hope that made reading this mess of an entry worth it.

And I´ll be back in a few days with hopefully some more food and an actual recipe, or maybe some pics of Buenos Aires I´ve started taking lately.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I´m planning to take advantage of the early spring and enjoy the city as much as possible (oh, and we have strawberries, people, can´t believe it, bye bye winter, won´t miss you one bit!).

When life hands you lemons…

Things aren´t going particularly smoothly for me right now, so I hope you forgive me for the lack of regular posts. Our family dog, Maia, seems to have a severe neurological problem and we still don´t know what it is, so I don´t know if she´ll make it or not (she´s not even 5 yet, by the way). And Phoebe has been having problems with her eyes (i need to take her to the vet yet again, but I´m pretty sure she has a cataract in her left eye and she´s only 7 months old).

I´m sure that for those of you who don´t have pets, this doesn´t sound like such a big deal, but when you love your dogs as much as my family and I do, it means there´s quite a bit of despair floating around.

So cooking, and writing, are taking a back seat right now… and it doesn´t help matters at all that I´m being cheap with buying new ingredients since not much work has been coming my way lately. Yes, I am officially the reincarnation of Debbie Downer, but I just wanted to explain why I haven´t been posting much lately.

But to cheer things up a little bit, I´m going to tell you about some kickass lemon bars I made a couple of weeks ago for a BA bloggers meeting (along with my staple brownie recipe and the chocolate-chip-yogurt cake I posted about almost a year ago). You have probably seen them before since Mary of Alpineberry first posted about them and then Helene adapted them. I used Helene´s version but used lemons instead of key limes and upped the amounts for the crust a bit since I knew that wouldn´t be enough for a 10×13 pan.

They are extremely easy to make, yield quite a few bars and the general concensus was that they were great, so I´m definitely making them again soon… since life has been handing me lemons lately, I might just use them!

Another round of egocentric ranting

Well, it seems that this one will add up to the recently growing voyeuristic section of my blog (I´m hoping the use of the word will increase blog traffic exponentially, because as you know, sex sells.)

My good friend Lis from La Mia Cucina tagged me for this meme about “7 random things about me” and I just couldn´t resist the temptation to go on and on about myself, it´s kind of an annoying treat I have, but I find that fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) many people share such egocentric tendencies, so I´m hoping no one minds.

So here we go, brace yourselves.

1. The nickname Pip doesn´t come from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, but from a tango called Pipistrela. The tango is basically about a working class girl who thinks she´s too beautiful and classy for her surroundings. When I was like 8 years old, a friend of Javier, my older brother, started calling me Pipistrela, i have no idea why really since I wasn´t standoffish or anything. But anyways, of course, I hated the nickname and started hating his guts, my brother thought it was a brilliant idea and started calling me Pipistrela, then when it got too long for his lazy ways, he shortened it to Pipis, even worse, and finally, many years later, when he had regained his love for me, he went for Pip, which I actually didn´t mind because it was pronounced with a degree of affection, something practically unheard of between siblings.

No one really calls me Pip but my brothers and a couple of friends, and of course, people here who think that´s my name, but remember, as long as you stick to Pip, we are ok.

2. Just as a clarification, I don´t just do baking as some people seem to believe (just don´t ask). Yes, muffins and cakes are a big part of what I´ve been publishing lately, and if we count bread as baking (which I don´t), then you are killing most of my later obsessions, but not all is lost. Just some examples from the archives: naan bread, tandoori chicken, quinoa with lime chile vinaigrette, milanesas with panko and parmesan cheese, won-ton ravioli, and home-made tagliatelle. Ok, I´m tired just from linking to all of that and now I need to find 5 more random things about me, damn it!

3 . I´ve always been a bit of a bookworm, though I don´t read as much lately. Picture a 9 year old girl asking for books on her birthday, not just a book or two, but a trip to the most gorgeous bookstore ever to explore and buy a bunch of books, I think they were 8 novels (about 200 pages each) and I read them in 6 days. Talk about fast reading! The wonderful thing about reading at that age is I was reading the classics without knowing they were classics, so I could just take them at face value. For instance, I loved Dickens, Wilde, Alcott and Jack London, yet I remember hating a Dostievski book I read. Ok, on to the next thing before my geeky nature becomes to blatant.

4. When I was a child I got along better with boys than with girls. I just couldn´t seem to grasp the endless fascination with playing house and went to play soccer or ride the bike with my brothers and some friends. My tendency didn´t go as far as my cousin´s, who cried because she wanted to imitate her brother and pee standing and couldn´t… but it´s something that still pops up once in a while when surrounded by women who are too prototypical and only think about clothes and diets.

5. I love dogs mmmm I guess you already knew that, but here are some new pics of Phoebe so you don´t realize I´m cheating.

6. This one isn´t about me, but about Argentina, but since I´m running out of ideas, this will have to do, today is Friends´day in Argentina, yes, we do have a day for everything here. I don´t particularly hate or love the day, I think the idea is good in theory, but I hate the commercial aspect of it all, I´m not buying some stupid stuffed bear or something just because. Yet it´s a good excuse to get together with the friends you see all the time, and even those you don´t see that often anymore. So happy friends´day to all my new and not so new virtual friends.

7. I don´t believe in God as such, but as Seinfeld would say “not that there´s anything wrong with that”. This would deserve a long explanation, but this is not a religious blog, so let´s just say I used to be a Catholic, I´m not anymore, and I´m fine with people believing what they want if it makes them happier as long as it doesn´t make them feel like they have to “convert” me. I´m even nice to Jehova witnesses when they ring the bell and try to save my poor tormented soul… well, there was one time when they woke me up at 10am on a Sunday when I probably wasn´t that gracious, but that doesn´t count.

Since I´ve seen this meme everywhere and I don´t want to burden people, I´m just going to tag 7 people in case they want to share some dirty little secrets and if anyone else wants to do it, just join in: Ilva, Madeleine, Diva, Frank, Nathan, Alan and Kristen.

Catching up

Lately I´ve been doing a whole lot of cooking, but falling a bit short on the writing part of the deal. And since I must be at least 6 or 7 recipes behind right now, I´m thinking my only way out of this mess is to do a recap sort of post, you know, like they do in sitcoms when they run out of ideas, but in this case, it´s all new stuff, so don´t hate me just yet.

One of the reasons why I´ve fallen behind is probably the length of the recipes I´ve been doing lately… I mean, I try to fight my lazy nature, but typing up a 3-page recipe can be too daunting a task sometimes.

But when the recipe is good enough to demand being shared, I oblige. And that would be the case with this recipe by Peter Reinhart. It´s a roasted garlic-rosemary bread with mashed potatoes in the dough… that´s a recipe for sucess right there. It´s definitely one of those bread to be devoured on its own or used to enhance most dishes. You need to invite people over to help you eat it or freeze most of it as soon once it has cooled down, otherwise, you´ll be in a whole lot of trouble… don´t say I didn´t warn you.

The second recipe I´ve meant to discuss sooner is Dorie Greenspan´s Allspice Crumble Muffins (since everyone seems to have the book and I´m tired after typing out the first recipe, it´s on page 16 of Baking: From my Home to Yours.) First of all, I hadn´t tried allspice before, so that was a revelation in itself, but the crumble on top of the muffin was simply perfect, a very moist crumb topped with a sturdy crust, can´t get better than that. Flavor-wise, I´ll add a bit more allspice next time to kick it up a notch.

Then I made Peter Reinhart Vienna´s bread, which, while very good, doesn´t justify typing out a yet another 3 page recipe (maybe with a few tweaks it will,) but this picture of Phoebe guarding the bread does justify mentioning it! (This is for those of you asking for updated pics of her… more coming up soon, I promise.)

And the last recipe I want to share with you today is a recipe by the talented Ilva over at Lucullian Delights. It´s a recipe for Mediterranean chickpea fritters with olives and sun-dried tomatoes. I had all the ingredients in my pantry, so it took me 10 minutes overall to have this on the table, and it´s so damn good I made it again a couple of days later. The only thing I changed was that I added 1 egg because I figured it´d give it a fluffier consistency and a teaspoon of capers just because I like them. Either way you like it, do yourself a favor and make them.

Phew! Done!

(Recipe after the jump)

Of pizzas and dogs, a coming-of-age story

Lest you think the crepe mayhem destroyed my will to cook and write, I´m gonna write a quick post today with a general update on food and life.

I´m still enamoured by all things bready, which means I have yet to translate and post 2 more bread recipes (and to think I´m a translator, but translating into English, and for free, really bugs me hahaha.) But I´ll get to it soon, hopefully during the weekend, when I usually have more time to write.

And I made pizza crust this week following a recipe (a first for me), which turned out very good, and I promise to share it with you as soon as I can.

Yummy, non?

And for those of you wondering about my puppy, soon-to-be-grownup, Phoebe, she´s doing great and behaving like a true lady most of the time, though I´m afraid I´ll have to start saying goodbye to her puppy days. Just look how big she is at 4 months of age! (that Royal Canin in the background seems to be working for her!)

We have started going to the park (yepee! finally!), and she´s still polishing her social skills with other dogs and with people… you see, she doesn´t seem to grasp the concept that jumping on all dogs and people is not cool.

Here she is, enjoying some pampering from yours truly.

And then giving me a spa treatment for my hands so that they´ll never get too dry.

Well, that´s it for now. I need to clean up the house before some friends arrive, so I´m sorry but I´ll have to keep this very short today. I´ll do an update with the pizza crust recipe soon and hopefully catch up on old recipes during the weekend.

UPDATE: recipe after the jump.

growing pains… and joys

Due to popular demand (I´m looking at you, Lisa), I´m going to do a picture update on Phoebe.

Needless to say, she´s quite a handful at 3 and a half months, but she´s also a riot and makes me laugh all the time… well, not ALL the time, sometimes she makes me fret with some potty issues better not discussed here, or with jumping and biting a bit too much… puppy owners know exactly how it goes, sometimes you can´t believe how much you love them, sometimes you wonder if you were crazy for taking up such a huge responsability.

But mostly, it´s a fun ride, and we´ll start going to the park in just 2 weeks after her vaccines… oh yes, I´ll be able to make her tired for once! Or so I like to believe at least hahaha

Without further ado, a full slideshow for your enjoyment. (hrmp! the code isn´t working, so I´ll have to post the url instead until the people at WordPress solve my little problem).

Phoebe

(UPDATE: Problem “solved”, apparently, the only one I can use is slide.com, so here´s another slideshow, though I like the first one better.) 

For the no-puppy crowd, I promise to be back very soon with food posts.

blondies for the birthday blondie

There are days when you are 100% entitled to indulge in whatever suits your fancy, and one of those days would definitely be your own birthday.

So I decided that what I needed to celebrate my quarter of a century inhabiting this marvelous planet of ours (I know, it hurts me too) was to bake blondies… that and being surrounded by my dearest friends when the clock struck midnight and marked the start of March 7th.

I had never eaten, let alone baked, blondies, but I figured if they were the sisters of my beloved brownies, I´d be more than fine. I used a Mark Bittman recipe I had seen at Deb´s site with some minor tweaking: I used both semisweet and 70% chocolate chunks, 1 teaspoon of cinammon, and chopped pecans.

I can say I´m a good mum and love both siblings equally: blondies will be next to brownies in my personal baked-goods heaven. The pictures turned out pretty bad, but that´s my fault because I wanted to get it over with so that I could actually start with the eating part of the deal, after all, it´s my birthday, I should be able to do whatever I want, bad pictures be damned.

Tonight I´m cooking dinner for my family so I´ll keep adding material to the list of things to post about. My mom is the one bringing dessert though so I´m not sure what she´s up to, but if it´s good, which it highly likely, I´ll post the recipe soon… I´m hoping it´s lemon meringue pie because it´s one of my favorite pies ever, but we´ll see what she comes up with.

After the jump, there´s the recipe and some more pics of Phoebe for those of you interested (I know my blog looks like a puppy blog at times, it´s just that she keeps getting cuter by the second, which I didn´t think was possible, and I have to share the cuteness with the world).

Puppy eyes

Things are actually starting to calm down in the puppy-with-too-much-energy-for-me front. Phoebe is adjusting to her new, much smaller, environment and coming to grips with the word “no” haha

She´s growing every single second it seems, coming in at 17 pounds at just 9 weeks of age. She´s still dangerous when it comes to chewing and I fear for my furniture when I´m not around, but she has all these little gestures that make up for her little mishaps.

She makes me laugh with her clumsy movements and her innocent puppy face or when I´m chasing her and she almost crashes against something and then recovers and runs in the opposite direction.

And luckily she spends much of her day in leisurely activities such as this:

She has the cutest “chicken legs” ever:

She tilts her head when she doesn´t quite understand what I´m saying.

And she made the funniest faces during and after her first bath:

(The caption for this last one would read something like “Are you done taking pictures for my public humiliation yet?”)

This is my entry for Cate´s Weekend Dog Blogging.