Macarons and Whoopie Pies

When Groupon posted a deal for Viking Cooking School, I immediately turned to Gerrit and let him know that that was I wanted for my birthday. The class I signed up for finally came around this week and it was so much fun!

I signed up for a class on how to make macarons and whoopie pies. I have seen macarons all over various baking/entertaining blogs, but I had never made them for the following reasons:

A) The ingredients are expensive (mostly just the almond flour)

B) The recipe is very fiddly. Case in point: The class gave us a one-page, single-spaced, very full list of hints to make them work. Add in that we live at almost 5,000 feet, and you have a recipe with a very high possibility of error.
C) We've bought a few from some places nearby and the cookies were really, really dry and I was afraid that I might not even like them.

Anyways, the class was great! It was a three-hour, hands-on class taught by a professional pastry chef. We divided into two groups and the chef and her assistant came around and helped us with all of the various steps. I had a lot of fun with the other students and the time just flew by! I was a little worried that the class might feel long, but it really didn't at all. We made pumpkin whoopie pies and chocolate macaron shells and plain ones (colored pink) and then four different fillings (chocolate ganache as well as raspberry, orange, and lemon Italian buttercream)

This is the hands-on kitchen.

Mammoth pumpkin whoopie pies. These are super-delicious, but huge! I had to eat mine in three sittings, and it even took Gerrit two separate sittings.

These chocolate ones with raspberry filling are probably my favorite.

Don't they look so pretty? I know I could never have figured these out on my own. I am also very happy to report that they are delicious, so my fear that I wouldn't like them was unfounded.

I really want to go back and do another class. They're expensive (70-100 dollars, which is why I used Groupon in the first place), but I think it would be worth it occasionally. I loved the hands-on method and the teacher was really helpful and knowledgeable. Not only did we get to sample the food in class, but I also got to take a box full of leftovers home and we got an in-class snack of cheese, crackers, and some sort of yummy spicy jam. Plus, I think it's always worthwhile to go do extra things that relate to your interests and talents. Now I'm just debating how often can really be considered "occasional"...

A Quick Comparison

First things first: We're expecting our second baby! The baby is due April 8th, so Miles and the baby will be almost exactly three years apart. I'm almost thirteen weeks along right now and we're really, really excited!

For the sake of comparison, here's what I remember about my first trimester with Miles (really wishing I had kept some sort of record, but of course I did not...) This may not be interesting to anyone but myself, but this time I want a record.

-I was tired all the time. I would go to school and work from about 8-3, and then I would come home and lie on our couch for the next three hours entertaining myself with a mixture of homework and late-afternoon television. I got so sick of the television that I haven't watched any afternoon TV at all since.
-I was only really nauseous when I took the high-iron vitamins.
-I had some mild gas pain, but nothing too serious.
-I definitely had some odd food aversions...like baked goods, chicken, and acorn squash. I don't even know where that last one came from. I also had to force saltine crackers down before most meals to be able to eat.
-I lost about 7 pounds, mostly because of the aversion to baked goods. ( No worries, it came back just fine.)


And here's this first trimester:
-I'm still tired, but lying down on the couch for three hours is not an option. I'll nap sometimes while Miles is "napping," but I've just really had to push myself to make sure my energy level at least sort of matches the toddler's.
-I'm taking a much lower-iron vitamin, so no vomiting this time. I still have nausea, but at a lower level.
-The gas pain, though, has been terrible. Extra gas would be annoying, but fine. This, though, is very painful and not a lot of fun.
-Unfortunately, the perfect storm of exhaustion/nausea/gas pain happened when we had all those family visits in August, and I felt terrible about not being able to do much with people.
-I wouldn't say I have any specific food aversions because I mostly just have an aversion to food. It's been really hard to motivate myself to eat or make dinner most of the time.
-Due to said food aversion, I've lost 5.5 pounds. Gerrit said it would be awesome to just be able to lose weight like that. I nearly threw something at him, but settled for reminding him what it has taken to lose that weight. He agreed that it is not so awesome.

Airplane Food

I miss the days when a fairly long flight guaranteed you a meal. I really miss the days when any length of flight at least guaranteed you a snack. Flying with Miles is stressful enough that I appreciate it when an airline does something to make your trip better, be it snacks or decent in-flight television.

One of my very favorite airline snacks is the Biscoff cookies that Delta gives you. Gerrit loves them, too. He was once able to wrangle himself extra cookies by mentioning he had been looking forward to them all day. It was not a lie.

Did you know that Biscoff cookies are actually a traditional Belgian cookie called speculoos? I did not. I just thought they were random cookies made just for the airplane. Anyways, on a Belgian invention show, a woman made a spread out of these cookies as a type of nut-free peanut butter substitute. (And now it's kind of controversial... read more here). I knew I needed to try it as soon as I read about it, and I waited not so patiently for it to come to our local grocery store.



Verdict? It is so, so yummy. If you like those cookies at all you should try it. We've tried it on toast, on apples, on corn muffins (that was just Gerrit), in these cookies, and just straight out of the jar. I hear it is also popular on Belgian waffles. I'm kind of a sucker for specialty food items of all types, so we try a lot of strange things. We like this one enough to spread the word (pun intended ;) ).

Curtain Call

When Gerrit and I decided to put up curtains in our living room a few weeks ago, we thought it would finally keep Miles from pulling the (landlord-supplied) vertical blinds out. We thought it would help keep the sun out, and I thought it would look much, much nicer.

We had no idea we were also installing a playground. Miles LOVES playing in the curtains. He hides between the curtain and the window, or he'll hide in between the curtain and the lining. The first time he decided to play in the curtains, he nearly gave me he a heart attack. I couldn't find him anywhere, and he's so small that he doesn't really make a noticeable bump in the curtains. Luckily, he decided to yell "I'm hiding, Mama!" before I panicked too much.

Where's Miles?

Oh, there he is.

As Seen at the Fair

We went to the Utah State Fair earlier this week. The fair is a pretty unique place with a large variety of things to see. Let's review some of the interesting things our family saw over the course of three hours...

I love looking at the home arts building. The baked goods look so delicious, I learn about more foods I never knew you could dry or can, and I get inspiration for crafts projects that it might take me a year to finish.

I love everything about this quilt, except for the part where it is very, very far above my skill level :)

Snoopy in gingerbread.

In case you were ever curious about how Will and Kate might look as cows and sculpted from butter.

This was so cool!

Miles loved watching the kangaroos hop around.

They had lots of fun free things for little kids, like this science center or the "Wild West" area. These next three pictures are of Miles's favorite activities.





Did you know that sea lions are very talented animals? We were way impressed with the sea lion show. They could do one-flipper handstands!

We were also impressed by the architecture of the various exhibit halls.


Oh, fair food. There were some *interesting* things to eat at the fair, including one truck that was selling lion, ostrich, and the maggot melt. I don't think you could pay me to eat that.

More "fun" fair food...

I think this will take at least a year off your life expectancy. Just in case it's too hard to read from the glare, it says "Fried Bacon Stuffed Twinkie."

What we actually decided to eat: A cup of peaches and cream (it's Utah peach season and they are so good right now), some fajitas for Gerrit (fine) and a small bag of kettle corn. Tasty, and not terrifying.

A Horse Named Slowpoke

I am the worst at finishing craft projects. I mean it. Ask my mom, and she will show you the unfinished cross-stitch projects that I started in elementary school. Despite my terrifying inability to finish a project, I keep starting new ones. Here's my most recent finished project:


I wanted to make Miles this hobby horse as soon as I saw the instructions. The website claims that the total time needed for this craft is 1-2 hours. Let's put this into perspective. I bought the supplies in March. That alone took 1-2 hours because it took forever to find a fuzzy sock in a horse-appropriate color. They were all pink and stripy, which is fine for your feet, and less so for a horse.

After I bought the supplies, I wanted it made for Miles's birthday in late April. We moved, so it didn't happen. I finished his felt tool box first, so it got put off again. I took the month-long training to teach online (which won't be happening for a while yet because of low enrollment, of course). I finally started about six weeks ago.

I stuffed the sock, sewed on the eyes, made the nostrils, and then....realized I never bought a yarn needle. It took another week or two to get myself to the store and buy a yarn needle to make the mane. I made the ears and the mane, and then we had a lot of family visit. I'm a messy, messy crafter and I didn't want relatives to see my disaster, so I just had a random stuffed horse head lying in my closet for a month. I finally finished him yesterday. That also took a long time because I had to keep running to the bathroom to run cold water on my hot glue burns.

See? A little boy needs a hobby horse. So much cuteness!

I desperately want Miles to name him Slowpoke. Miles would rather name him "Graham Crackers" or "Chocolate Chip." I have a slowness problem, and my toddler has a sweet tooth. We're a perfect match.

This Blog's Biggest Fan

I would normally guess that my blog's most devoted readers are our moms (read: the Miles Larsen fan club.) This past week, though, I think Miles has surpassed them both. His favorite new hobby is to run up to the computer and ask for "pictures of Miles." He scrolls through the pages, looks at the pictures, watches the videos, and has a great time. The game might be a little more fun if he could click through to the older posts instead of yelling "I want another one!" every few minutes, but oh well. I'm not actually sure I want him to be that web-savvy anyways. :)

Snippets

This is mostly a compilation of things that don't feel long enough for their own post. What can I say? There isn't much going on here right now.


Snippet One: Yummy...the Tillamook bus came to our grocery store. We got cheese samples and coupons for cheese, yogurt, and ice cream (tragically none for butter). I realized that I developed a pretty strong brand loyalty to Tillamook products when we lived in Idaho, so I'm really glad that they came to Utah while we were gone. Their yogurt just tastes better, and we go through a lot of yogurt.


Snippet Two: Miles hasn't been napping. His naps have been inconsistent for the past few weeks and virtually nonexistent for the past week. He'll sit in his crib and play with teddy without needing me at all for quite a while, but I still feel kind of guilty about leaving him alone if he isn't sleeping. It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't dissolve into an over-tired, screamy, sobby, needy breakdown around 6. I know that he'll eventually grow out of napping, but the breakdowns make me think he isn't ready for that just yet. He clearly needs the nap. I need him to take the nap. I've tried sticking to a very clear naptime routine. I've tried running around on the playground during the day. It isn't working. Any tips for a tired mom and an even more tired toddler?


Snippet Three: We went to Logan last weekend for my cousin's wedding reception. The marker hadn't been put in yet at the funeral, so it was the first time Emily and I had seen it and the first time John had been able to come at all. It was pretty difficult to be there. I didn't quite anticipate just how hard it would hit me. I'm glad that we were headed somewhere happy afterwards, because that helped me feel a lot more at peace and remember that our family can be reunited again with James someday.

Proof

I mentioned in a post two weeks ago that we've had a lot of family in town. We ended up having one more visit because Gerrit's mom and his other sister were able to come visit us for a few days after Grandpa Larsen's funeral, but it evened out because Gerrit didn't end up going out of town. It was an action-packed two weeks. I promise. It was just mostly action-packed in the shopping/moving people into college/talking sense, not really in the "Oh man, I should take a bunch of pictures!" sense. So yeah...two weeks of visits, and I have almost no pictures. I really should have taken pictures of miniature croquet. That was awesome!

Good thing we took family pictures when my family was visiting :). Now I have official proof that people were here, and the pictures are much nicer than if I had taken them myself.

Gerrit's cousin Kimber took the pictures and she did such a great job! I love them so, so much! Our last family photo was about 6 years old, so my little sister would have been 13. I'm just glad they weren't taken when I was 13. That was kind of an awkward stage.

Here are some of my favorite pictures. You can tell that Miles enjoys playing with rocks, and does not enjoy taking pictures.

William Verl Larsen

Gerrit's grandpa passed away last week. He was 88 years old (really, only a few months away from being 89). I've only known him for a few years, but he was a wonderful man and a great namesake for our Miles William. Here's a few memories that I have of Grandpa.

Grandpa Larsen was hard-working and resourceful. He always had all kinds of projects and hated to have someone else do something that he could do himself. I'll never forget the day that he had Gerrit help him build a new wheelbarrow from parts he had around the garage because it would be a waste to buy a new one. He also taught Gerrit the finer points of installing their new countertop electric range. He was very handy and could fix all kinds of things. He applied that hard work to all of his many different jobs, from farming to being a stay-at-home dad to teaching to managing and fixing rental apartments, and you can tell that he taught that work ethic to his children.

Grandpa Larsen was also remarkably generous. He and Grandma took a series of family members, exchange students, and other people who just needed a little help into their home. Gerrit and I were certainly recipients of that generosity, which saved us a year and a half of extreme worry during our job hunt. He always tried to help and serve those people, which is another great example. He served his country in the Navy. He served the Lord on an LDS mission to Brazil in his late 20's and on another mission to Portugal after he and Grandma had retired.

I'll never forget his sharp mind and sense of humor. His life didn't necessarily give him educational opportunities, but he made his own. He went back to school later in life and got his degree, which I think is always admirable. He loved to read and watch the news on TV, and he loved to talk about intellectual things with his children. A little while after we moved to Idaho, he had everyone who lived nearby gather so he could record his life story. He was sick at the time (about two years ago), so he insisted at the end that this would be one of his last acts. Grandma grabbed the microphone from him and insisted it would not. He grabbed the microphone back and they went back and forth with their banter for a little while. It was charming, he was funny, and it was a nice peek into what 50+ years of a loving marriage looks like.

I'm glad that I got the chance to know Grandpa a little better during our time in Idaho. I'm glad that he is finally free from his very difficult health problems, and I look forward to seeing him again someday in heaven.