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Asparagus Tart

Sometimes, I’ll want to make a recipe. Take this asparagus gruyere tart from Cupcakes and Cashmere via Martha Stewart, for example. I wanted to make it! It looked good! Alas, I got all “gruyere is so damn expensive” at the grocery store, and didn’t get it. I’m not sure if I expected gruyere to magically appear in my fridge or something, but I was like “it’ll all work out, and whatever!” And it did. But it is definitely not Martha Stewart’s recipe.

Sometimes, when I want to make a recipe and don’t have the ingredients, I just Google the ingredients that I think would work together well, just to see if they’re a thing. And you know what? They’re usually a thing! Almost everything is a thing. No pun intended. So this time, when I googled “asparagus + red onion + goat cheese tart”, I got this. Wonderful.

The way I made this tart: Preheat the oven to 350. Unroll a sheet of frozen (but thawed) puff pastry, score a 1 inch border around the edges and poke fork holes in the center of the square. Bake for about 15 minutes.

 Slice a red onion thinly, and sauté in some oil with salt and pepper until translucent and soft. Then add 1-2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar, and approximately 1 tbsp brown sugar, cook until the vinegar is absorbed. Meanwhile, boil the asparagus in salted water until tender-crisp; drain and rinse with cold water.

Spread the caramelized onions evenly onto the pastry square. Layer the asparagus and goat cheese (or ricotta, but I didn’t have any) on top. Bake for about 5 minutes at 350. Enjoy!

The Everyday

I love Instagram. Even though I haven’t been counting iPhone photos towards Project 365, I’ve still been trying to take pictures when I’m out and about, and little things in my daily life. This poster represents 2012 so far, and it makes me crazy happy everytime I look at it. I need to keep reminding myself to document the small details, the everyday – because I absolutely adore having those small memories to look back on. I should also probably start using the same filter every time I share a photo on Instagram, but I can’t help switching it up.. there’s just so much variety! And I love how they all look!

Here’s to the little things. Here’s to technology. Here’s to remembering the moments that make us happy. Here’s to a great weekend! Hope it’s not raining where you are. Happy Friday.

The “poster” is thanks to Printsgram, a great service that lets you organize your photos and save PDFs – for free!

Funfetti Cake!

Ain’t it just the cutest cake you ever did see? And guess what – this cake is famous. That’s right. Famous. You see, I tweeted a photo of it, with the caption “this cake is for the party”, which is the name of a book written by the great Sarah Selecky, who also has an awesome blog and sends out writing prompts every day. She’s real cool. Anyway, this happened:

Spoiler alert: I haven’t read the book, but I did borrow it from the library once. It’s weird that I feel guilty about that. I’ve always loved the title, though.

So the party cake is a famous cake. It was also a pretty cake. And perhaps most importantly, a yummy cake. I don’t know if you remember the Betty Crocker cake mix that made white cake with coloured spots inside it? Well, this is the grown-up homemade version of confetti cake mix. Funfetti, as it’s lovingly referred to in the blogosphere, has been exploding lately. (See what I mean?) So my first cake of the season, for my cutest friend, had to be a cute funfetti cake.

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4/10: Colourblock Hats

I’ve been itching to write this post for weeks now! Over reading week, I spent a lot of time learning how to knit. In the span of a few days, I learned how to properly cast-on (I’d been doing it in an unnecessarily difficult manner), knit on circular needles, knit on double-pointed needles (that one was a mind-bender), and change colours properly. I unravelled things, a lot. I started over, a lot. I had a ton of help from my mom and my knitting-whiz of a Grandma – I realized that it’s much easier to learn from real people than it is from videos. (Duh.) I also got to borrow my Grandma’s entire collection of bamboo knitting needles and some hot pink double-pointed needles. Sexy.

I was originally planning to gift the hat above to my best friend for her birthday (which is today! Happy Birthday S! xo) but, at the risk of sounding like a fashion snob, they just weren’t her colours. So I vowed to knit her another one, and started wearing this one myself (because they were my colours). Luckily, the second hat I made was a lot cleaner, less mistakes. Plus, I not-so-inconspicuously asked her which colours of yarn she liked best and knit those into the hat. Problem solved! Here she is in her hat:

Altogether now: d’aww.

To make the hats, I used this pattern for His + Her Knit Hats from the purl bee. I love that website. It’s like knitting, for young hipsters. Like me. Kind of. The pink yarn was a no-name brand on sale at Michael’s, it was really soft and fuzzy. The orange was Softee Chunky by Bernat. The cream was from a giant skein I found in the basement at my mom’s house, label long since lost.

I gifted the hat yesterday, on one of the warmest days of the year so far. Today, too, has been incredibly beautiful. I even went running, if you can believe it. So maybe it’s practically Spring…but it’s the thought that counts! Worst case scenario, we can save these hats til next winter and wear them like twins. My plan all along, of course.

And thus wraps up 4 of 10 DIY projects for 2012! (I’m counting both hats as one, because they were virtually identical, using the same skills.) See the rest of the DIY projects here.

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