First, Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones from Pat and I! It’s been a wonderful year for us and we are looking forward to getting married in 2013!
I love making presents for the holidays. I made homemade marshmallows for our engagement shoot and loved them so much that I thought they would make great presents for our family and friends. I’m surprised by the amount of people I’ve talked to who are amazed that you can make marshmallows from scratch. The ones I made for our photos are cardamom flavored. I promise I’ll post the recipe!
I saw a recipe on Not Without Salt for maple hot cocoa made and knew that this would be the perfect partner to my homemade marshmallows. It gets its maple flavor from maple sugar. It’s more complex than regular sugar and adds a little extra smokey flavor.
I bundled up the ingredients in mason jars with a little bit of twine and some homemade labels. Mason jars are the perfect package as they are easily reused and cost about $7 for 12 at our local grocery store.
Maple Hot Cocoa Mix
Adapted from Not Without Salt
Makes enough for one mason jar
1 c. cocoa powder – I used Valrhona, which is high quality
1/2 c. maple sugar
1 tsp. decaf instant espresso powder or decaf instant coffee
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 vanilla bean (optional)
1. Layer all the ingredients in a mason jar
2. Slide the optional vanilla bean down the side of the jar
To serve:
Shake contents and use two heaping tablespoons of mix for 6 oz. of hot liquid.
These are the labels that I made for the wide mouthed mason jars. Feel free to download them and print them!
Click Here
Just a note, buying vanilla beans in bulk on Amazon is amazing! I was able to get 1/2 pound of Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans for $27. This worked out to be a little over 50 vanilla beans. Compare this to the typical cost of $10 for two beans in a grocery store and this works out to a savings of over $250!!! Here is where I got the beans I used for this maple hot cocoa recipe.
Heath and I started out our morning with brunch at Tasty and Sons. It was a-mazing. I had house made kimchi with stewed veggies over brown rice. Soo good! Heath had biscuits and gravy.
We also had some beautifully-made drinks – a bloody mary for Health and something figgy and fizzy for myself.
To give me a peek at her background, my other host, Anesa, took me to try to Bosnian food. We went to Two Brothers to eat Chevapi (little sausages) and Serbian style flat bread called lepinja. The food was delicious and very hearty. The photo below on the right is a random sighting in Portland. Sweet ride!
We finished the night with a pint of local brew at the Green Dragon Bistro and Brewpub. You really can’t experience Portland without trying one of their hundreds of microbrews!
Still on the interview trail, I headed to Portland to check out the program at OHSU. I also spent the weekend hitting up some local couch surfers for the local scoop on Portland!
Heath and I went to the famous Voodoo Doughnuts. We snagged one of the uber-popular Maple Bacon Bars and also an oreo-topped one. So good! I am digging the sweet-salty of maple and bacon and have a couple of recipes that I want to try featuring the combo once life settles down a bit.
In order to take our love of coffee to the next level, we headed to the Stumptown Roasters Annex. They offer free tastings of their premium coffees at 11:00 and 2:00 every day.
The tasting process, also known as “cupping”, was pretty intense – some may say ridiculous. It was five steps and involved sniffing and swirling and slurping. Perhaps if you are a super taster, this process would have been more meaningful. It was funny to watch my fellow participants “ooh” and “aah” over the brews. One girl even used the word “purple” to describe the essence of the coffee she was tasting! Are-you-kidding-me?
There is something I like to call the “Garden State Effect”. Everyone raved about Garden State the movie. I watched it and thought it was strange and didn’t really make much sense. After discussing it with several people who “liked” it, and telling them how I felt, invariably they let out a sigh of relief and sheepishly admitted that they didn’t really get it either but were just going to about it to not seem like dummies!
The last stop was the Southeast Wine Collective. This brand new spot is an Urban Winery (only in Portland, right?) and was awesome! Also ladies, it was home to the cutest bartenders in Portland!
Just a few more snaps from wandering around Denver. Denver is really a changing, with many cool restaurants and shops constantly opening. Josh and I wandered down Broadway street. There was so much to do and to buy! It was hard to keep things just to window shopping!
1. Bardo Coffee House – Hipster coffee. Mismatched couches and good coffee. Per Josh’s recommendation, I had my first “dirty chai” – a shot of espresso in a chai tea. The chai was local Bhakti Chai.
2. Home & Again – Awesome thrifted and vintage furniture. Awesome antiques with a not-horrifying price tag.
3-4. Punch Bowl Social – The brand new bowling alley plus bar. With a cotton candy vending machine? How hip.
5. Fancy Tiger Crafts – Right up my DIY alley. Beautiful yarn and fabrics for your next big project. Plus they teach classes and host parties. What an awesome bachelorette or birthday idea! Who needs to take a pole dancing class?
6. Fancy Tiger Clothing – The partner store of #5. Full of awesome label lovely clothing and jewelry items. My one purchase from Denver and such a nice souvenir.
To keep up with my series of weekend excursions as part of the residency interview process, here are some photos of my recent weekend in Denver, Colorado. I was there to check out the pediatric residency program at Children’s Hospital of Colorado. The hospital and the program are both amazing – top 10 in the country. I felt pretty stoked just to get an interview! The first thing I checked out was City Park. It is in the middle of Denver and is 330 acres! In all of the parks I saw in Denver there were hundreds of Canadian geese. City Park was no exception. It earily reminded me of the old Hitchcock movie, The Birds.
Then I grabbed a cup of tea and cozied up in one of the old overstuffed chairs spread throughout The Tattered Cover bookstore. This gem is full of people who love books and everyone I talked to was so kind – from the baristas to the clerks. All of the books are for sale, but browsing is encouraged. There are even post it notes with staff and customer recommendations to help you find your next favorite book.
After that, it was time to meet up with my Couch Surfing host for the weekend – Josh. Josh was an encyclopedia of all that is awesome about Denver. He knew all the best places to eat, the best places to drink and the best places to shop. He knew stories behind the businesses too. The first place we checked out was Pinche Taco. According to Josh, Pinche Taco started out as a food truck serving cool twists on the old favorite. One time, a customer asked about the tacos and when the owner started describing it, the customer said @$#$%& tacos, I just want to eat! Pinche is the equivalent of @$#$%& in Spanish!
We also checked out a brand new brewery, River North Brewery. I had a few samples of their awesome beers and finally settled on a pint of RN^4, a Belgian-style quadrupel. The bartender/brew master that was working was very friendly and knowledgeable I highly recommend checking them out.
The other place that we grabbed a beer during the weekend was the Bull & Bush. The brewery was very cozy and manly. Apparently they have great food, but the kitchen was closed so there was a food truck in the parking lot keeping everyone happy. I had a pint of their sweet potato and butternut squash ale. AMAZING. It was so unique and the flavor of the squash and sweet potato made this brew one of the best I’ve ever had.
I also have some Instagram snaps that I will post too!
← Previous Entries
-
Let’s Stay in Touch!
-
Check Out My Lovely Sponsors!
