russian blini

As a special birthday morning surprise for Dane, I made him Russian blini (very thin crepes) for breakfast. They were a little intimidating, since traditionally the blini are paper thin, but turned out much better than I expected (and if they had been a little thick, I don't think he would have minded)!

Russian Blini (recipe from here)
2 eggs
2 cups milk
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
~2 cups flour
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
nonstick cooking spray

Whisk together eggs, milk, sugar, and salt. Slowly combine flour about 1/4 cup at a time, until the batter is runny but thicker than milk. Stir in the oil and let rest for about 5 minutes. Preheat a nonstick pan (mine was 9") over medium heat and generously oil with cooking spray.

Blinis are all in the execution, so here are a few tips: Pour about 1/4 cup of batter into the hot pan. While pouring, quickly tilt the pan in a rotating motion with your wrist so the batter creates a very thin layer over the entire surface. Cook for about 1-2 minutes until small bubbles form and the bottom is golden, then carefully flip with a spatula. Cook for 1 minute, then transfer to a plate. Spray the pan in between each blini! If your blini seems too thick (like I said, it should be paper thin--almost transparent) you can either add a bit more milk to the batter or use less batter per blini. Also, time & temperature may have to be adjusted depending on your stove. The pan should be hot enough that the batter sizzles on contact but not so hot that the blini burns in under a minute. Don't lose confidence--after the third or fourth blini you will get the hang of the rhythm of cooking these!

Don't forget to top with some sweetened condensed milk!

This recipe is pretty involved and takes a few tries to get right, so it's best to make on a weekend morning when you have plenty of time. Also keep in mind that you'll have to make a lot of blini per person (the stack in the photo has about 25-30).  The original recipe site has some great photos of the process if you need a step by step visual.

I hope I haven't intimidated you from making these--they are truly delicious and fun once you get the hang of the cooking method! This is a great recipe if you want to push yourself in the kitchen!

couples costume parade

Happy Friday everyone! I hope everyone has recovered from Halloween by now. Dane & I love dressing up for Halloween, but we don't always wear a "couples costume." Here's some couple & non couple photos from the past few years!

 2012: Annie Hall & Alvy Singer

 2011: Silent Film Star & Leo Tolstoy

2010: Albert Einstein & Mayor McCheese (yep, that's Dane under there!)

2009: Sharpay Evans & Troy Bolton (we look so young! sorry for the blurriness, but this was snapped by a friend at a college Halloween party, so quality wasn't a top priority)

2008 was the first year we celebrated Halloween together (just before we began dating), but sadly there is no photo...Dane was Quail Man & I was Margot Tenenbaum :)


Have a great weekend!

Inspired by : scream queens

imgae from here

Despite Halloween falling on a Wednesday, I hope you have an opportunity to celebrate! Of course, this means dressing up in costume. I'll be sharing some costume photos of myself later, and am pretty excited about this year's getup!

One of the best parts of Halloween season is watching horror movies. There are the classics, the teen slasher flicks, the thrillers, the cheesy 80's movies, the sci-fi weirdos. Our netflix "recently watched" history is full of these movies come Halloween. And let's not kid ourselves, the ladies that propel the great ones are pretty bad-ass. Elsa Lanchester (above) in The Bride of Frankenstein sports one of the most iconic Holloween hairdos of all time (did you see the homage in Frankenweenie? That movie was wonderful!).

image from here

Alien is so. Bleep-ing. Scary. Once you can sleep with the lights off and the nightmares have gone away, you say to yourself, "Wow. Sigourney Weaver was awesome in that movie."

image from here

Poltergeist is one of the must-watches of the season. Both the young daughter, Carol Ann (Heather O'Rourke) and the mom Diane (JoBeth Williams) are great. And everyone loves Tangina (Zelda Rubinstein) shouting, "THIS HOUSE IS CLEAN!!!"

image from here

I, embarrassingly, had not seen the original Halloween until a horror movie marathon last year in Chicago. The movie itself wasn't one of my favorites, but Jamie Lee Curtis was so endearing and sympathetic that I would give that movie multiple viewings.

image from here

I've only seen two of Barbara Steele's horror movies (The Pit and the Pendulum and The Mask of Satan/Black Sunday) but she is one of the top scream queens of all time, often called "Britain's First Lady of Horror" (she's also one of Dane's favorites). Some of her films are available on instant Netflix--but be warned, just because these movies are old does NOT mean they take horror lightly.

Obviously there are many other great women in horror films (I know, I know, Janet Leigh isn't on this list). Who are your favorites?

Happy Halloween!

yellowstone part 1 : north east loop

Yellowstone National Park may be one of the most beautiful places in America. Dane & I decided that every American citizen should be required to visit the park at some point in their lifetime. The park is way too big to fit into one day, so we had some decisions to make about what to see. Yellowstone is shaped like a big figure 8:

image from yellowstonenationalpark.com

We we driving from the North Entrance to the South Entrance, so we could choose which route around the figure 8 to take. To save a little time, we avoided the sites that would likely be very crowded (Old Faithful & the geysers), and drove the eastern road through the park. Not seeing some of the big name attractions gives me an excuse to come back (and this time, spend a week there). Don't get me wrong, we still saw dozens of amazing sites! So many, in fact, that I'm splitting the trip into several posts.

I didn't really know what to expect from the landscape at Yellowstone. I never really put a face to the name, so to speak, despite learning about the park many, many times in school. Yes, I knew Yellowstone National Park was in Northwest Wyoming, it's one of the largest national parks, it's the home of Old Faithful, but seeing it is a completely different experience. It's so large and diverse. There are forests, streams, waterfalls, plateaus, mountains, lakes, wildlife, geysers, sulphur pits...

Yeah, I'm definitely going back.

parking lot pumpkin patch

Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young once sang: "If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with."

With those words in mind, on a sunny, 85 degree morning in Southern California, Dane & I headed to the nearest "pumpkin patch" that wasn't a cardboard box in front of a grocery store.

It was in a car wash parking lot.

A far cry from our last pumpkin patch experience on a small Wisconsin farm, where we got to pick our own pumpkins, feed the goats, and milk a cow.

The hot weather hasn't transitioned me into the normal cozy fall mood, but that is NO excuse not to carve pumpkins for Halloween. Celebrating fall in such a warm climate involves a lot more effort than it does in the Midwest.

Pumpkins and palm trees in the same photos. Strange, huh? Today we're off to another fall activity that I've planned for Dane's birthday. I've managed to keep it a surprise, which is no small feat for me--especially when I ask him every day, "do you want me to tell you the surprise?!" hoping he'll give me permission to spill my secret (he always says no).

Happy Friday! I hope you enjoy your Halloween weekend--it's time for that last minute costume scramble!