At the beginning of April I was pretty much certain that I was going to need an intervention. The things is, it wasn’t gelato, caramel creams, or even prosecco that I potentially needed to be forcibly removed from. It was the video game Stardew Valley. Do you know about this phenomena? Stardew Valley is this amazing RPG that was completely produced by one guy in Seattle. Eric Barone programmed the whole thing, made all of the graphics, the dialogue, storyline, and even the music. Talk about an overachiever… It’s been selling like crazy and since purchasing the game on March 1st I’ve played for 140 hours. I haven’t been this addicted to a game in years!

The premise of Stardew Valley is that you’ve left your corporate drone job to turn a rundown farm you inherited from your grandfather into a thriving business. Along the way you get to know the townspeople, fish, mine, decorate your house, and even get married. I never played Harvest Moon but everyone says it’s a lot like that so if you were a fan back in the day you’ll love this too. As I was playing though it dawned on me that 80% of the game was all about food in some form or another. This fact, in addition to the adorable pixel graphics, made me think that people who claim to not like video games might be able to push that anti-attitude aside and give this unique adventure a try. I’ll now do my best to convince all of my food loving friends that Stardew Valley is your next favorite time killer.

1 – Stardew Valley is all about farm to table dining and seasonal food. Not only do you get to design your farm however you’d like you also have seasons and that means seasonal food (fruit, vegetables, fish, and foraged items) that are only available for part of each year. This gets pretty tricky if you’re trying to complete certain achievements. So pay attention or you may end up having to wait an entire cycle before you can make fiddlehead risotto. True story.

2 – When you get tired of farming, fishing, and trying to make townspeople fall in love with you there’s always interior design to fall back on. A local carpenter provides you with a daily rotating array of home furnishings so you’ll be able to outfit your “dream kitchen” — just as long as your dream kitchen has magenta and mismatched chairs, a pastel rug, and strange houseplants.

3 – You can finally satisfy your curiosity about what it was like to be a 19th century milkmaid with your own herd of goats and cows. You can even name them. All of my goats are named after fairytale characters, and the cows are Jem and the Holograms inspired. Just like in the cartoon, Kimber the cow is a real pain in the you-know-what.

4 – Speaking of animals, interestingly enough you never turn your barnyard friends into any kind of meat. The game’s creator is actually a vegetarian so instead of Wilbur the pig becoming Sunday bacon (of course I had to have an homage to Charlotte’s Web in game) he will actually hunt valuable truffles for you and drop them off outside the barn. You can then turn the truffles into truffle oil and make oodles of money. How convenient!

5 – If you’re a practicing freegan there’s even a chance that you’ll find discarded baguettes in trash cans around town. Trash bread actually shows up a lot.  It’s equal parts disgusting yet helpful as eating bread, and foodstuffs in general, are what give you the energy to make it through your arduous day.

6 – Everyone wants to buy local these days and in Stardew Valley Pierre’s General Store is the place to frequent if you want to support your local economy. At the beginning of the game though he’s always closed on Wednesdays and without fail you run out of something you need ASAP every single Wednesday so make sure to plan ahead.

7 – Do you love watching cooking shows? People in Stardew Valley do too! The Queen of Sauce regularly airs on your home TV several times each week to teach you new recipes.

8 – Speaking of recipes, just this week I learned how to make Pink Cake. How perfect is that? I’m hot on the trail of completing the Gourmet Chef achievement. Just a few more to go…One thing I don’t entirely understand is why your reward for finishing this task is a green archer’s cap. Shouldn’t it be a chef’s hat?

9 – Once you learn how to make all of these scrumptious recipes you can eat them for energy and other powers or you can give them as gifts. There’s some really tasty sounding dishes too like artichoke dip, poppyseed muffins, lobster bisque, and even plum pudding. Each villager has favorite foods and you can increase your relationships with them by providing a steady stream of food bribery. Essentially my husband married me because I stuffed him with homemade maki rolls and crab cakes. Don’t let anyone ever try to tell you that food isn’t the way to someone’s heart.

10 – Do you love the show Cheers and wish that you had a local watering hole where everyone knows your name? Then the town saloon is the place for you. There’s even a misanthrope (Shane) and a resident alcoholic (Pam) who you can chat with after a long day of watering plants. Shane actually made me super sad and I developed a bizarre need to try to “fix him.” A lot of other players did too so in an upcoming release of the game he’s going to now be a marriageable bachelor.

11 – Once you’ve made yourself at home in your new favorite bar you can fulfill another fantasy by buying everyone a round.

12 – Fishing in this game is a very heated topic. I’ll admit that when I first started playing I couldn’t catch a fish to save my life and I had more than a few hissy fits, but eventually I got the hang of it. So when you see people posting on message boards that it’s impossible just remember that if I could figure it out (the person who has singlehandedly ruined more World of Warcraft raids by falling into ravines and other weird places) anyone can.

13 – I almost forgot about the chickens and ducks! You get to have your very own flock. My chickens are all named after Muppets so there’s a Miss Piggy, a Kermit, a Fozzy, and (of course) a Camilla. The ducks are even more unimaginatively named after the characters from Duck Takes (wooo-oooo). The eggs you collect from your hens and ducks can be turned into gallons and gallons of valuable high dollar mayo which, if this were the real world, you could sell at the local farmer’s market for $9 a jar.

14 – As mentioned earlier, the game is season based so at times there are items that you can’t find, grow, or harvest. However, there is a magical traveling merchant that appears in the forest on Fridays and Sundays. Her wagon is pulled by a purple pig sporting glasses and a fez and sometimes she offers “black market” goods. They are usually really marked up though so unless you’re flush with cash or desperate it’s probably best to just wait until the proper time period to collect what you need.

15 – Finally, when you get tired of gathering honey, foraging for mushrooms, picking berries, making wine, planting potatoes, and baking cookies you can always just kick back and eat a triple decker ice cream cone.

Almost 10 years to the day after leaving Maine to live in Massachusetts I’ve come home. On June 5th CK and I closed on a condo in Portland. Yes, we’re home owners now!

We’ve been in our new place for approximately 3 weeks. So far, so good. I love living in a walkable neighborhood again. Being close to amazing coffee, delicious restaurants, and endless coastal adventures suits us. Even the cats are happier.

I also, once again, have a kitchen I enjoy cooking in (well…it’s a work in organizational progress but I do love my new bar stools) and after living in an apartment for 3 years that had the worst, most depressing lighting (or lack thereof) in the world I’m wondering if maybe I’ll start taking some pictures. We’ll see.

For now I’m content with enjoying amazing things that other people cook for me and discovering unique experiences like BP’s Shuck Shack. Yes, oysters from a food cart. Totally loved that find.

Other things that I’m super thrilled about… being able to run around Back Cove in the mornings, enjoying mimosas with an ocean view, randomly going to LL Bean at odd times, buying silly things with lobsters on them, and most of all being close to friends and family again. It’s all just one great big sigh of (not being stuck in insane Route 2 and Mass Ave traffic every single morning) relief.

Hi! It’s me. I haven’t written on here in forever and ever and ever. I can regale you with excuse after excuse but really I just needed a blogging break. A nice big, long hiatus was just what the WordPress doctor ordered.

So what’s new? I just finished grad school, CK and I finally bought some curtains like the pseudo grown-ups we are, and we eat a lot of Paleo/Primal meals (just like everyone else in the universe these days). We’re not crazy strict about it but Monday-Friday we try our best to avoid grains, sugar, and the White Mochas at Starbucks.

We’ve been doing this for almost a year and a half now (hence my lack of new cookie, cake, and tasty loaves of bread posts). Recently though I’ve hit my limit on finding things I want to eat. Meal planning for the week has become this super stressful and dreaded task. It’s at the point where I might scream if I have to make one more meatball recipe or eat another plate of spaghetti squash noodles. Even Pinterest isn’t helping. I feel like I keep seeing the same recipes over and over again and I’m seriously tapped out in the creative food thinking department.

In addition to my complete disinterest in making a grocery list I’ve developed a huge aversion to going to the grocery store. I feel like it’s such a waste of precious weekend time and while I used to have groceries delivered from other services fairly often we now mostly shop at Whole Foods and they don’t deliver — or they didn’t.

I feel like I just hit the jackpot. There’s a newish local service called PlateJoy that I decided to try. So instead of CK listening to me complain about project managing all of our food for the week I just logged onto their website, picked out a bunch of meals, the recipes were emailed, and a super nice lady delivered all of the food to me 24-hours later. I can’t even begin to express how happy I am not to have to go to the grocery store.

Some of the highlights so far include the fact that you can choose where your groceries are sourced from (yay, I didn’t have to go to Whole Foods and play chicken with SUVs in the parking lot). They also have a pretty big range of special diet meals and categories like gluten-free, paleo, vegetarian etc…You can also opt to receive breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. I just did lunches and dinners this time though. The cost for 5 days of meals was substantially less than what I normally spend when I shop. I’m also kind of stoked about the fact that I’m making food (for instance steaks) that are the proper portion size because I am so bad at that. Here’s their FAQ if you want more details.

Anyway, I just whipped up one of the meals I received which was a super tasty tuna salad recipe with spinach, scallions, walnuts, and cranberries — so far, so good!

Right now Platejoy serves Boston and some of the burbs as well as all of the Bay Area. At the end of the week I’ll leave a comment on this post letting you know how it all shook out. Currently a la Annie “I think I’m gonna like it here.”

I almost forgot! They also included a bouquet of tulips in my bags as a welcome gift. It’s like they know me?!

PS: This isn’t a paid ad or a shill. I’m just trying to get back into the swing of blogging and this is the most interesting food related thing I’ve come across in quite some time.

While sass and science are both given equal playing time, the candy cookbook is not entirely fun and games, it’s a real candy education. What I really enjoyed about this book is that it’s actually set-up to resemble the visually appealing textbooks of our childhood. That means it includes an extremely thorough introduction that covers everything from tools to dipping and even troubleshooting the oh-so intimidating act of tempering temperamental chocolate. Also, I’m pretty sure I want to frame the sugar stages images that grace page 52. I’ve never seen soft ball, firm ball, and hard ball actually represented in such an approachable manner before.

Each individual recipe carefully crafted from the imagination of this Brooklyn-based duo alerts you immediately to any special equipment you will need to gather via a pretty pink callout box. More complicated actions such as assembling cherry cordials and making molded truffles are visually explained in step-by-step images. Any nerves you may harbor about trying a new recipe are quickly put to rest thanks to Liz and Jen’s upbeat attitude and instructions.

I ended up tackling the Tropical Toffee that boasts a sizable dose of rum, crunchy macadamia nuts, sweet chocolate and a pretty dusting of coconut flakes. This addictive candy is a unique twist on traditional nut brittles, and the coconut gives it a decidedly holiday appropriate appeal. Get it? It’s snowing on my candy! Since the holiday season is kicking off in a big way this week I think that If I were going to pair this treat with a festive tune it would have to be Bing Crosby’s version of Mele Kalikimaka. So I’d suggest queuing up your favorite playlist and offering a pretty wrapped box of this toffee to your favorite holiday hostess with the mostess.

Tropical Toffee
Originally published in The Liddabit Sweets Candy Cookbook

1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing the baking sheet
4 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup light rum
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups roasted, salted macadamia nuts, roughly chopped or crushed
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup toasted unsweetened coconut flakes

Generously butter the baking sheet and set it aside on a heatproof surface.

Combine the sugar, 1 pound butter, corn syrup, rum, vanilla, and sea salt in a medium-size (4-quart) saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Insert the candy thermometer.

Reduce the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring constantly with the spatula, until the mixture reaches 300ºF/150º (hard crack stage), about 10 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat, and add the baking soda and macadamia nuts, stirring vigorously (but carefully) to incorporate.

Pour the mixture out onto the prepared baking sheet, and spread it evenly with the heatproof spatula. When the toffee is firm but still warm sprinkle the chocolate chips on top and spread them into a thin layer. Then dust the chocolate with toasted unsweetened coconut flakes. (Erin’s Note: I ran my coconut through the food processor for 30 seconds or so to create a finer flake). Allow the toffee to cool completely, about 2 hours, then break it into bite-size pieces.

Store the toffee, layered with parchment or wax paper, in an airtight container at room temperate for up to 1 week. It will last for 2 to 3 weeks when stored in the refrigerator; just allow it to come to room temperature before serving (the flavor isn’t as nice when it’s cold).

Well I did it. Just barely and there actually were a few cat pictures used as filler but I still officially posted to my blog every single day during the month of November. Mission NaBloPoMo accomplished! Would I ever do this again? No. Never! But I’m glad that I did and I think going forward I will appreciate the few entries that I do manage to compose each month just a little bit more. If you missed out on my frantic ramblings over the past few weeks I think the highlights would have to be:

• My Cocktail Party Playlist
• The Recipes I Really Make
• Leftover Veggie Tray Soup
• French Macaron Class at Create-a-Cook
• Pumpkin Old Fashioned

PS: Thank you to Nicole from Pinch My Salt, Alejandra from Always Order Dessert, Rebecca of Grongar Blog, Karen at Mignardise, Pam from Cave Cibum, and Adrienne of Hungry Bruno for the support. I would have quit during the first few days without you all. — xoxo

Have you heard about Simple? Simple is a really cool new bank replacement. CK and I officially switched all of our really horrible old banking accounts over to Simple completely in August (after being on the waiting list for a Beta invite since June of 2010) and haven’t regretted it for a moment. We both absolutely love it. What’s so different about Simple you may be wondering?

Well for one, they’re entirely focused on customer service. Ever tried to get someone at your bank to help you? Did you feel good afterwards? I’m guessing probably not. I’ve had several of the most pleasant customer experiences of my life with these folks, both over the telephone as well as online, with representatives that were both witty and knowledgable. If I ever have a question about anything on my account I can simply start a conversation on their web interface and someone gets back to me usually within an hour. For real.

What’s really cool about Simple though is their spending tracking and analytics. You can easily tag, search, and filter your purchases in a number of user friendly ways. Plus Simple actually learns your tags so you don’t have to keep tagging items each time you stumble into Whole Foods. Perhaps the scariest tag for me to review from time to time is the coffee tag. Yikes! You can check out my monthly coffee expenses in the graph below. Now the truth really comes out. But it’s OK. We should know these things! Not just think about them fearfully in the abstract.

But my favorite feature of all are the goals. You see, in Simple you only have one account instead of a separate savings and checking. In order to put money aside you create what are known as goals. Goals allow you to assign your money to different “buckets.” These funds then are removed from your “Safe to Spend” balance. This means that with a quick glance you always know exactly how much money you have left in your account and how much is already earmarked for other things such as rent or savings for Christmas presents. This feature finally allows you to truly organize and actually follow that dusty budget you have saved in an Excel spreadsheet somewhere deep and dark on your harddrive.

There are also goals that can be created with a specific deadline. When you create one of these types of goals Simple automatically calculates how much money needs to be withdrawn from your Safe to Spend bucket daily and places it into your long term savings goal. One of the items I have scheduled is allocated to the future iPhone that I assume will be released next September. So every day Simple adds a little more to that fund and whenever that magical Apple event does take place I’ll already have my money saved and ready to blow.

CK and I also both have a bit of a silly goal that we’re splitting the difference on. A few weeks ago we saw this $80 bottle of  Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch Bourbon at the liquor store and given our affinity for Manhattans we thought this would be a killer ingredient to try. Instead of impulse shopping the bottle on the spot though we decided to both create a goal in our respective accounts splitting the difference and will have just the right amount a few days before Christmas. Santa is going to be a very happy camper on Christmas Eve!

Simple is still invite only but I have five invitations if anyone would like one. First come, first serve. You can leave me a comment below, email me, or send a message on twitter. Whatever works for you. Sorry folks that’s all the invites I have but you can join their waiting list by going to simple.com.

The Leg Lamp from A Christmas Story – you won’t shoot your eye out with this, kid but you could make some seriously nostalgic baked goods.

How cute is that polar bear?! A little basic white icing, maybe some coconut and you’ve got a great excuse to eat your way through the next snow day.

Sorry, had to give a shootout to my home state. Depending on the season that cookie could be spread with white, black, green, or even brown icing. I suppose only people from Maine will probably understand that I’m referencing “mud season” and “black fly” season via the colors brown and black.

That key is just cool. I’d make them pink. Naturally.

Skeleton Gingerbread Man will put a smile on all your hipster friends overly bearded faces.

Simon the Cat is just fantastic. He reminds me of Dexter. Here’s a link to my favorite Simon episode.

President Lincoln! Or edible Daniel Day-Lewis — whatever you prefer.

Everyone is obsessed with mustaches. I really don’t get the appeal but I’m sharing these with you anyway.

Here be dragons! How amazing is this cutter? Bake a batch of these and sneak some Smaug cookies into a late night showing of The Hobbit next month. You’re welcome!

I ended up making Tropical Toffee from the cookbook for Eat Boutique and it is crazy addictive and a total home run, but the first recipe I made…well…I kind of screwed it up. Which makes me laugh because it’s probably the easiest recipe in the book. As soon as I happened upon the Peanut Butter Pinwheels page I knew that was what I wanted to make. I’m a huge caramel creams fan and I thought these looked similar only sort of inside out and stuffed with peanut butter. Yum!

So I dutifully baked a potato. Yes, this candy, much like needhams, contains a big mashed up starchy potato. Then I slowly added confectioners’ sugar and more confectioners’ sugar and more, and more, and more. Then I was getting really close to running out of sugar which I needed to roll out the candy.

Unfortunately, the day I was home making the pinwheels CK had the car and I couldn’t get to the store. So I made a decision to stop mixing and just chill the dough even though I knew it wasn’t quite stuff enough. Then I rolled out the candy a little too thick and finally I ended up with these crazy looking homemade oblongs that tasted like Candy Land exploded in your mouth but looked like they were made by a six-year-old. So if you do make this recipe, and you should (please don’t let my images dissuade you) make sure you have enough confectioners’ sugar on hand and maybe another person to help you mix the dough because your hand is going to truly feel like it will fall off.

PS: Want to really know how sad I am at styling photos? While the candy dish is quite pretty (thank you for the new pink Depression Glass piece, Gram!) The background fabric in this picture is my pillowcase. A ha ha ha … yeah you’re never going to read here again, are you?

Make me feel better. What weird props have you used in photographs on your blog?

Peanut Butter Pinwheels
Originally published in the Liddabit Sweets Candy Cookbook

1 medium-size (4 to 5 ounces/100 to 150 g) potato, baked, cooled, and skinned (Yukon or russet varieties work best; don’t use any “waxy” potatoes, like the small red ones—it won’t turn out right!)
2 tablespoons (30 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 to 6 cups (525 to 775 g) confectioners’ sugar, plus about 1 cup for dusting
1 teaspoon (5 g) pure vanilla extract
Cold milk, for thinning the dough if needed
1 cup (75 g) unsweetened shredded coconut (optional)
1 cup (180 g) creamy commercial peanut butter, such as Skippy
1 teaspoon (4g) fine sea salt

In a medium-size bowl, gently mash the baked potato with a fork, just enough so that there aren’t any big lumps. Add the butter, 4 cups of the confectioners’ sugar, and the vanilla, and mix well with a rubber spatula until smooth. The dough should be very stiff and sticky, almost like Play-Doh. If it’s too thick, add a little cold milk; if it’s too thin, keep adding confectioners’ sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, until it reaches the correct consistency. Add the coconut, if you’re using it, and mix to combine.

Divide the potato dough in half and form it into 2 balls. Wrap each one tightly in plastic wrap, and allow them to rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

Remove the balls of dough from the refrigerator. Generously and evenly sprinkle confectioners’ sugar over the surface of the prepared cutting board.

Roll out one ball of the dough into a rough 12-inch circle that’s about 1/2-inch thick. Use the spatula to spread half of the peanut butter evenly over the surface. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon of the sea salt evenly over the peanut butter, and starting at the edge closest to you, carefully roll up the dough into a log shape. Wrap the log in a piece of plastic wrap, or parchment or wax paper secured by twisting the ends together (this will help the log hold its shape). Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, assemble the second log.

Once the first log is firm enough to cut, use a sharp chef’s knife to slice it into 1/2-inch-thick rounds. Wrap each piece in wax twisting paper. Repeat with the second log. Store the pinwheels, layered between parchment or wax paper, in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 weeks.

Is everyone still pinning obsessed? I know I’m not quite as addicted to Pinterest as I used to be but that doesn’t mean that I still don’t check in almost daily. That’s especially true as major holidays and events begin to loom on the horizon.

A good example of this new habit occurred recently was when I found myself obsessively pinning appetizer and cocktail ideas for CK’s birthday party last month. Of course now everything is all red and green, gold and silver, and ho ho ho covered for Christmas so that’s where I’ll be spending most of my time. I figure I’ll probably only ever make 2 or 3 things that get posted to my boards but, like gift giving in general, I suppose it’s the thought that counts.

Are you pinning for the holidays? Do we follow one another? If not, let’s connect. You can find my boards here or leave me a link to your creative finds in the comments.

Right now I really have my eye on these Red Velvet Crinkles and maybe a cute cork reindeer ornament.