chocolate peanut butter macarons

Well, as I mentioned a couple days ago, I took an awesome class at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts taught by Master Pastry Chef Delphine Gomes.  Macarons are clearly the hot new (well, not as new now…) thing, and I love them, but I just can’t afford to keep up the habit with the prices shops charge for them.  Besides, it’s much more fun and rewarding to make your own!

The problem was that the first recipe I tried was a little more complex and I probably should have read up a little more ahead of time to really figure out what I was doing.  I guess I thought since I could handle meringues, macarons wouldn’t be too much harder.  I was wrong.  Macarons are notoriously finicky, are fragile, and crack easily.  My first attempt, did not go so well….

une leçon de macarons (a lesson on macarons)

Did you know that this past Sunday was Macaron Day in NYC?  I got an e-mail about it yesterday and then this afternoon a friend told me about her weekend in New York and all the macaron shops she hit up while she was there.  Oh man was I jealous. If only I had known!  The good news is that Anne told me that the Danish Pastry House, which I absolutely love and is just a short drive from our place (or a longer walk when my knee is up to it), has awesome macarons.  Yes!

The other good news is that my own macaron making skills have improved.  Dramatically.  Remember my horribly failed cinnamon apple macawhoopsie pies?  That were supposed to be macarons?  Right, well, I was kind of afraid to try making macarons again after that.  But my wonderful husband got me a class on macarons at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts as well as a cute little book on macarons for Christmas.

cranberry, cherry, and clementine cream scones

Growing up, I was always very proud of my Irish heritage.  Every St. Patty’s day my mom would make her version of colcannon (basically mashed potatoes with shredded cabbage, bacon pieces, and grated cheddar) and currant scones.  The scones were always my favorite part.  As an adult, my celebration of St. Patty’s Day has changed considerably (hello, Guinness and Irish Coffee!), although I still always make  scones.

This year was my most uneventful St. Patty’s Day to date.  I had class that night and hadn’t been since my knee surgery and didn’t want to miss another class.  Not just that, but I haven’t been able to get in the kitchen and cook with my bum knee and didn’t want to ask Joseph to go out of his way to make an Irish meal for me when he has a lot going on himself (plus, he’s already been waiting on me hand and foot ever since the surgery).

prosciutto, mozzarella, tomato, and spinach panini

I don’t know about you, but I am so incredibly ready for spring.  Winter in Boston was brutal with 38 inches of snow in January alone.  The snow has finally (mostly) melted and they’re talking about temps in the 50s this weekend.  I’d like to say that I’ll be out enjoying the weather, but I’m not particularly mobile with my post-surgery knee.  I am bound and determined to make it outside for a least a little bit, even if it’s just to the back porch.

If you ask me, the only upside to all the snow was working from home and having Joseph make me panini for lunch.  My office doesn’t have a whole lot of lunch options nearby, and besides, I’m generally happier saving my money to go out for a nice dinner  rather than buy a mediocre sandwich because I didn’t bring anything for lunch.

prosciutto and sweet potato risotto

I get so carried away sometimes with finding new recipes and cooking that I forget to actually blog about the things I cook!  Case in point, I was on the phone with my sister yesterday and she said that as soon as I’m back on my feet she’d love to see a risotto recipe on Pixelated Crumb.  As soon as she said it, I realized that we had in fact made one and had photographed it and everything, but I’d never actually gotten around to posting it.  Which is a shame because it’s really good!

When I went back to find the photos, I found several other recipes that I haven’t posted yet.  Recipes that are really, really good, but I just forgot that I hadn’t posted yet!  The good news for all of you is that I’m laid up recovering from knee surgery, so I have plenty of time to revisit them, starting with the risotto.

fried rice with ham and pineapple

Joseph and I have a handful of recipes that we always keep readily available for the weeks when we don’t have any groceries and don’t have time to sit down and actually plan before going to the store.  They’re all mostly healthy, quick, easy, and good.  We’ve had this fried rice recipe in our arsenal for a while.  Well, not quite this recipe.  We usually make this recipe vegetarian, using tofu instead of ham, and the pineapple is a new addition.  But that’s the beauty of fried rice — it’s so versatile!  It’s great because the key components of it are so easy to keep stocked in your kitchen and you can modify it based on what other stuff you have in your kitchen.

Like I said, up to this point we had always made the dish vegetarian. But we had recently made a Hawaiian pizza (more on that later).  We had already decided that we were going to make the fried rice and Joseph remembered we still had pineapple and then I remembered that we still had ham.  It was just meant to be.