berry baking

so recently, i have been getting into the world of food. not in the sense that i am just now beginning my love affair with great tasting foods, i mean, ive always known i have been blessed with amazingly alert taste buds, but more in the "life application of food".

in doing this, i have been battling between cooking and baking. because, yes, virginia, there is a difference. to start, i have to state that i am not yet going to claim a love for one over the other, but have instead been struggling with my inner self on which i have a better calling for.

cooking, you see, is more of the fresh, on the stove variety. this seems to fall more along the lines of, you know, a greek style zucchini salad or spanikopida. these are obviously all wonderfully delicious options, but seem to take a lot of care and attention throughout the entire cooking experience.

on the other hand, you have baking. and to me, (and please remember this is no professional opinion) the world of baking includes more “dry” ingredients and more time is spent in the oven than actually monitoring the process via grill, stove, skillet, etc. these also tend to make sweeter foods when i "bake"...

my mother has always been more of the baker. and im starting to think i fall more in her footsteps. but im keeping my options open. i like the idea of cooking and am still working on those skills – but things you bake tend to turn out better for me. or at least capture my attention a little better.

a few weeks ago we discussed flexitarianism and the world of trying new foods to “make” (see how i intentionally did not use “cooking” or “baking” here to put myself in a box?) since then, i have been following my taste buds to a variety of food blogs (thanks, sonja!) this has thus inspired me to attempt a new “phase” for the blog – which entails attempting a new recipe each sunday, with of course a monday photo and recipe post.

and with that, i post this past weekend’s project: baking a mixed berry buckle. what i learned?

• i like to bake.
• i had most of the ingredients already in my kitchen, surprisingly enough.
• i like berries.
• i like desserts.
• i still prefer desserts with chocolate incorporated.
• my husband did not yet try what i baked.
• this next week i want to try something to put in my yet-to-be-used cake stand.

mixed berry buckle

what you will need:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for baking dish
1 cup granulated sugar3 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups mixed berries, such as raspberries, strawberries (halved or quartered) and raspberries
vanilla ice cream, for serving (optional)

directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 2-quart oval or square baking dish. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition to combine. Add vanilla and beat to combine. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and baking powder; with mixer on low speed, gradually add flour mixture until incorporated.
Spread batter in baking dish. Scatter raspberries on top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean and top is golden brown, 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool 20 minutes. With a large spoon, scoop out onto serving plates; serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, if desired.

here are more details: http://www.blogger.com/thekitchensinkrecipes.com/2009/06/29/bust-wide-open/#more-5703

my guys

neither one is a very good pretend sleeper - either that or they both smile when they sleep :)

meet the voights

extremely defining pictures of each of us below:

me in my element: playing the washer with spoons on stage with men in lederhosen.

brandt in his element: enjoying life on a lazy river taking a snooze

bbq rules

below is a little tidbit that was passed along to me today and has turned out to the highlight of my day so far. i'll give my husband a "pass" on step 9 as he does this just as wonderfully as #4 and 7!!

We are amidst the summer and BBQ season. Therefore it is important to refresh your memory on the etiquette of this sublime outdoor cooking activity, as it's the only type of cooking a 'real' manwill do, probably because there is an element of danger involved.

When a man volunteers to do the BBQ the following chain of events are put into motion:

Routine...
(1) The woman buys the food.
(2) The woman makes the salad, prepares the vegetables and makes dessert.
(3) The woman prepares the meat for cooking, places it on a tray along with the necessary cooking utensils and sauces, and takes it to the manwho is lounging beside the grill - beer in hand.

Here comes the important part:
(4) THE MAN PLACES THE MEAT ON THE GRILL.

More routine....
(5) The woman goes inside to organize the plates and cutlery.
(6) The woman comes out to tell the man that the meat is burning. He thanks her and asks if she will bring another beer while he deals with the situation.

Important again:
(7) THE MAN TAKES THE MEAT OFF THE GRILL AND HANDS IT TO THE WOMAN.

More routine....
(8) The woman prepares the plates, salad, bread, utensils, napkins, sauces and brings them to the table.
(9) After eating, the woman clears the table and does the dishes.

And most important of all:
(10) Everyone PRAISES and THANKS HIM for his cooking efforts.
(11) The man asks the woman how she enjoyed 'her night off.' And, uponseeing her annoyed reaction, concludes that there's just no pleasing some women....

slap bet

a few nights ago, i was "slapped" awake, in the face, by my husband. he whispered to me, "oh i'm sorry...my hand fell" and continued in his sweet slumber. i was officially awake the rest of the night.

slap bet on.

that is all.

child's play

for those of you who know my husband, you may be familiar with the politician's "thumbs up" that has followed us around the globe, and most recently - our wedding! it all began at a fountain in switzerland, circa fall 2000, and has since become my husband’s "trademark" (hear that honey? you need to file some papers for that!).

last thursday (around the time the world was learning of the fall of michael jackson) we were at a work sponsored event at the children's museum of indianapolis to see a sneak peak of the king tut exhibit.

despite the recent exterior remodel of the museum and all the mediterranean themed decor around the place, my husband just couldn't get past his childhood memories of the water clock.

i think it is safe to say the exhibit (which is a kind of a deal - http://www.childrensmuseum.org/special_exhibits/tutankhamun/index.htm), took a backseat to the clock in my husbands eyes. while most of us walked out discussing the lack of any of tut's sarcophaguses (err, sarcophagi?), he just couldn't get over how the water continuously and correctly displays time - pumping it up, then down and all over yet again. from entry to exit, from a coors lite to some hummus and pita, from the tomb of tut to the dinosaurs - his only interest was just what makes that clock tick.... literally!

i feel this blog will be a great tool to document our journey through life with the thumbs up. perhaps it can be a reoccurring theme. in fact, had we thought of it earlier, it could have been a theme in the naming and URL of the blog, yada yada yada.

so stay tuned - we go tubing and boating this week and head to seattle at the end of july to document the family trademark!

marriage survey

when asked how much he enjoys being married to me, this was his response:

extreme home makeover: god style

last weekend, as some of you may know, our house church (along with a few others) spent all day saturday cleaning, cleansing and purging an entire home - literally from top to bottom. rebecca, the homeowner, lives next door to our friend katie and is in her late 60s. between taking care of her 2 grandkids during parts of the week and a few health issues, she was desperately in need of some cleaning and love.

when we showed up at 9am on saturday morning, we realized it was a little more than a few hours of cleaning, but in fact helping rebecca in confronting some major hoarding issues.


the pictures attached may not do it all justice - as our friend jana thought to take some photos during the middle of the process. i think she is going to go back and take some "after" photos so i will post those one i have them.

we started by completely emptying rebecca's house onto her front yard. we sorted through important documents, medicines and then organized items that needed to be rinsed or washed. her house was completely empty. we then set up a dish station that washed all the dishes (all of her many place settings to serve about 30 guests!) and made them user friendly again. some others took two car loads of laundry to the nearby laundry mat, which took nearly 4-5 hours to do!

over the course of the 11 yr day, several passer-bys stopped to inquire if this was a yard sale, a GIANT portable dumpster on the back of jesse's sweet van was overflowing and we made multiple truck-loads to the goodwill.


some of the guys built some really shelves in the basement for storage. the husband and i took on stripping a wall of some painted over wallpaper (sigh) at one point in the day. as evening approached, some cool antiques had appeared (including some pink depression glass and a office desk my mom would flip out about), we had painted her dining room, living room and kitchen, and new ceiling fans were installed. this house literally did a 180 from dawn to dusk- with the help of about 20-30 willing people. it was a really neat way to show someone god's love. however, i hadn't been this sore since my high school soccer two-a-days!

last wedding post, promise....maybe

jrune

i'm surprised i have yet to mention what the voights are now calling the month of "jrune". that's right. said just like it sounds and is what it looks - the words "run" and "june" combined. not only does "jrune" fail to flow from your tongue with ease, but it is even more painful to do.

after the husband's blog post at the end of may about the weight gained after the wedding - we decided to devote the month of june to being healthy - which means at least 30 mins (aka 3 miles) of running every single day. brandt's logic is that i myself would lose 8 lbs by the end of "jrune" if we did it. so i took him on his bet.

the problem you say? today is day three and my body is throbbing. my muscles are swollen inside and i creek like an old rocker. since our schedules don't always match up, the husband woke up yesterday morning and ran at 6 am. he said it was to get it out of the way. i believe it was to guilt me into doing it that night when i got home from work. yet, when i was leaving work, literally all hell broke loose in the skies - with hail (further north some were as big as baseballs mind you!), lightening and probably swirling clouds all the meteorologists peed their pants about [just a little] when they saw their doppler radars...

but no worries - i completed my run despite it all. only made about 2.5 of the 3, but we are keeping up ... and will remind my husband next time he complains about "his knee starting to hurt"! and believeyoume, i will win that bet by the end of "jrune"!

digital subscribers BEWARE:

this blog topic is a shout out to my husband - to help ease his boiling blood on the issue and spread the word to think twice before you sign up for a great digital cable deal.... so to all of you 15-20 loyal bloggers out there, listen up!

we have had an ongoing battle with Direct TV as of late. from their extremely poor customer service to their unwillingness to waive a simple fee, we now find ourselves without TV until sunday and conned into a 2 year contract that would cost more than $350 to retract. not that we ever really received consistent satellite service from day 1, but at least on a clear, sunny afternoon we could take advantage of a few of our HD channels.

you want to know the icing on the cake? the last customer service representative we spoke with actually told us this week would be a great week to clean out our garage and do some yard work we have been putting off since they aren't providing us their service! i mean, really? the nerve! "hey disgruntled customer, get your butt off the couch from watching our crappy satellite service and do something with you life"... i bet he doesn't get a salesman of the year award.

moral of the story: direct tv = crappy service. say no to it. it is bad.

we eagerly await the next 18 months to pass when we can take advantage of at&t u-verse that has just arrived to our street. and trust me, my husband already has his bitter breakup speech prepared for when that day comes.

crack attack...

So it has happened. We're married; she's cooking; and I'm gaining weight. Think not? Try 9 pounds since that fateful 3.21.09 date. And don't try to put it on the unlimited supply of drinks and food at the honeymoon resort. No, no. I shed that with my flu/pinkeye when I got back. But it's ok, i've started to accept it. The couch is comfortable. Our DirectTV gets reception 90% of the time and red wine keeps my heart healthy. Or at least that's what I thought until I used the restroom the other day. Without going into details that might scar readers and warping this blog into an R-rated affair, I'll simply say that I was leaving the restroom and notice that the left side of the toilet seat had a horizontal crack in it. Not a scratch, not a tweak - a seat breaking crack. And it wasn't there when I sat down on the toilet minutes earlier.

I broke...I cracked our toilet seat. Think about that for a minute. Toilet seats are built to withstand the worst environments. People's bums are soft by nature. Mine has extra cushioning these days. And I managed to crack it like a hammer to an egg. I wasn't really sure how to react. Semi-proud. Semi-amazed. Semi-embarrassed. But mostly in awe. Then I started to think about what my visit to Lowe's was going to be like. Would they ask why I needed a new toilet seat? Should I sit down on them in the store and "try them out" to make sure they could resist my power/force? One with a wide base? A narrow one to concentrate the support aspect? Should I get one with a cushion or does the next one need to be steel, industrial strength? Maybe white isn't the best color on me anyways - how about a beige one?

It was about this point when I started to realize how quickly the leather seats in my Jeep have stated to crack and age; how the foam on my side of the bed has a much starker imprint than my wife's. And so as I walked away from the ludicrous lavatory trip and headed back to the couch, my wine and the current episode of cnbc, I made a mental note to myself to start running again; that, and check my office chair at work to make sure it had proper support.

-the mister

i have proof!

what i've learned from being married:

• my husband is a great surface cleaner. however, if you consider eating something off of the counter and i’ve been out of town…think again
• there must be something “manly” about taking out the trash. i find joy in keeping my email inbox clean. he finds joy in keeping Hefty in business with his multiple trash trips each day
• growing up, I remember someone told me it cost 10 cents for every light switch you turn off and on. my husband must believe that is true still. either that, or his fingers hurt too much from working so hard he can’t bear to move them to save power or the earth
• there is never any harm in a good ‘ol fashion competition – especially when it comes to who can mow the yard the best or power wash the fence more efficiently
• “alone time” is out the window. at first I thought it was just my dog rudely barging through closed doors…apparently it is a boy thing
• it is always nice when the one who cooks can watch the other clean. my husband actually initiated this rule and i gladly follow it. i think he just wanted to continue his fetish with loading the dishwasher…but again, who’s complaining?
• the family that blogs together stays together. my husband is a blogger now too
• dance. even when your wife is watching. or recording it on her cell phone
• sing loudly. even when you husband is sitting next to you
• something about our bed being made makes me feel like we have it all pulled together. i will strive to stay away from this lie
• apparently i missed the memo on any canned beverage tasting better after sitting open in the fridge for at least two days…
• a well manicured yard is something to be proud of. let’s not go there on where you keep your trash
• i’ve lived by a lot of “secret rules” that i somehow expected my husband to “just know” – working on getting over that
• strive to love each other the way your dog does every day when you come home from work
• long walks and lying in bed laughing before bed will keep a marriage young. maybe this is hopeful two months in, but those are two of our cherished times together each day

watch out ladies, he is in his "prime"…

the voights have of plenty of house projects on the horizon, and i fear we will soon discover we both may be “those people” who start and stop projects before completion. our first home project is so close to the final product i can barely take it – our new gate.

at the first of the year, we solicited my brother-in-law to come out and build us a new wooden fence. this immediate need came just a few weeks after closing on our home, when the previous two-post swinging gate plummeted to its death. we needed something quick to help keep the pup under wraps in the backyard.

but our only problem came when our idea for a one-post gate just got a little too heavy, and thus, the gate was permanently shut and no longer open for business. this weekend, my husband and brother-in-worked to install this heavy duty, rotating wheel and boy letmetellyou it is the greatest thing since sliced bread! that bad boy opens and closes like it is its job….which is great, since that is what we needed to allow our cars back in the comfort of our garage.

so last night, my husband thought he would go out and prime/paint the newly completed fence in all of 20 minutes – in just enough time before a new How I Met Your Mother came on. so after about 10 minutes, he walked back in with paint on his face.

my first mistake was asking if he was done – because i honestly think he believed he was. the second mistake was going outside to see the job only to find the paint he had spilled and/or dropped on the driveway - thinking that it would wash off? which i must ask, “isn’t that the whole point of paint – to stay on after you put it there?"

to add to the manhood, he had the notion that we only needed to paint the front of the fence, and neglect what it looks like from the inside for the visitors we actually know. wrong-o. long story short, we both ended up with tiny paint brushes jamming them in little holes trying to fill in all the gaps with paint. going over six minutes into HIMYM, we called it a day, let the primer dry and plan to go out another nice day to finish the back of the fence.

oh, and i plan to break it to him soon this fence will need a second coat….

weekend update

well, i must say with a deep sigh and heavy heart, my birthday celebrations officially came to an end yesterday evening. for those of you out there who have known me for years, we must all admit i've made some progress over the years. Growing up, the birthday celebration began about 30 days out. This included a daily countdown and suggestions of what to get me off my birthday wish list. during college, we pared it down to a one week celebration and this year, well, it only lasted about four days.

but it was one heck of a four day bash. an evening of $3.50 pitchers with co-workers and friends, a “food day” at work and lunch at pf chang’s, birthday dinner with the husband at ruths chris, a new iPhone, loaded nachos and horse races on saturday night all topped with an afternoon full of presents with family and my mom’s chocolate cake (jointly sharing in the mother’s day love with my mom and sister of course). whew!

so i was fully content with this year’s massive blow-out, that is until my wonderful husband went and put a nail in the coffin. this morning he woke me up and said “happy may 11th”. to which i said, “ok, and….?” to which his response was, “well, I just wanted you to know it is no longer your birthday.” cruel? just a little bit. honest? yes. necessary? i think not!

on another topic, our weekend was full of many blog-worthy topics - which of course will be shared over the course of this week. the husband will make his first debut to discuss some newly obtained tips for grilling steak, lots of upcoming house projects to report on and my niece’s first birthday celebration is just around the corner!

until then….

my joyful life

in honor of my own birth (and yes, i am wishing myself a happy birthday on my own blog today!) i thought i would share some of the newest wedding photos. 1. because i am excited to have some of them. and 2. because my new husband is something that makes life full of joy. the blog name, "made from scratch", is an effort to describe how we started our journey together so long ago, starting essentially from the beginning, or scratch, and our continue to build our lives together.

if you want to check out more of the photos - go here http://www.carignangallery.com/index2.php and in the "client" tab, enter the password "voightwedding" all one word.

happy birthday to me :)

go green or go home

as of late, it seems everyone in my life is talking about being "green". people at work have noticed that i usually do not recycle my diet coke cans and given me their spiel about how that is just absurd (i do admit it is just laziness - they even have bins here at the office). ive also been meeting people one after the other who are pursuing careers in the environmental sector of the world. and im sure it doesn't help living in the ripple with all the "granolas", but the more i think about it, the more im finding i am actually "green"and the voights do fit into the neighborhood...

for example, one of our friends came over last week to test out our new lawn mower. as she navigated our circa 1960s "reel" red mower (see photo below), she said she liked the idea of no gas and no electric to help the environment. so i thought - "wow, take that people - do you take it to that level at home? i think not. sure, your cans are helping...but really? really how much does your coke tab collection contribute to stopping global warming? i push my mower in my yard and have yet to use any sort of pesticide or insecticide on our yard". ok, so maybe my push mower won't stop the melting of the polar ice caps, but i am at least helping in my own, small way just like all those other can collectors....

so in effort to find of picture of this awesome purchase, i found the photo below lurking on the internet - i just couldn't help myself when thinking of the husband tending to the yard in this fashion...

since the weather is getting to be nice, we've started walking a bit more, supporting yet again the whole "green" initiative. true, it may not be like back in the good 'ol days of living downtown, but it is as close as you can get here in the circle city. in fact, yesterday we walked to the hardware store to purchase some more yard decor. (below is a photo of the really pretty dahlias we planted by the front door) after my experience last week with the fresh market in the neighborhood and a "green" sunday afternoon, i'm feeling inspired. not to mention i have some things to contribute to the betterment of society aside from turning the lights off after my husband 24 hrs a day...

first batch from scratch - our wedding

i thought i would start out with a few wedding teasers to kick off the blog - mainly cuz i wasnt sure what i should blog about first. these come from our wonderful photogs, wade and steph at http://www.carignangallery.com/blog/. we should be getting the rest of our proofs back in the next month or two and will make sure to share them asap!