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Showing posts with label coconut. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coconut. Show all posts

Friday, July 1, 2011

Banana Coconut Muffins


I'm out.  Yesterday I said goodbye to the hallowed halls of academia, my wonderful labmates, my brilliant undergrad and my faithful hood.  I made the trek to my new home sweet home, New Jersey.  This morning I woke up realizing that I wouldn't ever again be working seven day weeks.  I wouldn't see the sun rise and set while working at my bench.  No more would I lose days and weeks, only to realize that summer had passed me by.  It's time to revel in it, I'm a grown up!

It sounds strange to be excited about being a grown up, but I've been in the ranks of higher education for eleven and a half years.  And this isn't even a long time for someone with my degree.  I graduated undergrad in four years, even with taking a year to be a photography major.  I completed my PhD in exactly five years, defending my thesis on the exact day that I joined UW - Madison, five years later.  I worked as a Postdoc in a fabulous lab and completed a couple of natural projects. 

In the end I obtained the goal I set forth as a graduate student.  Most people make 30 before 30 goals.  I made just one goal and I made it, with a few months to spare.  Get a real job, before hitting the big three-O.  Now I'm making big plans of what to do with my weekends, how to spend my vacations and trying to figure out what real people do with three-day weekends.  At least I'll have help to fill my time. 

For eight years boyfriend and I have been a long distance couple, both of us moving around the country for jobs and school.  I'm very happy to tell you that I'm sitting in OUR apartment, writing this post.  Together at last, I hope I don't annoy him too much.  Better go make him some cookies to soften the transition.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Coconut Joys

Summer is in full swing!  I'm reveling in these sunny mornings, hot nights and long days.  I've moved around a lot in the past few years and I always get very confused with the rising of the sun.  My hometown of Amherst, NY is situated right in the middle of the Eastern time zone.  I grew up with summer nights lasting until nine or ten o'clock at night.  Fireworks on the fourth of July couldn't start until at least 9:30 because it was still too sunny before that time.


When I moved to Wisconsin I moved to the leading edge of the Central time zone.  This meant that the days started earlier and they ended earlier, but it also meant that television was on a whole hour earlier!  I loved having Letterman on at ten pm.  Eleven o'clock shows on the weeknights are just too early for me. 

Moving to Colorado proved to be the biggest shock.  Not only is Boulder at the leading edge of the mountain time zone, but it's also the furthest south that I've ever lived.  As winter fell away from the mountains, it would bring the sun to greet you at 4:30 in the morning.  I was so confused my first year there, wonding how on earth the sun could be up at that hour.  Crazy sun, go back to sleep.  At least the Daily show was on at nine pm.  I could get my dose of Jon Stewart and Stephen Clobert and hit the pillows by ten.  The mountain time zone is great!


I joked that I was going to try and live in every time zone before I was thirty.  Since I've moved back to the east coast with only a few months left before the big three-o, I don't think that's going to happen.  But that's okay.  I like this coast, I think I'll stay here for a while.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Coconut Panna Cotta & Key Lime Gelee

This month’s Daring Bakers consisted of two recipes that I had never made before. In fact, these recipes had never dawned on me before. I’m not a huge fan of chilled desserts. I like my desserts warm from the oven, topped with ice cream. You will rarely find puddings, gelatins or flans in my fridge. Two factors of this particular challenge seemed serendipitous. First, I’ve been working with a lot of gelatin in the past few weeks. I had just stocked up on Knox gelatin before our February challenge arrived. Second, I actually had panna cotta, for the first time in my life, on January 28th.



Boyfriend and I were in New York City four weeks ago apartment hunting. After a long and fruitless day of looking at either mediocre apartments or overpriced ones, we headed to the Meatpacking district for dinner. It was the beginning of restaurant week and we decided to try Ajna Bar on Little 12th Street. The most recent snowfall had made crossing intersections (in cute shoes nonetheless) very, very difficult. Also, if you are familiar with this particular section of Manhattan, you know the streets are cobbled. Cobbled streets, covered in several inches of slush, are a cute shoe-wearing girls nightmare. Boyfriend also refused to carry me across the street. Bad boyfriend.


We made it to Anja bar and were greeted with a burst of warm air and dark corridor. Once we were seated we had to take a minute to absorb all of the things going on around us. The restaurant is huge, with an equally large wait staff. There are huge columns, carved into dragons, candles galore and what I’m pretty sure was an aquarium filled with jellyfish. All the crazy décor aside, the meal was actually pretty delicious. (I’d highly recommend their shrimp curry.) The perfect ending to the meal was their Thai tea panna cotta. Smooth and creamy panna cotta buried beneath a layer of cool whipped cream and chocolate crunch.  Perfect.


For my panna cotta, I decided to go a little more south, and less east, for my influence. Key lime is one of my favorite flavors and with this being the season of citrus I was able to get some good ones! Just don’t skimp on the fat in this panna cotta recipe. If you go with lite coconut milk you will likely wind up with a panna cotta that won’t set. Give this a try and enjoy a little summer on a plate.

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestlé Florentine Cookies.  Since Giadas recipe called for honey, and I hate honey, I went in another direction.  The florentine cookies weren't anything to write home about, so I omitted the recipe.  You can find it on the Nestle website.


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