Life Lately

   So I finally made the trek to the big apple and Erich and I are not only living in the same city, but living together in a tiny little one bedroom in Brooklyn!  It is great! Here a few picts I have snapped over the past week.  I will post pictures of the apartment once it's in tip top shape! Promise!

   I started off the beginning of last week with some freelance work at Martha Stewart.  Their office is located right by the water.  This is the view of the sun setting on the water from MSLO.

 Erich and I enjoyed this for breakfast one morning.

Scrambled eggs with red onion, tomato, avocado, toasted pita and babaganoush.

   Sunday morning we decided to start and end the day with sweet treats.  We were having a treat yo self kind of day.  We found this new little pastry place called Bien Huit on Smith street in Brooklyn.  We both ordered the almond croissants, which were pretty tasty!  Definitely a good place to go when I'm craving Art of Bread almond croissants.

   Last night, we decided to make something healthy to even out our poor eating habits that happened earlier and would happen after dinner...Like I said, treat yo self Sunday!  Erich's parents gifted us with the lovely Sprouted Kitchen cookbook as a housewarming gift, so we decided to make quinoa collard wraps with miso-carrot spread.  Mmmmm sooo good!  I can't wait to try more of her recipes soon!

Charmed Cardi

I worked on this print for Anthropologie's fall '12 line.  It's in stores now.  Find it here!

Special cakes for a special couple!

    So last weekend my dear friends, who are getting hitched in November had a co-ed wedding shower.  At first I thought the concept was rather weird.  Isn't the point of having a wedding shower really just an excuse to have all of your female friends and family members congregate to share their relationship experiences, give you lingerie (a.k.a. make you feel awkward!), and drink some champagne? I was a bit judgemental I have to admit, but then I thought about it and realized why should the men be excluded from the festivities?  After all it is a celebration of the union of two people.

   Everything came together wonderfully, and I was fully convinced co-ed wedding showers are maybe the new hip thing?  That Maura, she is quite the trend setter in every way possible!

   Anyways, as a bridesmaid I was given the choice of helping out with decorations, flowers, food, games or dessert.  Of course I chose dessert!  Erich and I crafted five cakes.  Not all turned out aesthetically beautiful, but they were delicious! (phew!)

 Zucchini Cake with Chocolate Ganache

 Chocolate Torte with Smoked Sea Salt and Raspberries

 (adapted from The Newlyweds Cookbook)

 Olive Oil Cake with Rosemary and Orange Marmalade
(also adapted from the Newlyweds Cookbook)

Carrot Cake with Coconut Icing and Hazelnut Brittle

   Erich made this special cake for my birthday and it literally is one of the best cakes I've ever had!  So it was no surprise when Maura asked for it to be made for the shower.  The icing needs a little bit of work, but other than that it is a great celebration cake.  The icing recipe can be found at My New Roots, and the hazelnut brittle was inspired by one of Giada's cake recipes.

  Our last cake, seen in the far corner of the first picture, did not qualify as picture worthy, however, it did taste pretty good.  The cake recipe was adapted from Roost's brown butter strawberry cake with swiss meringue icing.  The icing was very difficult to make for some reason and certainly did not look as beautiful as the one on the roost blog. C'est la vie... Perhaps we'll try again.

Hope you all treat yourself to something delicious this weekend!  Happy Friday!

Summertime pizzas

     This post is coming about two weeks late, but better late than never!  Before and during vacation Erich and I baked up some very delicious pies.  First for our friends, and then for his family down the shore.  The pictures below were taken in North Carolina.  We unfortunately did not get a chance to snap pictures of our grilled pies, but the topping combos were pretty much the same.

Shaved zucchini with fresh sliced tomatoes, capers and rosemary.

Oh, and a generous smear of goat cheese underneath....mmmmm delish!

The quintessential summer pie: tomato, corn, cilantro, avocado, and garlic!

One of our staple pies used to be the rosemary, red onion, pistachio combo, 

with a balsamic drizzle, but then we tried adding prosciutto to it.  

Game over.   

This is our new staple pie!

Our new novelty pie scene above has smoke coconut and some other 

wild ingredients that I'm going to keep under wraps because it's that special!

Mmmmmm..........can't wait to make some more pie!