A DIY wedding

So after many many months of planning and prepping, it's all over! I am officially a Mrs. Since much of the wedding was DIY, I figured I'd share some fun pics. If you've been following my blog, then you have already seen my wedding invites and save the dates so I won't bore you with those details again.

Before we being the DIY portion of this post I just wanted to say how I love love love how the flowers turned out. It had some pink and peachy orange roses mixed fushia stock. It also had some fun green accents - the green berries. The bridesmaids got a miniature version of my bouquet. (I'm sorry, I don't totally know the flower names - I'm horrible with those ;-) The colors worked so well with the bridesmaids dresses. The men's flowers were a little more eh - but its ok. No one looks at them anyways. ;-)

I made 2 different versions of the favors. You can see the close up of one in this photo and then the table shot has a picture of another one. I used Martha Stewarts favor boxes to create them. Using stamps from Beautiful Blooms, With Sympathy, Around and About Sentiments. I stuffed them with some Dove chocolates that I got during a post-Valentine's Day sale... heehee - don't you just love March weddings? :-)

The centerpieces were actually a last minute change. Originally I wanted to do something much more intricate. I ended up getting some dinner plates on clearance and some fun beads to rest the candles on. While not as "crafty" as I initially intended, it did give each table a sense of simple elegance. Candles are a little messy though - definitely lots of wax on the plates and bead things. But once again, the thrify bride knows that candles are cheap.

I showed the original template for the placecards I used but I didn't show any names or font choices. Some free digital files plus some photoshopping helped create a personalized place card that matched the flowers and the programs.

If I were to do the wedding all over again, I would never never never again do my programs the way I did them. I spent the last two days before the wedding basically in a certain commonly known print shop yelling at their incompetence.

Apparently even though some places claim to print on cardstock, they really don't. Or at least not the one in my hometown. I don't think I've been so mad before. If we were to call one moment a bridezilla moment, it would have been when I was inside this said printshop. They overcharged me 3 times the original price initially and while the test print was "perfect" (i.e. all my edges lined up properly), the final product was not.

So there we go! 1 year of my life and all I have to show for it is a few pictures. ;-)

All with some OJ

I've been on a business trip for the last week and a half. This usually means lots of eating out and when I get back home, I'd just love a home-cooked meal. Unfortunately for me, while the hubster has good intentions, he can't cook worth squat. Part of Operation "Food does NOT come from a box" is teaching him to make some simple meals.

Where to start? I decided to dig back into my college days when it was all about simplicity - and a can of OJ. ;-)

Orange Pork
1/2 C Orange Concentrate
Soy Sauce, Ginger, Salt, Pepper to taste
Pork tenderloins

Preheat oven to 475. Mix ingredients together and set aside some for later. Marinate pork in orange sauce. Place pork into baking dish with marinade and brush. After 15 minutes, turn and brush marinade again. Keep until done. Serve with remaining sauce.

Orange Chicken
1/2 C Orange Concentrate
Worcestershire sauce, cayenne pepper to taste
Salt, Pepper

Rub chicken with salt and pepper to taste. Mix the rest of the ingredients together and brush over chicken. Place chicken in oven - after 10 minutes, turn and brush the marinade over chicken. Keep in oven until done. Service with remaining marinade

Orange Carrots
Thinly slice carrots and place in boiling water until crisp and bright orange. Add honey, butter, ginger, and some OJ concentrate until desired doneness.

Smoothie
ice cubes
2/3 C milk
1/4 C OJ concentrate
honey to taste
splash of vanilla
banana

Mix and enjoy!

Dress up those greens!

The other day I had set aside some chicken from dinner (before I even plated it) into a small tupperware. When the husband saw it as we were clearing dishes, he exclaimed that he didn't know there was more chicken. I asked him if he was still hungry and he said no... but it was good.

As a means of preventing the dear husband from eating too much (and getting the infamous midlife belly), now I consciously set aside a portion if I make too much. I'm going to start incorporating some simple salads before each meal since I've read that acidity helps control food portioning as well.

So I figured I'd share some of my favorite vinaigrette based dressings. I'm going to apologize for the lack of measurements - I make most of these to taste.

Apple Cider Vinaigrette
Apple Cider
Olive Oil
Apple Cider Vinegar
Cloves

Bring to boil some apple cider (apple juice works as well) and cloves. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat and mix with vinegar. Mix the olive oil in.

Citrus Vinaigrette
Olive Oil
Citrus juices (I've used grapefruit, lemons, limes, orange - really whatever I have on hand)
Apple Cider Vinegar

Mix the vinegar with the citrus juices well - add olive oil. Salt and pepper as needed

Honey Garlic Dressing
Olive oil
Apple Cider Vinegar
Honey
Garlic, minced

Take the garlic and add some salt. "Smoosh" to create a paste. Mix garlic paste, honey and vinegar together. Add oil in.

Do you have any favorite dressing recipes? I'd love to hear them!

Molten Cake

Heehee, I'm a smallhanded person too! I figured I'd start my first post with a recipe for Kahlua molten cake. You can never go wrong with chocolate and booze... right? ;-D

I based this recipe off of a recipe from Everyday Foods (my favorite source of simple recipes). We made a variation of this while I was still in NC so I knew it wasn't too complicated. I wanted to christen my new Kitchen Aide** with a tried and true recipe.

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for ramekins
• 1/3 cup confectioners sugar, plus more for ramekins and serving
• 2 ounces semisweet chocolate, broken into pieces
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon Kahlua (we used a hazelnut Kahlua)
  
• Pinch salt
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Prep two ramekins (or small little cake pans or something...) and preheat oven to 400
Melt chocolate and butter together. (Although I'll admit that I actually only melted the chocolate and then creamed the butter... still tasty)
Mix sugar, egg, yolk, kahlua and salt in small bowl. Whisk in chocolate mixture.
Whisk in flour until just mixed - important not to overmix. Pour into ramekins.
Pop the suckers into the oven (400 F) for about 10 minutes. Your favorite poking utensil should come out clean on the edge and not so much in the middle.

Eat quickly with some tasty whipped cream. Letting it sit too long means less molteny more cakey...

**Disclaimer - the cake disappeared before we could take a pic... sorry dudes. Just imagine chocolately goodness

**The stand mixer is not necessary (or even recommended) for this recipe. This post writer just loves her mixer!

Welcome to Another Smallhanded Chick

Pudgeykins and I would like to welcome our newest small-handed friend to our blog: cadnileb. If you stalk her other blog you will quickly be amazed by how talented she is. In addition, she recently became a Mrs, and is now on a new mission to feed her hubby delicious things not from a box. So we've invited her along to post her newest discoveries.

So for the few readers out there that have been craving more posts -- ha! we've solved your problem ;)

Momentary Lapse of Silence

For you few & loyal fans out there, we small-handed gals have not dropped off the face of the earth! Quite the contrary, this has been a very busy start of the year. I will be moving soon (yes, yet again *le sigh*) But excitingly, I have found an reasonably-priced apartment and will be sorting, trashing, and packing like a Tazmanian Devil.

The other small-handed girl has been stuck in lab, working like a mad scientist, to produce some data that will hopefully allow her to make her mark in the biology community. ;)

On a blogger's note, I have found a not so painful way to watermark my pictures. So there should be more things uploaded in my flickr stream shortly. Also look out for a new and improved blog page, as my very artsy, desginer brother helps us create our blogger's image.

[Hong Kong] Persimmon, the Orange Tomato Fruit

My parents introduced me to the persimmon when I was very young. We did not have it often, since they were very expensive and hard to find in Europe. I just remembered that I was very confused, because it looked like an orange tomato with some weird leaves that had to be yanked off, and my parents kept calling it an "orange tomato fruit."

Tomatoes were always regarded as vegetables in our household, so why was this a fruit? (Never mind the biologist's argument that tomatoes are fruit for now). So this "sweet vegetable" was a fruit, lacked the fluid, seedy chambers of a tomato, but had a similar skin and flesh texture.

I was re-introduced to this fruit again by a coworker in 2004. She was very generous to share these with me and I was instantly hooked on these "orange tomatoes." Her culture calls it the "Sharon Fruit" and my grandmother calls them shì zi (柿子).

There are two kinds of persimmons: astringent and non-astringent.

Astringent persimmons contain high levels of tannins, which is responsible for the dry, puckering aftertaste when consuming unripe fruit. Therefore, astringent persimmons should not be consumed until they are ripe and soft; they should feel like overripe apricots or peaches. The ripening process is what rids the high levesl of tannins. The most common persimmon is the Japanese persimmon, recognizable by its distinct heart-shape body. Trying to eat them before they are ripe gives off a chalky and displeasing aftertaste and texture in the mouth. I speak from experience ;)

Non-astrigent persimmon (my favorites!) are less fussy about when they are eaten, since they have low levels of tannis. I like them when they are still firm and waxy on the outside, since they are crispy like an apple on the outside, yet fleshy and not mush like pumpkin pulp. However, consuming them while they are over-ripe is also fine. The most common persimmon have no tip like its Japanese cousin; instead it is squat like a beef-steak tomato and often also have the label 'fuyu' when it is sold.

While perusing the grocery stalls in Hong Kong, I could not resist picking up one of these.





We enjoyed this persimmon chilled. And although my parents were hesitant about consuming this persimmon while "unripe," with some coaxing they enjoyed this new way, since the fruit tasted crisp, fresh and light, and was less messy. :)

Today persimmons can be easily found in any major grocery store during the winter months and almost year around at any Asian grocery store. If you have not tried them, you are in for a treat. Let me know what you think!