Archive for the ‘Holidays’ Category

hartford typically holds their fireworks on the weekend after july 4th. so this past sunday we took a jaunt into hartford and thanks to the kindness of my sister boot we had the best view in the city!

these pics were taken by both kevin and i – its hard to tell who took what photos, so i’m just choosing the best of them and sharing them with you.

view of our fair city from our perch

looking north from downtown hartford

looking north from downtown hartford

cirque du soleil tent!

state capital building

looking west

travelers

this 4th of july we attended a party at the morra family homestead in bolton, ct. it is a yearly event that seems to get bigger and better every year! it was the start of a brutal heat wave up here in new england, so i know i was wilting in the heat. lucky for us there is a nice tradition of everyone drinking from the communal bucket of what is basically an amazing mint julep. yum!

we spent the day visiting, watching the kids on the water slide, drinking from a bucket, eating, drinking, and finally watching some great fireworks!

where the magic happens!

the bucket, curing

more magic

the contents of the bucket, fully cured and ready to drink

will she love it??

not so much!

drink, kevin!

photo by kevin

there's a pro, right there

the weather has finally been cool enough to bake here at home. to be honest its been downright cold and windy! last night a frost was in the forecast, and i hear that it is again tonight – crazy new england weather!

so with the nice chilly weather comes more baking! saturday i made 5 total loaves of bread – 2 were golden raisin cinnamon swirl, 1 was plain cinnamon swirl, 2 were honey oatmeal wheat. with the leftover honey oatmeal wheat i made 6 sandwich rolls to test out – success! i also made a double batch of chocolate chip cookies. all of these items are just about gone, gifted and purchased. all that remains are some cookies and a few sandwich rolls.

saturday was the perfect day to start a no-knead ciabatta bread as well – easy peasy! i’ll even give you the recipe here! i followed this video! in the end i think that i shaped it too wide, and so when it proofed again it took up almost the entire cookie sheet – it still tasted amazing though, so i’m not complaining!

sunday i baked off the ciabatta bread, and then decided to make a special mother’s day dessert for my mom! i didn’t want to go to the store, and so i worked with what i had in the house – i made buttermilk biscuits, cut up some strawberries, and made lemon curd! the biscuits were so good that i was afraid we wouldn’t have enough, so i made another batch right after the first one! for strawberry shortcake in our house we all construct our own. that way we get to choose our own ingredients. not everyone had the lemon curd (or even the strawberries), but everyone seemed to love dessert. what an easy and delicious dessert!

breads and cookie dough ready to be scooped out

sandwich rolls - minus the tester one we tried

ciabatta before the 2 hour proofing that the recipe called for

ciabatta after the 2 hour proofing!

ciabatta after baking

ciabatta all cut up - that's all that remained of the loaf after dinner

strawberry-lemon shortcake

strawberry-lemon shortcake

lemon shortcake

yesterday i returned from dog-sitting at my grandma’s to a nice family cookout! it was great getting together with everyone.

we don’t really do much to celebrate easter, as we were raised jewish, but my father isn’t jewish. every year we got a family easter basket with munson’s chocolate and jelly bellys!

this year we had some added treats, baked goods from the landolina family, and potato chip cookies from my sister boot .

we also learned interesting things, such as – 1 serving of peeps is actually 5 peeps – that’s a whole row of peeps! we also learned how hard it is to eat one whole serving at once (thanks to my brother jake).

easter basket with one headless bunny

treats from the landolina family!

looking through my water glass

yummy yummy!

bunny bling

duck head for the bunny fashioned by jake

eating a full portion of peeps

its harder than it sounds!

mom and bro (photo by kevin)

making magic with the peeps! (photo by kevin)

aww, a foil swan! (photo by kevin)

bunny duck (photo by kevin)

bunny turban and bling (photo by kevin)

happy easter everyone! it looks like we will be having nice weather today in the high 70′s – so i hope you all get to get out and enjoy it.

hoppy easter!

last night was the first night of passover, and we had a seder at my grandmother’s house! it was unconventional, as usual, but fun and tasty nonetheless!

spelt matzoh and regular matzoh - the yehuda is way better, but spelt is healthier for me

seder plate

matzoh

afikomen before it was hidden for the kids

haggadah (sponsored by shop rite, naturally)

my cousin, tabitha, driving a tractor on my brother's head

tabitha with her mother, my aunt gisella

tabitha

tabitha didn't want me to take her picture, i told her i was taking the tractor's picture

cutie tabitha!

passover starts tonight – for all of use jewish folk! in honor of that, i spent the weekend perfecting a kosher for passover macaroon recipe!

in the past i have made macaroons from a simple recipe that contains a bit of flour. for passover i can’t use the flour, and so i tried to make an even simpler (sounding and looking) recipe that only had 5 ingredients.

this recipe called only for egg whites, sugar, vanilla, coconut and lemon zest. i was wary for a few reasons (mostly because it was a different process than my other macaroon recipe), but i thought i’d give it a shot.

5 ingredients!

all together in the bowl

ready to bake - they look too dry to me

the outcome was tasty, but didn’t look so pretty. the egg whites ran quite a bit while baking and made the bottoms of the macaroons taste and look very eggy.

runny macaroons!

so i went back to my tried and true recipe where i put the egg whites, sugar, vanilla and a dash of salt in a double boiler just until its warm, then add it to the (kosher for passover cake) flour and coconut (add zest of choice) and then chill at least an hour before baking. this time i just did plain macaroons and lemon.

a few extra ingredients

plain (all sweetened coconut)

lemon (half unsweetened coconut)

something i did to the lemon ones that i hadn’t done in the past was use half unsweetened dehydrated coconut, and half sweetened coconut. i think it gives the macaroons a good texture, and it cuts a little sugar out of them!

they came out well, so i expanded the flavors last night, and made more lemon, lime, orange and chocolate. all of these have half sweetened and half unsweetened coconut in them. they have been getting good reviews from those people who have tried them so far! we’ll serve them tonight at the seder at my grandmother’s house.

delicious!

happy st. patrick’s day everyone! i won’t be celebrating with corned beef and cabbage, but i will start today off by sharing some photos of green things around me.

i hope that your st. patrick’s day is full of sunshine and greenery!

may you live a long life
full of gladness and health,
with a pocket full of gold
as the least of you wealth.
may the dreams you hold dearest,
be those which come true,
the kindness you spread,
keep returning to you.

pretty evergreen

reusable shopping bag from new zealand

hartford whalers rugby shirt

elsie's green eyes

red sox hats

wild chives in the yard

our screen door - sounds like a camp door when it slams shut

my neighbor's awesome green car

reusable shopping bag from 08-08-08

my marmot jacket

who doesn't need a rugby shirt from an irish pub in hong kong?!

reusable produce bags from new zealand

peace flag in the back yard

happy valentine’s day weekend, my pets!!! i can’t even express to you in words how excited i am for the gift i received today! my loving boyfriend went out and got me a 6 quart kitchenaid mixer!!! now most people balk at such things for valentine’s gifts…but not me! i have been asking for this for pretty much every holiday (christmas, hanukkah, valentine’s day, birthday, president’s day, memorial day, 4th of july) for YEARS. and today i am the proud owner of a gorgeous mixer (yet to be named).

ohmygoodness!

happy girl

help! i can't get this thing outta here!

just barely fits

in honor of my gift, we made some cinnamon raisin bread! i have never made it before, but everyone approves of it in the house, so i imagine i’ll be making it again soon.

so riseth the dough

all rolled out, and nowhere to go

cinnamon and sugar

roll it up!

rollin' rollin' rollin'

proofing

all done!

perfect for breakfast, if it lasts that long...

i hope that everyone had an awesome holiday season! we got a fair amount of snow here that has since melted (boo!) we do have the promise of more snow tonight and tomorrow – that should be great for trying out kevin’s new sled and my new snowshoes, so i’m crossing my fingers for that.

i was able to get out in the last storm and take a few photos, and wanted to get them up to share them with you. i also took a few holiday shots here at the house.

i’ve been busy doing vendor shows and home parties, and making loads of new cards – but these are all brand new, and so you are getting the first peek! i hope that you enjoy them =)

i have also had a chance to catch up with a lot of old friends and make some new awesome friends (by way of facebook and an awesome reunion that i just attended for GHAPA) and found that a few of us have a lot in common as far as photography – so i’m hoping that we’ll all be able to get together and chat about it!

there may be some travel news in the future, but i’m not quite so sure about it yet, so i’ll let you know as i know more.

and as always i would not even be making this post if it weren’t for my awesome boyfriend kevin who set this all up for me and made it super easy to do thanks kev! i can’t wait to be taking more pics with you next year!!!

thanks for stopping by, and keep checking back for new photos and news.

the site is coming along (slowly but surely) and i’m hoping to have it up and running not long after the new year, so keep checking back for the grand opening of images-by-emily.com!

thanks for all of your continued support and i wish you all the best in the new year!

~*~emily