this past sunday was either the second or third time i've made bread pudding. i believe i am a bread pudding savant because it was insanely good.

ready for the oven

as usual, i didn't have all the ingredients on hand that were called for in the recipe, and so i fiddled around with substitutions to make things work. the one exception was that we only had one teaspoon of vanilla left (!) and greg had to run to the store mid-way through the recipe to pick some up for me. i'm sure he knew it would be worth it!

i started with a recipe i found via google. the photo looked AMAZING and so i was sold. (as an aside, greg is the one who taught me the best way to search for recipes is to search images. if it looks good, it probably tastes good.)

much sexier than my photos

apparently, this is a recipe from the bon ton cafe in new orleans and appropriately should be made with bourbon. however, despite having a very full liquor cabinet, we didn't have any bourbon - and quite frankly, i prefer dark rum sauce for my baked goods, so that was the first substitution.

then i forgot to pick up the necessary quart of milk, but i did have about a pint of heavy whipping cream and a half gallon of vanilla soy milk in the fridge. substitution #2!

and finally, my usual dark rum sauce recipe also needed heavy whipping cream (which i had already allocated and used for the bread pudding when it dawned on me that i needed more) so i found a different recipe than my old stand-by. substitution #3!

these substitutions added up to a damn good dessert. i actually almost finished the last piece today by myself after lunch, but decided to leave half of it for greg. i am a very good wife!

anyhow, here's the altered recipe for your baking pleasure...

insanely delicious bread pudding

1 loaf french bread, at least a day old, cut into 1-inch squares (about 6-7 cups)

1 qt milk (i used half vanilla soy milk and half heavy whipping cream)

3 eggs, lightly beaten

~ 1 1/2 cups sugar *

2 tbsp vanilla

1 cup raisins, soaked in dark rum while you put the other ingredients together

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

* the original recipe called for 2 cups of sugar, which even i felt was excessive. i probably used a little over 1 1/4 cups.

preheat oven to 350°f.

soak the bread in milk in a large mixing bowl. press with hands until well mixed and all the milk is absorbed. this is important! you definitely want the milk to be soaked up. i wore little plastic food grade gloves while i did this; i highly recommend them for people who don’t like to touch certain foods.

in a separate bowl, beat eggs, sugar, vanilla, and spices together. gently stir into the bread mixture.

drain the raisins, reserving the rum for your sauce. gently stir the raisins into the mixture.

pour the melted butter into the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking pan. coat the bottom and the sides of the pan well with the butter. (this is another place where those gloves come in handy!)

pour the bread pudding mix into the pan and bake at 350°f for 35-45 minutes, until set. the pudding is done when the edges start getting a bit brown and pull away from the edge of the pan. can also make in individual ramekins.

note: i cooked for 30 minutes and then checked in at 5 minute increments until done. it took about 45 minutes or a shade longer, but this is a dish i keep an eye on because i hate dry bread pudding. even a good sauce doesn’t make up for an overly toasted top, in my opinion.

and speaking of a good sauce, of course i found one! thank you, pillsbury dough boy.

hot buttered rum sauce

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

½ cup butter (1 stick - cut into four pieces)

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated)

¼ cup dark rum

2 teaspoons vanilla

in a medium saucepan, combine brown sugar, butter, salt, and condensed milk. bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly to prevent scorching. cook until sugar is dissolved.

remove from heat. stir in rum and vanilla. (it will hiss at you as the booze burns off!) feel free to add a bit more rum; lord knows i did.

you can store the sauce in the fridge but you’ll want to reheat it when you use it. it gets semi-solid like soft caramel when it’s cold.

serve yourself a big piece of bread pudding and drizzle liberally with rum sauce. we also added a dollop of whipped cream.

not a great photo, but i was in a hurry to get this in mah belly!

the bread pudding recipe allegedly makes 8-10 servings but we probably could have finished it in one night. we ate it for breakfast on monday!

what a difference a year makes

one year ago today, we brought zoey home.

our girl, looking very doggy

the first time i ever saw her, she was in a cage at the pasadena humane society. she was all legs and ears. unlike most of the other dogs, she wasn't barking, but she did gallop up to the front bars of her enclosure to greet me. she stuck those long, skinny stems right out at me and hugged me (i swear!) and it was pretty much all over. i was in love. i brought greg over to see her - he was busy falling in love with other dogs, too - and i just couldn't stop looking at her. i spent the whole evening agonizing over the idea that she might not get adopted, or even worse, that someone else might adopt her when she already had my heart. the next day, we signed the paperwork that would make her ours.

it was only a few days between when we first met her to when she came home, but they were a blur of anxiety regarding bringing a dog into our cat-centric house and whether we had enough dog things - a crate, leash, bowls, toys, etc. the first night, she was crazy and though she looked healthy, she was suffering from giardia...meaning on her first walk on her first night at her new home, she shat pudding all over a neighbor's driveway. she's been an adventure in vet bills, but worth every penny.

she had trouble sleeping at first, mainly because we crated her in the guest room across the hall and she hated being alone. it only took a couple of nights before we moved her bed into our room and that's where she's slept ever since, a vigilant, snoring sentry. when we moved her bed, i gave her a blanket and tucked her in; her whole body relaxed, realizing she had a place of her own with us.

occasionally, she's had a bad dream or been spooked, and on those very rare occasions, i've let her up into the bed to sleep with us. she's a daddy's girl, but on those nights, she snuggles against me until she falls asleep with my arm around her, knowing mom will keep her safe. she loves to curl up in front of the fire or cuddle with us on the sofa while we watch movies.

zoey has become the star of our little family. she's big and clumsy, goofy and sweet, tough and high-strung all at once. she loves runs with her dad, him on the bike and her on the road. she likes ice cubes, tossed high in the air and snatched before they hit the ground. she's an expert fly catcher who munches happily on the crunchy little fruits of her labor. sometimes the cats are freaked out by her nails scrambling on the hardwood and they duck for cover. other times, cash will take a swipe at her when she walks by.

in the course of a year, we've gone from an engaged couple with two cats to a married couple with two cats and two dogs. the six of us are a family and zoey is a central part of that. she knows she is our zoey-bean and when she lays beside me, her serious brown eyes staring into mine, i like to imagine that she is doing what i am: willing the object of her affection to understand her language, to hear her saying over and over, "i love you, i love you, i love you."

happy adoption day, zoey. not a day goes by that we're not happy we found you, and you found us.

we might watch too much of "the office"

things that have recently been said at our house:

"so, tell me about this sausage." - teresa

"thanks for being so patient. i really had to work on that banana." - greg

my instant response:

"THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!"

dinner party!

it was my birthday yesterday! we had a little dinner party with friends to celebrate.

(here's greg, presenting my fire-hazard cake to me)

greg insisted on putting all 36 candles on the cake, meaning our house glowed so brightly it was visible from space and all the smoke detectors in our house went off. nonetheless, despite the waxy residue and my weeping because everyone found out i wasn't really 25, the cake was delicious and not at all a lie. it was an old fashioned (how apropos) from patticakes in altadena; i highly recommend both the bakery and this particular cake.

this was my first birthday as a wife and greg set the bar high for my future celebrations. not only did he get the delicious cake of my choice, but he also got balloons, streamers, noise makers, and a happy birthday tablecloth to decorate our place. PLUS! despite me saying not to get me a gift, he bought me the adobe creative suite! which is totally awesome! also, he bought me a house.

(me and the awesomest husband ever)

i used to cook dinner for friends on my birthday but skipped last year because i had my gall bladder removed a few weeks before and somehow cooking and cleaning didn't seem that exciting. but this year, the house was miraculously already clean (our landlords' realtor came to take photos on monday) so it was a breeze! if "breeze" is another word for jam-packed day of errands and prep work interspersed with angry calls with our mortgage broker, deciding on paint colors for the new house, and checking in on contractors.

truthfully, it was a lot of fun - i wouldn't have had it any other way than to celebrate with a houseful of friends enjoying food we made. i have to admit i was utterly amazed that i invited people half-assedly over the weekend, confirming plans on monday, and pretty much everybody showed up! that's either a testament of their great love for me or their great love for free food and booze.

(hanging with milly)

(the kids' table? note the plastic tablecloth)

(they squatted down so as not to tower over me)

we cooked a menu inspired by (read: ripped off from) our uncle ray: slow cooker italian sausages and a tuscan penne pasta with basil, spinach, artichokes, tomatoes, and feta cheese. i also made a pretty damn good rosemary-lemon white bean dip, improvising on a recipe i found online.

here's my revised/improvised recipe...

ericka's white bean rosemary-lemon hummus

(om nom nom)

1 can (15 oz) white cannellini beans, drained
1 can (15.5 oz) garbanzo beans, drained
1 clove of garlic
1/2 cup of olive oil (roughly)
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, minced
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
zest of two lemons
juice of one small lemon
salt & pepper to taste

put beans in food processor with clove of garlic and pinch of salt. turn on food processor and add olive oil in a steady stream through the feed tube, processing until smooth. taste and add more garlic if you wish (i thought one clove was perfect - garlicky but not too garlicky), then process again.

place mixture in bowl and add rosemary, lemon zest, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice. mix well with rubber spatula, adding more olive oil if necessary. add salt and pepper, as well as more cayenne pepper, to taste.

the new york times recipe claims it keeps in the refrigerator for up to three days, but we didn't have any left!

if there's demand for the recipes for the slow cooker sausages or tuscan penne pasta, i'll post those as well.

and milly makes three

WE HAVE A HOUSE!

our new altadena love nest

yes, it's true - despite all my fretting and worrying, we are officially homeowners! even though it felt like a never-ending process, it was only three months from the day we went out with our realtor for the first time to the day we closed. it doesn't sound like that long, but the paperwork and nitpicky questions damn near killed us. apparently there was some sort of banking debacle recently and now you have re-take the SATs, do a background check, and take a pee test to get a loan. who knew?

we are super excited but of course there's all kinds of work to be done before we move in on november 12th. (less than three weeks from now!) we currently have an electrician, drywaller, and cabinet guy all working frenetically, to be joined by our a/c guy today.

we'll start packing this weekend, along with cleaning our current house and celebrating my birthday a few days early. we thought about a romantic weekend away, but what could POSSIBLY be more romantic than cleaning and packing?

plus, those of you who have read this blog know that we're the kind of people who enjoy taking on multiple challenges at once. in the process of wedding planning, we adopted zoey. after we adopted tulip, we started house shopping. and now that we have a house and are managing contractors and planning a move, we are fostering a dog!

meet milly

yes, we are crazy.

but what could i do? i was in san bernardino county for work and on my last stop of the day, i spotted a little stray dog. it was near a major intersection and the weather was wet and cold...i couldn't just leave her there. i called greg, who immediately (god bless his heart) said, "bring her home!"

it was no small feat to lure her to me. she ran when i called and when i got closer, she started barking like crazy. i kept at it slowly and when i finally reached her, to my surprise, she squatted down like she was afraid and then rolled over and showed me her belly. turns out she's all bark and no bite

and what a tiny little thing! i picked her up to put her in the car and she weighed next to nothing. she promptly curled up in the back behind the driver's seat and fell asleep. i stopped at petsmart for a leash and collar and took her the banfield vet inside, wanting to be sure she was healthy enough to be with our menagerie at home.

turns out she is pretty healthy - no fleas, bright and alert, fine temperature, and good weight. she's only six pounds, but i guess that's perfect for her. the veterinary staff told me she's a brussels griffon, which looks about right. she's sweet and friendly, though unfortunately not housebroken. we're working on that.

she's great with the cats, both of which seem to think she may be some weird version of a feline, and pretty good with the dogs, though she's scared of our big, rambunctious zoey. (who can blame her?) she's crate-trained and even took a walk this morning with greg and our girls. he says she's a very good walker and doesn't pull, which is a nice change from zoey and tulip. we're calling her milly for now, though ewok would also be a good name with those big eyes and that underbite.

inspecting work at the new house

since she wasn't microchipped and didn't have tags, today i'm checking with the shelters near where i found her to see if anyone's reported her lost. if she doesn't have a home, we'll foster her and hope to find her a new family. let us know if you're interested!

rolling in the deep

adele’s music has special meaning to us: when we first started dating, i played her album 19 constantly and greg would always ask who it was, every single time. she became one of our favorite artists. i put "make you feel my love" on a mix cd (how retro!) for greg for our one-year anniversary and "crazy for you" was our wedding song.

we bought tickets for her june concert at the greek, which ended up being postponed when she got laryngitis. with everything going on in our lives right now,  it was almost a surprise when we realized last saturday that we would be seeing her in just a couple of days.

her show on monday night was amazing for about a hundred reasons, not the least of which was her huge, beautiful voice. (she also has the awesomest laugh, a loud, head-thrown back cackle that makes everyone else join in.)

we had great seats - thank you, adele facebook fan club - and we were able to enjoy the concert among friends, even if we were in different sections. cece and linda waved to us from the terrace and we trotted down to the pit to hug fran and sofia after wanda jackson's opening set.

the weather was perfect and the moon rose lazily over the stage through the course of the night. there were two moments that will stay with me from the evening. the first was being wrapped in greg’s arms while adele sang “one and only,” a song with lyrics that reminds me of my feelings before we started dating…incredibly romantic. and the second was my realization when she sang “someone like you” that i will never again feel heartbroken when i hear sad songs. those songs full of loss and longing, as lovely and searing as they are, are just songs to me now.

idle hands are the devil's workshop

i don't post on here often enough, but that's mostly because we're busy finding ways to keep ourselves in a state of constant exhaustion.

shortly after getting married, we adopted a second dog, my beloved little tulip.

world's cutest dog. seriously.

we first met her at the home of our dog sitter, the incredible megan of pasadena paws, when zoey stayed overnight in march. tulip was then just a nameless little dog who megan's mom had recently found roaming the streets. megan was checking in with local shelters and vets and posting flyers to find her owner, since she had a collar (no tags).

she and zoey instantly got along like a house on fire. while we were on our honeymoon a week later, they played tug-of-war all day, every day, surely driving megan nuts. we kept talking about how cute she was and how awesome it was that zoey had met a playmate. at the same time, we noticed that zoey seemed bored in the backyard while we were at work. less than two weeks after the wedding, we called megan to see if she had found the owner or a home for tulip. we were just in time, because after about two months of fruitless searching for her owner, megan had just put tulip up for adoption. we brought her home a few days later and today it's like she's always been a part of our family. she and zoey are totally BFFs, though tulip rules the roost with an iron paw.

they like to sniff the exact same spots on our walks

since they're both only about a year old and prone to naughtiness, we made the decision to enroll them in a six-week obedience class at petsmart. it's amazing to see what progress they've both made. they still jump up quite a bit (especially on visitors), but we don't need the gentle leader or harness for them anymore on walks, and tulip, a very stubborn chihuahua-jack russell mix, is actually following commands.

now that we've adopted a second dog so our evenings are reserved for walks and enrolled in an obedience class to keep us occupied on sunday afternoons, what could possibly come next? how about...house hunting?

yes, we are looking for a house to call our own. we've been ready for this step for a while, but we took the time to meet with a financial planner to make sure we knew how much we could really afford. i highly recommend this for anyone thinking about buying a house - we foolishly believed we could afford up to $150,000 more than our current price range, mostly because we were ignorant about associated costs. we are so glad we didn't apply for a loan before we took the time to really assess our finances.

we are fortunate to have an incredible realtor, deena willis of re/max. over the past couple of weeks, we've spent late evenings with her, checking out houses and talking about what we really want in a home. we've seen a lot of total dumps, a number of fixers, some cute houses that were way too small, and then, suddenly, one, shining, perfect home that we really want to call our own. we put an offer in yesterday morning and are keeping our fingers crossed that it all works out.

the house is a 3/2 with hardwood floors, a two-car garage, plus lemon, satsuma, and avocado trees! seriously, we love it. it's up in altadena but only five miles from my office and still close to sierra madre, where greg is working now. (oh, did i mention he changed jobs? we're trying to jam every stressful occurrence a couple can have into 2011.)

anyhow, we're totally excited even though we know we shouldn't get our hopes up quite yet. keep your fingers crossed for us! and let us know what crazy thing we should do next to keep us busy.

'til death do us part is for quitters

having just celebrated our first month of marriage yesterday, it seemed as good a time as any to finally update this blog. now that i'm a wife, i have greatly expanded my knowledge base and will be sharing my wisdom with you.

1) getting married can nearly kill you. four days into our honeymoon, i got a sore throat that turned into a cold that morphed into a major sinus infection. take care of yourself during planning and after the big day! if i would have been smarter, i would have been taking elderberry syrup every day to boost my immunity during this time. i highly recommend elderberry elixir from king's road apothecary - it helped me immensely towards the tail end of my illness. (the brandy in the elixir probably had a lot to do with that.)

2) married people use huge utensils. we got new silverware as a wedding gift - beautiful silverware that we picked out ourselves! - and it is ENORMOUS. apparently married people have huge mouths? or very large food? i don't know, but it didn't fit in our old silverware organizer. we actually had to BUY A NEW SILVERWARE ORGANIZER. if that doesn't make one feel married, i don't know what would.

3) weddings are full of mystery. who gave us that blanket in the blue bag without a tag or card? who stole the half cupcake i was saving for later? who left behind a three-quarter sleeve black sonoma shirt? (perhaps the better question is, who arrived to and/or left shirtless from our wedding?)

4) having a non-traditional wedding was the perfect idea (for us, at least). as stressed out as we were at times, mostly about money, we were actually really laid back about a lot. we didn't have special outfits anyone (aside from us) needed to wear; anyone who wanted a role could play one by helping with prep, set-up, ushering, or breakdown; and food and drinks were pretty much a free-for-all with no bartender or on-site servers. so many people told us they had a great time because it felt like a family party and not a regular wedding. we loved that!

5) i absolutely love being married. i love saying "my husband." i love seeing the ring on greg's finger. i love knowing that we're a team, that we're the only two people in the world with our new, hard-to-pronounce-and-spell last name, that we're in it together forever...because like i said in our vows, 'til death do us part is for quitters.

photo by our good friend rudy espinoza (an amazing photographer who also served as our officiant!)

the dress

apparently, i'm supposed to be REALLY EXCITED about the dress. you know, the one i'll wear on our wedding day, the giant white poufy gown that will make me look like a princess and make everyone gasp, "she looks so beautiful!"

except, you know, i'm not really into white. or wedding dresses.

i finally started shopping last weekend, more because it was an excuse to hang out with my best girl teresa than because i wanted to shop. (true to form, i came home with a pound of see's candies and a bucket full of popcorn, but no dress.)

i tried on about twenty dresses at nordstrom, which is one of my favorite places to shop when i really need clothes and actually have money, two situations which rarely occur simultaneously. only one of these dresses could be classified as a 'wedding' dress, as it was long, strapless, ivory satin. i should clarify that this dress was also not added to my dressing room by me. however, as it was on clearance and my size, and teresa made pleading puppy dog eyes at me, i went ahead and tried it on.

i'll admit it was pretty, but not really what i was seeking. also, it wouldn't zip up in back thanks to my ample front. (she also picked out another cocktail length silver-gray number that made my girls look like they were straining to attack anyone who came too close. i think she just likes to look at my boobs.) everything i liked either wasn't my size or wasn't quite wedding material. we gave up and satisfied ourselves with the cheesy biscuits at red lobster. (an aside: i cannot recommend that place for anything aside from the biscuits. it was the first and in all likelihood the last time i'll patronize that chain.)

instead of heading back out to the mall this weekend in the pouring rain, i took matters online and ordered four dresses that should be delivered within a week or so. the mountain will come to mohammed! one of them actually isn't a possible wedding dress at all; it's just a shirtdress by tahari i really loved that wasn't available in my size at the mall. i did try to be responsible and managed to refrain from buying this very 'mad men'-inspired adrianna papel jersey sheath with elbow-length sleeves. i'm a total sucker for elbow-length sleeves! it is on my wish list though. i foresee large credit card bills in my future.

poking around on the nordstrom site, i found a couple of dresses that have potential, such as this funky nanette lepore and this other nanette lepore, which has a less flattering hemline but a more springtime-y pattern. (and yes, nanette lepore is my favorite designer.) there were also some very pretty dresses in the laundry by shelli segal line and this julie dillon crêpe de chine dress is a wild card...i do adore orange. a good 90% of the dresses i've liked have been black, so i'm trying very hard to find something a bit more cheerful, lest my mother spend my entire wedding day kvetching that i look like i'm at a funeral.

anyhow, the search grudgingly continues...i'll let you know when i have a winner.

how to wake up earlier

in the spirit of one, two, we, greg and i have adopted a dog. we are now a family of five! and i think we can officially be marked as a crazy pet family, with two cats and one dog.

first day at home: playing with a toy that she completely destroyed in under an hour

of course, this means we are way behind in wedding planning (which we can now blame on the dog) and functioning on little to no sleep (which we can blame on the dog, but is actually her fault.)

our old schedule: greg's alarm would go off at 6:45 a.m. and we would snuggle until 7:15. he would get ready for work, make us lattes, and head off. i would wake up considerably later, as my office is three miles from our house, reheat my latte, make some toast, and head to work.

our new schedule: greg wakes up at 6:00 a.m. to take zoey for her morning walk. he feeds her breakfast, gives her two medications (oh, did i forget to mention she has giardia?), makes us lattes, and leaves for work. at this point, i am awake from all the dog noises - snuffling, jumping, tags and leash rattling - and reluctantly get out of bed for some breakfast. i have her play in the backyard while i get ready for work and then put her in her crate when i leave. this explains why greg is her boyfriend and i am the evil stepmother; she hates the crate and i can feel her love for me leaking away every time i put her in it. DESPITE the fact that i come home at lunch to take her out to play and i'm the one who gives her an evening walk. ingrate.

so yeah, we're constantly exhausted and definitely miss the days of sleeping in, especially on weekends, which dogs fail to recognize are the most important part of a human's sleep schedule. but on the upside, we're walking more and exploring our neighborhood. i joke that some brides-to-be join a gym, but instead, i adopted a dog. i can definitely use the exercise, since i had an ugly flu at the start of the year, followed by a bout of reflux that caused non-stop nausea and constant wharfing. fortunately, i'm feeling better but i haven't been on my bike since before the new year (!) and am woefully out of shape. the daily walks actually feel great.

the irresistible face of evil

and on the very upside, zoey is goofy and adorable and loving and everything we could have wanted in a dog. now we just have to convince the cats of the same thing...