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Best Songs of 2011

18 Feb

Every year I make a Best Of list, and every year it’s this late. That’s because I wait to see everyone else’s list, fill in any gaps in my collection, get to know the new music a bit, and then make my decisions.

As for best album of the year, I’d say a tie between Barton Hollow from The Civil Wars and Pockets Run Deep from Feather & Belle.

The Civil WarsThe Civil Wars are the obvious choice, having made a smash entry on the music scene via Grey’s Anatomy and also receiving a resounding endorsement from Taylor Swift herself. Their two Grammy awards for Best Folk Album and Best Country Duo/Group Performance are certainly well-deserved. Just listen to their star track “Poison & Wine.” But honestly, the entire album is simply amazing. After I got it, I listened to it on repeat for weeks. If you don’t have their album yet, BUY IT NOW. And good news – You can download their live album free on their website.

Feather & BelleFeather & Belle is another new duo, and another album that I set on repeat. These two lovely ladies have plenty of musical experience in other groups and have joined together to create a really lovely sound. My words really can’t do them justice, so please, just give them a listen. In cool recent news, I just read on their website that their live debut was at the Sundance Film Festival with none other than… The Civil Wars.

So here we go. The List. In no particular order. Enjoy!

Best of 2011

“Shake It Out,” Florence + the Machine

Grammy Nominee for Best New Artist.

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“Hidden Staircase,” Feather & Belle

Can’t find a full video for this one, but this video is a snippet of “Hidden Staircase.” You can watch a couple videos of their other songs on their YouTube channel. You can also listen to a few select songs on their website. When you launch the site, a video of their song “Walk in Gutters” will start playing immediately, but after watching that, look for the player at the top right of the page and play “Hidden Staircase” and then “Tennessee Baby.” And then head on over to iTunes and buy their whole album. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

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“Arms,” Christina Perri

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“Wonderful (The Way I Feel),” My Morning Jacket

This album, Circuital, got a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album.

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“Real Slow,” Megafaun

For my readers in the Chapel Hill area, Megafaun will be playing the Haw River Ballroom in April!

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“Lucio,” Mary Johnson Rockers

Can’t find a video for this one, but you can preview and purchase her music on iTunes. Mary plays pretty small, local shows, but she’s definitely a well-known regular on the Chapel Hill/Carrboro music scene. It’s only a matter of time before she’s playing on a national stage. And just fyi, as Mary says, “It’s a last name, not a band.”

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“Don’t Carry It All,” The Decemberists

It was difficult to pick one song off this album. The BF voted for this one, so here it is. I’m also partial to January Hymn, Down By The Water, June Hymn, and This Is Why We Fight. “Down By The Water” got Grammy nominations for Best Rock Performance and for Best Rock Song.

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“Helplessness Blues,” Fleet Foxes

This album got a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album.

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“Poison & Wine,” The Civil Wars

Haunting, gorgeous, beautiful. Best song on this list. Their debut album earned them two Grammys: Best Folk Album and Best Country Duo/Group Performance.

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“Lovesong,” Adele

I felt like I had to pick an Adele song. I mean, she swept up SIX GRAMMYS. “Rolling In The Deep” got Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Short Form Music Video; 21 got Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album; and “Someone Like You” got Best Pop Solo Performance. But honestly, I am getting a little tired of 21 after the amount of play she’s getting. But I liked her cover of Lovesong from the first time I heard it, and I’ve always loved the original from The Cure.

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“The Bad In Each Other,” Feist

This song rocks. Go ahead – jam out.

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“Holocene,” Bon Iver 

Overall, I thought For Emma, Forever Ago was better, but Bon Iver is pretty awesome too. I do love Holocene. Pretty stoked they won two Grammys for this album – Best New Artist and Best Alternative Album. They also got nominations for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

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“What’ll I Do,” Lisa Hannigan

Lisa used to sing with Damien Rice – she’s the awesome female vocals in O. They had a somewhat messy split, but she’s gone on for a successful solo career. This song is really fun, and the rest of the album rocks too.

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“Hard Times,” Gillian Welch

This song sounds like a cold winter day. I just got the album, and I can’t wait to play it on a drive in the mountains. This got Grammy nominations for Best Folk Album and Best Engineered Album (Non-Classical).

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“Civilian,” Wye Oak

Wow, love her voice. For serious. Also, I can’t help mentioning that “Take It In” is my most favorite song of theirs ever, even though it’s off their 2009 album and therefore irrelevant to this list.

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“Yoü and I,” Lady Gaga

Gaga didn’t get any Grammys this year, but she did get a few nominations. Born This Way was nominated for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, and “Yoü And I” was nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance.

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“I Wanna Go,” Britney Spears

Get it, girl! This my jam!

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“Super Bass,” Nicki Minaj

Honestly I’m not super excited about Nicki’s rapping (or any rap, for that matter), but I really like the chorus. Also I love singing this super loud in my car. Super. Nicki didn’t go home with any Grammys, but she did get a nomination for Best New Artist, “Moment 4 Life” was nominated for Best Rap Performance, and Pink Friday was nominated for Best Rap Album.

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DIY: Memory Game

13 Feb

Generally speaking, I’m not a sharer. Or a feeler. I have a hard time explaining my emotions in words. If I must, I prefer to convey my feelings by picking a somewhat expressive song and playing it loudly. Though according to the BF, after long silent treatments, I share my feelings “suddenly and without warning.” It’s true. It takes me a while to warm up to talking about my feelings, which is odd since I talk nonstop about everything else. But once I work up the guts to say whatever it is, I generally explode before I lose my nerve.

Like a few years back, when the BF and I were facing college graduation and hadn’t worked out any plans yet. Sitting in his Jeep, I was having trouble saying out loud that I loved him, and I’d really prefer us to move in together and not go our separate ways. I finally shouted, “LOOK, I just want you to change all your life plans and be with me, OKAY? GEEZ.” His response? He smiled real goofy and kissed me. I muttered, “oh god,” and walked away.

All this is just to explain to you that I really don’t do things like the project I’m about to show you. It’s not my style. This is just so freaking adorable, and I hate love hate being adorable. It’s so… barf-inducing sweet. I usually buy him some chocolate and maybe a shirt from the Gap. I’ve only done something cuter than this one time, and I’m certainly not going to tell you what that was.

Okay, enough stalling, this is what a made: A personal deck of Memory cards. Barf. But really, these are pretty amazing. They also took a loooong time, which I will be certain to convey upon presenting these to my beloved.

Funny part? I'm terrible at this game.

I took a deck of red playing cards and cut a whole bunch of coordinating scrapbook paper to cover up the number side. Then I cut a whole bunch of images from the interwebs. Of course, all in multiples of two so I’d have matching sets for my Memory game. I actually made way more than this picture shows, but you get a nice sample here.

B-t-dubs, I got most of the images from reusableart.com. It’s old stuff, which means there is no copyright. And it worked out pretty well for me since I was going for a vintage look.

I picked images that had meaning for us. For example, I picked this crane because that’s the BF’s spirit animal: balance, stability, and integrity. And by “that’s his spirit animal,” I mean that I spent ten minutes taking online quizzes on his behalf until I got an answer I liked and could find a good picture for.

BF's Spirit Animal: Crane

And I picked this cat riding a bicycle because that’s my spirit animal. Ha.

My Spirit Animal: Clumsy Cat on a Bike

I’ll admit, I made a few just because they were pretty, like this awesome owl:

I have some Christmas cards that say "Happy Owlidays." Lurve.

Last, I made a title card. I used a 1 1/2″ circle punch to cut a hole out of the center of some cardstock. I centered this over the Ace of Hearts and then stamped the title. I was pretty pleased that our initials rhyme with “memory.”

Every time I look at this, I say it to myself in measured syllables: "A and E. Mem-or-ee."

I got everything to stick together with liberal amounts of Mod Podge. I laid out my cards how I wanted them on top of some wax paper. A layer of Podge on the card, then paper, a layer on the paper, then picture, a layer over everything.

Prep

Podge

Stick

Once I got the final layer of Podge on there, I used an old gift card to spread it even. It removed brush strokes and also flattened any air bubbles out from under the paper. I folded my wax paper in half over top of them and loaded all my cookbooks on top to make sure they stayed flat while they dried.

Scrape

Cover & Flatten

And there you go! Tied up with a bit of string, it made a very adorable Valentine’s Day gift. But use your imagination! This project could be done with a million different themes for a million different occasions.

Deck of Love Cards

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Almond Cake with Chocolate Frosting

12 Feb

This is more of a concept than a recipe, but I’ll at least post enough for you to re-create it on your own, if you were so inclined.

I’d really like to work more on my presentation skills, but I’m pretty terrible at decorating. Any time I serve up a dessert that looks like a big ole delicious mess of chocolate, I typically huff and puff and said something like, ‘It doesn’t matter what it looks like, it only matter that it tastes delicious!’ But seriously, it’s time to step it up a notch. Though I do believe that taste is more important than looks, it also doesn’t hurt to look pretty.

I got this idea from a blog whose picture I saw on Pinterest. (Oh, Pinterest. You are responsible for my craftiest of urges.) The blog is in Swedish, but you’ll get the gist.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison so you can see how good mine looks compared to the original. Considering that’s a top-notch Swedish creation, I’m pretty proud of mine. I mean, Swedish and flawlessly executed design are practically synonymous. We’re talking about a people who have brought us Ikea, Volvos, and meatballs.

Not bad, huh?

When I saw that picture, I decided I needed to try out that frosting technique. And ever since I bought some almond extract, I’ve been meaning to use it for more than just the truffles that I messed up so badly I had to throw away. Enter almond cake with chocolate frosting.

I couldn’t find a recipe for almond cake that pleased me well enough, so essentially I just made a white cake and added almond extract instead of vanilla. So here’s the recipe: Use whatever cake recipe or mix you like, add some almond extract, and taste the batter until you like it. I baked it in a springform pan so the sides would be straight.

Then I whipped up some of my Best Chocolate Frosting Ever. I spread a liberal amount onto the finished almond cake and then loaded the rest into my decorating bag. I used a #32 tip because that’s the biggest one I had, but really, you could use any large decorating tip. Betsy helped me out with this one by piping big dollops in a line around the rim of the cake while I went behind her with a spoon to flatten the drops out and spin the cake. Handy with two people, but certainly do-able on your own.

Dollop!

 

Spooning.

We left the center of the cake flat, free of dollops. I could say it was for effect, but really, we ran out of frosting. Looks good, though, huh?

Voila

I toasted some sliced almonds and pressed them into the sides, and voila – finished! (Actually, that’s not true. I burnt the first batch of almonds, toasted a second batch, and then voila.)

Yum yum

Enjoy this fancy cake served up right on fancy china.

 

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Super Bowl Menu & Printable Shopping List

4 Feb

Now I’m not a big fan of the Super Bowl or football or sports in general, but I am a big fan of food. And I’m also a big fan of theme parties. I don’t have the inclination to sit through a Super Bowl myself, so this post is more of an imaginary exercise. This is what I would serve IF I threw a Super Bowl party. May you benefit from my odd mix of productivity and laziness.

My goal for this menu was to be a little different from your typical Bowl party without being totally wackadoo. I saw an infographic that said Americans eat the following on Super Bowl Sunday:

  • 100 million pounds of chicken wings
  • 43.2 million pounds of tortilla chips
  • 45.8 million pounds of potato chips
  • 13.2 million pounds of pretzels
  • 4.4 million pizzas
  • 71.4 million pounds of avocados
  • 111 million gallons of beer

So basically all that kind of grossed me out. And I think in general, variety is the spice of life. So my metric for a successful menu was that I would come up with something that absolutely used none of these things, but would still satisfy my brother.

The Menu:

Main – 

  • Mini Barbecue Meatball Sliders. This recipe feature BBQ meatballs served on a roll. Simple and delicious. I would add a spoonful of slaw to each one. I’d also double the recipe. 12 is so few when there’s just one meatball on there.
  • Taco Cups. These are excellent because you can customize them with whatever fillings you like. Just not guacamole, that’s the rule.
Sides – 
  • Spinach, Bacon & Onion Dip with crostini. Bacon… yum.
  • Minty Pea Dip with carrots or other dipping veggies. To satisfy your guests’ craving for something green.
  • Roasted Eggplant Dip with pita. Yum!
  • Rosemary Cashews. Delicious, handy little snack. And cashews are good for your brain!
  • Chili Lime Cashews. For a bit more kick. (Btw, one pound of cashews equals about 3 cups, so these two recipes should yield fairly equal amounts. Also, the other recipes here call for light brown sugar, and this is the only one that says dark brown sugar. So I would just forget the distinction and use whatever I have on hand.)
Desserts – 
Drinks – 
  • I give up. What’s a Super Bowl party without beer?
VANQUISH THEM!
The Shopping List:

It’s your lucky day! I already wrote up a shopping list for you. It’s organized into two sections: ingredients you probably already have and ingredients who probably need to buy. Double check your fridge and pantry before you head to the store!

Download the Super Bowl Shopping List here.

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If this doesn’t seem quite festive enough, you could always scrap this whole menu and make a Super Bowl Stadium instead. (I highly suggest googling “Super Bowl Stadium” and spending some time looking through the image results.)

Those football players look tasty.

From HolyTaco.com

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Rainbow Tie-Dye Cake!

2 Feb

I jumped on the rainbow wagon to make this delicious cake for a friend a couple months ago. (Yes, a couple months ago — sorry, I lost the pictures till now. Geez. Back off.)

My friend, Julia, gets super excited about rainbows and colors in general, so I surprised her. I figured it would be a lot of work, so I did cut one pretty big corner: I started with a white cake mix. I mixed the batter according to package directions, and then divided the batter into 6 bowls. Then I dyed each bowl with gel food coloring, mixing a healthy dollop into each bowl until it looked like the right color. (Use gel instead of regular dye — you won’t need to use as much, so it won’t water down your batter.) Though I’ve seen neon, which looks pretty cool, I went with traditional ROYGBIV colors. Except I combined indigo and violet into one color, since they’re pretty much the same anyway.

Working backwards... VBVBG VBGYVBGYOVBGYOR. Or... ROYGBV.

After I mixed each color, I poured each layer into a bundt pan one at a time. (And yes, I did it in rainbow order.) I tried to pour it relatively gently so that the layers wouldn’t mix. But I didn’t worry too much about it because I wanted them to swirl a little to get a tie-dye look.

Bundt layers: VGBY

Red

I set the cake to bake according to package directions, and while it was in the oven, I got started on the strawberry buttercream frosting.

The cake passed the toothpick test, so I pulled it out to cool for 10 minutes or so. Then I flipped it out of the pan. I noticed that it didn’t rise very much in the oven. I probably over-stirred it while trying to get the colors mixed well. So word of warning — stir the colors in, but try not to over-stir.

After I frosted it, I thought it looked a little plain for something so super fantastic as a tie dye rainbow cake, so I added rainbow sprinkles on top. DOUBLE RAINBOW.

Rainbow Cake!

ALL THE WAY.

Peace, dude.

I really love that the end on the right almost looks like a peace sign. I’ll just pretend I did that intentionally.

The frosting really takes the cake (ha), so if you didn’t want the hassle of a full rainbow, you could just use any white cake recipe you like. Enjoy!

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Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

31 Jan

O. M. G. This is so good, and so worth the hassle. Bear in mind that since it calls for fresh strawberries, the quality of your strawberry is going to be really important. You may want to save this one for the summer time. But, one reason I wanted to post this now is because it’s pretty common for grocery stores to get shipments of decent quality strawberries for Valentine’s Day. So if you’re looking for a seasonally appropriate frosting, this may be a great pick.

First, set out a stick of butter to soften and prepare your strawberries. I first cup them up, discarding the stems and slicing the rest into manageable pieces.  My pieces measure up to about 1/2 cup strawberries. (I would buy at least a pint, but probably two, just to make sure you have enough.) Then I use the back of a spoon to push the strawberry chunks through a fine-mesh sieve. The strawberry goo that comes out the other side of the sieve is exactly what you’re looking for.

Start out with 1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter. Add it to your mixing bowl with 2 teaspoons vanilla extract and a pinch of salt. Beat with a hand mixer until soft and creamy. Then alternately add 4 cups powdered sugar and the strawberry goo, using the hand mixer to incorporate the new additions. That should do it, but of course you could add extra sugar, strawberries, or vanilla to your taste preference.

The frosting is a beautiful light pink color, usually with some pink specks in it. But since you pressed the strawberries through the sieve, it’s nice and smooth.

I topped vanilla cupcakes with this frosting for a pink-themed bridal shower:

Strawberry and Coconut Cupcakes

And I topped my rainbow tie-dye cake with some strawberry frosting:

Rainbow Cake with Strawberry Frosting

Fresas deliciosas!

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Simpler German Chocolate Cake

22 Jan

A couple months ago, I volunteered to bake my dad’s birthday cake. Probably his favorite dessert would be anything fruit-related, but he’s also a huge fan of German chocolate cake, which I’ve never attempted before. And he hasn’t had one for his birthday in years. According to my sister, who hates German chocolate cake, he requested it “every single year,” but I don’t remember this – must have been before I was around. I started researching recipes and wow were they complicated. Most included buttermilk and a complicated process, and I didn’t intend to go to the grocery store or work that hard. So maybe this isn’t an authentic German chocolate cake, maybe I took a few shortcuts, but it’s still pretty awesome.

I decided to save a little time by going with a cake mix but a scratch-made frosting and filling. I started by making a chocolate cake according to its package directions. I baked it in a 9″ springform pan so that the sides would be straight up and not slanted, easier for slicing and stacking into layers. Since I did the entire batch in one pan, it took about 40 minutes to bake. If you did two 8″ rounds, it would bake faster, and you wouldn’t have to worry about slicing. Just fyi.

While it baked, I worked on the frosting/filling. I separated the yolks of 3 eggs and added them to a medium saucepan. (I saved the whites for breakfast the next day.) I added in 1/2 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup packed brown sugar, 1/2 cup butter, 1 cup evaporated milk, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. I stirred everything up well and then turned on the stove to medium heat. I recommend stirring things well before you turn the heat on and continuing to stir well, because I had some issues with eggs cooking too fast. Egg chunks in frosting is not ideal. 

I let this cook, stirring almost continuously, until it was nice and thick. I removed the pot from the heat and stirred in 1 1/3 cup coconut flakes and 1 cup chopped pecans. I let it cool on the stove top for a while and then cooled it even more in the fridge, till it was a spreadable consistency.

Layer 1

Layer 2 on Standby

All that was left was to assemble. I sliced the cake in half to get two round layers. I spread a thick layer of the coconut-pecan mixture all around and then carefully set the top layer back onto the cake. Then I spread the coconut-pecan frosting all around the top. All that was left was the birthday candles.

Deutscher Schokoladenkuchen!

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Day Trip to Hillsborough, NC

14 Jan
Stairs to where?

An overgrown path with stairs to nowhere

The BF and I went for a walk in neighboring Hillsborough, North Carolina. The downtown area has all the charm of an old small town, with gorgeous historic houses running off from the main street. I decided that I want to live in a house with a name one day, like the Berry Brick House or the Gattis House we saw. As we walked, the BF spotted an ancient set of stone stairs leading up a hill. When we got the top, I saw this view — a long walkway flanked by overgrown plants ending in another set of ancient stone stairs. It was both incredibly creepy and beautiful walking through there. At the top of the second set of stairs, it at first seemed like nothing was there — just a huge square depression in the ground. Obviously, a house had been there. Considering all the stone and no sign of wood anywhere, probably a fire. Behind thorn bushes and a few spindly trees, we spotted a chimney. And here and there under the grass and leaves, you could spot the edges of the foundation, most of which was still there in a perfect square around the hole. Leaning out over the edge, I realized we were standing on the porch, and it was hollow underneath us.

I can’t decide if I’m more impressed by nature’s resilience, slowly and steadily creeping back in to reclaim the land, or by humanity’s insistence on always leaving a permanent “I was here.”

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New Year’s in D. C.

1 Jan
Happy New Year, President Lincoln!

A shot of the Lincoln Memorial just after midnight on New Year's Day

The BF and I celebrated the New Year with friends in DC. We had a fantastic prix fixe dinner at Fado Irish Pub, where we sat talking until the big countdown. After the champagne toast, we barely made the drive back to our hotel before falling asleep. By the way, if you’re planning a trip to our lovely nation’s capital, I highly recommend the Best Western in Alexandria. It was nice, clean, and cheap. Plus they offered us plenty of free food and snacks, which is a sure way to earn my patronage.

Other recommended restaurants: we tried Le Pain Quotidien for the first time, and their avocado tartine on fresh-made organic wheat bread made for a  tasty meal light enough for first dinner. And our DC favorite Founding Farmers, known for sustainable and absolutely delicious farm-to-table fare, proved to be just as amazing for brunch as it is for dinner.

In addition to eating a whole lot, we also went to the National Museum of Natural History. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been, and it was really cool. Of course I was super excited about the Hall of Mammals and the Dinosaur exhibition, which makes sense considering my strange obsession with Animal Planet. But I ended up being even more enthralled by the Hall of Human Origins, a super cool exhibit about human evolution.

Overall, a pretty mellow and enjoyable way to ring in the New Year. Here’s to 2012.

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Brownie Caramel Cheesecake

13 Nov

I was recently invited to a friend’s birthday party, and the birthday lady requested to hang out with friends, play games, and eat cheese. Sounds like a perfect celebration to me. All the guests were asked to bring some dish to share that had cheese. Of course I wanted to bake something, which logically led to cheesecake. But then I heard that another party-goer was bringing baked goods. What? Excuse me? Does he have a baking-themed blog that he painstakingly updates every few months? I don’t think so. Clearly, I needed to up the ante. No more plain classic cheesecake. Enter… brownie caramel cheesecake. Perfect. (You can see the original recipe I found here.)

Betsy came over to help me out with this one, and we started off by preheating the oven to 350 F and greasing my 9″ springform pan. In a medium bowl, we mixed together 1 package brownie mix, 1 egg, and 1 tablespoon cold water. We spread that into the pan and baked it for 25 minutes.

That's not my arm!

While it baked, we worked on the caramel. We unwrapped a whole bag of individual caramels. This is where I deviated from the recipe a bit. It called for a 5-oz can of evaporated milk, which I didn’t have. So instead I mixed in about 5 tablespoons butter and a few spoonfuls of sweetened condensed milk to thin it up a bit. This worked out pretty well, except it was a bit tough, so I recommend testing out the evaporated milk route and see if that works better. Once everything was all melted together, we set aside about 1/3 cup of the caramel mixture in a bowl and got to work on the cheesecake part.

Mmm... melty caramel

In a large bowl, we beat 2 (8 oz) packages softened cream cheese, 1/2 cup white sugar, and 1 teaspoon of almond extract until smooth. I’ll be honest, the only reason I used almond is because I ran out of vanilla. We then added 2 eggs, one at a time, beating just slightly between each one. The key to a good cheesecake, as Betsy says, is to not beat it too much, which allows air to get into the batter, causing cracks when it bakes.

Cheesecake Batter

This was just in time to pull the brownie base out of the oven. I poured the caramel mixture into the pan, keeping that small amount I set aside for later. Then I poured the cream cheese mixture overtop the caramel, spreading evenly to the edges. We popped it into the oven.

Caramel LayerCheesecake Layer

The recipe says to bake it for 40 minutes. We baked it probably a total of 50 because the center looked like it wasn’t finishing. The problem was, the crust over-baked. Next time, I’ll bake the brownie crust for probably half the time. Anyway, the results were still amazing.

After we pulled the cheesecake out and popped the ring off the springform pan, we set out to top it with caramel and chocolate. Betsy poured the caramel in, but it was really thick, so we ended up with large globs instead of a pretty stream. No matter. I spread the caramel into wide zig-zap stripes. (If you use the evaporated milk instead of the butter like we did, your caramel may not be thick enough for this, but you should be able to pull off a nice drizzle.)

That caramel is not really pouring so well

Next I melted 1/4 cup chocolate chips and 2 tablespoons butter in the microwave on 30 second intervals, stirring in between, until it was perfectly smooth. Then I spooned chocolate on top of the cake in between the caramel zags. We made a few drips of chocolate — whoops! So to cover them up, we just decided to drip chocolate polka dots all over the caramel. Perfect. By the time we were done, the entire top of the cake was covered in either caramel or chocolate, and it looked simply amazing.

Brownie Caramel Cheesecake

And I must say, later that night, after the birthday lady blew out the candles, it tasted amazing. It was very rich, so everyone just needed a small slice, which really helped make such a small cake go a long way. And as I mentioned above, the crust was a little tough, but that’s easily remedied next time. Definitely a recipe I’ll be coming back to.

I'm ready for my close-up

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