phfr: Advent 3

Pretty: Almost anything can be pretty by candlelight, no?

This is our four-course meal, inspired by What Ever Happened to Sunday Dinner? by Lisa Caponigri.  I think I took this photo just after I’d explained the concept and that I wanted us to linger, talking, and Owen asked, “So… what do you want to talk about?”

Happy: I keep this little homemade flannelgram set rolled up with our Christmas books, and Phoebe was so excited to open it. She likes to tell the story over and over and over…

Funny: Again, this cake was from our Sunday dinner.  It is a fantastic recipe which uses yogurt to make it moist.  So delicious.

It will be my go-to chocolate cake recipe from now on.  It calls for a 10-inch pan, which I used to have but was nowhere to be found.  I wonder if I gave it away when we were moving.  Anyway, I did my usual calculations… (“the area of a 10-in round pan is pi- times 25, or 78 in sq. My 8-in square pan is 64 in sq. The 9-in round pan is 63 in sq…”) and then realized that my large skillet has a diameter of 10 inches.  Perfect!

I wish I had chosen a different plate on which to serve it, because the well in the plate made a little well in the cake that filled with a pool of ganache.  Though if you’re going to have a pool of anything in the middle of your cake, let it be a pool of  ganache.

Real: I’ve had to move the laundry line close to the house to keep it from tipping over in the wind.  My concrete bucket just isn’t quite heavy enough to anchor it, and it’s really gross when the laundry tips over into the grass where the chickens have been pecking and pooping.  But I can’t really complain about sunshine and warmth in December.