Tuesday, April 12, 2011

out of character

hello everyone! i'm coming out from under a pile of wedding websites to quick post. i think i have about 88 tabs open right now - just to figure out what kind of placecards i want to do. i am a psychopath. the list of ideas i have so far is:

vintage award ribbons
plastic animals
fruit
vegetable seed packets
sugar cookies (names written in icing)
mini succulents (names on flags)
bottles of homemade infused oils
mini jars of curd or jam
tiny embroidery hoops?
strawberry plants?

somehow NONE of these satisfy me, so i keep thinking and browsing and scrawling down ideas. i'm totally losing it.

souffle
frenchtoast

saturday night sam and i went to a skate/dance party, and i dragged a couple of pastry-making girlfriends with; we ended up sequestering ourselves to the kitchen table most of the night, drinking beer and talking pot de creme and soufflés. so when i groggily woke up sunday morning and remembered sam and i were supposed to get engagement (okay, yes, very belated) photos taken that day, i decided to whip together some brunch and try to get us in shape for a day in front of a camera. and with soufflés on the mind, i made these.

savory soufflés
(i made mine with goat cheese and prosciutto)

6 egg whites
3 egg yolks
dash of salt
55 g butter
60 g bread flour
180 mL milk
2 cloves of garlic, minced
4 slices of prosciutto
about 2 oz goat cheese (half a log)
powdered pecorino romano cheese & melted butter for the ramekins

turn the oven to 350. place the prosciutto on a sheet of aluminum and let them crisp up in the oven for ten minutes or so, until good and crunchy, while you divide your eggs, prep your butter, etc. once they're out, turn the oven to 450.

put the egg whites in a bowl, carefully not getting any yolk in them. add a pinch or two of salt. wait.

prepare the ramekins by brushing butter along the sides and then coating them with the powdered cheese. you'll be able to fill about 6 1-cup ramekins.

put the minced garlic in the milk.

once the butter has melted, turn the heat to medium and add the flour. stir with a wooden spoon until it's well combined, and then keep stirring for awhile; it'll bubble, and just keep stirring, to dry it out a bit. stir constantly for 3 minutes or so, then start slowly adding the milk, bit by bit. add milk, let it combine, add more. etc. until all combined. remove from the heat.

stir the cheese and the egg yolks into the bechamel (that's the butter, flour and milk sauce.) once well combined, take the prosciutto and crumble it evenly into the ramekins. now beat the whites until they are stiff peaks. once shiny and stiff, take about 1/4 of the whites and mix them into the yolks/cheese/bechamel to lighten the mixture; then gently fold the rest of the whites in with the yolk mixture.

spoon the fully combined mixture into the ramekins, leaving them just under the top of the ramekin. place them on a baking sheet and then in the oven; immediately turn the heat down to 375. let them bake for 15 minutes or so, until they are risen and browned on top and starting to brown around the sides. voila! delicious, impressive, and way easier than they look.

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i don't usually do the hey-look-it's-my-face! photos on here - i just feel weird about it for some reason. this isn't really about what i look like, i just like to feature my personal style, my food, my pretty blessed life. but today i couldn't get the light to pick up on the collar in this shirt, which is obviously the best part of it, so i had to suck it up and do some headshots. i figured it was a chance to show my little locket, anyway.

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top: in god we trust (who, coincidentally, are having a spring launch party at their shop in greenpoint this saturday! come, maybe i'll see you there!)
skirt: thrifted
socks: american apparel
shoes: jeffrey campbell
necklace: ebay

all right. i'm going to tidy up the office a bit and then dive back in to wedding silliness. hope you're all enjoying your week!

xo audrey

24 comments:

  1. I think that the sugar cookie idea is quite sweet (literally. ha!), but some friends just did the mini succulent situation and it was lovely. Also, I'm forever intimidated by souffles and I just need to get over it. Yours look really delicious and completely do-able.

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  2. hay lady, my friend did potted plants and they were adorable. I LOVE the succulent idea! (here are the fotos)

    http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/149882_943016340567_3602179_50518158_6066172_n.jpg

    http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/75169_943016390467_3602179_50518161_7041961_n.jpg

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  3. @blogbytina.com AMAZING! do you know where they got the little pansies? (i like how this sounds like a maybe-insult.) i've been thinking i might just have to grow some myself. . .

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  4. In the second photo of you, you look like you're talking on a hair-phone... in a super cute way, of course :)

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  5. @House of Milk ha! i totally do. i knew there was something i liked about that one. and it definitely wasn't my super wrinkly skirt.

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  6. my vote is for mini succulents!

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  7. Pretty amazing outfit!! And tnx 4 sharing this recipe! :)
    Xoxo, K.

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  8. Ah the difficulties of wedding planning! My sister is getting married in December and we are doing little lavender pillows for the ladies and little jars of chutneys for the men. Lavender from our garden and the chutneys homemade with my dad's recipe. Little personal things. I hope inspiration comes to you!
    xxx

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  9. with 80+ tabs open you've probably already gotten to this place, but a blog i absolutely love (which is wedding related) is stylemepretty. the whimsical section is my favourite, the couples are adorable! there's lots of original stuff in there too. a friend of mine is getting married this june; she wanted a quirky, DIY feel to the whole thing, and we spent lots of time together looking through this site and finding little bits of inspiration here and there. hope this helped, but if not, don't stress cause you'll figure it out soon!

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  10. Yum.

    And this outfit? AWESOME.

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  11. This reminds me so much of when I was planning my wedding. I couldn't figure out half the stuff I wanted and in the end, I nixed most of it feeling no one would care but me. However, now I am in the boat trying to plan my own baby shower (because most other baby shower favors make me want to gag) so, I feel your pain. I DO sort of like the plastic animals idea though. I think that would be cute but, you'd sort of have to incorporate that into the rest of decor?

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  12. Audrey I just love your blog! And that collar :) It sounds like a freaking ton of work, but if somebody wanted to give me homemade infused oils at their wedding, I certainly would not be disappointed. But, I don't know if that would be true for the typical guest....

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  13. The collar on that shirt is uber-adorable and I love your perfectly slouchy socks! I vote for the vintage ribbons idea!

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  14. I like the idea of mini embroidery hoops : )

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  15. @Lara yeah - i basically came to the conclusion (as i say in today's post) that cute for cute's sake is not in my budget, so i'm going to combine the favor and placecard. i do think i'll use the animals for some kind of signage though - desserts or something.

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  16. @HadleyEG thank you so much!! i THINK it wouldn't be too bad - we have some really nice big pots, so i could just do a bit thing of oil at once, maybe infuse it with some rosemary and lemon peel or something. maybe i should do a recipe on here. anyways, this may be what we end up going with - i think little bottles would be so cute, and they could double as place cards!

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  17. @Summer i HAVE seen stylemepretty, they have some really beautiful inspiration. i guess part of the problem is that i hate stealing ideas, even though those sites are totally for the purpose of giving you ideas and inspiration - i really want to do something different. we'll see what happens!

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  18. @lauraa such a cute idea. i think we'll end up going with something edible too - i'm kind of too much of an eater not to.

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  19. @FutureLint i think this is my favorite idea, just based on how they look. . but finding vintage ribbons in mass quantities has proven tricky and, alas, expensive. i think i am going to order some custom ribbons that have the names of our appetizers on them, though. . .

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  20. @Lexi thank you! i do too. i'll figure out a way to work them in, somehow. . .

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  21. Those are all great ideas, although the sugar cookie one is my favorite. Whatever you choose will surely be great!

    I am getting married in June and had all sorts of placecard ideas...but I ultimately just ordered some placecards that match our invitations. I always get compliments on my handwriting, so I will write the names myself. I also need to have an indication as to which dish people ordered, so I bought little stick-on gemstones in different colors. I figured it would be a little prettier than just a plain sticker.

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  22. Love the shoes and socks look. Great top as well that collar is adorable.

    I'm having a $100 dollar Shopbop giftcard GIVEAWAY on my blog! Come check it out :) It's open to international bloggers as well.

    Collections Giveaway

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  23. Have you tried using Pinterest to organize your ideas? I wish so badly that that website had been around when I was planning my wedding!

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  24. Hi Audrey! I just wanted to tell you a funny thing that just happened. I got a single sprig of rosemary yesterday from a farm I was volunteering at, and since I never had rosemary, I started looking for good recipes. I came to your blog and did a search for it, and one of the results was a response you made to a comment by ME! On this post, in 2011, while you were getting ready for your wedding. Thank you for replying. I think you are one of the classiest and at the same time down to earth food and fashion bloggers out there. I miss your updates, but still come back to this site to find ideas, and I just noticed the Facebook site for your bakery the other day and marveled at the photos. You have an inspiring story! Thanks for sharing it.

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