Wedding Wednesdays: Favors Part 1 (Homebrew!)

 

I thought I'd start a little series on the blog, "Wedding Wednesdays," where I could share with you some of the details of our wedding! If this isn't your thing, no worries; I'll still keep posting food-related posts too. :)

To start, I thought it might be fun to talk about one of our wedding favors...our homebrewed beer!! As you likely know if you've been reading my blog for a while, Mike and I homebrew beer (and in the past couple years, Mike has also started homebrewing wine!). We're the "beer and baking" duo to all of our friends. :) So when it came to deciding on wedding favors, making homebrew was somewhat of a no-brainer for us! It would be a great touch that would make our wedding day "feel like us."

It took us a while to narrow down which styles of beer to brew, but we decided to go with three kinds: an IPA, a stout, and a wheat. We brewed all the beers in the later summer/early fall, to give ourselves enough time to have them all done by early November. In case you're not familiar with homebrewing beer, the shortest time a batch can take is about a month, and this largely depends on the style of beer you're making.

Anyway, so once we had the styles we wanted to make, we came up with our recipes and we brewed the beers! We both really enjoy homebrewing and had a lot of fun with the process of making beers that we hoped our guests would love. Here are a couple pics we snapped when brewing the beers.

I'm adding hops to the boil here!

Mike is adding grains to the mash in this pic.

Next came the task of naming the beers! Here's a brief recap of how we came to name each beer (and pictures of each of the labels are below)...

1) "I Do" IPA

We were trying to come up with a name for the IPA that was marriage/wedding related, and among the ideas we had was our final choice "I Do" IPA. We didn't end up liking any other ideas nearly as well as this one, so it was a pretty easy decision!

2) Hurshy's Chocolate Stout

Our last name (my new last name!) is Hursh, so naming this beer Hurshy's Chocolate Stout was such a natural fit. It was perfect, really!

3) Whiskey's Wheat

You may also know that Mike's adorable, lovable cat that he adopted a couple years ago (who is also now my cat!) is named Whiskey. At first we were playing around with a few wedding-themed names for this wheat beer (e.g., Wedded Bliss Wheat, Wedding Wheat, etc.), but then we thought of Whiskey's Wheat and knew that no other name would work!

Now, onto the labels! Good friends of ours were incredibly generous, and early on in our wedding planning when we had decided to make homebrew as a favor, they told us early that as our wedding gift, they wanted to take care of the labels for us. How awesome! So, they hired a very talented graphic designer in the Boston area to work with us, and she helped us create labels that were absolutely perfect to capture the meaning behind each of the beer names. We had so much fun working with her to design the labels!

I just love each of the designs! The "I Do" IPA has a guy proposing to a girl with a ring that's actually a hop. The Hurshy's Chocolate Stout looks like a Hershey's chocolate bar wrapper (obviously!), and the Whiskey's Wheat has a picture of our cat, with some stalks of wheat in the background. In the picture, Whiskey is in one of his favorite poses - on his back, belly up!

All three of the labels had this same general statement: "Colleen and Mike have enjoyed homebrewing together since they started dating. Each batch they create is fun, unique, and made with love." And following that, we had a couple lines that described the flavor characteristics of each particular beer.

To display the beers, my parents let us borrow their awesome stand up "display canoe," which fit our Adirondacks-themed wedding venue perfectly! We made about 150 bottles of beer in total, and they didn't all fit in the canoe so we also used some wooden crates, which also worked really well.

Here are a few of our guests, checking out the homebrew selection! We are so happy with how big of a hit the homebrew favors were. The awesome labels really brought the favors up a notch.

We put a sign next to the favors to share a little background about why we chose to give the homebrew to our guests, and we also described each of the beers so our guests could make an informed decision about which style they would choose!

This photo below also shows our other favor (which also served as the escort cards for guests). I'll share with you next week what those are! :)

Thanks for reading my first edition of Wedding Wednesdays!!

Happy Birthday to Two Wonderful Ladies!

 TGIF to you! :)

So in case you hadn't noticed, I don't have any new recipes for you this week. I am sorry! Heck, I haven't even had one new recipe for you yet in 2013. Oops. 

Although I have been cooking and baking thus far in the new year, I've been either making old recipes (ahem - pecan, cranberry, cinnamon chip cookies and Bailey's balls) or recipes that aren't "exciting" enough for the blog. Instead of posting about food today, I thought I'd take this opportunity to highlight two of the most special women in my life - my mother and grandmother!! Both of them have birthdays this coming week, so I wanted to send them special birthday wishes via my blog.

Here's a picture of my grandmother and me, toasting with a little champagne (in coffee cups :)) the morning of our wedding. Love her!

My mother and me, putting on my jewelry for the wedding. I just love this picture! And my veil was my mom's veil that she wore on her wedding day 33 years earlier. :)

Both my mother and grandmother have been tremendous influences on me, and as I've gotten older, I've noticed more and more qualities, tendencies, and mannerisms in myself that I see in both of them. And that makes me extremely proud and thankful. 

My grandmother wrote a book last year! How awesome is that?! Let me know if you're interested in a copy. ;) Reading her book, a memoir, made me admire her even more. She has accomplished so much in her lifetime!

I cannot say enough positive things about my mom and grandma. Both of them have spent countless hours over the years caring for their families and giving to others. They are two of the most thoughtful, selfless, and kind people you'll ever meet. And they have both been amazing mothers and role models to me, my siblings, and all our extended family... I just can't say enough! I hope that I will be half as good a mother to my children some day as they both have been to me and our family.

And, my mother and grandmother have greatly influenced me in terms of my love for cooking and baking! They have many talents in the kitchen, and I've enjoyed so many wonderful meals and baked goodies made by them over the years. I am very grateful that I've developed a passion for being in the kitchen, and I look forward to many more years of cooking and baking, hopefully making delicious meals (and perhaps some not-so-good-for-you baked goodies :)) for my own family!

Wishing these two lovely, special women in my life wonderful birthdays next week! I love you both!

Thanks for reading along with my non-food post today, friends. I wish you all an awesome weekend, and I'll be back next week with a new recipe for you, I promise! :)

January: National Oatmeal Month!

 Happy mid-week!

Hope you are having a great week so far. I don't know about you, but it's a tough transition back to full work weeks after the holidays... What's this five day work week thing?! :)

Something that helps me get through long weeks is food! I realize that's somewhat obvious, so let me explain... Good food helps me get through long weeks for a couple reasons: 1) It energizes me! I feel better when I eat good, healthy, delicious food. 2) I look forward to good food! That's the emotional side of it, I guess. I love thinking about meals that I'll have later that day or week. If the night before I have a plan for what I'm going to eat the next day for breakfast, or if I know ahead of time what Mike and I will be eating for a weeknight dinner together, that makes me happy. I really look forward to a good meal!

Where am I going with this? Well, January happens to be National Oatmeal Month! And oatmeal happens to be a type of food that I look forward to eating. :) And it's so nutritious too!! For fun, I thought I'd share with you a few of my favorite oatmeal recipes that I have on the blog.

Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Squares

Another awesome breakfast recipe! Easy and healthy too.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls

I love these no-bake balls for a healthy snack!

Banana Oat Breakfast Cakes

I haven't made this recipe in a while, but now that I'm sharing it with you again, I'm remembering how much I loved these little breakfast cakes!

Overnight Oats

This is such a great breakfast recipe. With only about 3 minutes of prep time at night, you can have an easy, filling, healthy breakfast ready for you in the morning.

Egg Over Oatmeal

Definitely one of my favorite breakfasts!!

Strawberry Banana Oatmeal Smoothie

I love putting oats in my smoothies!

I tried to mostly share oatmeal recipes that are more for breakfast here, even though I have several dessert recipes on the blog that involve oatmeal! I couldn't resist just sharing a couple with you...

Oatmeal Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate and Cinnamon Chip Oatmeal Pecan Bars

What about you? Do you have some favorite oatmeal recipes??!

And on that note, I'm looking forward to eating my overnight oats this morning... :)

Happy 2013! And Favorite Recipes from 2012 :)

 Happy new year, all!! I'm a little behind the times, wishing you a happy new year a few days into January, but better late than never, right??

As many blogs that I read have done, I thought I'd do a quick recap of my 12 favorite recipes from the Barbershop in 2012! These are ones that I would absolutely make again and again... :)

Pecan, Cranberry, and Cinnamon Chip Cookies

These are the ones that won the Whole Foods contest!

Sour Cream Cookies

Maple Date Scones

Cooks' Illustrated Chocolate Chip Cookies

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls

Roasted Cauliflower Cheddar Ale Soup

M&M Cookie Sticks

Homemade Chocolate Oreo Ice Cream

Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

No-Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookie Balls

Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Donuts and Donut Holes

Grilled Cheese Sandwich with Bacon, Egg, and Tomato

No-Bake Bailey's Balls

Okay, so I lied. That was 13 recipes, not 12. ;)

And I've got a few wedding pictures for you! We recently received our professional photos from our awesome photographers, so I thought I'd share a few with you on the blog....

If you'll bear with me, I think that over the next few months, I might do some more "wedding recap" blog posts, to share with you some more details about our day!

Oh, and totally random, but in 2011 I posted 111 times on my blog, and I also posted 111 times in 2012! How odd is that??!

I hope you are all having a great start to your 2013!! :)

Peppermint Mocha Blossoms

I know that a lot of people associate the flavor combination of chocolate and peppermint with Christmas. And I know that Christmas was three days ago. But you still should make these cookies. It's not too late, I promise!!

I made a batch of these cookies before Christmas. And I made a second batch after Christmas. After the first round, I couldn't stop thinking about them and knew I wanted to make them again! 

These cookies use Hershey's Kisses candy cane flavored kisses, which tend to only be in the stores around the holidays. They're likely still available to buy in the stores, so you should probably go get yourself some ASAP! And since it's after Christmas, they might even be on sale?! Next time you head to the grocery store (you know, after you finish reading this post), you might want to look for these candy cane kisses!

This wonderful recipe is from Damn Delicious. The only change I made was substituting instant coffee for the instant espresso powder that's in the original recipe. I couldn't find the espresso powder anywhere! The coffee worked great though; it still imparted a nice coffee flavor.

Ingredients:

-3 cups all-purpose flour

-1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

-1 tsp. baking soda

-1/4 tsp. salt

-1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

-1 and 3/4 cups sugar, divided

-2 Tbsp. instant coffee

-2 large eggs

-1 tsp. vanilla extract

-1 tsp. peppermint extract

-34 Hershey's candy cane kisses, unwrapped

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. With an electric mixer, beat together the butter, 1 and 1/4 cups of the sugar (set remaining 1/2 cup sugar aside), and espresso powder or instant coffee until light and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until well combined. Beat in vanilla and peppermint extract until well combined. Gradually add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture at low speed, beating until just incorporated.

Roll tablespoons of dough into 1-inch balls and coat in remaining 1/2 cup sugar. Place onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper and bake until outside is crackly, but center is still moist, about 9 to 10 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool 2 to 3 minutes before topping with a Hershey's candy cane kiss in the center of each cookie. Let cool completely on a wire rack.

Crackly tops!

The flavor of these cookies is wonderful - chocolatey with a hint of coffee. And of course, there's also a noticeable peppermint flavor going on too. :)

You may be able to tell in these photos, but I didn't roll these cookies in regular granulated sugar. Instead, I used the same King Arthur Flour sparkling white sugar that I used in my Bailey's Balls recipe.

I think it adds such a fun, wintery touch, don't you??

:)