One busy girl.

Pumpkin Oat Scones

2010-11-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

Starbucks has amazing scones, but they're huge and usually have tons of calories. Which is fine, if you're eating a scone for a meal, or if you split it or save some for later. But let's face it: you're going to Starbucks for a fancy drink and you're planning on eating the whole thing. That's why you're there!

If you look up a recipe for scones with the intention of making them at home, and, theoretically, lower calorie, I think you'll still be disappointed. Most recipes I found were still pretty hefty in calories.

So, I adapted a recipe to make it a little lighter. They came out fantastic! Around 100 calories, and not the size of a piece of birthday cake.

Pumpkin Oat Scones
(recipe and nutritional information)

Ingredients:

1.5 cups wheat flour
1.5 cups oats
1 tbs baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup pumpkin
1/2 - 3/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

Combine dry ingredients, then add in wet ingredients. Mix until just combined.
Split dough into two balls. Roll each ball into a disk about 1/2" thick, and cut into 8 slices.
Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.

I also made some apple butter in the slow cooker. The two were an amazing match. (The apple butter was also an amazing addition to a boring oatmeal packet, but I digress.) But, I'd recommend freezing half until you want them; I ended up throwing out quite a few because they got moldy. Sad times, but I'll be making these again!

Vegetable Tart

2010-11-02T21:33:00.000-07:00

Did you know that October was Vegetarian Awareness month? I meant to tell you. I'm sorry.

I'm not going to preach to you about how being a vegetarian is so wonderful, made me lose 50 pounds, or gave me a sense of moral superiority. I will say that eating less meat made me feel pretty good, and was fairly cost effective too.

In honor of pursuing a flexatarian diet, I made a veggie tart. You can get my recipe and nutritional information here; the original recipe here.

And I highly recommend that you do so. It was amazing.

I'm a little bummed the calorie count is so high, but it's like pizza. Delicious, delicious pizza. With less grease and more good stuff.

Halloween

2010-11-01T17:20:00.000-07:00

Ah, Halloween. Such a great holiday on it's own, on top of kicking off the Holiday Season.

The holiday weekend kicked off with my work party. I love potlucks where people take great pride in what they bring. You have never seen so much food in your life! I made a giant candy corn cupcake cake for my contribution.

We started the holiday proper with the annual Pumpkin run, and reminisced about the previous years when 3.1 miles seemed like crossing a continent. Even though a 5k has become a "light" run for me these days, I didn't feel so great that morning. I still did extremely well, but I missed my PR and 3rd place in my age division by five seconds. Ouch.

In fact, I'm sort of embarrassed about it. First, that I didn't keep up my continuous improvement. And then second, that I was upset about my time at all. Four years ago, breaking 30 minutes was my ultimate running goal. This year I did 27:53. The lesson here is to make this motivate me to work harder for next year!

Afterward, we had some celebratory pumpkin spice lattes and finished setting up the house for wine and Halloween candy tasting. It was a spur of the moment idea, and it came out well!

Even though the day was supposed to be about candy, I made a veggie platter and bruschetta. I'm happy to say while there was candy left over, the healthy stuff was gone! I have such smart friends. I also made popcorn balls and apple chips, although these were both fails. The apple chips were in the oven nearly all day, and never quite got crispy. The popcorn balls turned into a solid ball when I put them in a bowl; I didn't have a candy thermometer to check the temperature. But I'm sure these will appear in the future - they were much easier to make than anticipated!

When it got dark, we handed out candy to the neighborhood kids. My favorites were the under-five set; you can immediately tell they don't know what's going on yet, and they're not sure if they want to be a part of it. Too cute! We gave out candy until we ran out, except I discovered another two bags today! Those will have to go to the Operation Gratitude drive.

I used leftover cake batter from the cupcake cake to send candy corn cupcakes to work with the husband. From what I hear, they went over pretty well. And they do look rather cute, if I do say so myself.

I hope your Halloween was fun, happy, and safe! Now, on to Thanksgiving. I can't wait!

Cherpumple

2010-10-19T20:19:00.000-07:00

Alright. This is the story of the Cherpumple.

It started with a link on my facebook page. That my husband happened to see and declare the most awesome thing he had ever seen. I saw it on a couple of cooking blogs, too; apparently it was a short-lived meem (although now it seems to have broadened into a bake-something-in-a-cake meem).

Here's the video. It's actually funny, even if you're not interested in cooking.

Here's the thing: I kind of laughed, and that was it. People don't seriously make this, do they?? Ah, but they do make cherpumples.

Husband was serious. Friend was serious. Suddenly a cherpumple was about to be born.

Basically, a cherpumple is three pies baked into three cakes. In this case, an cherry pie baked in a chocolate cake, a pumpkin pie baked in a spice cake, and an apple pie baked in a yellow cake.

In other words, a logistical nightmare on the proportions of cooking Thanksgiving dinner in one day.

Let's start with the supplies. Three cakes, three pies, and enough cream cheese frosting to last through Christmas. If you were wondering, here's proof cakes are better than pies: a pie costs around $5-6 to make, but you can totally make a cake for $3-4. I did manage to get a pre-baked apple pie from the bakery, but the cherry and pumpkin had to be baked. I got frozen pie crusts and canned filling. What, it's going inside a cake. No points for pretty.

Pie issues: the frozen crusts were underwhelming. They didn't come with a top for the cherry pie, but it doesn't really matter. They take an hour to bake. And, they're nine inches. My largest cake pan is nine inches. Leaving no margin for error dumping the pie in between layers of cake batter.

That, times three.

Cake issues: they took forever to bake. We used all of the cake batter, not 75% of it. Apparently the heat doesn't go through the pie very well, so it was jiggly on top in a circle over the pie. Each cake ended up taking around an hour to bake.

Six hours later ...

Yes. SIX HOURS.

This monstrosity was in the refrigerator. We kind of rushed through stacking and frosting because after six hours you just want to eat some cake! Refrigerating helped it cool and set and stop tilting over.

After a week, a third is gone, a little slice is still in the refrigerator, and half is frozen. It's good, but only so good. At this point you could safely say baking a cherpumple should be an Olympic event.

Would I make one again? No. Not unless someone paid me, and it was for a group of ten or more people. I would consider making a single layer, though. That is way more manageable, and still funny.

Newlywed Chocolate Cookies

2010-10-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

Lately I've seen a lot of articles on the internet about how your spouse makes you fat. Let's talk about this for a minute. You just got married, theoretically happy and in love, and everything is right with the world. Except those pounds that have crept on. And it's totally not your fault! It's that horrible person that just promised to love you forever!

Good grief, people.

Then again, maybe they got a cookbook as a wedding gift, and made these cookies. They will not last the day.

The secret is the melted chocolate in the batter. Oh dear. Just trust me on this one: go out to the store now, buy some chocolate, and get to work.

Have a good weekend!

Empanadas

2010-10-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

Let's widen our horizons for a moment.

All over the world, there's a dish of meat wrapped in a pastry crust. Sometimes they're sweet. It's hard to go wrong with something wrapped in dough. There are a lot of names, but let's roll with empanadas today.

This recipe was pretty helpful in getting the dough and the cooking time right. As for the filling, I put some beef in the slow cooker, and also made some slow cooker salsa chicken.

So, I guess you could say these take a lot of work. First, the slow cooker, to get the meat filling just right. Then rolling out the dough. That is my least favorite step of any recipe - getting the counter all flour-y and then trying to scrape up the pasty flour and dough bits. Ugh.

It's not that bad. Really. And in case you're wondering, the circles were cut out using a cereal bowl as a template.

I would say, just as good as Empanada's Place. But that place really rocks, nice people, and amazing prices. So you should check it out if you're around. Save your time for Facebook.

Macaroni & Cheese

2010-10-06T22:42:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have heard of the Pioneer Woman.

I have nothing against her. She's probably really cool. But the recipes ... I don't know. I think I'm intimidated. And we'll talk about the butter chicken someday. Today we're going to talk about macaroni and cheese.

I'll grant that the blue box is rather underwhelming. Am I right? But sometimes you want Mexican food, and sometimes you want Taco Bell. Everyone knows they're not the same, but they both have their place in the world. Although, I'm actually a white-shells-and-cheddar type of girl.

First, I didn't use whole milk. I used skim. And margarine. And some regular mustard. And broccoli. Because I wasn't about to have dinner without some vegetables.

I'd make it again ... maybe for someone else. Because for a party, homemade macaroni and cheese sounds so. Can you imagine showing up to Thanksgiving with this? What? You don't have macaroni & cheese at your Thanksgiving dinners?

Weird.

Birthday Cupcakes

2010-10-05T22:43:00.000-07:00

Gratuitous cupcake shot!!

These were for my coworker's birthday. I know she likes chocolate and ... chocolate. The sprinkles were a risk I was willing to take.

Who doesn't like sprinkles?

Chunky Monkey Cupcakes

2010-10-04T22:46:00.000-07:00

Banana. Peanut butter. Chocolate.

Our neighbor gave us this book, the Cake Mix Doctor. I say us, because seriously, do you think the mister doesn't benefit? It's a great book, if you want/need a souped up dessert. The good doctor has a website, too.

And in this case, gave me the right proportions to turn a plain white cake mix into banana cupcakes!

There wasn't too much banana called for in the recipe. But believe me, they were certainly banana-y.

As for frosting, I made peanut butter frosting with some leftover chocolate chips. Which came out looking like cookie dough, confusing everyone at the event. Oh well. I didn't hear any complaints.

Ice Cream & Cake

2010-09-13T22:47:00.000-07:00

For his birthday, my lovely husband likes ice cream cake. He's a summer birthday, just about the time of year that ice cream is necessary.

A couple of years ago, I spent an amazing amount of money on a ridiculously small ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. The girl at the counter kindly offered to write on it, but who knows where the writing would have gone, and how small it would need to be!

I was kind of sour on the whole thing. (At the time I did not know that Albertson's sells them, but there are only two of us anyway so a cake is bound to last.)

Then Real Simple comes along with blah blah making an ice cream cake is so easy! And you know what? It is. And it only cost around $8, all things considered.

Step 1: Bake the cake. I used a regular chocolate mix in my 9" springform pan. The springform is key, because it makes for easy assembly.

Step 2: When the cake is cool, unhinge the cake and split it. Take off the top half, and rehinge the pan around the bottom half.

Step 3: Set some ice cream out to soften. Spread it to the edges of the pan on the bottom half of the cake. You might want to consider melting a light layer of chocolate on the bottom half of the cake so it doesn't get soggy while you're adding the ice cream, but it's not really necessary. I used almost a whole carton of Breyer's chocolate, minus an enormous glop on the floor. Whoops.

Step 4: Drop the top half of the cake back in, and throw the whole thing in the freezer. No need to cover it, although you might want to later if it's going to be a while.

Step 5: Frost the cake however you see fit. I just did the top with some plain buttercream so I could leave the sides of the pan on in the freezer.

A funny thing to notice: the cake shrinks way more than the ice cream will in the freezer. You could always cover that up with frosting. Don't worry; the cake and frosting doesn't get weird when it's frozen.

I'm not a big fan of ice cream cake. I don't like the ice cream melting and making the cake all soggy. But it's honestly just like Baskin Robbins. So plan ahead and experiment with your own ice cream cake.

Baklava

2010-09-08T14:40:00.000-07:00

Guys, I hate baklava.

Just so you know.

Yes, the knife was standing up on its own.

Pho Weekend

2010-09-07T18:46:00.000-07:00

I couldn't tell you what I've been so busy doing lately, but it seems like time has been going a lot faster (despite the longer daylight hours). It was busy time at work, so there was that. Then there's the whole ... I don't think my cooking has been as good as it was before. Kind of a bummer.

In one weekend I,

Slept. I earned it.
Made english muffins. They were only OK. Stupid whole wheat flour.
Went to Tuesday Morning. I've heard about that store for years, and finally went. That place is cracked out and I will not be back. I thought I'd pick up a mandoline on the cheap; the only one they had there was $80. I got mine from Target for $9.
Did my shopping. There was a lot to do.
Attempted to finish my wedding scrapbook. If only I could be more decisive on paper. The scrapbooking aisle(s) are just way too overwhelming.
Started my container garden. No more 1" pots sitting in front of the window! Now I have an array of 6" pots seeded and tomatoes started again.
Ordered some bookshelves I've been meaning to order for, oh, maybe a couple of months. Crate and Barrel had the ones I wanted for $139 each, plus delivery. I found them on Overstock.com (not exactly the same, but so close I had to put them side by side to tell the difference) for $80 + $1 shipping. Win.
Ran. For the first time in over a week.
Vacuumed the whole house, scrubbed the floor, and cleaned. I feel so much better.
Visited Food 4 Less for the first time ever, despite our old apartment being just blocks from one. It was FUN. I don't think people there have ever seen anyone actually say "ooh!" out loud when looking at the spice shelves.

It's been a cool summer. The perfect weather for pho, actually.

I don't usually have meat bones sitting around, so I boiled some giant fatty chunks from the roast leftovers. And, I didn't have nice little spice baggies for boiling, so I dumped the spices in two coffee filters and tied them off with thread. Luckily they didn't explode, and the chunks didn't melt! It even got a little frothy on top, which seemed to be a good sign since the sites I looked at online complained about it.

I boiled the chunks and packets for an hour, meanwhile slicing the roast (cold, straight out of the refrigerator) with my shiny new mandoline, chopping up the green onions, and softening the bean strands.

True story: as I was chopping the green onion, I kept looking at the little white bulbs. Ultimately I picked the three most viable-looking (green tops left, and longish roots), came running upstairs, and stuck them in deep holes in an unseeded pot. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that they'd grow again. Husband didn't find any of this peculiar.

English Muffins

2010-09-06T22:28:00.000-07:00

One time, I saw this utterly ridiculous video on the internet of a man who made a full-on meal in a hotel room from ingredients available at the corner store. I don't know if I buy the whole thing but it did make me stop and think ... are English muffins really that easy to make?

Sure, with a lot of time and patience. We usually buy whole wheat English muffins, so that's what I made. And truthfully, they are easy to make. But, as you can see, I wasn't very patient and had the heat on too high.

Maybe next time I'll try it on the iron.

Angel Food Cake

2010-09-03T22:16:00.000-07:00

For one of my coworker's birthday this year, I decided to make an angel food cake. I reeeeally wanted to make one.

In hindsight, I hardly make angel food, because I've never really liked it. Give me chocolate anything any day.

Did you know it takes nine egg whites to make it from scratch? Nine egg whites, some sugar and flour to make a bowl full of pretty white fluff.

Getting these out of the pan seems to be a little tricky. By the way, covering up a mess with sticky vanilla glaze doesn't make it less of a mess. I felt bad taking it in, because the cakes at the store are all smooth and lovely looking.

No one at work seemed to mind.

You might ask, "but what do you do with the nine egg yolks?" Silly question.

Gratuitous creme brulee shot!!

Pumpkin Cake

2010-09-02T22:09:00.000-07:00

Splenda's website has a wealth of healthy recipes. And, I'm kind of a Splenda fan. Probably only because it dissolves fast in my coffee, and doesn't make nasty coffee-sugar sludge at the bottom.

Here's what you do with an extra can of pumpkin, aging walnuts, and two giant bags of Splenda: pumpkin cake.

It's really more of a pie.

I did use some regular sugar, but here's an important lesson: baked goods made with Splenda will not rise. Whatever sugar does, Splenda (regular, not the type especially for baking) does not.

Although, I made a loaf of my failproof blueberry quick oat bread using 1/4 sugar and the rest Splenda, and it came out perfect. But that's why it's failproof.

Donuts

2010-09-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

Cooking fancy dishes is fun, but sometimes cooking with a neat trick is even more fun. Did you know you can make donuts out of pre-made biscuits?

I wouldn't recommend it.

Frying is a pain. No matter what. You can see some of those little guys are burned, and that's because I hate frying.
Pre-made biscuit dough sometimes has these enormous salt crystals in them. For whatever reason, that grosses me out a little.
Those little holes? They don't stand a chance. (I won't judge.)
You could easily eat a whole can of biscuits, which is about 1,200 calories not including any glaze you might want to add. Again, I won't judge, but just think about that a minute.

Just walk yourself down to 7-11 and pay the $2 for coffee & donut tomorrow, OK?

Easter Eggs

2010-08-31T22:05:00.000-07:00

This is a cute idea to make candy Easter eggs. They were pretty tricky to make, and I wish the instructions were a little more detailed. For instance, I've since learned that if you want smooth, shiny chocolate coating, you need to temper the chocolate.

I made a huge batch for my parents for Easter. Let's just say ... they had to get out of the house.

These are a reasonable approximation of Cadbury eggs, my super favorite candy of all time. In fact, I have a couple of boxes from last year saved in the freezer. You know, in case of emergency.

From what I heard, these didn't last long at my parents' house either.

Garlicky Baked Shrimp

2010-08-30T19:41:00.000-07:00

If you like garlic, and you like shrimp, then you should certainly try this recipe out.

That yellow mush is cornmeal. I like it a lot more than mashed potatoes, but those are good too.

I had a fail and bought tail-on shrimp. What a pain. The worst part is I keep failing over and over again ... I think someone is putting the wrong bag in the tail-off boxes at Costco. 'Cause this is getting ridiculous.

Monster Mac

2010-08-03T21:59:00.000-07:00

One of my friends came by to learn how to make those fad-tastic little French cookies.

Not one to waste batter, we used the last in a piping bag to make ...

The MONSTER MAC!!!

That, my chickadees, is a single macaron with a regular-sized one for comparison.

Monster mac was about the size of a slice of bread, which we filled, folded in half, and ATE.

Seriously, am I the only person that's Americanized such a refined treat?

Tortillas

2010-08-02T21:50:00.000-07:00

One of the fascinating things I find about cooking dishes from different cultures is that there is always some variation of bread - some combination of flour, water, and heat.

And bread is always good.

Now that I'm pretty much a full resident of southern California, it was time I made tortillas.

Beautiful, no?

I'm glad I tried it. Probably wouldn't try it again. They're a lot of effort, especially if you don't have a press to get them really, really thin. And they're so cheap and tasty from the store, why mess with success?

Slow cooker salsa chicken. Always a win.

Party Ideas

2010-07-30T21:39:00.000-07:00

A while back, we had a little get together at our house. I don't want to call it a party, so we'll just leave it at that.

There were a lot of people, so we just got one of those giant sandwich trays from Costco. Love those, by the way. They're always a win.

Now, no event at my house is complete without me cooking something.

Bread is pretty simple to make, believe it or not, so I made a couple of loaves with garlic mixed in, and topped with tomatoes and olives to serve with cheese. Yum. Too bad no one really liked olives.
Then I had the creative idea to serve a simple, easy, but unique dessert. Smores!

Yes, I know most of the fun of these is getting to play with fire in a semi-dangerous situation, but it was mid-day and there were a lot of people. And yes, these are just marshmallows dipped in chocolate and rolled in crushed up graham crackers. And ... they sort of look like little mushrooms. Which would be cute for a garden themed party right?

But I swear I set out a couple of plates of these (LOTS of marshmallows) and they were all gone.

Chickpeas!

2010-07-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

So I'm scrolling through foodgawker after work one day and see a photo of a popcorn bucket full of crispity, crunchity chickpeas. Really? A healthy alternative to chips?

Essentially, you flavor the chickpeas however you like, and bake them at 400 degrees for 40 minutes, stirring periodically. I couldn't decide between sweet and spicy, so I put honey and cinnamon on one half of the can, and olive oil and cayenne on the other half.

Forty minutes later I had these. I tried a hot one of each, straight out of the oven. I think the sweet ones were a little overcooked, and they didn't taste very sweet. The spicy ones were a little better, only because they were flavorful.

Imagine a flavored nut mix. That's sort of what these taste like.

I'd make them again, but not be shy on the seasoning. And I'd make more! Time to invest in some dry bean bags, rather than my oh-so-convenient cans.

**edit: Still totally love these. I went out and bought a couple of bags of dried chickpeas, but they are a PAIN in the BUTT. Sure, they're cheap, but you really have to plan ahead, and that's just not something I'm going to do.

Guinness Cake

2010-07-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

In the theme of Irish foods: how about a beer cake?

Here are a couple of recipes to use as a guide, one with sour cream and one with coffee. I didn't add either, so it was essentially a chocolate cake with a bottle of Guinness instead of the water you'd normally use.

The rather disappointing thing is, it doesn't taste like beer at all. It's a great cake, but I was kind of hoping for a unique flavor. Mint flavored frosting, though.

The decoration was a very cute idea stolen from Martha Stewart. I drew a clover on a sheet of paper, cut it out, and laid the paper on top of the cake. It helps if you press it down a little, so the sugar doesn't get under the template. And stick with a simpler design; the clover might have been a little detailed.

Given the meh results, I may or may not be interested in trying the diet Coke cake any more.

MLB All Star 5k

2010-07-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

For all of you who ask, "how do you cook so much and stay thin?" Well, here's how. I don't.

Running in the new neighborhood (which isn't so new anymore, really) isn't as convenient as the old neighborhood. There are hills. And traffic. So I stopped running as often, and what happened from there should be pretty obvious.

First, I caved and bought Jillian Michael's 30 day shred. It's 100% gimmicky but I've heard so much about it, I figured for a few bucks I'd try it. Have I mentioned how much I do not like her? Or the Biggest Loser? I only watched it once but ... we'll, I'll elaborate if you want some other time. Suffice it to say, do not like. New arch nemesis.

Sad to say, it really does work. I haven't done a consistent 30 days because I can't. I hurt so much the next day that I can barely walk, much less do it again or go running. And I fancy myself a fairly fit person.

But this was supposed to be about the MLB All Star game 5k event. They really made this game into a week-long deal. Anyway, I dragged my poor husband at the crack of dawn on a Sunday out to Angels Stadium in Anaheim for the race.

What can I say? The course was nice. It was reminiscent of that-we-can't-talk-about-this-year
and my arch nemesis was there to kick things off. Ugh.

But guess what?

Super PR!! When I saw the clock at 28 minutes, I threw myself a big cheering party across the timing mats. Did I look insane? Probably. Whatever.

And for new runners, or people who are just curious: this is the first race I've run the whole way through, without walking. That obviously contributed to my time, but I wasn't doing poorly walking either. So, don't worry if you have to walk every now and then. You'll get there!

Irish Soda Bread

2010-07-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

So let's try again.

Remember when I graduated from school and said I was going to sleep for a month? I may or may not have done that. And then everything was supposed to be all easy and fun.
Instead all this other stuff happened. I was blogging and that was kind of fun, but I never really advertised it because I really don't like attention (true story). But here's the other part of the story: there's a whooooole lot of life outside my kitchen. Plus most of my work is sitting on the computer, so guess what I don't want to do when I get home? There's this huge world of stuff to see and do and being on a computer all the time = not fun for me.

Not to mention the pressure. I cook a lot, and the photos are a pain to edit and upload and all that garbage (I don't like to read blogs without photos). So those add up. Maybe I got burned out on cooking, too, since I felt like I always had to make something new and exciting. Dumb, I know.

But people see my pictures on facebook. Actually, lots of people. So maybe they're not interested in a blog about how to actually make the stuff, but it sure does help me - I make the same thing over and over again if it's good, and every time I make it I think "ooh, next time, I'll do this!" And promptly forget.

Here's the deal: I'll do 50% catch up, and 50% new stuff. Here's catch up #1:

Irish Soda Bread.

Around St. Patrick's Day (MARCH, people), the internet was all about making Irish foods. I resisted, because this must have been around the time that I was getting a little burned out. But then at the last minute, I really, really wanted to jump on the bandwagon.

Hence, the Irish soda bread, which was what I could make late on St. Patrick's Day with stuff on hand. It came out ugly, but so good. There's about 1,000 recipes, but this one worked just fine.

Stick around and if you're nice, I'll let you in on the other good stuff I've been cooking.

It's looking at me.

2010-03-31T16:15:00.000-07:00

One day I came home from work, and wanted a snack. Specifically, bread and butter. Most people would probably just get a slice of bread and eat that but me? I have to make some skillet bread.

Everything was going fine until I flipped it onto a plate ...

I ate it anyway.

Depression Cake

2010-03-30T21:25:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not depressed. But if, say, you were depressed, a chocolate cake would surely cure it, right? As the story goes, during the depression eggs and butter were hard to get, so people figured out how to make a chocolate cake without them. Of course, I want to try!

The vinegar in the recipe was kind of a turn off, though. It's just there for the chemical reaction, but doesn't it sound gross?

(Sorry for posting giant pictures of delicious cake.)

This was probably the densest, moist chocolate cake I've ever eaten. Almost like the cake you'd get at a restaurant. Which makes me wonder - do they not use eggs or butter in their cakes either? I could see that being a sweet cost-cutting trick.

I tried making Martha Stewart's champagne truffles a while back, and it didn't go so well. So I melted down the leftovers and poured it over the whole cake. It eventually hardened to a fudge-like consistency. Yum.

Pi Day

2010-03-29T19:19:00.000-07:00

Did you know that March 14 is Pi Day? Probably, if you're reading my blog. If not, I'm not making it up. I put it on the calendar and everything.

The only question is: what kind of pie to make?

Years ago, when I first started collecting recipes off the internet, I printed instructions to make hand pies. The recipe was specifically for blackberries, but I had blueberries. Same difference, if you ask me.

Since there's no link to be found, here's what I did:

Blueberry Hand Pies

For the filling:

1 cup blueberries
1 tbs cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar

Boil these all together until it gets thick and syrupy. It should only take a few minutes, and the thicker the better so the filling doesn't run all over your crusts.

For the crust:

1 & 1/4 cup flour
6 tbs butter
3 tbs water
a little salt

Mix these together until it gets crumbly. I did it in my mixer, but I know some people do it with a food processor or by hand. Whichever you like, just make it doughy. Depending on how you mixed it, you should probably throw it back in the refrigerator to get the dough stiffer. I went straight to the rolling out, since the mixer doesn't really heat up the dough at all.

Roll the dough out pretty thin - it will get a little thicker once baked. I used a mini tart pan (about 4-5" wide) to cut out pretty ruffly circles. Put each cutout on a baking sheet with parchment paper and drop a spoonful of filling onto one side of the circle. Fold the dough over in half, and seal them with either a little water, extra dough, or a fork.

Bake for 20 minutes at 375 degrees.

My circles were on the bigger side, so I only got five out of this recipe. But oh, they were good. The perfect size for just a little pie, and not overwhelming with blueberries.

Oh, and I entered the nutritional information into a calculator for you, if you're interested. You're welcome.

Carpeting

2010-03-28T21:05:00.000-07:00

Remember how I said I had my "I am woman, hear me roar" moment? Here it is.

Houses around here have all different laundry configurations: upstairs, downstairs, garage. Our laundry is in the garage. It's neither here nor there to me; it's not like the house is so massive it's a pain to run a load downstairs. And it's not like we're waiting two weeks in between laundry loads any more. Have I mentioned I love having my own machines at my disposal? I do.

Anyway, the only downside is the garage is concrete, and has two concrete steps down. And it's nasty to step barefoot on cold, cold concrete. We put a big piece of carpet scrap down in front of the machines, but it's old and nasty and dirty. And you still have to travel down those cold steps.

Plus, two cars barely fit despite being a two-car garage. It's not like it's full of stuff either (so don't bother coming to rob the garage). The steps are in just the right spot to block your car door, if you pull in far enough.

Obviously the solution is to carpet the steps. And DIY, not actually pay a professional. Duh.

We bought some relatively inexpensive carpet from Home Depot on a trip (long, long ago - the Christmas overhaul in which I did not participate really wore me out). It was less than $1 per square foot. I measured six ways until Sunday, and we over-bought. I think, in total, $30. Seriously, I only used about half.

I measured each cut about three times, marking the back with a sharpie, then cutting a little with tin snips. Measure, mark, measure, snip, measure, mark, measure, snip. The sides required more cutting, but were actually easier to cut; the smaller pieces were a little more wieldy than the long strip down the face of the steps.

We bought a little tub of carpet adhesive based on the Home Depot guy's recommendation of what would stick to concrete. The alternative was a giant tub. I used the whole thing, without even a little to spare. It was a lot like frosting a cake! There were some bubbles and I was afraid it wasn't going to stick (although I got some on my fingers and then couldn't get anything not to stick) so I set random junk around the garage on top. See what I mean about robbing our garage?

I'm pretty happy with the results! It's not perfect or professional, but it's cushy and not cold when you step out to do a load of laundry.

The remnant will probably go to replace the beige remnant that's already in front of the machines. I think there's enough left over to almost cover between the steps and the door.

Maybe one of these days we'll do a project inside the house!

Ice Cream Pie

2010-03-11T18:22:00.000-08:00

Prepare yourselves, my dears.

Remember that whole one-ingredient ice cream fad? Leslie has one-upped us all. And of course I show this to my husband and over the drooling I think he said something like "make this please!"

So I did.

First, we need a pie crust. For whatever reason I could get to Target, but not the grocery store, so I ended up with nilla wafers upon request rather than a pre-made graham or chocolate crust. Unfortunately for waistlines everywhere, I used this Southern food recipe. I baked it much longer, about 20 minutes, because it wasn't going to go in the oven again.

Then I dropped two bananas and a big scoop of peanut butter into the food processor. Two layers was just a little too much work! Once in ooey-gooey state, I spread it into the pie crust and plunked the whole deal into the freezer.

What's that in the background? Oh yes. No chocolate syrup here. I topped slices with Nutella.

Something about the freezing really brought out the peanut butter flavor. I was a little worried that it wouldn't be peanut-buttery enough. And as an added bonus, nilla wafers seem to be a fairly light alternative!

I think I'm off the hook ever spending $30 on the smallest ice cream cake available at Baskin Robbins.

Oven Fries

2010-03-10T21:23:00.000-08:00

I try, very hard actually, to eat well. Stick to healthy food, more vegetables than cookies, easy on the meat and carbs.

But we went to BJ's. I had chili, which was good, but other people had fries. French fries!! Rolled in trans fats and dipped in MSG!

As soon as we walked in the door I started chopping potatoes, without any real direction.

I'll guess I cooked these until crispy-looking at 350 degrees. With Lawry's salt and ketchup.

Why don't I make these more often?

Red Lobster Biscuits

2010-03-09T18:26:00.000-08:00

Don't laugh.

You've been to Red Lobster. You know these biscuits are probably the very best part of a trip there. Actually, Red Lobster is one of my family's places. There aren't a lot of places to get good seafood there - we're so spoiled here on the coast! And I will not eat something out of the Mississippi River. Just trust me.

Plus, I have a special memory from a dinner there. My grandmother, who by the way is one of the coolest people ever, told me to try one of her crab legs. And I did, even though I wasn't a seafood-eater at all. Thus started an expensive habit.

Anyway, recipes kept popping up everywhere. To the point that I finally gave in.

And, sadly, these didn't cut it for me. But I'm pretty sure it was my fault. I bought this "heart smart" Bisquick the last time, and I don't think it's as good as the real thing. And then I didn't have any oregano (I know!!), so I substituted parsley. Fail, guys. Fail.

I'd try again, and pay better attention to the recipe. But I'll stick to my California seafood.

Baked Potato Eggs

2010-03-08T21:57:00.000-08:00

Why didn't we think of this before? I agree. Why didn't we think of this before??

Why baking a potato, hollowing it out, and cracking an egg inside it was suddenly the talk of the day, I'll never know. Such is the case with all the blogs I read. They all seem to get the same brilliant ideas at the same time.

Think of these as a kind of twice baked potato, without the mashed potato filling. I used a recipe from Real Simple, but there's a lot of opportunity here.

Have you ever noticed how enormous the regular white potatoes are? Is that just my neighborhood? I swear each one itself weighs a pound.

Step 1: Bake potato.

Step 2: Hollow out, insert egg. Be careful, and hollow out as much as you can. They're delicate. I don't know about you, but I always buy extra large eggs. No reason.

Step 3: Add cheese. Everything is better with cheese.

They ended up being kind of a lot of work, because it takes a long time to bake a potato and you almost have to bake it twice. I know you can make baked potatoes in the microwave, and I wouldn't blame you for trying it. On the other hand, they keep well, so you could always make a big bunch and refrigerate or freeze them. A half of one of those giant potatoes? Perfect for a relatively healthy lunch (if not smothered in cheeeeeeeese).

Cupcake Hero!!

2010-03-07T18:53:00.000-08:00

See, I read all these blogs. Mostly about cupcakes. And one has this contest, Cupcake Her o. I kind of always wanted to enter but it's kind of intimidating. And this month the secret ingredient was caramel, and hey, I know how to bake pretty well, and I have a blog, so ... here I am entering a cupcake contest.

I'm not used to, um, actually documenting what I do. Or measuring. But I actually took notes. Yeah, I'm really trying this time.

So on to the good stuff! I humbly present Devil's Caramel Cupcakes.

For the cupcakes:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup powdered sugar
2/3 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup butter (OK, I used my good buddy Imperial. So that's 60% vegetable oil margarine.)
1/2 cup cocoa
1 and 1/4 cup water
1 and 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg
2 egg whites
5 tablespoons caramel

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Step 2: Cream the butter and sugar. Start slowly lest it fly all over your kitchen (not like I know anything about that).

Step 3: Add the flour, soda, salt, baking powder, eggs, and water. I sort of did it in that order.

Step 4: Pour out one cup of batter and put it aside. This will become the caramel layer.

Step 5: Add the cocoa to the batter. Mix it for a good few minutes to get everything smooth.

Step 6: Fill the cupcake liners a little less than half full with the chocolate batter. We have these really big soup spoons that came with our silverware set, and I used about one giant spoonful of those.

Step 7: Whisk together 5 tablespoons of caramel with the cup of cake batter. I used a fork in a bowl, but if you have two mixing bowls (lucky!), you could do it with the mixer too. Also, I used Smucker's Sundae Syrup. 'Cause making cupcakes was daunting enough without being super industrious and making caramel too.

Step 8: Fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 full with the caramel batter. This was about the same giant spoonful, and ends up was just exactly enough for 12 cupcakes.

Step 9: Top with a dollop of chocolate batter. Keep in mind that I kind of overfilled, because I love when the cupcake puffs out over the top of the cupcake liner.

Step 10: Bake for 3o minutes. I'm basically at sea level, though, so check with a toothpick if you're not quite sure. The coloring reminds me of rottweilers.

For the frosting:

1 cup butter (Yes, real butter this time!)
1 lb. powdered sugar
1/3 cup caramel

You know the drill. Mix together.

Then go get your husband to use his fancy expensive camera to take extra nice pictures in exchange for eating said cupcake. Yeah, I could have done it myself. But I carpeted the garage steps today. I already had my "I am woman, hear me roar" moment. Plus, eating cupcakes with someone you love is that much more fun.

Butternut Squash Soup

2010-03-05T21:56:00.000-08:00

So, I tried to make butternut squash once before, and it came out icky. I was not a fan. The recipe seemed to try to make it a sweeter soup, rather than a savory one. Maybe it's like taking a big sip of lemonade when you think there's milk in the cup, and the shock turns you off of both for a while.

Anyway, I bought a bag of frozen butternut squash chunks from the frozen food aisle. Not really sure why. Maybe out of desperation, because of that pumpkin puree drought threat? It sat in the freezer for a while, until one colder night when a lighter, warm dinner was in the cards.

I pulled up this recipe, mostly because it didn't call for cinnamon, which I associate with sweets. And threw in some toast for good measure.

This changed my opinion on butternut squash soup (and so did a carton from Trader Joe's). With the added benefit of not having to chop up a whole squash!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-03-04T21:55:00.000-08:00

OK, time to start knocking posts out and catching up on the kitchen escapades.

I've mentioned before and I'll do it again: I'm really not good at the traditional, wonderful, chocolate chip cookie. Nope. I've tried different recipes, different tricks, different places ... nothing. I halfheartedly saved this recipe to try, figuring I'd get the craving at some point and that would be the one I'd try.

It ended up that a game night at our house, a glass of wine, and yelling "who wants cookies??" is a completely appropriate time to try a new recipe.

Check these babies out!

Forget the Tollhouse recipe. This is the one to use. It doesn't make too many cookies - and I'm not a fan of making especially large ones. They were gone almost immediately!

Valentine's Day

2010-03-03T21:21:00.000-08:00

Ah, Valentine's Day. I'm a little behind, aren't I? Things have been going on. Lots of ... things.

I was planning on making something to send to my very dear friend who sent me rugelach right when the water heater decided it wasn't longed for this world after all. So, I was a little (lot) behind. What I wanted to make was something like this. Aren't they amazing? Guess what. You can't make macaroons with regular flour when you're out of almond meal. We ended up eating them, but they weren't decent enough to leave the house.

I still wanted to send something. But now I obviously was attracted to the more foolproof. So, back to my most-amazing-sugar-cookies ever.

I had a bunch of white icing left over from some other project, and made up some red royal icing to decorate the cookies. But, even these weren't failsafe.

Don't worry, they came out just fine. But it's like I was cursed:

I forgot to set the timer for one batch, and they were very overcooked. Edible, but not that pretty sugar cookie color.
Do you know what conversation hearts say? Neither do I. And it was hard to come up with ideas!
Piping took for-ever. And after piping a whole rack? Dropped them, face down, on the kitchen floor. (Don't worry, those didn't get mailed either!)

The ones that did turn out, did so beautifully. And they're sturdy enough to travel well. So I made more to send to my parents!

As for our Valentine's day plans? We had a fabulous day in Irvine. Someone told me about the Great Park Balloon almost a year ago, and I was dying to go. We didn't get on the morning rides, so we had to wait until the evening. I had the California Roll appetizer at the Yardhouse - a lot of food, but really fancy! When we finally got boarding passes for the balloon around 7:30 that night, it started to occur to me ... the balloon would go 500 feet up in the air ... tethered only by a cable ... with a bunch of people ... all standing on a donut-shaped platform a yard wide. Whose idea was that??

FYI: I survived.

Eco-friendly Wine Wrapping

2010-02-12T17:33:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I get these little crafty ideas. Just a tickle in the back of my mind that goes and goes until I stop and think it through. And believe it or not, I'm not always in the kitchen. OK, this project basically took place in the kitchen, but it's not food related. OK, it is a little food related.

I'd gotten some unique champagne to give as a Christmas gift. Sure, you could just strap some ribbon around the bottle's neck, wrap it with real paper, or actually buy a gift bag. But this champagne came from that skin-crawling pit of despair, Trader Joe's. Double bagged in their stupid, weak paper bags. If they didn't have those slightly odd things that I sometimes need/want, it would have absolutely no redeeming qualities at all.

As the bottles sat in their bags, I kept thinking about how I was going to wrap them using the bags. I don't even remember consciously coming up with this plan; it was just, all of a sudden, how I was going to wrap these bottles.

It looks cute. Here's how you do it.

Step 1:

Gently pull the handles off. It's not hard, because they're crap anyway.

Step 2:

Cut down the seam of the bag, and then start cutting around the bottom. You'll stop cutting around the bottom when you reach the last short side. In other words, only one short side and half of the long side will still be attached to the top part of the bag, like so:

Step 3:

Put the bottle down in that little corner pocket, and fold the loose corner of the bag's bottom up. Here's where you "artfully" scrunch around the bottom and wrap the tall part of the bag around the bottle. It should be in a nice, long flap.

Step 4:

Tape where the wrapping ends to hold it in place. Then scrunch around the lower neck of the bottle, and either tape or tie a ribbon around it.

Step 5:

Cut about 1" thick strips around the top, down toward the bottle, stopping where the neck is taped/tied. It'll rip a little, and the strips will get soft and flappy because these bags are seriously worthless. I stopped cutting when there was just one layer of paper around the neck of the bottle, to kind of keep it concealed.

Final product:

Your environmentally-friendly friends will think that you've finally seen their way, and find you awesome. Your regular friends will think it's cute but will care more about the wine and why you're so cheap and lazy that you can't buy regular bags.

Resolution #1: Purge! Or letting go.

2010-02-11T19:46:00.000-08:00

Yup, I made a boring one. Clean up and get organized.

Now, storage really hasn't become a problem yet. You tend to live pretty efficiently when you're continuously planning your next move, packing up, and moving to a new apartment (notorious for limited storage space). But over years, you tend to accumulate ... stuff. And it all seems pretty important.

First, I have boxes of books from school. I'll bet you do too. Oh Amazon textbook trade-in, where were you years ago when I needed you? I did alright in undergrad with the book exchange, but that was only around my last year or so and didn't really help me on the other side of the country.

It turns out that trading in your textbooks isn't worth it, if you can sell them in the marketplace! For example: I had a pristine finance textbook that they'd take as a trade in for $10. I sold it in the marketplace for $57. I can price my books low, because I'm really just trying to get rid of them. And I'd like to tell myself that I'm helping someone out who would otherwise struggle to afford a book that, new, costs three times as much. And it's fascinating to see the names and addresses where they've all been going. Between that, and media mail rates at the USPS on the way home from work, this is turning into a fairly successful operation!

Then there's the stacks of boxes in the closet, of which you have to open every single one until you find what you're looking for. These are all now labeled, and if I can get rid of more of these books, I can condense the boxes even more. But I'm stuck on what to do with the specially printed readers - suggestions? I have a full box.

Then there's the clothes. I only buy and keep clothes that I love, but you can see how this might get overwhelming over the years. (Yes, I still have clothes from high school ... and maybe some from junior high school ...) Some just don't fit any more. Some are so old and worn, that I should really stop wearing them to work, as wearing worn out clothes doesn't actually motivate anyone to pay you more.

Among deciding what stays and what goes is deciding what to fix and what to let go. Favorite black pants with the missing hook? Fixed. And worn liberally since. Although now I have an entire box of what look like extremely large bra hooks, and I don't intend on making my own bras thank you. Shoes with the loose button are almost fixed. Pilly, shrunken sweaters that are too warm for California? Out.

So, I've made a little progress. There's a lot to go - organizing paperwork, craft supplies, cards. And moving boxes I haven't even unpacked yet. Here's to a neatly organized home in 2010!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies

2010-02-10T17:32:00.000-08:00

One day I was extolling the virtues of peanut butter and chocolate with a very good friend of mine. You can imagine how deep this conversation might have been.

Doesn't a peanut butter cookie sound good? You see why this is an important conversation.

And then I was lamenting the fact that we had all this chocolate left over from Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I love chocolate. But melted down chocolate chips aren't exactly the finest way to enjoy it. So what if ...

What if you mixed melted chocolate in to peanut butter cookies?

There are obviously a few different ways this could work out. The chocolate could make the batter runny in the oven, and they might not ever come together. Or the chocolate could harden more like candy than cookie. And I was leaning toward it being an incredible runny mess. I like to stick to established, tested recipes. This is a pretty big deviation.

I started by making regular peanut butter cookies. The particular recipe I was looking at even suggested adding chocolate chips at the end, so once the cookie batter was together I added the great experiment: melted chocolate. I'd estimate I had about a cup to use.

It looked a lot like ice cream. The consistency in the mixer was a lot like ice cream. But it was obviously warm. I stopped mixing when there were still discernible swirls in the batter; any more and I think it would have blended together all the way. For future reference.

No special cooking here. Just the same as what the recipe called for (although you can see my bff parchment paper underneath the cookies).

These couldn't have come out better. The chocolate didn't harden into big chunks when the cookies cooled, and didn't ooze all over the oven. It was sort of like eating a peanut butter cup with a little cookie layer. Sure, sometimes there was more of one flavor than the other, but who is really going to complain about that?

They're especially neat because they didn't really require anything unusual. A little less mixing would make bigger swirls, and that might look cool. Or a little more, and no one would suspect they were peanut butter!

Pepperpot Beef

2010-02-09T17:13:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, I had a beautiful wedding and an absolutely perfect honeymoon. But you probably already knew that. Or now you're thinking, "great, another girl who's going to relive her wedding for the next 20 years." Not so.

But, it happened, and we had some amazing food while touring the Caribbean. One of which was a dish that I could only tell you was called "pepperpot beef" on the menu, and was amazing. It was essentially a dish of beef in a spicy sauce, served with sweet potatoes. Maybe not immediately the most appetizing-sounding combination, but believe me on this one.

Since then I've been snooping around for a recipe that sounds like it might get the same results. The beef was super tender, so anything I found would get cooked in the slow cooker. But as for the spices, I was at a loss.

Apparently, websites featuring recipes from the Caribbean are few and far between. For instance, everywhere we went there was this incredible yellow hot sauce. From what we heard, most people make it themselves, but you can also buy it. Yeah, if you want to pay three times the price of the bottle in shipping. As good as it was, around $50 for a bottle of hot sauce is a little beyond me.

I found this BBC recipe which happened to have the same name, and since it's been about nine months of looking, I was really ready for trying.

Now, this might be a good recipe. You might really like it. It didn't look very appetizing, but that's just how some slow cooker recipes look. And it was dark when I had it originally, so it might not have looked good either. But, it wasn't my Ti Kaye pepperpot beef.

I'm open to suggestions! If you figure it out, I'll make it for you!

February Resolutions

2010-02-08T22:20:00.000-08:00

I don't believe in new year's resolutions. The whole thing seems silly, because can't you resolve to do or not do something any time? Why not a Tuesday resolution, or a February 1st resolution?

And then, everyone seems to make one of a handful of the same resolutions: lose weight, save money, get organized, stop some bad habit. We're a creative bunch, aren't we?

Let's look at 2009 for a minute:

Graduated from school. Yes, I technically graduated in 2008, but all the celebrations were in May 2009, and my parents came to see me (!), and it's a really freaking big deal, so I can count it in two years.
Bought my first new car. What an experience.
Planned a wedding with all the fun before and after. Yes, I had help planning, and did do some before 2009, but the bulk of it happened those four months before.
Participated in a duathlon. That was a crazy experience. And the half marathon. Oh, and somehow trained for both.
Went to a cake decorating class. Mad skills acquired.
My newly minted little brother moved out to LA. Hi neighbor!
Rotated in to my last rotational position at work, and then got placed. That's three jobs in 2009. And yes, that's abnormal. Especially since one job was at a different site.
Bought a house, moved, and had our first married Christmas in our new home.

So, when I said I was tired and hoped 2010 was a big bore, I was completely serious.

But January 2010 was a terrible month. Lots of bad goings-on. And I realized that some of these things wouldn't have bothered me so much last year, because I had so many other things to divert my attention.

Don't worry, though: I'm going to give 2010 a chance to redeem itself. This year I'm going to do things that I wanted to do before, but didn't have time. Some things I've started, some I'm just starting, and some I don't even know where to begin! So I'll let you know if I get any bright ideas.

White Bean Chili

2010-02-05T21:11:00.000-08:00

I've been on a real soup-kick lately.

When I said I wanted to make white bean chili, the first thing my husband said was, "gross!" Like anything I make is bad!

OK, some of the stuff I've made is bad.

After some exaggerated pouting, I mentioned the key: "If I put bacon in it, will you try it?" I was pretty much going to make it either way. But the bacon did the trick.

I'm glad got mixed up and I didn't call it white bean soup. That just doesn't sound good at all.

In fact, I'll be the first to admit that just doesn't look very appetizing at all. I even made the picture smaller, just in case you're perusing my blog over dinner or during your lunch break. Sorry about that.

I like having chunks in my soup, so I didn't puree the whole thing down to smooth. And really, heavy cream? But either way, this was a great soup. I don't have white beans often, so the flavor was really unique. The bacon made it a little salty and a little crispy. And yes, we both liked it!

So when you make it, just close your eyes. Although I promise it looks less gross in real life.

Roasted Garlic & Potato Soup

2010-02-04T17:52:00.000-08:00

January is, without a doubt, diet month.

I'm not about to go on a diet. But I like light soups, and I like potatoes, and garlic. I won't begrudge a recipe for being moderately healthy, either.

There is a Nordstrom's down the street. No clue if it has a cafe. But if it did, and they were serving roasted garlic and potato soup, I might be down for stopping in.

One of the nice things about soup is that they can be as low involvement as you want them to be. Yes, chopping potatoes is sort of time consuming. But using pre-chopped garlic and dehydrated onion flakes really gets things going fast.

OK, I'm a little embarrassed that I admitted to use onion flakes. But they were on sale. In a really big tub. Not. helping.

I didn't have any thyme. Or a rind of parmesan. Or chives. So between that and the onion flakes, I have a pretty lame kitchen. I did have some parsley to garnish the top. And after hearing all kinds of horrors about people putting hot soup into their blender and it exploding everywhere, I'm really happy to have an immersion blender too!

This really was as good as the author expounds. It's light and not overly garlicky, even though there's a lot to it.

Nope, no Nordstrom's cafe at my local mall. They don't post prices on their menu though, so it's probably just as well.

Salmon & Polenta Dinner

2010-02-03T17:51:00.000-08:00

There's all kinds of good about this particular dinner.

Baked salmon? Awesome. One of these days, I'd like to try making salmon en papillote. One of these days. But I digress.

Black beans? Awesome. Years ago I would have never gone anywhere near black beans. Now I'm all for my quickie side. These were extra spicy.

Fried polenta? Awesome!! If corn and french fries got together, this would be their tasty baby. When I first moved to California, this was one of the things I would make. I don't remember where I heard about it. Whenever I make "cornmeal mush," as the recipe goes on the canister, there's always a lot left over. After a day in the refrigerator, it's perfect for frying. And goes amazing with extra spicy black beans.

Chicken & Ratatouille Dinner

2010-02-02T17:50:00.000-08:00

There you have it. That's lemon pepper seasoning on the chicken, and the ratatouille recipe was actually one where you boil it in a pot. Baked is way better, but the pot is quicker.

Yay winter squash!

Popovers

2010-01-27T17:52:00.000-08:00

Popovers were literally everywhere on the little part of the internet I watch for about a week. I didn't even know what they were, really, before then. And then my own mom starts talking about them! She made some when we visited, and I could understand the attraction. (They're starting to sound really good right now, actually...)

They're so common that the Oracle had a recipe. An easy one, apparently. So I made these one night with a spaghetti and meatball dinner because, gosh darn it, I really wanted them.

As you can see from the picture, I'd like to call these Escapees rather than popovers. Watching them in the oven, they literally looked like they were crawling out of my ... ahem ... muffin pan. No, I don't have a special popover pan. I don't want one. Nonstick is the way to go. Rusty aluminum that you justify is OK because you use muffin liners is not. RIP old muffin pan.

The batter was sort of pancake consistency, and a good shot of cooking spray would have probably been as good as wiping the cups with shortening. They came out just perfect, although I understand there's a more complex and proper way to make them. According to the internet, people have trouble with them deflating. I promise I don't have the magic touch, guys. They're not hard.

I hear these are a good breakfast food. Is it tomorrow yet? Anyone up for breakfast?

Laundry Overhaul

2010-01-26T17:10:00.000-08:00

When we moved in September, I thought, "Oh good! A whole list of home improvement projects to blog about, instead of food every day!"

I'll just spoil it now for you. Turns out my idea of "home improvement" is interior decorating. This isn't good.

The first big project was hanging gutters around the office patio. I wasn't very involved, but I did help out a little. It ended well for the house; it did not end well for my foot.

The next big project was completed over Christmas. My in-laws love home improvement projects (in the traditional sense), and there was a decision made to tackle the laundry alcove in the garage. I'm kind of fuzzy on the decision, because I probably wasn't paying attention. Sorry!

Now, we'd discussed plenty what to do about that corner of the garage. The first and foremost was to get rid of the water softener. It's huge, and in an awkward place in the garage, and annoyed me to no end. There was nothing wrong with the water softener itself. It just bugged me. (Anyone want to buy a water softener? It's for sale on Craigslist). The next was to replace the sagging cabinets with shelves that a shorty like me could actually reach and use. On top of that was putting the washing machines on some sort of platform. Finally, my secret wish was to paint it a crazy bright color. Yeah. I read too much Apartment Therapy.

Here's the before:

Yup. I know. Nothing particularly wrong with it; it's perfectly functional. You can see my arch nemesis, the water softener, pretty clearly. One thing I should also mention: our garage is tiny. Two car, but just barely. And aren't our washer and dryer great? I think they're awesome. I love that we didn't get white.

When my in-laws arrived, there was much discussion and planning. I heard some talk about drywall, but like I said, my idea of home improvement gets about as grandiose as ... painting a wall. And given the gutter incident, it felt like my job was to know where the emergency room was. Which, for the record, I didn't even go to the doctor for the gutter incident.

Based on this, you can imagine my utter shock when a hammer was taken to the peeling, stained drywall in the ceiling. What you can't see in the before picture was the water damage that never got fixed from a leak before we moved in. You might think I was shocked in a bad way, and upset. But honestly, I couldn't imagine anyone knowing enough to go about fixing the ceiling! I was totally fine with it, really. First, because it's the garage. If something disastrous happened in there, it's nothing that would really affect daily life. Second, if something got dangerous, I wouldn't have a problem calling to get someone to finish the job.

I pretty much relegated myself to the kitchen and prayed for no bodily harm.

Here's what essentially happened. The cabinets came out and were gone. A chunk of drywall was cut out of the ceiling and seamlessly replaced. The water softener was unhooked, and the pipes traveling across the middle of the wall, ugh, were cut. That required a plumber, but I'm glad because it involved a blow torch of some kind (and gave us a decent plumbing recommendation!). A platform was built from scratch to raise the machines even with the concrete foundation. The whole thing was primed and painted. And I helped paint!

Now, while everyone was worrying about the pipes, the platform, the drywall, and on and on, no one was really paying attention to the color I picked for the walls. It's bright. It's crazy. It's awesome.

Here's the after:

It. Is. Awesome. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all the work that went in to it. Sure, the rest of the garage looks like total garbage, but that's a project for the future. The far future.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

2010-01-25T17:11:00.000-08:00

Most of my holiday cooking plans were based around dinners and cookies, but I did have one big idea for Christmas morning breakfast. When I was little, we'd get up Christmas morning (early at first, and later and later as I got older) to open presents together. After that, my mom would cook a great big breakfast. Coffee cake, bacon, eggs ... an epic kind of breakfast. I was never a morning or breakfast person, but Christmas was always the exception.

I could have kept the tradition I love so much, but I found this recipe to try. And then I found out my brother in law (can I just call him my brother? OK thanks.) is a huge Cinnabon fan. That just sealed the deal.

What could prompt me to make cinnamon rolls? Pumpkin cinnamon rolls, of course.

Most recipes will call for just one cup of pumpkin puree, and a can is generally 14 or 16 ounces. So there's always a bit left over, that I'll typically put in the refrigerator with grand plans for the future, only to pull it out and discover it's turned fuzzy. Last time I put the leftovers (about a cup) in a box in the freezer. After all, there was a canned pumpkin shortage!

Even though this was properly thawed in the refrigerator days before, the pumpkin had a lot of water in it. (Cue foreboding music.) Which made it heavy, so the dough didn't rise much. Which meant when I pulled out the saran-wrapped dough roll a day or two later, it was squishy. As they baked, they seemed to dry out even more! After much panic I just put about a quarter of an inch of water in the bottom of the pan around the rolls. So, although they were sort of dry on the outside, they were still cinnamon rolly inside.

Would I ever make cinnamon rolls again? Probably, on special request. I don't think I would use whole wheat flour, and I'd have to reevaluate the pumpkin part. But these were otherwise easy to make.

Next year, I'm sticking to bacon, eggs, and coffee cake.

Christmas Eve Dinner

2010-01-23T17:10:00.000-08:00

Obviously there has to be at least one special dinner during the Christmas holiday, although I loved cooking big dinners almost every night. I'm not a big turkey fan, although I seriously dream about cooking a full Thanksgiving dinner. And I am not going to make a ham. Ever, if I can help it.

And, a fancy meal deserves a fancy bread, right? And did you know that rosemary-onion-parmesan focaccia is fairly easy to make? This could have been ready in a little over two hours, but it waited all day. The recipe, of course, was from Oracle Crocker. I should totally work as a chef at Olive Garden.

People tell me all the time that baking is an exact science; that you have to have the perfect amounts, conditions, etc. Bah. If I can make yeast breads, you can too. And I still don't measure. (And on the off occasion that I do, I run and get my husband and say, "See? See what I'm doing here??")

I didn't make ham, and I didn't cook a turkey. When I was younger, we'd have steak for Christmas dinner for just that reason. So what did I make for my first married Christmas in my very own home?

I slow cooked a roast allllll day for the main event. With cooked carrots, onions, and Yukon gold potatoes. Sure, it looks like an alien's organ in the picture. I can't take all the credit, though. The darling husband picked out the five-pound tri-tip and the Yukon gold potatoes. Tri-tip is an amazing cut, and Yukon gold potatoes are known for tasting extra buttery, naturally. I don't think he knew this when he was at the store, but we'll just say he's that good. OK? Oh, and the beautiful platter was a gift from my mom. I felt like I was having such a grown up party.

I'm not entirely sure Christmas Eve dinner went over better than Christmas Day dinner. For Christmas Day, I made Greek lemon soup and replaced the chicken with some chicken ravioli. It was a little risky, a little exotic, and completely worth it.

It was so much fun cooking big dinners that week. Anyone up for some dinner parties?

Christmas Cookie Roundup III

2010-01-22T17:59:00.000-08:00

Does it seem like I made way more cookies than I did last year? That's because I've turned it in to three posts.

Bringing out the newest member of the family, the wintermint wafer.
I saw pictures of these in my holiday Real Simple issue, and wanted to make them. They're chocolate. They're mint. They're beautiful.

If they weren't coated in chocolate (or leftover royal icing, as the case may be), these would have been terribly crumbly too. I rolled them and sliced them in squares and circles. It's also kind of a bummer that peppermint extract is really expensive.

But, I got to use my fancy decorating stuff. Pearls from Target, and dirt cheap, and red & white peppermint flavored sugar from ... somewhere. Also cheap. I'm stocked.

Sadly, I never got a picture of the full glory of all the cookies I made. But, here's the final list:

Gingerbread army and barracks
Sugar cookies
Poinsettia (holly) cookies
Wintermint wafers
Haystacks
Red velvet cream cheese cookies
Buckeyes
Peppermint Bark

That's way more than I made last year. Here's to outdoing it in 2010!

Christmas Cookie Roundup II

2010-01-21T17:50:00.000-08:00

This year I was going all out. This year I was going to make all of my cookies with real butter, rather than my old faithful Imperial sticks.

Things started off alright. I made sugar cookies (I'd heard my mother in law likes them) and I wanted to try my royal icing skills again. So I made a batch of Christmas trees ...

But if you look closely, the cookie doesn't quite look the like the same texture. Remember these? They were better, even if the decoration wasn't. Thank goodness the royal icing hardened, otherwise these might have just fallen apart.

Sort of like these.

My beloved poinsettia cookies just weren't the same, and I'm blaming the butter. I mean, sure the family recipe says "butter." What that means is Country Crock, or whatever was on sale or on hand at the moment. Whoops, I think I just cracked the code and spilled the family secrets. These were still good, but couldn't possibly make it to St. Louis in any form. I could hardly move them.

The verdict? Butter is not better. I love you, Imperial.

Next: the final countdown.

Christmas Cookie Roundup I

2010-01-20T17:50:00.000-08:00

Get ready for cookie overload!

This year, I thought I'd have lots of time for baking. I wasn't going to have to contend with final exams. We were only doing one leg of the midwestern whistlestop tour. I was going to be a lovely hostess for a week. So I surveyed last year, and started planning.

Of course, when you're in school and it's time for exams, you will find that your room/house/apartment is never cleaner. Procrastination wasn't on my side this year. Especially not when I had a guest bedroom and bathroom to finish up with all those nice touches like ... sheets. And curtains.

But, I wasn't going to let that stop me. And we'll start with the gingerbread.

Every year I make a batch of gingerbread using the edict of Oracle Betty. And every year the result is something to the effect of "@!#$% that's a lot of dough!!!" So, instead of building a complete gingerbread army, I split it up a little.

Of course, there were the gingerbread men. And women, this year. I made them in little couples, but didn't get very far in decorating before I ran out of time. These guys made it.

Some of the gingerbread ... people didn't get decorated per se. Some of them got chocolate-ified! My mother in law sent us this video on producing Christmas at Disney World (an online video, no less, since we're still to cheap for cable). Andy saw the chocolate-backed shingles of the gingerbread house there, and thought that might make gingerbread worth eating!

We didn't do the glaze, though, and to be honest I accidentally put double the ginger in than was called for. Don't worry, it was still good!

So that accounts for some of the dough. And the rest?

Now this is about the only kind of construction I can get in to. No kit involved! I did use a paper template to cut out the pieces before baking them, and I do wish I'd made the roof a little larger. I got the idea for the pecan shingles from a blog, but there were so many gingerbread houses that I forget where I saw it originally. And then I saw someone had made a gingerbread model of their house, and UGH! I wish I'd seen it before I'd baked the pieces.

Yes, that recipe really does make that much!

Next, the verdict on whether butter is better ...

Green Bean Casserole

2010-01-11T17:35:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving, I was set on making green bean casserole. Yes, the cliche green bean casserole; the reason for French fried onion and cream of mushroom soup's existence. I'm not even really a fan of green beans or green bean casserole. I think what I was really craving this particular Thanksgiving was tradition, since my past few holidays have been so untraditional.

I actually made it twice; the first for Thanksgiving, and the second for a Christmas party just a couple of weeks later.

For Thanksgiving, I added bacon because I was feeling punchy. Also, I used cream of broccoli soup instead of cream of mushroom. First, because we didn't have any cream of mushroom soup on hand. Second, because my husband hates mushrooms, and I doubt we'll ever have any on hand. I don't particularly hate mushrooms, but they're on the list of "foods that I want to like, but just don't, so it's justified." It's a short list.

The bacon-version went over well.

For the Christmas party, I wanted something different. Not that I have a particular aversion to making the same thing twice, or that I like to mess with success. I think I was just craving cheese.

So the second time, I made it with broccoli cheese soup. Despite not particularly liking green beans, these both turned out really well. Since it was a fairly large party, I made two batches (and there wasn't much left!). Guess everyone else was craving some comfort food this year, too.

Sugar Cookies

2010-01-06T17:35:00.000-08:00

Have you seen those beautifully decorated sugar cookies? The ones with the beautifully smooth decorations in cute shapes? I won't tell you how many blogs I subscribe to that feature these at least weekly. Let's just say it's possible to read that much about a cookie.

I don't find myself particularly creative, but I really wanted to make pretty cookies like that. I don't have any friends with impending baby or wedding showers, where I could show up with adorable and insanely appropriate cookies. But I can make them anyway!!

I made the basic recipe for sugar cookies from Oracle Betty. They came out perfect! I don't think I've ever had a rolled cookie come out that perfectly. Actually ... I still haven't. The dough never really firmed up enough to roll out and cut, so I just rolled bits of dough into a ball and flattened them out. Maybe that's been my problem all along?

Who cares about the cookie, though. They're just frosting vehicles for this experiment.

I took some tips from this great tutorial on decorating cookies. In fact, I'd recommend you follow those instructions over the insert that comes with Wilton's meringue powder. The #1 lesson to learn is: don't be afraid of runny icing. It won't run that much, and is probably easier to work with.

Ah, displaying my lack of creativity. Or lack of artistic skill. Or both. I made these around Thanksgiving, so fall leaves seemed like the perfect pretty design. These look more like the Batman insignia than pretty leaves. Part of this is because I let the white icing dry, so the decoration would sit on top. The other part was that the meringue powder makes the icing stiffer.

With a little fiddling, this could make pretty and smoothly decorated cookies!

Pumpkin Bisquick Scones

2010-01-05T17:34:00.000-08:00

Some time ago I ran across this recipe for scones on a new (to me) blog. I'm not even sure how I ran across it, but isn't that how all the best discoveries are made?

To be fair, these probably aren't exactly scones. But like any good country woman I love my Bisquick, and I do enjoy an excuse to make pumpkin flavored anything. I gave my mom a scone pan one year for Christmas, as she was interested in some Scottish recipes. Scones don't get any more Scottish.

You can see another project in the background.

I just plopped these out with my trusty cookie scoop. Skipped the Splenda (Bisquick is just a glorified mix of flour and sugar) and chocolate chips. I didn't have any mini chips on hand anyway, since I don't ever buy them, but I wouldn't contaminate the pumpkin and pumpkin spices flavors anyway.

These were stupid easy to make, and I bet if you put a little more effort in to them they'd make a nice addition to your afternoon teas. If you do that kind of thing. I just like cookies.

Cinnamon Raisin Bread

2010-01-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

Hi. Happy new year!

I used the month of December 2009 to enjoy the holidays, and I hope you did too. Here's what's happened in between now and then:

All the California family got together for Thanksgiving. I loved it.
I worked at my new job.
I helped hang gutters before the first big rain in our new house, and it ended in tragedy. OK, not really, but it's a funny story. Well, maybe not so funny as gory. Let's just say ... I haven't run in a month.
I got the house (specifically, the upstairs bathroom and guest bedroom) in order for family to visit. Had no idea that picking out, much less hanging, curtains was such a pain.
Re-caulked two bathtubs. One failed. I hate caulking.
In-laws came, and drywalled in the garage. Not kidding. Luckily this distracted everyone enough not to notice that I picked out a superbright sea green for the laundry alcove. Heh heh heh.
I read the first three Twilight books. You see, my popular culture knowledge drops off around 2004, when we decided cable was just not worth it (and proceeds to become less worth it). Since everyone's been going on about it, I gave in. I'll have to say it wasn't as bad as expected, although keep in mind that my expectations were very, very low. This about sums up the first book. And if you'd like to know what I thought about it, go read this guy's blog. I guarantee it's a better use of your time than actually reading the books. Really, this is what people think is healthy? Yikes, guys. Husband: thank you for not eating me. (I'm still waiting on the Life of Pi and Sense and Sensibility from the library, so don't judge.)

Obviously, I wanted to spend the holidays entertaining and having fun with family and friends. I hope you did too! This meant a lot less computer time. And I'll be the first to say I didn't miss being tied to my email/google reader/bank accounts.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen ...

I was on a cinnamon raisin bagel kick for a while. Actually, cinnamon raisin anything. So I got some raisins and tried making this cinnamon swirl bread. I don't have a bread machine, so I'm not quite sure why I didn't get the kind of dough that you can roll out and roll up to make that pretty swirl.

It still looked pretty nice! There was enough dough for two loaves, so I made some mini loaves as well. And it satisfied my cinnamon raisin craving just fine.

Time went on and I didn't really do anything with this loaf. It just kind of sat on the counter for a while.

Then one morning, I was thinking about french toast. I've never actually made it; it seemed really hard (and who could go up against IHOP?). But this loaf was going to go bad, so I consulted the Crocker Oracle for french toast.

I'm lame, I know. It's easy to make. I was intimidated for nothing.

Even with fairly thick slices, a whole loaf of bread makes a lot of french toast. There's probably still some in the freezer. Yes! You can freeze french toast!

This has to make you think: why not make french toast out of any bread that's been around a little too long? Or what other kinds of bread can you make in to french toast? Gingerbread? Pumpkin?

Pumpkin Pie

2010-01-02T22:36:00.001-08:00

Of course this holiday season couldn't have passed without making a ubiquitous pumpkin pie. Especially since I'd stockpiled cans of pumpkin because of that bogus "shortage."

I made the usual filling based on the back of the Libby's can. As for the pie crust, I had a half a box of mix left over to use. Not too exciting, right? I didn't even take a picture, it was so uninspiring.

But does anyone else ever end up with about two cups worth of filling left over? I always do! And I just can't bring myself to waste tasty pumpkin pie filling!

Looking back on this idea, I realize that I had phyllo pastry sheets and puff pastry sheets confused. I'm perfectly aware that these two aren't the same thing. All of the blogs I read talk about cooking things that require simply popping out a sheet or two of frozen puff or phyllo pastry from your freezer to make something fantastic. But before this point in time, I've never purchased any of this magically handy stuff.

So, somewhere along the way I flipped the two and decided to use the phyllo as pie crust.

This can't be billed an absolute fail; the pastry actually held the filling just fine. Which is good, because I used mini tart pans, and if it had leaked out the bottom that would have been a mess.

But I can't say that I'm a fan of phyllo sheets in particular. First, I didn't defrost it. So it was hard to unroll. Second, it was annoying as all get out. When I wanted to tear it, it was tough as plastic wrap (my arch nemesis). When I didn't want it to tear, it crumbled. Argh! Won't be doing that again.

Seems like I'll be looking for puff pastry sheets. Anyone have any good ideas for prepared phyllo?

V is for Cookie

2009-11-28T20:52:00.000-08:00

Remember in the 1990s, the cool letter was "e"? E-mail, e-commerce ... It was 10 years ago; I can't remember more. Then we got to the 2000s, and now the cool letter is "i". I-phone, i-pod, i-nternet ... yup, couldn't think of any more.

During one epic flu in high school, I got the original "V" from Blockbuster. It was okay, although I think I slept through a lot. I was pretty excited to see the remake, and I'll probably keep watching it. Anyway, we're not talking about that particular V.

After we moved and found the local library, I decided I'd start reading more. I've been out of school long enough to no longer have a violent aversion to reading books, and there are just so many that I've wanted to read. When I was in school, I was mostly in the upper level English classes, which meant I had to read some truly dense books, but not the ones everyone else knows and loves. (Have your high school English syllabus handy? Send it to me!)

The Book

One of the books on my list happens to be "V for Vendetta." If you're more in the know than I was, you'll laugh. Yep. Because it's a comic book. When I picked it up off the library shelf, it fell open a little and I saw pictures. I was too embarrassed to let the hold lapse, so I checked it out and off I went. With my comic book.

I've read maybe one comic book in my life. I think it was the one where Superman died. (Can you believe that has it's own wikipedia page?) Comics always struck me as kind of weird, although I often watched the after-school cartoons based on comic book heroes.

It wasn't a difficult read, I guess in the sense that it didn't take long. The story was very complex, and I was constantly confused. There were so many characters! They all looked the same! There were no descriptions of what was happening, what characters were thinking ... just pictures. And some of it was pretty horrific. And I'm not really in to political statements. So I resolved not to like it.

But, in all honesty, it was a good book. Abundant messages in a book are easier to swallow when you agree with them, right? I'd had the recent movie on our Netflix queue for a while, and I wanted to see the movie while the book was still fresh, so I moved it up.

The Movie

The movie is immediately different from the book. There, I blew it for you. But the changes to the storyline made perfect sense; the original story wouldn't have flown with the general moviegoing public (including me!). And, being done by those Matrix guys, there were points in the movie that were very visually striking without overdoing the bullet time effect.

I can't say which I liked better because they both had good and bad points. But it was far easier to follow the storyline, even if it was somewhat different. I liked what the character V was in the book much more than the movie (he kind of struck me as a superhuman troublemaker in the movie). The movie was less political and cut out a lot of the scary/gory parts. But the book had more storyline that I liked!

Remember in high school when you'd read a book, and then the teacher would wheel in the TV and you'd watch some cheesy 1960s movie version? This was sort of like that but awesome and not cheesy. I've been missing out all these years!

I have a couple more books from my list on order at the library. If you're in Los Angeles, let me just mention that the public library is amazing. They'll order or pull books for you, and let you know when they're ready to be checked out. All for free*! If you're not in LA, you should probably still poke your head in your local library. I'll bet they're just as awesome, even if you're looking for a comic book.

*I pay taxes, OK? I'm just getting the most I can out of my 9.25%.

Eggplant Parmesan

2009-11-26T21:38:00.000-08:00

Fall and winter are the best time for squash. Now that we're well in to November, I'm seeing a lot more at our grocery stores.

Did you know that eggplant isn't a squash, but a berry? And it belongs to the nightshade family, like tomatoes? I am a font of useless knowledge.

Regardless, I got so excited at the store that I picked up the biggest eggplant I saw. Yes, I get excited at the grocery store.

Last year I was all about making ratatouille. No offense to that, but the zucchini wasn't looking quite there yet. How about eggplant parmesan?

That large eggplant yielded me this. Barely enough to fit on my largest baking sheet! I threw two slices of toasted bread, garlic, and "pizza spice" in the food processor for a couple of pulses. Don't be fooled by how seemingly few breadcrumbs are needed; this came out to be just the right amount. Also, don't forget to blot and dry out the eggplant. I did, and it was sort of mushy.

I added the cheese in the last few minutes of baking until it got gold and crispy. A longer bake time probably would have solved the mushiness problem.

The spaghetti was probably superfluous, since I had two "steaks" the next day for lunch and that was more than enough food.

And this dinner is vegetarian! It seems like all the blogs I've been reading lately have been considering vegetarians during a holiday that's traditionally all about a giant turkey. I don't know any vegetarians or vegans (do I?), but meals like this sure do make it seem like a fine lifestyle!

Lemony Garlic Chicken

2009-11-25T20:30:00.000-08:00

When I was in college, I had a standard Thursday routine.

Thursdays used to be "good TV" night. Friends was still on, Scrubs was a new show, and Will & Grace was still funny.

I'm feeling a little old now.

With Thursday night TV came Thursday night dinner. I'd make chicken on my little George Foreman grill and coat it in lemon pepper seasoning. Then I'd make some variation of Pasta Roni, throw in some frozen broccoli. Voila! This dinner landed me a husband (many, many years later). Now, of course, I realize that eating an eight-ounce chicken breast and an entire box of Pasta Roni in one sitting isn't the healthiest.

I'm all about making stuff in the slow cooker later, so I was a little nostalgic when I read SparkPeople's Lemony Garlic Chicken recipe. Mmm. Can't go wrong with garlic, lemon, and chicken.

The mysterious "pizza spice" made an appearance in this recipe since I don't happen to have any oregano. I actually have a giant jar of parsley because I thought I was buying cilantro. Yup. Easy to confuse.

This would have been so awesome with Pasta Roni.

South Beach

2009-11-24T20:33:00.000-08:00

Yes dears. It seems that somewhere between the summer and fall, I gained some weight. This pan of mini-quiches could only mean one thing: it's diet time.

Before you get all critical on me, hear me out. There are some good things about the South Beach diet. One being you get to eat these for breakfast, and they're really good. They suggest dinners like grilled salmon and veggies with butter, if you like it like that.

Most people don't get enough protein in their diet, anyway. I eat a lot of salads for lunch, so that's not really a major life change.

Yes, I'm aware that you don't "lose belly fat first." You lose water weight. But it gets rid of that icky bloaty feeling, and that's nice. If you're a total bread-addict, it can help break the craving (seriously!).

We won't discuss how long I lasted. We'll just say I thought about it a little more.

I like having warm oatmeal for breakfast. This is a very good, healthy thing. And even though exercise apparently doesn't help you lose weight, it does something good. Eating too much meat can be rough on your digestive system, and really not good if you're limiting fat. Then there's the holidays. It's downright rude to turn down a beautiful cookie or a perfect piece of cake this time of year.

And I love to bake. Bakers just don't do diets.

Baked Acorn Squash

2009-11-19T20:33:00.000-08:00

Happy fall!

This is one of my favorite dinners ever. It's slow to cook, but worth it. This is how I usually do it.

Corn Chowder

2009-11-18T21:57:00.000-08:00

Corn chowder is one of my favorite soups. I don't like clam chowder, but is there really anyone who doesn't like corn?

Most creamy soups call for just that - cream. I'm not about to invest in a container of cream, since I rarely make anything that would require it. Luckily, SparkRecipes usually has me covered on the low-fat replacement recipes.

This was, unfortunately, the best photo I got. And unlike most low-fat recipes, I found this kind of ... thin. So maybe substitutions aren't always good. In the background, you can see a fried egg ready to be dropped in by my husband. Maybe that's the way to go.

The climate at our new house is much, much different from Long Beach. We're 2.5 miles from the ocean instead of seven, and it makes a huge difference! I expect the winter to get pretty chilly and damp, so you can expect more soups from my kitchen.

Salmon & Polenta

2009-11-17T21:58:00.000-08:00

A random, quick weeknight dinner:

(George Foreman) Grilled salmon. Plain ol' polenta (there's usually a recipe on the cornmeal canister - think mashed potatoes, except corn). And black beans.

I love black beans. They're fine plain, but they're very versatile. Here, I added onions, canned chopped tomatoes, and cayenne pepper. In a pan, cook the onions and spices in a little olive oil until they're soft. Then add the tomatoes and black beans, and just heat them up.

Avgolemono Soup

2009-11-16T21:58:00.000-08:00

We had dinner at Daphne's not that long ago, as I was coming down with my most recent cold. Their lemon chicken soup sounded like the perfect thing for my oncoming illness. And it was! It was light, and not too acidic. I'd recommend it even if you're feeling great.

And then I was sick. And it was too hard to go out and get it, but all I could think about was how good the steamy lemon would be. So my dear husband took the recipe and made it for me. And it was just as good, if not better!

The thing is, my husband measures. Carefully. And follows instructions. I absolutely refuse to cook like that.

The night I chose to make it, though, made things very interesting.

It seems like almost every day, in the later afternoon, the wind picks up for a few hours. On this particular day, it picked up with a vengeance. We went for a short run, and it was like getting sandblasted. By the time we got home my eyes were tearing and my nose was stuffed. The whole time there were sirens up and down the streets, and I couldn't help but think it was because of downed power lines...

I set straight to work on dinner, and at that point a hot, clearing soup could not have sounded better. And then ...

Our power went out. Yes, that is me, cooking on the gas stove, in my running clothes and a headlamp. Is this why people prefer gas to electric stoves? Fortunately I had the stove's glow and was standing in front of the drawer with the matches when the power went out; my husband was back in the cavern of our closet collecting laundry. Yikes.

Thankfully, the soup wasn't interrupted at all. First off, I didn't have any chicken broth. So I substituted eight cups water. I couldn't find chicken soup base and instead got bouillon, and yes, I know these aren't interchangeable. But you can imagine how rich broth and bouillon might be! I'm not a fan of cooked celery (or celery at all, for that matter), so I just cut up more carrots. I had lemon juice instead of full cut lemons, and used only a couple of egg yolks. There always seem to be extra yolks when you bake a lot.

Rather than rice, I cooked up a cup of barley. There are so many interesting grains available! Barley seemed like a safe and easy one to branch out. I thought it was fantastic addition, and insanely filling.

If you think eight cups of liquid plus everything else seems like a lot, you're right. The recipe makes a lot, and easily got us through the whole week!

Pumpkin Cake

2009-11-13T21:57:00.000-08:00

Since I didn't have a proper treat to take in to my last day of work, I wanted to make something quick. And impressive. And tasty.

What did I have on hand? Pumpkin.

I also had an untouched springform pan. Normally they're for cheesecakes, but why not a cake? But, I was a little squeamish about making a pumpkin cake from scratch given my recent track record and short time frame. Pumpkin bread is pretty fluffy, so why not that?

I can't remember which recipe I used, but they're all pretty close to each other. Here's a big list of them for you. Take your pick.

Springform pans are generally a little larger than regular cake pans; therefore, it came out pretty short. To be honest, it came out pretty meh. So I made a simple, quick vanilla glaze out of my Betty Crocker. I've been meaning to learn how to make it, but was always kind of intimidated. Sometimes the simplest recipes come out the hardest! Now that I know what to do, though, I expect it to be a quick add for a lot of my baked goods.

I had some green frosting left over from a previous project (I don't know what, but it wasn't the Halloween cake. This actually came before Halloween.) and these awful, awful pumpkin spice kisses. They only taste good mixed with something else. So I made a little quick pumpkin-esque decoration around the edge.

It went over pretty well at work (and, I heard later, the next day). No one knew it was bread rather than cake. This is the perfect kind of thing to bring in: sturdy, travels well, keeps for a while, and easy to make!

Halloween Cake

2009-11-09T22:13:00.000-08:00

This Halloween was totally awesome. Hectic, but awesome.

Friday night I stayed home to get the house in order, and put the finishing decorations on the cake. The preparation ended up more work than I expected, but it was worth it.

Saturday morning was the Pumpkin Run. I'll be the first to admit: I didn't want to be there. It was early, cold, I'm out of shape (with a few extra self-conscious pounds to prove it), and far enough for me to worry that we wouldn't have enough time to get cleaned up. I was not pleasant.

It ended up I ran faster than I ever have. My time was a boggling 28:37. Under 30 minutes!! I'm crediting the local hills, since the path was fairly flat. I think I scared the spectators toward the finish line after I saw the clock and hauled it across the finish line (but for the record, the clock was under 28 minutes when I crossed). You can read more about it here.

We came home, got cleaned up, and started partying. People came and went as they pleased, but I loved having everyone over. Where's this cake, you ask?

Of course, everything was edible. I used the doll cake pan to make the "hill." The fences were pretzels stuck together with chocolate. The tree was just chocolate chips melted in a pastry bag and squeezed out onto a sheet of wax paper. The same chocolate (Albertson's brand chocolate chips, to be exact) held together the graham cracker coffin. And if you look closely, you can see the green fingers creeping out. The tombstones were fun-size Heath bars, cut in half, and decorated with white frosting. Oh, and the dark gravelly road? Crushed Teddy Grahams. They were cheaper than regular graham crackers, albeit disturbing to crush up. The cake was chocolate, like dirt, according to my husband. Oh and those pumpkin spice kisses? Nasty. Just FYI.

I also roasted pumpkin seeds from our carved pumpkins. Thirty minutes at 375 degrees, coated in cooking spray and Lawry's salt. I roasted almonds in cinnamon sugar at the same time, but really that's not the right method. I should have melted the sugar and cinnamon in a little butter on the stove. Que sera.

We had an evening of trick or treaters. My favorites were the toddlers who, at the start of the night, didn't quite understand what was happening, but by the end of the night were totally in to getting candy from the strange lady who was oh so excited to see them. Cute.

Thank goodness Sunday was daylight savings day. We needed the break!

Macaroni and Cheese

2009-11-05T21:56:00.000-08:00

It's finally gotten a little cooler here, and I've had a long standing craving for macaroni and cheese. Now, I was raised on the boxed stuff; I have nothing against the generic brand that comes out neon orange. But I was really in the mood for homemade, barbecue restaurant style macaroni and cheese.

Of course, I didn't have any macaroni. I had whole wheat rotini. Close enough, if you ask me.

I should have researched recipes and tips before I made it (you might be able to see where this is going already). I had my friend Betty Crocker, and that seemed good enough for a quick dinner on a weeknight.

I mixed in some spinach (it's embarrassing how few vegetables we eat!) and added parmesan cheese on top. Looks good, right? When has baked pasta ever gone wrong?

It was OK. I probably wouldn't make it again. Maybe it's the type of cheese, maybe too much flour and too little butter, or skim milk rather than cream, but it seemed grainy. Guess I'll leave the homemade macaroni and cheese to the professionals.

Rainbow Cakes II

2009-11-05T21:55:00.000-08:00

Here's another funny story. See? Full of them.

A couple of weeks ago I started a new job. I was in a rotation program at work, and "graduated" a little early into my permanent job. That makes three jobs in one calendar year. Whew. There are a lot of pros and cons to a rotation program, but mostly I'd liken it to being on Quantum Leap. You go somewhere, do good, and go. Well, hopefully. I like to think I did good.

This permanent job was a long time coming, because I'm finally at a site close to home. I don't have to get on the highway to go to work. And I can carpool. But I was still kind of sad, because all of my really cool friends are now 25 miles away.

For my last day at the site, I thought I'd make a cake. The rainbow cupcakes came out so well, and I had everything out, I thought I'd try a cake out. But not just a plain, round or rectangular and boring cake. Can you tell I love my fluted pan?

Here's the funny part. I got everything all set, put the pan in the oven, set the timer for an hour, and watched the Biggest Loser. Spent the hour alternating between horrified and teary. Anyway, the timer goes off, I open the oven and ... it was liquidy. See, once you set the oven, you're supposed to press start. Oy.

It didn't rise. At all. But oddly enough, the layers formed arches! Like a rainbow! Completely unintentional and I will bet I can't recreate it. But I'll probably try (and turn the oven on this time).

Anniversary Cake

2009-11-04T21:20:00.000-08:00

Seven months ago, I got married. It was truly and honestly the happiest day. I don't even have words for the kind of happy it was.

For our six month anniversary, I wanted to do something special. Now, the top tier of our wedding cake is still foil-plastic-foil-plastic-foil-plastic-foil wrapped in our freezer. It even took a secret trip to the freezer at work so it would survive the move. Yes, I'm aware most bakeries will give you an anniversary cake to spare you freezer burned cake, but ours doesn't. Oh well. I'd still order a cake from there.

We had a rather simple wedding cake. And I can make cakes too, you know.

In searching for canned pumpkin, I noticed that you can buy canned dulce de leche. Dulce de leche is simply condensed milk that's been cooked on the stove for a while, but who really has time for that? A can is much easier. Thus, the idea was born to recreate our wedding cake.

When we went to the tasting, the bakery asked if I wanted a white or chocolate cake. Apparently "Yes!" is a completely appropriate answer to this question, because each layer was half white and half chocolate. The awesomeness of this bakery knows no bounds, my friends.

I used my from-scratch recipe, which didn't fail me for the almon d cupcakes, but sure did for this cake. Apparently you can't just dump some cocoa powder in and call it chocolate cake. Actually, the cake came out more dense and dry, like bread. Sad. But, a big thick layer of dulce de leche and some frosting sure does help.

So, the cake wasn't great, and it ended up I was still with the flu, but at least we had a good dinner!

Brides take note: while every detail of your wedding is of the utmost, critical importance before the event, it simply will not matter later. I know I left off the ribbon, although I probably had some around. And cleaning out the cake topper was a pain in the butt after the wedding, so I wasn't about to go searching through boxes to get it. But, here's a picture of our wedding cake:

So, despite not losing those extra pounds, or forgetting the rings, or a hangover, (all things that did not go wrong at my wedding, but you know) you're still married.

Rainbow Cakes

2009-11-03T21:41:00.000-08:00

Here's a funny story. I'm full of them lately. Funny how most things I make are the collision of two wholly unrelated events that one day, due to stars and planets unexpectedly aligning, suddenly make perfect sense together.

Event #1: Months ago, the internet collectively gasped upon seeing this beautiful rainbow cake. Well, the part of the internet I read, anyway. We oohed. We ahhed. I promptly did not think about it until almost a year later, because apparently that's how long it takes me to process things.

Event #2: Funny thing. Just before my friend's birthday, for which I had made our special pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, I got sick. I've been living pretty high-throttle lately, so it's not that surprising. Anyway, I had the box sitting on my desk at work but was not there to deliver it, and by the time I did get back they just weren't fresh. Also some of the oil had leeched out into the paper box, causing my coworkers some concern. Anyway.

I used my from-scratch cake recipe, that so far has only failed me when I tried to deviate from it. This time I didn't, but the butter wasn't soft enough. Not really a big deal, but it made the batter kind of lumpy. But, it was important to under-mix it, since there would be significant mixing later.

I have exactly six of these pretty amber ramekins. There are six colors in the traditional rainbow. Coincidence?

The most daunting part of this cake is evenly distributing the batter not once, but twice. It came out to be about two generous soup spoons plus a little extra. If you're looking for an exact recipe ... you have come to the wrong place. Ultimately you end up with this:

Kind of reminds me of those watercolor paint kits from grade school.

Dropping the batter into 12 muffin cups was, by far, the hardest step. Although I wouldn't say it was particularly hard. By the time I got to yellow I was doing pretty well - it took about a regular table spoon's worth of batter to make it through (and the last one I used a spatula to scrape the ramekin, so I think I measured pretty well). I even rotated which muffin cup I started with. I am not obsessive at all.

I checked them at the 30 minute mark, and they were still really bubbly, so I set them for another 15. Ten minutes would have been better (total cook time, according to my oven, 40 minutes). It took me a long time to distribute the batter, though, so I wasn't very confident that the colors hadn't bled together at the bottom.

Obviously everything came out just fine. They make a huge visual impact, which is really cool. Imagine bringing these to your kid's school bake sale. You'd be the coolest mom (or dad) ever.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

2009-10-13T20:49:00.000-07:00

Round #2 of my 29-ounce can of pumpkin!

As soon as it starts getting cooler, or the calendar turns October, I want pumpkin flavored everything. And it's especially chilly in our new neighborhood.

Pumpkin for breakfast? OK!

I used this recipe from Country Living. Between Lovestoeat and Country Living, this can't possibly be bad. The ingredient list seems pretty hefty though, doesn't it? I only had half the cream cheese needed, but it didn't seem to be an issue.

These were the best pumpkin muffins I have ever had. No kidding. Even my husband declared them cafe-worthy. Although, I couldn't tell you the last time I had a muffin at a cafe. Do you know how many calories are in those? And no, I don't want to know how many calories are in these.

At this point, I've made both cookies and muffins from one can of pumpkin puree. And there is still some left over!

So I even made myself a pumpkin spice latte. Well, not really a latte, as I don't have an espresso machine. But the coffee seemed to work too. Who knew steaming milk on the stove was so easy?

And there is still some pumpkin left over...

Almond Cupcakes

2009-10-06T21:22:00.000-07:00

In an effort to finally use up the last of my powdered almonds, I thought, why not cake? Those two bags lasted quite a long time. And to be truly honest, I have about a half a cup left. Arg.

Honestly, these came about because of a friend's birthday, and I do love a good birthday!

I also had a hefty amount of almond buttercream left over from making macaroons. Almonds are obviously growing on me.

It took me a while, but I dug up my cake-from-scratch recipe. Did you know that in my new kitchen, I have a whole drawer dedicated to cookbooks and miscellaneous internet recipes? It's like a magical drawer of ideas. Anyway, if cake mixes weren't so cheap and convenient, I'd always make cakes from scratch. I'd say it was easy, but look what happened when I declared macaroons easy to make.

Rather than two cups flour, I substituted one cup for the almonds. I was a little afraid the cake would be too dense and not rise. No worries, though. They came out the perfect combination of soft, fluffy, and moist, but not overly nutty tasting.

I busted out one of my mom's fancy decorating tips and beefed up the frosting I had (it was a little runny for my taste). No, I don't know why it's shiny in the picture.

Just for the record: did you know I don't use a digital SLR? I use my three or four year old Casio Exilim point & shoot. There's actually nothing very special about it. It's ooooold. But it still works like a dream. The fun added benefit of blogging means I get to practice taking pictures, too!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

2009-10-02T21:35:00.000-07:00

Did you know there is a shortage of canned pumpkin this year? It's true. You should start seeing it again in grocery stores this week, but for the month of September I was panicking that there would be no tasty pumpkin treats this year.

Especially because one of my very dear friend's birthday is in the month of October. And we tend to bond this time of year over pumpkin chocolate chip cookies/bread/muffins.

I ended up scoring two 29-ounce (!!) cans of pumpkin from a local Ralph's. Squee-ing the whole way, much to the chagrin of my dear husband. Who knows what he got in to when he married me.

If you look up a recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, you'll mostly get the same one over and over again. So I'll link you to this one, since I'm pretty sure it's the one I used. I didn't have any nuts.

What you see underneath them is parchment paper. I always thought that parchment paper wasn't anything special - just another roll to keep in the drawer. And I'd been getting by with wax paper or aluminum foil this whole time. But parchment paper is the way to go, my friends. No greasing, and the cookies slide off like little skiers. Magical.

Oh yes, and the cookies made a nice little birthday package. Happy birthday!

Chicken Pot Pie

2009-10-01T16:38:00.000-07:00

Remember that chicken I put in the slow cooker? It wasn't a particularly large chicken, but between the three of us, we sure couldn't finish it. The Kitchn serendipitously featured an easy chicken pot pie around the same time, so the leftovers were destined for a pie in the weebl and bob sense.

I don't really have any interest in buying frozen puff pastry sheets. In fact, every time I see a croissant, I wish I knew how to make one from scratch. But at the moment, all I had was my trusty Betty Crocker for pie crust. You can get the idea here. A pie such as this requires something that can stand up to a heavy, wet filling without leaking. But this particular recipe was not meant to be rolled and laid on top. Oh well.

I mixed the chicken meat with defrosted vegetables and a can of cream of chicken soup. This ended up requiring more pastry to cover the sides and top. In to the oven it went, and out it came.

That's my sad attempt to plug up all of the holes in the top of the pastry.

It was a pretty deep pie, meaning cutting and serving it was rather unappetizing.

Even in all of that goo, the pastry part held up really well. It was a little like chicken & dumplings. Despite being fairly unappetizing-looking, it was very tasty and easy to make to get rid of leftover chicken!

Banana Ice Cream

2009-09-30T16:28:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you have a banana that's just begging to be baked. And sometimes, you just don't have anything in the idea-queue. Did you know you can freeze them, and they'll defrost perfectly fine? I didn't know people were doing this. It's brilliant.

But I was ready to skip a step. Slowly but surely, I collected bananas in a ziplock baggie in the freezer. Why? Because I read this article and knew it was absolutely necessary to try it.

I was especially motivated, because we were moving and I needed to clean out the freezer. So in to the food processor they went ...

It took a while to get this way. But totally worth it.

Three bananas made two huge bowls of ice cream. So much, that we couldn't even finish it in one sitting (must be all that air in there). Since there's not much to it, it's actually pretty healthy. I could see adding yogurt, or chocolate chips, or whatever you might be possessed to put with bananas.

4 Furniture Stores & a Wedding

2009-09-29T12:44:00.000-07:00

Even if you haven't moved many, many times, you can imagine how much work it is. And moving in to your own home somehow quadruples the work. Which leads us to the first real weekend in our home ... where we hardly spent any time at all.

Friday night we drove to north for dinner. My husband and his brother went on an expedition to Argentina a few years ago, and said brother had discovered an Argentinian restaurant not far from where he is staying in LA. So away we went to Empanada's Place.

As we were crossing the street to get to the restaurant, the clock turned eight and they closed. Closed! We were about to shuffle back across the street to Fatburger before they unlocked the door and offered to stay open, if we would get our order to go. I'll bet they're glad they did, because we walked away with an order of 15! I wish I'd taken a picture of a pizza box full of empanadas, but you can imagine how late it was. They're all a little different, which I suspect is means to identify the different types, like a box of chocolate. I personally tried the corn and the spicy chicken. This place is small, but utterly amazing and worth the trouble to get there.

Saturday we planned a trip out to Mathis Brothers for furniture, based on a family recommendation. Keep in mind I like going to Ikea, but really don't like furniture shopping. At all. We looked for a while, but found out that anything we would save by driving over an hour to the middle of nowhere was outweighed by the delivery charge. There were quite a few other furniture stores, but many were out of business. We tried a few more stores before going through the whole Ontario Mills Mall. I love these. But, again, nothing worth spending the money.

We ended up coming back home and having ice cream for dinner at Rite Aid. When we first started looking at houses, we looked at one that wasn't far from this particular Rite Aid. And I imagined walking there on random evenings for ice cream, like we did when we lived in Huntington Beach. And now, here we were. Quite a moment for me.

Sunday we got up to run. Being 2.5 miles away, I was bound and determined to run to the beach. Unfortunately, it's a brutal 2.5 miles; huge hills up and down the whole way. And I'm used to running on an utterly flat trail with the occasional slope that I'd previously refused to run up. The hills make my minute per mile average pretty pitiful, but running along the beach is entirely worth it.

We then went out in search of some of the things we'd liked at Mathis Brothers, but hopefully closer to home. A few stores later, without any luck, we came home and got ready for a wedding! I've been in the mood for a good wedding for quite some time, and it was certainly a nice evening out away from house work.

Congratulations to the bride & groom, and here we go on another week!

Pizza & Macaroons

2009-09-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

We had our first houseguest the weekend before last! Yes, it's a hectic time to be entertaining. But it was one of my roommates from college, and you have to understand - I love these ladies. We were "randoms," and I was very, very fortunate to live with them! We don't get to see each other too often, so this was too good a chance to pass up!

I made pizza for dinner on Saturday night, which turned out to be perfect timing. My husband is quite particular about his pizza. Meaning it's not burned. It's supposed to look like that. Underneath all that cheesy goodness are artichoke hearts, spinach, and tomatoes. Have you tried making pizza crusts with the recipe I use? Did you know it's supposed to make two? And if you did, why didn't you tell me??

With a full day to play around, we attempted to make macaroons. Emphasis on the attempted. I fail as a cooking teacher. I could blame it on the change in humidity, as our old inland apartment is very dry, but let's face it - these were just a fail. My friend had brought us real macaroons and they were so soft and light and fluffy - definitely not the way mine turn out. So I thought putting less dry ingredients would make them soft and light and fluffy. It made them runny.

So we had lunch, visited the Huntington Library, attempted lobsterfest (never run out of lobsters my foot), had tapas for dinner in Hermosa Beach, and tried for round two. And failed again. Foil is not a good approximation for parchment paper. Wax paper is, but the last time I used it, the wax was hard to get off the baking sheets.

I made almond flavored buttercream for filling, but I think I put too much extract in, because they seemed to reek of alcohol. At least the second round survivors were tasty!

Slow Cooker Chicken

2009-09-22T21:41:00.000-07:00

Man, you guys missed a couple of really good dinners. One night was burgers on sandwich-thin buns, with scalloped potatoes and corn on the cob. There was also a chicken experiment. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures. The camera was right there on the counter, but we were just so hungry and it smelled so good that it didn't make it!

On our first grocery trip to our new grocery store, we found whole chickens that were actually quite reasonably priced. The chickens at our old store all seemed to run $10 and up, and I have no clue why. For about six or seven dollars, it seemed like a good time to run this experiment. Especially since I couldn't wait to cook at home again rather than eat out every meal!

I did double check how to cook a chicken in a slow cooker, and got this recipe during my search. Doesn't it sound fantastic? It most certainly was. I won't lie, though. The clean up was a major pain. All the empty jars I'd saved for the occasion of getting rid of excess grease were at our apartment, and it was a nasty job to do without. But it's another win for cooking meats in the slow cooker: the chicken just rolled off the bone.

I also made couscous, which I've started buying plain and then seasoning myself. I added rosemary and parsley, since I'm now the owner of a can of parsley when I meant to buy cilantro. Oops. And a microwaveable bag of snap peas. That's just too easy.

Of course, I didn't mean to make couscous - I meant to make this stovetop flatbread instead. There's just something really nice about having fresh bread with dinner, and this was a quick and easy one. I also learned that some kind of oil - olive, vegetable, margarine - makes the bread flaky. This opens a whole new world for me. Flaky pastries here we come!

Since I'd call this one a success, I'm sure there will be another opportunity to photograph a whole chicken sitting in a goo bath.

The Move Post

2009-09-21T21:39:00.000-07:00

So, not long ago I was reading this article about a stealth pregnancy. And I realized that was sort of what was going on with my little home. We were doing a stealth move. And it's been enough work to feel like suddenly having a child! (and no, there are no babies in the future.)

Finding a place to live, more permanently than we ever have before, has been really tough. It seems like most people find a house in a few months. We took over a year.

But, we were holding out for what was right for us. Having lived all over the LA/OC area in the few years I've lived in California, it's become apparent what's important, specifically, when looking for somewhere to put down some roots. The place we finally chose is really the best place for us.

It's been a very hectic month, from packing and moving to getting to know the new neighborhood. The actual move, with truck and all, went incredibly smoothly. We had amazing help, to whom I am entirely thankful. Did you know you can feel pampered even when you're carrying boxes that are half your mass? We've met neighbors and tried local restaurants and now, a little over a week in, have quite a bit put away and organized.

My drive is longer, but it's a happy drive. Because I'm going home.

Disneyland Half Marathon 2009

2009-09-08T18:26:00.000-07:00

Oh, how I love this race. It's the happiest race on earth, you know. Oh wait. This year it's a magical celebration from start to finish. My mistake.

We got up at 3:30 am to get over in time to check our bag. Yes, am. No, I don't like getting up early. Yes, I do like running.

It's been 51 days since I've been to Disneyland. That's just plain wrong.

Anyway, we bummed around a little before getting in the corrals. My poor husband did not have proof of time and was in the last corral, and now fully understands the horror. You can read about his run here.

But I ran last year in 2 hours and 26 minutes. I guess this, combined with it being my third year, granted me corral B status. Which, I'll confess, seemed a little generous. But as the race went on, it seemed like I was in the right spot.

I put on my headphones without turning on my iPod because some guy insisted on talking to me and telling me about how it was last year. I was polite but really, not interested. There were 13,500 people there to run, and they were all eerily silent for the National Anthem. Very awesome.

After the anthem and the big fanfare to start the race, my corral started moving up. Normally corrals and waves are one in the same, so I thought it was a little odd when people started running to the start line. Little did I know. My race start, in my head at least, sounded like: "Seriously, running? These people are really eager to start. Hm, we're awfully close to the archway, why are they running so fast OMG WE'RE STARTING!!"

I had a good but unremarkable 5k. This is actually important, because there's another 10 miles to go! Even still, I was just below a 10 minute per mile pace. The route through Disneyland was a little different this year, going through a part of the backlot I've never seen, where they keep horses! Funny how it smelled there, and yet, I've never smelled animals anywhere around the park.

Let me just say, my least favorite part of the course is the overpass over the 5 highway. It's probably the biggest "hill" and I hate it. A lot.

It's been pretty warm lately because of (or the reason behind) the recent fires. Here, the sun should have been up and in full force, but a miraculous marine layer had blown in just before sunrise. Thousands of people are thankful for that. Also around this point, I realized there were water/Powerade stations about every 1.5 miles. Excess, if you ask the girl who runs 6 miles without water. In the summer. But I also decided to walk through the stations to actually get water and because honestly, I was getting a little tired.

At each mile marker I checked the time, and I was still at a 10 minutes per mile pace. So I decided I should run as fast as I could the whole way and beat two hours. You'd think with all that time alone with your thoughts, you'd be able to do simple math.

One of the awesome things about the race is how many volunteers come out to entertain you along the way. The race goes through industrial Anaheim, which is kind of boring, and makes it seem like they just got lazy toward the middle of measuring the course. But there are
cheerleaders and dancers along the way, which really breaks up the monotony.

Around the Pond, down the bike trail, and up to the stadium. This was about mile 9, but I missed the marker. This year, we got to run through Angels Stadium to the cheers of hundreds of little boy and girl scouts. It was a real boost. Being on the field always reminds me of high school marching band, looking up into these stadiums that didn't seem so huge from the stands but were like mountains from the field.

We finished off through California Adventure, but the finish line wasn't at the end of Downtown Disney this year. Going by the hotels is a little less scenic, but we'd seen the finish line setup the day before so I almost didn't need mile marker 13. And for that 0.1 mile, I emptied out the last little bit of energy I had because honestly, I was kind of tired of moving. And around mile 10, my knees and hips started to go on strike. Thanks, knees and hips. I guess all your whining requires new shoes.

Normally volunteers attack you after the finish line with foil sheets and pliers to clip your chip off your shoe. This year, there was some winding around, but no chips to clip (where did these d-tags come from all of a sudden?). It was actually pretty calm. So I got some fruit and went to wait at our prescribed meeting spot.

A whole orange and a banana later, my husband hadn't shown up. Even though he started after me, he's much faster. Although I hadn't seen him pass me (our six minute time difference explained that later). He finally turned up utterly exhausted, and we loitered around a long time
before going home.
Such was my third half marathon. I wouldn't say I was in particularly good shape, but I'm pleased with my time. There's always the hope of breaking a major milestone like the two-hour mark, but with recent events, I'm pleased with beating my last time by almost a minute per
mile. In fact, I'd kind of forgotten a little how much I like to run. So, once we're settled again, the weather and location should be very conducive to running much more.

My only regret is that I wasn't more present in the moment while running. Although, my brain probably needed the break.

Pitas and Hummus

2009-09-06T22:09:00.000-07:00

It's two for one!

I needed something to take to a picnic besides some ribs. I'd been meaning to make hummus out of the two cans of chickpeas in the cabinet, and to try making bread on the stove. This seemed like as good an opportunity as any! Obviously it's easier to make a simple appetizer from scratch than to spend $5 at the grocery store.

Our grocery store just started carrying pitas in the last year. In fact, they now have a little shelving section to all different kinds of flatbreads. But I'd seen this article on baking without the oven after watching a silly video of a man making English muffins on an iron in a hotel room. Did this actually work?

While the (whole wheat!) pita dough was rising, I got to work making hummus. Hummus is one of those foods that you shouldn't use a recipe to make. I loosely based mine off of this recipe, but after a long and bitter battle with the food processor, I really don't know how much I ended up putting in aside from two cans of chickpeas and 1/3 cup of almonds.

That's right. No tahini. Just almonds on hand. Tahini is just sesame seeds whipped in to a paste, so it stood to reason another nut could stand in. There's a wealth of information on the internet about tahini substitutions. It worked out just fine. Over-filling the food processor did not work out as fine.

There was plenty of extra-light olive oil involved. Hm, I wonder how butter or margarine would fare?

Embarrassingly, it took probably about an hour to get the hummus blended. The dough hadn't really risen much, but it was time to get cooking anyway. I'm starting to wonder, though, if my yeast is too old. Or if it just didn't have enough power to lift up the wheat flour, which seems extra heavy to me. Regardless, I pressed out six inch flat rounds and threw them in a pan in some olive oil cooking spray. They didn't puff up, but they did cook in about a minute in a half on each side as advertised.

Whatever. It came out tasting good. And even though there were leftovers, I'd say they went over with the crowd pretty well.

Very, very simple. And it's pretty Martha to show up at a picnic saying "Oh, I just made some pitas and hummus to bring this afternoon."

Pizza III

2009-09-04T22:01:00.000-07:00

I'm really getting the hang of this pizza-making business.

If this wasn't leftover, it would probably look tastier. The toppings here were turkey pepperoni and plain old spaghetti sauce. I figured if they make turkey dogs and turkey burgers, they must make turkey pepperoni. And indeed they do! Although it's what I like to call "food product." Meaning something that tastes like food, looks like a fair impostor of food, and yet has been so processed it barely qualifies as anything more than a mix of chemicals and flavors. But it's astoundingly low calorie.

Yes, I'm aware that pizza sauce ≠ spaghetti sauce. But I'd used up my canned tomatoes and tomato paste, and mixing up a pizza sauce suddenly seemed overwhelming on a hot night when I really wanted takeout pizza in the first place. Yet, I didn't want to make the emergency frozen pizza we always seem to have on hand. Perhaps we won't even need these any more!

Chicken Scaloppine II

2009-09-03T21:56:00.000-07:00

This looks radically different from the last time I made chicken scaloppine. It's the addition of spinach and artichoke hearts.

Unfortunately, I didn't stop and think before I started cooking, so the sauce was a little watery. Always drain your spinach if you're using frozen!

Vegetarian Chili

2009-09-02T21:40:00.000-07:00

Because a mild "vegetarian chili" sounds a lot fancier than a bean soup so I can lighten the load of cans in my kitchen cabinet.

Last year, I discovered Von's Stompin' Steakhouse chili. It was, by far, the best chili I've ever had. So of course, I set out to make it myself during a rousing football season. Many batches later, I sort of gave up. Not that we didn't have good chili during that time. It just wasn't the same.

Anyway, the news is out: we're moving in just a couple of weeks. I've been cooking at home a lot more in the past week or two so our move is a little lighter, at least in that respect. And between the chili experimentation phase and the Mexican-food-fiesta, I've kept a lot of beans around for just such an occasion (these will make a debut sometime, no doubt).

It sure would be nice if I shared the recipe for such a fantastic soup, wouldn't it? I didn't even think to look one up. So I'll just credit all of the random chili recipes I attempted last fall.

Vegetarian Chili/Bean Soup/Get it out of your kitchen stew:

1.5-2 cups Chicken broth (Oh shoot! That's not vegetarian! No worries, veggie broth would work.)
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 can corn
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
onion
garlic
chili powder
cumin
salt

Cook the garlic, onion, and spices in about a tablespoon or so of olive oil in the bottom of your biggest pot. All the fancy recipes I've seen say to do this because it releases the flavors. Ergo, my recipe is now fancy.

At this point, you can start dumping. I drain and rinse my beans because the water they're canned in seems sort of gnarly. After 30 minutes of low boiling, you'll get this tasty soup:

Of course, it's summertime and it's hot, so a soup isn't as appetizing as, say, chopped melon. But once the temperatures cool down, you'll want to be making this. It makes a large quantity in a very short amount of time. And if you play your cards right, it shouldn't be too expensive all-told.

And it's suspiciously like Von's chili....

A California Weekend

2009-09-01T21:37:00.000-07:00

There's quite a bit going on in my little household lately.

Last Friday we started packing. Actually, the weekend officially kicked off with a stop at the gym, which becomes important later. Since I was already sweaty and dirty, I started to bring up the boxes we've been storing in the carport. These boxes have made many moves with us, and hopefully this will be the last for many of them. We spent the rest of the evening trying to wrap our brains around packing while keeping some things accessible. About three boxes in, I was done. It was a long work week!

Saturday we got up extra early for an adventurous day. It was set to be a very hot and dry weekend. Which means fires. I'd seen a smallish fire in San Gabriel on my way home Friday, and as we made the trip up toward Oxnard Saturday morning there was a new plume just north of the city that neither of us had heard about yet.

As promised, the first 0.7 miles of the Point Mugu trail were brutal. Not to mention the fatigue from my Friday night date with the stairstepper. Oof. The rest of the trail was pretty mild, although you can imagine the way down was a little rough as well. We had a whole troop from all over to check out Southern California living.

What better way to finish off a hike than to jump in the ocean? We camped out at a Malibu beach for the hotter part of the afternoon. It's astounding how much cleaner the beaches are there compared to those closer to where we live. The water was terribly cold but it made the oppressive heat a little more bearable.

Meanwhile, on the trip home, the little plume of smoke just north of LA had become something of a nuclear explosion. Especially heartbreaking for us, since we'd done some hikes around the Mount Wilson area earlier this year. Angeles National Forest is an amazing place.

Sunday we had brunch with a friend at La Creperie, then were invited to join some of our new neighbors to hear a country band perform at our new local park. It was a fantastic night out of the heat, with introductions to lots of new people. We never really met our neighbors at any of our past addresses. It became a potluck picnic with wine, pitas, hummus, and ribs.

On the way home, we could see the fires glowing in the hills. If I can see them from my stomping grounds, that means they are too close! We even fired up the TV to hear a little about it, then called it a night.

The next few weeks are going to be pretty hectic, and hopefully the weekends will be fun despite all the work involved!

Blueberry Quick Oat Bread

2009-08-31T21:23:00.000-07:00

Much like bananas in my home, it came to be that I had a substantial amount of blueberries that were not looking as appealing for my morning cereal.

So, like bananas, it only made sense to bake them. Right?

And lo and behold, here's a recipe that asks for blueberries and oats. Doesn't it just sound like breakfast in a loaf?

Normally this recipe wouldn't see the light of day in my kitchen because it requires buttermilk. As much as I like buttermilk, it's something that I don't use enough to justify buying. It'll just go bad. And then I caught wind of a magical, mystical invention: powdered buttermilk.

And sure as sunrise, there it was in a nice little can at the local Ralph's. It has to be refrigerated, but a little internet research shows it lasts forever. Plus, there's the extra possibility of freezing, as regular milk fat gets damaged when frozen.

The only thing this recipe was missing was that crunchy, sugary topping that appears on all worthwhile-calorie muffins. I just used a quick streusel recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook. It's essentially 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup brown sugar, a few tablespoons of butter, and cinnamon. It shouldn't be this melty; for some reason I was convinced it wouldn't stick to the bread if the bread was almost finished cooking. But of course, the butter in the streusel melts and gets sticky! I'm glad I finally cracked the book open for this. It's the perfect substitute for frosting or glaze. This is too much for this size of a loaf, but like sweet, sugary, buttery topping was ever a problem.

I also kept in mind a lesson from earlier to go ahead and destroy those blueberries. This is a chunkier bread, though, so it's not as important.

And oh, what a wonderful bread. Highly recommended for work potlucks, especially if it will make you look like a domestic goddess to your coworkers.

An interesting story about my loaf pan: it's a little smaller than you'd expect. It's over 50 years old. Back then, banks offered extra little incentives to open an account, much like how they give out ipods or $25 now (I'd totally go for the bakeware). It sat in my grandma's attic for years in its original, unopened packaging. Sure, I'm probably adding a healthy dose of lead or asbestos to our food, but if it isn't the little trooper of a pan!

Pepper Steak Stir Fry

2009-08-24T22:41:00.000-07:00

This became dinner as soon as I read about it. Satiates new pepper obsession? Check. Cleans out the refrigerator? Check. Gets rid of random freezer meat? Check.

Unfortunately, disaster struck and the knife slipped while I was thinking about other things. As lovely as our nice knives are ... OWW.

Usually I read about these recipes, and then make it between memory and improvisation. For whatever reason, I actually printed it out today. Talk about a sign! So, Andy took over.

He did a ridiculously awesome job, despite my nagging and backseat cooking. Can you believe he actually follows the recipe? But I secretly added some ginger to the sauce pre-accident.

Remember how I was extolling the virtues of Sun Bird beef and broccoli sauce mix? And thinking of how to make it from scratch? The jig is up, my friends. I think I've got it. Cornstarch, ginger, sugar, garlic, soy sauce, and water.

And apparently I will obnoxiously add peppers to everything I cook. (I kind of, sort of, bought two giant green peppers and a four-pack of multi-colored peppers on a grocery run. That is TOO MUCH!)

Pizzoccheri II

2009-08-21T22:33:00.000-07:00

I had a whole bag of egg noodles and some parmesan, or grana padano, (I forget which) from Trader Joe's, on hand. Since I was making a store run anyway, I picked up a head of cabbage for Pizzoccheri round two. And again, this cleaned out my kitchen just a little more.

Special note: as much as I hate Trader Joe's, they have an amazing yet reasonably priced cheese selection. Sigh.

Our giant bag of potatoes was long gone, but I almost preferred it without the extra carbs. I also added bacon, since bacon is like pizzoccheri's long lost soulmate.

I can see this becoming quite the staple in our household, with all kinds of variation. Egg? Bell peppers? Chicken or turkey?

Pizza II

2009-08-20T22:24:00.000-07:00

Continuing on the bell pepper kick...

Pizza with homemade crust and sauce. For the sauce, I just mixed one can of tomatoes with a half a can of tomato paste (leftover from beef curry, which was totally awesome but I forgot to photograph) and "pizza spice." I used up some sliced mozzarella cheese, shredded mozzarella, and asiago in an attempt to clean out the refrigerator a little. The green peppers and onions were leftovers that also had to go.

Pasta Casserole

2009-08-19T22:12:00.000-07:00

So one day after work my husband announces, "I want to make a casserole!"

Nope. No idea what brought that on.

But he did a fabulous job! Whole wheat pasta, mozzarella, ground turkey, and tomatoes. Oh, and lots of different Italian-style seasoning.

Just in case you thought I did all the cooking around these parts.

Danger Dogs

2009-08-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

Not long ago I went to my very first soccer game, Galaxy versus Barcelona. It was quite an experience - there were about 93,000 people in attendance at the Rose Bowl, which made it the highest attended game in the US since the World Cup in 1994. That, my friends, is a lot of people. We started the night at Cafe Santorini in Old Town Pasadena, which I'd recommend if you're in the area. The bartender was super friendly and had an amazing white sangria.

It's amazing the physical strength you need to play soccer. But, for now, I think I'll just stick to American-style football.

I swear this is going somewhere.

Danger dogs have been around at every Southern California sporting event that I have ever attended. I've never seen them in Mexico, but basically what happens is someone puts a heating element in the bottom of a shopping cart, and a baking sheet over it. Instant grill! I've seen more legitimate-looking carts before, but the shopping carts are really funny. The hot dogs are wrapped in bacon and grilled with onions and served with hot sauce.

I have desperately wanted to try one for a long time now. I have no idea how much they cost, but I'm guessing it's less than the cost of whatever medical treatment you need after eating one. Alas, my sensible husband isn't too keen on letting his wife eat random, questionably prepared street food. Los Angeles regulates restaurants pretty strictly, and guess what? These guys constantly avoid getting rated. Gasp!

Obviously this means I have to make it myself. Here's the basics on our George Foreman grill, which is the closest I could get to a baking sheet over a shopping cart. Cooking is all about improvisation.

That's pre-cooked Hormel Black Label bacon, and reduced fat Hebrew National hot dogs. Probably not what you get on the street.

I toasted the hot dog buns with a little olive oil spray on a skillet. Served with some rather old hot sauce I got for free from Trimana as they were trying to drum up business. Sorry guys, you're still overpriced for an office park sandwich shop. But you really made my hot dog!

Altogether: YUM. You have never seen two people eat a hot dog so fast. Question: is it still a danger dog if it was made with proper food handling? I still want to try the authentic version, but now I think I can wait until football season starts.

Stuffed Bell Peppers

2009-08-17T20:09:00.000-07:00

Look at these! Aren't they pretty? One of my coworkers brought in a giant shopping bag of bell peppers from her garden. Evidently they grow like gangbusters.

I also learned that different colored peppers are all actually the same, just at different stages of ripeness. They get sweeter as they ripen from green to red to yellow.

So I bring these home and announce that I'm going to make stuffed peppers. To which my husband replies, "But you're not a pepper person." True. Peppers kind of freak me out. At some point during my upbringing in the midwest I decided that all peppers were spicy like jalapenos, and I was not in to spicy. So I avoid them even though I now know better and actually like eating spicy foods (although, still not jalapenos).

But these were just so darn good looking.

Normally you boil the peppers for a few minutes, then assemble and bake. I skipped the boiling part and instead cooked ground turkey, spinach, and black beans in a skillet before filling and baking the peppers.

Hm. They could look more appetizing, I suppose.

These were really good, but a little bland despite my pile of spices (cumin, garlic, salt, pepper, chili powder). No idea where all those flavors went! Next time I'd add tomato paste to make it all stick a little better, and way, way more seasoning.

Oddly enough, this was the SparkRecipe of the day just a few days after I made them!

Am I a pepper person now? Let's just say, I was wondering if I could plant the seeds I pulled out ...

Chicken Scaloppine

2009-08-09T20:06:00.000-07:00

I would like to say this will not come out just like the salty buttery goodness at Macaroni Grill. And maybe that's because I don't have a recipe other than knowing what it tastes like. But that's not really a big deal, since there isn't much to it anyway.

For the chicken, there's butter, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, capers, and black olives. I cooked the chicken in this mix until the chicken and shrimp were done.

This would probably be better over pasta, so the sauce would mix in, but for whatever reason I made instant potatoes instead. And the preferred mix of frozen veggies. Baby carrots are so much better than lima beans.

The California Cake

2009-07-29T21:22:00.000-07:00

Prepare yourself for an epic story about my most ambitious pastry project to date.

It starts with getting married. I went from only child to having a brother (in law)! This is all very exciting to me. Especially because he's great. I think I got all the good in-law karma.

He was considering moving, and I was just finishing the cake decorating class. So, as a bribe, I promised to bake him a California cake if he chose Los Angeles. Which, hopefully was not a real deciding factor because man, that's a lot of pressure!

While I was in St. Louis I was chatting with my mom about it, and she gave me her decorating tip kit. Seriously, there are tips beyond your wildest imagination. I can't even begin to describe the awesomeness so I'll just show you the picture.

Oh, the things I will do with these.

Of course, first we need a cake. I happened to have two red velvet mixes on hand, so that's what it was going to be. And what kind of frosting do you have with red velvet?

That's 12 ounces of cream cheese right there. And some sugar. On a side note, I do have an ingredient chute but the last time I used it to make frosting, it was like throwing powder into a fan.

Baked, split, and filled, it needed the shape. You know those state magnets they sell at the gas station gift shop? There was a time when I thought I'd collect all 50 states and put them on my refrigerator in geographical order when I grew up. And yes, I was aware they aren't to scale. But, that was the image I had in mind for this cake.

Obviously a template on an 8.5 x 11" sheet of paper isn't going to be the same size as a 9 x 13" cake. Then again, if you think you're going to be able to capture every little bay and point in a cake, then you sir, are a better cake cutter than I. But I'd say I did pretty well.

Unfortunately there is an issue with making a cake in the summer time. Frosting will melt, even when it's not very hot. Fully frosted, it was like the big one had finally hit and California was going to slide off into the ocean. So I outlined the top, which was a thinly veiled excuse to use another decorating tip. Plus it looks more like the magnet.

Did I mention the palm trees?

As if the cake itself wasn't a wild enough idea, I decided I would make palm trees. Out of frosting. This actually isn't such a crazy idea, since rose icing is actually slightly different in that it's stiffer, and dries out so the flower keeps its shape.

Yes, I know what those look like.

See? Fully assembled, they actually look a little bit like palm trees!

The problem is, I seemed to have blanked on the "make it the night before and let them dry out overnight so they're stiff" part. Instead I put them in the freezer to keep from melting. These are not interchangeable. So much so, that I was yelling at them in the car to stop melting. And I left the super ugly ones out on the counter in disgust. Which then hardened overnight, and would have made perfectly hardy little trees. Ugh.

To make up for the lack of non-melty palm trees, I put one in 2-D on the cake. This was probably not the best idea, if not poorly executed. Sorry about that.

I can't explain how not practicing writing with frosting has improved my penmanship (bagmanship?).

Oh, and it tasted pretty good too.

Welcome to California!

Daisy Cake

2009-07-29T17:42:00.000-07:00

Do other companies have as many potlucks as mine does? It seems like we have snacks brought in at least once a week.

Anyway.

Birthdays are big. In my new group, we either go out all together for lunch, or bring in snacks for the day. And there is one woman in my department who always seems to keep track of everyone's birthday, and is genuinely excited. She really is a lovely person! So we arranged a great big potluck, and I was assigned the cake.

As she's always been lovely to me, I wanted to make something particularly nice. I had big designs for it. A round cake cut out in to a simple star! Our group isn't very big, so a single ::cough::mix::cough:: would be plenty; a white cake made with egg whites fluffs up more than the average cake. Perfect!

Did you know that funfetti is basically white cake mix with sprinkles? Sprinkles are just compressed colored sugar bits; that's why they stain your ice cream. Not having a funfetti cake on hand, I figured I'd just add sprinkles and voila! Funfetti.

Um, sort of. Here was the start of the fail. I ... like sprinkles. Who doesn't? The more the merrier, right? RIGHT??

In hindsight, too many sprinkles upsets the delicate balance of the cake. When I went to drop it out of the pan to cool ... half of it stayed. Commence panic! Somehow my reputation as a master cake baker/decorator has been severely blown out of proportion and it was the day before I had to bring it in and omg a massive chunk was stuck to the pan!!!

You can see the fault line running through the right side of the cake. The toothpicks were meant to guide the star shape; really, they were holding things together. Tenuously.

I still worked on it much like a surgeon, still convinced I'd get my star. Once the sections were cut out, Andy announced, "It looks like a flower!" Not what I was going for. But good enough for me.

In middle school I took shop class because I thought it would be cool to build stuff. We made clocks, and I picked out a daisy shape. The colors are faded and the battery is dead, but my parents still have it on the wall (it's a nice clock). They also have my telephone pillow, but I digress.

The next fail was the icing. By now it was late, and I had two cans of pre-made icing to use. Perfect, right? Wrong! I had picked up this Betty Crocker whipped crap. Crap, I tell you. So for the decorations, I made up a little batch of my own icing. I just wasn't having it.

In the end, it came out alright! And it was gone by the end of the day, which is definitely a measure of success.

I was a little concerned that when it was cut, though, that the wrong "petal" would be cut and crumble. Which made me think of the "One bonbon is poision" cake (one petal is held together by frosting!) and made me laugh. You have no idea how much I want to make the poison bonbon cake.

Me: Be careful when you cut it! It's not ... structurally ... sound.
Coworker: OK, then ... we won't walk on it.

Touche.

Ribs

2009-07-28T17:09:00.000-07:00

The whole point of a slow cooker is to cook things over a long, long time. So last Saturday when we went out for barbecue I finally made the connection between a slow cooker and ribs.

Luckily, there's always plenty on the internet for things like this. Would they really cook in there all day? Or would they just turn out a big mess? I was particularly fond of the money grubbing lawyer's take on it but a little grossed out about the coke. Yes, I'm aware of the underground soda cooking tricks. But somehow, it's just wrong.

Before we had our own "barbecue" (hypothetically speaking, since apartment complexes aren't exactly barbecue friendly), I wanted to try it out just to see what would happen.

We got some vacuum-packed pork ribs and a small pack of beef short ribs to try. No water, no barbecue sauce, just a little bit of Lawry's seasoning salt (I didn't have most of the ingredients to make a "rib rub" - that just sounds wrong - but Lawry's is basically the same thing).

In they go ...

And out they come ...

Over and over, you'll hear that ribs should "just fall off the bone." So, that was sort of the measure of success. Ignoring the inch deep of oily fat at the bottom of the pot, these certainly fell off the bones cleanly. Do they sell wire racks that would lift the meat up and let the fat drain?

Even better with a little bit of barbecue sauce. I don't even like pork, and I liked these!

Pizza

2009-07-27T22:08:00.000-07:00

One time, I tried to make pizza dough from scratch. It didn't work out, I have no idea why, and I kind of didn't think about it any more.

But I'm not a huge fan of frozen pizza, and buying those pre-made pizza crusts is really inconvenient when you don't make pizza that often.

However, since I've successfully made more than a couple of loaves of bread, it was worth attempting the pizza crust again. Especially whole wheat style!

My most recent whole wheat flour purchase was Gold Medal brand. I'm not particular about the brand, and I couldn't tell you why I picked up that one rather than something else. It had a recipe on the side of the bag for pizza crust that looked easy enough.

I topped the crust with mozzarella, parmesan, tomatoes and the mysterious "pizza spice." It came out fantastic but next time I would bake the crust longer to start. It was quick and easy enough for a weeknight.

Ever notice how I have to bake everything significantly longer than recipes call? It's like my kitchen is in some weird vortex where it's 50 degrees cooler. Now if only it just felt cooler too.

This Morning

2009-07-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 7:30, before my alarm was even supposed to go off. I was so excited I couldn't sleep any more. I was excited for my long run of the week!

So, I get up, get dressed, eat a piece of bread & butter (breaking the fast, so to speak), and start out the door. As I go, I click around to get my iPod started. Normally, it detects the sensor before I start down the steps.

Today it didn't detect anything. At all. I was down the street before I turned around and came home. After all, it crashed my iPod altogether on my last run. Not to mention the upgrade to the website has been anything but smooth. But, as gimmicky as it is, it was very much well worth the $30 investment for me.

After at least a half hour of research, I gave up and went out anyway feeling like Dumbo without his feather. By then it was a half hour hotter, too, but still worth it.

I saw hummingbirds, dragonflies, flying beetles that I mistook for hummingbirds, horses, and the 91 highway. It's a little disheartening when all of the cyclists pass you so fast, but only one runner passed me. And I ended up passing him before I turned around to come home.

But now, what to do about my dead sensor? A replacement sensor is apparently $19. It seems you can take it to an Apple store and they'll replace the battery for free. But, the nearest Apple store is at least a half hour away. SparkPeople's fitness maps are really convenient for me, since I can just add it to my fitness plan. If you're not in to SparkPeople there's always WalkJogRun too. Or, since I know it's worth it to me, do I graduate to something nicer?

Either way, RIP little Nike sensor. We've had a lot of fun together.