Sugar Cookies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.