Ooples and Banoonoos

TWD is BACK! White Loaves

2012-02-07T12:41:00.001-05:00

I'm so happy to be baking along with all you ladies and gents again!

For the first recipe of the new book, the white loaves were a great choice. Personally, I needed a good rebound from those flipping marshmallows. The dough came together so easily, wasn't too sticky, and even after the butter was incorporated it was nice and pliable. I chose to knead partially by hand because I'm paranoid about overheating my KitchenAid. What would I do without it?!

I probably could have left the bread in the oven for a little longer to get more of a golden color but honestly it smelled so good, I just wanted to get the bread out so I could have some. When rolling it out I added a layer of Parmesan cheese, which made a nice (small) swirl through the bread. It's been fantastic for sandwiches and grilled cheese. The crumb is nice and fine but it's not too dense either. Bottom line: I'm very happy with this and will be making it again soon!

For the recipe, visit either Jules or Laurie's blogs at Slush or Someone's In the Kitchen

As for the Marshmallows...

2012-02-07T12:16:00.000-05:00

These turned out to be a hot mess. I can see how they could be delicious, but I would definitely need to practice juggling the several components before making these again. I had to take my sugar syrup off the burner a time or two because the egg whites weren't where they needed to be. In the end I had a little layer of gelatin that separated out of the bottom of the 'mallows. After smelling the liquid gelatin and re-reading all the Ps&Qs it was just not appetizing. I ate some of the meringue off the tops but that's only because I went through the trouble to make a caramel swirl for them.

Le sigh...I might make these again when my kitchen is big enough to handle the mess.

Fluffy Goodness

2012-01-26T04:04:00.003-05:00

In light of the fact that I'm still waiting on Rafael Nadal to show up in his match against RFed tonight, I've been plotting a return to some Dorie recipes before the new TWD begins in February. First up I think I'll do the marshmallows. I missed them the first go-round and what hot chocolate or mocha isn't improved by a homemade marshmallow? Results should be up soon. On one of her NPR appearances, Dorie shared the basic recipe here.

Photo credit Alan Richardson

Good To See You Again

2012-01-17T01:38:00.001-05:00

Here we go! I'm reactivating the old blog, brushing the dust and cobwebs off in advance of the new Tuesdays With Dorie Baking With Julia adventure. I have been reading blogs the whole time, obviously, but it's going to take some getting used to with all the changes that have happened along the way. My last post was May 26, 2009. This shit's complicated now, yo!

No TWD this week

2009-05-26T17:55:00.002-04:00

I'm all baked-out from Memorial Day festivities. I'll be back next week.

TWD - Fresh Mango Bread

2009-05-19T22:57:00.003-04:00

This week Kelly of Baking with the Boys chose Dorie's Fresh Mango bread for us to make. For once I actually had the special ingredient (aka mangoes) ahead of time - like last Thursday. This is a big step for me. Not like I made the loaf early or anything, I definitely only made it today. Howeeeever, this was a snap to put together. I like how Dorie branched out to include recipes in BFMHTY that don't require a food processor or stand mixer...it's nice to go lo-tech every now and then ;).

As far as fiddling with the recipe, I left out raisins altogether, upped the amount of zest to that of a whole lime, subbed applesauce for half of the oil, and used maybe 3/4 tsp of fresh grated ginger rather than ground ginger. I don't think the end result had an overpoweringly gingery taste, but I like ginger anyway so it might not have really been a problem. I didn't end up using a foil tent so the top got nice and brown; it has a great crunch which I think might be partially due to the brown sugar. The loaf turned out nice and moist; it'll be great for breakfast...and second breakfast...and elevensies too.

Stop by Kelly's blog for the recipe and the blogroll for everybody's results!

TWD - Tartest Lemon Tart

2009-05-13T00:20:00.002-04:00

These are some tasty tasty tarts. Barb, you picked a great recipe to break up all the chocolate madness.

Because I sometimes get overly ambitious (which results in the tarts coming out of the oven after midnight), I decided to do two things with these tarts. First, I made four mini tarts; second, I made two with a Meyer lemon and two with a regular lemon. You could really only tell the difference pre-baking in the color but the tarts with Meyer lemon are definitely not as tart as the others. The texture of the tarts reminds me of lemon bars but the crust is way better. Mine stayed nice and crumbly and fortunately didn't overbake in the oven.

The point of the "mini" tarts was so that hopefully I would eat less at a time but I'm not sure how that's going to work out. Oh well. Time to lace up the tennis shoes.

Check out Babette Feasts for the recipe and the blogroll for everyone elses tarts!

TWD - Tiramisu Cake

2009-05-05T23:33:00.003-04:00

This week's choice was great and when I ate some this evening after getting off work, it definitely lived up to its name as a pick me up. Good call Megan (I'm Megan too!) on your choice.

I finally broke down this week and got some 6" cake pans so that I can make mini cakes and not feel so guilty about having a huge (full size) cake sitting around. The recipe was easy to halve and I just ended up using 2 eggs for it, as well as just using cream cheese for the mascarpone. I probably let my cakes stay in the oven for the recommended baking time because although they tested done a few minutes earlier they were still very pale looking instead of golden.

In general the cake was very easy to put together. Yes there were several steps to assemble all the components, but nothing was that difficult. What I did have an issue with was trying to whip "light cream" to stiff peaks. That was a no go and I had to dash out to the store to get more cream before I had to run to the airport. That being said, it all came together well and I put it in the fridge before heading to work.

On tasting the cake, I wish I had added more of the espresso syrup to the cake layers. You can taste the flavor well, but I just wish there was more! This cake definitely gets the seal of approval from my family.

The recipe can be found on Megan's blog at My Baking Adventures.

TWD - Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding

2009-04-21T23:15:00.002-04:00

Well, it would have been four stars if I hadn't put the raisins in it. WHY did I do that? I sort of questioned it beforehand but went ahead and added them. Raisins and chocolate do not go together like this. Other than that, this is a super tasty dessert. I made a half recipe today in an 8x8 pan and it's almost half gone already. Aside from having to toast the bread before mixing everything together, it was a very simple and straightforward recipe, but then again most bread puddings are. I do think this would benefit from a creme anglaise as Dorie suggests...I'll have to work on that for next time.

Pictures to come!

TWD and a Celebration 2.0

2009-04-07T23:14:00.003-04:00

I originally didn't think I was going to have time to make the Banana Cream Pie for this week, chosen by Amy at Sing for Your Supper, because I was in Chapel Hill all weekend and this happened:

Followed by this:

Needless to say it was freaking awesome watching my boys win the national championship for the second time in five years, but it was also awesome that I did have time to make the pie!

I chose to make a vanilla wafer crust instead of a regular dough crust after seeing the suggestion made in the P's and Q's...this is essentially a banana pudding anyway. I think the banana cream pies I've had in the past are the cafeteria style ones that don't actually contain any banana, so at first I looked askance at the inclusion of real pieces of banana! Everything came together pretty easily, though my pudding tasted kind of like pumpkin pie because of the spices. This recipe did leave quite a trail of destruction through my kitchen from the cornstarch that went poof to the 34 pots and bowls it took to mix everything together.

But - this is tasty and I'm thinking it will get better in a day or so when the banana flavor spreads all through the pudding...if it lasts that long.

This post brought to you by Gwen Stefani.

Alas...

2009-03-31T22:03:00.002-04:00

Due to work constraints I wasn't able to make the coconut butter thins, but hopefully I'll get to enjoy their tastiness later.

In the meantime, please watch the best commerical EVAR! (especially since Duke lost)

(for those who don't rabidly follow college basketball, from L to R that's UNC coach Roy Williams (yay!), Louisville coach Rick Pitino, former coach Bobby Knight and Duke coach Krazywisky, aka Rat-face)

TWD - Blueberry Crumb Cake

2009-03-24T22:43:00.003-04:00

Chosen by Sihan of Befuddlement, this week's Blueberry Crumb Cake was a hit, especially in the category of the not too-sweet sweet. I'm glad that I got to use some of my frozen blueberries - I keep forgetting they're in the freezer. With the flour to help bind them in the batter, the amount of berries in the cake is just right. The crumb topping I might play around with more if I choose to make this again; I got a big pool of butter and I noticed others had the same result as well. It also ended up in giant chunks that would break off and then leave the rest of the piece without crumb topping :(.

I also need to find a pan that's actually 8x8 or 9x9...this one is definitely just a little small:

The recipe can be found on Sihan's blog and check the blogroll for everyone else's results.

TWD - French Yogurt Cake w/ Marmelade Glaze

2009-03-17T23:35:00.003-04:00

For this week, Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction chose Dorie's French Yogurt Cake with Marmelade Glaze. I've been looking forward to making this recipe for a while and it did not disappoint. This is definitely one of the ones you can decide to make semi-spur of the moment and you will likely have all the ingredients on hand for it - I didn't even have to make a run to the grocery store for this cake. I also got a chance to use some of the farm fresh eggs that a friend of a friend gave us; they're so much prettier than regular white eggs!

The batter for the cake was a breeze to put together, except I wasn't paying attention and added the oil with the other wet ingredients rather than waiting til after I added the dry ones. Fortunately it seems like everything worked out OK. In my oven, which I think usually runs a little warm, this took the whole 55 minutes to get done on the inside. The outside, however, was a bit more colored and the sides were slightly more crispy than I would like but it doesn't really affect the taste. I might try this in some of my smaller loaf pans when I next bake it (because I really want to try the Riviera version) and hopefully that will help with the brownness.

I used orange marmelade with a little lemon juice added (saw someone did that in the Ps and Qs), but I'm actually not that crazy about it. I've got some lemon curd too and that is just scrumdidliumptious on the cake. I should not keep jars of lemon curd in my house.

Anyway, thanks to Liliana for a great recipe. Stop by the TWD website to see what everyone else ended up with.

PS - I have had a new food blog addiction for this past week: Alinea at Home, by a lady in DC. She had previously cooked through the French Laundry at Home and is now taking on Grant Achatz's Alinea cookbook. It's great reading to see a normal person tackle molecular gastronomy.

No TWD for me this week....

2009-03-03T17:31:00.003-05:00

With all the sledding and playing in the snow I had to do yesterday and the fact that I'm working a double today, I chose not to take on the Chocolate Armagnac cake chosen as this week's recipe by Lyb of And then I do the dishes. (no offense!)

I'll be back in action next week for the Lemon Cup custards, so be sure to stop by.

Bruno says hi!

TWD - Caramel Crunch Bars

2009-02-24T22:36:00.002-05:00

This week's recipe was chosen by Whitney of What's Left on the Table (haha in my house, not much). Great call...these bars are sweet enough to satisfy any sweet tooth but have enough saltiness from the toffee as well as the instant coffee that it's not overly sweet.

I chose to make a half recipe in an 8x8 pan...honestly the 2 sticks of butter in the recipe made my eyes bulge just a little bit. Everything was going swimmingly until I reached for the tin foil and realized we were out, so I used wax paper instead. Cut to 10 minutes later and the wax paper is smoking and two of the smoke alarms are going off. Awesomeeee. I almost dropped the whole mess on the floor trying to get it out of the oven. Fortunately after I cut off most of the excess wax paper and put it back in the oven everything went OK, though I was paying careful attention to any suspicious smells.

One of the things I like about this recipe a lot is that you can whip it up in under an hour, and it's great warmish or cooled. I will probably have to hide these from myself so I don't eat all the rest of them.

Tuesdays with Dorie: The Cover Cake!

2009-02-17T22:14:00.003-05:00

This week, Stephanie of Confessions of a City eater chose the cover cake of "Baking From My Home to Yours," also known as the Devil's Food White Out Cake.

Part of me wanted to make a mini-cake this week (I guess that's latent holdiay/Valentine's eating guilt setting in) but a. I have no mini pans and b. I feel like everyone's been waiting to make this cake for ages, so why not go big?

I didn't read the P's and Q's this week, but my cake layers ended up being way more thin than I expected and they also didn't settle as well. I guess I will take Dorie more literally when she says to smooth out the top of the batter. I was glad to be able to put my cake lifter to good use - it's nice to not have to worry about cracking my layers in half like I have done in the past.

I am a big fan of the marshmallowy frosting that goes with this cake - it's not overly sweet and it complements the cake very well. I don't make cooked frostings that often but aside from taking longer than I thought it should have, it turned out very tasty and holds its shape very well for how light it is.

So, thanks Stephanie for choosing the cover cake! Check out the blogroll for everyone else's cakes.

A late Valentine's entry...

2009-02-17T22:08:00.004-05:00

I just wanted to share what I took to work on Sunday. Those who had been married/divorced got a kick out of the "sign a prenup" one especially.

TWD - Dorie's World Peace Cookies

2009-02-03T23:13:00.005-05:00

Jessica of CookBookHabit chose Dorie's renowned World Peace Cookies for this week. Reading the P's and Q's had me kind of nervous; everyone seemed to have issues with super crumbly cookies that didn't slice well. I've never made sables before so I didn't really know what to expect nor do I know if my cookies do or don't fit the sable description.

I didn't have any fleur de sel on hand and used some finely ground kosher salt instead. When making mine, I possibly over mixed just a tad, but I didn't have issues with the dough not coming together as I made the logs. (well except for all the chocolate pieces falling out). I did notice that when I was trying to roll the logs out it felt like they were hollow and would start to kind of separate and so I'd have to smoosh everything together again.

I froze my dough for about 2 hours and had no problems slicing the cookies. Suprisingly I got 30 out of this recipe. Usually I get much less than the amount Dorie projects.

Taste test: very good, but super rich. My brother ate 3 in a row and I don't know how he did it. This may be partially because I ran out of bittersweet chocolate and used semisweet instead. Le sigh...I really need to start reading the recipes more than a day ahead of time so I have a chance to make sure I have all the ingredients. Check the blogroll for everyone else's results!

Tuesdays With Dorie: Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread

2009-01-27T23:27:00.005-05:00

Well, let's try this again and hope for no blue screens...

Firstly, I just have to share and say that the reason I didn't post last week is because I was in Chicago being touristy and enjoying inauguration festivities. See below:

(The shirt says "Obama in the house")

On to the baking...

This week Heather of Sherry Trifle chose the Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread. Silly as I am, I had made Dorie's flan recipe the night before I was planning on making this gingerbread, so in order to stave off some guilt I decided to make a half recipe. I love ginger and was excited about all the types included in this one, although I didn't have any ginger in syrup and left it out. This was a pretty straightforward recipe, though after I baked it and got a taste, it reminded me a lot of one of my favorite bakery's pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. I guess the muffins are less pumpkiny and more spicy like the gingerbread. I'm always very happy when Dorie puts in little tips like, "Don't worry if your mix looks curdled here,"which is comforting when you're mixing and mixing and it still looks weird. I followed what I am seeing as general wisdom for halving things with odd numbers of eggs and used 2 eggs, resulting in a very moist cake. I have no problems with moist. (haha though I did have a teacher in high school who HATED the word moist)

The icing...mmm. I think the coffee helped give the icing that something extra. I made the full recipe of icing for my half recipe cake and might have just eaten the rest of it. Hm...where are my workout dvds?

Be sure to check out the blogroll and see what everyone else is up to!

It's not a dessert! (This week's TWD)

2009-01-13T22:26:00.004-05:00

As much as I have enjoyed all the delicious sweets we've made in the past couple months, I was definitely looking forward to having a savory item about which I could feel moderately less guilty after I eat half of it. (Thank you Rebecca, of Ezra Poundcake - love the blog name) These corn muffins tasted pretty good despite the fact that my brain was elsewhere while I was making them.

Since my dad just kind of scoffs at cornbready type things that aren't made in a cast iron pan, I decided to forgo the muffin aspect of the recipe and just bake it in my skillet. The amount is just fine for that as well if you like your cornbread nice and thick, especially since everyone seems to be eating chili this week. Though I consider myself a true-blood southerner (also someone who's worked at a "soul food" restaurant that served a sweeter cornbread), I like my cornbread on the sweet side. I think I have literally spat out non-sweet cornbread before because I think it tastes like dirt. There may be a time and a place but I haven't found it yet.

Anywho, the recipe was pretty simple to throw together; this made for a quick dinner with a pot of chili. However, I completely forgot to add the chili powder and I used creamed corn instead of regular corn. To try to equalize the wetness, I cut out about a 1/4 C of buttermilk, especially because I added a little more than the 1/4 C of corn called for. I also had to make do with self-rising cornmeal. For this, I just cut the baking powder to 1 Tsp and only put in 1/4 Tsp of baking soda. It worked out just fine and my cornbread did not have the texture of a brick. Hooray.

I remember some people mentioning in the P's and Q's that their muffins were very crumbly and didn't hold together. I tried to eat a slice about 15 minutes after I took the pan out of the oven and this is what happened. Tasted great though. By the time I went for the next slice it had cooled off more and so held together a lot better. I'm not actually sure if I would want to add the chili powder the next time I make these - I like the sweetness of the corn and peppers.

(I feel like my pictures are outrageously yellow, but I bake at night mostly and the light is not good. )

As Rebecca said, if you want to follow the "Great Corn Muffin Debate of 09" check out the rest of us here. Party on!

Bonne Annee and TWD!

2009-01-06T21:58:00.005-05:00

I was so excited to find out the recipe for this week was chosen by Dorie herself! (I'm sure most of us were, really who wouldn't be?) What I found to be ironic is that I immediately realized how the pears were intended to be sliced but yet had some confusion about the almond cream. In my mind's eye it was supposed to be fluffy and smooth, but mine felt like I was spreading soft cream cheese. Next time I will probably process my almonds a little finer; in heeding the advice about not making nut butter I might have stopped grinding them a little early. The dough was delicious. I only had an 11' tart pan but I just pressed the dough out as well as I could and it worked out great. No cracks and no appreciable shrinking.

It's pretty funny that the standard ingredient for this in France is canned pears, but after poaching mine and trying a slice or two, the texture is way similar so I can see why that is the case.

Getting ready to go in the oven:

Here's my baked tart:

If Dorie herself happens to stop by here, I just want to say thank you thank you for providing such great recipes! I've always been a confident baker but the regularity of TWD (thanks Laurie et al) has just made it all the better. I'm a much cleaner baker too now, which probably makes other people more happy that it does me haha. Stop by the blogroll to see how everyone else's tarts turned out!

And now for this week's TWD

2008-12-23T23:19:00.003-05:00

Merry almost-Christmas people! Merry Hanukkah as well!

So I had forgotten this week's TWD was butterscotch pudding until like...today. Pudding scares me, especially of the homemade kind. I tried to make it one time and probably stirred and stirred for about 30 minutes trying to get that b**ch to thicken up but it ended up as vanilla soup anyway. Butterscotch isn't really my jam either, but I know my brother and my dad like it a lot.

I did have a nice little adventure to the ABC store where I'm pretty sure I entertained the two guys behind the counter with my absolute lack of knowledge about whisky/whiskey/scotch. Sorry dudes, I have really only branched out to bourbon. I ended up with airplane bottles of Dewars, which I at least recognized the name of because we have it at work as well.

(Apologies for lack of pictures - I have been wrapping presents so haven't had time to get them off my camera yet. I'll edit with them as soon as I can.)

Rather than use and rinse out my food processor 18 times for the recipe, I just sifted the salt and corn starch together and then put in the egg yolks and sugar. Pouring the hot milk mixture in was a daunting task also - this is not a big FP with a big chute to pour things into that I'm working with; it has a tiny little gap. So that made a big mess, but I managed not to scramble my eggs. Then, when I added it back into the pot, after the two minutes it MIRACULOUSLY thickened! I honestly wasn't expecting it to be that easy! I snuck a couple bites of pudding before pudding (aren't I funny) them into the fridge and I was happy with the flavor. Most butterscotch flavors I find way way too sweet and cloying, so I think there's a good chance of me making this again. Good choice Donna! (of Spatulas, Corkscrews & Suitcases) Stop by the TWD blogroll to see what everyone else ended up with!

TWD and a Celebration

2008-12-16T22:12:00.003-05:00

Firstly, I just want to share that I am now officially a CAROLINA ALUM! ...that is, once all my library fines are paid haha. Great success!

On to the baking -

This week's TWD selection from Heather of Randomosity and the Girl was another holiday/busytime friendly recipe. The (mostly) weekly baking is getting me into a much more efficient method of baking, which I hadn't really thought would happen. It's a nice little side benefit to doing this I guess. Anyway, these were a snap to throw together and I could see myself making gobs of them with various flavors of jam.

I don't actually own a scooper that would have been useful for these cookies, so I first tried to use two spoons but the cookies were just ugly. Can't have ugly cookies. I ended up scooping out the dough and then rolling them into a ball with my hands and then squashing the tops down with the bottom of a bowl. I think my cookies were a bit biggah (does anyone else think Old Greg when they say that?) since I only got about 3 dozen.

After reading about some people having their cookies turn pretty dark on the bottoms, I only baked for 10 minutes. My oven/pans have been known to burn things within the recommended time so I played it safe. The cookies did spread a bit - I took care not to overmix at the end so that helped for sure.

My parents once upon a time brought back some raspberry cookies from Seattle and the taste of these reminded me of those, so I thought I'd dust some of them in powdered sugar like the ones I remembered.

Both versions are pretty tasty, though I think next time I would add more jam and maybe heat it up a little beforehand so the consistency is easier to mix into the batter. Other than that they were great! My dad is definitely loving this kick of cookies because he prefers ones that aren't so out of this world sweet and these fit the bill.

Be sure to check out everyone else on the TWD blogroll! Thanks again Heather for a great pick.

TWD - Grandma's All Occasion Sugar Cookies

2008-12-09T21:37:00.003-05:00

Ah sugar cookies. Can't have Christmas without them. I am also happy that these were a nice easy selection...I am in the middle of studying for two exams at the end of this week and these made a nice study break.

After reading of some people's issues with sticky dough, I made sure to make my dough earlier and refrigerate it overnight. I had zero issues with problematic dough, and it was actually kind of hard to get the sugar to stick to the sides of my first log because it was still pretty cold.

I made the second log with some orange extract in it. It would have been nice to have some orange zest to put in it, but I didn't have time to go to the store. I was trying to figure out how to decorate these and DUH! Orange and chocolate. That's not weird is it? Hopefully other people think it tastes good too. I love using my little parchment sheets to do decorations like this. It takes about 5 seconds but looks like it is professionally done.

Ta-dah! I even broke out mi madre's Christmas china!

Here's a secret glimpse of what my mixer looked like after T-giving. Didn't even realize it til this week. Ah the shame.

As always, check out what the other Tuesdays With Dorie bloggers have come up with!

T-giving Rehash

2008-12-09T21:03:00.005-05:00

Yayyyy the semester is almost over save for two more exams! I didn't realize how quickly time had passed since Thanksgiving while I was in the middle of all my end of the semester stuff, so my overview of all the baking I did is kind of late...obviously.

I had the grand idea to make some apple cider caramels from a recipe I found over on Sugarpunk's site. They started out well, but since I have very little experience with candy-making, I'm thinking I might have over cooked it since it never set up. It did, however, make a nice bottom layer/topping for the pumpkin cheesecake I made. This one had a gingersnap crust that was really tasty. I don't think it lasted longer than about 2 days in my house, so it was a hit.

I also decided to make some Pumpkin Challah from Martha Stewart's recipe. Like every other challah recipe I've used, this makes a crap-ton of bread. I envisioned these rolls as sort of post-thanksgiving sandwich bread, but I failed to think about how big they'd be by the time they were done baking.

Other than the obvious ugliness here, the dough was really easy to work with, except I can only braid going one direction and starting from the middle throws me off in a big way.

Like I said, there was so much of this bread. I think I made french toast for everyone at least twice. It wasn't overly pumpkiny, which I think is a good thing since it could go savory or sweet.

I did actually bake the Two-fer Pie the day after Thanksgiving, but due to a misplacement of my camera connector cord, I have only just gotten all of these pictures onto my computer. Alas. Anyway, the dough was way easy to make, but it seemed like 25 plus 8 minutes was a long time to prebake. Mine, as seen in the middle pic below, got kind of crispy at the end of that time.

The filling was also...filling. I managed to get most of it into the pie and there were only a couple spots where I could tell that it had run over and made the crust stick to the pie pan a little.

Overall, I think the pie turned out pretty well. I like the addition of rum in the pumpkin at the beginning, but it got stronger over time which I liked less. I think that, while this pie is tasty, it is too much of a hassle to make any more than maybe once a year.

Martha, how I love thee...

2008-11-19T23:37:00.002-05:00

So, Martha Stewart. Domestic doyenne...homegirl from Jersey?

More and more I find her hilarious. She did an amazing job re-branding herself after her conviction and jail sentence and it's so funny to see what she does to keep her program relevant. Thus, Ludacris and Blake Lively...and the Doggfather.

Snoop on the Martha Stewart show

F*cking A, I love it.

No TWD

2008-11-18T16:56:00.001-05:00

This is one of the craziest weeks of the semester, so I haven't had time to make the Arborio rice pudding for this week's TWD. As of next week I should have had the time to get back on track. Plus, the Two-fer pie looks delishus.

entertainment

2008-11-15T15:01:00.002-05:00

I don't know if any of you have seen the Shiba Inu puppy live feed that is quickly becoming the next Rick Roll, but it's strangely fascinating. Everyone loves puppies.

Stream videos at Ustream

Rugggggelach

2008-11-04T21:01:00.002-05:00

For this week's Tuesday with Dorie we made Rugelach cookies, chosen by Grace of Piggy's Cooking Journal. I'd never made cookies like this before, likely because it looks complicated. In reality, it's not complicated at all but just takes patience. This recipe especially allows for creativity with the filling, which I enjoyed.

I was hesitant about mixing my dough in the food processor because as you can see it's tinyyy. Fortunately it all fit and the dough came together very quickly and easily. I may now be a convert to this method.

Rolling the dough into "circles" became rolling them into something that is hopefully not a square. I chose to go ahead and cut the dough before I put any of the toppings on it and I think that was a good choice - it was a lot simpler to roll them up when I was ready for that.

Here are the pre-baked cookies. I did a different flavor for each pan: apricot preserves, pecans, cranberries, and a little cardamom added with the cinnamon for one; red currant jelly (couldn't find the raspberry), pecans, and semi-sweet chocolate bits.

Finished product! These are absolutely delicious. I am especially impressed by the dough - it's so flaky and good. A definite sign of approval was that my 14 year-old brother couldn't decide if he liked the fruity one or the chocolate ones better. Also I ate about 6 of them after they came out of the oven. Tasty tasty!

unfortunately....

2008-11-03T20:22:00.000-05:00

I cannot stop eating my rugelach.

TWD - Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes

2008-10-28T22:50:00.000-04:00

When I saw the recipe selection for this weeks was chocolate cupcakes I inwardly groaned. I think this is the third time in a month I have made cupcakes but I figured since this is my first TWD post I sort of had to make them. At least I could make these sort of Halloweeny. :)

Off we go:
Mix mix mix...I've found that the warmer zone on my oven is good for speeding butter to room temperature if I forget to set it out earlier, which is pretty much always.

The batter was nice and light and tasted awesome.

Here they are out of the oven...had I read the P's and Q's I would have seen that many people were having problems with dryness and baked for a shorter period of time. I did 22 minutes on the dot, but I probably should have checked them earlier.

This wasn't a great week for innovation in Megan-land since really I was baking these as stress relief and so I just stuck with Dorie's glaze, using semi-sweet chocolate instead of bittersweet. It was a very rich glaze but tasty.

And here I exhausted my creative brain cells for the day by using the awesome Halloween sprinkles that were in the cabinet.

The verdict:
Mine were a little dry, there's no getting around it. Probably if I had done what others did and added a second whole egg instead of the yolk, or baked for less time they would have turned out ok. Still, they were very edible...I just wanted a glass of milk with them!

Thanks to Clara for picking a fun recipe!

Oh well

2008-10-25T15:44:00.001-04:00

I'm realizing that in joining TWD, I'm really going to have to up my exercise routine. And by that I mean start one...

Dusting off the old blog...

2008-10-20T21:43:00.002-04:00

I decided to make use of my space here and use it for Tuesdays with Dorie posts or anything else that seems relevant. So, as soon as my book arrives, we're off! (Hopefully Tuesday next, with the Chocolate Chocolate cupcakes)

alright, so this is part 1 of the mondo-update

2006-09-22T01:57:00.000-04:00

So, this is what I did this summer. I sailed a 30ft boat with 12 people on it and backpacked in the mountains of Maine for 3 weeks. I LOVED it and think about it each day...not joking. QVO651 is awesome.

These are the lovely folks of my course...from LtoR we have Donnie, Justin, Jazzy, Genevieve, Allie, Ryan, Julia, myself, Neil, Dan, Angie and T (instructor #5). And Donnie has sweet suspenders.

This was one morning when I had second to last watch near Hell's Half Acre, which was around 5am...made for some gorgeous skies. Yeah...ask about the jellyfish we swam through to get to shore.

On Hurricane Island, the former settlement and Outward Bound base which is now used as a pit-stop for sailing courses like ours. We spent 2 nights there and still never got our land legs completely back.

Only because of the situation in which we took these pictures will I be ok with the public seeing them. I miss people :/

So this is from the backpacking part of our trip which was the first part, even though the pictures are out of order. We all agreed that if sailing was first we would have been more likely to try to leave before backpacking even started had we known what it entailed.

Basically this is my "bivvie" that I set up to sleep in for my solo (3 nights and days..SOLO). I surprised myself and really enjoyed being alone for those 3 days...it definitely gives you the opportunity to think over things, as well as catch up on sleep and dry out all your wet clothes.

Ok so this is from sailing again when we stopped in...Farmington I think...to fill up with more water. See, Mainers have a sense of humor too!

This was our last morning backpacking. We left our solo sites the morning before and promptly got off trail and ended up on mount wheeler, the mountain we did not have to climb. I think God was probably laughing at all of us that day because I cannot possibly count the number of times I got smacked in the face with a spruce branch. Even Bonny and Dustin were frustrated with how far off trail we were (it wasn't even our fault) and that's saying something. We ended up camping on the mountain on rocks and other ridiculously uncomfortable things and after waking up at 3:30am to get hiking by first light, we finally made it to this skippy peanut butter jar that denoted the top of the mountain. Note the tree cover - the reason we were trying to get to the top was so we could take a bearing and do a triangulation. HAH no bearing to be had here, no siree.
BUT we did eventually get off the mountain and found the trail about oh.....7 hours later.

Props to blogger for making it really easy to put your pictures in order. So this is our first day of sailing and wow was it cold when the sun went down and the wind picked up. Sleeping on the boat that first night was definitely interesting. I'll take a nice patch of dirt over oars any day.

This is Dustin, one of our instructors for backpacking. He is hot, and that's all I wanted to say.

Pre-departure camp clean up, featuring Julia Thayne's lovely butt in the left foreground. We had a routine, like a big happy family. :)

3 weeks without a cell phone, computer, or radio. What do you think that would be like? I loved it. The first day on the trail I kept hearing this bird that sounded like the first note of my cell phone ring and so I would hear it and search around for the sound and go "oh wait, I'm in the middle of NOWHERE." Before I left for OB I was realizing how badly I was attached to my computer, and I think going cold turkey was a good thing. It kind of sucks how much I have to use it for school. I think our generation is going to have carpal tunnel by the age of 30, if not sooner.

I really can't describe my OB trip in a succint sentence or paragraph or whatever. It was horrible at times and utterly thrilling at others. There is a quote by Jack London that I feel is very appropriate:

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather my sparks should burn out in a blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than asleep and permanent as a planet. The proper function of a man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I SHALL USE MY TIME.

mini-update

2006-09-18T21:21:00.000-04:00

Obviously I suck at life for not updating this for oh, say, about 3 months, but I'm a very busy and important person. One day, like tomorrow hopefully, when I don't have a paper to write and readings to read and arabic to listen to, I will try to sit down and cover the highlights of my OB trip and what has happened around here lately. It is very tempting to do it right now, but today I started my "DETATCH FROM THE COMPUTER" phase of my life. So...

come back tomorrow

2006-06-22T22:32:00.000-04:00

Well it's been a while. I had two fun weekends in the Thrill, got to see josh, jacob (aka boberry biscuit starting gun), and patrick AND got to stay in la casa rosa of Ben Folds fame. Good times...oh and i christened B-ski's just so you know. Work is still OK, but the guy i'm helping and i have been having some weirrrrrd conversations...like I currently know more about his and his WIFE's sex life than I could ever want to. however, one day he made a brokeback joke and we launched off into a discussion about homosexuality, which I think he feels threatened by. In the end though, he said that I had put my arguments in a way that no one else had and that it had actually made a difference in how he sees gay people, so i was pretty happy about that. (deucie, I kept using examples from your stories haha). Also yesterday i lifted a huge roll of vinyl flooring into a dumpster all by myself BALLER STYLE and impressed everyone (all 2 of us). whateva.

Now - the elephant in the room. In approximately 32 hours I will be on my way to Maine for three weeks. I'm really excited but i still have no idea what I'm getting myself into. I have always been up to whatever challenges are before me, but this is such a big unknown. It's going to be really cool to meet these people and see where they come from and who they are...I imagine we'll be quite close after even a few days.

Copa de Mundial FIFA 2006 has been fun to watch, and it sucks that the US lost today...but that people are finally starting to care about it is good. Also, congrats are in order to the UNC baseball team which is playing Saturday for the CWS title...so add that in to the sports I will be missing out on. (NBA draft, end of the World Cup, Wimbledon...so sad). Someone should leave me messages telling me the important results of said events, k? lovely.

aaand for some laughs
more pics on that page...this is pierce bush, Dubya's nephew at UTSomewhere

is this life after college? the real world?

2006-05-31T22:57:00.000-04:00

Dear God no...

honeybabe933: i have you beat...it's 9:30 and, because i have nothing else to do, i am about to go to be. jesus christ, this must be what real life is like :(
MMhorsE186: yeah that's what has been crossing my mind
MMhorsE186: will i work 9-5 and be tired and boring and not do anything all week and then still have to get up early on the weekends because i have things to accomplish that can't be done during the week because of a J-O-B
honeybabe933: god this is gonna suck
honeybabe933: and the one night you do squeeze in to go out, you feel like crap the next day and take a week to recover
honeybabe933: growing up blows
MMhorsE186: and the sad thing is that you'll probably have had like 3 beers

getting up at 6:20 in the morning is becoming scarily easy, even if i don't go to sleep until 1. and working for 9 hours doesn't even seem so long. first paycheck this friday! whee (i think of rollercoasters/slides every time i say that). now the problem will be SAVING this money instead of spending it on the numerous things i found online tonight...

tweedle dee

2006-05-27T00:52:00.000-04:00

End work week #1. Waking up today wasn't as bad as the others this week, so i guess i'm adjusting to the lovely call of my alarm clock at 6:20 AM. I swear this has made me revert back to kindergarten where i took a nap every day because i've fallen asleep at some inopportune times this week. today both my dad and i were passed out for like 2 hours until about 7...that's not normal haha. monday off and that'll be good. also with the whole napping thing, i'm not having time to run as much as i need to (read: hardly ever) so i'm getting kind of worried that i'll be in crap shape for outward bound.

uhh no one is in greensboro. this is why it's friday night and i'm posting. sweet. i also am just lazy and don't call people/don't have their numbers from when i lost my phone. SO if you read this and are in the boro give me a call winkwinknudgenudge. on the other hand, my sudoku times are getting better....maybe non-socialness is good for something.

2006-05-23T23:33:00.000-04:00

way to go megan

No back up plan no second chance
And no one else to blame
All I can hear in the silence that remains
Are the words I couldn't say
-rascal flatts

I'm seriously an idiot sometimes

long time no see

2006-05-22T16:42:00.000-04:00

well today is my last day of freedom as i start working with a crew of my dad's tomorrow morning AT 7AM!! that part is scary to say the least. i usually don't see 7AM unless i've stayed up all night. oh well, at least the pay will be decent and it could potentially be an all-summer job.
this weekend was funnnn. went down on friday with hannah and magen to waxhaw to see kat (and we survived the trip haha) and christina and deucie came for the night also. YAY barbara! that was probably the most uncomfortable night's sleep i'd had in a long time. saturday was carowinds wheee. we only got to ride things once because it was ridiculously crowded but being on the front row of the borg made up for it. no thunder road or the hurler because it started to rain :( that night we went to get pizza and i was so tired it took me probably 5 minutes to order off a 2 page menu. very sad. we watched very bad "tv" that night and there were no penii! next morning we went to cedar lake to see kat's ponies and it made me miss riding again...so i will be going for a return visit to ride one of them yay. hannah so graciously gave me the front seat on the ride home, but i lived because i could close my eyes behind my sunglasses. i figure it's just easier that way. ignorance is bliss.

A Few Ruminations:
Why is this a bad thing?
Who decided that it is a bad thing for girls to not like science and math? Answer me that. I mean in high school i took the required science courses but no more for several reasons. first of all, the AP bio and chem had a crap ton more work and required some calculus i think - i didn't really look into it because i had not taken calc and didn't have the time to spare for a class like that when i don't really like the classes all that much. Then there was calculus. for someone who passed Honors Advanced with a C, calculus was not the best option. my brain doesn't think that way. I was much more interested in history and english, explaining why i came to college practically with a history minor already. If a girl wants to study science and math (which i hate with a passion), it shouldn't be because someone wants her to one day even out the gender ratio in math and science fields. It's stupid to make such a big deal about how girls won't use themselves to their fullest potential if they don't have math or science skills. The whole global competitiveness shit is also taking it too far. If we have the people to compete, who cares if it's a guy or a girl coming up with innovations in his or her field.

This is just cool
The last chromosome is mapped. Kinda neat....it's the most distinct/large chromosome in the whole batch, so that's why it took them 10 years to finish it. imagine that. 10 years to map out something that is so miniscule...there is such a huge amount of information stored in there.

there i fixed it, ok

2006-05-12T18:20:00.000-04:00

A Tribute to Spring '06

starting off with my lovely roomate

last day of class loveliness with the return of LBerry

"i survived Pi Phi Formal '06" - or did i

breaking it down 8th grade dance style

popping the he's not cherry

frances, jill, and myself with the help

chipsi funness

SCREAMS college

"it's like disneyland!" boy was it ever...

well that was fun. it served to make me miss the thrill even more, but i mean sleeping til 2 everyday in greensboro really isn't that bad.

here goes nothin'

2006-05-12T05:47:00.000-04:00

well. it's 2:40 am on the third day of summer break and i needed something to make my life a little less boring. sweet, now i'm a blogger. maybe this makes me a little less of a waste of space? maybe? anyway i'm reading the latest of robert jordan's wheel of time books, knife of dreams, and it's odd because i kind of forgot a lot of the details from the prior 9 books, but it's still good. that's about the only academic thing i've done since i've been home. 2 loads of laundry done, only about half the rest of my stuff unpacked....the padre is getting irritated about that but when is he not irritated about something i do?
tried to go running today and made it over to the office, which was all of maybe a 10 minute run. i hate running outside. let me reiterate that. i hate running outside. what is outward bound? running outside....yeahhh i'm trying to get used to it so i won't make an ass of myself when i'm in maine.

tenative plans for carowinds with the roomie, kat, and deuce for next weekend which should be fun. maybe we'll see mr. sketch guarding the lives of those nubile recently-graduated swimmers. or not...