Oh, What a Wonderful Weekend.

Um, are you ready to see way too many pictures?  I AM!

Man oh man it's been a wonderful couple of days!

Really, it's been pretty great since we came back from our vacation.  Busy busy, but fantastic.

The only hiccup was that on Thursday night our heater tried to kill us when it switched from air conditioning to as-hot-as-it-could-possibly-go heat.  Seriously.  Hot.  Heat.  Pumping into our house for hours and hours before we figured out we'd have to cut it off at the power source if we didn't want to bake in our own home. (I might have screamed and cried.)  But it's fixed now and we're not dead and nothing in the house was scorched or otherwise ruined, so we're gee-tee-gee.

In other awesomepants awesome news.

My hydrangeas are blooming!  I didn't kill them after all.

Mitch went on a Mitch-venture.  (a.k.a., "His irresponsible parents forgot that they let him outside to roam the neighborhood.")

We went to see Toy Story 3 in Forsyth Park with our buds.  There were kids and babies and glo-bracelets.  And there was wine.  (Because we live in an awesome place that has no open container law.  And, yes, that is part of the reason we moved here.)

I made a delicious cake.  Make this cake.  Make it right now.

And I made another cake that seemed like it was going to be great at first, but ended up being, for a host of reasons, a little bit less successful.

 Mother F.

And we attended Opal's blue-themed birthday party.  And it was fun and delicious.  Like, really fun, and really delicious.

You still haven't made it?  What's wrong with you already?!

And there was Kan Jam, which is insanely fun.

And there were rasterbated pictures.  Sounds dirty.  It's not dirty.

And then there was a little more cake eating.

And there was beer drinking atop a Volvo.

And fancy flower arranging.

And scooting.

 And general adventuring.

And sister eating.

And mind-over-mattering. (Egg allergy be damned!)

I hope that you had as lovely couple of days.  What'd you do?  What'd you eat?



UPDATE:  Also, apparently Bin Laden is dead.  Shoot yeah!  I hated that guy.  Glad to be talking about him in the past tense.

Don't Forget about the Pups!

Still have a hankerin' to bake but tired of eating cookies? 

Well, don't forget about the dogs! 

This year we made a double batch of Annie's Eats dog treats.  (I love the way that rhymes!)

Dogs love them, and you can eat them, too (though I wouldn't recommend it unless you're actually starving or something--or if you just love to eat dog food).

 Dog Treats from Annie's Eats

Ingredients:

1 cup rolled oats
5 1/3 tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into 5 pieces
1 cup boiling water
3/4 cup cornmeal
2 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. beef bouillon granules
1/2 cup milk
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1 egg, beaten
3 cups whole wheat flour
Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine the rolled oats, butter, and boiling water. Let stand for 10 minutes. Grease cookie sheets.
Add the cornmeal, sugar, beef bouillon, milk, Cheddar cheese, and egg to the bowl. Mix well. Stir in the whole wheat flour, 1 cup at a time, until a stiff dough has formed. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead, adding additional flour if necessary until the dough is smooth and no longer sticky.
Divide the dough in half. Working with one half at a time, roll the dough out with a rolling pin to 1/2-inch thickness. Cut with a cookie cutter and space evenly on prepared baking sheets. Reroll remaining dough scraps and continue cutting until all dough has been used.
Bake 35-45 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden brown. Let cool completely.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream

I wax nostalgic about my days at JMU, if you haven't noticed already.  Because my family was, oh, CRAZY, I didn't return home during the summers after sophomore year.  Instead, I would stay in Harrisonburg in my big empty house, and I would do things like paint kitchen cabinets (orange and yellow!) and try to quilt (one patch!) and watch Family Ties.  I couldn't cook anything but oatmeal and pasta at that point in my life, so I was a frequent visitor of the eateries around town.  And because "being healthy" wasn't terribly high on my to-do list when I was twenty-one, sometimes I would just go to Kline's.

[source]

Ohmahgod, Kline's.

Kline's is a staple of life in Harrisonburg.  It's just this old-fashioned little ice cream stand, but it's so good and so fun, and for that reason it's one of the first things you hear that you must do when you go to JMU.  I don't know if it's changed or not, but Kline's always had three flavors: chocolate, vanilla, and the flavor of the week.  The ice cream was f'ing amazing.  Hell, there were times that Caitie and I would roller skate to Kline's to get some ice cream.  (How very 1950's of us.  Also, is there anything more fun than roller skating?)  And when I worked at BW3 during the summer, if the shift was slow, then we would allow a server to get off early, only if they agreed to take Kline's orders for the entire staff, wait in the long line, and deliver them to us.  It was basically win/win.

And we'd all go apeshit for Kline's on the weeks that Chocolate Peanut Butter was the flavor of the week.  (Also, imagine how difficult it is to carry and drive with six ice cream cones.  It's hard.)

So when I saw this recipe on Annie's Eats for Chocolate Peanut Butter (a flavor combination sent down to earth from the gods) ice cream, I knew it was something I absolutely had to try.

And I'm happy I did.  It takes me back to those lazy summer days where I had nothing better to do than to sit on my porch and drink gin and tonics and talk to crazy Tex across the street.  (Tex = old crank across the street who had a terrible life.  He and his twin brother, Rex, had been in the rodeo but then his brother got killed in the rodeo when he got smushed by a cow or something.  His life only got worse from that point, and he was more than willing to tell you about it when he was yelling at you for parking on the street in front of his house.)

Now, I'm  not as happy about the fact that I might need to go invest in an entire new wardrobe because of how much of this stuff I'll be eating.  Did I have it for breakfast today?  Yep.  Sure did.  Will I have it for lunch?  Perhaps.

Anyway, here it is.  The only change I made was that I used two cups of heavy cream instead of two cups of half and half, because that's what I had in the house and because I, apparently, want to die young. (I'm sure that half and half is fine, if not better.)

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream (Adapted from Annie's Eats, who adapted it from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop)

Ingredients

2 cups heavy cream
¼ cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
½ cup sugar
pinch of salt
½ cup creamy peanut butter

Directions

Whisk together the cream, cocoa powder, sugar and salt in a large saucepan. Heat the mixture, whisking frequently, until it comes to a full, rolling boil (it will start to foam up). Remove from the heat and whisk in the peanut butter, stirring until thoroughly blended.

Chill the mixture thoroughly, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

(Note: This ice cream is very peanut buttery, which I like because I like peanut butter more than I like chocolate.  If you're more of a chocolate lover, than you may want to use less peanut butter.)

I Scream, You Scream

I'm really against buying stuff for the kitchen that's too gadgety, or too big, or that only serves one purpose. It's my belief that if you're going to purchase something for the kitchen that falls into one of these categories, then it needs to be something that will get a lot of use. So, depending on what you like and what you use, certain exceptions could be made.

The ice cream maker was one of these exceptions for me. I've been jonesin' for one since last summer, when I was reading recipe after recipe for delicious homemade ice cream. I resisted, though, because 1.) I was already completely enamored with the Kitchen Aid mixer, and I was therefore getting fatter by the second, and 2.) I didn't know if I would use it that much.  I passed on it last summer, but this summer couldn't get it out of my mind.  When I saw this recipe for strawberry ice cream brownie cupcakes I knew that the ice cream maker had left the "want" column and entered the "need" column.   (I also pretended that I would make things like sorbet and other healthy snacks with it.  Pfffffffft.)

So yesterday I indulged, printed out a B3 coupon, and went shopping.  And here she is, Alma, our new ice-cream making child.  I  had considered buying the Kitchen Aid ice cream maker attachment, but it was more expensive, would require patience because I'd have to wait for shipping, and I wasn't sure that it would fit my extremely old (but awesome) mixer.

I was debating which type of ice cream to make first.  I narrowed it down to two different flavors, strawberry and chocolate peanut butter.  Matt's mom advised me well, I think, when she suggested that I go with the strawberry since the berries are perishable.  So I did.  I actually used the same ice cream recipe from the strawberry ice cream brownie cupcakes courtesy of Annie's Eats.

It's possible that I neglected to consider the aeration factor of the ice cream process, and that my ice cream runnethed over.  Could be worse, right?

And after hours of planning and churning and licking spatulas (I dirtied five in the process) and dropping ice cream into my phone and onto my freshly-mopped floor, I had a little bowl of heaven.  It's creamy and rich.  The strawberries are like little frozen candies.  I'm salivating thinking about it.

Strawberry Ice Cream (from Annie's Eats)


Strawberry Ice Cream


Ingredients:


2 cups fresh ripe strawberries, stemmed and sliced


3 tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice


1 cup sugar, divided


1 cup whole milk


2 cups heavy cream


1 tsp. vanilla extract


Directions:


Combine the strawberries with the lemon juice and 1/3 cup of sugar; stir gently and allow the strawberries to macerate in the juices for 2 hours.
In another bowl, use a hand mixer to combine the milk and granulated sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the heavy cream, the vanilla and any accumulated juices from the strawberries.

Turn on your ice cream maker and pour the mixture into the frozen bowl. Let mix until thickened, about 25-30 minutes. Add the sliced strawberries during the last 5 minutes of freezing. Ice cream will be soft at this point. For a firmer ice cream, transfer to an airtight container and store in freezer until it has reached your desired consistency.

It's a good thing that I pampered myself, because this week's going to be a doozy.  I'll be using strawberry ice cream as a stress reliever.  Happy week to you!   

Taco Seasoning and Flat Learning Curves

So, last night was taco night at our house.  Mmmmmmmmmmmm. . .taco night.  Here's our basic taco spread (you may note the absence of tomatoes; neither Matt nor I are big fans of them.  The hatred that we share for tomatoes is one of the reasons that we decided to marry.)  You may notice that there's a bag of frozen strawberries on the table.  No, these aren't special fruit tacos.  We're not hippies.

Nothing special, right?  No, not really, except that we made and were using Homemade Taco Seasoning (part of my effort to reduce the amount of sodium in our diets), and we were using the newest addition to our family, the All Clad chef's pan that Matt's mom gave me for my birthday.

I'll forever be impressed by this pan and the way it heats evenly.  It's basically a magic pan.  So, while Matt was cooking up our taco meat (and had been at it already for 10-15 minutes), I decided to swoon over the pan a little, and to test out how the pan heats, so I just grabbed the side of it, burning the crap out of my fingers.  (Thus the bag of frozen strawberries.)  There was some swearing that happened.

What's so frustrating about this little episode is that it's about the one millionth time I've touched something that I know is hot, just to see how hot it is.

Matt just shakes his head and wonders if he really should have married someone just because she also didn't like tomatoes.

Homemade Dog Treats!

A few days ago, I was really in the mood to bake. And as much as I wanted to eat strawberry cupcakes, I knew that eating a dozen cupcakes wouldn't be in the best interest of my waistline.
Instead, I made treats for Mitchell Pancake. I found the recipe on Annie's Eats.

"Hey, Mama. Are my homemade dog treats ready yet?"

"No, not yet. They're in the oven."

"Okay, well, I'm just gonna sit here and look out the window until they're ready, you know, in case a kid rides by on a bicycle or a cat walks by or something."

"Oh, Mitchell Pancake! Your treats are ready! Come and get one!"

"Mom, this treat tastes really good and all, but I REALLY need to go bury it."

"Are you kidding me, dog? Are you serious that you're not even going to eat it right now?"

"Serious as a heart attack, Mom. Now let me outside."

"Fine. But see if I ever make you homemade dog treats again! I could've had cupcakes!"

"Okay, much better. Coast is clear. I hope none of those weird neighborhood dogs come and try to dig up my treat. I'll be so mad!"

2 minutes later. . .

"Mom, can I have another treat?"

"Sure, dog."

"MITCHELL PANCAKE! What is this treat doing buried in the bed?"

"Mom, don't be mad. I just wasn't that hungry right now. I'm not making a mess."

"Oh, you're not? I'm not going to be lying in homemade dog treat crumbs tonight?"

"You know, Mom, I really don't like your attitude right now. This is my treat and my bed and I'll do with them what I like. Stop hasslin' me, woman."