A Need and Not a Want, I Don't Care What You Say.

PUSH POP HOLDERS!?!?

And they're reusable!?!?

Buy these for me and I'll invite you over for a push pop party.  We can dance and eat push pops and then dance some more to burn off all of the push pop calories.

Two other things I feel like I need even though I really don't.

1.  Silpats.  I need two.  I don't really need two, but I want two.  Okay, I need two.  NEED.  Think of how much money I'll save over decades of baking and not having to buy parchment paper!  See, a need!

[source] 

2.  Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home.  Definitely need.  Definitely.  Yeah, definitely yeah.

That is all.  Off to clean the house (which is decidedly less exciting than push pop holders)!

Weekend Fun

This weekend was very productive, but also very relaxing.  In a nutshell: took a 5-hour nap, ellipted, ate dinner, baked a cake, proctored the SATs, iced a cake, went to a birthday party, bitched about how I couldn't buy Iris a Barbie for so many years, drank a few glasses of wine, talked on the phone, ellipted again, did laundry, scored some awesome loot from Craigslist, more laundry, lunched at Blowin' Smoke, planted peppers, sprayed the dog with the hose, more laundry, a 4-hour nap, skipped dinner and drank wine instead.

F'ing fantastic.

And here's what it looked like.

Strawberry cake that started to fall apart.  Eek!  Earthquake cake. 

Iris's first bike. 

Birthday party decor. 

Making my favorite sorbet. 

Very jolly.  And sweaty. 

Cooling off. 

Iris really likes cake. 

Craigslist score!  More on that later. 

Right now I'm suffering through one of the hardest weeks of the year.  You know, senior pranks (baby oil slickin' up the halls?!), rambunctious ninth graders, and vain attempts to keep those fifteen-year olds interested in The Taming of the Shrew.  Save me, Heath Ledger!

Hope your weekend was lovely, and that your week is full of happy things like handsome men singing on bleachers.  It's never not awesome.

Cookie Brothers

Remember my favorite cookie, the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup cookie from yesteryear (or May)?  Well, the other day I had a flash of genius when I decided to switch things up a bit by replacing the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with Reese's Pieces.  Crazy, I know.*

The results: pretty f'ing good.  They're different from their cookie twin brother.  I mean, if these cookies were Brandon and Brenda, these would be. . .Dylan.  I hate Brenda.  That was a bad analogy.  Yeah, these cookies are Dylan.  I loved Dylan. . .**

(So maybe the cookies aren't so much brothers as they are sideburned sexy best friends?)

What's more yummy?  Cookies, or Dylan McKay circa 1992?  That's a tough one.

Anyway, here's the recipe. 

Reese's Pieces Cookies

Ingredients


1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2-1 cup Reese's Pieces

Directions

1.Heat oven to 375° F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

2.Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars until creamy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat to combine. Gradually add the flour mixture, mixing until just incorporated. Fold in the Reese's Pieces..

3.Drop tablespoon-size mounds of dough 2 inches apart onto the prepared baking sheets. Bake until light brown around the edges, 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a baking rack to cool.
 
*Also, I feel like it should be noted that I don't smoke marijuana.  In fact, I've never smoked marijuana.  Isn't that weird?  I guess it was my way of rebelling against my family of unmotivated stoners.  Anyway, I just wanted you to know that these "flashes of genius" have nothing to do with cases of the munchies.  Not high, just fat.

**Not drunk right now, either.  Just incoherent.

Baking Classes and New Best Friends

So, I got to meet one of my baking idols--Ms. Cheryl Day, the owner of Back in the Day Bakery--tonight at the baking class I told you about earlier.  And not only did I get to meet her, but she fed me dinner.  And by dinner I mean four desserts.  And they were all amazing.  And she's so nice.  And I got to sit in the very front row because I was an hour early because I was afraid of being late and because last night I was having dreams about the baking class and about how Cheryl and I would begin our life-long friendship (or "rest of our lives friendship") on this night.

It was kind of like how Romeo had that dream that the events on the night of the party would ultimately lead to his death, except that it was the opposite. 

[source]*

I mean, it was pretty much amazing, and Cheryl and I are pretty much best friends forever now, even if she doesn't know that.

And even though I didn't think I'd probably learn all that much--I mean, I already know how to bake--I learned a whole lot about butter and eggs and temperature and lumps and beating and other things that would probably bore most people, but that I was super excited to learn.

And Cheryl, my new best friend forever. . .well, she's kind of a badass. And so is her husband Griff.

Seriously, though, I just sat there starstruck.  I was so nervous at first and so intimidated by her awesomeness that I found myself sitting there at the table like I did when I went to foot-washing Baptist school--straight up, hands closed as if I was about to pray.

Pray for more of this chocolate cake, perhaps.

[source]

Or pray that Cheryl, who recently got herself a cookbook deal (a cookbook I can't wait to buy!), will let me be one of her recipe testers.  Pick me, Cheryl!  Pick me!

And now I need to go ellipt, because I ate four desserts for dinner.

*Even though I had taken my camera with me, I didn't take any pictures because I didn't want to be "that girl" with the big obnoxious camera.

Fossil Cookies!

Hey, remember that time that Christina sent me this adorable little tin of culinary lavender?  Remember that time that she was going to come visit (ahem, Christina!) and we were going to rub the lavender all over our faces while watching Friday Night Lights and eating ice cream and cupcakes?  Yeah, me too. 

And remember that time that our oven broke, except that it's not broken anymore because we're renters and when something breaks we just call someone and they come fix it?  Yeah, me too.

And remember that time that my good friend Cris got me a subscription to Martha Stewart Living?

And remember that time that I took the lavender, and baked something delicious from Martha Stewart Living using my newly-fixed oven?  Oh, you don't?  Well, I must share, then.

So, I'd been determined to make something delicious with the lavender.  Christina sent me some lavender ice cream recipes, but I wasn't really in the mood for ice cream on Saturday.  Plus, it's hard to share ice cream, and then I just end up eating all of the ice cream and getting fatter and fatter until I can't move.  So, to prevent people from having to tear down walls just to get me out of the house, I decided not to go with ice cream.

But cookies I could do.  (Actually, cookies I can't do.  I find cookies to be the most irresistible of all treats, and could easily eat 150.  I would like to enter a cookie-eating contest.  Then I would like to enter a throwing up contest because I'd eat so many cookies that I'd have to throw up immediately, kind of like that time I won that pie-eating contest in college.)  Lavender cookies. 

I searched around a little on the ol' internets, and stumbled upon this blog, Our Life in the Kitchen.  By the by, Karen the blogger takes the most amazing pictures of her food, and she's a Publix enthusiast, so I kind of love her.  Karen had a recipe for Lavender Shortbreads, and I decided that it would be an easy recipe to adapt to create what I was craving.

So I made the dough.  And while it was chilling for what was supposed to be like two hours, I fell asleep--for ten hours.  Oops.  The next morning I awoke with lavender shortbreads on the brain, and before I even brushed my hair or teeth or changed out of my pajamas, I was rolling out the cookies. 

And while batch #1 (the grown-up batch) was baking, I remembered. . .the October issue of Martha Stewart Living had something pretty cool, Fossil cookies.  Basically, all you do is make an imprint in the cookie dough with a plastic bug.  And of course I have plastic bugs!  Who doesn't? (So fun to put in drawers to scare people!)

Here's my adapted recipe for Lavender Shortbread Cookies. 

Ingredients

3 sticks of butter (these are NOT health cookies)
1 cup of sugar
2 1/2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 tablespoons dry lavender
1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste (or extract)

Directions

Preheat oven to 300.  Cream the butter until it's very light and fluffy.  Slowly beat in sugar, lavender, and vanilla paste.  Slowly add flour and salt.  The dough will be stiff.  Chill for a couple of hours or longer.  Roll into 1" balls.  Place the balls on cookie sheets and butter the bottom of a glass.  Dip bottom of buttered glass into sugar, and use it to smash down the balls.  Bake for 20 minutes or until the edges are browned. 

(For fossil bug cookies, smash the plastic bug into the dough after you've flattened it with the glass.)


Lavender shortbread cookies for grown-ups:

Lavender shortbreads for kids (and dogs who are mad because you put them on diet dog food because they gained five pounds, but who guilt you into sharing shortbread with them, which is probably why they gained five pounds in the first place):

If I knew you were coming, I'd have baked a cake. . .

One year and one week left of my twenties.  Cake time it is.  Then, ellipting.  Pffft.  Then, more cake.

Pupcakes!

Since yesterday was Mitch's birthday, we decided to spoil him a little bit [more]. For his birthday he received a new Kong, and got lots of pets and praise and snuggles. Unfortunately, it was raining and cold, so there were no long birthday walks. We'll make up for that come spring.

Also, we made pupcakes. I found this recipe on the interwebs and modified it a little. One of the best parts of the pupcakes is that they helped me to fulfill my dream of putting bacon on cupcakes. (Well, partly. I'd have to be pretty hard up to take a bite out of these. Matt refers to them as "yuckcakes," and you'll understand why in a minute.)

Like too many of the best things in life, these pupcakes start with bacon. Three strips. I accidentally bought maple-flavored bacon, which I thought would be gross but was pretty good. Plus, it made the kitchen smell AMAZING.

Another fun thing about making pupcakes was that I got to use the silicone baking cups Matt's mom gave me for Christmas. I was initially skeptical about them, but they're pretty great. (Mine are the Calphalon ones. NOTE: they're not nonstick unless you make them nonstick by spraying some Pam, preferably the baking kind, inside of them. Once you do it once they should be good.)

Six eggs. (Which means you can't eat pupcakes, Ship.)
Two cups of shredded carrots.

And here's the gross part. The recipe called for two cans of chicken-flavored baby food. But I was ingredients shopping at Target, and our Target doesn't carry baby food. So, I had to improvise. Here's what I came up with: chicken cat food. It's gross, I know. But I thought about how many times I've seen dogs eating cat food, and decided it might work. It was at this point that I knew that I would NOT be taste-testing these baked goods.

BLECK! (I just gagged a little. It's incredible the sacrifices that parents will make for their children, isn't it?) Oh, and around this time that wonderful maple and bacon aroma disappeared and was replaced with the disgusting, disgusting smell of cat food. Sacrifices, I'm telling you.
And once you add the flour, the bacon grease, the butter, and everything else, you get batter that looks like vomit, only grosser. (Grosser? More gross?)
Yuckcakes.
The funny thing is that once they had baked, they didn't look half bad. But don't be fooled; they still contain cat food.

Frost with plain yogurt, sprinkle with bacon bits, and insert candle, and you'll have yourself a birthday pupcake.
Get pup to sit first.
Feed him pupcake.

And repeat.

Pup is a big fan. And I'm a fan because I can smoosh them down into the new Kong and keep him occupied during Lost.

Ingredients:

• Three strips of bacon, crumbled up
• 3 cups of wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 2 cups of shredded carrots
• 6 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 stick butter
• the grease from the bacon (health pupcakes!)
• 2 cans of chicken-flavored cat food (or chicken-flavored baby food, if you want to go the less-disgusting route)
• Plain yogurt

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Fry the bacon.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and the baking powder.
3. In the large bowl of a mixer, mix together the butter and bacon grease.
4. Add the eggs, 1/2 cup of yogurt, cat food, and carrots.
5. Add flour mixture gradually.
6. Add bacon crumbles (but be sure to leave enough for sprinkles).
7. Spoon disgusting vomit-scented mixture into beautiful silicone baking cups. Convince yourself that the cups will not retain the smell.
8. Bake for 1 hour.

Happy baking to you! Your pup will thank you!

Don't Forget the Pups!

I love to bake.

BUT, I am about two cookies and a Spicy Chicken Go Wrap away from looking like this.

So I decided to bake for the pups instead. It is Mitchmas, after all. And I made a score today when I found a squirrel-shaped cookie cutter to use for Mitch treats.

Since I don't want Wii Fit to tell me I am obese, since all of my friends seem to have pups, and since Mitch goes BANANAS! for them, I made about 300 doggie treats today.

Mitch was by my side. He loves the dough.

And I love my tiny bone cookie cutter. I mean, come on. Is there anything more adorable than homemade pup treats that are the size of a quarter?

Oh yeah, there's Mitchell Pancake. . .

. . .who has never been through obedience training.

Here's the recipe. Make them. Your pup will thank you.

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.

Happy baking!