Perfect Day, Danger Cookie

I have an inkling that I’ve got some cranky, uncomfortable, sleep-deprived, psychotic days coming in the next few months, so before those moments rear their ugly heads, I’d like to take a hot second to talk about how perfect yesterday was. 

First, I actually got out of bed ten minutes earlier than usual. (BANANAS! for someone who gets up only 15 minutes before walking out the door each morning.) So I got to work just a little earlier, which made everything seem just a little bit less rushed. I taught lessons that I really love teaching, and my students were well-behaved and pleasant, and I even found a super cool article about mass hysteria on the same day that I was about to start The Crucible! I got five new students in one of my classes, which would usually be something that would make me curse the scheduling gods, except that these all came from an overflowing honors class, and in their first day they completely changed the dynamic of my class for the better. Shoot yeah! I even had a big slice of chocolate cake for lunch, which must have had some magical motivational properties because I also got every single one of my papers graded and recorded.

When I got home, I discovered that my sweet husband had gotten off of work early and opened all of the windows in the house because it was 74 freaking degrees outside! I sat down to eat a potato chip sandwich* and catch up on my Words with Friends games and couldn’t wipe the goofy smile off of my face as I looked around at my clean house , the curtains blowing ever-so-slightly from the breeze outside. My little baby wolf was cute as could be, cuddled up on the couch with his dad, and sensing, I’m pretty sure, that it was the eve of his birthday. So I took him to the dog park where he smiled and ran and smelled stuff and tried to have his way with a German shepherd**. On the way there I talked to one of my favorite ladies (who also played a role in this perfect day) and was reminded of just how much I love my friends.

We returned home, relaxed, ate dinner at an hour that is befitting for normal humans, and watched Top Chef. I remembered that I’d bought myself some very cozy full-panel maternity yoga pants way back in September, so I dug them out (I know, I know, you can hardly handle the sexy) and pretended to kick Matt in the face, telling him that never again would he see a pregnant woman kick that high in the air. (He said to be careful that the baby didn’t shoot out.) And after wanting something sweet, then deciding to go to Wendy’s, then deciding not to go to Wendy’s and to eat grapes instead because I don't need to indulge every single fatbody craving that I ever have just because I am pregnant , I stumbled upon this recipe for Peanut Butter Bacon Cookies on the ol’ Pinterest, and thirty minutes later we were inhaling the salty sweet goodness.**

I know it’s not the most exciting thing for you to read the play-by-play of someone else’s day, but I wanted to document yesterday’s perfection so that I can go back and read about it next time I’m feeling like my body and mind have been inhabited by Satan himself.

But here’s something for you to make up for the syrupy diary-like entry.

Peanut Butter Bacon Cookies. OM-effing-G. Matt and I have decided that these should actually be called Danger Cookies**** because they’re so ridiculously quick and easy to make, and they’re, um, out of control delicious. (And gluten free, too, I think, which I don’t care about but maybe other people do.) I think I’m going to make some for my doctor and then I'll tell them that if he doesn't eat them, I will.  And then when he goes absolutely apeshit eating them I’ll call him a cow.  Ha.

Now, if you'll please excuse me, I have to go celebrate my firstborn's 8th birthday with him on this, oh shoot, 81 degree afternoon.  EIGHTY ONE DEGREES!  I can never live anywhere with a real winter again.




*Maybe this wasn’t the healthiest eating day that’s ever been?


**Totally acceptable behavior on the eve of one’s birth.


***After I had two cookies, I did have those grapes, because woman cannot survive on chocolate cake and potato chip sandwiches and peanut butter bacon cookies alone.


****Um, If I had a secret service codename I would want it to be Danger Cookie.

This and That

Cassie was berating me earlier for being such a slacker this week on the ol' blog, and since it's her birthday week, I'll oblige and do a post.  

If it's not interesting, blame her.  

1.  Man oh man!  It's a wild and crazy birthday month up in here.  Matt, Cassie, Obama, Grandma Carol, and Caitie (and a bunch of people I probably just offended by forgetting on this list) are all celebrating birthdays in the next few weeks, and I'm stoked, if only for the cake.  And the celebrating life and getting old and being handsome and general awesomesauce awesomeness.  Birthdays!  Woo-hoo!

2. I'm on a popsicle kick.  Also an ice cream kick, cheeseburger kick, apple kick, and kick kick.  But what's new?   At least it's not a crystal meth kick or a murderin' kick.

3.  Speaking of crystal meth and murderin', are you watching the new season of Breaking Bad?  Also, does it make you think that you'd rather just be poor than start cooking meth and doing meth?  (You know, sores on the face, impending doom, parties that destroy your house, etc.) Also, does Gus freak you out or what?

4.  Mitch just smacked me in the face with his waggin' tail.  Oh, that pup.  How can I leave him for four days?  I keep telling him that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and that I'm already getting excited for our happy reunion.  Then he sasses me and tells me to get him another milk bone.  

5.  And, with all that interesting commentary on life and love, I'm off to San Diego for the BlogHer conference and the Knorr cooking contest (eek!).  I'm excited and anxious and a little bit overwhelmed.  Also, I won't have a computer with me (and I got rid of my smartphone after I almost got carpel tunnel because I was on it so much), so if you contact me through any of these newfangled internet mediums, you won't hear back from me until Monday.  Wish me luck!

Stay Classy, San Diego.

So, here's a funny story.  A month or so ago, I got this email from BlogHer saying that they were doing this promotion with Knorr and asking if I'd be interested in getting some chicken stock samples and making up a recipe using the stock.  Sure, why not?  Hell, we use chicken stock all the time, and worst case scenerio, I have some extra, right?

The recipe was supposed to be entered in this contest with like 200 recipes and then 8 finalists would win a trip to San Diego, where they'd then have some kind of cook-off competition thing and then maybe be selected to represent Knorr in other promotional stuff.  When I told Matt about the whole thing, he said, "Sounds like you're a little out of your league here."  I agreed, but decided that it would be fun to give it a shot.

And so I signed up, got the samples in the mail and was then kind of conflicted about what to make. I decided that it should be simple, basic, and accessible, you know, like a recipe that could go on the package or something.  This was not, I thought, a time to show off my culinary prowess (plus, who really wants to eat chicken stock ice cream, anyway?)  After some hemming and hawing, I decided to make spicy pork carnitas.  So I made them, and here's what they looked like.

But for some reason I wasn't over the moon for the recipe, and I was a little reluctant to submit it.  As the deadline was fast approaching and I was filling my days with other things like Fourth of July festivities and elliptical injuries and general slothfulness, I decided to just go ahead and submit it to fulfill my end of the bargain.

And then a couple of days ago I got an email saying that I am one of the eight finalists and that I'm going to San Diego for the BlogHer conference in a couple of weeks!  Shoot yeah!  I'm still a little bit in shock, and a lot excited, and totally looking forward to visiting the San Diego Zoo.  I'm nervous, too, because I can kind of clam up in situations where I'm expected to perform or to be charming or to meet new people.  But that's what wine's for, right?

And I've totally sized up my competition, and Matt was right--I'm totally out of my league.  But that's cool, because I have a free trip to California and I'm going to meet this guy.

[source]

Oh, and I guess I should share that recipe with you, too, huh?

Here goes it.

Spicy Pork Carnitas

1 ½-2 pounds pork tenderloin

2 tablespoons olive oil

½ teaspoon crushed red pepper

1 teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

1 small onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 jalapeno, minced (with seeds for more spice, without for less)

1 lime, cut into quarter wedges

3 ½ cups Knorr chicken stock, made from concentrate

Directions

1. Rub pork tenderloin on all sides with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper.  Heat olive oil in dutch oven on medium-high.  Brown meat on all sides in dutch oven, then remove.
2. Add onion and cook for three minutes.  Add jalapeno and garlic and cook for another two minutes, or until onion is translucent. 
3. Add Knorr chicken stock to pan, bring to a simmer.
4. Meanwhile, nestle lime wedges into the pork.  Return pork to pan and cover.  Cook on medium-low heat for 90 minutes.
5. When the pork is tender enough, shred with two forks. 

Serve on tortillas with sour cream, shredded lettuce, cheese, and avocado.

Three cheers for zoo fun!  And carnitas!  And all expense paid trips to San Diego!  

Mantle Makeover!

Thanks for being patient with me while I threw a hissy fit yesterday.  Today, per the recommendation of a friend (who likely doesn't want to look at my leper face while we celebrate the birthday of this great nation), I went to the doctor, who loaded me up with more steroids.

I f'ing love steroids.  (It was so easy to ellipt tonight*.  After I finish this post I'm probably going to go pick up a car or pull an airplane with my teeth or something.)

Oh, and I'd also love to show you one of my other favorite parts of our new living room.  Have you ever noticed our mantle?  The smoker's-off-white/gray brick/white brick/red tile mantle?  No?  Here it was.

Note:  I totally took a bunch of actual good before pictures and neglected to load them onto the computer before I deleted the folder.  So you get a bunch of blast from the past shots.  Shooooot.

This one's almost unfair because it was from Christmas, 

and everything is cuter during the holiday season.

Please notice: awful curtains, even more heinous cornices, boring mail slot, and blah mantle.

And here it is now, after I removed the screen, scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed the inside, painted the inside and the red tile black, scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed the outside brick, and painted the mantle itself ultra white.  (Martha Stewart's Picket Fence, to be exact.)

Shoot yeah!

Oh, and, inspired by this photo from Pinterest (why aren't you playing on Pinterest with me?), I decided to get some sticks from the back yard from this bush I hacked to pieces a month or so ago and have yet to throw away, paint them crazy orange, and put them in a $3 vase from Target.

Fun, huh?

Inside our new fireplace is the trash can from my house in college, now full of Iris and Opal's toys and a Magna Doodle, a bit of an homage to my Friends.  I watched two full seasons of Friends while doing the living room last week.

The little mantle makeover cost less than $20, if you don't count the mirror (that was $30) that I got with a free giftcard during last month's HomeGoods adventure.  The biggest expense was the $15 quart of heatproof paint that I used to paint the inside of the fireplace and the hearth.

You may also notice that the curtains are different.  Cassie actually gave them to me a while back, and I hung them high and wide, just like Sherry and John say to do.  They've drastically changed the feel of the room, and I'm in love with them.  The curtains, not Sherry and John (even though they did help me out after that dream drive-by paintball shooting).

All in all, it's brighter and whiter and happier than it was before.  What do you think?


*Also, it may interest you to know that Dylan is having a really hard time deciding between Kelly and Brenda, and Cindy is afraid that Jim is going to have an affair with his secretary.  Donna is still gross.

Homemade Oatmeal Creme Pies

I've mentioned a while back that my mom, who dropped out of high school, homeschooled my brother and me for a year.  And how I spent my entire sixth grade year not learning to dance or discovering life science, but instead watching I Dream of Jeannie, jumping on the trampoline, and eating oatmeal creme pies.  


Oatmeal creme pies still hold a special place in my heart*, so it seemed only fitting that I should try my hand at making them when I found myself with a big bowl full of sugary creamy goodness (a failed attempt at making marshmallow creme cheese frosting).


I'd never actually made an oatmeal cookie, probably because I'm not that big a fan of raisins and it seems that oatmeal and raisins are always hanging out with each other.  But just recently, Cassie was telling me about how she's never made anything from Smitten Kitchen that disappointed, so I went there first.  And hell if Cassie wasn't right.  Oh, Deb.  You and your perfect cookies.


Full disclosure: I also chose this recipe because I already had all of the ingredients on hand.  You probably do, too.


So I set out to make the cookies, and about four minutes later they were in the oven, making the whole house smell amazing.  

And about 12 minutes after that, I had a bunch of little bites of wonderful.

Throw in some creme, and voila!

These were super fast and easy, and the only thing that I don't like about them is that I can't stop eating them.  Will someone please come to my house and eat all of these cookies before I polish them off.  Matt's not a fan of oatmeal cookies**, and Mitch and I are dieting.***


Oh, and these are so quick and simple that you could totes whip up a batch to take to a Memorial Day picnic or something.  Or whip up for yourself to eat whilst lying on the couch on your extra day off this weekend.

*And some real prime real estate on my ass and thighs, too.

**Who the hell doesn't like oatmeal cookies??  When Matt pulls this kind of crap, like when he talks about how he doesn't like pizza or about how he absolutely must get on the elliptical, I wonder to myself, "Can this marriage last?"  

***Pffffffffft.  

Oatmeal Creme Pies


For the cookie.  (Only slightly adapted from Deb's recipe.)



1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) butter, softened
1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups rolled oats

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).


In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together. Stir this into the butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the oats, raisins and walnuts, if using them.


At this point you can either chill the dough for a bit in the fridge and then scoop it, or scoop the cookies onto a sheet and then chill the whole tray before baking them. You could also bake them right away, if you’re impatient, but I do find that they end up slighly less thick.


The cookies should be two inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake them for 10 to 12 minutes (your baking time will vary, depending on your oven and how cold the cookies were going in), taking them out when golden at the edges but still a little undercooked-looking on top. Let them sit on the hot baking sheet for five minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool.


For the creme.


You could really use whatever creme filling you'd like here.  I am partial to cream cheese frosting, so for that you need:


3 oz. cream cheese
1 tbsp. butter
1/3 teaspoon vanilla
powdered sugar to desired taste and thickness (1/2 cup to 1 cup)


Cream the butter and cream cheese in a large bowl.  Add the vanilla.  Slowly add the sugar.  If you sift the sugar first, it'll be more smooth.




Note: I didn't chill my cookie dough because I wanted the cookies to be a little more on the flat side.  If you want yours thicker, chill the dough for thirty minutes or so.

Sea Salt Caramels

Why is it so fun to make caramel?  I mean, it's basically like science class. (Except that I don't have to worry about the lab table on fire with the Bunsen burner or about accidentally eating glass.  Both of those things happened to me in chemistry class.  By the way, Mitch also ate glass once, and was no worse for the wear.  I think there's a strong chance that we're superhero dog and woman.)

These caramels are hard, kind of like a Werther's Original, but they're a little more sassy than something your great-grandpa would eat.  That's because they've got sea salt sprinkled on top.  And if you need to make something for some holiday sweet treat exchange or something like that, these might be fun.

Sea Salt Caramels from The Kitchn

Ingredients
* 1 cup heavy cream
* 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
* 2 teaspoons sea salt, plus extra for sprinkling on top. Sea salt is found in specialty food stores under the name "fleur de sel." You can also experiment with artisanal salts if you like.
* 1 1/2 cups sugar
* 1/4 cup light corn syrup
* 1/4 cup water

Equipment
* 8" square baking pan
* Parchment paper
* Candy thermometer (or a deep-fat thermometer)
* Wax paper for wrapping or paper candy cups

Directions

* Line the bottom and sides of the pan with parchment paper and lightly oil the paper.
* Bring the cream, butter and sea salt to a boil in a small saucepan; remove from heat and set aside.
* Boil the sugar, corn syrup, and water in a heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Bring to a boil, without stirring but gently swirling pan; then cook without stirring until the mixture reaches 248°F, the firm-ball stage.
* Carefully stir in the cream mixture—the mixture will bubble up. Simmer, stirring frequently, about 15 minutes. The temperature should not go higher than 250°F.
* CANDYMAKER TIP: To get the caramel consistency you want, test by dropping a spoonful of caramel into a bowl of cold water. It will form a ball, which you can test with your fingers. Stop cooking when the ball is the consistency that you want.
* Pour the mixture into the baking pan and cool 2 hours.
* OPTIONAL: You can enrobe your caramels in tempered melted chocolate; sprinkle the top with some grains of sea salt (pretty salts make a difference); or press in some culinary lavender buds.
* Cut into 1-inch pieces, then wrap each piece in a 4-inch square of wax paper, folding ends or twisting to close like taffy.

This post is really a waste of my time and yours. Except for the chicken recipe.

This is how I am spending my time when I'm supposed to be doing laundry and vacuuming and ellipting and cleaning the kitchen and doing lesson plans.  Because, here's the thing: I really don't feel like doing laundry or ellipting or cleaning the kitchen or doing lesson plans. 

I should do those things, though, so that tomorrow when I get home from school I can revel in the fact that I had such a productive Thursday night, and I can walk around the house barefoot (without my feet getting Wal-Mart feet dirty), and I can rub my hands up and down on my stomach and be proud that I'm not as much of a fatty as I was the day before. 

What's to blame for this lack of productivity?  Well, it could be that the time change is turning me into a bear.  Matt insists that I have SAD, but I argue that I do not have SAD; instead I am a bear (Kind of like Yogi.).  I like to eat a lot and then hibernate.  (Granted, I also like to do those things in the summer, so maybe the explanation is more that I'm a lazy bump on a log.)

We could also blame my lack of productivity on the cinnamon glazed almonds that I made yesterday.  See, I let them cool on the baking sheet for too long, and when I went back to get them the almonds were all stuck to the sheet.  So I had to use spatulas and my hands to pry them off, and in doing so, I cut my finger on some jagged hardened sugar.  I would show you the cut, except that it would be really hard to take a picture of it because it's on my right hand.  Also, I don't want to show you the cut because it's so tiny and inconsequential that you would think that I was a big whining baby.  Anyway, I think the cut might be infected, and it's very likely that I have developed some sort of brown sugar poisoning.  I'll probably be dead by morning.

Oh, and this is completely unrelated, but if I'd be remiss if I didn't promote this one chicken recipe before this certain death.  I've posted about it before, but kind of just in passing, and it's just so good.  We've actually had it twice in the last week (gas grill decided that it didn't want to live any longer; I'm pretty sure it was dying of brown sugar poisoning).  It's Lemon and Rosemary Roasted Chicken from The Bitten Word, and it's absolutely delicious.  It's a little bit time consuming since the chicken has to marinate for an hour and then cook for almost as long, but it's sooooooooooooooo good.  So make it in honor of me.  You know, after I die from the the sugar wound and subsequent poisoning.

I get the purple plate and pour the remaining marinade on mine.  Mmmmmmmmm.

That was probably enough rambling.  I think I'm going to race myself now to see how quickly I can accomplish everything on my current to-do list. 

Ready. . .set. . . go!

This and That

1.  Ladies and gentlemen, it's Snuggie weather time!  The other night I snuggied up on the couch with the dog (who does not, for some reason, own his own Snuggie).  If it gets any colder outside it's going to be lying-on-the-couch-in-a-sleeping-bag weather.  Whoop, whoop!

2.  Informal poll.  Are you tired all the time?  Because I'm tired all the time, and I can't decide if this fatigue is A.) a result of my weird sleep habits and caffeine addiction, B.) just part of being a grown-up, or C.) some kind of health problem.

3.  And, just in case you need to see how tired I look all the time, here's my school picture.  (By the way, I think that one of the very worst parts of my job is the fact that I'm forced to take school pictures that will be featured in a yearbook.)  This is what I look like at 9:45 a.m. with no makeup, and little will to live.  In my defense, I had just spent the last hour of my life corralling primping ninth graders through a stuffy hallway,  trying to get about 25 of them to keep from screaming and touching each other while standing in line.  The only somewhat redeeming thing about this photo is that I had actually brushed my hair that morning.   

And how's this for a before and after?  That's what 12 years, hatred in your heart, and a love for baked goods will do to you.

4.  We've had two fun new meals this week: Quick Dirty Rice from Our Life in the Kitchen, and Cheesy Beefy Potato Soup from My Fiance Likes It So It Must Be Good.  Both were very, very tasty.  Both will be made again.

 [source]

[source]

5. My eleventh graders have figured out that if they want to get me off-topic, all they need to do is bring up Amber from Teen Mom.  Is that bitch in jail yet?  Or at least sterilized?

6. Bought the first two book of The Hunger Games series for Chloe [but really for Matt who wanted an excuse to read them].  I kind of want to read them, but I'm afraid that they'll give me bad dreams. 

7.  The election was a bit of a suckfest--an expected suckfest, but a suckfest nonetheless.  At least most of the craziest of the crazies lost, right?  Hey, but did you hear that Sean from the Boston season of The Real World is now a Representative from Wisconsin? You know, the lumberjack guy who married the crazy girl who made out with Puck on the San Francisco season of The Real World.  If I remember right, I liked him (Sean, not Puck).  Did you watch the Boston season?  It was the one with Elka and Genesis and Montana (Basically during MTV's phase of selecting only cast members who had silly names.  Now they just try to find the person who's most likely to do steroids and botox and take 50 shots in a hour's time.).

8. I seriously have the best mother-in-law.  The other night I was talking to her about how I can't seem to find any good baking chocolate in Savannah, and today I got this in the mail.  I love her.

9. Tomorrow Matty and I will be attending a showing of The River Why at the Savannah Film Festival.  We're excited because we got free tickets (old roommate Cris is a baller who scores free stuff for us), but mostly because it stars Zach Gilford (a.k.a. MATT SARACEN!).  It basically looks like a modern-day A River Runs Through It, which is awesome because I LOVE A River Runs Through It. 

10.  Just spent a good chunk of my night making candied pecans and caramel.  Get ready for something tasty!

Oh, Friday, where have you been all my life--or, for the last six days?

15 Minutes of Fame

Work today kind of made me want to beat my head against a brick wall.  It's as though my students were doing everything in their power to knock me off of the pro-baby wagon, and I was tired, and since it's the end of the quarter, I had approximately one bajillion things to do.

UGH!

So, imagine just how incredibly super and awesome it was when I came home and saw this.

Basically, Pioneer Woman wants to be me.*

And last week little ol' M Cubed was featured in The Kitchn for Fossil Cookies.  Hell yeah! 

Can I please just quit my job and make cookies and ice cream and take pictures and write about them and have that be my new job?**

* Except that she probably doesn't.

**Jokes.  I do not want to quit my job, especially since with each passing year, the "wanting to beat my head against a brick wall" days are fewer and farther between.

Magic Meatballs

[source]

I realize the ol' blog has been pretty food heavy lately.  There are a few reasons for this.  First, I am obsessed with food.  You know that statistic about how men think about sex every eight seconds?  Well, I think about food at least that often.  When I'm not thinking about food, I'm sleeping, or thinking about Matt--and the next thing we'll cook together. 

Second, this is a really uneventful time of year for us.  It's not bad, but it's not terribly interesting.  My days consist of getting up way too early, arriving at school twenty minutes later (which actually can be eventful, but I'm not supposed to blog about school), coming home and eating too much, napping, talking to Matt, making dinner, ellipting, and watching television.  I know, I know, it's pretty glamorous.

Finally, Mitch hasn't been blogging much because all he ever wants to do anymore is lie in his dirt spot in the back yard.  He does this for hours a day.  It's really weird.  Also, I'm kind of wishing that he'd choose a more tidy place to lie than a DIRT SPOT, you know, since he sleeps in the bed with us and all.  (Is this an excuse to buy more sheets??)

And the weekends have been pretty quiet, too, since I spend much of my time trying to catch up with stuff around the house: laundry, house cleaning, reorganizing, etc.  Sometimes I'll take on small projects.  This weekend, for example, I was determined to use the meat grinder attachment that I received when I got my KitchenAid mixer.  I've had it for almost two years, and been intimidated by the meat grinder the whole time.  We had some boneless chicken thighs in the freezer, and Matt is grossed out by chicken thighs, so I decided that I would grind them up and make meatballs.

Oh, and remember that my KitchenAid is really old--from the sixties or possibly seventies.  So the attachments are old, too.  My meat grinder attachment is slightly newer than this one.  It looks kind of like a medieval torture device [for chicken].

So I set out to grinding.  It seemed like a good idea at the time (Kind of like how that one time it seemed like a good idea to let Chloe's stroller roll down the hill while I ran beside it.  Sorry about the fall and the busted up face, Sister.  My bad.). 

Now, I'm not squeamish or easily grossed out, but grinding this chicken made me want to puke all over the kitchen.  Not only did I have to squish the chicken down this little hole, but the chicken, as it came out, kept making this wet, lip-smacking, disgusting spitty sound.  It was as though Halloween had come early and I was grinding up human brains.  I'm not really sure why the meat grinding was such a disgusting disaster--perhaps I should have found myself some directions or made sure the blades were sharpened--but I do know that I was about two chicken thighs away from becoming a vegetarian.  I took pictures, but I'll spare you.  Just picture a human brain being pressed through a screen and you'll get the picture.

Anyway, I was thoroughly disgusted by the whole meat grinding endeavor, and didn't even know if I would want to eat the meat because the very thought of it made me squirm.  But then I found this recipe, and decided that it was high time to buck up, to get back up on the horse if you will.

I'm so glad I did.

These meatballs were so good!  Sure, it's a little deceiving to call them chicken meatballs when they have 1/4 lb. of pancetta in them, but I don't care.  I think that the step that really made them incredible was where we broke up Italian bread and soaked the pieces in milk before adding them to the meatball mixture.  The Smitten Kitchen lady, Deb, said that the greatest thing about the meatballs was how they tasted cheesy, even though there was no cheese in them.  She was right.  So, basically, we need to rename these Magic Meatballs.  (Next up: making celery taste like cookies.)

[source]

I stole her picture because I forgot to take my own, and because hers is really pretty.

Moral of the story: make yourself some Magic Meatballs, but buy the chicken already ground.

Magic Meatballs (Baked Chicken Meatballs from Smitten Kitchen)

Serves 4, or more as appetizers or sliders

3 slices Italian bread, torn into small bits (1 cup)
1/3 cup milk
3 ounces sliced pancetta, finely chopped (you can swap in Canadian Bacon if you can’t find pancetta)
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 small garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 large egg
1 pound ground chicken
2 tablespoons tomato paste, divided*
3 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

Directions
Preheat oven to 400°F with a rack in the upper third of the oven. Soak bread in milk in a small bowl until softened, about four minutes.
Cook pancetta, onion, and garlic in one tablespoon oil with 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper in a large skillet over medium heat until onion is softened, about 6 minutes. (Alternately, as in “I thought of this after the fact”, I’d bet you could render the pancetta for a couple minutes and cook the onions and garlic in that fat, rather than olive oil.) Cool slightly.
Squeeze bread to remove excess milk, then discard milk. Lightly beat egg in a large bowl, then combine with chicken, 1 tablespoon tomato paste, pancetta mixture, bread, and parsley. Form 12 meatballs and arrange in another 4-sided sheet pan (I used a 9×13 roasting dish).
Stir together remaining tablespoons of tomato paste and oil and brush over meatballs (the paste/oil does not mix in any cohesive manner, but just smoosh it on and run with it) , then bake in upper third of oven until meatballs are just cooked through, 15 to 20 minutes (though mine took a good 5 minutes longer).
*Smitten Kitchen lady accidentally added a heaping tablespoon of the tomato paste into the meatball mixture the first time she made it, and ended up liking it better than without it. She’d use the tomato paste on top too. It’s good both places.

Now this is a sacrifice.

UPDATE:

Just couldn't stomach the thought of those blue people as our background.  If you want that background for your own bliggity blog, then here's the copy code. 

Do you love the new background or what?

(P.S. Avatar was the best movie of the century.  Or not.)

Also, I think Mitch just farted.

Blogiversary!

So, it was one year ago that a snake jumped out of some bushes in an attempt to murder me.  And it was one year ago today that I decided that I needed to share that information with the world (and by "world" I mean the ten of you who regularly visit). 

I started the blog for two main reasons:  1.)  I had a new camera (well, new to me--it's actually like seven years old) and wanted to figure out how to use it, and 2.) I realized that in my post-college years, I did hardly any writing.  I didn't want to clutter people's Facebook feeds with pictures of random shit from around the house, and I didn't want to forget how to use the English language (though, let's be honest--what I write here is far from what I was able to churn out during college.  I'm getting dumber by the minute.)

What I really like about M Cubed is that it actually pushes me to do things that I might not do otherwise.  If I have a choice between going to some fun event or taking a nap, now there's a 25% chance that I'll go to the event, whereas before there was only a 5% chance.  See how much I'm growing?

My love of blogging has paralleled my love of making cupcakes, and it seems only fitting that I should share my most recent beauties on M Cubed's first birthday.  (Wish they were actually birthday cupcakes; in reality they were cupcakes that I made for my ninth graders the day before their big state test.  Basically, they were my way of trying to bribe them to do well so that I won't feel like such a failure when I see their scores.)

 
I cheated on these cakes because I used box cake.  I was making 96 cupcakes, so I decided that it was okay.  Plus, just one whiff of that batter shot me back to my childhood.  It's possible that I ate a few [hundred] spoonfuls of the batter.  Oh, also I got the Wilton icing gel colors, and I'm pretty much obsessed.  Fun, garish colors, here I come!

And, as I attempted to get into the mind of a ninth grader, I came up with what is now my favorite cupcake topping:  NERDS!

Oh, and crunched up Butterfinger's not too bad, either.  Then some were just a Pepto-Bismol shade of pink cream cheese icing.

(Oh, and there were some gummy bears.  Mmmmmmmmm, gummy bears. . .)

They were a bitch to transport.  

Okay, it's time for to to have a thirty-minute surge of productivity so that I can go to the beach guilt-free.

(Or maybe I'll just take a nap.)