Heather Bakes

That’s What She Said…

VOTE FOR CHLOE!!! November 20, 2008

Filed under: November 2008, Uncategorized — heatherwlu @ 4:31 am
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Now I know how moms feel when their daughters win pageants… Chloe’s in the running for the Dallas Morning News Pet of the Week! I sent in her photo back in July and just got an email today that she’s up for the award. It’s based on votes, so PLEASE click on the link below to vote for her. Chloe’s photo is toward the bottom of the page- don’t be fooled by that sorry excuse for a pug, Piper, at the top. Although at the moment, Piper is kicking Chloe’s ass in the poll. Let’s change that, shall we??

http://www.dallasnews.com/perl/common/surveys/display_full.pl?poll_id=21478&site=DallasWebSites&vaction=voting&thissite=dallasnews

You’ll be required to register with dallasnews.com before submitting your vote- they just do that so you can’t vote multiple times (lame). You won’t be spammed or anything.

So on to less exciting business… today was my one day off from work and school, so I got to sleep in! After dragging myself out of bed, I threw together a bowl of plain Chobani topped with Kashi Cinnamon Harvest, bananas, dried cherries, walnuts and honey.

breakfast1

That Kashi cereal is kind of amazing- it NEVER gets stale. We bought a huge box at Sam’s months ago and it still tastes fresh. After breakfast I did about 3 1/2 miles of hill runs, showered, and then met my parents for lunch at the Allgood Cafe in Deep Ellum. I started with the Lentil Soup:

lentil

Followed by the Main Street Salad, topped with goat cheese, rotisserie chicken and shrimp:

salad3

And I also talked the parentals into sharing an appetizer of Goat Cheese Ravioli. I probably wouldn’t have ordered it if I’d known it was in a cream sauce, but it was delicious- the sauce had a very fresh pesto flavor.

ravioli

Right now I’m doing a test run of a Bacon Crumble Apple Pie that was in the Holiday edition of Everyday with Rachael Ray. I’m debating making this for Thanksgiving, but the ingredient list seemed a little odd- hence the dress rehearsal. The filling is pretty normal (golden delicious apples and lemon zest, plus I threw in some cinnamon), but the topping consists of flour, butter, brown sugar, extra sharp cheddar and bacon. I made the crust from scratch, but it had some major side-shrinkage in the oven… does anyone know how to prevent this? I’m sure we covered that in class, but it’s been a while.

pie11

pie21

The verdict? Um, not so good. The chewy texture of the bacon just does not belong here. I do like the cheese, though; even though I used extra-sharp cheddar, it’s pretty subtle. It might be a good idea to leave out the cinnamon, too… but apple pie without cinnamon just seems weird. Brian didn’t seem as appalled by the final product as I did.

THANK YOU to Marie for the donation!!! Woohoo!

SURVEY TIME:

What are your Thanksgiving plans? Staying home? Traveling? Working?

I’m guessing that I’ll probably have to work in the morning (I hear grocery stores do pretty well on Thanksgiving) but then heading over to mom and dad’s for Thanksgiving dinner. I usually run the Turkey Trot in the morning and am so sad I’m going to miss it this year :(

 

Cool WHip November 10, 2008

Filed under: November 2008 — heatherwlu @ 5:19 am
Tags: ,

It’s Sunday night already??? This weekend flew.

*FRIDAY*

It was pasta day in class. We made homemade egg pasta, which was turned into fettucini and spinach-ricotta ravioli, along with pasta salad, tomato coulis, and basil pesto. I had no idea that pasta was that easy to create- you just put a big pile of flour on the table, crack some eggs into a “well” on top, pour on a little oil, and then gradually mix it into a dough. Bench, roll, cut, boil. And then EAT.

Sorry, I forgot my camera… so no photo.

*SATURDAY*

Got up early for an 18 mile run. It sucked, though I was still mobile on Saturday night- so that’s an improvement. Think my time was about 2:55. Meh.

Lauren was throwing a bachelorette party for our friend Tara, so I whipped up some vanilla cupcakes with pink buttercream frosting….

pink

Saturday night we attended a wedding for Brian’s law school friend, Alden, and his fiancee-now-wife Elizabeth. The ceremony was beautiful and the reception (held at the Melrose Hotel) was gorgeous too.
I looked like a freak taking photos of all of the food- but hey, it’s a small sacrifice for the good of the blog, right? Before we were let into the dining room, they passed around little spoons of salmon ceviche (modeled by the lovely Brian):

ceviche

And these cool plastic to-go containers of calamari with greens and jalapenos:

calamari

Dinner began with caesar salad, followed by fruit sorbet garnished with micromint:

sorbet

The main course was steak and salmon over mascarpone polenta, served with some type of onion-artichoke side:

salmon

Brian was sweet enough to trade me his salmon for my steak. Nice.

OH- can’t forget the cake:

cake

And the happy couple… congratulations! Sorry for the blurry photo:

wedding

Aww, that makes me want to get married all over again.

*SUNDAY*

I had to work from 12-8 at Whole Foods- first real, non-training day on the job. I’m NOT used to being on my feet for 8 hours straight and I am beat. The day consisted of lots of cookie baking (and burning, oops), restocking, bread slicing, customer chatting. Sadly, no sampling. Afterwards I cruised through the store and picked up a few goodies…

Turkey meatloaf for dinner (along with steamed brussels sprouts and leftover pumpkin pasta):

meatloaf

And ANOTHER type of pumpkin beer: Wolaver’s Will Stevens’ Pumpkin Ale

pumpkin

It’s much more pumpkin-y than the Dogfish Head. Yum. I also got a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie from the bakery to try- we were selling out of those like crazy. My bedtime snack is going to be the cookie and a cup of Celestial Seasonings Gingerbread Spice Tea. We used to have bedtime snacks EVERY NIGHT as kids- usually either a chocolate milkshake or popcorn. Isn’t that nuts? God, to have that metabolism again…

Hey, remember when I had to go the ER for pink eye a couple of months ago? And my eye was all red and ridiculously swollen yet fine the next morning? Well this was what was right in my face while we watched Family Guy tonight (I did NOT zoom… she was thisclose):

piper

And now my eye is bright red and puffed up EXACTLY like it was that night in the ER. So yeeeeah- thinking that I may be more allergic to cats than I realized.

Okay, so you know how the other day I mentioned that vanilla hempmilk wasn’t mixing well with my coffee? Well I got a very helpful email from CJ at Living Harvest Conscious Nutrition (the company that produces the hempmilk) with the following explanation:

You are quite right that when you add our milk to a regular cup of Joe it will often separate as this is due to the PH in our hemp nut reacting to the acidity of coffee. However, due to the naturally occurring omegas or good fats, when steamed, our hemp milk performs beautifully with a frothy head of foam, rich, breve like mouth feel and flavor profile.

She also goes on to say that they are currently reformulating their hempmilk so that it will blend smoothly with coffee- yea!! So thanks, CJ! Good to know.

Off to bed. Guess what I have tomorrow? JURY DUTY. I’m supposed to call in at 11:00 to see if I have to be there at 1, but hoping that they either won’t need me or will let me out because I have class. Yeah, I’m a bad civil servant.

SURVEY TIME!

What are you most looking forward to this week?

I can’t wait for the Top Chef premier!! But no Texans this season… boo hisssss.

 

Cupcakes in ‘08 November 4, 2008

Filed under: November 2008 — heatherwlu @ 12:51 pm
Tags: , ,

(That’s my write-in candidate.)

This week is going to be a lot more structured than any I’ve had since… well, probably since I quit my job in May. Tomorrow is paperwork/training at WF from 9:30-12:30, then a meeting at 2. Weds and Thurs both involve more training at 2 different WF locations from 9:30-4:30, and then Friday is class as usual. Plus the normal running routine: easy run tomorrow, track workout Weds, tempo Thurs, long run (18) Saturday.

Aren’t you glad I shared all of that with you? I feel so much more organized now. Screw Google calendar- I can just blog it out.

Today I got up at 7:30 and had a nice oat-y breakfast. I wish I were creative like some of my blogger friends (I’m looking at you, Rose) and could come up with fun oatmeal combinations early in the morning. But no. This was the typical banana, vanilla hempmilk, almond butter and trail mix combo.

oats

Tonight we were going out to dinner to celebrate our brother-in-law’s birthday, and a cupcake request was submitted. Apparently Mike really likes Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, so I found a recipe in the Elinor Klivans Cupcakes! cookbook for peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate glaze. The batter basically consisted of butter, dark brown sugar, LOTS and LOTS of smooth peanut butter, flour and eggs. I threw in a cup of milk chocolate chips, too. The glaze was a very basic chocolate ganache of butter, heavy cream and milk chocolate.

cupcake1

cupcake2

So good. I didn’t know whether to do chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing, or peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate icing… but after consuming about 1/4 of the batter straight from the bowl, I’m confident that this was the right choice.

cupcake3

Lunch was a whole wheat Western Bagel Alternative Pita with leftover rotisserie chicken, baby spinach, jalapenos, hummus and yellow bell pepper:

pita

We had dinner at Champps and unfortunately I forgot to get a photo. Just picture some balsamic glazed chicken with mashed potatoes and grilled veggies. And a cupcake.

Off to bed. I don’t know why I’m so tired right now… but I have to get up at 5 for a run. Hope everyone had a great Monday. And don’t forget to vote!! I hear Starbucks is giving free coffee to voters, and you can score a free doughnut at Krispy Kreme, too. WOOHOO free breakfast!

SURVEY TIME!

Did you vote today? And how long did you have to wait at the polls?

I early voted on Thursday and waited about 20 minutes. The line was really long, too- I expected to wait a lot longer. So yea for the super efficient Lake Highlands poll staffers!

 

Holy Cow, It’s November November 3, 2008

Filed under: November 2008 — heatherwlu @ 4:00 am
Tags: , ,

Is it just me, or has 2008 flown by??

*FRIDAY*

Class as usual (twice baked potatoes, scalloped potatoes, lentils and mushroom risotto), then hurried home to straighten up and get ready the Halloween festivities. By “festivities” I mean answering the door for little trick-or-treaters while eating pad thai and Halloween candy. Speaking of, look at Micky and Minnie… aka Gabriel and Molly.

I was kind of obsessed with Molly’s shoes… a girl’s gotta start early with the heel collection :)

We also had a visit from a very scary Vampira and a very cool Speed Racer but I forgot to get a photo :( Chloe kept her costume on for about 30 very sulky minutes and then we gave in and let her be Naked Pug for Halloween instead.

*SATURDAY*

Saturday we slept in and then set about the really fun total beat-down job of flea bombing our house. We’d dosed both pets with Frontline and STILL found flea dirt on them, so we ended up having to buy a few foggers. While that was going on at home we took Chloe and Piper to my parents’ house to bathe them. Have you ever bathed a cat? Ask Brian how that went.

While Bri wrestled the animals, I made cupcakes for Katherine’s Halloween party: Pumpkin Ginger Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Spiderweb Icing…

I’d never worked with crystallized ginger before- it’s so cool! It adds just a kick of ginger, and I like the chewiness it gives the cupcakes. We found it pre-chopped at Williams Sonoma.

The party was fun! It was way North (Frisco) and we definitely got lost on the way (stupid Google Maps). Katherine had the best costume: a Stepford Wife, complete with wind-up key:

Can you tell what I am? This might give you a bigger hint…

No, I’m not (that) fat… I’m Juno! And Brian was Paulie Bleeker, although I don’t know what’s up with the face he’s making here. The belly was a bike helmet tied around my waist, and my “bump” kept dropping during the party. I guess I was carrying low.

Katherine’s cookies were cute AND delicious:

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAT!

We ended up leaving the shindig around 11 to get some rest for…

*SUNDAY*

The big half-marathon! It was pretty warm today- about 65 degrees when we started running and probably close to 75 at the end. Despite the heat I was happy with my time: 1:51, so about 8:28-8:29/mile. That’s 7 minutes shaved off my half marathon PR from 2006. For all you runners: I’m officially a convert of the Gu brand gels now. I used the Orange flavor at 45 min and the Triple Berry at 90 min and they helped a LOT… maybe it’s the caffeine? They actually taste pretty decent, too.

The rest of today was spent having brunch with my brother at Dream Cafe (MIGAS!!) and then taking a loooong nap with Chloe. For dinner we grabbed a rotisserie chicken at Sam’s and roasted some brussels sprouts. The best part were the twice-baked taters recreated from the recipe from class on Friday. Despite having cooked baked potatoes in foil for my entire life, I’m now obsessed with just rubbing the outside in olive oil and sprinkling with kosher salt. The skin gets super crispy and delicious. The insides are mashed with a couple of Laughing Cow wedges, some Brummel & Brown, light sour cream, garlic salt and some chopped green onions. Scoop back into the potato skins, top with cheddar and bake until cheese melts. YUM.

My sweet hubby just poured me a glass of $3 Wal-Mart wine and there’s a new South Park on, so I can’t miss this hot date :) Don’t be jealous.

SURVEY TIME!

What’s your favorite condiment? And do you put it on anything weird?

Mine’s boring: ketchup. It goes on everything, though- potatoes, eggs, green beans, tamales. Second favorite would probably be vinegar.



 

It’s The End of the World as We Know It… October 27, 2008

Filed under: October 2008, Uncategorized — heatherwlu @ 3:04 am
Tags: , , ,

“And I feel fiiiiiine”

Hope everybody had a fun weekend! Here’s the recap:

**FRIDAY**

On Friday my Dad called to see if we would be interested in tickets to an REM concert that night… um, heck yeah we would! We like REM and the Old 97’s were opening for them, so that made it even more exciting :) The concert was fun- the 97’s played a great set (as always!) and REM sounded good live. Here’s Michael Stipe doing the robot:

I wasn’t nuts about the stuff off their newest album, but they played a lot of great classics, too.

**SATURDAY**

Brian left for his firm golf retreat and I babysat in the morning. Chloe and I took a looooong nap, then went to lunch with my mom (just me, not Chloe). I got the baking itch and decided to try a recipe I’d been eyeing in the Giada cookbook: Amaretti Torta. I’m obsessed with these little amaretto cookies from World Market so I knew I’d love the cake:

The recipe entails adding ground chocolate chips and amaretto cookies to the batter (eggs, milk, flour and Grand Marnier) and folding in whipped egg whites. Here’s the mis en place:

After baking, you spread a thin layer of orange marmalade on top and then sprinkle with more crumbled cookies:

This torte is AMAZING. The combination of chocolate, almond and orange works so well together, and the egg whites keep it from being too heavy. I had a taste right away. I mean, to make sure that it wasn’t poisonous.

**SUNDAY**

Around 9 I headed out for the big 20-miler. It didn’t feel as tough as last week, but still sucked big time. I hit a wall around mile 12 and felt like there was NO WAY I could finish the final eight. But I did. With lots of walk breaks. My final time was 3:20, and I had some Clif Shot Bloks at 45 and 90 minutes, and then these Luna Sport Moon chews at 2:10 (the Pomegranate flavor- really good!). I’m not super happy with the time, but I’m running the DRC Half Marathon next Sunday so I’ll be able to get a better idea of my projected race time for the full marathon.

After Brian got home, we grabbed lunch at Freebirds- chicken bird bowl (mmm)- and then ran some errands, including buying a pretty sweet Halloween costume for the pug. Get excited. We put it on her today and she just stood in one spot and wouldn’t move for like 10 minutes. Then she tried to come visit us and got stuck between the couch and the coffee table… it’s a wide costume.

Speaking of pug costumes, I know I’ve posted that photo of Miss Chloe in the giraffe costume. Our local magazine, The Advocate, requested pet photos about a month ago and I just had to send in that shot. Lo and behold, a new issue arrived on our doorstep on Saturday…

And just look what was inside!

Aww, the little celebri-pug.

More baking today- for some reason I’ve been in the mood to bake bread, which I’ve only tried in class. Bread kind of freaks me out, so I’ve never made it at home. I decided on a Honey Wheat Bread from the Williams-Sonoma Baking cookbook. Not bad, eh?

And for dinner, soup sounded really good so I made yet another recipe from the Giada cookbook: Hearty Tomato Soup with Lemon and Rosemary. It’s super simple. Just saute onions and carrots in butter, add some white beans, tomatoes and herbs, and simmer 30 minutes. Then puree and top with creme fraiche (which I did not have, so used a mixture of Fage and mascarpone with lemon zest instead). I stirred some tempered half and half into the soup to make it creamy. And what goes best with tomato soup?? Grilled cheese, duh. So Brian whipped up some grilled colby jack on whole wheat bread with sweet pickle slices. Perfect.

Off to do some studying! Thanks for bearing with my long and rambling post :)

SURVEY TIME!

What are your Halloween plans?

We’re handing out candy on Friday night- although last year we only had a few trick or treaters (sad), and then heading to a party on Saturday night. I loooove Halloween.

 

OW October 15, 2008

Filed under: October 2008 — heatherwlu @ 3:18 am
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This morning I had a very Sammie (from Running with a Recipe) breakfast: cottage cheese with pumpkin butter and a crumbled granola plank.

It was deeelicious… and good fuel for my run. The schedule called for a 6 mile “Quality Run”, so I decided to do what Runner’s World refers to as Kenyan Outbacks. Basically you run X number of miles at an easy pace (OUT), and then X miles back at a faster pace (BACK). Get it? OUT-BACK. OUTBACK. So I did 3 miles OUT in 29 minutes and 3 miles BACK in 24 minutes. Hooray.

A very good friend who shall remain nameless- as, unlike me, she may have an ounce of pride and not want her personal biz-nass broadcast over the interwebs- has lovely eyebrows. Her secret is this little Indian salon that does brow threading (if you don’t know what it is, click here). I’ve been wanting to try this procedure, and as we have a wedding to attend in Tennessee this weekend and I would rather not be mistaken for a shewolf, I thought, “Why not?”

Oh sweet baby Jesus, I’ll tell you why not. Because it HURTS. I was literally crying as the tiny, evil woman hovered over me with that godforsaken thread. But my eyebrows look nice, don’t you think?

Me Before:

And After:

I would say that there’s a noticeable difference- no? That after photo was from dinner tonight… my brother looks so thrilled to have his picture taken with me.

I haven’t baked in a few days and was getting the itch, so at Ange’s recommendation I tried the Lemon Ricotta Cookies with Lemon Glaze from the new Giada cookbook (naturally). You can find the recipe online here.

They’re really more like teacakes. Or puffy cookies. Anyway, you should try them because they are EASY to make and absolutely delicious. You can’t really taste the ricotta, but it gives it a nice, creamy texture and is a good contrast to the lemon. Lots of lemon. Don’t skip the glaze, either- I could have eaten the entire bowl with a spoon. Also, I lightened them up a little by using part-skim ricotta. They would probably taste great made with lime instead of lemon, if you want to get all crazy.

Okay then, off to bed. But first…

SURVEY TIME!

What are you reading right now?

I’m trying to finish about 8 books, including The Year of Eating Dangerously; Animal, Vegetable, Miracle; and Chasing Harry Winston. None of them are really grabbing me though, obviously. OH- and I bought the new Food Network magazine today. Lots of great recipes!!

 

Will Forte is Underrated October 10, 2008

Filed under: October 2008 — heatherwlu @ 3:50 am
Tags:

We’re watching the SNL political special right now. It’s true. Will Forte is highly undervalued on this show. If you don’t believe me, go watch the Fancypants skit with Michael Phelps. Or any of the Tim Calhoun sketches. Just putting that out there.

Yesterday I had a horrible run. It was only 4 miles, but my achilles was sore, my shoes- which I’ve decided that I HATE- were cutting into the tops of my feet, and I was just off. It’s only 10 weeks until the marathon and maybe I’m starting to mentally freak out a little (am I logging enough miles, am I running fast enough, etc…). But 2 things happened between then and now, and I actually had a fabulous 7 mile run at the lake this morning.

FIRST: I got a package in the mail from my college friend, Carolyn. She lives in NYC, recently graduated from culinary school and now is a recipes editor for Gourmet magazine (sweet, no?). Here’s what was inside:

Isn’t that awesome? I absolutely love it. Running + Design = Genius.

SECOND: I ran across a posting from Heather at HangryPants here, and she referenced this NY Times article about the importance of relaxing while running. So today I tried to do what the article said and just release all of the tension in my neck/shoulders. I also gave myself a mental break by not looking at the Garmin every 2 seconds to see if I was on pace. I just enjoyed the scenery. Verdict? The run was about 500 times more enjoyable. And the time wasn’t bad either- about 62 minutes. So thanks for the article, Heather!

Today was the big dessert day! I finished filling the tartlet shells with key lime and then piped on some whipped cream:

And everything actually fit in the back of the Prius! Set up for the reception:

I haven’t been back to my old company in over 4 months- it was really weird making that same drive again. But I had so much fun catching up with all of my coworkers. I miss you guys! Tom filled me in on his newest culinary endeavor: homemade salsa (someday I will be brave enough to fire up our gas grill… someday). And I had a really cute photo of Katherine sampling one of the truffles but I accidentally deleted it off of my camera :( Is there a way to recover deleted photos off a digital camera??? Anybody?

So it was a great day but I’m exhausted. To my blogger friends- today has been nuts, but I’m looking forward to catching up on all of your posts tomorrow after class!! Off to convert some recipes (I think we’re baking acorn squash).

PS- Don’t even get me started on Project Runway this week. I can’t talk about it lest my head explode from anger and memories of Kinley’s whiiiiiiiiiiiine.

SURVEY TIME:

What is one skill that you’ve always wanted to learn?

I don’t know why, but I’d really like to learn to play the cello. Learning Spanish would be great, too. For some reason my elementary school thought that FRENCH would be a better option. Hello- or should I say Hola? - we’re in Texas.

One more thing… some of you said that you were interested in buying that new Giada cookbook. I just got an email from Borders and apparently the book is going to be 50% off tomorrow (Saturday) only.  Just a heads up!

 

Chocolate, Chocolate Everywhere October 9, 2008

Filed under: October 2008 — heatherwlu @ 4:50 am
Tags: ,

At the moment, this is pretty much what I look like:

Sorry, Chloe. She’s less than amused by my picture-taking. But apparently not annoyed enough to actually get up.

Today was all about the baking. Tomorrow I’m catering desserts for a reception at my former company, so today I made 150 cookie truffles:

And just under 100 key lime tartlet shells. I still have a few left to bake:

The cookie truffles are ridiculously easy to make. You just crush a package of Oreo’s in the food processor, mix them with cream cheese and vanilla and roll them into balls. Then chill until firm and dip into melted chocolate.

I made tarts in class this summer, but tartlets are a massive pain in the butt. The dough recipe is here- you were supposed to be able to roll out and cut the dough, but mine just fell apart. So instead I just pressed them into tartlet pans and weighed each down with pie weights.

Tomorrow I’ll fill the tartlet shells with key lime filling (recipe from one of the Magnolia Bakery cookbooks… I can’t remember which one, but it’s fabulous).

And THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to my mom and Brian. Mom helped me pretty much all day, and Brian is actually doing the ginormous pile of dishes right now. I’d also like to point out what he did with the leftover melted chocolate:

NICE. That’s a cookie under there, if you can’t tell.

Okay, gotta be up at 5 to babysit- soooo I’m out.

SURVEY TIME!!!

What’s your vice/guilty pleasure?

I have a few: Perez Hilton, Cherry Coke Zero, magazines and trashy TV (hello, Wife Swap!).

 

It’s a Cupcake Weekend September 29, 2008

Filed under: September 2008 — heatherwlu @ 3:52 am
Tags: , ,

I feel like I have so much to post about, but I’m kind of wanting to get in bed right now with a library book (The Year of Eating Dangerously by Tom Parker-Bowles)… so please excuse any typos!!

**Friday**

Brian’s Mom, Kathy, stayed with us Thursday and Friday nights. I couldn’t mention it in Thursday’s post because she flew in to surprise Brian’s sister, Maggie, with a baby shower (our third niece, Samantha, is due in November!). Friday evening we introduced her to one of my faaaavorite fall rituals: The Texas State Fair!

Meet Big Tex:

The best part of the fair is seeing what new foods they’ve come up with each year. This year the hits were: Chicken Fried Bacon (yikes), Fried Jelly Beans, Deep Fried Grilled Cheese, Fried S’mores, and Fried PB & J. We didn’t try any of these, sadly. Or not.

For dinner, Brian ordered the fried ribs. I had a bite- they were surprisingly good! They’re kind of buried under the fries here:

I had a Jerk Chicken Sandwich. I LOVE Coco Bread… mmm:

And Kathy had a TX favorite, Frito Pie:

Not pictured: Jack’s Fries (with vinegar- yum), a Fletcher’s Corn Dog and an Apple Streudel.

Yeah, I was feeling a little gross afterwards… but we probably walked it off, right? RIGHT??

The 2nd best part of the fair? The petting zoo. This little tail looks familiar…

Hmmm. I wonder why…?

They sounds alike, too. Snort Snort.

**Saturday**

We headed out to Southlake/Keller for the baby shower. Can you guess what my culinary contribution was?

Cupcakes. Duh. Meet the one-trick pony, folks.

They’re the plain old Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Birthday Cake recipe (my standby), along with Vanilla Buttercream frosting. The butterflies and flowers are cut from rolled fondant. Michael’s had these little tubes called Fondant Writers and I’m kind of obsessed. They have a narrow tip that lets you pipe out fondant detail- that’s what I used to decorate the butterflies and on the center of some of the larger flowers. The fondant comes out shiny but then dries to a matte finish in a few minutes. SO EASY.

Saturday night we headed to a BBQ at the May’s and then to a Stock the Bar Shower for one of Brian’s friends from law school. We got home at 11:30, which was a BAD thing because…

**SUNDAY**

I had to get up at 5 this morning to meet my running buddies for our distance run: 13 miles this week! That’s the furthest I’ve run since my half-marathon 2 years ago. I’m not going to lie- it was pretty awful. The first 9 miles were great, but by mile 12 my legs felt like concrete. I’m blaming lack of sleep, too much wine on Saturday night, and eating junk all weekend. My time was 2 hrs, 3 min. Not so hot. Y’all remind me of this next weekend, okay? No wine. Lots of sleep. Healthy food. No fried ribs. Anyway, I crawled home afterwards and Chloe and I passed out for, oh, 3 hours.

Tonight was Robert’s b-day so we headed over to the Wallace’s for ANOTHER suprise party (this weekend was quite celebratory, eh?). Lauren commissioned some cupcakes and told me that Robert liked Mint Chocolate Chip. Sooo I just used the Magnolia Chocolate Buttermilk Layer Cake recipe, but substituted about 1 1/2 tsp of mint extract for the vanilla and added 3/4 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. The frosting was inspired by this recipe:

Mint Buttercream Frosting

  • 2 sticks Unsalted Butter
  • 1/2 c Skim Milk
  • 7 cups Powdered Sugar
  • 3/4 tsp Mint Extract
  • Green Food coloring

Cream the butter in a mixer. Add milk and mint extract. Add powdered sugar gradually and mix until desired consistency. Add 3-5 drops of food coloring.

Et voila:

Target had Mini Andes Mint chips- so I sprinkled some on top.

Off to crack open my book… hope everyone had a great weekend :)

Survey Question: In my food prep class, we went around the room and talked about what we ate while growing up. What’s one food that reminds you of your childhood?

Mine is weird- Viva Italian Dressing. My mom put it on EVERYTHING! Pasta, cooked veggies, tuna…

 

Crocs Are Cool September 18, 2008

Filed under: September 2008 — heatherwlu @ 5:36 pm
Tags: , ,

Hey guys- I’m posting late today… sorry!!! Last night got a little crazy. We went out for some friends’ birthdays and apparently three glasses of wine = sleepy Heather. W&L would be so disappointed.

So the big top secret baking project: BANANA BUTTERSCOTCH CUPCAKES.

It was a secret because I was making them for said friends’ b-day. The recipe is the first one I’ve tried from this cookbook:

And I would type it out here but I don’t want to get sued for copyright infringement or anything (though I do know a good lawyer…). I looked around online and it is very similar to this one. I’m all about the standard buttercream, but this butterscotch frosting was SO GOOOOOD. You basically boil brown sugar with half-and-half, stick it in the fridge to cool, cream some powdered sugar and butter, and then add in the cooled brown sugar mixture and some vanilla. I added a lot more powdered sugar than was called for because the icing initially came out really thin.

And here they are, drizzled with caramel (from the jar- gasp!):

Also, I’m a huge fan of the Martha Stewart Crafts line at Michael’s. Some of the stuff is a little pricey, but this week they had ribbons and stickers on sale. I found some cute dot stickers and brown twill ribbon to decorate a boring white bakery box:

So here’s the birthday couple, Kelly and Julie (you may recognize them from Crazy May Days):

Isn’t it cute that they’re married and share a birthday week? That’s nice. It’s a good thing that Brian and I have several months between our b-days, because I’d probably demand my own party anyway (Brian is reading this and nodding).

And here’s Lauren and Robert:

And Robert’s sweet Crocs:

The boys…

And the girls (I’m wearing TALL shoes)…

Hope everyone’s having a good day! I just got back from running (5 mi tempo) and now I’m waiting for the pest control guy to come spray. I have a really exciting day planned of bathing Chloe and cleaning the house. Don’t be jealous.