Heather Bakes

That’s What She Said…

Lap Dog October 22, 2008

Filed under: October 2008 — heatherwlu @ 3:25 am
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It’s kind of hard to type right now. I have a snoring pug on my lap and I’m trying to type over her… if you appreciate any sort of personal space, never adopt a pug. Never.

But look how cute she was with her Granny this afternoon. Who needs grandkids when you have this??

This morning I decided to have breakfast with an old friend: OATS.

Made with bananas, almond butter, and some dried cherries that my parents brought back from Michigan. I added the cherries towards the beginning of cooking so they had a chance to reconstitute a bit. OH- and I bought some of that Vanilla Hempmilk that everyone seems to love so much, so I used that instead of skim. The oats turned out really creamy, but I couldn’t taste much of the vanilla. Maybe the bananas just overwhelmed the flavor?

For lunch I made burritos out of last night’s leftover Moroccan Chicken Stew. This was another idea from that Food Network Magazine:

I layered couscous and stew on a La Tortilla Factora tortilla and drizzled a little of that parsley-cilantro pesto on top. Some foods are just better the 2nd day… stew is definitely one of those :)

Tomorrow is my midterm & practical exam. Along with the steamed asparagus & hollandaise (which I made yesterday), we have to whip up a batch of cream of broccoli soup. So I gave that a shot today. From this:

To this:

Pretty good. And surprisingly not that heavy- it only uses 1.5 oz of butter per quart of soup, and I used skim milk and half-and-half (instead of heavy cream).

So we had a mini crisis. Brian called me from Home Depot this evening to say that his car wouldn’t turn off. He could put it in park, remove the key from the ignition… and the engine would keep running. So he drove it home and we spent about 2 hours trying to figure out how to turn the damn thing off. Finally my dad came over and he and Brian removed some fuse-type-thingy from the fuel injector and blahblahblahidontknowanythingaboutcars. So that’s awesome. I guess AAA is coming tomorrow to tow the car. After this whole fiasco we were both pretty bummed (and anticipating future poor-ness, as I’m sure this car issue is going to be $$$), so I just tossed some stuff together for dinner.

Sauteed half an onion, half an eggplant, and an orange pepper with some garlic and olive oil. Dumped it over whole wheat rotini with a melted laughing cow wedge melted in and some marinara on top. Then added a dab of leftover mascarpone.

Oooh, I have an exciting new place for you DFW people to try! Ange tipped me off to I Heart Yogurt. There’s one in Uptown, but we headed to the Preston-Royal location last night. Basically it’s a self-serve yogurt shop with fabulous flavors and toppings, and you pay by the ounce (only 22 cal/oz, btw!). I had half “plain tart” yogurt and half dark chocolate, topped with cookie dough, mixed berries and pomegranate seeds (!!!). I may have gotten a little too excited and served up close to a pound of yogurt. Hmmm.

Survey Time!

I’m in need of a little R&R… so:

What has been your favorite vacation so far?

 

Five Little Pumpkins October 13, 2008

Filed under: October 2008 — heatherwlu @ 3:08 am
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Hope everybody had a great weekend! Last week felt really chaotic for some reason, so it was nice to have a couple of days to relax.

**FRIDAY**

This week we covered demi glace and hollandaise in class. The demi glace was no sweat- we actually made it into a piquant sauce for pork chops (I had 2 bites… I don’t miss pork, but the sauce was good). The hollandaise, on the other hand, was kind of a huge ordeal. It took our three group members to get it assembled and we were taking turns with the whisk. The scariest part is that we have to make it all on our own next week for our practical exam. Time to bust out the arm weights.

I forgot to take photos of what we cooked, but a few people in our class chipped in to buy a cake. The baking classes turn over whatever baked goods they don’t want to take home to be sold… I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want this cake:

I think this may be a lobster…?

My piece was frozen. A cake-sicle, if you will:

I was trying to get bed early on Friday, so we were boring and made dinner at home. I pulled out the new Giada cookbook (are y’all sick and tired of this yet?) and tried the Lemon Risotto. It’s similar to this recipe, but with a lot of lemon juice and more broth.

OMG- it was SOOOO good! We had it with some rotisserie chicken and steamed asparagus:

The risotto is really rich. It involves a good amount of butter, mascarpone and parmesan cheeses- but a small amount is definitely enough. Plus I used my whole, “Well I’m running in the morning…” justification, which is badbadbad. But yeah, go buy the cookbook and try this recipe. There’s also one in there for butternut squash and vanilla risotto that I want to try.

Which brings us to…

**SATURDAY**

Got up at 5:00 for a 6am 14-mile run. It was not too bad, but I really need to figure out the whole “what to eat before running” issue. I just get really worn out and the mid-run gu (NASTY) isn’t cutting it. Any suggestions? I need to get faster, too. We did it in about 2:15.

Oh, also on the running front: anyone who is debating a marathon- or any race for that matter- should rent Spirit of the Marathon. It’s a documentary following 6 runners of varying levels training for the Chicago Marathon (one is Deena Kastor, one is a new runner, one is a 70-year-old 5th time marathoner). I watched it on Friday night and definitely bawled at the end. Brian HATES running and actually enjoyed the movie, too.

The rest of Saturday involved a bridal shower, running some errands, and then driving to the lake. The best part? I slept 10 hours last night. And then napped with Chloe during the Cowboy’s game. Nice.

**SUNDAY**

We drove back from the lake late this afternoon and then took Chloe to a pumpkin patch right by our house.

She liked this one:

And tried to eat this one:

Be we ended up with these:

Brian set up a nice little fall display on the porch, but it’s too dark to take a photo right now. I’ll try to get one up tomorrow.

We’re having an easy dinner tonight- chicken quesadillas with Ezekiel tortillas, refried black beans, avocado, cheese and leftover chicken:

And watching Charlie Bartlett… so far it’s pretty funny.

Survey Time

Do you decorate for holidays, and if so, which ones?

We decorate for Halloween and Christmas, but I feel kind of dumb doing so since we don’t have kids. I think Chloe and Piper appreciate the effort :)

 

I Got My Lunch Packed Up, My Boots Tied Tight… August 26, 2008

Filed under: August 2008 — heatherwlu @ 2:07 am
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I hope I don’t get in a fight… oh, back to school, back to school…

So I had my first Fall semester class tonight: Sanitation and Safety. Get excited. This is the first time I’ve been in an actual classroom (as opposed to a kitchen/bakeshop) since, uh, the last Olympics. Tonight was mostly intro stuff like going over the syllabus, introducing ourselves, etc… but I can tell it’s going to take a while to get used to sitting in a lecture for 3 hours again.

Since I’m going to be in class from 4-7, I’m toying with the idea of trying a new slow cooker recipe every Monday. It’s really nice to be able to walk in the door and have dinner ready… AND the house smells good! I love barbeque, but most of the BBQ restaurants around here only serve whole, bone-in chicken breasts (not great for sandwiches) and I don’t eat beef or pork. So I was excited to run across this Eating Well recipe on Foodnetwork.com for Barbecue Pulled Chicken. Unlike a lot of slow cooker recipes, you don’t have to brown the meat beforehand; onion, garlic and raw chicken breasts go in the crockpot and then you pour the homemade sauce on top. Five hours on low and here’s what you have (after shredding with a fork):

The sauce is more spicy/savory than sweet. I didn’t have any ground chipotles, so I just used regular chili powder and then added a couple shakes of Chipotle Tabasco to the sauce, along with some Liquid Smoke.

Alongside we have some Annie’s Whole Wheat Shells & White Cheddar Mac & Cheese (does anybody else find this REALLY watery?? We ended up adding cornstarch) and a green salad with more Annie’s Woodstock Dressing.

For dessert I tried the Blueberry Chobani (loving the colors tonight). Man, this stuff is so thick and FILLING- probably from the 14 grams of protein. Nice! I’ll definitely be buying this again.

So bad news on the training front: I broke my toe!!! Last night I wasn’t paying attention and kicked the couch leg hard. I heard/felt a snap, and sure enough, here’s my pinky toe today:

*Warning: gross picture ahead*

Ready???

Okay, I warned you.

Pretty nasty, huh? It’s bruised on both sides and underneath. Unfortunately I don’t think there’s much to do about it. After googling “broken pinky toe” (that’s as good as seeing a doctor, right?), I taped it to the next toe and took some Tylenol. It actually doesn’t hurt that bad right now, as long as I’m not walking on it- it just feels swollen and bruised. Which it is, obviously. So instead of running today I hit the gym and did the bike (while reading Eclipse- that’s right, I tore through BOTH Twilight and New Moon last week… I’m hooked), and tomorrow I’m probably passing on the track workout. Meh. Send some healing vibes my way, please!!

 

Schooooool’s Out For Summer… July 30, 2008

Filed under: July 2008 — heatherwlu @ 2:47 am
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Well, well, well… all finished with class! Until August 25th, at least.

I totally overstudied for the final. I spent the past two days trying to memorize all of these different baking methods and all we really needed for the test was the NAME of each method. God, I hate having useless information crowding my tiny little brain. That’s space I could have used for recalling what I read on Perez, or remembering Brian’s birthday.

Anyway, the final went well and now I’m DONE! I have all kinds of fun projects planned for the next few weeks, like cleaning out my closet, reading the pile of books next to my bed, and finding a job (okay, not so fun).

We got out of class super early tonight- 7:15!- so Brian and I were able to have dinner at home. We improvised on Eat, Live, Run Jenna’s Mom’s (confusing enough for you?) Spicy BBQ Beans & Kale recipe. By “improvised”, I mean that we didn’t have 2 cans of kidney beans, so we substituted chickpeas for one of the beans. I’ve made this before and once again it did not disappoint! Very filling and yummy. And there’s enough left for lunch tomorrow, too. SCORE.

Alongside I had one of my Morningstar Farms Mushroom Lovers’ Burgers on an Ezekiel bun, topped with roasted red peppers, baby spinach, capers, goat cheese and balsamic vinaigrette.

Great dinner! I’m STUFFED- of course, that may have something to do with the fact that as soon as I got home from class I pretty much inhaled every piece of food in the fridge (chicken dumplings, chocolate cream pie, grapes…). I forgot to bring my little Z Bar to eat on the way to class. Lesson learned.

 

Final Stretch July 23, 2008

Filed under: July 2008 — heatherwlu @ 12:56 pm
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So as promised, last night we assembled our cakes. We were scheduled to make a Jelly Roll as well, but that was scrapped in exchange for a much better option: Grandma’s Chocolate Cake. I don’t remember my Grandmother baking a lot, but she definitely made this when we would visit. It’s a rich chocolate cake with kind of a fudgy-pecan icing. I think we called it Texas Sheet Cake.

In addition to the Grandma Cake, we also made German Chocolate Icing and frosted Monday night’s Devil’s Food Cakes with this (on top) and Ganache (on the sides). Here are all of the chocolate cakes. Props to Bryan for the lovely food styling that we have going here:

I want a cake turntable.

We also halved Monday’s Yellow Butter Cakes, spread raspberry jam and Italian Buttercream between the layers, and iced the top and sides with the buttercream. This cake was essentially a lesson in icing and decorating. And guess what? I suck. Maybe it’s because I’m left handed (or because I’m a total spaz), but icing the top and especially the sides was a disaster. I enjoy the whole icing process- it’s kind of therapeutic- but obviously need to practice.

(This reminds me of a Demetri Martin joke: “I want to live next door to Carnegie Hall so it’ll always be easy to give people directions: ‘Practice, practice, practice… then make a left.’)

The best part, though, was cake decorating! Although no Duff Goldman, I am faaaaaar better at this than at icing.  And it’s really what I want to actually DO at some point, and hopefully get paid for it. Yeah, that would be nice.

So here’s my little Yellow Butter Cake with Italian Buttercream and Raspberry Filling.  We only had three colors to work with, so it kind of ended up as an homage to my (pink and green) wedding:

Too bad the top slid off in the car on the way home. Damn it.

And here’s my group member Kerri’s cake, just because it was so stinking cute. And I basically ripped off her swirl theme:

We’re kind of in the final stretch with class right now; just two more sessions left! Monday is our baking practical. I drew Blueberry Turnovers and Chocolate Cream Pie. Actually, no- I drew Coconut Cream Pie and Dutch Letters but Bryan was gracious enough to switch with me. Because Coconut Cream Pie is disgusting. Tuesday is our written exam and then we’re done! I’m actually really sad. The class was fun, the other students were awesome, we had a great instructor… oh, and I learned a lot. Unfortunately (for me AND you guys), next semester’s classes don’t sound very exciting: Sanitation and Basic Food Prep. Although who knows? Maybe handwashing and foodborne disease will translate into some good blog reading.

I doubt it.

 

Let Them Eat Cake… Tomorrow. July 22, 2008

Filed under: July 2008 — heatherwlu @ 4:29 am
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Okay, so I have a dinner dilemma on Mondays and Tuesdays. I leave at 4:15 to catch the train, but then don’t get out of class until 10. I’m never hungry at 4:15 but by 10 I’m starving and usually whine and demand politely ask Brian to stop somewhere on the way home so I can grab food. Well, SCORE- we finally found a Subway that stays open until 11! So tonight I ran in to grab a turkey sub in my usual chef gear (checked pants and white jacket- it’s hot… don’t be jealous) and the kid ringing me up gave my outfit the once-over and asked, “Uh, you’re in chef school, right? So why aren’t you making your own food?”

Damn teenagers.

But it is actually kind of funny. This is just class a couple of nights a week- I can’t imaging actually working at a restaurant all evening, every evening, and still having the energy to make a meal when you get home. I recently read an interview with Casey Thompson from Top Chef, and the interviewer asked her what her typical at-home meal consisted of. Know what her answer was? Peanut butter and rice cakes.

As far as what I did cook tonight: Cakes, Cakes, Cakes! We mostly did prep work for tomorrow night, when we’ll actually assemble and decorate. For example, I made these three Devil’s Food Cakes which will become German Chocolate Cake tomorrow evening:

Bryan made Angel Food Cakes, which are delicious! We did get to take these with us tonight… here’s my half:

Kerri made these Yellow Butter Cakes. We made an Italian Buttercream icing to go on top (assembling tomorrow). Let me tell you, that icing was a giant pain in the butt to make. You have to whip the eggs into a meringue, boil the sugar, let the sugar cool then add it into the meringue. Whip more. Add butter and a little shortening. Keep whipping. And how does it taste? Like BUTTER. I actually liked it less than the super easy-to-make standard buttercream. Blech. But the cakes are pretty:

And finally, Lemon Buttermilk Cake with Flat Icing. These are SO insanely good. Our group just sat around dipping our fingers into the glaze. Unsanitary? Perhaps. Delicious? Indeed.

So that’s it for tonight! Full day of babysitting tomorrow AND a quiz tomorrow night. Oh, for any of you with kiddos, I found this cool site today: Easy Kids Recipes. We made the Baked Craft Clay recipe today and it turned out great! Too bad I forgot to take a picture of my creation- the only thing I can actually make with clay… a snake, of course.

 

10K, Baby. July 16, 2008

Filed under: July 2008 — heatherwlu @ 5:32 am
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Big day: Heather Bakes finally exceeded 10,000 views! I began this blog on a whim at the end of March and started with like 3 hits per day (thanks Mallory, Katherine and Brian!), so this is pretty amazing.  I really appreciate all of you who tolerate my ramblings- it’s very rewarding to know that people might actually be reading this thing, even if if half my hits are from my mom refreshing her screen every 5 minutes.  I hope you’ll let me know if you have any suggestions, like if you want to see more Chloe pics or hear less of my whining (HA- you can just take your place in line behind Brian).  And thanks for the comments, too :)

So today was one of those days where I didn’t really have a ton to do, but it still seemed really hectic. I didn’t really feel like heading to the gym, so I opted for swimming instead.  I LOVE the water and swimming was one of the main ways I got in shape before my wedding a few years ago- I should get back into that, especially since running isn’t really an option right now (too dang hot).  Anyway, I tried something new for lunch today! Morningstar Farms Mushroom Lovers Burger… because yes, MSF, I am a mushroom lover.  Here’s a shot:

Not too bad! They don’t lie; it is quite mushroomy, and weirdly enough, it seemed to cook a lot faster than their garden veggie patties.  It’s filling and seemed to have more of a “meat” texture than some of the other veggie burgers. 

Class was really good tonight! We took a quiz (eh, we’ll see) and got our midterms back (111- hells yeah) and then set about making puff pastry galore.  After looking at the syllabus I figured that tonight would be frantic and overwhelming, but it was really pretty chill… and everything we made turned out well!

First up: Blueberry Turnovers.  I hope these are good- haven’t tried them yet. 

My group member, Bryan, made these amazing  Cheese Straws with parmesan, paprika and cayenne.  They definitely had a little kick to them.  We pretty much ate half the batch during class:

And Eclairs.  Pate a choux = meh. It just tastes like egg and air. 

We made a batch of blitz puff pastry for these giant Sinterklaas Cookies.  Apparently this is a traditional Dutch recipe made during Christmas, the “S” being for Sinterklaas (Santa Claus).  I’m Dutch and I’ve never heard of these. For shame, because they are reallyreallyreally good.  Kind of a pain to make- we filled them with this marzipan-type filling that was delicious and then sprinkled the tops with sanding sugar.  Mmmm. Here’s my group modeling our S’s… but first let me just add the disclaimer that mascara is a no-no in the bakeshop (I know- that was almost a dealbreaker).  Okay, now you can see it. Don’t judge.

Let’s see, what else (now are you understanding why I thought we might be stressed??)- Palmiers:

Aaand finally, Napoleons! This is actually one huge brick- the pastry cream needed time to set so we decided to refrigerate and slice them at home later:

Tomorrow I have NOTHING going on! No babysitting, no dog walking, nada.  I’m super excited about this, especially since I just started a great book that I read about in my Eating Well magazine: The Man Who Ate the World by Jay Rayner.  It’s authored by a British food writer who is searching all over the world for the “perfect meal.” I just finished the first chapter on Las Vegas and now I want to take a trip there and visit every restaurant he mentioned (not that I could afford them!).  I would definitely recommend it to you foodies out there.

Hope everyone has a great day!

 

Oh, For The Love… July 15, 2008

Filed under: July 2008 — heatherwlu @ 5:03 am
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Remember how excited I was about pies just, um, one short week ago? Oh, to be young and stupid again.  Seriously, I am so sick of pies right now that I want to scream. Here’s a short list of what sucks about making pies and tarts:

  1. You can’t “taste” the final product.  Unlike with cookies, muffins and doughnuts, you can’t exactly just grab one off the rack and pop it in your mouth.  Good for my butt, bad for my tummy.
  2. You only get one shot.  With smaller items, one danish may be a little wacky but you can make up for it with the rest.  Pies? Not so much. If you, say, jack up the top of your chocolate silk tart by not anchoring the parchment and then putting it in the convection oven, then you just have to live with it (sorry, group!).
  3. FINALLY- and I’ll stop whining after this- pies take forever to bake.  We haven’t gotten out of class before 10:15 in two weeks… which probably explains my crabiness right now.  That and the fact that our AC is still not fixed. The home warranty company has to order a new compressor so we’re homeless for at least another 48 hours.

Anyhow, I brought my camera to class tonight and took pictures of all of our goodies.  First off, the chocolate pecan pie- which was probably the one thing I made tonight that turned out as planned! Just one shot of Jack Daniels away from derby pie:

Second, a beautiful lemon meringue pie made by my group member (Bryan, if you’re reading this- my dad tried all of our stuff tonight and said that this was his favorite!):

And the chocolate silk tart… we made 2. This is the one without the convection injury:

A walnut tart with chocolate drizzle, made by the lovely Kerry:

Aaaand finally- because we’re in the South, y’all- sweet potato pie.  I had to pass on these, but they do look better than any sweet potato pie I’ve ever seen!

 

Tomorrow’s class: quiz and then eclairs, napoleons and palmiers. I’m sure there’s more but I don’t have my syllabus in front of me… you’ll just have to be surprised!

Okay, want to see something sad? So I was at my parents’ all day- just me and the dogs.  I assumed that Chloe was the laziest dog on the planet, but apparently I was mistaken.  Her two “aunts” are equally sloth-tastic.

Exhibit A- Sophie:

Oh, come on Annie, you’re like 4 months old! Eh, at least she bothered to lift her head for the shot:

And, of course, the master of all lethargic puglets… Chloe:

You know what’s great about dogs? You can take pictures of them sleeping and they’re not creeped out. Not that I would do that otherwise… but, you know…. it’s nice to have the option.  Right? Right??

Okay, that’s enough rambling for now. Night all!

PS- Oh! Oh! One more thing… this may only be exciting to me, but I bought the domain name www.heatherbakes.com.  So now you don’t have to spend the extra 5 seconds (or minutes, if you type like my dad) entering the wordpress part. Just type HeatherBakes.com into your browser and VOILA! Hooray.

 

As American as ______ July 9, 2008

Filed under: July 2008 — heatherwlu @ 5:58 am
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So remember how I said that Chloe helped me clean my muesli bowl yesterday? Well she did it again today… look closely at her chin for the evidence:

(We had breakfast in bed while I caught up on emails.)

Today was filled with studying for my midterm.  I even brought study materials to the gym- but I guess it paid off because the test went well! We should get our grades back next week.

My grandmother used to make salmon croquettes with canned salmon, but apart from that dish I’d never had any type of salmon other than filets. I was curious about the taste, so the other day I picked up a little pouch of salmon at Target (pink package- Chicken of the Sea, I think) and today I mixed up a salmon salad for lunch.  It’s a lot milder than canned tuna and doesn’t smell or taste as fishy. However, I did have Piper all up in my grill while I tried to eat, so I guess cats still pick up on it (annoyingly). Here’s what it looked like:

I mixed in:

  • Fat free plain yogurt
  • Capers (and caper juice)
  • A touch of light mayo
  • Lemon juice
  • Lots of dried dill
  • S & P
  • Chopped red pepper
  • Chopped carrot

All of this went into the sad little wrap you see below. The only kind I had on hand were the mini Ezekiel Sprouted Grain Tortillas.  I might try to make a Sprouts run tomorrow for bigger wraps.  I had a lot of the salmon salad left over so I ate it with carrot chips and sugar snap peas, and had some grapes on the side:

Today was Pie Day: The Sequel.  We made up three pies using the flaky dough we prepared yesterday, including-

Old Fashioned Apple Pie with Streusel Topping- one of my group members made this one:

Apple Cranberry Pie with Vented Crust Topping… this was my baby. I’ve actually gotten kind of good at pie crusts!

This pie was made using the “cooked fruit method,” as opposed to just chopping the apples and baking with butter.  I sauteed peeled, sliced apples with butter and dried cranberries (rehydrated with OJ), mixed this with cornstarch, and then added cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice, sugar and MORE BUTTER at the end.  I was just really excited that the pie stayed sealed throughout baking.

The final pie was blueberry with lattice topping. Unfortunately we only made 2 of each pie and we have 3 people per group, so that’s why I ended up with two apple versions. Too bad- the blueberry pie was really pretty!

Okay, enough pie rambling for tonight… oh yeah, I bought the Ellie Krieger The Food You Crave cookbook at Target today so I’m excited to try out some recipes!

Night, kids :)

 

I’m on the Bandwagon… July 8, 2008

Filed under: July 2008 — heatherwlu @ 5:38 am
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The muesli bandwagon, that is.  After reading several of my favorite bloggers (Kath Eats and Eat, Live, Run, to name a couple) wax poetic about the wonder that is muesli, I decided to give it a shot.  Not. Too. Shabby. It is a great alternative to oatmeal when it’s 100 degrees out- just as filling, too. I kind of improvised using what we had on hand:

  • 1/2 C Old Fashioned Oats
  • 1/2 C Fat Free Plain Yogurt
  • 1/4 C Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze
  • 1/4 C Skim Milk
  • 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
  • Palmful of Raw Trail Mix (from Sprouts’ bulk bin)

I mixed all of that last night and let it chill in the fridge.  This morning I added raspberries, blueberries, a drizzle of honey and some sliced almonds. Voila:

Chloe even cleaned the bowl for me after I was done eating.  So thoughtful, that pug… and she had a little yogurt soul patch afterwards.

So I tried a couple of new snacky foods today before heading to class.  A mini-meal, if you will.  First up: Pacific Natural Foods Roasted Carrot Soup.

It was tasty.  Not as good as their Roasted Red Pepper & Tomato flavor (which, to me, is as close to la Madeleine’s Tomato Basil Soup as you can get without the accompanying 729 fat grams), but still good- if you like soups that are a little on the sweet side.

Next in line were these random little Viktoria cracker/crispbread jobs that we bought at Ikea, of all places.

Unfortunately I didn’t have any caviar and shrimp on hand, per the suggested serving photo on the bag, but I did have hummus.  These are pretty substantial little biscuits! Here’s my pre-class meal. Notice that I didn’t even use a plate AND I’d already taken a bite out of the cracker:

So as I mentioned, today was PIE DAY! We prepared several flaky crusts that have to set overnight, but we did get to take home 3 different graham cracker crust pies.

My masterpiece, Chocolate Cream Pie:

And my all-time favorite flavor, Key Lime Pie:

Surprisingly, the recipe indicated that you should mix raw egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk and lime juice and just let it set in the fridge for a few hours. Apparently the acid in the lime juice “cooks” the yolk, no baking required.  For the sake of time- and sanitation, I’m sure- we just went ahead and baked ours at 350 for about 20 minutes.

Finally, Cream Cheese Pie with Sour Cream Icing… not to be confused with cheesecake:

Shoot, long posts these past few days! I’m probably boring y’all to death.  Busy day tomorrow- we have our written midterm tomorrow night so I’ll be studying all day… and hopefully cleaning the house at some point. Fun times.

Night!