Sooooooo I think I need to take a break from baking for a little while…
I have baked so many cookies, cakes, and candies in the past two weeks that my mind is literally rejecting the concept of baking at this point. I almost completely messed up this torte (which happens to be the last thing I baked for the holiday season) by adding 3/4 cup of salt instead of sugar. I have reached complete baking overload.
Candied cranberries are one of those dishes that just scream Christmas.
It almost seems criminal not to make these at this time of year. Really you are missing out if you don’t. [Read more…]
I love long weekends.
It’s like pressing a reset button and somehow starting a new week seems like the easiest thing in the world. Of course, I spent most of my long weekend in the kitchen with friends and family and avoiding chores of any type like the plague. If I could afford to buy new clothes every time I needed clean clothes I would. I detest doing my laundry that much. Therefore I am forced to wear my “laundry day” clothes to work. Whoops…
The real highlight of the weekend, aside from wearing a hideous Christmas sweater in public, discovering the genius of cream cheese frosting and mini Nilla wafers, and watching Christmas movies for 10 hours straight, was THIS PASTA.
You know those days you can’t stop eating? That was this entire week for me.
These fries were one of the primary problems.
As soon as these came out of the oven, despite completely burning my mouth, I shoved them in my face. [Read more…]
The good news is, I am finally back on the wagon. The workout wagon, that is.
I haven’t managed to hop on the healthy eating wagon (obviously)…. but I figure getting back to a somewhat regular workout schedule is a HUGE step, especially since it is now dark when I wake up in the morning and FREEZING in our house.
Why do men feel the need to keep their surroundings below zero degrees? As soon as I step in the house, I am forced to throw on several layers including a sweatshirt and wrapping myself in the most snuggly blanket I own (from Costco, seriously why is that place so wonderful? It’s like Candyland for adults). I think my husband is an Eskimo. Or a polar bear. One of the two.
Is anyone else blown away by the fact that October is almost over? I feel like just yesterday I was getting excited for the beginning of the month.
Now my birthday has come and gone (with lots of fun and celebration and too much food) and Halloween will be gone in a flash.
But what does the end of October REALLY mean?
Remember how much fun birthdays were as a child?
There were pony rides and balloons and face painting and games and, most importantly, CAKE. I remember on multiple occasions running around someone’s backyard, frosting smeared all over my face, giggling my face off because I was high on sugar and for some reason running was the best feeling in the world. I am sure the part my mom fondly remembers is how easily I passed out on the car ride home…
This past weekend was a certain very special someone’s birthday celebration so I decided to shower him with as much food as I could make, including his favorite cake (which I can tell you tasted delicious, even if it was a mess). And then, to top it all off, I turned cake batter into cookies.
By some magic stroke of luck, the asparagus at the store this week is HUGE and gorgeous and exceptionally fabulous. Instead of forcing my hubby to eat more balsamic butter pasta (I am obsessed with the dish. But I am pretty sure hubby is 5 seconds from kicking me out of the kitchen permanently the if I make it one more time…), I decided to force him to endure another one of my obsessions with this perfectly ripe asparagus…. GOAT CHEESE.
I have an uncontrollable sweet tooth. It’s becoming a problem. I can be too full to eat another bite at dinner but when it’s time for dessert, oh yea, I have room.
Seriously, how do I not weigh 300 pounds??
The heat in Denver has been ridiculous lately, reminding me that summer is not over just yet despite the early signs of fall that have been sprouting up in stores. I have tried to celebrate the end of summer on a few occassions now. I have been planning halloween costumes and recipes. I have been pouring through snowboarding gear and counting down the days until the resorts open. I have been drooling over a pair of Ed Hardy winter boots for weeks, trying to justify the cost with the fact that they are so damn cute. But apparently me saying goodbye to summer and pretending it no longer exists wasn’t enough to make it end (I really thought I was more powerful than this)…
So I give in. I have made something summery to usher in what should be a FALL month. Something summery, unbelievably sweet and….. healthy.
Mexico has been on my mind a lot lately. Lazy afternoons by the pool, frequent naps, room service, and tacos… So many tacos… As many as I could shove in my face in one sitting.
Have you ever been able to eat just one taco? Me neither. Obviously.
I have had a box of orzo sitting in my pantry for a couple of months now because I had no idea what to do with it. Every recipe I found was for a pasta salad and since pasta salad is not something I like to eat regularly, I have been putting off using it.
FINALLY I found something to do with this rice-like pasta that is not a cold salad, but a warm, luscious, simple version of Mac and Cheese.
I feel like there is a lot of pressure put on people for office potlucks.
Though it’s not required, people are expected to bring something. If you don’t, well you aren’t making any new friends. If you do bring something, you are at least in the club, but if you bring something you bought from the store, those who put effort into making something turn their noses up at you ever so slightly. Oh and if you make something and it sucks, everyone will be talking about it.
After months and months of buying things for the potluck, the pressure finally got to me…
I caved.
Thus, the whole “healthy living” thing was put on hold for this ridiculous chocolate peanut butter mess. Peanut butter and chocolate is the one combination that no one can badmouth. Unless you hate chocolate.
I remember when I lived in Italy how easy and inexpensive it was to get prosciutto at the grocery store. After making a habit of eating prosciutto and spicy salami sandwiches every day, coming back to Denver was a rude awakening when it came to my meat cravings. Though prosciutto was available to me, its cost slide outside of my poor college student budget and thus I was left to buy prosciutto only for very special occasions…
Good thing #5 about becoming an adult = having the funds to buy prosciutto whenever you want.
This is directly behind buying alcohol and eating cookie dough for dinner of course….
I am big believer in wrapping prosciutto around anything you can. Shrimp, asparagus, melon, scallops, the list goes on and on. Surprisingly enough, this is the first time I have wrapped chicken in this wondrous meat (which in my opinion is better than bacon by leaps and bounds… THAT’S saying something).
Coming back to reality after a week of nothing but sleeping, eating, drinking, swimming, and celebration is SO HARD.
I am seriously struggling here.
My mind is in about five hundred different places at once and my usual to-do list just tripled in size.
Finding a moment to just breathe has been damn near impossible. Really I should have had the foresight to take an extra day to get back in the swing of things before returning to my normal routine. Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it?
I know you are all dying to see my pictures of Mexico (even though I neglected to take enough pictures of food and took way to many pictures of the ocean instead because I am a freak), but that will have to wait until later in the week.
Right now, I want to talk to you about this risotto…
This week I was craving balsamic vinegar. For me, this craving comes and goes every couple of months. I attribute it to my time spent in Rome. I was OBSESSED with the stuff while I was there. I wouldn’t go a day without it (this also applied to Nutella but I will save that love affair for another time).
After returning to Colorado, my favorite meal became tearing into a loaf of French bread and dousing it in balsamic vinegar… Super healthy, I know. Though I am pretty sure this love of balsamic is how I hooked my hubby. I remember when we first met we would hole ourselves up in my bedroom a few nights a week with a loaf of bread, some vinegar, and a movie. Yep, I’m a cheap date. 🙂
New flavor of the week – homemade pizza topped with mozzarella, goat cheese, pepper, tomatoes, and salami.
New adventure of the week – trying to spin pizza dough (I don’t believe this is the correct terminology but I am going with it since it sounds better than ‘pulling’). Yea, this is definitely not one of my strengths… It began with a rolling pin but that just wasn’t cutting it with the pizza dough we bought (yes, it still counts as homemade pizza even though I didn’t make the dough. I didn’t say dough made from scratch, now did I?). So I thought about all those shows I have seen where people are spinning their dough in the air with the greatest of ease… This turned into me clumsily throwing dough in the air a couple of times before I realized this course of action could result in the puppy having a yummy dinner made of flour and gluten. So I began tossing it back and forth between my hands, and soon the dough began to stretch. My hopes for a perfectly shaped pizza began to soar until the dough began tearing. At this point I am covered in flour and alternating between pulling, tossing, and rolling the dough out. After all this effort and making a massive mess I successfully ended up with a round shaped pizza – not quite a circle, not quite an oval, but it still had round edges in the end! The rest of the process was a blast. Smothering dough in sauce and cheese and picking out random toppings is just as fun now as it was when I was 10 years old. [Read more…]
