Pre-St. Patty's Update

I was going to wait to talk about these, but oh my goodness these are the most amazing cupcakes I've ever had!  AND they are vegan.

Let me start from the beginning.

Being mostly (well, probably summing up to half) Irish, I approach St. Patrick's day with a strange hodgepodge of food traditions gathered from both sides of my family.  It's funny to realize that my cooking has been largely influenced by my mostly German grandmothers, but some of my family's traditions come from Americanized cuisine, and some are the result of catering one of my grandfathers, who is mostly Irish.

It's perhaps silly for me to talk about family members being "mostly this" and "mostly that," but this is how we identify ourselves.  Yes, from the outside we're American.  From the inside, well, let me put it this way: As far as I know, my entire lineage can be traced to people who immigrated to the United States from - you got it - mostly Ireland and Germany in the mid to late 19th century.  The most recent immigrant in my family is one of my great-grandfathers, who came to America from Germany as a little boy.  What ethnic traditions that have trickled down through the generations are miscellaneous and diluted, but still a part of how I identify myself as a member of my family.

All that said, I like to cook something Irish when St. Patrick's day rolls around.  In the past, this has meant corned beef and cabbage, and maybe some Guinness with dinner.  This year, since I'm eating mostly vegan (yes, the 'mostly' qualifier is ubiquitous today), I've had to be more creative with my food choices.  Also, this year, since I'm busy and Thursday is not a day to cook for 3 hours, I've been doing a lot of prep work this week.

Tonight, I decided to go ahead and prepare a vegan Chocolate Stout cupcake recipe I found last weekend.  The recipe doesn't require any unusual vegan ingredients, but it does call for about half a bottle of chocolate stout.  That's right, there's beer in these cupcakes.  And oh, are they delicious.  I tasted one while it was still warm, and ended up eating two.

As of when they were still a little warm, these are fluffy, moist cupcakes, with a rich chocolate flavor.  That flavor is due, of course, to a hefty helping of unsweetened cocoa powder both in the cupcakes and in the crumbs topping them.  The bitterness of the stout really enhances the chocolate, adding a depth of flavor I never would have expected.

I am posting this now so that if you want to make some of these for Thursday, you can have a little bit of time to go ahead and try them.  Seriously, you will not regret it.  Unless you end up eating them all, and then you might.

This was a triumph

Last Wednesday was my friend Tyler's birthday, and when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, his response was "pie."  Therefore, I baked him a chocolate cake with a pecan pie inside.  Incidentally, I decided also to make it look like the Portal cake.

Basically, I baked a pecan pie and then put it in a slightly larger pan with cake batter.  I baked this at 350˚F for more than an hour - basically until the batter was solid - and you can see below for the result.  I was hoping the pie wouldn't sink so much, but it's okay because it still tasted good.  I doubt I'll make this again, but it was a fun experiment, and isn't nearly so gross as the cherpumple.

Interlude -- Kitchen Overachiever, Part 2

I've been playing around with exploring more vegan recipes, and tonight I tried one that was quite good.  Thus, I will share it here (and put up a picture when I make my second batch).  The trick with vegan food is to cook things that are good without meat and dairy, rather than cutting them out of normal recipes and lamenting the loss of flavor/texture.  Since I've had to look into cooking more things from scratch, I've started to learn what more herbs and vegetables are for, and have by now explored nearly all of what is offered in Meijer's produce section.  Muah ha ha!

The following is from Supermarket Vegan, which is an interesting book, although I prefer to buy less canned stuff and find a lot of the recipes in the book have higher fat and sodium than I like.  This recipe is good: with 350 calories per serving, there's 13g protein, 9g fat, and 4g fiber (and nearly 600mg sodium... you can't win 'em all).



Stuffed Acorn Squash with Long Grain and Wild Rice, Pecans, and Cranberries


(makes 4 main dish servings)


2 medium acorn squash, halved, seeds and membranes removed
1T extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 C chopped onion
2 T dry sherry or cooking sherry
1 large clove garlic, finely chopped
2-1/3C low-sodium vegetable broth (chicken broth works too, if you're not vegetarian)
3/4 C wild rice mix (I like Lundberg Jubilee)
1/2 C dried cranberries
1/4 C pecans, slivered almonds, or walnut pieces
2 T chopped fresh sage
1/2 t salt, or to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste


Preheat oven to 425˚F.
Cut a very thin parallel slice on the uncut sides of the squash to help them sit upright without wobbling. Place the squash, cut sides down, in a shallow baking dish just large enough to hold them in a single layer. Add about 1/2" water to the pan. Cover and bake 45 minutes, until flesh is fork-tender. Remove from oven, pour off water, and turn the squash cut sides up; set aside. Reduce oven temperature to 350˚F.


Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the sherry and garlic and increase the heat to high; cook, stirring constantly, until the sherry has evaporated, about 1 minute. Add the broth, rice mixture, cranberries, pecans, sage, salt, and pepper; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to between low and medium-low, cover, and simmer until the liquid has been absorbed, but the mixture is still quite moist (follow the time guidelines on the rice you bought). Remove from the heat and let stand, covered, 5 minutes. Uncover and fluff with a fork.


Mound equal amounts of the rice mixture into the squash halves. Return to the oven and bake, uncovered, until heated through, about 10 minutes. Serve warm.




This is a really tasty recipe, especially if you like squash.  It's important to actually go and pick up fresh sage for this recipe - it really sets the aroma, and hence the flavor, of the rice.  The smell while the rice is cooking is really quite fantastic, it kind of reminded me of the way breakfast sausage smells, which leads me to suspect that sage has a place on my dinner table, and not just at Scarborough Fair.  Also, be careful about adding too much salt, especially if you use cooking sherry, since it has a lot of salt already.

Interlude -- Kitchen Overachiever

I have been following a (mostly) vegan diet since mid July of this year, and I have been working hard to convince my friends and family that this does not just mean eating tofurkey and celery sticks all day.  The easiest way to follow a diet like this is to search out recipes that use lots of vegetables, beans, and whole grains, rather than trying to replace meat and dairy with expensive fake versions.

The hardest part about this, however, is making food that impresses other people, without being labeled as "weird vegan food."  Last night a group of my friends had a potluck, and I am pretty sure I succeeded in supplying really tasty vegan food for their consumption.

I realize it's a bit overboard, but I have always been an overachiever in the kitchen (duh.. I'm spending every weekend for 3+ years making cookies), and since this recipe I found in the Veganomicon was so good, I will share it with you:

Butternut Squash and Pumpkin Seed Rice Paper Rolls

This was a time-consuming but fun recipe to make.  The colors of the squash and cilantro go very well together, and the pumpkin seeds add a nice salty flavor.  I suggest adding more squash and less rice noodles, but that may just be my American tastes poking through
(makes 12)

Ingredients:
1lb butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/4" cubes
2-3 t olive oil
12 round rice paper wrappers
4 oz rice sticks
1 C fresh cilantro, in bite-size pieces
1/3 C roasted, salted pumpkin seeds, chopped coarsely

1. Prepare the squash: Preheat the oven to 400˚F.  Place the butternut cubes on a baking sheet and rub them all over with the oil.  Arrange the cubes in a single layer and roast for 15 minutes.  Remove from the oven, toss, and cook for 10 more minutes or until tender and slightly caramelized.  Transfer the squash to a plate to cool.

2. While the squash is cooking, prepare the noodles: boil a large pot of water.  Once it is boiling, turn off the heat, add the noodles, and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Drain in a colander and run cold water over them to prevent further cooking.  Set aside until ready to use.

3. To assemble: Fill a large pie plate with very warm water.  Place two rice paper wrappers in the water at a time, completely submerged and let sit for about a minute, until they have softened.
Handle each wrapper gently as you place it on your work surface.  Place about 1/4 C rice noodles in the lower third of the wrapper, leaving about 1 1/2" of margin from the far edges on either side.  Place a layer of butternut squash above the noodles.  Sprinkle with the cilantro and pumpkin seeds.  To roll, snugly fold the left and right sides of the wrapper over the filling.  Lift the bottom of the wrapper over the filling and tuck it underneath the filling, then roll firmly but gently.  Place the rolls seam side down on a plate and cut in half when ready to serve.

I served these with a spicy cranberry sauce, but they should also go well with a soy dipping sauce.

Another project concluded.

With the normal passage of time (and my normal obliviousness to its passage), June has come, and today makes it 80 days since I started my limoncello steeping.

You may recall I discussed this project about 40 days ago, but if you don't, here's a recap: I peeled 16 lemons, and threw the peels, a sprig of rosemary, and a fifth of 100-proof vodka in a jar, sealed it, and left it in my closet.  Eventually I added sugar syrup and more vodka, and put it back in my closet to sit again.  Today I took that jar out, and have strained this sweet and potent beverage into clear swing-top bottles.  The vodka picked up a nice yellow color that makes it look nice and summery.  In that spirit, I'm looking forward to enjoying this home-made limoncello with my friends.

As it has continued to be warm, I've been doing what I can to go outside, eat fresh produce, and all the other somewhat healthy things associated with nice weather.  Last Saturday I combined these activities in a trip to Urbana's Market at the Square, the local farmer's market.  There I saw plenty of strawberries, zucchini, and green beans, as well as baked goods and stalls for local butchers.  I wasn't feeling too adventurous (and I have pride about doing my own baking), so I just picked up some strawberries, which I proceeded to use in this weekend's cookie recipe.

99. Chocolate-Strawberry Thumbprints
I'm getting to the point in this cookie project where I am deliberately trying to prepare recipes I've been putting off for some reason or another.  This recipe had been delayed for two reasons.
1) Berries are expensive when they're not in season.
2) These cookies cannot be pre-assembled.
The nice thing about living in the Midwest, though, is that berries are now in season, and there is always at least one picnic or cookout to attend on Memorial Day.  So with berries in hand and a get-together in mind, I made these cookies.

There are three layers involved in this recipe.  The first is the chocolate cookie on the bottom, which is made with both dutch cocoa and semi-sweet chocolate.  For these cookies to be useful, I had to use my thumb to press a hole in the center before baking, and then use the end of a wooden spoon to deepen the hole halfway through the baking process.  Thus, the cookies themselves have a strong chocolate taste, with a nice open space in the center to hold the other two layers.  I was able to make these cookies a couple days ahead of time, as it's just the assembly that's time-sensitive.

The toppings for the cookie are simply cream cheese mixed with confectioners sugar, and diced fresh strawberries tossed with a little bit of granulated sugar.  The sugar made the strawberries more juicy, so if the toppings were left on the cookie for too long, the whole ensemble would get a little soggy.  This wasn't a big problem, though, because my friends ate them up in good time.

Overall, I would say this is a good recipe, although I found that the cream cheese doesn't really stand out when juxtaposed with the strawberries and all that chocolate.  It provides a nice texture and visual contrast, but I'm never totally happy with a recipe unless I can taste all the key ingredients.

Current Project Status: 1 Complete, 2 at ~50%

I have this problem that I'm always in the middle of some 100 different things at a time.  Okay, maybe 100 is a bit of hyperbole, but I have never done well with boredom, and so I always find new things to do.  As the semester draws to a close and the things I have to do demand more of my time, it's a good idea to finish projects without immediately starting new ones.  And since I'm excited about a couple that are currently going on or just finished, I'm going to talk about them here.

The first thing I want to talk about is a pair of socks I just finished knitting.  I started these in January, intending to give them to my dear friend Bonita for her birthday at the end of the month.  Unfortunately, I drastically underestimated the amount of time they would require, and overestimated my free time.  Four months later, I finally finished these, just in time to give them as a graduation present.

My halfway-done other project is not nearly so time-consuming, although it takes a long time to complete.  A month ago, I started making limoncello (lemon-infused vodka, basically), using this recipe.  Since Meyer lemons are expensive, I ended up substituting regular lemons in place of about half of them.  To make this, 100 proof vodka is poured over many lemon peels and set in an airtight jar in a closet somewhere for 40 days.  After 40 days (i.e. last night for me) a simple syrup and more vodka is added, and the whole concoction is once again left to sit in a cool, dark place for 40 days.  Word on the internet is that the longer you let this age, the smoother the taste gets. That said, the end of May should be pretty awesome.

93. Fig Pinwheels
My other halfway-complete project is my usual cookie baking, which I continued this week with an unusual take on Fig Newtons.  The dough for these consists of butter, sugar, flour, vanilla, salt, and egg, like any standard cookie recipe.  The filling was made by boiling dried figs and golden raisins in apple and orange juice for about 40 minutes, and then putting it through a food processor until it was spreadable.  Once the cookie dough was made, it had to be chilled until I could roll it out into long sheets.  After spreading the fig mixture on these sheets, I rolled them up and cooled them until I could slice them without the rolls deforming too much.  Although this was a very easy recipe, the duration of this recipe (that is, time from mixing dough to finishing baking) was quite long, so I ended up doing laundry at the same time.  At the end of the day, these cookies turned out to be chewy and a little sweet, with the fig filling introducing just a little bit of stickiness to the texture experience.  They also look pretty impressive, and it turns out that dried figs are a lot cheaper than many other dried fruit I've had to purchase.  All in all, if I need to do chores around the house all day, these may be a good selection to make again.

quick and classy

This week has been rather stressful for me, as I've been working hard to sort out a schedule that puts the things I need to do (i.e. research) at a higher priority than the things I like to do (i.e. dance).  I don't expect that I will turn into a work robot, though: although the idea seems outdated, I've started taking a Sabbath again, and so tomorrow I will not do homework, I will not do housework beyond normal maintenance things like washing dishes, and I will not be stressed out.  Well.. it may not be so easy to forgo the stress, but I need a day, and I need to trust God with my time.  Thus, I am looking forward to tomorrow, although I am not quite finished with today, no matter what the clock tells me.

My weekly cookie project just came out of the oven about half an hour ago, and maybe if I post right after I can get back into the habit of only having to talk about one cookie per post, on time.

Here goes...

87. Almond Macaroons
If you have never tried almond macaroons before, I think there is no way I can describe their flavor properly.  These are just about the simplest cookie in the book (yes, even simpler than shortbread!), and yet I had never tried any cookie with the same flavor palette before I got into this book.  The first time I made almond macaroons was as a part of another cookie, discussed in this entry, and was so impressed by the flavor that I was looking forward to making the plain macaroons.  So yes.  In these cookies are almond paste (which can be found in the grocery store next to the pie filling), confectioners' sugar, salt, egg whites, and vanilla.  That's it.  The ingredients are mixed together until the dough becomes thick, and then baked for some 20 minutes.  I made a mistake on the first batch, as I didn't mix enough for the egg whites to thicken, and I used the tablespoon of dough the recipe directed, and ended up with wide, flat, ugly cookies.  I attacked the remaining dough more before the second batch and reduced the cookie size to 1 tsp each, and found the result to be much prettier.  With all the stress of this week and even today, these quick cookies were a nice project to throw together, and I look forward to sharing them tomorrow.


On the topic of things shared, I had a baking project this week that is non-project, but was so delicious I had to take a picture, and I think it is worth sharing.  We like to celebrate people's birthdays in my bible study group, and I like to find new kinds of cake to bake for people when the opportunity arises.  And so I was stumbling around on allrecipes when I found the following:

Are you ready for this?  These are cupcakes with cookie dough in the middle.  The lighting in the picture is kind of poor, but the cupcake pictured here is dark chocolate cake (box mix) with a big hunk of undercooked cookie dough, and topped with a chocolate ganache icing.  The concept is actually quite simple: if you make chocolate chip cookie dough and freeze it in ~1tbsp balls, you can put it right on your cupcake batter and bake it.  The cake part will bake all the way and the cookie dough will not.  I liked the chocolate cake because you can actually see that the dough is in there.  It also paired well with the icing: chocolate ganache is just semisweet chocolate melted in heavy cream, and so the chocolate taste is strong without being as sweet as regular icing.  Everyone in my small group really liked these, except for the birthday boy, who, as it turns out, doesn't like chocolate.  I am fail.  But these cupcakes are amazing, and if you want to impress someone with not much work, this is a sure bet.

That's about all for now, except for a quick follow-up on my Cuban recipes post: I made the chicken recipe, and although it took a little while to prep, it was SO DELICIOUS, as there was a good mix of sweet and savory, and maybe even just a little bit of spicy taste in there too.  I'll probably make it again in the summer, when the avocados and mangoes are something more like in season.

OMG so tasty

Anyone who knows me well (and, honestly, it should be pretty obvious from this blog, so you don't have to know me hardly at all) is very aware of how much I value food culture.  I tend to be a little confused about what my own food culture actually is, which means I cook lots of Italian, Japanese, Vietnamese, and so on, and hardly any Irish or German (my actual heritage) dishes.

This week, my adopted food culture is Cuban.  Since I lived in Miami for something like 8 years, I think it's fair for me to miss things like black beans and rice (that is, frijoles negros y arroz), fried plantains, and flan.  In the Midwest, the only Latino food to be had is Mexican, and even that is usually Americanized beyond recognition.  However, this doesn't keep me from finding recipes and attempting to cook my own Cuban foods.

There's one website with what seems like very authentic recipes (which means calling for ingredients I can't always obtain), and I've tried a few of these, to delightful result:

Picadillo - this is a ground beef hash made with onions, garlic, tomato, and green olives.  Sometimes picadillo has raisins in it, but I regard that idea the same as I do raisins in meatloaf: gross.  The recipe is easy, and should appeal to anyone who likes green olives.

Ropa Vieja - this is basically a flank steak boiled forever until it can be shredded (like 'old clothes', the literal translation of the dish name).  Included in the recipe are onions, garlic, green pepper, and tomato sauce.  You may notice a trend here.  There's nothing spicy about this recipe, but it's tasty and fairly easy too.

Mojo Chicken with Mango-Avocado Salsa - I have not made this one yet, but will be attempting it later this week.  It looks really good and I'll let you know how it turns out.


Arroz con Leche - Lit. "rice with milk," this is rice pudding.  Although it takes some 2h of cooking, the result is SO DELICIOUS that it prompted me to make this post on Cuban food in general.  Take a look at the recipe: all the ingredients are common things you can get at the store, and might even have at home right now.  The lemon peel is especially important for adding flavor, with the added bonus that boiling it in all that milk and sugar leaves you with pieces of candied lemon peel hidden in your rice pudding.  Seriously, try making this.  It is amazing.  There are no words.  Or, judging from what I've just written, there are not enough words.

A Weekend in the Country

For all that I claim that I live practically in the middle of nowhere (that is, I live in Cornfield, USA, hence the blog title), I am still very much and probably will always be a city girl. Or at the very least, a mildly sophisticated suburbian girl.

Last Friday I went to a nature reserve about 40 miles east of town to go on a camping trip and retreat with the Graduate Christian Fellowship. Most of the retreat consisted of us sitting around the campfire talking with each other, but cooking was also a major part of the fun. As I am always stubborn in my desire to be creative, I surfed around the internet looking for good campfire recipes and stumbled on a boy scout site that included directions for cooking a peach in the fire. So I pitted a peach, wrapped it in foil, and cooked it. The result was pretty tasty.

Friday night was spent sleeping in a tent, trying to keep warm as the temperature crept down to the mid-40s. I knew it would be cold, and remembered how I couldn't sleep last year, so I came prepared this time, with basically two sets of pajamas to wear, plus my sleeping bag with its secret hood. The moon was nearly full, so the overcast sky was fairly bright, and I could peek out of my sleeping bag to watch the rain and wind on the tent. Although I was prepared, I was still very glad that this was just an overnight trip, because I definitely prefer the amenities of home.

Camping on Friday meant exhaustion on Saturday - so after a sad football game (green is a very silly color) and a double feature of Toy Story and Toy Story 2, I quit for the day.

(66) That means that today (well, yesterday by now) was my cookie day for the weekend, and once again I aimed for something kind of fancy. These cookies are basically chocolate shortbread with a white chocolate ganache in the center and plain white chocolate drizzled on the top for decoration. The cookies themselves are a little crunchy and very chocolate-y, and I think their dryness pairs well with the ganache.

Whenever I make something with white chocolate, I am always concerned that its richness will overpower everything else, but in this case I think that the fairly small size of the cookies (a little more than 1 square inch) helps to prevent that problem.

Today I ended up spending a large amount of time in the kitchen, preparing food for the next several days. Among my smaller projects are included a modified Turkey and Black Bean Chili (modified because I'm playing around with ways to reduce my meat consumption, so I added fake meat instead), and mixing up a batch of hummus. I'm excited about the hummus, as it's expensive to buy at the store but much less expensive to make at home.

As far as cooking goes, I really love autumn. Now that it's cooling down, I can start making more soups, stews, and chilis, switch back to drinking tea on a regular basis, cook interesting squashes, and pull out the spices that have been in the back of the drawer all summer.

It should be good times. Now all I have to do is make a decision on a Halloween costume...

...and another thing

In addition to my (rather complicated) regularly scheduled baking endeavor this weekend, I took a stab at this recipe for Red Velvet Cake Balls. Hopefully my friends will enjoy these in lieu of a traditional birthday cake:


I've tried one and yes, they taste just as good as they look. The only unique thing I did with these guys was to slop white chocolate all over them (and the rest of my kitchen, too), to cover up how silly they looked when I was coating them with slightly cooled chocolate. If you decide you want to try this recipe, the ingredients are pretty inexpensive, but all the cooling that has to be done takes a lot of time and fridge space.

fancy footwork + weak ankles = bad idea

Hello!

I apologize for procrastinating my way out of posting last week... I had a Quantum Mechanics midterm to occupy me until Wednesday afternoon, and then I had the brain death from the midterm to prevent me from other occupations until, oh, let's say right now.

The rest of my time in Miami was all kinds of fun - I went and watched more tennis (thus achieving a fantastic sunburn) on Key Biscayne, spent time with my cousins, and thoroughly enjoyed being out of weird Midwestern spring weather.

While driving to and from Bloomington, IL, I realized yet again that I am living in a small town in the middle of nowhere. I never realize this until I leave, because grad school is difficult and sometimes makes me forget that there's anything outside of the Physics building. It's quite pathetic, and I'm hoping this summer will allow me to reclaim just a little bit of my humanity.

Upon my return to the middle of nowhere, I set a cup of currants to soak in dark rum so that I could make rum raisin shortbread (39). Currants are basically raisins made from a different, smaller kind of grape (and honestly, I'm not sure what else the difference is except that they cost twice as much).

These are your typical shortbread cookies: there's lots of butter involved, some confectioner's sugar, vanilla, and orange zest. The currants added a nice taste and texture, plus they make the cookies look cute. Of course, presentation is key, because nobody wants to eat an ugly cookie. Although I don't have too much to say about these cookies, I will say that I like them.

Between last weekend and this weekend I've spent some time experimenting with new recipes. More specifically, this has meant using tofu in things I make. Now, I realize most of you who read this probably think of tofu as food for health-food nuts and vegetarians, but it turns out to be pretty tasty stuff when prepared properly (likewise, soy milk is not just for lactose intolerant folks). 'Proper preparation' can mean something like pan-searing it or applying a good marinade. I also decided that it was time to use up the rest of my quinoa (a grain kind of like couscous), and in that pursuit, stumbled on this recipe for black beans and quinoa. When I cooked this, it was so delicious I couldn't believe it, and I honestly think this is a dish that even picky people (e.g. my stepsister) would eat. Give it a go. Seriously.

This weekend has already been pretty full, but in a good way. Last night I got all dressed up (in this lovely dress I picked up in Miami) for a wine and cheese party at my friend's apartment. Of course, I have no class beyond dressing myself, so I showed up with a plate of Pigs in a Blanket. This was fine - I had gotten approval from the hostess and my friends seemed to appreciate the food. Some time well after midnight, I came home and went to sleep. This morning I woke up, went swimming, cleaned my kitchen, played soccer, enjoyed a spontaneous cookout, and baked cookies.

Today's cookies are peanut crisps (40): basically, this means crunchy cookies with peanuts in them. The recipe was very straightforward, almost to the point that I thought it maybe had a typo in it. After all, putting together only half a stick of butter with 1-1/4C brown sugar sounds a little ridiculous. Fortunately, there was enough liquid involved in the recipe that there wasn't a problem. These cookies are much simpler than many other things I've made (and many things I will be making in the future), but I think their simplicity comes as a bit of a relief in the face of all the fancier stuff. Also they taste good, considering they're full of brown sugar, which is the best sugar.

I suppose before ending this post I should explain the title. It all boils down to this: today I played soccer with shoes that don't quite fit right and my usual weak ankle problems. When I play soccer I'm not very good at sprinting but I'm decently quick at changing direction (hence the "fancy footwork"). This means a lot of strain on my ankles, and so usually whenever I play a sport that involves this sort of business, I twist my ankle halfway or 3/4 through the game and it's all downhill from there. There are two options for me here. One is to not play soccer or ultimate frisbee, but that's silly. The other is to continue looking into ways to get better ankle support, since the arch-support inserts I used today didn't help. The third option, of course, is not to play on a nobbly field but that brings me back to option 1. I guess I'll go with 2.

In the meanwhile, I will gently limp around until things go back to normal, and will sleep very well tonight.

Slightly underwhelmed

Last weekend was a continuation of my crazy cooking/baking/doing everything at once from last week. I slept in on Saturday (after all, it was my only chance to get a good sleep before diving back in to the homework cycle), then went to Sam's Club and Meijer. At Sam's, I picked up something like two pounds of smoked salmon, which makes me very happy (and when I start eating it, I will be even happier). I will not be eating it straight like Cassi has, though: she has a pack that she's been keeping in the office fridge, and at lunch time she gets it out and just eats strips of it. I'm ok with that, but I think the flavor can be better enjoyed with, perhaps, a bagel.

Part of my busyness is due to my decision to make coffee cake to share with my first-year friends for the Brinner (that is, breakfast for dinner) we had on Saturday night. So I called my grandma up to get her recipe, and made my first coffee cake ever. The recipe is fairly straightforward - the dough has yeast, flour, sugar, &c. and has to rise several times before it's time to roll it out and add the pastry filling. Fortunately, I didn't have to make my own filling, and this time around I used apricot, only because the raspberry filling was out of stock when I ran to the store. Next time I will use raspberry. But, fruit choices aside, it turned out very nicely, once I moved the pan high enough in the oven that the bottoms didn't burn. You can see in the picture that it's very pretty too, which is good because visual appeal is an important part of the food experience.


My cookies from Saturday, on the other hand, did not turn out to be quite as good. These are what my cookbook calls "Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies" (36), but I don't think they call for so much enthusiasm as that. The cookie part is very floury, with some unsweetened cocoa and buttermilk involved (oh, and lots of butter too), but I find that, perhaps just because I'm comparing it to other foods, the cookie flavor is somewhat bland. The layer in the center is peanut butter mixed with butter and powdered sugar, which, to be honest, seems like a bit of a waste. The recipe calls for taking two cookies and sandwiching them together with the frosting in between. When I did this, it was like eating a small hamburger, and I didn't like it. Instead, I chose to keep the frosting separate and to bring it in with the cookies so that my friends could put the peanut butter mixture on the cookies in whatever quantities they decided were appropriate.

I find myself underwhelmed by this recipe, so I expect not to revisit it after my project ends. I suppose this is alright, though - in three years when this project ends, it'll probably be good to have some recipes eliminated so that I don't just go through the cycle again.

Warning! Spoiler alert!

Sometimes I like to imagine that school still works where the semester starts out easy and the load gradually picks up. Weeks like this past one (the second week of classes) remind me that in grad school, there is no slowing down ever. Hence I found myself dreadfully overbooked, and completely out of clean socks.

The workout schedule is holding up well, but that doesn't say much yet, again considering that this is only week 2. My goal is to not be a one-month wonder, as my friend Tyler puts it, and to keep this up so I can improve my circulation and just be in better shape by the end of the semester. I've also started running a little bit, as a result of peer pressure and a friend who promised she'd pace me (which means I'm looking into getting a flash MP3 player). Today was an extra (but not serious) exercise time: a bunch of us went to open skate at the UI ice arena. The nice thing about this is that admission for students is free, and skate rentals are a dollar. Now, I'm used to "cheap" skating costing $5, so I'm pretty thrilled. If I can do this a few more times and my ankles hold up ok, I might look into buying my own skates, but we'll see.

Other things... well... I realized yesterday that the reason my apartment has been so cold is the same reason that it's so ugly: vertical blinds over a sliding glass door. I currently have blankets hanging over the blinds to keep the heat in, but I've decided that it's time to take the next decorating step and get curtains. I'm thinking these would be awesome, but of course doing this will mean either taking down the vertical blinds (I need to see if I can because that would be ideal) or doing a rig to cover them, and then finding all the appropriate tools for the project. Man, having a non-undergrad apartment is serious work.

Fortunately, Saturday is my getting-other-things-done day, so I had time for a cooking experiment I've been wanting to do for a while. A few weeks ago I was trawling around the internet when I found a recipe for Crabmeat Brie Soup. Now, I realize that Brie is not the favorite cheese of the masses, but I enjoy its taste, and I've had different kinds of Brie soup or stew at restaurants before that I really liked. This recipe seemed the most accessible (and didn't have cooked carrots in it, which I absolutely require), and while it called for a few interesting ingredients, they were all things I could get at the grocery store. Pictured above is probably the most impressive ingredient, a toe of elephant garlic. Yes, that is garlic. For normal garlic, a piece like that is called a clove, but this is called a toe (and it's larger than one, too). The recipe also calls for cognac, which means that I have half a bottle of brandy sitting in my apartment, and I have to figure out what to do with the rest of it.

So I followed the recipe and finished my soup, and it is soooo delicious, but hardly healthy at all. That's okay, though. I'll just have to not make it often, which will work out because some of the ingredients are expensive and the cooking process is very time-consuming.

This week's cookies, on the other hand, were pretty quick to make, and this is where my spoiler alert comes in. These are called Surprise cookies (31), because there's a special surprise hidden inside the chocolate layers! The base cookie is flavored with unsweetened cocoa and your normal cookie materials: sugar, butter, flour, etc. After baking them for about 8 minutes, I had to take them out of the oven and smoosh half a marshmallow on top of each, then put them back in the oven for a couple minutes.

After cooling the cookies all the way, I made chocolate frosting to cover the marshmallows so you don't know they're there. Of course, I think it's a little suspicious to have frosting glooped on top of these cookies, but we'll see if it's actually a surprise when I share them at school tomorrow. Personally, I find that the frosting is so strong that it's taste kind of overwhelms everything else, including the marshmallow, and I fear that anyone who is not sensitive to texture won't notice the middle layer at all.

But worrying will do me no good. I have quizzes to grade, and wave functions to solve... it's a busy time, I'm a busy girl, and so even now I've got to run off to a friends' to watch the Superbowl and get work done (although, I'm not sure why I'm going to watch, since I don't really care about the game... um. Go Team!?).

Toodles!

Things I do instead of working on homework

Yes, I should be finishing my quantum mechanics homework. Instead, I will post cookie pictures, plus a bonus cute item!

This past Saturday I had some extra free time, so I took advantage of that time to make bulls-eye and spiral cookies (18). The dough is just a basic sugar cookie dough, with cocoa mixed into half of it to make it brown. I ended up with something that seems a lot like the dough you can buy to have Christmas tree shapes or something.. basically a log of dough that I cut and baked. It was good times.

Even better times were had last night when my friend and I got together to make hors d'oeuvres for our much-needed Physics Girls' Night In. This is a project I found here and have been wanting to try for a while. If you decide you want to make these too, let me warn you it's messy to stuff the olives with cream cheese, and it's also a little challenging at first to get the carrots set for the beaks. However, the carrot, cream cheese, and olives go together well (that is, assuming you like olives) and the presentation is nothing short of adorable.

I'm thinking this Saturday I'm going to have to opt for something pretty simple - I have a lot of work in the week coming up, plus a group of us are getting together for a Pre-Thanksgiving potluck. It should be mad good times.