Down the Rabbit Hole...

Guilt finally caught up with me (as well as the realization that the test was scheduled two days earlier than I thought) and I finally started studying for my GMAT.

Yuck. Right now I'm halfway through the math section in the study book and can I just say, I hate this. I haven't done this sort of math in... well, about ten years. I don't remember squat, and trying to do it without a calculator is making me feel quite stupid. Add on top of that is the silly amount of panic that I feel whenever I think about taking the test. I just keep telling myself that it won't be the end of the world if I don't get into the grad program. I have other options. Like double or even triple majoring. Being a CPA really isn't what I want What I want to be is a dessert and food-laden stay-at-home mom. Or maybe a food network channel star. Watch your back Giada. What I want is a stable job that's going to pay me well enough to get out of student loan hell to keep me comfortable and my yarn stash all consuming.

Ahem.

Naturally with that stress inducing item on my to do list, I found time to do other things. Things such as sleep in until noon, make plans to go get coffee with a friend, decide that waking up at 6:30 in the morning just to go to a yarn store sale and then promptly rush home for said coffee date is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. And then, I got lost in an abyss of recipes.

Oh yes, the abyss.

First, it was ice cream recipes. Didn't you hear? We got an ice cream maker for Christmas!

Then it was date nut bread and an apple butter banana bread (we need to use up ingredients for both).

Then, I decided what I really need to do is utilize my crock pot more, because just using it for chili and apple sauce is a waste. I really need is more recipes for it. But then, most of the recipes for a crock pot are either meaty or photo-less, so I started adding the good ones to the note pad file I use to save recipes from forums in the like. But then I realized that I don't ever actually look at that file- they're not pretty and it's hard to find. So then I decided to start making files in the folder I have saved for recipes that I've made and deemed "housewife worthy".




I made this huge computer file system as well as a filling out a few recipes and a template approximately ten million years ago, with the intention that one day, I woud be able to zip through and find recipes with ease There would be pictures, it would be pretty, and best of all, they would all in one place with my personal notes and critiques. The only problem? I never seem to remember to update the darn thing. Until now. I just got lost in making new files for all these various recipes that I want to try in the crock pot for about two hours.

Whoops. At least the recipes will be pretty now, you know, as I'm homeless on the street because I made a negative score on my GMAT.

Pesto with Cream Sauce

Oh, I made something. I made something delicious!

I put the teaser up a few weeks ago, and now I'm finally writing about it. What did I make those many days ago? Well, I made pasta with pesto cream sauce. With the first bite, I thought I had died and gone to Italian heaven. My mother felt the same way.



This was so delicious in fact, I made it again, less than a week later, for my dear friend Veronica. Our original intention was to deviously lure a boy into loving her through delicious food. That plan backfired when her boy didn't show up. That just meant more for us though, and her parents loved it as well. I've got to say, the tomatoes really make it, and I'm someone who really doesn't like tomatoes.

The boy will just have to wait until Christmas break. I'm sure by then, Veronica and I will have plenty of delicious recipes to force feed him.



Have I mentioned I'm in love with these plates? Veronica's mom wants to get rid of them if Veronica doesn't want them. I'm resisting the urge to garbage pick if that happens. When I do finally upgrade to real plates (rather than the plastic Ikea ones I use now. I swear, I'm not really five years old), I intend to buy brilliant white ones, but these are so cute. They remind me of tea parties and MeMe Rose. Anyways, back to the food.

I promise you, it's amazing. Try it. If you're particularly devious, try it twice. And with extra cheese if you're making it for my mother. And for the love of food, do toast the pine nuts.

Um. Oops.

I finished with my summer class and let my blog posting evaporate! I've had a lot day, and plenty of things to talk about, so I'll keep this post short.

I made what may be the most delicious cupcakes ever.



What kind of cupcakes, you ask? Butterbeer cupcakes!

Now I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan, but these looked too delicious to pass up. Plus, you know me, I like any excuse to bake things. Originally, they were supposed to be for my SO to bring in to work during the HP midnight showing, but with the scarf and cape I made him, these babies got put on the back burner. I didn't want to waste the cream and buttermilk, so I decided I'd make them anyways.

I am so glad I did. Seriously, the *best* cupcakes I've ever made, and from scratch too! I probably could have eaten every one of them, but I tried to have some restraint. I sent some in with my mom to work (where I think I earned the love and affection of six people I've never met), sent some across the street to our friends/neighbors (who just got two new adorable cats that *will* be on this blog soon), and some to Monkey's sister. Who knows if they make it there or not, but I'm hoping.



And you see that plate? That is the most fabulous plate ever. I bought it from Anthropologie, after listening to an episode of Joy the Baker's Podcast in which she talked about her various mix matched plates. I'm telling you people, it took my entire strength to refrain from buying every last octopus themed item there.

The only modifications I did to this recipe was reducing the heavy cream in the ganache to 3/4 cup. Even then, it was still pretty runny. I actually doubled the frosting recipe and had a bit leftover, so I stuck it in the fridge for a rainy day. I also had plenty of ganache leftover, so I think tomorrow I'm going to experiment with butterscotch frappaccinos/iced coffees. Nom.

And on that note, I'm going to leave off. I'm busy, busy, busy getting ready to go on a trip to the beach for the week. Not that I've really done much to pack- I'm still not even sure what knitting I'm going to bring!

Thanks Blogspot.

I really love it when I type up an entire post, click save now, then click publish post and have the entire thing eaten. That really makes my day. So here's a really terrible rehash of what I tried to say the first time.

I'm being pathetic. Moping, whining to Monkey, and knitting. Last weekend I baked.



Ooh. Yum. Chocolate, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, Toasted Marshmallow Cupcakes.

Frosting = scene from I Love Lucy. Very, very messy.



Entirely too rich for my tastes, Monkey likes them though. I'll be using the cookie dough again, but not the rest of the recipe unless I'm trying to go in a diabetic coma.

Really craving brownie edges, anyone want to help a girl out?

(And yes, I know, this is terrible. I'm really ticked off now and after putting this post off for a week, I don't want to write it again, so the terrible writing is going to stay.)

My Current Obsession

I think it's official. I suck at taking photos and/or getting photos taken.

I keep telling myself that I need to wait until I have photos to actually post. And then I manage to not ever take photos. It's a conundrum to say the least. However, I am breaking out of that circle! I'm posting despite the fact that I haven't taken any photos in, oh, about a month.

Anyways.

Right now, I am absolutely obsessed with Pioneer Woman. OBSESSED. Someone linked to her website on a thread on Ravelry and I've been stalking all of the cooking posts religiously for the past two or three weeks, but mostly, this weekend. I think my "Food" folder in my bookmarks has grown exponentially. I've really got to start weeding through it and, oh, actually cooking the things in there.

But that's a topic for another day (actually, another paragraph). Right now I am busy singing the praises as all that is Pioneer Woman. I am in love. IN LOVE. I don't care that she focuses her cooking abilities to a primarily carnivorous family, I am in love with all of her recipes. I want to cook and bake and live in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma on a cattle ranch. I want to be this Pioneer Woman.

Okay, well, I'd just be content with her cooking abilities at this point. The whole ranch thing and middle of Oklahoma thing is a bit too far from my goals in life. Said goals including living in a nice house in the middle of a suburb no more than a 30 minute drive from my parents' house. Because I am nothing, if not a wannabe suburban housewife.

Some of my favorite posts of hers has been her Sherried Tomato Soup, which has sparked an interest in cooking with alcohol, her Yogurt Cream and Berries, which WILL be made within a week, mark my words, and finally, her Soul Sweet Taters. I have never had sweet potatoes, but my mouth is watering at the photographs. This also will be made as soon as possible. Monkey will be drowning in vegetarian Thanksgiving-ish foods before next Thursday, mark my words.

As if her sinfully delicious website wasn't enough, I'm thrilled to say she will be visiting the the University of Oklahoma next Wednesday. And I'm telling me, so help me god, I will be there salivating over her cooking abilities. She's supposedly speaking to journalism students regarding their careers and how she forged her own, but I know the truth. She is there to strike pure admiration into our hearts. And I will be there. I don't care that I'm an accounting major and really have no academic need to be present at this lecture, but I'm going to be there.

On another cooking note, I have at least tried a new recipe. The Woolie Ewe, Monkey's LYS, posted a recipe for a spread the other day. The spread looked nothing if not delicious. So naturally, I went out and bought some club crackers and whipped it up yesterday while Monkey was working for ROTC (and then watching the football game, which he failed to tell me he intended to do until the very last minute so all of my plans of cuddling and watching The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo were dashed). I tasted it, and promptly decided it was disgusting and brought it over to Monke's apartment because the boy is a human garbage disposal.

Today, I cracked open the lid to try it again. After all, the recipe does advise that it tastes better after being refrigerated for a day.

Boy oh boy were they right.

The darn this is pure crack. I think I gained about ten pounds from it alone. Well, either it or the fact that Monkey and I have been very, very bad and eaten out almost every meal this weekend.

(I am cutting him off tomorrow. Seriously. It is pretty darn ridiculous. I am also going to go to the grocery store and buying veggies for salads because I have yet to crack open the bottle of peanut dressing my mom bought me ages ago. That's beside the point.)

Wow. I really am a fan of the parenthesis today.

Anyways, other than my overwhelming obsession with food, I've been pretty idle this weekend. I haven't done too terribly much knitting. I've been tinkering on a the Besotted Scarf, which is currently cannibalizing the first scarf I ever knit, and the Viking Purse. Neither are going too terribly quickly.

Well, I'm off to remedy that. I'm going to kick Monkey off the Star Wars video game and put in the Girl with The Dragon Tattoo and knit and hopefully not eat any more of the darn spread.

Actually, you know what, I do have one photo I can share.
This is his serious face. I don't even know.