First post of the New Year!

I am so behind on this blog and I am sorry! If you read my other blog though, you'll understand why. It's keeping me very busy! But here is what I made for Valentines day, I think they turned out pretty good except for the frosting...

Whoopie Pies!!! They were pretty fun to make actually, except next time I will make my own from a recipe but this was a good way to ease myself into it.


Cute little things aren't they? Like I said a lot of fun, I will totally be making them again. But the frosting was pretty yucky. Two cups of powdered sugar was insane and I didn't think it tasted good but everyone else enjoyed them so I guess that's what counts :)

Merry Christmas and some leftovers!

Well here I am again. I thought I wouldn't really write on this blog that often, but as it turns out the holidays require a lot of baking so I'm back. I actually found some little treats I wanted to share all the way back from Thanksgiving so I will start with those:

For Thanksgiving we went to a friend of my boyfriends house for a "friends giving" I suppose. It was a week before Thanksgiving but it was somewhat of a test run for their family. I was asked to bring desert and I was very excited because I had seen these adorable little pumpkin pie bites from Bakerella that I really wanted to try. Bakerella is an awesome site, by the way. I adore mini things so you can imagine how excited I get when I look through that site. Anyway I think they turned out cute!

They were actually really yummy too, not too sweet. My Grandma says she puts condensed milk in her pies, but this recipe called for cream cheese which gave it a less sweet flavor that I really liked. One of their other friends that was there is a pastry chef and she said they tasted great as well, go pumpkin bites!

The beginning of the process...

And the delightful end result!



Next I was asked to bring something for a pot luck for a work Christmas party. As it was an all day event, we could sign up for breakfast or lunch. Because I am a procrastinator, and also partly because I forgot, I was stuck with bringing a main dish for breakfast. So, like I usually do when I need an easy recipe quick, I googled easy breakfast recipe and this is what came up:



This is a very tasty breakfast casserole that was just as easy as I hoped it would be and tasted great. I could tell it was pretty good since none of it came back with me as all my co-workers had eaten it. Now it seems kind of strange because it has chicken stove top stuffing in it, but it is actually really good. And the fact that it is a casserole is great because I made it the night before, then took it to work the next day. I would certainly recommend this yummy little dish, and can't wait to make it again!

Also, the recipe calls for ham, but I don't really like ham so I sprinkled bacon on top. Mmmm so good!

And finally, I would like to share with you my delightful spritz cookies that I made this year for Christmas. Last year I asked for a spritz gun for Christmas and my boyfriend bought me a really nice one, but I never did get around to make the cookies. So this year, I promised him over and over that I would actually make them so I whipped out my little spritz gun and made some.



They are really not that hard to make. I just used the recipe on the box, its the classic spritz cookie recipe from Wilton, the brand that created the gun. It took me a few minutes to figure out the gun, but once you figure out that you are supposed to press the gun to the cookie sheet to make the cookies it's easy from there!

Cute little things aren't they? My Grandma, who is the absolute best cook I know, told me she thought they were much better than hers. High praise for these little things!


So there you have it, my busy holidays. I hope everyone else had wonderful holidays as well! Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

It's time to Diversify.

So here is the fundamental flaw with this blog: I have no where to cook. You see, I still live at home currently because I am trying to save up to go to grad school. Not only is the kitchen at my parent's house small, but usually when I start to cook I get one of two responses: a)what are you doing?! I just cleaned the kitchen, you are going to make a mess!! (mom) b) are you sure you can do that? Here let me help. (younger sister). As you can see, I am never left alone to do what I do best, which is make stuff up as I go along. I am not the best cook because I tend to sometimes improvise, depending on if I like what's in the recipe or not. I am a picky eater so most recipes have to be adjusted to fit my tastes.
Luckily, cooking is not my only interest. Don't get me wrong, I will continue to cook on occasion and will certainly continue to post. But I have started a new blog with activities that can be done from the privacy of my room. And by that I mean crafts, don't go getting the wrong idea. Anyway, feel free to keep following this blog, or please join me at my other one. Either way, thanks for your time!

Worst blogger ever

So I should mention that I am lazy. I should have just made an overall blog about my life, like many others I have read and perhaps I would have been more successful. I may still do that, I will keep you posted. It's hard for me to cook because I don't have any where to do it because I am lame. But oh well. Here are a few highlights from the last couple of weeks:

First of all it was my sweetie's birthday. I took him on a train ride, and just as I thought, he loved it. The train car we rode in was from 1910 and while I was having a panic attack because the train was so old, the boyfriend was pointing out various historical inaccuracies of the train car interior. I'm glad he had a good time though :) I decided to make him cupcakes and I found a cute idea online so I used it as inspiration. Above are the cupcakes I made. They are supposed to be trains. German chocolate cupcakes, because those are his favorite, and mini marshmallows dipped in candy chocolate and pasted together with frosting. I thought they were kind of cute, the green train tracks are a bit much but black seemed boring so there you have it.

Here is a picture from our train ride. My camera ate all the good ones and I am very angry about that so I am going tomorrow to harass the geek squad at best buy to see if they can help me with that.
Next is my review of a family owned business in Portland called La Carreta. As I was searching for pictures online I came across this gem. Reading the reviews were very interesting, especially the ones supposedly from the daughter of the owner and an employee. I don't know about all the things on that website, but all I can say is that the margarita's are tasty, the food is not too greasy and this...

changed my life. Their fried ice cream is the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. Ok maybe not but it is really yummy as far as friend ice cream goes. So, although I in no way support racism, I do support fried ice cream so I will be going back for sure.
Finally, I finished the book eat pray love. It turned out to be a very good book in my opinion. The first few chapters are rough because the author spends most of her time whinning about her failed marriage that she seemingly caused, but once you get past that it is pretty good. Nothing in the way of cooking, but interesting all the same. If you want to read a book about finding yourself, and more importantly yoga, this is the book for you. Otherwise, I would just watch the movie and move on.
Well that does it for me, I am waiting on my boyfriend to arrive with my ice cream because I simply cannot get enough and I need to start planning my next cooking endeavor which will most likely be my younger sister's birthday in a few weeks. I will actually keep you posted this time!

Hobbies on top of Hobbies...

So I decided that it would be interesting to read something that had to do with me new found hobby. As I was watching previews at another movie, I saw the advertisement for the movie Eat, Pray, Love with Julia Roberts and I decided that, before I saw it, I would read the book. Usually my rule is to watch the movie first then read the book, because the movie almost always fails to accurately represent the book. However, this time I decided to make an exception. I know it doesn't really have anything to do with cooking, but it does seem to be an interesting book so far. I'll keep you updated on how it goes!

On another note, I will soon be posting a blog about the goodies I will be making for my boyfriend for his birthday. I would post pictures about my ideas for them, but that might give away his surprise so I'll just have to wait until after his birthday to post the pictures (Just in case he actually reads my blog!). So pictures to come next week!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Tomorrow is my Grandma's birthday so I decided to make her some yummy cupcakes. A few good ideas came out of my previous blog on the topic, but I decided to go with daisies on top of mini cupcakes. I ran short on time so I decided that cupcakes would be the easiest but still cute! Here are some pictures from the baking process:


Ok ok, so I cheated. I did use cake mix from a box. I told you I was short on time!


I chose to use polka dot mini cup cake papers because I thought they were cute and would match the daisies!


This is the finished product next to directions from a Martha Stewart cake book. I think I need to work on my decorating skills a little more, but I think they turned out cute. I kind of wish I would have done white daisies instead of yellow now, but they go with the theme of the party!


My little daisies up close...I think they look yummy and I think my Grandma will love them! I seem to need a bit more practice, so I suppose I will just have to keep decorating to improve my skills! And since I had a million mini cupcakes sitting around, I made this little present for my boyfriend:

I thought they were so cute! More cupcakes and treats to come later!

Better late than never...

Well here is my very late happy 4th of July to everyone! It was a bit of a stressful day, first in the morning preparing my picnic, then trying to find the fireworks show, but everything actually turned out great! We were going to enjoy the fireworks show and a picnic at Fort Vancouver in Vancouver Washington this year, but they clearly did not know what was going on and blocked every entrance into the fireworks show. We were then directed by a man to go to a nearby mall and ride the shuttle, but when we get there, there were only four cars in the parking lot and it was then that I decided perhaps that man had no idea what he was talking about. So we crossed the river back over into Oregon territory and found a neat little spot right across the river and enjoyed the fireworks from there. There was a lot of people but it was still fun.
As for my picnic, I think it turned out great. For someone who is not the best cook, mostly because I don't get the chance to practice a lot, the meal turned out pretty delicious. I chose to make foods that were cold so they could travel, and were easy to eat on a blanket. I made a spinach dip with feta cheese in it, a cold macaroni salad, some bread sticks, and my most prized creation, some Martha Stewart cookies. The bread sticks were Pillsbury and not that exciting, but the rest did take some time and effort and I was really happy that they all turned out great.
The week before I did some searching online for some recipes that I could use to make my dishes. I found some really simple ones that I think taste great.
First was the spinach dip, which I don't actually care for, but my boyfriend is a huge fan so I included it in my picnic. This was a pretty simple recipe, but I did not include the dill because we're not huge fans of dill. My boyfriend claimed in was delicious though, so it may be worth a try!
Next was the macaroni salad, which I actually ate. Most people call me a picky eater because I do not like a wide variety of foods, including most vegetables, but my goal is to change that. This macaroni salad sure put me on that road because it was very tasty. I would recommend more cheese, but only because I like cheese and less onion. I even put a little too many noodles in and the onion was really strong. Next time I may only go with one tablespoon of onion, especially since I will be using less noodles. Very much worth a try though, and because it's summer right now it's great for the heat and very easy to make!
Finally, what I am most proud of, the cookies. Now let me tell you, I was nervous. Martha Stewart must not actually make any of the recipes she puts on her website because they are hard. This one in particular is very time consuming so make sure you read the directions carefully and have plenty of time to make them. I followed the directions exactly as Martha laid them out in the recipe, but I messed up the ingredients a little. Not to worry though, it still turned out just fine. The ingredients say to use five cups cake flour NOT self rising. Well I only had three cups of the cake flour, which actually is just all purpose flour, and when I went to the store all I could find was self rising flour! Of course I panicked, but as it turns out, there isn't much of a difference between the two, other than self rising also includes baking soda and salt. So I put in the three cups of cake flour and two of the self rising. I then excluded the baking soda and salt called for in the recipe and guess what? They turned out to be very yummy cookies indeed. I beat Martha and I am so proud :)


Here are pictures of my amazing cookies and very tasty macaroni salad. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the cooking stages because I was stressed, and then my food was devoured by my hungry picnic guests so these are the only items left over. All in all, the picnic turned out great and it was a very fun 4th of July. I hope everyone else enjoyed their 4th of July as well!

My camera's fireworks setting is not as neat as I had thought, but here are the some of the fireworks form Fort Vancouver!