Exquisite Turmoil

WTB cookies badly, actually >.< but I'm trying so hard to be good. I have no willpower, and therein lies the true problem. I actually have around 1000 calories left in my budget today so I really do need to eat, but if I make a batch of cookies I KNOW that I will want to eat more than the four that I am allowed. I am an absolute glutton and piglet. If I make 24 cookies, I'll seriously want to eat like 12 of them. Hummus and pita also sounds good, but that requires either going to AJs like 30 minutes away (since it's the only grocery store with decent hummus and pita) or going to the Persian Room and spending a fortune (I've got some garbanzo beans and could conceivably make my own but the beans haven't been soaked yet and that takes HOURS). Not to mention, it's not exactly low calorie either. I suppose it sounds stupid to be bitching about the calories when I still have 1000 left, but eating things like what I WANT to eat.. 1000 calories goes in the blink of an eye.

In any case, the original inspiration for this blog was to link this awesome website that calculates the calories in a recipe for you. It’s a hell of a lot more convenient than looking up the ingredients and doing the math myself, so I figured I’d share it in case anyone else is interested.

On a happy note, I had another good run today. We did the “normal run” (that being, as I think I said before, from the house to the end of the road and back) and this time I ran to the end of the road and all the way back to the house. Yesterday I ran to the end of the road and then to the street before our house, so I tacked on another .2 miles. I know, I know, it sounds so negligible.. but I’m really feeling proud of myself and happy right now. I’ve got to take what I can get so that I can stay motivated!

So Dan and I are in the shower a few minutes ago, and Anya comes in the bathroom and asks if she can make some Toaster Strudel for Alex and herself. We said yes, of course, but not to make any for us since we weren’t hungry.

We get out of the shower and she yells out to us that breakfast is ready and we should come eat. I asked her what she made, and she tells me she made meatloaf with a gravy of peeps (those Easter marshmallow bird things). At this point, I figured that she had put down some empty plates and we were supposed to pretend that she made meatloaf with peep gravy..

That’s what was sitting on the table in four different place settings :p It’s bologna, not meatloaf of course, but like…. QQ I didn’t even know we HAD peeps. I guess they were in the cabinet on top of the fridge that I like.. never go into.  I guess my creative cooking techniques will be passed down o.O;

Well, today is definitely not a healthy eating day. I was taken with a desire for pancakes this morning so I whipped up a batch of my favourite buttermilk ones. They’re sooooo good. And simple.

• 3 cups flour, sifted (sift after you measure)
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda

Combine your dry ingredients. Then mix in

• 3 cups buttermilk
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup butter, melted

Make sure that you let your eggs / milk / buttermilk come to room temperature (just set’em on the counter for a half hour) before you add them to the dry ingredients. You’ll get MUCH fluffier pancakes. Also, when you combine the dry / wet ingredients, don’t beat them until all of the lumps are gone. Just mix it up until it’s wet. You WANT a few pockets of flour. It give the pancakes a much more authentic (and tasty) texture.

Dinner tonight is going to be some hotwings. I guess Dan is really in the mood, so hotwings it will be. Those are simple, of course. Just cut the joint between the wing / drumstick and chop the tip off of the wing and throw it out (the tip). Sprinkle the wings and drumsticks with a little salt and pepper. Get your oil (or shortening) nice and hot (350-375) and drop the wings in until they’re nice and golden. Scoop’em out and put them on brown paper bags to drain (the bags work much better than paper towels).

Once they’ve cooled down a tad, coat them with your hot sauce. I like:

• 1/2 cup Frank’s Red Hot sauce
• 4 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 Tbsp Tabasco sauce or to taste
• 2 tsp dark brown sugar
• 1 tsp cider vinegar

Just toss all of that in a saucepan on low heat until the butter melts.

Finally, be sure to serve them with THE BEST bleu cheese dressing ever.

• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 2 Tbsp buttermilk
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 1/8 tsp onion powder
• 1/8 tsp garlic powder

And don’t forget the bleu cheese! I buy a container of crumbles and make a double batch (so 2 cups mayo) and find that’s about the right amount of bleu. If you don’t love bleu as much as Dan does, however, you may want to cut it down. He devours this stuff by the jar full, but I can’t eat it except with wings. Way too bleu cheesy for me. I’m more of a ranch girl ^_^ Just not on my wings!

Anyway, enjoy!

Seemingly (if Dan tells the truth) the cookies were a hit at work, so I decided to tackle some brownies tonight to send with him tomorrow. Here’s the recipe:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 4 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup flour (all purpose or baking, I prefer baking)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup chopped pecans

I suppose you could use walnuts or some other nut, but I decided to use up those extra pecans from the cookies yesterday ^_^ Also, I’d like to note that if you look closely in the butter section you can find “European Butter” which is 83% butterfat, as opposed to 80% on most butters. It doesn’t seem like a big difference, but you’ll find that it gives your baked goods a much creamier and crisper quality. I also prefer to use unsalted butter so that you have total control over the amount of salt going into your recipe.

In any case, melt 1/2 cup of the butter with the chocolate — either over a double boiler or just in the microwave.. about two minutes in the microwave will do it, but check it earlier to avoid burning the butter if you’ve got an uber microwave.

Mix the remaining 1/2 cup of butter with the sugar and vanilla (speed 2 for 30 seconds, then speed 6 for two minutes, or until it looks like all of the sugar is incorporated). Switch to speed 4 and add your eggs one at a time, waiting to introduce the next egg until the previous one is well blended. By this point your mixture should be nice and creamy. Turn off the blender, scrape the bowl and add the chocolate. Mix at 2 for around 30 seconds and then add the rest of the ingredients. Scrape the bowl down, set it to stir speed, and mix for another 30 seconds or so.

Pour it into a greased 13×9 and bake for 45 minutes at 350. Cool on a wire rack (still in the pan, of course), cut and enjoy!

We also made some pirogies tonight, but I’m not going to post that recipe since I wasn’t quite satisfied with it. The dough was too thick. It may be that it could be rolled thinner (or pressed once I get the flat pasta attachment <3<3) but by hand I don’t think I could have gotten it much thinner, which leads me to believe that the dough recipe was not quite right (especially since ancient Polish women have to be able to do it ^_^).

The filling was good — onions, mashed potatoes and Gorgonzola. I also made a creamy onion / Gorgonzola / butter sauce to pour over the top which was very good. I’m sure I’ll be attempting pirogies again soon and once the recipe is perfected I’ll post it on up here. Not that I think anyone is coming here looking for my recipes, but hey.. I have to have something to blog about!

I don’t think I mentioned it already, but Dan picked me up a KitchenAid on Black Friday for $129 (best husband ever, went out at 4:30 am so we wouldn’t miss the sales!) and I finally got a chance to use it today! I say finally like from Friday to Monday is such a long time which, of course, it isn’t. But still, I’m excited! We were sitting around painting tonight (also of course :p) when the monster children decided to break open the Oreos and tempt me greatly. I managed to abstain until after they went to bed and finally I couldn’t wait any longer. Oreos didn’t seem like they would do the trick, however, so I decided to bake up some fresh chocolate chip cookies. I sent Dan out to the store to pick up a few ingredients (namely the chocolate chips.. can’t have chocolate chip cookies without chocolate chips) and got to baking! The KitchenAid is sooo wonderful. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to make cookies from scratch, but the dough is not easy to mix by hand, and my dinky little hand mixer can’t manage it at all. The KitchenAid just powered right through it, however, and mixed up in 30 seconds what would have taken me (or Dan, more likely, since I am lazy) at least five minutes.

In any case, the cookies were delicious, and I’m sending the leftover with Dan to work tomorrow so that he can share them with his friends and I won’t be tempted to eat them all ^_^ For anyone who cares, here is the recipe.

• 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 6 oz chocolate chips (I like bittersweet dark, but milk is fine)
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 375.

Mix up the sugars, margarine and shortening in a bowl and beat it until it’s nice and fluffy.. with the KitchenAid I did it on speed 2 for about 45 seconds. Add in the vanilla and the egg and blend it well (speed 4, less than a minute). Add the flour, baking soda and salt and beat (speed 4, two minutes). Toss in the chocolate chips and nuts and blend on the lowest setting for about two seconds.

Roll’em into cute little balls (I don’t know why, but I’ve always preferred to drop cookie dough with my hands rather than a measuring spoon, not that it makes them taste any better) and bake them for 8-10 minutes until they look tasty and delicious. Pull’em out of the oven, let’em sit on the tray for about a minute them scoop them off and enjoy. Technically they should go from the tray to a wire rack to cool some more but I can never resist eating them right away.

Off of the cookie note, I finished painting up the new skink..

Soooo…. which skink do I go with? Oh yeah, lots more pictures of the black skink in the gallery, of course (accessible by the Pictures link listed under ‘Pages’).

Well, that time of year is approaching — that time of year being time to make up an enormous batch of Irish Cream for Christmas! It has to set in the fridge for a good long while, so I’d best get a move on and get to mixing, or else it won’t be ready for the holidays! I’m thinking about giving out a few bottles as gifts this year, since it always seems to be popular. This, however, leaves me with a problem. Bottles! I just can’t seem to find any that I like.. I’m particularly fond of swing-tops (like you’d see on a Grolsch bottle, for anyone who doesn’t know), but all of the bottles I am finding with swing-tops are small, and I’m definitely thinking that 32oz or so is needed in order for it to be a decent gift. Everything I have been able to find is ridiculously expensive. I have no intention of paying like $12 for a bottle. I could practically just buy someone a bottle of Bailey’s for that. Not that I think Bailey’s is as good as my Irish Cream, but I’m sure you get the point. Well, I’ve still got some time, hopefully I’ll come across something both affordable and attractive.