Girl Interrupted At Her Baking

I haven't blogged in ages.  I miss it.  Unless booze pudding can somehow accidentally be misfiled in a folder labeled, "baking", I haven't done much of that either.  And I miss it.  I've tried my hand at a few other apron-esque endeavors, if you will, but nothing else feels quite the same.

My first endeavor was jam.  We have a glass stove top in the apartment in which I currently reside.  I melted it.  "But aren't they built to withstand insanely high temperatures?"  One would think.  Anyway, I had been wanting to try my hand at preserving for a while and, after reading numerous blog posts and articles each detailing the ease and simplicity that is jamming, I thought that it'd be a breeze.  Yeah, well, this breeze melted my stove.  Apparently when you sandwich hot jam in between a hot stove and a hot stock pot, the glass revolts.  What is with me and glass?    

At any rate, I was somehow able to create five jars of strawberry jalapeno jam.

If you decide to try your hand at preserving, I highly suggest this article here.  And, if you're curious to try strawberry jalapeno jam, you can find the recipe here.  I added a couple habaneros to the recipe to give it an added kick. (and kick it does!)

I sorta cheater "baked" like the lazy person that I often am to make the pastries below.  They are just rolled out Pillsbury crescent roll dough, filled with jam and cream cheese.  Tasty and fattening, but too easy for me to feel good about myself.

Another endeavor: homemade Snickers.  As with the rest of the female race, I have become addicted to Pinterest.  And it is through Pinterest that I discovered the beauty that is homemade Snickers.  Go Pinterest. These little devils threw me off the South Beach diet wagon hard and fast.  And they are worth it.  Make them.  Now.  They are easy and no stoves were harmed in the process (diets maybe, but no stoves).  You can find the recipe (and better pictures) here.   

This is the giant block of yum before being cut into smaller squares of mini yum

All those things were fine.  And scrumptious.  But it's this kind of thing that I'm missing.

I made these a couple months ago for a Kung Fu Panda night at a friend's house.  They're chocolate peanut butter cup cupcakes.  What I really wanted to do was play with the melding of chocolate and wasabi, but who, besides me, would  eat that not as a part of some television reality show?  So, I went with the other obvious Asian ingredient...peanuts.  I just stuck a couple mini peanut butter cups in each liner before filling them with chocolate cake batter.  Nothing too impressive.  But the frosting.  Oh that frosting.  For the frosting, I just mixed peanut butter, cream cheese, nutella, and unsweetened coco powder.  Nothing else.  No powdered sugar even.  I wish I had written down the measurements, but I didn't :(  I was just throwing things together in a mad fury, trying to get them done in time.  To finish things off, I just rolled out fondant circles, formed them into fortune cookies, and dusted them with cake glitter.         

But that was a couple months ago and I am growing lonely for my piping bag.  However, somewhere in that growing loneliness there is an idea growing with it.  Puppy chow cupcakes.  Haven't figured out all the ins and outs of them, but I'm going to make them on Saturday.  It's been decided.  And that is going to get me through the rest of this work week.  So stay tuned.  Hopefully it won't take me another two months to tell you how it goes...

Cold

I'm blogging via phone. Let's see how long it takes for me to tire of tapping this small square of a keyboard.

Prince Charming and I broke up. Well, we're just on a break, but this is my first foray into the "on a break" realm and it sure sucks like a break up. I should probably be careful about what I write, being that said boy visits this site from time to time, and I don't want to say anything that might embarrass me. Granted, the four minute voicemail I left him a mere 12 hours after the alleged "talk" has left me with little pride anyway. Someone needs to create an app that saves all the voicemails you leave other people. I know i have left some ridiculous voicemails that could have only been spawned out of drunkenness or depression, however I have a theory that if I were to hear them replayed they would be twelve times more mortifying than I think and I would delete every single "I probably shouldn't call you" number from my pone. People like me need that kind of reality check. Regardless, I somehow had the sense to not leave a voicemail the second time I called him and he didn't pick up. Have I mentioned it has been a whole 25 hours since "the talk"? I have reached new realms of patheticism.

Hoping it'd help, I baked. Peanut butter cup cookies. I even added broken pretzels and red piping gel to make it a little more festive (see the terrible phone pic below). Well, the cookies have cooled, the once melted chocolate is hard, and my insides still feel cold like an untouched, empty oven. Preheating always seems to take longer when you're watching. Now off to find a distraction that keeps me from my phone...

love is in the air

We are on the eve of the eve of the runner-up for  my favorite holiday.  For many single women I talk to, Valentine's day is dreaded like none other, perhaps even more so than that thrice rescheduled trip to the gyno.  Unfortunately for those women, a date on the calendar can't be postponed by simply sly-dialing a cranky receptionist.  Combating this lovely pink holiday typically requires a more overt approach, usually featuring a high volume of the color black and events bearing names such as, "Cupid is Stupid"*.  I don't understand these women.  I wasn't always a super girly girl and I cringe to label myself as that now.  It was only partway into college that pink hues, glitter, and Disney started finding their way into my closet (the psych major in me has fun picking this one apart).  But somehow now I find myself embracing all things deemed "girl" and I revel in a holiday that doesn't sneer at me painting pink hearts on my nails or for baking pink layered cupcakes.  It doesn't matter to me that there is no Prince Charming to notice my fingernails or partake in sweet little heart-shaped confection made especially for him.  In fact, I think I prefer it.  I think I'd rather be single on this day.

Perhaps it is because the only terrible Valentine's day experiences I have had have both been on behalf of a guy I was either dating or pseudo-dating.  Maybe deep-down inside I have this belief that when you try and mix a glorious day of pink, sweet smelling things with snakes, snails, and puppy dog tails nothing pretty can ensue. I'd rather not mess with it.  My recipe for a good Valentine's day has been perfectly crafted and I'd rather not let more ingredients in to potentially ruin the good I've created for myself.

I won't lie to you.  Would it be nice to receive flowers and a specially cooked dinner for two?  Sure.  Would I enjoy baking treats for someone special instead of just my roommates?  Of course.  Is it pathetic that the only boy getting a valentine from me this year is my 16 month old nephew?  Probably.  But at the end of the day I am content.  Maybe contentedness in singleness stems from the leftover hurt from dating too many snakes and snails.  Perhaps supposed "contentedness" is really a protective callous I have built up around a tender heart; something that is good and healthy for a while, but eventually the yellowed Hello Kitty band-aid needs to be removed to let the cut breathe and actually heal.  I think that is where true contentedness (and true joy) comes in.  I'm not really sure where I am and I think I'm alright with not knowing.  I do know that on February 14th when I put on my pretty pink dress and paint little hearts on my fingernails I am doing it solely for me.  I'm okay with that.  And when I bake my pink cupcakes I am doing it for the girls in my life who love me with longevity.  And I'm truly content with that.

Happy Valentine's Day to you, whoever you are and wherever you're at.




*I cannot take credit for such a catchy event title as "Cupid is Stupid".  It is a real event hosted by a church I have been known to occasionally frequent.  I think the elders must have forgotten their WWJD bracelets at home on the night this one was planned.

Glass and Tears and Deviled Eggs

For the very first time I came home from work in tears.  It was rather curious to me that today would be the day to bring the waterworks having not been wrought with screaming parents nor having received over one hundred phone messages (welcome to last week).  I guess it makes moderate sense to me, as there have been a few unexpected tumults as of late on this road called my life.  However, it wasn't the aforementioned stressors that did me in.  Oh no. Blame the biscuits.  Whilst driving home from work, Jack Johnson softly strumming his guitar in the background, I decided to bake cheddar bay biscuits (think Red Lobster) to go with dinner (a dinner that, at that point, consisted solely of a bottle of two buck Chuck).  And then it hit me: I can't bake anymore.

Oops.  Time to rewind.    

Our oven is broken.  A friend of my roommate was over at the house the other day and decided to clean the oven.  Well, really she decided to make the oven clean itself.  I've never actually used the whole "self clean" feature probably because the idea of little metallic hands coming to life out of the inner recesses of my favorite kitchen appliance to scrub away casserole remains frightens me.  This girl is fearless, however, and not only did she opt to brave the wretched little oven fingers, she also wanted a front row seat.  Open the door she did and when a drop of tepid water pinged against the 900 degree pane of glass, it revolted.  Our oven has no glass.  I have no outlet.

It doesn't sit well with me to be angry with someone over a mistake I could easily see myself making.  In fact, if it had been me, I probably would have tripped over a rogue apron string, spilling a whole cup of ice water on the precarious oven door.  What a fun sound (and trip to the E.R.) that would have made.  At any rate, the oven is out of commission and so is my ability to handle life (and my brain), apparently.  All eight roommates are fearfully sleeping with locked doors.  (I'm going to pause right here while you wrap your mind around nine girls in one house.  Everyone needs it - no need to be ashamed.  Yes, we all happen to be single at this brief moment in time.  No, you may not bring all your homeboys over.)

I sat in my empty driveway long enough to replay track 7 four times, long enough for my neighbor to drown his hydrangea bush while gawking at me, and long enough to come up with a new game plan: deviled eggs.  Yep.  Deviled eggs.  No baking required.  Tasty as they may be, I had greater plans for these eggs.  Watch this.  Yup.  That's exactly right.  Well, not really.  I have talked about devil egging someone's car for months and months now.  Years, probably, in fact.  It has never actually happened, half because I am above the age of fifteen, as are all of my friends, and half because I know deep down that hurting someone for three minutes will only deepen the hurt I feel, no matter how much they may supposedly deserve it.  It won't bring me any real satisfaction, nor will it bring me any actual catharsis.  Even fantasizing about hurting people who have have hurt me has only brought me pain.  I suppose the fact that I am still grasping this means that not all of my mind crumbled with the oven door.  So, for now I just watch Gilmore Girls and let them do all the maladaptive behaviors I long to have the strength to do, all the while knowing that not doing them is strength in itself.  Or is that just something a timid person tells oneself to feel less pathetic?

On another note, anyone know how to fix a broken oven door?