WHAT on
Earth (Photo credit: tonynetone)
…was I
This is a "thought bubble". It is an illustration depicting thought. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
???????????????????????????????
That is about HALF the amount of Easter cookies I have to decorate and package this weekend, and thus far I’m not even half way done with these!! Just taking a little break to rest my hand and…
pulling hair out (Photo credit: wstera2)
Mommy!!!
My SIX batches of dough for Easter Cookie Madness 2012 are chilling in the fridge. I used my good old hand-held mixer and I think I damn near overheated the thing. I think I need a better attachment for my stand mixer because it just doesn’t get all the stuff up from the bottom of the bowl. Anyone else have that problem (or a solution)?
Another kitchen related question… Does anyone else despise cleaning the lids to pots? I have noticed lately that I had no problem hand washing pots and pans, but I always stick the lids in the dishwasher. Why?
Anyway, tomorrow is baking day and then I have the whole weekend to decorate Easter egg, bunny, chick, Peep and wine bottle cookies. Yes, wine bottles. Someone needs them for a wine themed birthday party next weekend. Everyone is keeping me busy!!
Speaking of wine, I think it’s time for a little nightcap! Cheers!
In January my friend’s son had his first birthday. I made the cake, cupcakes and cookie favors. I will share some pics of those with you shortly, but first some other firsts…
The first time I laid eyes on my all time favorite stuffed animal, my Bedtime Bear Care Bear..
Can you see the love?
I was 4. I am now 32. I cannot sleep without that bear under my arm.
My first time operating heavy machinery…
My first pet, our dog Britt…
He was awesome. He loved pizza crusts. He would beg for one, we would oblige, he would run with it into another room and then run back to beg for another. We figured he was scarfing them down but he was actually depositing them into a pile behind my dad’s recliner.
My first car was a 1986 Ford Thunderbird. For some reason it was dubbed the Thunderchicken. For some other reason, I don’t seem to have any pictures of it.
My first concert…No, it wasn’t New Kids on the Block or Debbie Gibson (although my first ever perfume was Electric Youth). My first concert was the WDRE Fest – June 2, 1996. Here was the lineup: No Doubt, 311, Filter, Toadies, Cracker, Fishbone, Gravity Kills, The Nixons, God Lives Underwater and Spin Doctors. I’d say that was a damn good first concert. My first “classic rock” show (At the time, this referenced music from the 60′s and 70′s. Apparently now classic rock includes bands that I grew up listening to, like Bon Jovi, which means I am officially old) followed two months later.
I was sixteen and I went with my mom. The bands were Iron Butterfly and Foghat. I watched women with a good ten years on my mother, women who looked like they could have been my teachers at school, screaming like teenagers and rushing the stage trying to grab the drummer from Foghat’s ass. It was a good time.
The first time I was a bridesmaid (sharing this one because I LOVED my hair!)…
First time I ever saw the Pacific Ocean…
There are some firsts that thankfully went undocumented… The first time I threw up from drinking too much (Mad Dog 20/20 Orange – it will never again pass my lips), the first time I was called Ma’am, the first (and only) time I watched the movie Twilight (I still have nightmares about the bad acting…”Your hand, it’s so cold!”).
Then there was the little man’s first birthday. It was my first time making a crown shaped cake! They had chosen a prince theme so I also made cupcakes with blue chocolate crowns on top and of course, I made #1 cookies.
AJ has many, many firsts ahead and despite my ever advancing age, hopefully I do too!
No, it’s not some kind of adult playground game. It’s a cocktail! I stumbled upon this gem while poking around on my favorite recipe site – Allrecipes.com.
If you Google “Hop Skip and Go Naked recipe” you will most likely find a bunch of recipes that involve a combination of beer, vodka and lemonade (ew?). You might also find a cookie recipe or two. Cookies are good, but this drink is better!
Simple ingredients – cherry vodka, Triple Sec, cranberry juice and grenadine. Tastes just like Hawaiian Punch.
Hawaiian Punch Fruit Juicy Red (Photo credit: Like_the_Grand_Canyon)
It is SO good that it’s quite easy to knock back a few, kind of forgetting the vodka part, until suddenly… you’re drunk! Thus, I have renamed this drink Hawaiian Punch Drunk. It’s a much more suitable moniker, and removes any connections to that hillbilly beer/lemonade concoction. Whatever you call it though, you should definitely try it – especially if you live in my neck of the woods where it’s going to be 80 degrees tomorrow!
I LOVE Marshmallow Peeps!! I love them fresh, I love them slightly stale. I love them dipped in chocolate! Fluffy sugary goodness (and they’re fat free!)
I am not a Peeps purist; they are not just for Easter! Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day – if the stores are selling, I’m buying!
Honestly, I think Peeps should have their own place on the food pyramid.
Some New Year’s Eve I would love to go to Bethlehem, PA to witness the Peep Drop.
You can do many things with Peeps besides eating them. You can make an adorable Peeps Wreath for Easter, watch some Peep Jousting on You Tube or make Peeps Dioramas.
You can crochet Peeps, like my good friend at CrochetBitch. She gave me this AWESOME Peeps Easter Basket!
Seriously, how friggin cute is this?!
There are even Peeps movies, like this hilarious version of Office Space…
You can also make Peeps cookies! I’ve been messing around practicing cookies for Easter and I made some Peeps Bunny cookies. I had to search the internet for quite a while to find the right shaped cookie cutter, but find it I did. If you too are dying to make Peeps cookies, you can get the cutter here (they also have the traditional chick shape as well).
So here is my Easter Cookie preview! More to come… : )
Peeps Out!
It’s almost St. Patty’s Day!!! Since it falls on a Saturday this year I figure most people will be too blasted all day to bother reading my blog, so I decided to share my St. Patrick’s Day cookies a wee bit in advance! But first, a little music to set the mood from my favorite Irish band – Flogging Molly!
Okay. So, I had grand plans for shamrock cookies and pots o’ gold and I’m happy to say everything turned out better than I had hoped!! I even got some props and whatnot so I could take snazzier pictures than my standard fare of snapping shots of cookies just lying forlorn on my dining room table.
As you can see, I did not have a black icing disaster this time! To read about when I did – click here! I was a little worried at first, because when I mixed up the icing it looked more gray than black but I let it sit for a while and it darkened up nicely. The pots came out perfect!!
I ended up having to make a second batch the other night because people who saw the first set just couldn’t resist and had to have some for themselves. This time around I had a NEW black icing disaster! I made the icing the same exact way that I did the first batch, and then left the cookies to dry overnight. To my absolute horror when I checked on them the next day I discovered that a number of them had become splotchy looking. I freaked out. Were they wet, moldy, infected with cookie pox?!?!
After a brief internet search I learned it was most likely due to humidity. It had been pretty humid the night I iced the cookies even though it’s not even Spring yet! (Strange weather these days, earthquakes, locusts, cookie pestilence…those Mayans might be on to something) Anyway, there was nothing to do but work with it!! So I wrote on the damn things.
I should have taken a picture of the splotches so you could see what I’m talking about, but I was in no mood for documentation. Trust me though, under that writing lurks dark spots. I think it was a nice cover. No one has to know, except everyone reading this right now. You won’t tell, right? ; )
I hope everyone has a fun St. Patrick’s Day! Time to start plotting for Easter…
Exactly how does one become addicted to drinking gasoline?!?!??? I’m watching My Strange Addiction on TLC and I am completely baffled. “I liked the way it smelled, so I decided to drink it… It didn’t taste good.” No, really?! Yet somehow now this chick is addicted to doing daily shots of the stuff.
I like the smell of some weird things. Elmer’s Rubber Cement and Play-Doh (check out Play-Doh Cologne!!) to name a few.
Rubber Cement suicide (Photo credit: Chapendra)
I don’t eat them though!! Okay, so ONE time in elementary school I licked a smelly marker – who hasn’t done that? Point is – I didn’t do it AGAIN! I don’t need to become a member of Marker Lickers Anonymous. I need to know – how does trying something once and NOT liking it lead to becoming addicted to it? More importantly, where does TLC find these people?!
Sigh.
Here’s one of my addictions…
Snickerdoodle Cupcakes!! You can get the recipe I used here. I bought a package of Pepperidge Farm Snickerdoodle cookies and cut into triangles for the decoration. This has to be one of the most delicious cupcake recipes ever, and it uses boxed cake mix so it’s super easy!
If you ever get the urge to drink some gasoline, try one of these instead.
I just read an article about a two year old who threw such a massive fit that her family was kicked off a JetBlue flight bound for Boston. My ears hurt just THINKING about the amount of screeching and screaming that must have been taking place for things to come to that. UGH.
I don’t want kids, and I oftentimes question the sanity of those that do. I mean, really – the screaming, the crying, the pooping, the puking, the snot, the not sleeping, the worry – and that’s all just the first night you bring one home! I value my sanity (and my nap time!), thank you very much. However, I LOVE shopping for baby clothes and shoes and toys – a frequent necessity since my friends are having them left and right. Small things are cute, what can I say? Chipmunks, mini cupcakes, baby booties…
Image via Wikipedia
Also cute – these cookies I made for a baby shower! A friend at work was throwing one for her daughter and asked me to make the cookie favors. We decided on a baby carriage and I ended up doing a very simple design, using only pearl dragees as decorations. Cute, classy, and unlike a baby – won’t get you kicked off a plane!
So tonight I was sitting around making myself hungry watching Diners Drive-Ins and Dives. I wandered into the kitchen in search of something tasty for dinner and for some reason decided to make waffles. Not just any old waffles though – organic blueberry waffles. Sounded wholesome, smelled great heating up in my toaster, tasted…like cardboard. I didn’t think it was possible to mess up a frozen waffle. I was wrong. I won’t name names, but this was just not right.
Back in front of the TV, completely unfulfilled and Guy Fieri is mocking me with some delicious looking pizzas. I think about the crummy, disappointing waffles. Then I think “leggo my Eggo!” which then reminds of LEGOS which leads me to today’s post. LEGO Man cookies!!
My coworker was having a LEGO themed birthday party for her son and she asked me to make cookies for favors. We decided on a cookie in the shape of the LEGO Man’s head, and chocolate LEGO bricks. I found a LEGO shaped chocolate mold on eBay (what CAN’T you find on eBay?! ((oh yeah, you can’t find a LEGO Man head shaped cookie cutter, so I made a template out of a coffee can lid))
Here are my cookies, lined up and ready to decorate.
I knew I wanted a smoother finish on these cookies than I had on my angel cookies so I Googled how to decorate cookies with royal icing. The short version is that you make the royal icing per the recipe, outline the cookies, then water down the icing to a very runny consistency which you then use to “flood” the cookie. The outline can be done in the same color you will be using to flood, or it can be done in a different color. For the look I wanted, I went with black (more on THAT disaster after the pictures!) then flooded with yellow.
(note my handy mustard squeezy bottle – perfect for dispensing runny icing!)
You may be thinking to yourself, “What disaster? They look pretty damn good!” Just as I learned tonight that the word ORGANIC in relation to waffles really means DRYWALL, on that night I learned that it is really hard to make icing black. I knew that it wouldn’t be as simple as mixing some black gel color into the white icing (because black + white = gray) so I also Googled how to deal with that ahead of time. All I had to do was make a different color first – blue,brown, dark green, mix of everything?! – and THEN add the black. Well, I tried that and got gray. I had also read to try adding cocoa powder so I dumped some of that in there with a little more black gel color. STILL gray. Finally in desperation I mixed in ALL of the black gel color I had. Black icing accomplished!!!!
So I outlined and flooded and let them dry overnight, then I piped on the faces the next day.
Once they were dry I started bagging them up with my chocolate LEGO blocks…
….only to discover that apparently dumping an entire pot of black gel color (along with other colors and cocoa powder) into your royal icing can really dry it out. : / The faces on my poor LEGO Men started flaking off!!! I packed them up as carefully as possible, boxed them, took them in to my coworker, apologized and told her not to move the damn things until she was ready to give them away. Luckily they survived the trip and she was really happy with them (at least that’s what she told me!). I had two coworkers who saw them ask if they were supposed to be computers, so it would seem that there are people who actually have never seen LEGOs before – who knew?
Anyway, I hope that someone out there can learn from my mistakes. Organic Blueberry Waffles suck, and don’t over-color your royal icing. I have since read that Americolor Super Black gel paste does the trick, and I have a bottle of it just waiting to be used next week when I attempt to make Pot of Gold cookies for St. Patrick’s Day! Stay tuned…
Yesterday my mom and I went to the Philadelphia International Flower Show. The theme this year is Hawaii – Islands of Aloha. Saw tons of cool stuff; the show runs all week and I would definitely recommend going if you are in the area! Here are a few pictures…
Unfortunately, I have never been to Hawaii. I was, however, lucky enough to take a trip to Costa Rica. My parents go every year and are planning on retiring there. In September they were going to be spending two weeks in Costa Rica and invited my boyfriend and me to fly down and join them for the second week of their trip. I had only ever flown twice in my life, and both times I had panic attacks. I was petrified at the thought of getting on another plane but I would have been a complete moron to turn down a mostly free trip to Costa Rica (we just had to pay for our plane tickets) so of course we accepted the invitation.
I spent the months leading up to the trip worrying. What if I had a complete freak out in the air and they had to scramble fighter jets to escort the plane for emergency landing in Mexico? What if I made it there and then got attacked by malaria carrying mosquitoes? What if I was too scared to get on the plane for the return flight home and had to spend the rest of my life panhandling at the San Jose International Airport?! AHHHHHH! Instead of just being excited about getting about the fact that my boyfriend of seven years and I were getting to go on our first REAL VACATION together (an overnight stay at the shore just doesn’t count…), my brain was plagued with dozens of horrifying scenarios. As I waited at Newark International in the early AM to board our flight I was quite sure that I was going to die.
Well, I obviously didn’t die. In fact, about fifteen minutes after takeoff I realized that I was perfectly fine and that I wasn’t going to cause any international incidents. We had a layover in Houston (they have a Bass Pro Shops store IN THE AIRPORT there – really?) and then flew in to Costa Rica. My parents came and collected us from the airport and we began our adventure!
We got to see crocs…
…monkeys…
…one sloth (but only from behind!)…
…and glorious sunsets!
Plus we got to stay at the most beautiful resort…
…where my mom spent the afternoons drinking a most heavenly concoction made with this stuff -
This, my friends, is Cacique! It is a hard liquor (kind of like vodka, I suppose) called Guaro made from sugar cane and manufactured only in Costa Rica. Check out the second half of this clip from the show Three Sheets and watch Zane Lamprey do shots of Cacique, also called “The Gringo Killer” by locals!
I will agree – consumed by itself this stuff does taste like turpentine (or at least, I can imagine that it tastes like turpentine since I have never actually attempted to drink paint thinner…) BUT – when you blend it with cream of coconut and ice, and add a splash of grenadine you have tropical heaven in a glass!! It’s amazing how good it is! Lucky for me we brought home a few bottles from the duty-free shop at the airport. Unlucky for you (unless you are reading this blog in Costa Rica) I don’t know of anywhere you can buy Cacique, at least not in the NJ/PA area.
Since I have now teased you with something most likely unattainable, I will give you a recipe for the next best thing – the Bikini Martini! I found this recipe here, on Allrecipes.com.
Pretty simple to make, and it will definitely give you a taste of the tropics!!
