that's whyy

life has been nuts lately. but i baked a batch of blueberry muffins perfectly this morning, started up some laundry thats smelling up the place something nice, and i'm finally starting to find a little bit of consistency.

this song always made me think of a very specific part of my life. it was a fun part of my life, but i always find that for me, reminiscing (regardless of good or bad) is always a bit heartbreaking. but this pumped up remix makes me listen to it in a different light.

Holiday Cookies, part 1 (hopefully more parts to come)

Last Monday, after weeks of dreaming about crunchy peppermint and chocolate, I got off my butt and made some peppermint bark chocolate cookies.



Good recipe, though I used Starlight round peppermints instead of candy canes and I probably scared my downstairs neighbor smashing those things with a rolling pin. And one extra note, the butter should be room temperature. Yum!

The Days of Strawberry Desserts

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie! I'm not really a pie baker, so please excuse the crust. It wasn't bad, especially when paired with vanilla ice cream from Kline's. I had decided to make this open-faced and it wasn't until afterwards that I read it wasn't that easy as just leaving off the top crust. First of all, tapioca as a thickener works best in a closed pie, and since I hadn't changed that, I should have at least covered the pie with some foil while it was baking. Oh well. This probably just means I have to make more pies in order to improve. :)

Strawberry Granita for a Tuesday night. The recipe was wonderful, though the freezing took much longer than the hour and a half the recipe estimate. My craving for this dessert came from a discussion this work about the difference between a Slurpee, an Icee, a Squishee, and a slushie. Hint: Slurpees, Icees, and Squishees are all slushies, but not all slushies are Slurpees, Icees, or Squishees (if Squishees actually existed). After all the talk about slush drinks, I started craving one and decided to go the possibly more satisfying route of making granita. Now I need to just start branching out to different fruits.

Let them eat (cup)cakes!

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, a couple of friends and I decided to hold a little backyard cookout, complete with slow-cooked spiced pork for tacos, grilled corn with a mayo and cream sauce (a sort of street food in Mexico), and Modelos. My contribution was a batch of Tres Leches cupcakes, which I based off of this recipe. I had never made Tres Leches anything, so I was kind of surprised to find out that the three milks are condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream. I had to be careful not to douse the cupcake in too much of the milk mix as I didn't want these to fall apart once outside of the foil wrapper. And don't throw the tops of the cupcakes away! Just cut off the top in a cone shape, so that when you take that section off, there will be almost like a well in which you can then spoon the milk mixture. Then replace the top of the cupcake, which will soak up the milk mix and will keep the pretty little rounded shape. Instead of the recommended meringue frosting, I opted for a more traditional whipped cream topping. Also, I couldn't bring myself to use maraschino cherries and the local grocery store was out of fresh ones, so I crowned the cupcakes with a nice little raspberry instead.