This is what happens...

So, this is what happens when I'm left to my own devices.

K left on Wednesday to go to Las Vegas for a long weekend with his friends to partake in the Annual March Madness Man Trip.

I have been on my own since then and he won't be returning until tomorrow afternoon.

Now, most of you would think that, being given the opportunity, I would have an equally exciting and sinful time on my own.

This is what happened:

1) I worked
-I worked all day, everyday, except I only worked a half day on Saturday and today was my only day off.

2) I went to bed early.
-The latest I went to bed was 10:30pm. And that was last night. And that was only because the show Too Cute was on Animal Planet. And the only reason I stayed up to watch the second episode is because Emma Lou would spaz out every time the kittens came on TV. It was just too much cuteness for her! I would like to think it's the same effect that the college girls in too short/tight shorts have on me. "*&%$#@ biotches with the skinny thighs!" Only her take on it is "*&%$#@ fluffy kittens with all that energy."



The audio on the video isn't very good. You can just barely hear her hissing. I took it with my cellphone. You can still tell that she's absolutely engrossed in the TV.

3) I went girly things shopping.
-I went and spent like an hour at Sephora. I talked to the sales lady about dry shampoo and lingered and debated over the sample section. I then went and redeemed a freebee I had at the Aveda store from my birthday. After that, I did some window shopping at Gap, Jcrew, and this store I've never heard of, Dry Goods. It's new since the last time I was at that mall and while I was riffling through the dresses (Ideas for Coachella) I found a dress that I had worked on when I was working in CA. It was awesomely gratifying to see it there on the rack. And there was only one left!



4) I watched the make out scene in The Bourne Identity and drooled over Matt Damon.
I never realized how hot it is.
Nobody gets completely naked and nothing too telling happens but, my goodness.
And it's super hot that he just helped the actress who plays Marie dye and cut her hair. Which, by the way, is like a $150 dollar hair style. Come on, Hollywood. You really want me to believe they did that with a box of dye, a pair of craft scissors and nothing but Jason Bourne's own two hands.
Whatever. I don't care. I would totally let smoking hot Jason Bourne cut my hair and Franka Potente (Marie) is just so awesome and beautiful that I want to be her.
And it just so happens that you can use that smoking hot description for my K too.
Yeah, that's right. I totally think my boyfriend is smoking hot.




5) I went to yoga.
That's not an exclusive, only when K's gone thing, but I probably wouldn't have gone if he was here. I probably would have opted to snuggle on the couch with him and watch a few Mad Men episodes.
And on that note, we are not caught up yet, so don't anyone dare tell me about the first episode of this season that airs tonight.
Seriously.
I'll get hella angry if you do.
Namaste.

6)I only bought beer that I like to drink.
Spotted Cow.
Love it.
And I used a frosty mug.
Holla!



6) I ate like a single girl.
-I had granola and yogurt for dinner one night, a frozen dinner from T.J.'s the next and a fried egg sandwich another night.
Tonight is the only night that I even remotely went out of the way to fix a real meal.
And I made Salmon Cakes.
K's not a big fan of fish, so these hardly ever get made at our house. It pretty much only happens when he's gone.
They're one of the first things I learned how to make when I got my own apartment in Chicago.
I copied the recipe out of a magazine at work.
The original recipe has been long gone for awhile but I think the version I now make is way better.
It's not healthy, by any means. It is, however, easy and delicious.



Single Girl Salmon Cakes
Servings: 4-5 cakes

1-6oz pouch of Skinless & Boneless Pink Salmon (I like Chicken of the Sea)
3/4 Cup Shredded Medium Cheddar
3/4 Cup Frozen Corn Kernels, Thawed
1 Cup of Dried Bread Crumbs, Divided
1 Egg
1/3 Cup Mayonnaise
2 Tablespoons Ketchup
1/2 Teaspoon Dried Parsley
1/8 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
1/8 Teaspoon Paprika
4 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil, Divided


In a medium bowl, combine salmon, cheese, corn kernels, egg, mayo, ketchup and 1/2 cup of bread crumbs.
Mash all that up until it's thoroughly combine. It's not pretty, but trust me, it will be so tasty!


Form the mixture into small patties. I usually can get about 5 out of this recipe but if you make them small, you can probably squeak out 6.
In a flat shallow dish combine remaining 1/2 cup of bread crumbs with parsley, garlic powder and paprika.
Thoroughly coat salmon patties in bread crumb coating.


In a large skillet, heat the first 2 Tablespoons of veggie oil over medium high heat.
Add salmon cakes to skillet and fry until golden brown and crispy. Turn patties to unbrowned side and add remaining 2 Tablespoons of oil and finish frying.


Serve with a squeeze of lemon, a side of tarter sauce and an ice cold beer.

Operation Colossal Confection

I have made the decision to take on a little something.

Our friends are getting married.

They're a really lovely couple.

They were talking about doing a dessert buffet in lieu of a cake.

I volunteered to make their vision come true.

Then they told me that their count is 400+ people.

Um, yeah.

At first I was like, no way.

And then I thought about it and started doing logistics in my head.

I can do this. I know I can.

So I started with the brain storming.

I love the idea of homemade hostess cupcakes.

I've never made those before, so that's where I started. I don't know if the lovely couple even wants homemade hostess cupcakes or not, but I had to start somewhere.

I started with making the cream filling.



I used the recipe from a Taste of Home cookbook. I had previously made the original recipe, Cream Filled Pumpkin Cupcakes, and got rave reviews about them, so I thought I would use the cream filling from it to fill the HHC (homemade hostess cupcakes).

The recipe for the cream is a little tricky because at one point you have to boil the milk for approximately two minutes. You need to whisk the living daylights out of it while it boils or the bottom will burn. Apart from that, it's not all that hard to make.

I also tried out a new method for filling my pastry bag with the cream. Check it out. It's fricken genius!

I used a ton more filling than what she shows but it still worked just as well. Amazing!

I then started on the chocolate cupcake portion.

I used the Devils Food Cake recipe from Cooks Illustrated. I wanted a rich, dense chocolate cake and this sounded like just the trick.

And from there, the experimenting began.



1) I didn't know if I wanted to make mini or full sized cupcakes. So, I tried out both.

2) I didn't know how much they were going to rise in the cupcake pans. So, I tried out a couple of different portions.

3) I didn't know how long the different portions and sizes would take to bake, so I watched over them like a hawk with a clean toothpick in hand the whole time.

4) I didn't know the best method of filling cupcakes. Do I fill them from the bottom, side or top?



The situation got intense.



As you can see the Devils Food Cake is not the way to go. Although it was super dense and rich and very very chocolatey, it didn't create a smooth even surface on the top. Even if I used a thick layer of ganache to ice these with, it totally would not cover up those cracks.

These were my first round. I used my large OXO cookie scoop to portion out the standard cupcake pans and my small OXO cookie scoop to portion out the mini cupcake pans. Both were too small and don't look right.



From there I adjusted the portions to 1/3 cup of batter for the standard cupcake pan and my medium OXO cookie scoop to portion the mini cupcake pan.
Those portions were perfect!
The final bake time on those were 12 minutes for the minis and 20 minutes for the standards.

I also tried some different greasing methods for the pans.

The first round I greased the cups with crisco and then "floured" them with cocoa powder.

That didn't work so hot. It was really hard to dislodge those from the pan.



Did you know that if you drop one of these on the floor while trying to dislodge it from the pan, when it hits the floor it will explode into a thousand little bits and stick to every single surface like glue.

Did you know that?

I now know that.

I then just generously greased the pans with straight up crisco. This was the way to go.



Now for the filling portion. I've never filled anything with a filling tip and a piping bag. I had to buy a filling tip especially for this. Like I need an excuse to go to the baking goodies store.

This was honestly the trickiest part. I wanted to make sure I filled them adequately but you don't want to over fill them and have them explode. (see above picture)

The trick is to cradle the top of the cupcake in your free hand and you can feel the top rising as you fill it. From there, you just need to make sure to stop filling right before the top cracks. This took several attempts before I was able to get it down.



I tried filing them from the bottom and from the side. The side filling method was the way to go.

The overall consensus?

Although the cake and filling were both really delicious they did not emulate the HHC the way I wanted. The cake was way too dense and rich and the filling wasn't substantial enough.

I think I'm going to try a chocolate chiffon cake recipe for the next round. I need something lighter and more spongy that will yield a smooth flat top and will allow for the filling to expand without distorting or cracking the top.

From my extensive filling research, it turns out that I need to be getting myself some marshmallow fluff to make an appropriate filling consistency.

Mini cupcakes are the way to go.

I still need to figure out the top frosting situation.

I also need to figure out what else will be on this dessert buffet.

Here's what I think might be some good ideas:

1)Rosemary Walnut Shortbread-These will be cute little circles with their initials on them.

2)Chocolate/Pumpkin/Carrot Cake Whoopie Pies

3)Candied Pecans

4)A Vegan/Gluten Free Option-Yet to be determined.

5)Assorted Macaroons

6)Assorted Meringues

7)Assorted Petit Fours

Do you have any good ideas for small desserts for such an occasion? Have you had any kind of interesting flavor combos in desserts?

Lay your ideas on me! I'm totally open to any and all suggestions!

Silver Dollar Pancakes

Do you have someone in your life whom you love enough to go to the DMV for?

I'm not talking about, "I have to go to the DMV for myself, so I can just go ahead and do that thing for you while I'm there." I'm talking about, "On my day off I will make a special trip to the DMV to get you new license plates and registration."

If that's not true love, I don't know what is.

In order to gear myself up for a trip to the DMV this morning for my loved one, I made silver dollar pancakes.

I also did some thinking. I do my best thinking when cooking.

Following thoughts are listed in no particular order.

1) I totally know that yesterday was IHOP National Pancake day and this posting would have been super appropriate for that, but I had to work at 6 am yesterday morning. There were no pancakes being made at 6am yesterday morning. There was a granola bar and fruit leather happening in the car on the way to work at 5:45am yesterday morning.

2) I miss my cast iron skillet. We have a glass stove top on the range in our new kitchen. That means no  cast iron skillet. The only thing we have to use instead is an electric skillet. Hurumph.

2) I will be the first to admit that I am not a big fan of Pancakes. I'm more of a waffle person. And I'm not even that much of a waffle person. I'm more of an egg and bacon lady myself.

3) These would make super awesome sausage, egg and cheese sandwiches. Breakfast for Dinner anyone?

5) My dad told me that my grandmother would make these every friday. He said that he never knew if she did this because they were catholic and they weren't supposed to eat meat on fridays or if the grocery funds were stretched a little tight by friday and these were cheap and easy. I like this story. I will hold it in my heart for as long as I can remember it.

4) I should totally start a food truck here in Madison. I want to do a gourmet sausage truck and twice fried Belgian fries with different dipping sauces. You can't tell me you wouldn't walk by a sausage truck on your way to or from a Badger football game and get down on a bacon wrapped bratwurst with a side of cheese smothered french fries.
             a. Yes, I think about food when I'm making food.
             b. If you steal my food truck idea, I will be very upset but I will probably still buy a bacon                             wrapped brat from you.

From the time I walked into the DMV to the time I walked out, all of 12 minutes had passed. It really wasn't bad at all. I'm still glad I made pancakes this morning.

Silver Dollar Pancakes

Adapted from: Norma Prosnick

Serves 25-30 small pancakes

1 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 1/2 Teaspoons Double Action Baking Powder
2 Eggs, Lightly Beaten
1 Tablespoon Butter, Melted
1 Teaspoon Honey
1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 1/4 Cups Whole Milk

In a large bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking powder. Make well in center of ingredients. Set aside.

In a medium bowl combine eggs, melted butter, honey, vanilla and milk.

Stir liquid ingredients into dry and beat with wooden spoon until just combined. Batter will still have small lumps in it. Don't worry, that's totally okay.

On a hot, buttered griddle, drop batter in tablespoon portions.
I used my OXO medium cookie scoop and they turned out larger than silver dollars, but the size was really perfect.



When bubbles on side one of the pancake have popped and are set, flip them over and cook for a couple more minutes until they are golden brown.



Serve warm with melted butter and honey. Or Nutella. Or maple syrup. Or use them to make a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich.



If you have any leftovers, you can freeze them in an airtight container for up to 3 months and then pull them out, pop them in the toaster to warm them up and you can have pancakes even if you have to work at 6 am.

Banana Raspberry Muffins

I have the best intentions when buying bananas. I really do.

I think, "Bananas are so good for you. I'm going to eat one for breakfast every day. If I don't eat one for breakfast, I will have one for an afternoon snack. If I don't eat one for an afternoon snack, I will have one for "dessert" after dinner. That's so grown-up of me"

And then I end up with 3 super sad brown bananas on my counter.

Do I have an ulterior motive? Perhaps.

Would I much rather eat a baked good with bananas in it? Maybe.

At least they didn't go to waste, right? That's called being a grown-up.

Enter one very grown-up cook book:



This book also has an ulterior motive. It masquerades as a cook book one would have on their bookshelf if you were a refined, gentile lady, with it's shiny perfect pictures and it's gold accents.

But then you dive into it a little deeper and it holds recipes like Coca-Cola Cake and Peanut Butter Squares and Fairy Cakes.

Um, what?

This is the kind of grown-up lady I want to be friends with.



You know what isn't so cool about being a grown-up lady?

The metabolism you had at 21 is not the same metabolism you have at 30.

Not cool.

Enter some healthier substitutions.



The original recipe called for white chocolate, dried cherries and all purpose flour.

Doesn't that sound good?

They are. They are super good.

The adjustments I made are just a good. I promise.

The original recipe is called Banana, Cherry and White Chocolate Cupcakes.

Sadly enough, the changes I made morphed these guys into Muffins. It's still good. I really do promise.



Banana Raspberry Muffins

Adapted from: Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Makes 12-16 muffins

1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter
3/4 Cup Sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
3 Ripe Bananas
4 Tablespoons Fat Free Plain Yogurt
2 Large Eggs
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Cup All Purpose Flour
1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
3 Tablespoon Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Raspberries
1/2 Cup of Toasted Walnuts, Chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line muffin tin with paper baking cups.

In a large sauce pan melt butter over medium heat.

While butter is melting, in medium bowl, combine all dry ingredients, less raspberries and walnuts.

Once butter has melted completely, remove from heat and add the sugar and vanilla to the sauce pan. Add the whole bananas to the sauce pan and mash with fork in the pan. Once bananas have been well mashed, add yogurt and eggs and with a wooden spoon, beat until combined.

Next add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and and stir until just combined. Lastly add the raspberries and walnuts and gently mix until evenly distributed.

Divide batter among the muffin cups. The original recipe calls for 12 portions but I felt like they were overfilled with making all the batter fit in 12 portions so I spread it out into 16.

Bake muffins for 20 mins. Muffin tops should be golden brown and a tester inserted in the middle should come out clean.

Turn out muffins on a wire rack and allow to cool.

Garlic Parsley Croutons

I was at the grocery store yesterday, standing in front of the dairy case, having the same internal struggle I have ever time I stand in front of the dairy case at the grocery store.
Is dairy good or bad?

In my haze of weighing calcium intake versus my body's ability to process enzymes, a little girl of no more than four years old wheeled her little person cart up next to me and proceeded to attempt to extract one little cup of mixed berry yogurt from the shelf.

She could almost get it. Her round little fingertips could just barely reach the edge of the container but if she pulled that container out, the 2 stacked on top of it would have toppled down.
So, she stood there, in front of the multitudes of yogurts, with her little hands folded in front of her, just staring at the mixed berry yogurt with her big brown eyes.
I reached over pulled the container of yogurt off the shelf and handed to her.

What happened next made my entire week.

She drew in one long, hushed breath and with her biggest, loudest, outdoor voice she said, "THANK YOU!" and then she turned around and yelled at her mom, who was now half an isle away, "MOMMA, I GOT SOME YOGURT!" and then she motored away with her single cup of mixed berry yogurt.

I don't know why I thought it was so awesome. It might have been the fact that she was so unexpectedly loud. It was like her little ears were plugged up and she was over compensating. Or maybe because she was so grateful. I just handed her a yogurt. Or maybe it was how excited she was about being able to pick something out and put it in her own little cart.

I wish I was still that excited about grocery shopping.

You know what I really don't get excited about putting in my grocery cart? Croutons.
What a rip off. It's essentially stale bread with some stuff sprinkled on it. And you're paying four to five bucks for that dinky little bag. Absurd! Especially since making them at home is so, so, so easy!

It starts with stale bread.



These don't look like they're stale, but they are. And yes, shame on me for letting these guys go. I had full intentions of making toasted garlic rounds to spread soft cheese on but by the time I got to them, they were too far gone.



Then you cube it up. There's no scientific way to do it. You can make them as big or as small as you want. These are your croutons.




And then you melt some butter. Yep, butter. You don't think that croutons get that tasty on their own, did you?




You mix the garlic powder and dried parsley into the melted butter and drizzle over the cubed bread and toss until thoroughly coated.

Watch out for those rogue cubes.

They like to jump out of the bowl, shoot across the floor and roll under the stove which you will then only find 8 months from now. You will dislodge the dirty, dustbunny studded crouton-to-be, and you will shudder at your disgustingness. But then you will remember that you made your own croutons and that ingenuity cancels out the disgusting. It's totally okay.



Then you're going to spread the coated cubes out evenly on a sheet pan.
Once again, watch those sneaky little guys. The one under the oven is trying to recruit friends.



The last step is toasting them in a 350 degree oven for 30 mins. Like I said, super duper easy.



This is what we had for dinner last night. This was done to try to counteract the nachos for dinner we had the night before. Yes, that happened. That's why salad happened last night.


Garlic Parsley Croutons

Serves: Approx. 8 servings (depending on how fond of croutons you are)

4 Cups of cubed stale bread
4 Tablespoons of salted butter, melted
1 Teaspoon of garlic powder
1 Teaspoon of dried parsley

Please note that you can use pretty much any kind of bread you want. I've used wheat sliced sandwich bread and french baguettes. Both turned out great.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place cubed bread in a medium bowl and set aside.

In the microwave, melt the butter in a microwave safe bowl , just until totally melted. (please don't do this in a plastic bowl.)

Stir the garlic powder and dried parsley into the melted butter.

Drizzle half of the butter mixture over the cubed bread and toss until thoroughly coated. Repeat with remaining butter mixture.

Spread cubes on a rimmed baking sheet into a single layer and bake for 30 mins, stirring the cubes half way through.

Time may vary depending on your oven. Cubes should be golden brown and crunchy all the way through when done. You might need to do some testing for quality control.

Moving back to Madison

We started off our drive back to Madison at Griffith Park Observatory. It was a lovely 74 degrees and sunny.



A little over a week later, this is where I find myself.



It's 18 degrees and snowing. We may have made a very grave mistake.

But, we're going out to do fish fry for dinner with some of my favorite Madisonians, so I really can't complain. (Please note that by simply asking me to join you for dinner, you definitely make my list of favorites)

We took the southern route across the west half of the country because we wanted to avoid having to go through the mountains in Colorado and possibly getting caught by a snowstorm.



We totally still got caught in a snowstorm in Des Moines, but at least we didn't have to worry about going up or down a MOUNTAIN whilst in the midst of said snowstorm.



We spent our first night in Phoenix. I wish I could say that I saw enough of Phoenix to really enjoy it but we had spent the day before cleaning and packing and moving and then got up early the next morning to finish cleaning and jam our cars full of the stuff, that for some reason, we didn't send with the movers. (Disclaimer: When moving, there is always way less room in your car than you originally anticipated) After meeting our landlord and handing off our keys we hit the road for a good 6 hours. By the time we rolled into town, checked into our hotel and found somewhere to eat, it was 9pm and I almost passed out in the salad I ordered.

I didn't keep a journal on the trip, but I wish I would have so that I could have remembered all the weird things along the way. Here are just some of the tidbits I was able to pull from my very fuzzy remembrances.



1) The Bellhop (is that what they're really still called?) at our first hotel was uber attentive. Like creepy attentive. Like started pulling stuff out of the car when we opened the doors to get out. Like tried to light my sister's cigarette while she was waiting outside and then asked to bum one off of her. Maybe it was just a , "you had to be there," moment but dude needed to back it down a bit.



2) There are places in the desert that a whole bunch of people pull up their RV's together and just live. When you stumble upon these places, at first you will think they're RV dealerships. They're not. People live there.



3) Abandoned buildings, especially abandoned entire housing complexes are, hands down, the creepiest things, EVER.



4)Eating nothing but trail mix and Jalapeno Cheddar Chex Mix will give you a tummy ache but that will not prevent you from doing it again the next day.



5) Don't feed a cat turkey lunch meat with Pesto on it if you intend to ride in the car for 7 hours with it. You might get poop on your pants.



6) By the time the light flashes on the camera of a photo enforced section of highway, it's too late to slow down. You're busted.



7) There is no better way to charge your travel battery than blood orange margaritas, a wonderful meal and the company of loved ones. A big THANK YOU goes out to my Aunt Amy and Jen.



8) I'm sure there are parts of Texas and Oklahoma that are nice, but not the ones that we saw. Those parts kind of sucked.



9) You should definitely listen to Tina Fey's Bossy Pants on CD. Get it from the library. Load it on your Ipod and be prepared to laugh. I will now be adding phrases such as "Dummies" or "You big dummy" and "that's the worst" or "you're the worst". I will also be implementing curses such as "Asshat" to my repertoire. And most importantly “If you retain nothing else, always remember the most important rule of beauty, which is: who cares?” 
― Tina Fey, Bossypants

10) Hands down best BBQ is a place in the back of a Gas Station in Kansas City, KS.
My pulled pork sandwich was so tender and juicy it was akin to eating pork cotton candy on a perfectly buttered and toasted bun. It was amazingly glorious. I maybe teared up a bit.


Last but not least, there is no better feeling than getting the keys to your apartment and being able to sleep in your own bed in your own apartment.

But we still don't know how that feels yet because we've been bunked out on an air mattress until our stuff arrives which now has been pushed back for the 2nd time to the 15th of February.

I still find myself very lucky because K and I are together. Also, K had the super smart idea of putting our memory foam topper on top of the air mattress. Sheer Genius! I love that boy.