Musings on last semester and summer break

Well, it's been a while (again) since my last blog post. I have no excuse! Just laziness. Pure laziness.

Last semester went by pretty quickly once we got done with the actual classroom time. I got to spend time on the med-surg floor (again), a psychiatric hospital, and the NICU (my favorite!). I was really disappointed to learn that we would be spending 5 more weeks on the same floor we were on the previous semester. I was beyond bored there, and was looking forward to the promise of an ICU rotation. I spent all of 2 days in the ICU. I did love it, though. I only wished I could spend more time there.

I surprisingly really enjoyed the psych rotation. I was really nervous and just dreading it, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was really fun talking to the people there and getting to know their stories. I admit, I was a little nervous going into their acute unit. There were some pretty creepy people there and I was told to watch my back at all times!

The NICU was the best! I really don't know how I'm going to go back to big people after having these little patients for 2 weeks! I'd much prefer changing full, itty bitty diapers to the huge blowouts that adults can have! Honestly, I was a little nervous walking into the unit on the first day with all those alarms going off and seeing such fast heartbeats, respiratory rates, etc. I almost freaked out about the frailty of these babies and just how little they were! That all went away when I fed my first baby, got to hold her and listen to her make little baby noises, and that smell! I can smell babies forever! Another thing I liked about being on this unit was the pace and the environment. It is much slower paced than the med-surg floor we are used to. But that gives more time for the nurses to give special attention to the babies and their parents. I got to do several things that I've never done on an adult before, such as dropping an NG and OG tube (those babies are always pulling them out!). The whole concept freaked me out and I only vaguely remembered the technique when we learned the skill on a dummy. But the nurses I was with were able to talk me through it, and I was really surprised by how easy it was! I also got to pull an umbilical vein catheter out. I had a tough time cutting those sutures that held it in place!

All in all, I really enjoyed last semester. Where do I see myself working when the time comes? Most definitely the NICU. We'll see where I end up, though.

As for now, I've been enjoying doing nothing, relaxing, baking, and knitting. Break started on May 6 and I don't have class until June 7! Yay! So, I've been making things like this

Cranberry Orange Scones

and this

Strawberry and Mascarapone Filled Cupcakes

and this

Whole Grain Quinoa Bread

We've been eating well! (And I've been working out to compensate for this).

Later I'll post some pictures from my visit back home to Walla Walla. 

Dokor

That's the nickname we gave Dakota. And the "R" is silent. Here's how we came up with it.

Jon loves to sing songs about the dogs in our life. It used to be Sammy and now it's Dakota. We will turn literally every song into a dog song. With Dakota, Jon has been singing along to the tune of the Oscar Mayer balogna song. You know the one, right? Jon's version:

"My doggie has a first name. It's D-O-K.....O....R"

Spelling is not his strong suit. That's as far as he got because I started laughing. "Doko?" I asked, thinking he said D-O-K-O-A. The name stuck, but you spell it "Dokor", with the "R" being silent of course. Here are some "Dokor" pictures

They were edited with iPhoto. The program really makes it too easy! Photoshop is way too intimidating to me.

I mentioned yesterday how much I miss knitting. I also really miss baking! Some classmates of mine had a BBQ a while back to celebrate a birthday and I made some cute little lemon tarts

The recipe called for sweetened condensed milk and I still have leftover. I'm leaving for Washington tomorrow and was wondering how to get rid of this leftover. I really hate throwing things away! My solution? Dulce de leche brownies! They look too good! The idea planted into my head last night as I was watching a program on Bolivia and they were talking about alfajores. I really didn't want to make alfajores because they are way too time consuming for me. Anything I have to roll out, really. A quick search led me to the brownies. The recipients? My old co-workers as I plead for them to water my plants while I'm gone!

Miss me yet?

I think blogging has slowly taken a back burner in my priorities as of late. I've been wanting to write all week, but have not found the time to. Did I mention I'm never going to get sick of lounging around with my husband? I really think that will be never!

I just wanted to share some pictures of my most recent baking attempts. I've been neglecting my blog, my baking, my knitting, and exercise (although involuntarily). What am I doing you may ask. Well....nothing! Up to now. 

I got the urge to bake something on Easter so I ventured over to a nearby Walmart to get some Peeps and candy eggs. I had seen a picture floating around the internet of some really cute Easter cupcakes, but wanted to wait to buy the candy for it when everything was on sale. Here is what resulted from my flour-fest

They just scream SPRING!! to me. I personally hate Peeps, but I think they're adorable and actually feel bad for them when I see all those unwanted pink, blue, yellow, and purple chickies and bunnies. There are always so many left over after Easter! The cupcakes are carrot and the frosting is of the necessary cream cheese variety, dyed green of course to represent grass. While these look cute, I wasn't too crazy about them. I messed around with the frosting too much, which resulted in an over-whipped goopey mess. No amount of refrigeration or pushing it through a small pastry tip would alleviate this problem, so I had to abandon my plans of piping "grass" with my special tip. I had to resort to the spatula. The cupcakes themselves, weren't all too tasty for me, especially after an hour of hand grating baby carrots (I had no normal sized carrots on hand!) Too much work for less than spectacular results. I will not be making these again, and handed the recipe I used to a girl at work that loved these cupcakes. Maybe I'm just not that big of a fan of carrot cake??

So after that failure and in need of something satisfyingly scrumptious, I searched dessert recipes on trusty Martha's website. Realizing that I had over a pound of Costco strawberries left that were about to go, I settled on some strawberry shortcake, which I've never made before. It was sooo good!

Drool! I didn't add as much sugar to the strawberries as the recipe called for and it was plenty sweet. Mmm....way better than those Peep cupcakes. I've been redeemed!

In Elefante news, I finally figured out a way to sew on the head without the stitches looking all gross and ugly. I just have to sew on two more feet, eyes, and the tail and she's done! I will post pictures as soon as I'm done and get my lazy butt to uploading them. Seriously, pictures will stay in my camera forever! 

Good night everyone! I've missed you all!

Weekend wrap up

I'm exhausted! I've been going nonstop this whole weekend. I had volunteered to bake cookies for the soldiers of Jon's battalion that are finally coming home. In fact, as I type many families are enjoying the company of their loved ones after a long 15 month separation. I'm going to be watching the coverage that the local news station is putting on at 10 tonight and I know I'll have tears (of happiness)! I wanted to go to the ceremony, but didn't want to take time off work I didn't have and post is 75 miles away....plus, like I said, I'm exhausted.

There were a lot of soldiers to be accounted for (600+), but as much as I would have liked to, I wasn't able to have enough cookies for all of them. I ended up with 97 baggies when all was done.

I started making the cookie dough last Wednesday night because I was going to try to bake them all for Friday so Jon could take them in to work with him. With homecoming information constantly changing, though, I found that I would be able to have them done in time and as fresh as possible by Monday (today). They were all simple recipes. I didn't want anything too complicated if I had to bake a large volume; no rolling out of dough, no cookie cutters, no rolling in sugar/cinnamon/etc......nothing like that. I baked Almond White Chocolate Chunk Cookies, a tried and true recipe I've made several times. I also made my Lime Meltaways for a different flavor, and Alton Brown's wonderful Puffy Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Almond White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Lime Meltaways

Puffy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I hadn't made the chocolate chip cookies before, but I had made Alton Brown's chewy cookie version and that one turned out soooo good! I ate 7 in one day! The reason I made the puffy one this time was because I didn't have enough butter! I had gone to the commissary that day and bought one pack of butter, thinking that would be enough since I already had 5 sticks in the fridge at home. Wrong! I remembered the puffy cookie recipe used shortening, but since shortening grosses me out to no end, I decided to use half shortening half butter. They turned out awesome! Even my official taste tester (and his wannabe) thought so! Jon ecstatically exclaimed "They taste just like Mrs. Field's!"

After all that baking I had to package the cookies. I ended up putting one of each of the chocolate chip and almond white chocolate chunk cookies and three meltaways per baggie. I got done late because I started late as a result of weekend traveling.

Don't worry, Jon wasn't left out. I made some Cream Cheese-Lemon Bows for him (and Sammy). These cookies are staying put here!

I was discouraged when Jon later told me that lemon wasn't his favorite, but he actually liked these! I hadn't planned on the dusting of powdered sugar since I pretty much considered it decorative, and come on.....guys don't care about presentation! But Jon wanted it, so he got it!

And I couldn't deprive him of his obvious favorites, the chocolate chip cookies, so he got a few surprise ones this morning. He took the cookies in to work for me.

Those Target bags were heavy! I didn't know what else to put them in. I hope they got to the soldiers in decent shape!

OK...gonna finish watching The Bachelor now. I ruined it by reading about the whole controversial ending so I know what's supposedly going to happen. Stupid reality TV! What I heard better not be true! I liked Jason so much.....

ETA: Ugh! Yeah it happened. Jason dumped Melissa after proposing to her and wants to try things out with Molly. I don't care if Molly didn't know about this but if I were her, I would drop his ass! Who does that? Probably scripted like people have been speculating. I think I'll watch the next Bachelorette since Jillian will be the one.....then I'm done.

Beautiful, wintry Walla Walla, Washington

I only snapped a few photos while at home, and most of it was of the snow. I didn't get any pictures of the family, which I always regret not doing. I just get so lazy, and most of the days we were just lounging around in our lounging clothes. My family wouldn't have appreciated those pictures showing up on this very public blog! So here are my favorite pictures!

Snow accumulation as shown on the carport

Berries covered in snow on neighbor's tree

My favorite shot. I love the contrast between the blue sky and the red berries!

Poor mailman!

I loved these tire tracks in the snow--so perfect

Crazy dangerous icicles on the house

Those same icicles at night

Downtown Walla Walla

And here's the lovely bruise I have today as a result of trying to put my camera back in it's bag while trying to walk over compact snow in my slouchy, no-traction boots! Why do I have to bruise so easily? Well, it was worth it.

And of course, as frequent readers of this blog know by now, I can't go that long without baking something. So my sister Teresa and I headed to the local Kmart to get some sugar cookie mix. This time it wasn't all about the baking, but the decorating. And I came prepared: wintry cookie cutters, disposable pastry bags, decorating tips, my favorite gel coloring. I even whipped up some royal icing and packed that in the suitcase because my mom doesn't have a stand mixer. And I wasn't about to beat it for 8 minutes with a hand mixer--no thank you! So here are our favorite cookies!

Hope everyone's new year started off great! Here's to an even better year!

Red Velvet Cake, meet Candy-Stripe Cookie Sticks

I finally conquered red velvet cake last month. I successfully made one for Jon's homecoming. My new challenge, thanks to dear Martha: Candy-Stripe Cookie Sticks. Here's what they're supposed to look like. Here's what I came out with:
I was really looking forward to these cookies too! I'm so mad because I wasted all those precious egg whites--they ended up down the drain. Everything went wrong. I forgot to whisk the sugar with the egg white and added it late. The dough was (too?) runny. While piping the red stripes onto the rectangle cookies the tip kept getting clogged with lumpy dough. The cookies stuck to my baking mat and were hard to peel off. Once I got them off and flipped them over to roll them up they got really sticky. The end result: a big mess and a frustrated Tania rinsing the remaining dough down the sink. I'll have to mess with this one when I have more time.

So that left me with only 3 types of cookies to send out to family, rather than five (after failing with above cookies, I didn't even try the Cigarettes Russes, as they were of similar construction). At least all those turned out!

The Chocolate-Peppermint Cookies. I had leftover white chocolate after I was done so I dipped a few Milkbones in for my mom's dog and for Sammy.

And here are the Lime Flowers. I also made the Lime Meltaways, but didn't include pictures here because I made and shared them before.

So the packages are off. I mailed some to Jon too. I'm nervous that my recipients are going to end up with crumbs when they finally get these. I hope they survive the trip!

OK, I have some major cleaning to do. I got done late last night and left everything out. Dishes need to be done and my poor kitchen table needs to be cleared!

It's the most wonderful time of the year

And it's also a baker's dream! Why? Because it's a great excuse to bake mass quantities of your favorite cookies!

In my case, I have ONE tried and true recipe and a lot of those that I want to try. After reading Sara's praises about Martha Stewart's Cookies book, seeing it in the DM BX for 25% off cover, and falling in love with most of the recipes in the book, I decided to buy it! I now have a queue of cookie recipes to try. Maybe I'm a little overconfident in making these recipes for the first time and sending them out to people, but everything I've made and taken to work was promptly devoured. I'm hoping the same will be true with these cookies! And if they turn out bad, I'm not required to send them out. Here's the list of the cookies I want to make:

1. Chocolate-Peppermint Cookies--I must make these after seeing Sara's results!
2. Cigarettes Russes
3. Candy-Stripe Cookie Sticks
4. Lime Meltaways--my tried and true recipe. I have a whole bottle of key lime juice to use up, so I guess these will be Key Lime Meltaways! Easy to make and the recipe yields a lot!
5. Lime Flowers--use up more key lime juice!
6. Chocolate Macarons with Peppermint Ganache --found this recipe on Dessert First (I love that blog!). These won't keep long so they'll be for friends in town.
7. Alfajores de Dulce de Leche (link is to similar recipe)--my aunt makes alfajores, a South American treat, from time to time so this recipe is a must-try for me! 
8. Cream Cheese-Lemon Bows

Now let's see if I can actually get to all these recipes! I just want to make sure there's good variety in the cookie tins people will be receiving from me!

You should have seen my grocery basket: milk, 2 lbs of butter, 2 dozen eggs, 10 lbs of flour, 3 lbs brown sugar, limes, ground ginger, and a huge box of Lucky Charms. Can you guess what I was eating for breakfast and dinner? That's right. I went through that whole box of Lucky Charms in 2 days. Pretty disgusting, huh? I haven't been doing much cooking since Jon left. The only mouth I have to worry about feeding now is my own (well, Sammy's too but that's just dry dog food). That's why I can get away with a grocery list like that!

One aside: anyone watch Secret Millionaire? I'm watching it now and I love it! Such a refresher from all those other reality shows on TV, where the purpose is to receive money. It's a real tear-jerker. Check it out!

Rainy morning muffins

Today will be my first day back at work. I wasn't able to fall asleep until about 1 a.m. but the sound of pouring rain woke me up at 5:30 this morning. Now, considering that I come from Seattle and it rarely rains here, not to mention I sometimes miss the rain, that woke me right up.....couldn't go back to sleep. So I decided to wake up and bake these muffins I wanted to make for Jon the night before he left. Well, good thing I didn't make them for him because I don't think he would like them--they would be too healthy for him.

They still taste good though! But this is definitely more of a breakfast muffin. They're called Morning-After Cranberry Sauce Muffins, courtesy of Serious Eats. Technically, mine are week-after cranberry sauce muffins. Oh well! The cranberry sauce was still good! Such a good way to use up that excess cranberry sauce left over from Thanksgiving! 

Morning-After Cranberry Sauce Muffins

Makes about a dozen

1 cup flour

1/2 cup whole-grain flour

1 cup oats

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/2 cups leftover cranberry sauce

1/2 cup skim milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 egg

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Line muffin tins with baking cups.
2. In a large bowl, combine regular flour, whole-grain flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Mix well. In a medium bowl combine milk, oil, cranberry sauce, and egg. Blend well. Fold into dry ingredients all at once; stir until dry ingredients are moistened.
3. Fill muffin cups about 3/4 full.
4. Bake 20-22 minutes or until golden brown. 

The recipe is easy enough. The recipe didn't actually say how much cinnamon to add (forgot that detail?), but 1 teaspoon seems to be enough for me, especially since my homemade cranberry sauce had plenty of spices in it already! That's another thing....I wouldn't suggest cranberry sauce from a can for this recipe. It is a nice wholesome muffin that tastes good too! But then I did add a sugar-cinnamon-flour-butter crumb topping!

Short on words, but plenty of pictures

I haven't been very motivated lately to write. I think there is a permanent butt print on my couch due to obsessive knitting of my Alexander McQueen Knockoff sweater. I want to finish it in time to wear it at least once before it gets too warm! Granted, it's still hitting 90 during the day, but that hopefully means I have more time!

On to the baking/cake decorating projects I've been up to.

I got this out of Jon's "recipe box" on Willams-Sonoma (he loves that store). It is challah, my first attempt at baking bread. It turned out pretty well! There are supposed to be four strands braided, but I gave up after numerous attempts. Maybe next time!


Next up, Marth Stewart's Dark Chocolate Cookies with Espresso. As desserts go, I have to say that my favorite flavor combination by far is coffee with chocolate. The coffee just intesifies the chocolate and these two compliment each other very well. It is a flavor that I will have to enjoy on my own because Jon doesn't like coffee.

This is my final cake from my Wilton cake decorating class, course 2. We learned how to work with royal icing and had to make these flowers ahead of time. I love royal icing because it keeps for so long!

And for the grand finale, my very first fondant and gum past cake! I just finished this tonight, in fact. We covered the cake board and cake in class, but didn't have time for much else. I added all the parts in white that you see here. It was very half-assed because I really want to get back to my knitting project! I figured I had to make somewhat of an effort before my co-workers cut into this, but wasn't willing to invest anymore time on it. I hope it tastes good!

Ok, off to knit. Goodnight!

Catching up on some baking

Well, at least posting about it! I bake so much, yet am super lazy to grab the card out of the camera, upload the pictures onto the computer, and make collages so the post isn't to bulky. So this is catch up time.

Last week, I "graduated" from my first Wilton cake decorating class. In true nerd fashion, I modeled with my "diploma." I am now moving on to course 2, where we will be learning how to make various flowers from royal icing. The nice thing about these flowers is that you can actually store them for a while so you can make them ahead of time and just throw them onto your cake when you're ready! I think we'll also be learning how to do a basketweave. Call me dumb, but I've always stared at it and been puzzled by how to do this. I'll finally know how! We're also learning how to work with color flow icing, which I might use for Jon's welcome home cake. I want to put the brigade insignia on the cake and this might be the way to do it. Otherwise I might have to order an edible image. By the way, I just got my yellow ribbon cake pan in the mail today! I just need to test out a cake in it to see how it goes.

So on with my somewhat recent baking projects. I'm going to start with a failure, just to get it out of the way. It's a puff pastry with fruit topping. Now, this is the first time I've worked with puff pastry so I was totally clueless as to what to do. After some researching on the Net I decided to go forward with it. You are supposed to score the pastry and I wanted it to puff up around the fruit. In the instructions it says to score a 1 1/2 inch thick border so, much against my common sense, I actually scored the border with knife slits all the way around and the middle by poking holes with a fork. What I should have done was just used the fork and scored everything but the part you wanted to rise (duh! The holes will flatten the pastry!) The result was a flat, soggy mess and had to be disposed of the next morning (it did taste good straight out of the oven though!)

Next up is my fig and plum cake. I've never before seen a fresh fig and when I saw them at the commissary, I was really excited, especially since I'm such a fan of Bath and Body Works brown sugar and fig body cream. If it smells good the fruit must tase good, right? Well, they are pretty tasty all on their own, but the ones I got were a little too mushy in texture for me so I decided to throw them into a cake. It went fairly quickly when I shared at work, but the effort to me was not really worth it, so I will not be making this one again.

The next project is my lime meltaways, courtesy of Ms. Stewart. These were an instantfavorite for me. They are pretty simple to make and the recipe yields a lot of cookies. I can see myself making these in the dead of winter when I'm longing for summer. The lime flavor is so refreshing and they really do seem to melt in your mouth! Yuuuummm!!!!

I'm seriously craving some chocolate just thinking about the next baking project. Ever since I've Trader Joe's reformulated their dark chocolate madeleines, I've been wanting to learn how to make them. I really don't like the new ones! I found the recipe online and went to town. On the first attempt, they turned out heavenly. A little powdered sugar goes a long way and the chocolate flavor is so intense, just the way I like it! I was seriously channeling Deb from Smitten Kitchen when I took these pictures!
OK...almost done. I did some baking last night after a week-long hiatus (that's a long time for me!) I was craving chocolate again last night and brought out the homemade Oreo recipe that I got off of Smitten Kitchen. I made this once already, sans Crisco. The thought of eating that crap made my stomach turn so I just stuck to good old fashioned butter for the cream center. Well, they were a little soft due to the lack of shortening, which is solid at room temp. So I decided that this time I would add the Crisco, of which I have plenty of now because that is one of the main ingredients in our class buttercream icing. I've been desensitized!
So there you have it! Sorry for the long post and that it was strictly on my new obsession. I'm hanging up my apron now and off to eat some homemade chicken soup!

Rain and cupcake-making fun

It's 67 degrees out right now.....and we have a nice steady rain falling right now. I love it! I don't think I've seen sub 70 weather since April! I had to make a quick run to Target to buy a b-day card for my mom. The drive was uneventful but the lightning put on quite a show and the wind (and garbage) was blowing, although it was nothing compared to what force coastal Texas will be feeling tomorrow (pray for them!) When I came out of the store, it was a full-fledged rain storm. Unbelievably, there were still people running/walking around Reid Park at a quarter to 10! But don't you just love the sound of rain falling outside your window while you are tucked away all cozy in your house? It makes it better that my body is just exhausted from my cardio kickboxing class at Davis Monthan AFB. It's the perfect kind of tired, where you feel like you've worked really hard so you deserve to sit around for the rest of the night....with the rain falling steadily outside (drip drip splat splat). I hope it lasts so I can fall asleep to it. 

On a completely different subject, I made some cupcakes last night so that I could practice my rose-making skills. I had some left over frosting from my last cake decorating class and we are baking our final cakes tomorrow for Saturday morning's class, so I figured I should practice. The frosting was a little dry, last I checked, so I added more shortening to it (yuck!) but I think I added too much because it wasn't as stiff as it was supposed to be and I had a hard time making the roses. Well I guess they turned out for the most part, except a lot of them looked more like carnations than roses. I took a close up picture of the best rose I did. I'm pretty proud! I can only get better! Oh and look at Sammy coveting those cupcakes! Sorry, mutt. No Kahlua cupcakes for you. Chocolate is poisonous to dogs! Well, he did get a lick of frosting in the end.

I'm in the blogging mood right now

Lucky readers! I've been neglecting my blog for so long, I have a lot to catch up on! I'll try to keep it organized here, hence the second post tonight. 

I didn't have the chance to mention that I've been taking a cake decorating class at Michaels for three weeks now. I'm enrolled in the first course of the series and will "graduate" next weekend! I've learned how to work with basic buttercream, making those cutesy shapes you see on any grocery store cake. A couple things I learned are that there are proper angles to make these shapes and you have to watch the pressure with which you push the icing out of the pastry bag. I'm proud to say that I now know how to make the famous Wilton rose! I'll be practicing that this week with a batch of cupcakes and my leftover icing from my last class (co-workers are going to get a treat!) We voted on not making a cake for the last class just so we could focus more on the rose, but the week before I made a cake, which conveniently went to my neighbors' daughter who was celebrating her 5th birthday!

This cake is just decorated with a lot of stars and dots...that's it! It looks really complicated, but it was super easy. I can't wait to get to the more challenging shapes! I've already signed up for the second course, where we learn more flowers and fun borders. With the 50% off promotion they have going on right now plus the $5.00 off coupon my cake decorating instructor gave me, the class only totaled $12.50! September is a good time to sign up for any of Michaels cake decorating classes, because no matter where you are, it is 50% off! I promise you, I will make it up to wedding cakes. In fact, I was looking at the cake at the wedding I attended the past weekend and I totally could have decorated it! Just a series of dots and shells.....so simple!

As an aside, I really really want to attend pastry school. Baking is a very new hobby to me, and had it not been for this deployment, I might not have discovered this new passion of mine. It sometimes trumps knitting--especially at these times when my poor wrists and forearms can't take any more (ouch!) It all started out with me wanting to take better care of my husband when he got home. We spend little time together, and the times we do share together, I just want to spoil him. And all us women know that the quickest way to a man's heart is his stomach! Good thing mine loves sweet, decadent desserts! I've been pretty obsessed with baking lately (look at my frequently read blogs!), sometimes baking goodies for my lab mates twice in one week. We have weekly lab meetings and last Friday was my turn. Usually the person presenting brings in something small for the others to munch on whilst listening to them drone on and on about dry science. Usually I just stop by the store and pick up something on the way, but this time I baked some blueberry muffins and coffee banana muffins--they were much appreciated (sorry, no pics!) I love trying out new recipes, although I still don't have to confidence to experiment that much yet. But the more challenging the recipe the better! It all makes the end product that much more worth it! 

Well, as impractical as it may seem, I hope to eventually make it to pastry school. I've done a little research and it looks like it's going to be really expensive (the Art Institute of Seattle charges about $50,000 for an AA or $16,000 for a diploma!) I know I need to lean on a more practical, solid job, like nursing, but I'm halfway tempted to ditch those previous aspirations and go for these new ones. 

Catching up on some baking

During my bouts of hopelessness, nothing could console me. I knew that I should be keeping busy, especially in this "low" time, but I couldn't get myself to pick up the knitting needles, much less crack an egg open. As I started to come out of the funk, however, I developed the overwhelming urge to BAKE. Before, it happened maybe once a week but I had a lot of catching up to do, resulting in baked goodies for my co-workers twice a week for a while. Unfortunately, this sudden upswing in KitchenAid usage also resulted in my regaining of the 3 pounds I lost during my dark period (I know, I know....we can't have it all). The following are pictures of my yummy creations from the past month, omitting a few where I didn't remember to snap a shot before devouring them (chewy brownies and chocolate chip cupcakes)!

Champagne cupcakes with strawberry buttercream frosting. The fresh strawberries in the frosting really made all the difference!

Mango cupcakes with champagne buttercream frosting (trying to use up the rest of that bottle of champagne!) This was my first time using a pastry bag, so a little practice on a firm surface was called for beforehand! I got a little carried away. I still can't believe how much powdered sugar is needed in the frosting to get it to the right consistency so your shapes will hold!

Lemon bars (recipe taken from Smitten Kitchen here). What a pain in the ass to sqeeze all those lemons, but soooo good and worth it in the end! I love all things lemon, but fresh lemons take the cake!
And last, but certainly not least, white chocolate hazelnut mousse, courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis! This was only my second time making this scruptious dessert, but it has been received with much excitement every time I tote it along to get-togethers with me (making it again next weekend!). I have to say, it is one of my favorites. My advice to anyone making this would be to get your hazelnuts pre-husked if you can, because that is the most time-consuming step in the whole recipe! I didn't know how to accomplish this at first, but after a little Google searching, I found a seemingly simple apporach. They make it sound so easy! My ass the husks come off when you rub them in a towel! I resorted to scratching the majority of the husks off with my fingernails! Well, I have the hang of working with phyllo now, at least!

And just to throw things into the mix, progress on my Anti-Moping Deployment Tee (pdf)

Ok...I'm tired now. Time for bed. Need to rest up for more knitting and baking!