Pictures from Colorado

With this job comes certain obligations, and I was off fulfilling one last week in Denver. It all started when my boss came up to me last November and asked me if I wanted to present a poster at the upcoming AACR annual meeting. I had it pretty easy. One of my co-workers, a post-doc in the lab, wrote the abstract, submitted it, and made the poster. All I had to do was stand there for three hours and address any questions passing scientists may have had. Too bad my poster was on the very last day of the conference and situated in a corner section! Oh well.

Among mini-symposia and various other talks I attended in addition to posters, I spent a couple hours circulating the vendor booths and snagging free stuff. I got free cappuccinos, cookies, pens, Starbuck's gift cards, iTunes downloads, reusable shopping bags, a free timer, and other cool souvenirs fitting for a science nerd. 

Pictures weren't allowed at all (although I saw plenty of cameras out in poster sessions and symposia), but I caught a couple snapshots of the cute bear that stands outside the Colorado Convention Center.

Here he is from inside. He's peeking inside at all the goings-on in the convention center. The first time I looked up, it looked like he was in the process of attacking the innocent people sitting in the chairs directly below him.

Here he is from the outside. He looks so harmless and curious!

In the evenings I was able to sneak away for a couple of road trips with Jon. Poor guy was so bored throughout the day! We went up to Boulder one day and down to Colorado Springs the next. Boulder was too extremely hippie for me. I guess it didn't help that we were there for 4/20. No pictures from the town itself, but we took some on the way when we got closer to the mountains

Ugh, I look pregnant in this picture! Anyways, I really miss big, snow-covered mountains! The field behind me was full of prairie dogs scampering around. I wanted to take one home they were so cute!

I was more excited for Colorado Springs. That's where Jon's grandfather was living when he passed away and he also attended the Air Force Academy there for a year, so there was more of a connection with this city. We visited the Garden of the Gods Park, which made me feel like I was back in Arizona with all those red rocks!

We also went to eat at the German restaurant that Jon used to go to with his family when he was visiting there, Edelweiss. This boy loves German food, which surprises me considering how picky he is. This was my first taste of the cuisine, and it was a lot better than I thought it would be. I just pictured greasy sausages and sauerkraut and it was more than that, although not much more, I have to admit. I had the zigeunerschnitzel, which I liked probably because of the sauce it came with. Jon had the weinerschnitzel and, while good when eaten in small portions, I don't think I could have handled the whole thing all on its own!

Here is my handsome husband looking sooo happy that he's eating German food! I've resisted for so long! Poor guy! 

I wish I could have snapped a picture of him eating Peruvian food just so you could compare the two pictures. That boy is no fan of Peruvian food! I was so happy there was a restaurant so close to the convention center. Lunch buffet for $8.95....you can't beat that! I was stuffed when done, filling my stomach with some refreshing chicha morada, ceviche, aji de gallina, seco de cordero that was very comparable to what my mom makes, and various other dishes that were all out on display, all for me! Ahhh...if only there were a good Peruvian restaurant in Tucson! I'm craving all this food just remembering it!

That is the wrap up of the Denver trip. We next went on to Seattle, but I'll share pictures of that part of the trip tomorrow, unless I feel even more sick then. I'm still feeling under the weather today and I got out of work early because of it. Poor Jon will be eating leftover matzo ball soup, as I'm not feeling well enough to cook. Have a good night! 

Dinner and The Bachelor

Considering I've been eating crap over the weekend (what do you mean Goldfish crackers and a can of olives isn't a meal?), I figured I should cook dinner tonight. So after work I drove over to the running store to return the ouch-inducing shoes and raced home so I can prepare dinner before The Bachelor started. Didn't quite make it, but I was able to sit down and eat for the last half of it.....and I'm watching it now as I type! I must multi-task!

So on the menu tonight was the lemon-olive chicken, recipe courtesy of Real Simple and presented by Half Assed Kitchen. The first time I saw this blog, by the way, I laughed out loud. I especially love the description: "Eh...it's edible." So here are the pictures protraying the recipe.

I must chop all the veggies beforehand, especially the shallots. I really need to invest in those onion goggles! Tears galore! Can't you just picture me rocking those sexy things?

Fry up those little buggers! I just read that the onions have these enzymes that, in a multi-step reaction, eventually produce sulfuric acid in your eyes! No wonder they, along with my throat, were in agony! Read about it!

A shot of the browned chicken. The coating had cumin in it, so I was drooling the whole time I was cooking! It was all I could do not to bite a chunk of the chicken with it looking so pretty and smelling so delish right there!

Throw the rest of the ingredients and let it simmer for a while. We're almost there!

Time to eat! Can you tell I eat on the coffee table in front of the TV? Did you also catch the Turbo Jam in the corner of that picture?

This was really good, even though I accidentally bought cilantro instead of flat leaf parsley. Don't ask me why, but the last couple times I meant to grab parsley, I've made this mistake!

cilantro

flat leaf parsley

Am I crazy? Do they not look similar?

Oh my, I'm so excited for next week's Bachelor. They're going to Seattle!! If you saw the preview, those sea planes were a constant in my last two years living there. I had a view of Lake Union from my lab and watched those sea planes take off all throughout the day. I could hear them from my apt. less than a mile away. Oh, homesick!

OK, nevermind...on to tonight's show. I've been rooting for Melissa, although she initially annoyed the crap out of me. I don't know why, maybe I was in a bad mood when I watched the first episode? I know she is Jason's type and she's soooo cute. And....bouncy. And appearance-wise, she kind of reminds me of Deanna. Shannon creeps me out. She's psycho! Megan is kinda tough girl bitchy and while I couldn't stand her before, I warmed up to her on this episode. Too bad she's off, though. Stephanie is really sweet, but she looks way older than her age and I don't see any chemistry between her and Jason. Nikki is beautiful and I've been feeling so bad for her because she's so walled off. I guess I can just relate to her because I'm so shy and if I were in her shoes, I totally wouldn't be aggressively going after Jason. That's just not me! So she's off as well. Naomi reminds me of Eva Mendes (I think it's the lips) and I don't like Eva Mendes much. So that's my two cents. Who's your favorite? We're getting down to the wire here!

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!