on a mission

i'm on a mission to find a place in HoCo where i can study. somewhere that isn't too crowded (so they won't mind me spreading out on a nice big table all day long), that's open late, and of course has good food. tuesday i was planning on going to nora cafe but when i drove up around lunchtime it was packed. and i mean packed. so then i checked out fresco cafe (i think that's what it's called) by the walmart off of 40 but they close at 3 pm...so i ended up at the pottery stop on 40 which closes at 9. unfortunately, they don't have food food, but by then i just needed to study. i got their peppermint blended coffee drink (sugary goodness) and then tried their chai tea latte (not good at all, had to toss it out). tomorrow's options:
- forest diner (8pm, and who doesn't like breakfast food all day? and of course endless coffee is always a perk, AND it closes in 3-4 years)
- panera (creamy tomato with asiago cheese bagel. plus, people are always hanging out there foreverrrr, but it's a chain restaurant and i'd rather help out the little guy and try out a new place)
- riverside coffee (i've heard good things!)
- dunkin donuts (it's open 24/7, what else can i say)
- bob evans (10 pm, again, it's a chain...)
- charter deli (7pm, i used to study here back when i went to HCC)
- deli town (8:30pm, don't know anything about this place...)

biochem is kicking my butt, so with all this studying i'm sure i'll cross a lot of these off my list...

cookies for father's day, hit and misses

happy father's day to all the dads out there! i used to think M was where i got my sweet tooth from, but when i started baking cookies and watched D inhale 5 at a time, i realized i didn't stand a chance in those genes. so of course for father's day cookies were on the list of treats for him. there's pretty much only one major rule for baking desserts for my dad- something soft for his mouth so i chose two recipes hoping for the best. i woke up early yesterday to bake a super easy recipe before heading off to the beach w/ some friends (a bit of a guilty conscious in baking these since i was going off somewhere else, but he went golfing on his own anyway...)

 these come from picky palate- her fluffernutter cookies. somehow i only ended up w/ a 7 oz. jar of marshmallow fluff (this stuff is dangerousss) and then was guessing on the amount of peanut butter i had and they flattened out too much, i figured i had too much fluff so i added more peanut butter...

 but then i guess i added too much peanut butter and they became too buttery and crumbly in a sad way...so good thing i had another recipe!

it's getting hot outside so even though i got to bed around 2 am (i confess i didn't get to take a shower after coming back from the beach so i was slightly gross going to bed...) but anyway these are from eagle brand- coconut raisin treasure cookies. i wish condensed milk weren't so cloyingly sweet, but these cookies are still tasty and are nice and soft and you can definitely throw in whatever suits your dad's fancy. i used 1 cup of instant oats and increased the flour to 1 cup instead of using graham cracker crumbs. these are like oatmeal raisin cookies w/ more surprises (which i guess is the whole point of the "treasure" cookies name). i love how many add-ins there are, and the walnuts and raisins and coconut together are oh so delicious! now if only D would get back from golfing so i could stop staring (2nd confession, and sampling) all the cookies.

oh, and if anyone is in the md/de/va area and is heading to the eastern shore this summer sunshine crepes in bethany beach makes some delicious sweet crepes:)

preakness balloons

the ants are still rulers of the kitchen so no baking...

but, today was the final day of the preakness balloon festival in turf valley. went last night to try to watch a launch/glow but there were only about 2 balloons and nothing was happening. but this morning i managed to haul out of bed at 5:45 am and run down to turf valley. it's a lot nicer running to a destination especially when it turns out looking this nice.

unfortunately the wind was blowing the wrong direction so the balloons weren't actually allowed to launch. but pretty awesome to watch them inflate. i wouldn't mind having a bunch of inflated hot air balloons decorate my backyard :D happy saturday (and what could apparently be the end of the world, but at least i can say i saw hot air balloons up close before the end).

here's another shot- the flower one and patterned one with teal were my two favorites.

instant gratification

nothing to post yet, but i've come to the conclusion that baking is my catharsis from school. no matter how poorly i do on an exam (it's finals week) when i can bake something together i know (usually) that something wonderful will come out. something that i can share with others and that others will enjoy. here's to baking and stress relieving. what's your secret to a really bad day/week/month?

oh, and safeway was having 4 lbs of strawberries for sale, and since i'm the only one at home i have a feeling something yummy will be made:)

happy friday, despite it being the 13th

pillsbury bakeoff adventures

the pillsbury bakeoff adventures should also be known as- this is when you invest in a fire extinguisher challenge. it's been a lot of fun, but also quite scary but i don't know if you can win the million dollar prize by setting fire to your dessert (unless of course it's intentional)

 

first experiment was pillsbury chocolate chip cookie dough wrapped around their brownie mix. it looks really cute and yummy pre-baking (kind of those delicious thumbdrop cookie things) but then it bakes, spreads and then you get funny butt cookies. if my dad is any indication, they were delicious (he ate all 5!) but not quite what i was looking for...

  

not that this is what i was hoping for either. i didn't use up all the cookie dough or brownie mix for the cookies so i tested out making a cake. i first baked the bottom layer of brownie for a bit, then flattened discs of cookie dough and layered it on top of the brownie and baked that. then topped with mini marshmallows and tried out the broiling button for the first time. apparently broiling on high on the top shelf for 10 seconds results in a fiery flaming dessert...i smelled the fire and when i opened the oven door flames were licking out of the top and all that came to mind was "they taught us to never put water on burning oil" which of course was completely useless in this situation. so i tried to treat it like an overlarge marshmallow i set on fire when making s'mores and tried blowing it out. which thankfully worked and i and the kitchen are all in one piece. can't say the same for the dessert which probably would have been gorgeous with some toasted marshmallow on top, but we can't have everything. :D

 

but, scrapping off the burnt part of marshmallow did lead to this pretty cake, which is pretty tasty (the brownie and cookie dough weren't completely cooked in the center, but ooey gooey goodness is much less life threatening than flaming marshmallows). i don't know if it was because of setting them on fire, but the marshmallows had a rather artificial not so tasty flavor to them so i peeled it off (it also becomes rather difficult to cut, so nix the marshmallows in general)

baking extravaganza, aka, i need to go on a detox after this

wow, i crammed in as much baking for my last few days of break possible. so lets get right to it!

 these are called "food of the gods" but like pioneer woman, i feel the name is a bit odd. but they are drool worthy and melt in your mouth goodness (it helps that there are 3 sticks of butter in it...but don't let that stop you from trying this out). i wish i had more nuts in it, so i would recommend trying out pioneer woman's idea of adding chopped pecans. i've never used dates in my baking before but these were yummy. i wonder how dried figs would taste instead?

 the bars wrapped and boxed up for s2 and s3!

it was a tough decision trying to decide what to make for my birthday "cake" and the winner turned out to be a cookie rather than a cake. these are picky palate's s'mores stuffed chocolate chip cookies. these are delicious and so cute! i made my s'mores insert half the size of picky palate's, got lazy and only made 7 of them, but wish i had made all the dough into s'mores stuffed ones b/c the cookies actually tasted better with the s'more inside. but it was so cute! the stack of s'more with cookie dough on top and bottom reminded me of those weird sponge bob square pants candy shaped like burgers (which i haven't tried and am a little too freaked out to try...). and out of the oven the marshmallows just oozeddddd out of the cookie.

 oh, and did you notice, i finally got a silpat! love love love. although with waiting for the cookies to cool and such i still ended up using aluminum foil to bake the rest of the cookies so i wouldn't waste the heat of the oven. hopefully one day i'll have enough silpat to just bake away to my hearts content (how dangerous that day will be)

so in less than 2 hours i'll be 24. phew. this year is going by so fast. oh, i forgot to mention my family tried chick n' friends for my birthday (i was in the mood for super low key kind of birthday celebration). and yes, the vegetarian got fried chicken food for her birthday (but i had fried fish!) but i forgot to get a waffle! time for me to get some sleep now that spring break is ending, too bad i couldn't have another week of spring break. but it's probably better this way as i need to go on a bit of a fried food/baked goods detox.

faberge cakebites!

so spring break is almost over. it's amazing how i still got up around 6 am and yet the day was too short to get everything done that i wanted! but today ended up very fun. this was completely experimental, can it be done, kind of fun. and my fingers and back are feeling it. but totally fun. i looked up faberge eggs to get some designs to create on the cakebites, but i only really managed to recreate one design. and shaping the cakebites into egg shapes was so strange and yet difficult! who knew eggs were such a funny shape.

i kept a real egg next to me while i shaped the cakebites (carrot flavor!)

 this was probably my 3rd or 4th egg i decorated. the first couple did not come out so nice. i need to work on my piping. the two side flowers were made from individual flower sprinkles, but the top flower i made by using a toothpick and shaping a flower on parchment paper then transferring it dried onto the top of the cakebite.

 this is one of my favorites! the blue flowers are so cute and it looks like a very simple daisy chain (not so clean looking because this was pre-tweezers)

i'm amazed i'm not permanently cross-eyed from sticking all the teeny tiny candy beads onto my egg. but once i figured out to use tweezers to pick the little beadies up once i dipped them in the chocolate instead of using my fingers and making a mess of things it was a bit easier. it still took about 2 hours, but look how fabergey it looks!

here are all the eggs i decorated that i find okay looking (the others got the axe- into my mom's or dad's tummy). do you like all the upside down shot glass stands:) happy early easter!