Random Factiods

- I'm no good at darts, pool, or shooting guns. That doesn't keep any of them from being fun.

- Cookies made with strawberry cake mix, butter, and eggs...come out tasting like the berries in Captain Crunch cereal. Yum.

- No, in fact, I don't know what that brownish yellow puddle is, coming from the wall of my kitchen. At least it doesn't smell. Still gross.

- My upstairs neighbor's are DEFINITELY the ones with the dog, which management is looking for. I never heard it bark, but for the last three days I was worried that there was a rat in my ceiling. The question is not: Am I a tattler? It is How long can I tolerate the creepy scratching/scuttling noises while asleep, and while in the bathroom?

Pardon me, while I whine.

I had a test yesterday, so I was up studying, but not too late.

I woke up sore and tired, and was really sore after riding my bike to school. Between classes, I bought coffee...oops, where's my debit card? Oh well, I have change... After the test, I started feeling faint and feverish while standing and doing a lab. When I rode home, I was completely zoned out and cranky. One glass of wine later, I was bundled up in bed, and my muscles finally relaxed enough so I could sleep for a few hours and sweat it out. That's my usual routine when I'm feverish.

I woke up because I got a call from an old coworker friend who asked if I had lost my ID's. What? Fuck! Some nice person turned them in to the police, and they called the base which oddly still had my old work number on file. I'm lucky they got ahold of someone who knew my cell, because I would not have even known my stack of cards were missing. They fell out of my back pocket while I was riding to school that morning. The 3 ID's were found, but they are stuck in the police evidence locker until Monday. The debit card is still missing.

My bank account didn't have any new transactions on it, and I was going to drive my route and see if the card fell out at a different place from the others. First, I thought I'd do the responsible thing and call my bank, to double check that there were no new transactions, that the "nice" person who turned in my ID's wasn't out giving his buddies free gas on my dime. Before I could get a word in edgewise, my card was canceled (NOTE TO BANK GUY: LAY OFF THE CAFFEINE AND BREATHE A MINUTE!!!)!

Now I have no way to access my monies, until I can get my cards out of jail. *pouts*

I was going to bake this weekend: Pumpkin Cheesecake, Chocolate Chunk Cappuccino Almond Cookies, and Macadamia and White Chocolate Cookies. *pouts*

Ok, I'm done pouting. I guess I can use the time this weekend to clean my house without re-dirtying it the same day, and studying for my Modern test.

I may be excited.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA'S FINAL SEASON STARTS TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!

I made some fairly kick-ass cinnamon rolls last night, mostly from scratch, which took nearly 4 hours. The recipe should be up at RecipeZaar.com eventually, and when that happens I will post a link. They're made with a 10-Grain bread mix, and I've eaten 6 so far, so I may never poo again. I'll let you know.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA'S FINAL SEASON STARTS TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!

Rigel is cute and cuddly, and only has 2 more flight feathers to grow out. I'll take some pictures this weekend so you can see how pretty blue they are. We went through a bit of bloody ordeal at the vet because I wanted to find out his real gender, and they did that while trimming his toenails. He was such a good bird, though. We find out in about a week, and I'm trimming his nails myself from now on.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA'S FINAL SEASON STARTS TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!

I have a Calculus test tomorrow morning. I am fairly unprepared, but there will be more studying this afternoon. For real. No seriously. Oh shut up, you never believe me. :P

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA'S FINAL SEASON STARTS TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!

School is generally good right now. I'm still waffling on what to do this summer, but I'm probably taking Medieval Lit and Technical Writing during Second Summer. That fills my advanced requirement for the minor, and I just need one more course. I can wait and hope that the new Professional Editing course doesn't conflict with my Physics schedule when/if it comes available. If it doesn't then I can always stick an easy lit class in my schedule and be done. I think that's the plan, but I still have to run it by my Advisor.

Oh , also, in case you were unaware, the best show currently on television will start its final season tomorrow. I'm kinda excited.

Switcheroo Cake

MOCHA CAPPUCCINO PUDDING CAKE

Cake:
1.25 cups all-purpose flour
.75 cup sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder (or 2tbs regular instant coffee)
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
.5 teaspoon salt
.5 cup skim milk (or some 2% and water)
2 tablespoons margarine or butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla

Pudding:
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon instant espresso-ish powder
1.5 cups skim-ish milk heated to 120 to 130 degrees F (or, eh...slightly too warm to want to stick your finger in)

1. Preheat 350 degrees F. In medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, cocoa, espresso, baking powder and salt; mix well. Add all remaining cake ingredients; mix until blended. Spread in ungreased 9-in square pan(Or, um, whatever you have-ish). (what it doesn't say is the batter is thick, more like a moist sticky cookie batter than flowing cake, just try to spread it pretty evenly-ish)

2. In small bowl, combine all pudding ingredients except milk; mix well. Sprinkle evenly over cake batter. (NOW you can gently push on the batter to get it really even, without losing cake batter to a spoon or your hands) Pour hot milk over sugar mixture.

3. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 min or until center is set and firm to the touch. If desired, place foil or cookie sheet on lower over rack under cake to catch any spills.

So here's the magic: you just put the cake batter on bottom, and the pudding mix, and then the warm milk. Through the work of magic elves in your oven (no peeking, they get scared!), the finished product will be pudding with cake on top. You heard me *clicky clacky*, THE CAKE ROSE TO THE TOP.

Thanks to Sarah for sending me the recipe.

The end.

Geek Cakes

I sent this link out in an email awhile back, and I just went to some of the links left in the comments. OMGosh there are some real funny geek cakes:

http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2007/09/bake_me_a_geeky_cake.php#more

Here are just a few from the comments:
http://www.barrettnexus.com/gallery/d/7552-2/imag0001.jpg
Trilobites
http://lukawitz.com/wedding/fordaddy/cake.jpg
http://homepages.tesco.net/%7Ejanefisk/discworld/discworld.htm
http://katzor.blogspot.com/2007/09/power-ee-nerds-eat-your-heart-out.html
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/circuitsnacks


I want to bake something.

Recipe Ideas

I found this site that sells edible flowers, but it doesn't say what some of them taste like. I was hoping to find something local. Maybe that tiny farmers market downtown will have some.

These recipe ideas are based on the lovely fragrance wafting through my house. This afternoon after school, I walked into the apartment and detected a faint floral scent. At first I thought of my birthday bouquet, but it wilted and I threw it out yesterday. Later, I opened the front room window, and it was wonderful. There's some sort of bush with glossy dark leaves and clusters of fragrant white blooms. I'm inspired to bake something with a floral scent. Not now of course, because I'm trudging through some more Related Rates problems, but soon. Soon, my friends.

Rose-Lemon Glazed Cake
Plus a recipe for candied rose petals. Mmmmm.

Edible Flower Recipes
Has several recipes including: FLORAL LIQUEUR, FLOWER BUTTER(good for making butter cookies!), FLOWER SYRUP...

Lavendar Recipes
Lavender Cookies

2 eggs
1/2 cup margarine
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon lavender leaves
1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
confectioner's sugar
rosewater

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Put eggs, margarine, sugar and lavender into blender and run on low until well mixed. Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl. Add other ingredients and stir until well blended. Drop dough a teaspoon at a time onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake until lightly browned. Blend enough rosewater into the confectioners sugar to make a smooth frosting. Ice the cookies and let them set until frosting is firm.

Let Me Eat Cake

I'm sure you're all sick of hearing from me. Bla-bla-frickitey-blog. Oh well, I'm sure you will learn to cope.

The Summer/Fall course schedule dropped Friday, but it wasn't supposed to until tomorrow, so I didn't realize until I randomly logged in. I think I just spent 2 hours deciding on my schedule. I fear it will be drastically changed upon academic advising. Oh well, at least I feel like I've accomplished something tonight.

Did I tell you about the bat? There was a bat.

I made Tiramisu last night, and had it for dessert today.
PKW is on. To sleep or not to sleep? I need to meet with my Cal1 teacher tomorrow at 10am. But the moooviieeee!!!! We have it on dvd anyway, why am I watching this with commercials?? I'm going to snack on another piece of Tiramisu and then go to bed. For Real. Goodnight.

Currently watching : Farscape - The Peacekeeper Wars Release date: By 18 January, 2005

Cookie History in progress

Pumpkin Cheesecake Cookies
You know you want some....
8:37 PM

Mmmmm Nummy
I'm satisfied with the cookies so far.
The bottoms are a little brown, but i think i can adjust for it.
Hey, they're ginger snaps, its okay! And tasty....
8:53 PM

Uh-oh, I'm confused.
Looks like I skipped an important, cheesecake-related step. Now I have one batch of plain gingersnaps.
Oh well.
10:13 PM

So I didn't use all of the cheesecake batter, but I'm out of cookie dough.
Must. Not. Eat. Batter.
Sooo tasty....must resist....
Will it keep until I make more dough this weekend?
11:38 PM

Sugar...mmm sugar

Can you believe you can order Custom M&Ms??!!
Also, they have different flavors. I'm fond of almond, or peach, or maybe cherry. Ahh consumerism...though I doubt you can get custom M&Ms with different flavors. How cool would that be?

Speaking of sugar, I baked my semi-almost-famous pumpkin cheesecake this weekend. The commissary didn't have standard canned pumpkin, only pumpkin pie mix, WHICH IS DIFFERENT! Also, I got chatty (a rare thing) and kinda sorta overcooked it. I took it into the office this morning, and those who had some seemed to like it. Oopsie, I forgot to package up the rest at the end of the day. Its still sitting on the breakroom table. That's not good.

For those who have requested the recipe (Mom), now would be a good time to get a pen and paper. I adapted it from a recipe in my favorite cookbook ever, Better Homes and Gardens Biggest Book of Cookies. It was originally a bar recipe.

Crust
2 cups finely crushed gingersnaps
1/4 cup butter, melted

Punkin' fillin'
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (to taste)

Cheesecake fillin'
4 8-ounce packages cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar (or more, you'll feed this to other people )
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 dash of pumkin pie spice (for fun)
4 eggs

Set oven to 325.
1. Lightly grease pan (oops), I use a regular cheesecake pan, but 13x9x2 should work. Combine butter and gingersnap crumbs. Press into pan, a large spoon works for this. Bake crust for 10 minutes or until firm (bake?...maybe next time).
2. Combine ingredients for pumpkin filling, set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Add sugar, spice, and vanilla, beat some more (cooking is kinky that way). Add each egg one at a time, beat until combined (i'm getting kinda hot).
4. Pour about 1/4 of the cheesecake batter into the pumkin mixture and mix until smooth (and yummy). Pour remainin cheesecake mixture into the pan. Spoon the pumkin mixture in dollops over top, and use a knife tip (i like chopsticks better) to gently swirl into a pretty pattern.
5. Bake until the end of time. Really, it always takes me forever, but at least 30 minutes. Its done when a toothpick or fork comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for an hour, then move to fridge 24 hours. If you try to cut it before 24 hours, DISASTER SHALL STRIKE YOU!!!!!! (no really, it'll suck)

I love October.

Once Again, Fat and Happy

MMMMm coookies.

So, one of the people I work with is having her birthday tomorrow and I decided to bake the cookies she's been asking for. I made classic peanut butter criss-crosses. Except, and you may know this about me already, I did not exactly follow the recipe. I've developed an obsession lately for cooking with honey instead of granulated sugar. It's kinda working out. I have to add more flour because the honey makes the batter a bit too runny, but after that they turned out great.

I work with this other girl who hasn't ever baked cookies before, so she came over to help out and hang out. And she also brought her little chihuahua dog. Very cute, for a dog anyway. ;)

My roomate won't stop talking to me...I don't care...please stop...

I'm drinking coffee before bed, I'm never going to sleep tonight.

No more please :(

Original: December 11, 2005 - Sunday
I am so damn annoyed with myself. I'm studying, or was. I got aggravated and bored. I hate math. I'm doing review problems for the first chapter, and there are so many I just can't figure out on my own. I have to rummage through my notes to remember some damn rule or trick or whatever. There's no way I'm doing well on this final. I got a 91% test 1, 76% test 2, and 74% test 3. Luckily, the grading scale is nice, the best scores count for the most percent of the final grade. Same with homework, he throws out the bottom 20%; But the final is a full 30% of the grade, and I DON'T WANT TO STUDY ANYMORE!

And then I just realized, SHIT! I have to bake cookies for tomorrow's office holiday party! AND do laundry so I don't show up to work... well.. nude or something.

I got all distracted today. I swore I would devote the whole day to study, then I let Michael take me to a movie. (Narnia=Awesome!) But first we stopped by Target to buy decorations for the tree and a gift for the party tomorrow. Then to Hastings for some coffee, the post-movie ritual. Then I got home and decorated the tree, then I got all flustered looking for my Stocking, which I never found. But searching I found all kinds of stuff I never unpacked since HS graduation. CRAP CRAP CRAP outta time for everything because I waste so much time on little stuff and being lazy. CRAP!