Frozen Grapes!

I bet this super futuristic spaceman at Disneyland in the 1960s ate frozen grapes.  via

It is hot in NYC this weekend.  Like, for real hot. Not just normal, late-spring warm. Yesterday wasn't bad, but today, with the humidity from an impending storm system setting in, it's miserable.  We live on the fourth floor of an old, poorly insulated apartment building, and all of our windows face east.  It's nice because the sunlight helps wake you up when you have to get up early, but we have no cross-breeze, and the morning sun manages to heat our apartment up by like 20 degrees in the summer. Oh, and, the sun helps wake you up even when you don't have to get up early.

So anyway. It's hot.  E and I had decided to wait until June 1st to put in our air conditioner, but that's mostly just because we forgot how miserable it is in here without the AC (and with it, truth be told, but the heat is greatly abated).  So today, while he escaped to the law school library to do some studying and soak in the air conditioning, I've been melting here.  And yeah, I could go to campus myself, but somehow spending 50+ minutes each way on public transportation doesn't seem like the best use of my time when I should be working on the presentation I have to give tomorrow morning.  So, I suffer.

I did, however, decide to make frozen grapes!  The internet has been exclaiming the wonders of frozen grapes for a very long time, but I have always been skeptical.  However, with the temperature climbing and grapes available for practically nothing a pound at the fruit stands around here, I decided it was worth a shot.  And they are DELICIOUS!  Why didn't I trust the internet, that magical beast that brought me lolcats and babbies* and catsinsinks?!  For shame.

They are sweet and juicy and COLDCOLDCOLD, and the texture is really pretty awesome.  They do not turn into little stones as I suspected!  I highly recommend them as a sweet, cold treat that won't wreck your waistline.

*E accidentally wrote "babby" in his law school notes.  As in, a woman went on a 3-day crack binge and her babby (sic) died from dehydration. As in, it's really not funny, but it is. I am a terrible person, and if I believed in Hell, I would certainly be on the fast track. 

Taste the rainbow.

Ahhh, the colors of cooking.  One of my favorite things about creating a meal is playing colors off each other.  Tonight, I made my favorite lentil soup, and I love seeing the vegetables against each other as I'm getting everything prepped.

After such a lovely dinner, I decided to continue the colorful theme.  Tomorrow is my last class with my Masters cohort, so I made some rainbow cupcakes as a treat.  I'm a little unsure of how to transport them, especially since I have an interview across town early in the morning, and the class isn't til 3 pm, but I'm still pretty excited about them.  

I got lazy and just bought a box mix, which ended up kind of throwing me for a loop.  Normally, when I make cupcakes from scratch, I can fill the tins almost all the way in order to get a nice little top.  These guys swelled up and over the sides of the cups like crazy!  So, they're giant, which complicates my original Rubbermaid-box plans for transporting them.

But c'mon, it's worth it.  How often (outside of a Skittles ad) do you get to eat all of these colors in one delicious set of bites?  Yeah.  That's right.  Never.  This is the second time I've made these, and I was less shy with the food coloring this time (get gel food color rather than liquid -- it's brighter and allows you to add more without diluting the batter) to get colors I was much happier with overall. Could still add some more red to avoid the hot pink, though.  

E's pretty annoyed that they're leaving the house with me (although I'm not sure what he thought -- how often do I put this much effort into something that will just sit around our apartment?), but he'll live.  I've got a few other recipes I want to try out in coming weeks, anyway, so there will be more than enough for him.

Too Tall Bunny is a SHAM.

For Easter, E's mom got him this adorable basketball wielding chocolate bunny.  His name is Too Tall Bunny, and he's sooo tall that his ears stick out the top of the box (and he had to start playing basketball because he had no marketable skills aside from his height).  E has had this sitting around the apartment since April 4th, because apparently his reaction to chocolate is not the same as mine (which is, basically, STUFF IT ALL IN YOUR MOUTH RIGHT NOWWW NOW NOW NOW).  The other day, though, I noticed something.

YEAH. TOO TALL BUNNY ISN'T REALLY TOO TALL, HE'S JUST STANDING ON A PLATFORM. His little bunny feet start right where that clear plastic window starts on the box.  He is not actually too tall, he is lying to us all.  And, judging by that embarrassed, panicked look on his little bunny face, he's just been waiting for someone to expose him as the impostor he is.

Whatever.  E and I just ate his ears off, so now he fits in the box, platform or not.  That's what you get for trying to FLIM-FLAM THE WORLD, Too Tall Bunny.

In the kitchen

Lately, I've been thinking pretty much exclusively of kitchens and workspaces when it comes to home decorating. We don't have a "real" kitchen, but rather a stove, sink and fridge on a stretch of wall in our living/dining room, which we've augmented with an IKEA kitchen cart. It works, but it doesn't work, and pretty much my only requirement for when we move (in over a year) is a real kitchen. With more than 2 cabinets, and with counter space!

via apartment therapy.

also via apartment therapy

Speaking of kitchens, I've been experimenting in ours. Mostly with cookies. I have been adapting my perennial favorite cookie recipe: Rocky Road Cookies! The recipe as written comes out perfect every time -- moist, caramelly sweet and the perfect chewy/crunchy combination. I made them last week and didn't have nuts or white chocolate chips, and the resulting chocolate chip-marshmallow combo was much appreciated by the people with whom I shared. Last night I was looking in the cabinets and realized we had graham crackers, chocolate chips, and mini marshallows, which made me want s'mores. So, I tried to adapt the rocky road cookie recipe to make s'mores cookies, which didn't really work since the broken up graham crackers just kind of got subsumed into the batter. Next time I'd try it with larger chunks, or even place the batter on top of a square of graham cracker on the cookie sheet before baking.  The little tiny bits did add a nice graham cracker sweetness to the cookies, though!

Additionally: Why yes, I do plan to change my header to something cheesy related to whatever seasonal holiday is fast approaching at any given moment throughout the year. Thanks for asking!

Ice to Ice Cream to Disney World.

We got a lot of snow, when all was said and done, and this morning a squirrel decided to seek refuge on our bedroom window sill. I'm pretty sure it's the same squirrel who's been around all Fall, occasionally stopping by to give Tessie a heart attack, and this morning was no exception. She's been guarding the window zealously since about 8 am, taking breaks once in a while to walk into the living room and meow at us, annoyed that this squirrel won't vacate the premises.

He is a cheeky squirrel. E named him Herbert. I hope Herbert doesn't freeze. He keeps eating snow, which I don't really think is a great idea, but we'll see if sleeping-squirrel-on-our-window-sill becomes dead-squirrel-on-our-window-sill.

In other, totally unrelated news, I stumbled upon a post at The Disney Food Blog about the home made ice cream sandwiches you can get in the Magic Kingdom, Disney's Hollywood Studios (RIP MGM) and Epcot, and now I am craving one like no other. Somehow E and I missed these on our May trip to the World, which is a shame since there are few sweet treats that he loves more than a good ice cream cookie sandwich. And, according to that post, the Main Street Bakery in the MK will let you choose any cookies in the store with which to make the sandwich.

I might have to whip up our own home made ice cream cookie sandwiches tonight, because I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to get these off my mind.

I am currently trying to convince my sister that a girls' weekend in Disney World in the Fall would be 10x as awesome as a traditional bachelorette. My idea of a fun night out is a table at a not-too-loud dive bar with a few friends and some beer, and without moving for 4 or 5 hours, so a traditional bar-hopping bachelorette just doesn't really appeal to me. A few days in some Disney, though, with fireworks and good food and rides? Poifect.  We'll see.

Alton Brown is obviously my best friend (Chicken Noodle & Lentil Soups, and cupcakes for good measure)

Today is my half birthday. I don't think anyone other than Leos keep track of their half birthdays past the age of 11 or so, but here we are. I am old. Today was also my first day of classes for the semester, since all my classes are on Monday and classes began on Tuesday last week out of reverence for Dr. King. It was a miserable day, and not only because this officially means the craziness has begun anew. I woke up sick on Sunday morning, again. I don't know what it is about this city, but apparently it is intent on me being sick for weeks on end this winter. It probably has something to do with me spending 2 hours a day in a metal tube with dozens (and dozens) of strangers, but hey. So, I leave my afternoon class and have a text message waiting for me from E, alerting me to the fact that dinner is waiting for me at home. Score! I love cooking, but when I'm sick, I love whining more.

I get home, and there's a big pot of homemade chicken noodle soup simmering on the stove! Someone took some Awesome Juice this morning and whipped up some culinary magic. Okay, for the record, a big pot of soup on the stove is likely to make me grin no matter what the weather, and what the state of my health, but there is something so exciting about hot soup when you're sick and it's a miserably rainy day, isn't there?

E grabbed Alton Brown's recipe for chicken noodle soup off the web. We didn't have an onion, but I think the important flavor factor in chicken noodle soup is actually the celery, so it's all good. The recipe doesn't call for any actual chicken (and could therefore easily be made vegetarian using vegetable stock instead of chicken), so E added a little as well. It came out great and reminds me a lot of my mom's -- it would just need some dumplings. Mmmm, dumplings. So yes, good job (and thanks!) E!

While we're on the subject, one of my favorite kinds of soup is lentil soup. Easy, cheap and savory, lentil soup is one of those foods that just seems to taste better after a couple days in the fridge, with all the flavors melding. Unfortunately, this pot of soup didn't last that long. I threw together Alton Brown's lentil soup for a total of about 3 bucks, and it was amazing and fed 2 people for 3 very satisfying meals. I didn't use the spices he recommended (and, truth be told, I don't even know what grains of paradise are) and instead minced an entire bulb of fresh garlic and threw in some dried cilantro and dried basil. When in doubt, go with garlic, am I right? I seriously cannot rave about this soup enough. Since I ate the last bowl of it, I've been craving it, and I might make it this week just to have one portion, and freeze the rest. So, so good.

In a completely unrelated note, I was hungry after dinner the other night, and I finally decided to use the year-old box of carrot cake mix my mom gave me (now I know where I get the urge to foist junk I don't want anymore onto my friends and family) and made cupcakes. I was going to leave them unfrosted and pretend they were muffins so we could just eat them for breakfast, but E wanted frosting, so I followed this recipe for Honey Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting. It came out great -- fluffy and sweet -- but I added a bit more cinnamon to tone the sweetness down a bit.

The frosting attempt was much more successful than my last attempt at buttercream. I won't even link to the recipe, but I will say that the Hershey's perfectly chocolate cupcakes I made the other day came out, well, perfect. The recipe was easy to throw together and tasted better than boxed mix (dark and moist and dense and just the right amount of chocolatey), and the minimal use of dairy is great for people with delicate constitutions. Just a warning, though: I halved the recipe posted there and still ended up with 12 cupcakes (6 more than I wanted). I'm not even going to pretend I didn't eat the extras, though.

I need a hobby other than baking, ha.

A redo, and a lost girl. (Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Cupcakes)

We are heading into the great white north of Connecticut today! We are looking at a few (okay, one, because no one got back to us) wedding venues today, visiting some friends in Rhode Island tonight, having Christmas with my sisters and their families tomorrow, and going to a friend's daughter's birthday party on Sunday! Phew.

I am bringing dessert to Sister Christmas, and after bringing Peppermint Patty Brownie Cupcakes to my sister's house on Christmas Day, I decided to try the recipe with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups instead of Peppermint Patties, at the request of my brother-in-law. Unfortunately, I left my cocoa powder at my mother's house when I made the cupcakes over the holiday, so I had to pick up some more. When E and I went to our grocery store, they were out, so I sent him home to watch the college football championship game while I went on an epic quest for cocoa powder.

CVS didn't have it, nor did Rite Aid. I went into every little ethnic grocery and bodega in a 5 block radius, and most people just looked at me like I was crazy when I asked for cocoa powder. I always thought cocoa powder was a pretty normal ingredient to keep in the cupboards. Finally, I found a canister of carob powder in an organic market near us, and remembered something I'd read about substituting carob powder for cocoa powder. After purchasing it, I headed home, where I had to buzz up to our apartment because I hadn't taken my keys when we'd left the first time.

I buzzed. And buzzed. And buzzed again. I was outside for about 8ish minutes before I decided to buzz our neighbor (who we have never met by the way) and ask them to buzz me into the building. Just as I started to go in, E comes around the corner. Apparently, I'd been gone long enough, without keys or cell phone, that he was convinced I'd been murdered and had torn through CVS and Rite Aid looking for me. So, while I was looking for the elusive cocoa powder, he was looking for the elusive me.

Anyway, I've made this recipe twice before, always substituting regular cocoa + a bit of baking powder for the Dutch Process Cocoa it calls for. Both times, the tops didn't set correctly, though they were still delicious. I don't know if it's the carob powder, or the new mixer (which kept me from overmixing) or what, but this time, they came out perfect. Seriously, perfect. I took them out of the oven and squealed with delight because they literally looked like brownies in cupcake form! I originally was going to make Nutella frosting to go on top, but they look so pretty (and the daisy trivet my sister made me for Christmas does, too!)  I'm having a hard time justifying the frosting!

I made the recipe exactly as described, putting in the snack-pack size peanut butter cups instead of peppermint patties. And, of course, using the carob powder instead of the Dutch cocoa. You literally just use the same amount (see this chart). Supposedly carob powder is better for you, too, but I don't know. The peanut butter is a great compliment to the dense, brownie style cupcake, and I love to warm them in the microwave before devouring them, Cookie Monster style.

As I said, we're off this weekend, so I'll be back next week, when E starts classes again and leaves me a lonely, bored gal hanging out on the internet all week! Personally, I'm anticipating a visit from my friend over at Wind on My Back, during which we will try on wedding dresses and drink, though not necessarily in that order. Until then, have a spectacular weekend!

World Wide Web of Deliciousness (Bacon-wrapped pork, potatoes, rocky road cookies)

E finished his first semester of law school on Thursday, which led to an evening out, which led to a very unproductive Friday of sleeping til 1:30 and then being miserable for the rest of the day, for reasons I'm sure you can guess. But, when we did finally get our acts together, we went GROCERY SHOPPING for the first time in about 3 weeks. We had nothing left in our cupboards, and we had been living off takeout for about a week, so I was really excited to get back in the kitchen.

So, in honor of my triumphant return to meal planning and deliciousness-producing, which also seems to help keep me feeling more sane, I bring 3 recipe recommendations, all from one of my favorite food blogs, The Crepes of Wrath!

	Bacon-Wrapped Pork Chops with Apples & Onions As strange as it is to think about eating a piece of pig wrapped in a piece of another pig, this recipe was absolutely delicious. We used all real bacon this time because we had it from another recipe, but I wouldn't hesitate to sub in turkey bacon for half or all of the bacon.
	Crispy Smashed Potatoes These were a great new way to make potatoes! I should definitely have left them to boil for a little longer so they would be softer and more mush-able, but they still came out great. I also sprinkled some parmesan cheese on top before baking them, and served them with some sour cream, which was great!
	Rocky Road Cookies These are a perennial favorite around here, and every time I have brought them to a party or potluck they are devoured with happy little food exclamations! This time I forgot to get white chocolate chips so I just threw in a few more chocolate chips, and they are delicious. The marshmallows kind of melt, so make sure they're not hanging off the sides of any cookies before you bake them.

We also cooked up some zucchini and yellow squash, some of my favorite vegetable accompaniments to any meal. In case you hadn't figured it out based on this entry, The Crepes of Wrath is one of my favorite food blogs. Everything we've tried from here has been delicious (Peppermint Patty Brownie Cupcakes! Roasted Garlic and Cherry Tomato Penne![!!!!!] Spiced Honey Lemon Chicken!) and she does a great job writing things out and giving her own little hints and tips. She also includes appealing photos that make you want to make everything she publishes, as you can see in this entry. Her sweets in particular always have me drooling, and I'm planning to use her DHARMA Initiative Fish Biscuit recipe for an upcoming party with some LOST fanatic friends. Just looking through the site to get links to these recipes had my mouth watering!

The way they look will prevent other people from eating them (No Bake Cookies)

This weekend is the last of the semester, and it's going to be hectic. I have papers coming out my ears, and E is immersing himself in studying for the last of his law school exams this week. I predict a weekend full of takeout and not much in the way of speaking to each other. The other night, though, I made some no-bake cookies as a quick little treat, and they were so easy and delicious I figured I'd share the love.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what they look like. I know. But they are delicious!! That photo and the recipe are from here.

No-Bake Chocolate, Peanut Butter & Oatmeal Cookies
Yield: 2 to 3 dozen, depending on how large you make them


½ cup (1 stick) butter
2 cups granulated sugar
½ cup milk
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
½ cup peanut butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups quick-cooking oats


1. Add the first four ingredients (through the cocoa powder) to a 4-quart saucepan.
2. Bring to a rolling boil and let boil for 1 minute.
3. Remove from heat.
4. Stir in the peanut butter and vanilla until smooth, then stir in the oats.
5. Drop by heaping tablespoons onto wax paper-lined baking sheets.
6. Let cool until set. (It took about 30 minutes for mine to cool -GF)

They are sweet and melty, and the oatmeal makes them pretty substantial. Also, they're rich enough that even I, the chocolate queen, can only eat 1 or 2 before I am done for the day. And just a note, they don't change once you put them on the wax paper, so you probably want to flatten them out and make them look more like cookies than... well, you know. Or maybe you don't.