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Gah, four days since my last post and I feel all rusty. I’m not sure how to start one of these things.

Anyway, even though it’s somewhat after the fact, I want to thank the fine gals at Cupcakes Take the Cake for featuring my little cups of sin on their site and wave hello to all of the folks who wandered over here. I also need to acknowledge the sister-in-law, who was kind enough to procure many of the ingredients and also frosted the cupcakes, which is a step that I just don’t enjoy.

Thanks, bitch.

So, dudes. I need two things from you. I’m in the market for a new (biggish) purse/tote bag and would love some recommendations for handmade types. I’m also wanting to expand my food blog reading and could use some guidance there.

I have some more substantive posts floating around in my head but I’m still all disjointed.

Oh, dudes…look what I’ve wrought.

Pomatcha cupcakes (plus a drop of red food coloring because we like ‘em pink and minus the pomegranate seeds because those aren’t around this time of year) and Brown Sugar Hazelnut cupcakes with Blackberry Buttercream Frosting

But that’s not all.

Kiwi Cupcakes with Lime Frosting

And I’m very sorry to do this to you, but

Mango Kulfi Cupcakes

I am going to send Ms. Raspberry Eggplant my Weight Watchers bills because I am going to eat the hell out of these cupcakes.

Also, please snicker at my Suzy Homemaker cupcake carriers:

Alright, I’m off to shower and get ready for the sister-in-law’s graduation party. Have a lovely Saturday!

I really like reading the cooking portion of Pioneer Woman’s blog, since I feel she and I share similar culinary challenges: picky eaters and a lack of “fancy” ingredients.

The similarities end there. PW takes very pretty pictures as she cooks and in the background, you can see her gorgeous kitchen, complete with big fancy appliances and stainless steel and, holy shit, counter space.

For serious, every time she posts a new recipe it looks like she’s on the set of a Food Network show.

On the contrary, here’s how I throw down.

Let’s see, we have Wal-Mart rice, some of which has spilled on the cookie tray, peanut butter, salt, salt…a waffle iron.

Of course, there’s a decent amount of evidence as to what I last cooked sprinkled on the stove top. You know, in case I want to recreate something and want to know what the ingredients were.

Ahh, my favorite. The knobs on my stove are organized in such a way that I don’t think is very intuitive. As I alluded before, I don’t have any counters, so one day while I was cooking, I set a Rubbermaid bowl on the stove and then turned what I thought was the front burner on to cook something. Yeah, it wasn’t. So, some of the bowl is still there. Coincidentally, that night was also the night we came to the dramatic realization that the baby had a tree nut allergy. It sucked, too, since I made this really yummy green curry with ground cashews. Not only were the leftovers cold and worthless when we got back from the hospital hours later, they were also deadly. Yay!

Also, this guy comes in and judges me.

For the record, I’m making apple butter pork tonight. Yum.

Since I started grad school, there have been certain periods that are more hectic than others. There’s more homework for both the husband and I or a test or a paper is due and conveniently those periods tend to coincide with especially hectic periods at work. During those times, I chuck real cooking to the side and feed my family convenience foods, stuff not purchased from the healthy, whole perimeter of the grocery store, but rather in the bloated and evil middle shelves where the processed and boxed and pre-cooked items that shamelessly flaunt their preservatives and their sodium and their high fructose corn syrup live.

This week we have a perfect storm of food challenges: busy at work, busy at school, taxes for tuition are coming out of my paycheck, and we’ve not yet received our tax refund or heard any word on the student loan that I applied for. So we’re busy and kinda poor (more than usual). Last night we had to go to the store. Not only were we out of dinner options, I was out of contact lens solution, the cat was out of litter (stink), and the baby was out of waffles and dear lord that kid can not go a day without waffles.

Since we weren’t going to get home until about 7:30, I grabbed a boxed, Complete Meal to make for dinner. I started “cooking” that while the baby and the husband worked on homework. The box called for 2 1/4 cups of hot water. I measured that out, then had to pour it out because there was a cat hair in the measuring cup, then once again because I used cold water instead of hot.

Dudes. Cooking is hard.

I decided to add some “nutrition” to our meal by heating up a can of green beans and then we sat down on the couch to watch TV and eat our all-American meal by the light of the Penguins game.

Looking at the bright orange Three Cheese Chicken and the dull green beans, I felt pretty bad I wasn’t feeding them all things fresh, organic, and nutritious. But the baby dug in and turned to me and said, “You cook things the best, Mum.”

And that right there made me feel like Anthony fucking Bourdain. Sure, the food is shitty, but I cook it with love. And that’s what matters.

Plus, we don’t starve to death. Always a good result.

Later, after I started to drool in bed, the husband came in and whipped the covers off of me to “fix” them, since he insists that I don’t do it right. I groaned at the shock of the cold, but in my sleepy state, I felt him lay the covers back down on top of me and then brush the hair out of my face.

I think those guys might keep me around, even if I’m not going to win any Woman/Mom/Wife of the Year awards.

I watched: Waitress, which was cute and I really liked all of the actors, but the plot felt uh, half-baked (snicker); The Darjeeling Limited, which I really liked…”We went on a spiritual journey, but that didn’t really pan out…”; Re-Animator, which The Prestige ripped off hardcore for its cat scenes; the latest episode of The Wire, which just blew my mind and made me cry about three different times.

I made: banana cupcakes with honey-cinnamon frosting. They were very good, though I thought the frosting was a tad too sweet. I’ll probably add more cinnamon next time.

I slept: a total of 18 hours between Friday night and Sunday morning. It was so needed. I actually feel not like death today.

Obviously, I’m very happy that the Patriots loss. Do not like that team at all. As we watched the last minute or so, I said that the only way this victory could be sweeter is if it was the Steelers doing the defeating. Then the husband said that the Steelers could never beat the Patriots in a Super Bowl and I said that that wasn’t the point, it would still be sweeter, and he said that I had no point because it’s not possible and then I stabbed him in the neck. At least he’s quiet now.

What I thought was the most telling moment was when Bill Bellichick walked off of the field before the game was technically over. Real coaches go down with their ship, Billy. To the bitter end. Punks walk off with their heads down.

And it was pretty cool to see Plaxico Burress getting a big win. I like that guy, even if things didn’t work out with him when he was here.

ANYWAY, the other big victory tonight were these:

Green tea cupcakes with pomegranate frosting. Motherfuckers.

Hmm, I’m not sure why her frosting is off-white and ours is rosy pink, but whatever. It tastes good as hell. Bolt found that recipe the other day and today I declared that we had to make them. Bolt had the unfortunate task of procuring matcha powder. Obviously, she could have found it in an Asian market in the Strip but we had no idea what the hours were for those, so Bolt battled crowds and less-than-knowledgeable staff at Giant Eagle and Whole Foods, before recruiting the help of a friend at Starbucks.

One note about those. The recipe is for mini cupcakes and we made full size ones. The 12-minute baking time in the recipe isn’t enough, but I can tell you that 17 minutes is entirely too long. I think about 14 was the right amount of time for these. Go forth. Bake.

Cause I have much baked goods in my house at the moment.

Starting at the bottom of the pic, those round foil pans of delicious are cinnamon rolls that I made for my co-workers (you also wish you worked with me). The lumpy things in the muffin pan are Pear and Granola Muffins. The cookies on the plate next to the muffins are Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies. And the cookies at the end of the table are Lemon Basil Cookies.

Full disclosure: I am not totally responsible for all of this. Mary came over last night and helped me bake and that kinda looked like Mary being a whirling dervish in the kitchen and me in the dining room agonizing over just how much flour I should sprinkle my work surface with. Mary bakes much more often than I do so she was much more at ease cracking eggs and creaming butter and whatnot. And to be fair, I was working with YEAST. And yeast is alive. And I don’t take working on living things lightly. So, yeah, our final tally was Mary: Lemon Basil cookies, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip cookies, Pear and Granola muffins; Kelly: Cinnamon Rolls.

Also, I won’t tell you how much butter we used. Just trust me that it was obscene.

The baby was helping, clad in his chef hat. I should have taken pictures but I was busy staring intently at the yeast. Then he fell off of his stool that he was standing on. Sigh. He changed into some sweatpants and retired to the couch for the evening, where he and the husband watched Shaolin Soccer. I really thought he would just pass out there, but was surprised to find him still awake at 10:00. Awesome.

The biggest surprise of this batch were the Lemon Basil cookies. I got the recipe for those from my friend Sheryl after she mentioned them on her blog the other day. Oh my god. They’re so good. We used dried basil but I imagine they would taste even yummier with the fresh stuff. We also used golden raisins in place of currants, but I think the raisins were a little too sweet. I would really like to try them with some dried cranberries.

What’s that? You want to see more cookie pr0n? Well, I’m happy to oblige… (more…)

The baby and I got up and started watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. You know, that parade actually kinda sucks. I guess I’ve never really paid attention to it before. I like the balloons. And the Rockettes. But the endless stream of mediocre high school bands from, like, Wichita (no offense) and Baldwin, and the utterly shite musical “performances” are just depressing. We watched Dolly Parton, Lifehouse, and Menudo…how irrelevant can you get? We were cringing through a number from the Hairspray musical and the baby just couldn’t take it anymore. “I hate this,” he said. I had to agree with him.

So we turned on some Mister Roger’s Neighborhood and that was way better. We got to see some canned vegetable soup being made!

We have to get ready to go soon, which will be interesting because some time between late last night and this morning I hurt my shoulder and now I can’t really lift my arm. How does my body just decide to be injured?

I did a little pre-game last night by binging on Tomato Mozzarella Pringles (they’re alright) and some chicken nuggets. And some rum with Diet Dr. Pepper. Ballin’! We watched the Weeds season finale (a few days late) and this new Paul Mooney DVD that we got called Analyzing White America. Some already-used material but still hilarious.

Everyone have a nice day!

The kindergarten classes at the baby’s school had a little Thanksgiving pageant thing today. I was pretty excited for it…so excited, in fact, that I left the house without some key accessories: my purse, which housed my wallet and my phone, and my camera. I also left some yummy leftover spaghetti at the house that I had planned to eat for lunch but, figuring I would have my wallet, decided on my way out the door that I would just buy something for lunch.

I blame this partially on the fact that I had a paper due today and when I left the house this morning it was only 1/3 done. That kind of thing is distracting. For what it’s worth, I just turned the paper in and I’m pretty confident that it sucks. But mentally I’m in no position to make it any better. Oh, well.

The pageant was extremely cute. I know it’s instinctual to groan at the idea of kids dressed up in homemade costumes and singing songs all off-key and distracted. But as a parent it was the best thing I’ve seen all year. I absolutely can not wait to go to every single one of those corny things.

The baby was a turkey and many of the songs that they sang were about eating turkey or the turkey’s sneaky methods for avoiding the oven. They sounded cute but really what kind of morbid shit is that? It’s all very close to this.

There were also pilgrims and, of course, “Indians.” I really couldn’t believe when the principal referred to them that way. Perpetuating Thanksgiving myths is one thing. Using terms for people that are known to be offensive is another.

I was very sad not to have my camera, nonetheless. But I managed to persuade some staff members to hook me up with some doubles and whatnot.

On a completely unrelated note, there is apparently a stomach virus going around these parts. This I am not at all cool with. Several faculty members were out yesterday and my officemate just went home sick after ralphing in the bathroom. I now get to be paranoid because I’m irrationally terrified of the stomach virus* and being that close to someone who might have it makes me very, very uneasy.

However, said officemate had lunched on leftover shrimp from Red Lobster, so I’m hoping it was just that. And seriously, how little regard can you have for your gastrointestinal integrity if you’re eating leftover shrimp from Red Lobster. Ugh. It’s like a 20/20 undercover report just waiting to happen.

I’m mostly worried because I’ve been talking about how much I’m going to eat on Thursday for about two months and if I have to miss it, or worse, barf it all up unintentionally afterward, I’m going to be extremely pissed.

*Everyone hates me for this.

Okay, so, besides the fact that there’s a devilish looking cat staring him down, do you think our betta fish is dying?

I guess it’s “dropsy.” Initially we thought there was no hope, but this site suggests that he might be treated. Erghhh. I’m afraid to move him or do anything because…well, I’m afraid he’ll explode or something.

Poor fishie.

While I fret over that, I will tell you that I’ve previously claimed that my favorite breakfast (maybe even my favorite meal) is a bagel, cream cheese, and a big ass coffee. I must revise that statement. My favorite breakfast is a sandwich consisting of a toasted bagel, fried egg, and a slice of bright orange American cheese…and a big ass coffee. And that is precisely what I made myself for breakfast this morning.

And God said, “Let there be bagel egg and cheese sandwiches and big ass cups of coffee,” and there were bagel, egg and cheese sandwiches and big ass cups of coffee. And it was good.

Genesis 1:5,348,478

It goes back to when I worked at this record store in college. Not a cool, indie record store, mind you. A corny, corporate one that, despite all the suggestions to the contrary, kept raising their prices as mp3s grew in popularity and is now defunct. Anyway, I used to have to open the store and set up for the day and would normally get everything done a good half hour before it was time to open. So I would go next door to Bruegger’s and get a bagel sandwich and a coffee. I would go back to the store, lock the door, put some Radiohead or some Miles Davis on, cuddle up on the floor behind the counter and chow down. Best job ever.