Life's Important Questions

- Why are my post titles so similar these days?

- With friends like Brittany who bring you Jimmer posters when they're being given away on campus because she knows you don't even go to campus anymore, who needs other friends?

- Why have the best pasta dishes I've had in my life been made by men (I'm looking at you Dad and Kevin)? This is no offense to my mother, of course.

- What makes it so hard for me to bake consistently delicious food here in Utah? I'm going to blame the altitude. Seriously, though, last weekend I made crappy cinnamon rolls and crappy raspberry rolls.

- Why are so many of these questions food related?

- Who knew that ramen noodles were deep fried? I didn't.

- How many of your families have "Thanksgiving" throughout the year? I'm talking turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, pie, stuffing for dinner no matter the time of year.

- Not a question, but a fact: refrigerated creamed peas start to look like peas sitting in shortening. Still taste great, look awful.

- What is it about blog posts sponsored by a product or brand that really bothers me? I feel like I'm getting something shoved down my throat maybe? My Baking Addiction does it all the time. Pioneer woman made it big without having all her recipe posts as a paid advertisement for a product. Even if the recipe is delicious, this makes me not want to read the blog....

- What is it about the sound of stirring mac'n'cheese that makes it so disgusting/unique/fantastic?

More Baking

I think I should open a bakery. I really just find myself wanting to bake all day every day. This morning before conference I tried the Oreo filled chocolate chip cookie recipe again except this time I used mini Oreos. They turned out even better than the originals. Try it and let me know what you think.

After conference I made these (they're tiny and delicious).

Then I wanted to try something else so I made these. Braided bread sticks with garlic and Italian seasoning. Also yum.

Then I started experimenting and made this. A nice braided loaf with a light dose of raisins, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

See, not too many raisins.

Yeah yeah, I know these aren't the best pictures. Get over it. This isn't a food blog and I took them with my iPhone.

Baking Cookies

In my Saturday post I told you about my baking adventures, in brief. Here's some info on that whole shebang.

I found a recipe on the internet. Mmm, giant chocolate chip cookies.

They're a little ugly and lumpy, it's true, but there's a reason for that...

That's right! There's an Oreo baked inside. As my mom put it, "It looks like a chocolate chip cookie got mad and ate an Oreo."

It's pretty easy. You just make the cookie dough then use one of those tiny ice cream scoop type of things (that are for cookie dough) and put one scoop on top of the Oreo and one on the bottom. Then you mash it all together until it covers the whole Oreo.

Bake them up and enjoy. They're kind of nice and crisp on the bottom and more gooey on the top - the best of both worlds.

Recipe and instructions here.

My Saturday

Let's explore my Saturday with some help from my facebook status updates.

Started off sleeping in (7:30) and then got up and was productive (planned all my lessons for the week) while watching two movies (one of which was Beauty and the Briefcase, stop judging). While planning my lessons I realized I wasn't as smart as I used to be and it bothered me. Then comes this status.

dear stafford friends: if anyone can find a picture of the cover of our ap stats book, ap calc book, and math analysis book from high school i will literally pay you or mail you goodies or be your best friend for life.

Yeah, I'm buying the high school level math books from high school so I can teach myself higher level math again. I still can't remember which math analysis book we used and it's frustrating me.

I went out and bought "Teach Me How to Jimmer" shirts for Sarah and I (see video here and watch for yours truly). I went and did a little grocery shopping, visited Sarah at work, then went home to watch the basketball game. Next status update.

sweet sixteen! i'm wearing my jimmer face shirt and have my hair braided and people are driving around provo acting a little bit crazy and honking. and i'm about to bake oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies.

That's right! We won! And I baked. BYU in the Sweet Sixteen, baby! Do you know how much I love baking? More info on the product in a post tomorrow. I also started a corned beef brisket in the crockpot (which I just tested and it's DELICIOUS). I was chilling and doing more productive things when I saw that the Jimmer Head facebook fan page posted that the team was getting into the airport at 11:30. Naturally I went over with Sarah and her roommates to great the team. And.

just held hands with jimmer fredette.

you know, touch, hold hands, same thing.

It was raining and cold, but obviously worth it. We saw the players, we touched some players, we took pictures with players, and I HIGH FIVED JIMMER FREDETTE! Suck on that, Jimmer bandwagon fans. Overall, great day (and I didn't even include how I went to Divine Comedy with the people on Friday night and it was one of the funniest I've ever seen in all my Divine Comedy attendances and we ate Five Guys in the hall while we were waiting and watched Kid History [again, another post]).

P.S. Pictures coming soon. Promise.

Baking

I've been in a baking mood this weekend. As I mentioned in my post about wickedness I burned the rolls I was going to use for hamburger buns for the super bowl party. I saved them and late Friday night I made some sugar free bread pudding. It's delicious and I maybe ate it for breakfast this morning. Yum.

Saturday morning I wanted to bake some more and I'd gotten this recipe in my email. I know Sarah loves raspberry chocolate things and I knew I wouldn't be baking for myself because of the no sugar thing and the fact that I had plenty of bread pudding. I'm a big fan of Sarah's roommates too, so I thought it would be a nice Valentine's Day gift type of thing.

I had a lot of fun making the brownies, they smelled great (excepting for the fact that I don't like fruit and chocolate put together) and were pretty simple. I love trying new recipes and I love getting them right. Sarah's mom already asked for the recipe so I'm taking that as a good sign. Also, everyone who tried them said the brownies were delicious.

And they don't look too bad (though they're not as pretty as the picture on the website).