Cooking: Boredom Donut Muffins

Today was pretty uneventful and I was really bored. Justyn was sick of my whining so he told me to bake some no-knead bread. I looked on Chef John's blog for a recipe but found out that it would take 20 hours so the dough could rest. I was bored now! So, I started browsing tastespotting.com and found a really cute picture of these donut muffins. The recipe didn't look daunting at all so I decided to give it a try.

As the egg and the sugar were combining in my Kitchenaid mixer I discovered that I did not have any vanilla extract. Dammit, that means I had to go back to the store to get some.

For some reason my Kitchenaid was being stubborn. The dry ingrediants didn't mix well with the wet so I ended up having to mix it by hand. It was really lumpy but after some patience, the mixture smoothed out somewhat.

I ladeled the mixture into my muffin tin lined cupcake paper thingies and sent them off to the oven to bake.

I'm really happy with how they turned out. Light, fluffy and yumy :)

Recipe: http://ldylvbgr.blogspot.com/2009/04/sugar-doughnut-muffins.html

KWerner's Color Inspiration # 50

Happy 50th to Kristina & all those awesome card makers out there! I absolutely had to participate in this one since I skipped the last challenge. I couldn't figure out what to do with all those colors. For this challenge, Kristina is giving away some really awesome prizes so I had to try extra hard to come up with something pretty. I recently came across a tutorial that involves paper, stitching & messy crumbling on Life as Lou's blog (http://lifeaslou.blogsome.com/2009/03/24/together-we-a-layout-and-a-ruffle-tutorial/). I didn't have a sewing machine so I had to hand sew. Going through two layers of paper with a needle is a pain! I like the look of it though..

Let me tell you... I also struggled with the tag part too... I kept on punching the pointed part on the wrong side. I must've done this part at least 5-6 times before I finally got it right. Of course, I couldn't stray far from poking holes so I added them to the tag.

I didn't have any yellow buttons on hand so I made a faux button out of paper :)

Overall I like how it turned out, but I can't help but feel like there's something missing. I tried embossing something on the brown base but I hated it. So here we go!

PS - Do you like my ghetto set up? I basically took some turquoise paper and placed it over my laptop monitor. And yep, that's white cardstock on my keyboard hah! You can even see a tiny part of my laptop in the top right corner. :P

I added some real stitching to the bottom and right bottom corner :) I cannot leave this card alone! Thanks for all your comments ladies!!

Kate Spade Contents

A while back I posted about how Justyn bought me the purse that I've been dying to have by Kate Spade. I mean.. how could you not love it? It's just my kinda purse. So imagine my suprise when I see The Scoop (Orange Beautiful: http://www.orangebeautiful.com/blog/post.php?post_id=1029) posting the contents of her Kate Spade bag. Yay! I get to make another gratuitous post about mine now :) The innards of my purse aren't as pretty as hers but whatever.. I have a matching wallet heh..

Dammit.. what a crappy picture. Oh well, you get the point.






As an update, I really haven't been creating or cooking anything! Something about the weather just makes me wanna be totally lazy. Can you really blame me? This week we had a heatwave which was a nice change of pace from the cold. Anyway... I'm gonna continue being lazy until some kind of inspiration hits me. Actually... I might be making something pork related thanks to Eat Drink n Be Merry's blog (http://eatdrinknbmerry.blogspot.com/2009/04/porchestra-symphony-of-swine.html). Doesn't that look good?? I'm especially interested in the pork belly topped with a CUTE (yeah I said it EDBM :)) quail's egg.

Quick Card

Well actually this wasn't such a quick card to make but I had fun doing it so the time went by fast. I am totally addicted to stitching on cardstock. It gives the card some cool interest and I can do it while watching TV. I drew in the lines I wanted and then poked holes using my pokey tool and mat from the mat pack. This ensures evenly spaced stitches rather than doing it free hand. It also helps the needle go in way easier.

My inspiration for this card came from the very talented Kristina Werner. This was based on one of her Finally Friday cards: http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/?p=968

I made it into a Congratulations card for someone who is moving to England and getting married! I wish I could leave everything behind and move to England! Well not without Justyn... heh...

Oops! I guess it would help if I attached the leaves heh..

Aries Party

Last night we went to Jason's Aries birthday party. Every year they go to Golfland before the real debauchery goes down but this year we missed it. I totally forgot! Actually I was at home making these puppies. Jaden's SteamyKitchen blog has awesome recipes and during the week I found this recipe to make.

Recipe: http://steamykitchen.com/blog/2007/06/16/chinese-bbq-pastries

Her pictures trump mine by a lot but she's a professional and I'm just an amateur. I was kinda unhappy because when I tasted one, it didn't have enough filling in it. The puff pastries squares were too small and a little hard to seal. I did end making a giant one for Jason though which he liked.

Here are pictures of the party. No explaination needed.. well OK there is one thing I should explain. Apparently there was a prize to be won at Golfland but it was so hideous, nobody wanted to win. Jason ended up taking it home because while everyone was playing horribly to avoid winning the prize, he played normally and won haha! It's the pink vase thingy with a phallic looking cap. Yeah...

Jason made risotto with a mushroom bacon topping that was out of this world. Well actually he wasn't satisfied with the consistency of the risotto. I can understand where he's coming from but it was still really good. The shallot and garlic cream sauce he made was soo good. By the time everyone was finished, all the sauce was gone.

Alton Brown was at the party cooking for us too!

Oh and right now I'm eating this. Yep, leftover chicken mixture with stir-fried rice noodles. Yummm...

Cooking: Meatloaf

Or meatwad as I like to call it. This is another recipe from Chef John. He posted a video yesterday (http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2009/04/trader-joes-meatloaf-do-as-i-say-and-as.html) which I found really interesting because most of the ingrediants came from Trader Joes. There's one on the way home from work! I would also kill the meatloaf craving that Justyn has had for quite some time. Perfect!

Damn, what a shitty commute that was. Normally when I'm not commuting with Justyn, I take 87 home. But because I had to stop by Trader Joe's, I took 85. Nevar again. Oh yeah, and some jackass almost backed into my car while I was driving through the parking lot. Bah... I was already in a foul mood but I quickly got my grocery shopping done. Here's what I picked up since I had the rest of the ingrediants at home:

- Ground Beef (2 lbs: 1 Kosher because they only had one pack of Angus left)

- Breadcrumbs

- Wine (hey I had a shitty commute home k?)

- Eggs

- Beef Broth

- Mirepoix

- Milk

- Potatoes

I pretty much stuck to the video instructions with exception to making mashed potatoes so here are the pictures. It turned out really good. I had to bake it for 10 minutes more to get it up to 155 degrees but it was mouth wateringly good. I didn't really like the gravy but I suspect my pan had something to do with it. When Justyn got home and tasted it, he thought I made mushroom gravy. Uhm... I didn't put any mushrooms in it? Oh and I apologize for the crappy looking plate. I really did want to make it pretty but by the time I got done cooking and plating, it was past 7:00pm. Plus I was hungry!!

Oh and this is what Justyn brought home for me. Can you say LONG stem roses? Jeez! When he came home it looked like he was carrying an entire rose bush. All that for one vase of roses heh. It was sweet of him to think of me though :)

KWerner's Color Inspiration # 48

This might be my first attempt for this challenge.. meaning I might actually do another card because I'm not quite happy with the way this one turned out. I think the green is off so I might need to go to the store and pick up something closer to Kiwi Kiss. So we'll see how the second card goes if I get to it in time :)

Throwdown: Shrimp & Grits

A few days ago, Justyn and I were watching Throwdown on Food Network with Bobby Flay vs the challenger (sorry I can't remember his name!). After my not-so-pleasant experience at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill in Vegas, I really wanted to try the challenger's recipe of shrimp & grits. So.... after all that and having watched the Throwdown episode, Justyn and I were craving shrimp & grits. Out of that, I decided to do a mini Throwdown challenge with Justyn.

He WAS going to make shrimp & grits but the shrimp at the store didn't look so good so instead he bought herb and crumb crusted tilapia. The grits were topped with grated parmesan cheese. He also sauteed some bell peppers & jalapeno. Here's how it turned out. I totally regret not taking a picture of the entire dish but I was trying to be artsy fartsy heh...

And here's my attempt. I actually followed the challenger's recipe on Throwdown. That's the real difference between our methods. Justyn likes to wing it a lot of the time and I like to follow recipes to the T. The recipe was more complicated than it looked because you have three different things going on. I started out by marinating the shrimp with Cajun seasoning, paprika, and dried Italian seasoning. Then I threw in some thinly sliced red bell pepper, red onion & jalapeno into the cast iron pan. While that was cooking, I started the grits. I am horrible and multi-tasking when it comes to cooking so I had to get Justyn to help me stir the grits while the veggies finished cooking. I added the cheese, tomato paste & cream to the grits and then gave it a quick stir before removing the veggies from the cast iron pan and adding the shrimp. After the shrimp were cooked, I put them to the side and started the sauce with a roux. If you make this recipe and you're like me, I highly recommend that you make one component at a time. Don't try to be bad ass heh.

So here's how it turned out. Pretty to look at but really salty. I over did it with the seasoning for the shrimp. Next time, I'll only add one tablespoon of the Cajun seasoning and no salt. Other than the saltiness of the shrimp, the rest was divine. It's a really rich dish but yummy. I garnished with some chopped green onion and honey ham.

Throwdown Challenger Recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/shrimp-and-grits-recipe/index.html