Peppermint Patties!

It's Snowmageddon outside and I even wore rubber boots to work today... with flats to change into.  I'm like working girl meets Annie Oakley.  That is if Annie Oakley represented cold weather roughing it instead of wild west and guns.  Working girl meets... the Abominable Snowman? I'll work on finding a more accurate reference.

The fact that I chose lounging around yesterday dreaming of being picked to be the new 'Quality Girl' and whisked off to Paris seems now like a pretty ineffective use of time compared to getting groceries, gas and preparing for seven inches of snow that has dumped itself on my fair city.

I wish I had chains on my tires. Here's hoping I'm not marooned or starve to death this week. 

Although I have a healthy supply of chocolate and 99 luftballoons playing in my head, so what a way to go.

I used Jenna's recipe to make homemade Peppermint Patties for my Boss.  These are his favorite candy and his Birthday was Friday.  Too bad I ran out of peppermint extract and .... wait for it.... discovered that corn SYRUP is not corn OIL.  *slaps hand on forehead* Why do the grocery store powers that be not even put them close together? How am I supposed to know these things without assistance?  This revelation and resulting baking fail delayed the gift to Monday delivery.

 

The first batch I made looked and tasted like crusty dried toothpaste.  The second batch I made tasted like heaven.  The key was to be heavy handed with the wet ingredients.  Although I have yet to figure out a way to coat something in chocolate and make it look smooth and delicious.  They always kind of look like they were visciously attacked and smothered to death to recieve a chocolate fauxhawk.  Ratio of peppermint to chocolate favors the chocolate.  Bad thing?

Practice Makes Proficient.

These say 'Hey I'm a Great Employee Who Deserves a raise for 2011', right?  I thought so too.

Get excited Emily, you get the leftovers!

Should've been a boy scout

GOSH i like being prepared. Other than the fact I'm pretty mediocre at tying knots (and camping, woof, don't get me started on that)... I think I was pretty packed for everything for this fun filled wedding weekend. I kicked it all off with making cookies for Boss's day on Friday.



They were oatmeal raisin and I had to go downstairs to borrow brown sugar from emily (you know, just being neighborly) and then assembled the cookies. True to form, I realized two-seconds-too-late that I had forgotten an ingredient. This time around? Vanilla Extract, which only hours earlier I had John pick up at the store for me. I tell myself that I don't think it made a huge difference. My boss politely said that it didn't. John made a face. Rude.

Can I have a raise now?

Post baking I assembled the greatest last-minute-emergency kit EVER to bring to the wedding (or more specifically getting ready at the church). Why? Because I am the world's best personal attendent that's why. Tide-to-go pens, needle/thread/pins, sharpies, extra toothbrushes, oil blotting strips, scotch tape, the list goes on. Many of which came in handy, especiall the trash bags (if John tells you those were his idea, he is full of lies. Lies I tell you).

This is us at the church. Holla, loved my Banana dress and clutch. The shoes were from last summer and I heart... even though I'm still nursing the blisters (I was wearing them for nearly 12 hours) from that day

The wedding was great, I felt super useful (running around like crazy) There was a lot of laughing at the ceremony and reception, and they did a good job of making it personal, which is always wonderful. Everyone said I do, the sun was out, the beer overfloweth, and yours truley had some QT on the D floor. What more could you ask for really?

Sweet brother/sister moves:

Oh boy.

Last night after a quick grocery trip I tried my hand at making my own salsa..... NOT from a recipe. crazy. caution to the wind. flying by the seat of my pants over here. I just chopped up 1.5 tomatoes, red pepper pieces, poblano pepper pieces (mild is how i roll), red onion and poured in some lime juice, and pulsed it in the food processor. YUM. Okay it was probably a little too mild, I might add more pepper later (and I did miss the cilantro), but It made me think I have been CRAZY to be purchasing the store bought kind all of my 26 years. See ya PACE picante mild chunky vegetables. Our days are over. I am through with getting my salsa manufactured somewhere like NEW YORK CITY. (new york city?). I might even wear my cowboy boots whilst eating it next time. I'm so authentic.

Also for good measure, below is what I ate for breakfast not long ago (edit: I've had a blueberry Z bar since then... love those things)

I'm off to make more Salsa jokes to myself for the rest of the day. This weekend is John's college reunion (fun!) and then all of my aunts are in town for the OPRAH CONFERENCE!! I can barely contain my excitement. Also tonight I'm hosting my high school BFF while she's blowing in and out of town for work. Oh the excitement. Oh the joy. Oh the photos to come.

Like Butta...

When I was around this age.....
I would eat sticks of butter like they were candy. Gross right? They were delicious. My affinity for butter continued grossing out friends and roommates well after college. Then of course, when I decided to be healthy I abandoned my buttery ways for healthier options. Possibly that is why I forgot to include it when baking this weekend?

So I found some recipes for brownies and blueberry muffins on the stonyfield website for cooking with Yogurt (i.e. as a substituting for oil). I was WAY excited because I had all the ingredients on hand (pro of baking versus cooking, more shelf stable items) ....... Too bad that 'ol 'room temperature' butter thing meant that I microwaved the butter...... which is where it sat forgotten UNTIL I had already divided the muffins into the pan. A few expletives later I thought, well......what the hell, and swirled the melted butter into the already-mixed-already-in-the-pan muffins. Guess what? No bueno. That coupled with the addition of whole wheat (i went half and half as opposed to all white flour per the recipe) and probably too much oven time = hard and grainy muffins. They were decent when eaten immediately (but obviously i was full from batter), but the next morning they probably couldn't chipped a tooth. YIKES.

And THAT ladies and gentelman..... is why lauren can't bake. Muffin.... FAIL.

The brownies weren't horrible.... and by that I mean I ate most of the batter and was pretty indifferent about the actual baked goods themselves. MEH.

In an effort to show a picture of something I was successful at.... here was my lunch yesterday. I successfully had multiple food groups (protein of the animal and plant variety, grains, veggies.... that's hummus in there and WW pretzelsl, FYI) .... so let's redirect our attention to that, shall we?

This last weekend I got together with some friends for a slumber party and the hannah montana movie. What's that you say? Well, our respective ages were 24, 26, and 28......................... going on 12. It was so much fun, just being goofy and ridiculous at the sorority house. It was pretty much my everything :)

TGIthursday homies :)