Post-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Feast!

This Thanksgiving, I was a little let down about the amount of overeating I had done. I only got to feast at ONE Thanksgiving meal! And no leftovers! OH NOES! After spending the week smelling the delish leftovers that work people were microwaving at lunchtime, I decided that I was going to undertake my own personal Thanksgiving feast. How exciting! I made a list of all the recipes I would make, all the ingredients I would need, and set to work planning a timetable.

Halloween Cake Pops

I made some more of Bakerella's famous Cake Pops, I am so addicted! They are totally easy to make, the possibilities for decorations are endless, and people are always SO impressed with the finished product, they look so gorgeous I can't even believe I made them! Oh, not to mention the fact that they are ridiculously delish.

Number One Most Favorite Cookie Ever!

SUGAR COOKIES, YUM!!!! Or, more precisely, The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies, recipe courtesy of Jill Saunders on Allrecipes.com.

Second-favorite Cookie Ever!

I have found a new cookie recipe, courtesy of Taste of Home that has given my number 1 favorite cookie a run for it's money. I'd like to introduce Honey Peanut Butter Cookies, my newest craving and guilty addiction! It was very easy to make, and this recipe made about 50 cookies, yum! I used crunchy almond butter in place of creamy peanut butter, and, man, were they fantastic!


I could not stop scarfing these down. Highly recommended, 5 stars! Utterly delish.

Great Pumpkin Contest of 2009

Every year, my family gets together for a pumpkin carving party, where we (duh) carve pumpkins and eat delicious snacks. Beginning last year, the BF and I also have our own private pumpkin carving party, and we watch scary movies and roast pumpkin seeds while we carve. It has become a competition between us who can carve the better pumpkin, and, so sad for him, I always win. I must say, I am a fantastic pumpkin carver; I must have inherited that skill from my Mom, 'cause she is a super carver too. I love carving pumpkins! This year, I did a scary jack-o-lantern-headed scarecrow blowing in the wind, and the BF did a spooky face peeking through some blinds.


Wow, those are pretty awesome! Props to the BF, who lent his awesome camera skills. Unfortunately, we may have carved a tad too early, because it is one and a half weeks away from Halloween and our pumpkins have already started to rot. My jack-o-lantern head folded back on itself, so now it just looks like a headless scarecrow. Kinda loses the effect.

Cake Pops!!!!

I found this super-nifty and wildly creative recipe on the flog of Bakerella, who just makes the most adorable tasty-looking treats. I am telling you, this lady is incredibly talented! Just looking at her pictures is a feast for the eyes. Her sweets almost look too good to even eat! I looked all over the internet, and no one can seem to come to a concensus about who invented these delish snacks. It's not even on Wikipedia! I have wanted to try making these for some time now, and am so glad I did! Although my first try took 4 and a half hours, I am sure it will be faster in the future, now that I know what I am doing.

OMG I Heart My Food Processor!

Mom and Dad gave me this AWESOME Cuisinart 11 Cup Food Processor for my birthday (all the way back in August)! I have used it for so so so much, I just love the heck out of it! The first thing I did with it was to make home-made cat food for my high-maintenance allergic cat (lamb and peas, he eats better than I do!).

Homemade Pizzas!

I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen for Lemony Zucchini Goat Cheese Pizza, and I absolutely HAD to try it. I am just rabid for goat cheese, and I have (well, had, I will get to that in a later post) plenty of zucchini on hand from my backyard garden. I tweaked the recipe a little bit, added some fresh basil and tomatoes from my Mom and Dad's garden, as well as a bunch of spinach. I used garlic-herb goat cheese instead of plain for a little extra flavor.

The ingredients

Fair St. Louis

We finally decided to go to Fair St. Louis this year; I haven't been since I was a small child and a stranger gave me my first piece of Trident gum while watching the fireworks under the Arch. The bf digs the Counting Crows, and seeing as they were putting on a free show at Live on the Levee, and the weather wasn't searingly hot, we decided to head on down. Lucky for us, the bf has a primo parking spot in a downtown parking garage courtesy of his work.

Summer Smoothie Time!

I love me some smoothies! The bf has the most fantastic professional blender, it has a metal drive! (Whatever that means, it sounds fancy though!) It works superbly, when I am not breaking it, and at this point we have shelved the ice-cream maker to make room for the blender to stay permanently (for now) on the counter top. I have a very simple smoothie recipe (can't remember if it came from Cosmo or from Women's Health), all you need is a couple of ingredients, which you can mix up to your liking.

Watermelons R Us!

Hey y'all, we got watermelons! Really, really, really blurry watermelons!

At least, I'm pretty sure that's what they are!

Garden Amendment

The other day I found out that all of my "watermelon" plants (that I grew from seed beginning over 4 months ago) are in actuality "zucchini" plants. That makes sense, because I planted the two sets of seeds next to each other in the same little peat starter pods. I guess that's why gardenistas always tell you to label your plants! Ha! Minor amateur gardener faux-pas! That really explains why all of my so-called watermelons look so much like zucchinis. And why the new zucchini plants look so much like the old "watermelon" plants. Good thing I love zucchini!

Soulard Farmer's Market

Yay, it's been a while since I last went to the Soulard Farmer's Market, but it is as awesome as ever, if not even better! There are the obvious signs of improvement; previously abandoned buildings redone as "Soulard Market Lofts", and the old parking lot across the street repaved and turned into an electronic pay lot.

Dorie Greenspan's Tartest Lemon Tart

Dorie Greenspan is a fancypants chef, cook, baker, food writer of delectable treats. Laurie, from Quirky Cupcake, runs a site called Tuesdays With Dorie, in which amateur cooks across the world all attempt a different Dorie recipe each week, picked by the floggers from one of her books. It is fascinating the way that one recipe can have so many variations among bakers. Participating in the blog sounds fun, but there are a couple of reasons why it is not logical for me.

1. It would get expensive buying all those special ingredients every week
2. I absolutely do not have the time for baking something new each week, it seems like each day is over before I know it!
3. I would probably weigh about 400 pounds if I had to eat an entire pastry every week. Not that I wouldn't LOVE to, or think that I couldn't, because I certainly would dig in and eat the entire dish if there were no consequences! I think I will try to keep my dessert-making down to about once a month!

Stuffed Zucchini with Turkey Sausage

Stuffed Zucchini with Turkey Sausage

I found this recipe on one of the flogs I read, Simply Recipes. I thought it looked mostly healthy, and I am just cuckoo for zucchini. I know, I know, another repulsive picture. Don't let it fool you though; this dish was delish! It was about a million times more difficult to make than I thought it would be (it took almost 2 hours from start to finish!), but absolutely worth it. Somehow (maybe it was all the pepper?), the turkey (okay, I used ground chicken, it was cheaper) actually tasted like sausage! It was amazing. I ate all of the leftovers, very yum! Next time, I would halve the amount of salt and pepper, but those are the only changes I would make. Well worth the time!

Dead Bird

The other day, Nunisha came over for barbecue and hanging off. A bird flew into the tiny window above the couch, snapping it's neck and (hopefully) instantly killing itself. It was very horrible. I'm sorry little birdie.

Alton Brown's Protein Bars

I just love that Alton Brown and his show "Good Eats". He is not just showing you how to put ingredients together, but giving you scientific information on properties of said ingredients, as well as neat and handy tips for making kitchen life easier. The other night on Good Eats was a rerun about granola bars and protein bars, and I thought we should try out one of the recipes.

Alton Brown's Protein Bars

These were one of the messiest treats I have ever made! One plus of this recipe is that it is not actually necessary to use a stand mixer. Another cool thing is that it exposed me to all sorts of things that I had never used before, like soy protein powder, wheat germ, and tofu. We used the leftover tofu to make a smoothie. Yum!

When these bars first came out of the oven, I tried some pieces that had crumbled off and thought them rather cakey, more like a dessert than a bar. After they had been refrigerated though, they became more dense, and I must say that I am completely addicted! I will definitely be making these again, they were delicious!

Who's there?

Huh. Couch looks different today.

Hmmm, seems to have grown some sort of lump-type protrusion.


Oh my! Pardon me! Meow meow Miss Pinky!

ickles and Lardee, Whee!

I am madly in love with ickles and Lardee, the two Milk Teef at My Milk Toof . If you want to see the most adorable and creative website EVER, just click the link, fool!



ickles has some new teef!

In the manner that people get songs stuck in their heads, I have always had words or phrases stuck in mine. Certain things I read or hear will keep popping up repeatedly in my mind at random times throughout the day. As soon as I first saw this website, I cannot stop saying to myself, "Lardee and Ickles, Lardee and ickles". I think it may be an obsession. They are just so damn cute, and have really been brought to life. I imagine the artist as thinking of them as her children. I know I would. Anyway, I insisted to the BF that I would call him ickles, and he could call me Lardee. No other interpretation of the word though; no Lardo, Lardass, or LardLard. Alas, the rule was broken, so now we are both Lardee!

It also deserves a mention that the artist who created these fantastic characters was just the sweetest thing ever when I contacted her to ask permission to post her work. Thanks Inhae!

Nom Nom Nom

I like to cook. I never claimed to be good at it though. I enjoy putting healthy and delicious recipes together, but most of all, I love to eat! There are about 50 bajillion or so food blogs (I call them Flogs) that I frequent, constantly printing out recipes, fantasizing about some, failing at others. These people are absolutely amazing; not only are they geniuses in the kitchen, but master photographers as well! It can be incredibly daunting to a girl with aptitude for neither. Here is a recipe I tried from one of the Flogs I visit called Simply Recipes:


Flank Steak Stir-Fry with Asparagus and Red Peppers

It was very tasty! It was also my first attempt at cooking with red peppers, which turned out to be quite successful. In case you haven't noticed that I am the worst photographer in the world, let me quickly draw your attention to that fact. It doesn't help that when referring to this post, the BF absentmindedly said, "The one with the trash?". Yes, he was referring to the picture, although I think it looks a bit more like vomit than trash. Still tasted great though!

I haz a garden

This year I have attempted to take up gardening, despite the fact that I am terrible at growing things. The idea of producing my own fruits and vegetables appealed to me, because I am always buying so much at the market! I dug up a 6 foot by 12 foot plot of land in the backyard (My man tilled it for me, thank goodness for him!), and have planted a few watermelon plants, some zucchini, spinach, garlic, and cantaloupe. The watermelon were started from seed indoors early in the season, all the rest began growth in the garden. The watermelon are just beginning to produce fruit, it is amazing! They are definitely the biggest of all the plants so far, the canteloupe were started kind of late as more of an afterthought because I had extra space. It is a fun hobby, I did not expect the feelings of actually caring for these plants as living things, having brought them up from practically invisible seeds. Now they are like my children!

No, no, don't be fooled. This is not professional landscaping, I did almost all of it by myself!

A watermelon plant

What's this? OMG, my very first watermelon! It looks like a juicy one!