I See Lots of Soup in My Future

If I wasn't feeling the fall fever yet, this picture has definitely done the trick.

It's like squash heaven.

Dad just sent me this (rather blurry) picture of the squash he and mom just picked from their garden. Those are twenty glorious butternut squashes, which can only mean one thing. . . my freezer had better be filled with delicious butternut squash soup pronto.

So. Excited. For. Fall.

A Little Meal Time Humor For Your Tuesday Afternoon

{via}

I was going through my old emails today and I found this little gem from my amazingly articulate father... Enjoy!

Dearest Melissa,

It has come to my attention that I have not the slightest idea what you would desire to tempt your pallet while you dine at our humble table.

Only you can remedy this fearful dilemma. The cats have made some suggestions but I've tried to explain that you have never gotten into a diet of fresh insects, rubber-bands, and other assorted things they find delectable.

Please help solve this towering imbalance in the universe.

With humble anticipation,

The Bearded feeder of the flock (do cats come in flocks?)

Yum.

Check out this thing of beauty...

Yes mom, those are mushrooms on this pizza.

While I was at Trader Joe's today, I saw a package of rustic ciabatta flatbread and BAM! inspiration hit.

Pizza.

So, for lunch/dinner today I'm having a mushroom, yellow pepper, and asparagus pizza. I think that the only thing that could have made it better was more mushrooms, peppers, and asparagus...

Right now everyone who knows me is asking, what happened to the Carbohydrate Kid??? and Are those REAL vegetables on that pizza???


I've officially grown-up... quarter-century bday here I come...

Breakfast for Dinner

there's nothing like getting home from class at 10 p.m.

starving

tired

and filled with the knowledge that you've probably just failed a test.

only one thing can make that better...

 a delicious broccoli, asparagus, and bean sprout omelet

yum!

breakfast for dinner is always the right choice.

Adventures in Wine Country

No. I didn't go to California this weekend (although that would have been really cool)... rather I went to  a winery in the country... get it?

Sorry, that wasn't even funny.

Anyway, my friend and I decided to get out of the city yesterday and go check out a not-so-local winery wayyyy out in Delaphplane, VA (about 1.5 hours from DC) called Cobbler Mountain Cellars. She had purchased a groupon a while back and had been planning to use it with her friend that's a boy, but he backed out at the last minute and I got to go instead! The deal included free tastings, two full glasses of wine, and $12 off the purchase of a bottle, plus, you got to keep your tasting glass.

Wine tasting table set-up outside the winery.
There was also a cool tasting area inside.

The drive wasn't too bad once you got out of the city and off I-66, which is annoying and trafficky at the best of times. But it was super nice after that—complete with cow pastures, trees galore, and lots of long, winding, super narrow, gravel roads... it felt like being back at home!

The view from the porch of Cobbler Mountain

We got a tiny bit lost and the GPS took us a slightly roundabout way, but once we found the place we were pretty charmed. Their website has this slightly ridiculous poem which I will not post here, but you can get to through the link, which supposedly explains their story, but in my opinion is just a little over the top. Almost as silly, but slightly more explanatory is the story on their Facebook page which states...

Cobbler Mountain—home to the "Little Winery That Could"—is where the fairies live in big poplar trees, children run barefoot to Thumb Run Creek and stories of the wise Grandfathers and kind Grandmothers are shared around the Grand Fire Circle at the foot of the forest. A legendary dreamer, Grandfather McCarthy, discovered Big Cobbler Mountain in 1959. His love of creatures and exploring has been preserved and passed down to his children and grandchildren. Come hike a wooded trail. Open a bottle of imagination. Sip handcrafted wines with the makers. Find a little fantasy under the old apple tree. Who knows who you will meet along the way?

Charming, huh? Anyway, it's a super cute little woodsy area and their wine was pretty good too. My favorite was definitely the chardonnay. It was delicious.

Best. Glass. of Wine. Ever.

On the winery porch.

After we we had tasted all the wine we could, we headed out in search of somewhere for lunch. We were originally planning to go to some pub that the winery people recommended, but we were starving, so we decided to stop at a little gem called Old Salem Cafe (and sports bar). We partly picked it because it was the first place we came to, and partly because of the huge sign outside that proclaimed, "Bikers Welcome!"

They had the best onion rings ever there. The other highlight of the meal—the time the waitress asked me if I had just come from graduation... in June. In other words, she thought I had just graduated from high school. Typical.

The Old Salem Cafe.
Bikers welcome.

Birthday Cake Art

My cousin Megan and I made this amazing cake for my brother's birthday last Saturday.

We tossed around the idea of making him a gun (he has a lot of those), but didn't like it. In the past we've made him a racoon (when he shot one in my aunt's backyard) and a deer (he's shot one of those too).

And then, my aunt suggested we make him a kayak cake... and a genius idea was born.

We decided to create a kayaking scene!

Megan molded the kayak using orange starbursts
(I thought Mitchell's was orange, but apparently it's actually red... whoops)

We thought it would be funny if we depicted Mitchell crashing...
He loved it.

We used balloon candles as the paddle... it broke in the crash
and the arm (which belonged to a Bratz doll my aunt had lying around)
represents Mitchell struggling to grab one half of his paddle.

The rocks are made out of chocolate raisonetts and donut holes.
The trees are icing-, sprinkle-, and dyed-green noodle- covered ice cream cones.
We also used Swedish fish 'cause we thought they were cool.
The cake itself is funfetti cake (best. ever.) with rainbow chip icing.
We used a spray to "paint" the icing blue and green

A side note: The Bratz doll that I cut the arm off of is now a resident of my apartment because my aunt refused to let me leave it at her house... she thinks it's going to haunt me and has advised me to dispose of it some where far far away from anywhere that I am.

Homemade Caramel Apples

This weekend my mom and I made super yummy caramel apples.

FROM SCRATCH!

I've recently re-discovered the amazingness that is a caramel apple and have fallen to temptation and picked one up every time I've gone to Safeway in the past month (it's only been 3 times... so I'm not too fat yet). So when mom decided to make some while I was home over the weekend, I was pumped.

I found this super cool way to make caramel by cooking a can of sweetened condensed milk on low for 8-10 hours in a slow cooker on Pinterest (my new favorite site). We decided to try this approach because it was less work than the sugar, lemon, cream, and butter recipe that she had found on Fine Cooking.

And frankly, we sort of didn't believe that it would actually work, so we had to try it out!

Before doing anything else (aside from cooking the caramel) we washed and dried the apples. Then we jammed popsicle sticks into the tops of the apples.

We actually ended up cooking our can for about 10 hours (dinner and Beauty and the Beast on ABC Family got in the way of our apple plans) and personally I think that was a little too long... whoops.

I think it would have been a bit more liquidy and a little less brown if we had taken it out sooner...

The caramel was a little stiff, so we decided to heat it in a sauce pan to liquify it a bit... I'm not sure that that worked, but the pan was more convenient for apple rolling.

 

What I didn't photograph was the rolling process, we just dipped the apple into the caramel in the pan and rolled it around until the apple was covered. Then because the caramel was super thick, we took a butter knife and used it to spread out and remove the excess caramel.

Then, I covered a few of them with SPRINKLES! I used the yummy waxy kind because they are the softest.

Don't they look delicious!

Puff. Pastry. Pizza.

I bought a puff pastry pizza from Trader Joe's and had it for dinner tonight.

Best. Thing. Ever. Seriously.

Even more amazing? It was only $1.99 and will feed me twice. Love that place.

Lost in the Smithsonian...

I got together with Mik and Jenny again for a Memorial Day weekend filled with culture, food, and a little bit of chili sauce.

We started our adventure at the Smithsonian Castle, which I'd never actually be in before. Since it takes about 30 seconds to see the whole thing, we then quickly headed over to the Sackler Gallery to look at Asian Art. The Sackler Gallery is really cool because its three stories of art are completely underground. It's also very confusing because (while underground) it connects to the Freer Gallery, which also houses lots of Asian Art, and it also connects (again underground) to the African Art Museum. The divisions between the three museums are not very well marked, so after wandering aimlessly and getting very turned around, we were quite confused when we wound up on the first floor of the African Art Museum, when we had started out in the Sackler. Oh well.

 Smithsonian Castle from the side not facing the Mall

 African Art Museum (above) and cool elephant sculpture

from inside the African Art Museum (below)

After our adventures in the three aforementioned art museums, Mik had to go home to catch a very important soccer game, so Jenny and I were left to our own devices. We decided to check out the American History Museum because neither one of us had been there recently.

Pretty trees on the Mall

What a mistake! Being Memorial Day weekend about every one and their mom, uncle, sister, and great-grandmother were in DC and I think about 3/4 of them where in the American History Museum. So, after fighting the crowds to catch a glimpse of Michelle Obama's inauguration gown, headed down to Chinatown to grab some lunch and then navigated the Metro back to Mik's place.

We saw Pirates 4 (not in 3D) that evening, which was really good and then ate dinner at a cool restaurant and called it a day.

On Sunday, we went out to brunch with a few of Mik's friends at this British Pub called The Queen Vic, it was interesting, but my cornmeal pancakes were surprisingly good! Since we were feeling pretty full we decided to walk the 10ish blocks to Union Station instead of taking a taxi. Jenny's phone was acting funny so we crisscrossed DC looking for an open Verizon, eventually finding one and finding out that her battery was just acting wonky.

Jenny and I still wanted to see the American Indian Museum, so we dragged Mik back down to the Mall to see it. That museum has the coolest architecture ever. The inside's pretty cool too, but the outside is awesome.

For dinner that night, we finally went to Sticky Rice, which is a restaurant I found on the internet somewhere and have wanted to go to ever since. It did not disappoint! Dinner was phenomenal, with the exception of the time that Mik squeezed the bottle of chili sauce and accidentally squirted it all over my head and back. Fail.

I had to go home on Monday, but before we did we when to Eggspectations for breakfast. I love that place. Our waiter was amazing too... he brought me free orange juice because everyone else at the table was getting their Vitamin C and he felt bad for me. Haha. It was fresh squeezed and seriously amazing. Like an orange in a glass. Then he brought us free cake too. A perfect way to end the trip!

God's Gift to Breakfast

Remember that time about a month and a half ago that I was having a horrible day, which was made slightly better by the arrival of a certain issue of Cooking with Paula Deen that I had been struggling to get a copy of for about 3 months? Well if you don't, that's fine because it certainly wasn't one of my finer moments.

Anyhow, yesterday one of the ladies in my office brought in some banana mini-muffins that she had made using one of the quick bread recipes in that issue. They were amazing. Like beyond amazing.

So, naturally I had to make some too.

Best. Breakfast. Ever.

Banana Bread (Muffins)
Makes 1 loaf or 18 normal sized muffins or 60 mini-muffins

---

1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 eggs, lightly beaten
4-5 mashed ripe bananas
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract


1. Preheat oven to 350
2. In a large bowl, combine flours, sugar, baking soda, and salt.
3. In another large bowl, combine butter, eggs, bananas, yogurt, and vanilla. Whisk until smooth.
4. Combine flour and banana mixture and mix thoroughly.
5. Use a large spoon to scoop into muffin cups or pour into a buttered 9x5-inch baking pan.
6. Bake muffins for 25 minutes or bake loaf for 50 minutes. (you're on your own if you make the mini-muffins, I have no idea how long you'd cook those)


To make even yummier, add a bunch of chocolate chips!

Eat Dessert First

Especially on Pi day.

Happy 3.14 everyone!

Science Is FUN!

About 90% of the following silly scientific things were either sent to me by my father or found on his facebook page. Oh the joys of having a biology teacher for a dad.

The first, "Hello Darwin, My Old Friend," a.k.a. the classic Simon and Garfunkel song "Sound of Silence" is a pretty fantastic tribute to Darwin.

These fabulous cookies, cakes, and cupcakes were featured on an awesome cooking blog called Not So Humble Pie, which belongs to a biologist turned baker. My old genetics professor probably would have died over the drosophila cookies, but the mouse cookies are my personal favorite.

Next up we have a sweet knitted DNA pattern from the website twosheep.com. The pattern is featured here in Dr. Montville's DNA Double Helix Fisherman Scarf.

Finally, we have a full on knitted dissection of a mouse, a frog, and a pig from Emily Stoneking of the Etsy shop Crafty Hedgehog. You can buy the patterns for the mouse and frog while the pig is made to order... I would totally have knit these for my favorite bio teacher in college! I think Yorty would have loved them!

Is it wrong that I find these adorable?