Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day... wieners need love, too :)

Hope it was a good one! I'm 1/3 of the way through my second semester, after taking two three-hour exams the past few nights. Yay, grad school :)

Night xx

I'll be home for Christmas

After two days of driving (logging a total of 13 hours in the car) I've safely returned to California! It's funny, I've done the Arizona-California drive about five times now and it seems to be less and less of a bother each time. God, I hope I'm not becoming one of those people who enjoys long car rides...

What I did enjoy, however, was the opportunity to bond with my sleepy little dog and break up the trip at my old stomping ground -- Santa Barbara. A few good friends still live near the beach so I stopped in for some time at the harbor, dinner, a late-night dip in the sap, brunch and serious time catching up with old friends! It was also Woody's first beach trip!

While I busy myself today with laundry, lounging and finishing up my remaining Christmas purchases, I leave you to enjoy various pictures I took from my short stay in Santa Barbara. College seemed like ages ago -- I would give anything to be able to live there again. Future PhD prospect, perhaps?! :)

P.S. I took all of these photos from my iPhone on DECEMBER 20!!! The weather was gorgeous, much nicer than Arizona's current temperatures, and it made me long to be back in California. At least I have until January 1 in my former home state! That should tide me over until my next holiday break.

 

Vanilla Candy Cane Cupcakes

Now that it's Christmas, I'm back to my old baking ways. Or maybe that can be attributed to my lack of motivation to study for finals.

Either way, I am DONE with grad school for the semester and have an entire month to do nothing create my lesson plans for the spring semester. We have a party in both my classes today, since it's the last day of class before finals week. 

My contribution to the class party was not related to international languages or studies, as we are a multitude of international and foreign students. Instead, I had to go with the Christmas theme :)

Remember those mint chocolate chip cupcakes I made inspired by my favorite ice cream flavor? Well let's just say the only thing I love more is PEPPERMINT ICE CREAM. It's a tragedy such a flavor only exists from November to January. Try it if you haven't yet, you'll thank me later.

This ice cream essentially inspired my in-class treats this time around (I feel like I'm in elementary school again baking goodies for class parties, NOT grad school).

Vanilla Candy Cane Cupcakes (semi-homemade)

• 1 box of white cupcake mix
• 1 T vanilla extract
• 1.5 T peppermint extract
• oil, eggs and water as stated on package directions
• vanilla frosting
• 5 candy canes, crushed

Essentially, I just made regular boxed cupcakes (lazy, I know, but it's finals week!) and then added my own vanilla and peppermint extract. Cook according to package directions. When they cooled, I frosted the cupcakes and then garnished with crushed candy canes.

I can't wait for the class party to try these little guys. I've been so good -- for once! ...Is it 3:00 yet!?!?!

P.S..... Based on my limited income and cholesterol/blood sugar related levels, I am seriously considering following a vegetarian or pescatarian diet as soon as I finish all the meat in my fridge. AKA when I return from Christmas break. How's that for dropping a bomb at the end of a post?! :)

I’m on a Boat Part 2 & Week 26

I think I’m beginning to create an annual tradition of going boating the July 4th weekend! Check out my post last year if you have a hankering to see the SNL video – you’re welcome in advance for getting that song stuck in your head again. It’s been stuck in mine for the past two days!

On Friday I flew back to California for the weekend and caught up with a bunch of old friends. I feel like a whirlwind tour every time I go home. It always passes so quickly.

The weekend was jam-packed with a ton of fun activities and ended on a high note. A couple of my friends from my last job rented a boat for the entire day on Sunday and invited me to tag along. We took it back and forth on the Delta, went swimming, dove off the side and brought sandwiches, snacks, drinks and cookies and enjoyed the sun. I also dabbled in some knee boarding, something I’ve never done before!

My friends brought their dog and he loved it. He kept jumping in the water, swimming and just chilled out on the boat. I had an absolute blast… until my friend split her lip knee boarding. That was a scary moment, but after a quick trip to the ER, everything seems to be in order. I’m so glad she’s ok!

 

Now I’m going to go back in time. The day prior (Saturday), I lounged by the pool with my parents. I tried to convince my dad to wake up at 5 a.m. and make mimosas with me, because it was the first day of the Tour de France! One small problem, however, is that I didn’t wake up until close to 10 a.m. Oops.

At least the champagne cocktails still went down.

Ever since living in France, I’m basically addicted to champagne cocktails, or kir as they are called over the pond. Addicted isn’t quite the right word because I’ve never made them myself, I’ve only ever had them at restaurants or bars.

A kir is basically champagne and some sort of flavored liqueur. I’ve had kir royale (champagne and crème de cassis, or black currant syrup), kir framboise (raspberry), kir lavande (lavender) and kir rose to name a few.

When my dad moved back to California after working in France, he brought home a bottle of cassis coulis. It’s still in the fridge and inspired my first ever kir-making session!

 

I made three different versions of my kirs: kir royale with Korbel champagne, kir royale and brut rosé sparking wine and I had the Korbel with lavender syrup.

Kir Ingredients & Directions:

• 1-2 T flavored syrup/liqueur
• brut/dry sparkling wine

This couldn’t be any easier! Simply pour your favorite flavor syrup/liqueur into the bottom of a champagne flute, tilt at an angle and fill with champagne or sparkling wine. Simple, elegant and delicious!

I really enjoyed it! It was a pretty fun cocktail to lounge around with all morning/afternoon. I may have also tried the brut rosé with lavender syrup. I really love brut rosé, definitely try it if you haven’t before.

Later that night, my friend and I went out to a birthday party in San Jose. We may or may not have been out until 3:30 a.m. the night before going boating at 8 a.m. Yeah, I did all of that on less than three hours of sleep…. Kind of a champ. I impressed myself since I figured I’d be passing out mid-day.

So now I’ll take you back to Friday. I got my family tickets and field passes to see my two baseball teams play each other! My team of employment traveled to Oakland for the weekend to play my favorite team since childhood. Also, my favorite player of all time started for the A’s (Rich Harden, drool). I remember seeing his Major League home debut just before I moved away to Santa Barbara for college in 2003…

 

While I’ve been going to A’s games my whole life, I’ve never actually made it on to the field before! I’ve seen batting practice a bunch of times, but this was a first! And I see D-backs batting practice (on and off the field) often, so that was fun to finally see my team on the road.

Oh and two of my friends from HS work for the A’s, so it was great to catch up for a bit before the stadium got too crazy!

While the D-backs lost, I’m secretly glad I got to see an A’s win! It felt weird though, I wasn’t sure who to cheer for. The A’s have traded so many players, I barely recognize anyone on the team (except for my bf Rich Harden of course). And I’m with the D-backs every day, so I know all those guys. I kind of wish Arizona won because we actually had tickets to sit in the visiting team section – right behind the dugout!

My favorite Diamondback player even threw us a game ball in between innings! We were the only D-backs apparel-sporting fans in the section really. So that was cool.

After the game the whole family went to my dad’s favorite bar. I even tried a cocktail made with crème de violette. It was tasty, and basically planted the seed of champagne cocktails for the following afternoon.

Check out Adesso’s menu though, that place is amazing! We’ve pretty much gone there after any A’s game I’ve been to this year.

It’s a really trendy bistro type of atmosphere in the nicer part of Oakland ;) It’s always super packed too. My sister and her boyfriend are friends with the bartender, so they generally ask him to make a fun cocktail for us. I wanted to try the crème de violette and it came with a brandy-soaked cherry and a little bit of brandy. My sister had a strawberry balsamic whiskey concoction. My parents ordered wine and once the clock hit 10:30, we all dove right into the happy hour offerings. They served up free food for patrons. It consisted of home made foccia, limoncello rice pudding, calamari salad, Mediterranean olives, mini sandwiches and house-cured salami.

It’s never quite the same there because the menu changes so often. But everyone always agrees on going there. It’s a fantastic choice post-baseball games. I’ve never been let down with anything I’ve ordered from them and it also is the place where I discovered my love for brut rosé.

So in summary, my new things for the half-way point of 2011, week 26 were:

• boating the Delta
• knee boarding
• making kir at home
• getting field passes for BP at an A’s game
• trying crème de violette

I’d say my New Year’s resolution to try something new every week in 2011 is going quite strong! I miss California and all my new adventures already :)

Hope everyone had a fabulous Fourth of July… I flew over at least eight different Phoenix-area fireworks shows and a lightning storm. That was kind of scary, but thankfully I’m still in one piece!

St. Patty's and College Hoops!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Mine started off in a manner that would make any Irishman proud, with booze before 10 a.m.

...inside Jessica's double chocolate Irish coffee cookies, that is:

AKA lots and lots of Bailey's inside. Don't worry it cooked off, but I made a major mistake of licking all the spoons while making the dough. Yikes, that was strong haha.

They were a hit with my coworkers, who all seemed skeptical about eating Bailey's-laden cookies in the workplace. It was also my first "holiday" at work, and wasn't sure how wearing green would be perceived on St. Patty's Day in the baseball world. Luckily, everyone else is just as dorky as the rest of the world and I got high fives and praises for wearing my green today. I'll take it.

I guess this post is turning into a bit of a blogger round-up, because I continued my trek through vegetarian eating with Elizabeth's cranberry and apple quinoa salad (via Angela) for lunch yesterday. I made a few tweaks myself, but enjoyed it immensely!

What really made this was cooking the apples in vanilla extract! I could smell it through my entire house. Then added to it, by toasting coconut in the same exact pan. Holy deliciousness. And oh yeah, I switched sweet potatoes (I'm obsessed, I realize) for carrots and threw in some spinach to make it more green and lunch-friendly.

And then finished off the day with a little Mexican. I haven't really eaten much vegetarian Mexican food, but I found this neat recipe for a Mexican casserole and it seemed easy enough. So I ran with it. It was delicious, flavorful and super, super easy! It would also be pretty tasty if you opted to throw some meat in there ;) Margarita NOT optional, well, unless you're underage.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 can corn
• 1/2 can black beans
• 1 c tomato salsa
• 1 can seasoned Rotel tomatoes (and the juice)
• 4 c shredded Mexican cheese blend, divided by 2 cups
• 1/2 diced Bell pepper
• 1 1/2 c cooked rice
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1/2 c sliced olives
• Taco sauce for seasoning
• Salt and pepper for seasoning

Directions:

Like I said, this is super easy! Basically preheat the oven to 350° and chop all your veggies while cooking the rice. Then stir everything but two cups of cheese into a big bowl and mix well. Season according to how spicy you want it. Then fill a greased casserole dish with the mixed ingredients and top with the remaining two cups of cheese. Or in my case, omit olives and save for half of the dish, to accommodate to the tastes of those who don't like olives... Finally, cook 30-35 minutes or until bubbly.

I devoured mine with chips and a margarita. And was too full for a second serving, much less than a second cookie.

This afternoon I scooped up some Mexican leftovers for lunch and now I'm preparing to watch my UC Santa Barbara Gauchos take on Florida in the NCAA March Madness college basketball tournament!!!!! It kind of broke my heart not to pick them to advance in the tournament for the bracket I filled out at work this morning. We're having a little office rivalry going on, over who has the best picks. Funny, I worked in collegiate athletics in my last job so I wasn't ever able to bet on sports. Now, I just don't see the need to, since I'm so overwhelmed with sports in my professional life :) But I filled out my (first, shockingly) bracket this morning:

Yup, I have Kansas taking Duke in the final by a score of 78-72. You can see how I did with the up-to-the-minute results bracket here. As of 3:00 p.m. PST, I'm 5-for-6, missing only the No. 13 Morehead State/No. 4 Louisville game. Who in their right minds would have picked Morehead State to take that game?!?! I'm sure a lot of brackets are ruined because of that game. But it's good to see a 13-seeded team topple a No. 4 seed. That means there's hope after all for my Gauchos!!! Olé!!!!!!!!!! (I've got the channel on and I'm ready to support my alma mater, win or lose!)

If you filled out a bracket, who do you have winning the tournament?! :)

Week 7: ...involves peanut butter

Can you believe it's already the seventh week of 2011?! In my quest to "try something new every week" this year, I've hit my 100th post today. Well, my 100th since switching to Wordpress from Blogger. I've actually been blogging since 2007, but I've posted 100 entries in just over seven months. Crazy, huh?

I digress. That is not my new thing, since I've blogged over 500 entries in that period of time. You'll remember that last week I whipped up two batches of home made peanut butter and this week I put it to good use making chocolate peanut butter truffles! Well, the peanut butter didn't make the truffles, I did. In all my years of being addicted to loving chocolate, I've never once made a truffle before this week.

So let's bring on this week's new thing:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles (made by yours truly for J.D.'s Valentine's Day gift)

I'll admit, the recipe I found seemed pretty intense at first (hey, I was reading it off my cell phone, it looked much longer than it actually was, haha -- that's what she said).

Ingredients:

• 1 c chopped bittersweet chocolate or chocolate chips
• 1/2 c cream
• 1/2 cup peanut butter, creamy or crunchy
• 2 c chocolate candy coating, for dipping
• optional decorations: crushed peanuts, peanut butter cups, or peanut butter chips

Directions:

Place the chopped chocolate or chocolate chips and the cream in a medium microwave-safe bowl and microwave until melted, stirring after every 45 seconds to prevent overheating. **Every time it says microwave, I went with a double boiler method. You could do either, obviously.

Once the chocolate has melted, add the peanut butter and stir until the mixture is entirely smooth. It may not look like it will come together, but keep stirring and you will eventually have a smooth, shiny chocolate mixture. This is your “ganache,” or truffle center.

Cover the top of the ganache with a layer of cling wrap, and place the bowl in the refrigerator until it is firm enough to scoop, at least 4 hours or overnight.

Cover a baking sheet with foil. Using a small cookie or candy scoop, or a teaspoon, scoop up small balls of the ganache and roll them between your palms to get a round shape. Return the balls to the refrigerator to chill while you melt the chocolate coating.

Place the chocolate candy coating in a small bowl and microwave until melted, stirring after every 45 seconds to prevent overheating. Allow the coating to cool for a few minutes, until it is still warm but not so hot as to melt the truffle centers.

How cute is this pink spatula with hearts?!?!

Once the coating has cooled a bit, remove the tray of truffle centers from the refrigerator. Using dipping tools or a fork, dip a center into the melted chocolate until it is completely submerged. Remove it from the coating and allow the excess to drip back into the bowl. Place the truffle on the foil-covered baking sheet and repeat with remaining truffles and chocolate. If desired, you can decorate the truffles with crushed peanuts or peanut butter cup candies while the chocolate is still wet. Alternately, you can melt a small amount of peanut butter chips and drizzle the melted chips over the tops of the truffles. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.

**Note, I realized that no matter what I tried, the chocolate covering was melting the truffle centers and ruining the consistency of the melted chocolate. This is where I started over and got smart, painting the truffles with a silicone pastry brush instead of submerging them, which led to the melted centers and a subsequent compromised candy coating.

Making truffles (for someone as inexperienced at pastry as I am) was kind of an ordeal! I became super frustrated really easily, but in the end I think it worked out! It was definitely worth it, and as with everything I've tried this year: I definitely want to try it again and see what kind of skills I can develop and if I can perfect the art of making chocolates. Who knows, maybe I'll make a whole "box of chocolates" with various truffle centers. Forrest Gump would be proud.

Sooooo, who wants to come help me eat some of these!? (And by me, I clearly mean J.D.). We have over 15 still in the fridge and I've already had an amount that certainly is more than two...

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to make a sandwich with my leftover coconut peanut butter and some pineapple mango jam. Très tropical...