Week 8: Bake for a friend (without eating any!)

Every week in 2011, for 52-straight weeks, I hope to try something new and blog about it here. This is the eighth post in the series when I tackle baking for a friend (and not myself). Here you will find a list of all my weekly adventures thus far.

It's been a really, really long time since I've baked anything a friend. I don't actually know if I've even solely baked for friends before. Usually I selfishly get a craving for baked goodies, slave away in the kitchen and then once I've realized I made way too many to consume alone, I'll give half away. Or maybe like 10 percent away...

This week, I changed that. I baked cookies solely for a special friend. And it was super simple, in fact I baked with only six ingredients:

You'll notice I finished off the last of my home made peanut butter. Don't worry, I can always make more ;)

And oh yeah, I guess I should show you a picture of my friend...

That's right. I've never EVER in my life made dog treats before this week! What a week to do so, since Feb. 21 was Woodstock's one year anniversary with us :) I didn't really recognize his birthday on Dec. 28, so I figured this was the second-best time to do something special for my pooch (who am I kidding, I spoil the heck of out that little brat, see below).

As I said earlier, it's super easy to make your own dog treats. I've been reading up a lot on pet health and what exactly goes into pet foods and have actually revamped his diet -- gradually, of course, so he doesn't get sick. His food is all natural and contains no wheat or corn fillers. The first ingredient in dog food should be meat (not meat by-products). As for treats, that's a little different. These ones do have whole wheat flour and oats and flax. I know exactly what went into the dog biscuits. In all, it was fairly cheap to make and would save lots of money over time making at home than buying at pet stores.

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1/3 c peanut butter
• 1 mashed banana
• 1 T honey
• 1 c whole wheat flour
• 1/2 c oatmeal or flax meal (I used a combination of the two)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300° and lightly grease a cookie sheet. Sir the egg, peanut butter, banana and honey in a small mixing bowl. Once combined, stir in dry ingredients. Place dough on heavily floured surface (the peanut butter and honey make the dough VERY sticky) to knead and roll into a thin sheet. Cut out desired shapes. Bake about 30 minutes or until browning occurs on the sides. Set out to cool before showering your dog with love!

This project became even MORE fun when I not only discovered a doggy bone, but also a dachshund cookie cutter! I will admit though, for a 12-lb. dog, it's best to snap these in half and give him parts at a time. Woodstock absolutely LOVES them. To the point of hoarding the biscuits when I give them to him. He runs and hides either in his crate or under my bed to eat! The little guy begs at my heels more than ever, now that I've baked him special treats. I've created a monster.

Now... bring on the puppy pictures (from one year ago)!!!!

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...

Valentine's Day and then some

Yesterday, J.D. had the day off and the two of us explored the Phoenix area a little more. I'm starting to know my way around the area pretty well now! With Cactus League (MLB) Spring Training starting next weekend, we're going to have a steady flow of visitors coming and going throughout the month of March. I can't believe baseball season is almost here! In preparation for all the craziness March will bring, J.D. and I set out yesterday to purchase a few Spring Training tickets. We went to two stadiums in Phoenix, including the Arizona Diamondbacks.

I'm stoked out of my mind that we'll be hosting the 2011 All-Star game, and also, that I'll get to attend/work it!

The field (my new office). A pretty imposing building, if you ask me!

We walked around inside and I used my employee discount to purchase clothing with D-backs logos. Yep, I have to wear official merchandise for all the games, but at least I get a discount I guess. As you can imagine, all that running around made us pretty hungry. Out of impulse, we decided it would be kind of fun to do a Valentine's lunch instead of dinner, especially since we hadn't really made any plans or reservations. Instead, a recent episode of Man v. Food inspired our lunch in downtown Phoenix.

I guess I should back up and explain that downtown Phoenix is basically all the sporting venues (NBA, MLB) and a healthy mix of bars to accommodate the rowdy sports enthusiasts. We knew we HAD to try Alice Cooper's restaurant, Cooper'stown. I hope you recognize the pun within the name. What we really came for was in the episode of MVF I linked above. The Big Unit -- a 22" hot dog made to honor former D-back, future MLB hall of famer and generally gigantic man, Randy Johnson, whose nickname is the Big Unit.

I couldn't really make up my mind on the menu, but J.D. really wanted the 'dog. He put forth a valiant effort, yet could only finish all but 9" of the hot dog. In case you're wondering, I ordered a MASSIVE turkey burger with melted swiss and portobello mushrooms. And it still was dwarfed by the Big Unit! I couldn't finish mine either. Let's see that thing again, in all its meaty glory.

We each enjoyed our food with some beers on tap and took in the environment, which was sort of a mix of the Hard Rock Café and a well-packed sports bar. It was awesome! I imagine it's quite an untraditional place to celebrate Valentine's Day, but we were hardly the only ones there. And nothing says love like a 22" wiener! When we returned home, I was surprised to find these:

Beautiful and super fragrant roses delivered just for moi. We then heated up leftovers for dinner, popped open some wine and caught up on our DVR. Mostly, this week's Jeopardy! special -- the IBM Watson challenge! Call me a super nerd, but I have been pumped for this forever. Watson kicked ass, and I did fairly well myself against three super geniuses. All-in-all, I'd say it was a fun holiday!

We ended the night by grocery shopping, where I found some key ingredients to inspire this morning's breakfast, the Blueberry Coconut Green Smoothie. I'll have you know that until this morning my green smoothies never actually turned out green. What a way to transition out of Valentine's Day and into preparations for the next holiday in March...

Blueberry Coconut Green Smoothie:

• 1 c spinach
• 1 c Silk coconut milk
• 1 banana
• 2 handfuls blueberries
• 1/2 t chia seeds

It was so refreshing and tropical that if not for the color, I never would have guessed it was full of spinach! And there's another cup in the fridge for me to devour later :)

In my next post, I promise I'll show you what I did with this...

Week 6: Home made peanut butter

I use peanut butter in a variety of ways. Over the next few weeks, I think I'm going to be posting a few of the applications I've had for peanut butter. But before we get to that, I need some peanut butter! Instead of buying some from the store (let's face it, I've got a million containers of the stuff already), I decided I would try to make it myself for the first time ever!

It's actually very simple. I googled TONS of recipes and decided just to wing it and add a little bit of oil at a time until I got the right consistency. I started by roasting 2 cups of shelled peanuts at 350º for about 12 minutes.

Next I ground a fourth of the peanuts, so one half cup into the food processor.

After the peanuts were still somewhat chunky (I do not like creamy peanut butter!!!), I added 1 teaspoon of almond oil and pulsed some more in my processor. Note: Almond oil was all I could find in non-Costco-sized-quantities at the grocery store. And I couldn't taste the difference! You could use peanut oil if you had access to it, and I've even heard olive oil will work just as well. I'm kind of skeptical about that, but it's always an option.

Another side note: everything I found said to pulse half the peanuts and add half the oil, then repeat. However, my cheap processor couldn't really handle that. The second time around I did all the dry ingredients first, then added all the wet. I also put in one tablespoon of honey, along with two more teaspoons of the almond oil in addition to the remaining half cup of peanuts. So here's the final tally = 1 c peanuts, 3 t almond oil and 1 T honey... pulse til blended at desired consistency.

As you can see, I had two one-cup containers so I decided to get a little crazy! In addition to honey peanut butter, I also made coconut peanut butter. Same exact recipe as before, plus one cup of coconut flakes and I added an extra teaspoon of oil to go with the extra cup of dry ingredients (1 c peanuts, 1 c coconut flakes, 4 t almond oil and 1 T honey).

The verdict?! I love them both! I can't wait to get creative and experiment with other flavors, textures, etc. If you have any tips for me, let me know!! :)

Now that I have two cups of homemade peanut butter, be on the lookout for more peanut butter-laden recipes to come on this blog in the next few weeks!

Super Bowl Sunday = Super Fun!

The past few days of my life have been FILLED with sports. Honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way :) After my first day with the D-backs, I actually scored a pair of passes to the Phoenix Open (PGA) from my boss. I don't think I've ever really been to a professional golf tournament before. I mean, I worked a few at my old university's athletics department, but I haven't ever spectated before.

So on Sunday morning, J.D. and I drove up to Scottsdale and caught a few hours of the tournament. Um, if you've never been to one before, let me just say: THEY'RE AWESOME! Everyone there was boozing, enjoying the sun and basically hanging out. Pretty typical of the Arizona State area anyways :)

Phones and cameras weren't allowed at the course, so I snapped a quick photo on top of the course

J.D. advised me not to partake in any alcohol at the PGA stop, because we were only a few hours away from Super Bowl festivities. Since we still don't know many people in the area, we reserved a table to watch the game at a local bar and grill we've been wanting to try for quite some time.

Nevermind the crazy big game atmosphere, this place was amazing! The food wasn't really anything I'd imagine stumbling across in a bar. And since we'd reserved a spot, they gave us a whole bunch of goodies to take home including: beer glasses, a hat and a cocktail shaker. I think I've admitted before that I like to steal glasses from bars... This was like the best of both worlds because I got to stuff glasses inside of my purse, but didn't have to feel guilty about it, haha.

Watching a game at a bar with 30+ TVs is something else. Since I'm not a huge football fan I decided to continue my tradition of rooting for the team with the hottest QB. Aaron Rodgers and the Packers it was then! Agree with me, ladies?!

(Source)

Everyone in the bar clearly had a side, so it made the game that much more fun being able to choose a side and root for it! And in keeping in the spirit of Super Bowls past, I saved my bathroom breaks for AFTER the commercial breaks :) The VW Darth Vader one was for sure my favorite... followed closely by Roseanne being knocked out in a Snickers ad. The one downside to celebrating a game at a bar is the chatter inside made it difficult to hear all of the commercials. Then again, it might have been the booze...

We started off with some delicious edamame...

I was in the mood for Mexican, so I ordered carnitas tacos with queso dip and lime rice...

Savored the BEST girlie drink of my life (frozen Hurricane/margarita mix)...

And for dessert we decided to split house-made-from-scratch chocolate chip cookies. They were AMAZING -- even if I could only eat two, haha. It was a ton of fun; I'm glad I finally got to experience a Super Bowl bar party since all I've ever been to were house parties before this season.

And now that the football season is over, I may just be the happiest girl on the planet. Because that mean's BASEBALL is hereeeeeeee! Pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training on Sunday, but as an employee, I reported today :) I got a sneak preview tour of the Salt River Fields facilities in Scottsdale -- the newest Spring Training facility in all of baseball! And I set to work for about half the day. I'm so giddy I can't even contain myself.

Bring on the MLB season!!!

Week 5: Work in Major League Baseball!!!!

I am a HUGE baseball fan, I hope you guys know this by now. I played softball my whole life and have tried to work in baseball as much as possible. Ever since I was little, I wanted to work for my local (aka favorite) team, the Oakland A's. But that was never in the cards for me. Instead, I covered some collegiate softball for the UC Santa Barbara student newspaper as a writer in college. I worked for a semi-professional team as an intern in college. Then when I graduated I worked for MLB.com, covering professional beach volleyball. After that I went back to working collegiate athletics and worked for a Division I school in the Big West Conference traveling with the baseball team, writing articles for the website and broadcasting for a local radio station. Along that time I also had the fortune of working as the official scorer (holy pressure) for the A's minor league Single-A affiliate, the Stockton Ports.

But I never was able to snag a job in Major League Baseball. Until now!!!!!!!

Monday I officially started my "first day" with the D-backs, working a little, attending my new hire orientation, getting ballpark tours and of course, enjoyed a staff lunch. While I've seen the underbelly of minor league and collegiate stadiums, I've never been inside the bottom areas of a professional stadium. Except all the interviews I've racked up through the years. While I still haven't gotten a super official tour yet, it will happen! And I start back up again next week, working from the Diamondbacks' brand new Spring Training facility in Scottsdale.

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I'm stoked out of my mind. Especially when you think that Spring Training kicks off in less than three weeks and the season officially opens in APRIL (Happy Birthday to me, right?!).

J.D. took me out to dinner to celebrate my first day last week at a local Italian restaurant by our house. I've been wanting to try it out for a long time and it surely didn't disappoint :)

Pinot Grigio with roasted red pepper bruschetta

Sea bass poached in Mediterranean butter

The next night we had plans of either seeing a movie or going bowling, but they were foiled by the late-night league going on. Instead, I happened to notice a wine tasting room and cupcake shop nearby!! I would, right?! So we each decided to order a three-glass wine flight, along with baked brie in a raspberry chipotle sauce. I think the choice turned out to be MUCH better than bowling anyways. However, I still want to see Black Swan!

And while the cupcake shop was closed, I definitely made a point to check it out the following day. It's brand new and supposedly once a month they do a wine and cupcake pairing with the wine tasting room next door! Very much like the American Cupcake experience I had in San Francisco before moving to Arizona. That was a super fun outing and I cannot wait to see how the places here in AZ pair cupcakes and wine :) Guess we'll have to wait and see, huh?!

This week has been busy socially and also professionally. In addition to having my first day, I've also subbed at an elementary school, a high school and I've tutored close to eight hours after school this week. Man, working several part-time jobs is really tiring :) But let's not end on work, let's finish on a high note here! I leave you with peanut butter cup and red velvet cupcakes. Such a tease...

And don't forget, you can keep tabs on all my new weekly endeavors here!