Bring it on, Christmas.

In addition to the ruined almonds of the previous post, I have been hard at work on a multitude of other goodies for holiday gifts.

Last year, I made a huge box of candies and cookies for each family and took those to the various Christmas celebrations in lieu of actual gifts. Mostly for monetary reasons, but also because it was my first Christmas with the manfriend's family. I had no idea what to get everyone (some people I was meeting for the first time), so I decided edible goodies were the way to go. Also, my family is big on getting to spend the time together rather than giving each other stuff. So, again, goodies made the most sense.

But isn't baking expensive??? Well, yes. It can be. But so can running or quilting or reading even, if you buy top of the line everything instead of taking advantage of cheaper options available to you, like running in the neighborhood instead of at a gym, sales at Joann's or free fabric from coworkers, and... the library. Baking is the same. I tried to find recipes with the following criteria: recipes that called for cheaper ingredients (except almonds - blast!), recipes that called for things I already had on hand, and recipes that used the same ingredients. I kind of succeeded.

But the biggest money saver was Aldi. I love Aldi. The manfriend is particular about certain things (if you're going to buy Cream of Mushroom soup for him, just buy the Campbell's brand and save yourself the headache). I got all this for around $20 (not including the almonds - those came from Walgreens for about $10) at Aldi:

It may not be name brand but damn does it taste good.

So... without further ado... this year I made:

White Chocolate Peppermint Bark

Recipe from Martha Stewart

BEYOND easy. Seriously. You should make some.

"Snickers"

Recipe from Joy of Cooking (they call it Chocolate Glazed Toffee Bars and use pecans - I used peanuts because that's what we had)

Peanut Butter Crispy Rice Chocolate Covered Ball Things

Recipe found on Pinterest, actual recipe here

Pre-chocolate-dipping. Schweddy balls, anyone?

Dipped in chocolate.
Realized too late that these are basically Buckeyes and the manfriend's family is from Michigan. Oops.

The Almonds. Ooooh the Almonds.

Recipe found on Pinterest, actual recipe here

Success! And y'all should feel lucky to get these.
They are deeeelish and almost didn't make it into their bags.

And the cookies!

I already posted these, but they're so pretty, let's look at them again, shall we?

Peppermint Chocolate Pinwheels

Recipe from Food Network - Alton Brown

Snowflake Cookies

Recipe from Food Network - Paula Deen

Pre-frosting. And yes, I threw in some ninjas.
The three wise men were "Kings from the East." It's entirely possible they were ninjas.

Snowflake Cookies after being frosted and decorated

Quick Icing Recipe from Joy of Cooking

After two and a half days of intense baking and trying to do a million things at once, I will arrive triumphant at both our family Christmases with the following display of love and baked-goods prowess:

And with that... Michigan or bust!!

I ruined Christmas.

In the last two years, my cooking skillz have gone from beginner to solidly intermediate. I can make caramel without hovering over the sauce pan, I've come to terms with raw meat, and I'm not scared off of a dish because it has an ingredient I've never used or it has a brillion steps or it will dirty all the dishes I own. And baking is the same - I mean, I own a damn candy thermometer. And use it to make candy.

So, when I try a new recipe, I usually do pretty well. And when it works out, the results can be spectacular. Case in point, Peppermint Chocolate Pinwheel Cookies:

See? Spectacular.

That being said... when I fuck up in the kitchen, it is also pretty spectacular.

I found a recipe on Pinterest for Crock Pot Cinnamon Almonds (this links to the actual post at detrimentalbeauty.com). Great! I love crock potting! And it'll be easy to have those going while I work on a million other things!! ...she said with great confidence.

But then...

I was overzealous, tried to do too many things at once... I had cookies going in the oven, peanut butter balls being dipped in chocolate, and white chocolate peppermint bark chilling in the fridge AT THE SAME TIME as I had laundry going followed by a quick shower and a couple errands to run - all the while, the almonds were happily cooking on low in the crock pot. 

Confession: I totally forgot about them. For the almonds, it was probably along the lines of some kind of medieval torture: slowly roasting to cinnamony goodness in a ceramic pot.

I came back from my errands to this:

Clearly, this is after they came out of the crock pot. When I still had hope. I was going to "let them cool and see what happens." Right.

I had to dash off to meet some friends for dinner, hoping against hope the clearly molasses drenched and slightly burned almonds would work out after they cooled. I came back to an unyielding brick of nuts and sugar.

Of course, I had to destroy the most expensive of the goodies I'm making for Christmas this year. Of course. The manfriend was good enough to recognize that his lady friend was in distress and offered to buy new, fresh almonds. And so, after I finish this post and this gin and tonic, I will give the almonds another go.

We leave for Christmas adventuring in two days. I have 36 hours to get it right.

That's capital!

The beginning of this week found the manfriend and myself tooling around our nation's capital. He had some free time and my schedule is decidedly open right now aaaand he has some friends living there, working for The Administration, so we decided to go on a mini-break.

We flew in Sunday night and arrived at his friends' totally adorable row house in the Howard University area of the city (apologies to anyone super familiar with DC for my ignorance of the neighborhoods). Since it was a work night for Liz and Dan and we were on Chicago time, we decided to go find a bar for a drink. But wound up walking from their house down to the Mall to see the Washington Monument. It was crazy foggy, so we couldn't see too much of it, but it was really cool to walk around an almost deserted city.

Monday morning we went to another friend's (super sweet) apartment for a homemade breakfast. Bagels and eggs and the best bacon I've ever had in my life. Michael is a friend from high school who worked for Obama's campaign, but didn't want to work in the administration, so he started his own political consulting business about two years ago. Who does he consult, you ask? Oh, just the Mongolian government. Like ya do... And after our breakfast he was jetting off to Rome to advise a communist billionaire running for mayor of Rome. 

So after breakfast (seriously, guys, best bacon ever), we wandered past the White House and then walked over to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. First of all, I LOVE that all of these museums are free. I think museums should be because education and knowledge and information should be free and accessible to all. Like the interwebs.

• Pros: they have THE Star Spangled Banner. Like, the real one that flew over that fort when the British were trying to burn down the capital city during the war of 1812 and inspired the song that eventually became our national anthem. I'm not the most patriotic person ever, but it was really, really cool to see something of such historical importance. Also, they had a collection of dressed belonging to First Ladies through the years. I, obviously, loved this exhibit. Gorgeous dresses.
• Cons: storytelling is clearly not the strongest skill of the folks putting these exhibits together. History is a story and you need the full story for an object to make sense and be important. I know people don't want to read several paragraphs about a tie pin or something, but when you have a whole area devoted to a sunken ship, you might want to have more than "here's a boat." Also, they did have the lunch counter from the sit ins during the Civil Rights Movement, but it was just stuck against a wall with a plaque. Give me more! Tell me a story! This lunch counter is important! (And yes, I know this might be a consequence of the museum being free, but still. Hmph.)

Lunch happened. Tasty, tasty reuben. And then we found our way to the Natural History Museum. We didn't run into the same complaints this time, because when you have a stuffed zebra on display, you don't need to know about its mom and dad. We saw the Hope Diamond. The manfriend has seen it before and was still disappointed because it was so "small." I told him I was rethinking my Christmas list.

Eventually, we met up with Liz and Dan for dinner and a dog walk. They have an adorable rescue dog  that they think is a German Shepherd-Chow mix. We took her over to a dog park and she was sooooo happy. The manfriend became besties with a golden doodle who kept giving him a "good lean."

So. That was Monday.

We had a swanky hotel near the Capitol building, so Tuesday morning we decided to head over there for a tour. The manfriend didn't miss a single opportunity to gesture to the Capitol and say, "That's capital!" Not. a single. one.

That's capital!

The rotunda is gorgeous, the history of the building is awe inspiring (we stood in the spot where Lincoln's desk was when he was in the House), but the tour guide left something to be desired. She would finish up in each room with "So, what else should I tell you?" Um, I don't know - you're the one giving the tour. She was obviously very well informed and knew the answers to all the questions. Except that one.

We were meeting Liz for a tour of her office building around lunch time. The tour took us right up to that time, so we hopped in a cab and the manfriend said, "To the White House!" Which I thought was hilarious because I'm pretty sure he's been waiting for an opportunity to do that. Now. Liz works in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House. She did try to get us on a White House tour, but they were all full. So we had to settle for a tour of the EEOB. Darn.

We had to be cleared through security and go through metal detectors and the whole bit. We saw Liz's office and met her office-mate, the Director of Counter Nuclear Terrorism. We walked past Dr. Jill Biden's office and Biden's office. We're pretty sure he was in there, due to the body guards outside the door. And then she showed us the entrance to the West Wing across the parking lot from the EEOB. She was going to try to get us into the "Sit Room," but since there were meetings happening in there and we couldn't interrupt Important Government Business (lame), we didn't get to go in there. But we were so close! That "nickel tour" was probably one of the coolest parts of the trip.

We had a couple hours before we left, so we went to the National Portrait Gallery. Not a whole lot to say, other than it was interesting and cool, but I was so tired at this point, it was kind of a blur. But I did get really excited when we found a painting of Isaac Singer and his patent model from 1854 (I think) for his update to the sewing machine he patented in 1851. I nerded out.

Fancy.

I love that they look pretty much the same.

After the Portrait Gallery, we had worked up quite a thirst, so we went to a bar near the hotel. There happened to be a holiday party going on and I wound up getting some drink tickets, so yay free beer! And then it was just a train, a bus, a plane, another two train rides, and a ten minute walk and we were home!

One thing about the Metro: It's. So. Clean. Like... OMG. The seats are squishy and the train cars are CARPETED. As anyone who has ever been on the CTA red line late at night knows... carpet is a bold choice on public transit. 

We had a wonderful time and are already making a list of things we want to do when we go back.

Guys, our capital is a really pretty city:

That's capital!

Crap I've Made from Pinterest, Vol. 1

As we all know, Pinterest is a source of inspiration for home decor, a kick in the ass to go work out, a first step towards your own Michelin star, and a huge time waster. As I am semi-unemployed, I find myself on Pinterest more than I would care to admit to. Tonight's dinner is the first installment of what I am sure will be an ongoing series: Crap I've Made from Pinterest.

Tonight's adventure:

Chicken and Biscuit Casserole. 1 Pillsbury biscuit tube 1 can condensed cream of chicken soup (regular sized), 1/2 cup of Sour Cream, 1/2 stick of butter, 2 cups cooked chicken, 1 cup mild cheddar cheese 3 TBS milk. Bake 375 35 min. mmmmmm!!Doesn't that look like scrumptious Midwestern comfort food??? Yes, yes it does. Did I pin it in a moment of weakness, convinced that I gained three pounds just by looking at it? Damn skippy. But then... I'm trying to use as much of the food we already have in the house before we jet off to DC for a couple days/trying to stretch the time between grocery visits. I had butter, sour cream, cream of chicken, chicken breasts, and milk ON HAND. Fine. You win, Pinterest.

I stopped at the grocery store for the biscuits and cheese (I feel fat just typing that) and decided to get some frozen chopped broccoli to throw in too. Because if it's green, it's healthy. And no one needs to be eating fifty shades of brown for dinner.

I dutifully typed all the ingredients into my calorie tracker and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was only about 400 calories for one serving (i.e. one biscuit with the stuff around/under it). I used reduced fat cheese, light sour cream, and the 2 cups of cooked, shredded chicken measured out to about 10oz. I'm sure this could have been a huge calorie bomb if I'd gone whole hog on the dairy products.

And here's the outcome:

Pretty, right? Look at the green!

Here are my thoughts on it:

1. OMG DO NOT PUT IN THE BUTTER. First of all, the recipe, such as it is, doesn't specify HOW the butter is to be added. Melted? Mashed to a pulp? I guessed and chopped it into tiny pieces and stirred it in. I can't imagine melted would be any better or different. Once cooked, the butter kind of rose to the top and melted across the surface, so there was a nice butter sheen across the chicken layer. Not appetizing. And it's rich enough with the sour cream and the cheese and the chicken soup that you do not need the butter. Damn, Paula.
2. Use a smaller pan than I did. I was making a casserole. I put it in my casserole pan (9x13). Seems logical. Weeeell... the chicken layer was a touch thin. Either double the recipe or use a smaller pan.
3. See that part of the recipe up there? The part that says 375 for 35 minutes? Yeah, ignore that. Since everything else is cooked and you're really just heating the chicken layer, cook it like you're cooking the biscuits (17-20 minutes according to the biscuit tin wrapper exploding thing). I cooked it for 15 minutes because our oven runs crazy hot. Do NOT cook it for 35 minutes unless you want to burn the fuck out of your biscuits.
4. Add pepper. And garlic powder. And other tasty spices. Without the spices and the broccoli, this would have been insanely bland.
5. I would also suggest using crescent rolls instead of biscuits. That way you can get a nice even crust over the whole thing and your chicken to bread ratio might be better. And then you've basically made a pot pie. Who doesn't love a pot pie?

Final verdict: Tasty, after I semi-fixed it. It tasted like the 1950s, which is also what chicken a la king tastes like to me. So, not bad, but not the best thing ever. A solidly easy, go-to casserole for busy nights.

But one serving was not enough, due to the lack of chicken mixture under the biscuit in my overly large casserole dish. I did run today, so it might be that my metabolism was going gangbusters, but it was more likely due to the chicken mixture to biscuit ratio.

I'll probably make it again as it was ridiculously easy, but I'll probably tweak it some more.

Good job, Pinterest. You didn't totally let me down today.

To be continued...

The Manfriend and That Time I Communed with Nature

The last week has ben about two things: the manfriend and that time I Communed With Nature.

First, the manfriend. I would be remiss if I didn't say that this is partly inspired by Janelle's post on her blog about E$. Shameless plug alert!! Check her out. Janelle is one of the funniest people I have ever had the joy to meet, with a very distinct take on the world around her. You will not be disappointed.

ANYWAY.

Last week kicked off with the opening night party for a show the manfriend designed the lights for at a Very Fancy Theater. Before we went, we had a little celebration of our own:

Why yes - that IS a plastic champagne flute from the Dollar Store.

I honestly know nothing about champagne and usually buy Andre when I have things to celebrate or French films to watch, but I feel like Korbel is fancy. Not Kanye West fancy, but fancier than Andre, certainly.

After an at home celebration of Korbel, Thanksgiving leftovers, and an episode or two of American Horror Story (which I, strangely, have no problem with given my aversion to The Walking Dead), we went to the Fancy Party for the Very Fancy Theater. It was your usual schmoozing and back-patting event. And overpriced drinks. But I'm super proud of him and wouldn't have missed it for anything. 

Later in the week, we stayed up irresponsibly late: he was watching Weeds and I was working on my quilt. Shit got cray.

You guys. It has a border. Which needs to be cut down. BUT. It has. a. border.

Since he is bigger than me, I asked him to "try on" the quilt:

Sorry, ladies. He's taken.

I think it'll work.

Finally, we were trying to decide on dinner the other night and after a quick perusal of the pantry, we decided on Chili Dogs!!!

Turkey franks and buns from Aldi, left over onion and cheese we had on hand, Hormel turkey chili, and fries we've had in the freezer forever. I'm only posting about this meal because I was so impressed with the quality of the meal we threw together with ingredients we had on hand - mostly from the discount grocery store.

I was all prepared to just throw the "franks" in the microwave and call it a day, but the manfriend took things into his own hands and boiled them in beer. Because really... what else is PBR good for? Oh, and he seasoned the fries and steamed the buns over the hot dogs while they boiled. I just watched and tried to keep the mess to a minimum.

Pro tip: Beer boils faster than water. If you have your back to the stove while you're doing dishesnand your boyfriend goes out for a smoke (even though HE is the one boiling the beer), it will boil up into a huge frothy mess all over your stove top. But! If it was your boyfriend's idea to boil the beer you can totally guilt him into cleaning it up. 

I felt like I had earned that Chili Dog Dinner of Champions because I ran a 10k on Saturday. It was my first longish race since I had to skip the half marathon I was training for. That was back in September and I had to miss it due to the fact that my left hip belongs in the body of a 73-year-old woman. It was also my first trail race! It was super awesome and fun. It was probably the smallest race I've ever run (as in fewest participants), but that just made it awesomer. I ran it with a big group of friends who did the 5k distance. We had shirts made. Obviously. We were the Rum Runners. It's my new favorite shirt.

I was really pleased with my time and the experience all around. It was so nice to be away from concrete and buildings and cars and men hollering at you on the street. Running through the forest was just so refreshing. Everyone was clearly thrilled to be there. The air seemed fresher and I felt like I had to focus more to keep from spraining my ankle. I like zoning out while I run sometimes, but I also liked this new challenge.

I should have been super impressed with my time (54ish minutes), but... Hit the 3 mile mark and 4 minutes later, I was at the 4 mile mark. As much as I would like to think I can run a 4-minute-mile on these stumpy legs, I think we all know the truth. I think I would have finished in just about an hour if they had marked the course properly, but I was still pleased with keeping my normal pace, despite the unknown terrain.

And. Because I know what you people really want... I give you... RACE FACE.

Winning.

In my head, this picture was less "Ministry of Silly Walks," more "bad ass ninja leap over tree."

Hott.