Almond Joy Cupcakes? Heck yes!

During my last internship, I discovered that the best way to convince people to not mind coming to your cubicle and helping you out is to be able to offer them something. Although my charm, personality and humor usually served well enough during my college career in gaining people's willingness to help me, people in the real world needed something more tangible than my friendship. That is when I realized the importance of always having a bag of bite-sized Almond Joys in your cubicle. People will unknowingly stop by to ask for a piece of chocolate, which is when I would rope them into helping me on whatever I was working on. And if I didn't have any questions, they usually would offer me their contact information -- which I never failed to take note of and actually contacted them later for help.

Well, during that summer I realized how amazing Almond Joys really are. I love coconut. I love chocolate. And I definitely love almonds. Whoever came up with the idea of mixing the three was really onto something. But why keep this amazing flavor combination only in a chocolate candy bar form when you can adjust it to become a cupcake? And that is how the adventure started...

My first almond joy cupcakes made an appearance at the end of last summer. They were quite interesting to make. The actual cupcake part was made with brown sugar, which I failed to realize would definitely affect the sweetness of the cupcake. To make the cupcake, I had to cut out a bit of the middle to fill it up with the coconut-sugar-cream cheese filling, and when I tasted the cupcake part I had cut out, I was really disappointed. My first thought was "did I forget the sugar??" That is the only way to describe the taste. I was horrified, especially considering I had spent so much time on the recipe. But I did not give up. Turns out, the coconut-sugar-cream cheese filling more than made up on the sweetness of the cupcake once you bit into it.

Since I will always hold a special place for Almond Joys in my heart (and stomach), I decided to let them make another appearance. So here's one of them!

Perhaps I'll try to make cupcakes with the taste of Twix bars next.... Who can say no to a Twix bar? Probably no one. Who can say no to a Twix cupcake? To be determined.

(P.S. The Iana - Oven saga continues to unfold, although I claim this as a major step in the right direction, considering the awesomeness of the cupcakes.)

Burnt Offerings

So I thought it would be almost impossible to mess up a recipe, but alas, was I wrong. Turns out, when you don't know your oven well enough, it doesn't go over too well. I was baking my plain chocolate chip cookies about two weeks ago, even setting a timer -- something I never do -- just to realize I am not invincible in the kitchen. I always knew in the back of my mind that one day I would make a big mess in the kitchen; I just never knew when that time would come. Well, now that I've made my first mistake, the next couple will go by easier.

The whole adventure started innocently enough... I wanted to make almond orange coconut chocolate chip cookies. But instead of having my conventional kitchen events go as planned, I realized along the way how completely unprepared I was. Being in a new apartment, I did not have oven mitts or cooking spray. I didn't have a cutting board, and I definitely did not have a Iana-friendly oven. Within 8 minutes, smoke started coming out through the stove tops and about two minutes later, the fire alarm started blaring. I had never understood how people said things like "I make the fire alarm go off when I cook... don't trust me in the kitchen." But I had now become one of those people. I had never made a fire alarm go off. I had no idea how to make it stop... I had heard urban tales of home remedies for stopping the fire alarms -- stories ranging from covering the fire alarm with a wet towel to waving a pillow in front of it. Well all these people with their solutions must have obviously had a much more furnished apartment than mine, because not having a couch or chairs will definitely be a disadvantage when trying to stop the loud, embarrassing noise. I just opened all my windows and doors and hoped my neighbors would take my noise-making as a premonition of the volumes at which I would play the Tyra Banks shows from that night on every day when I got home.

I did not get a picture of these burnt cookies, although I meant to. Only one friend saw them and actually dared to have one. He didn't rave about them, but he didn't complain either. They were rather edible... I just have really high standards for cookies. But I still think it was the oven's fault, and not mine. Because let's be honest... have I ever made such a major mistake in the kitchen before that I turned up a half a batch of burnt cookies? No. Has this oven of mine turned up a half a batch of burnt cookies? You bet your bottom dollar it has! This Iana-Oven saga will continue... And you can be sure I'll show it who's boss!

Restaurant Reviews: The Palm and The Thai Restaurant

As much as I love to cook, I love to eat out too and get ideas for myself. And in this past month, before I had my full-sized kitchen in my apartment, I ate out quite a bit. The restaurants I will review today feature a variety of cuisines -- both Italian and Thai.


The Palm 


The food was delicious, this is true. The prices were slightly higher than I would usually pay for a regular dinner. However, if you want to go to a nice restaurant with a date, or with several friends, and don't mind paying upwards of $40 for a 9 oz. filet mignon, then this is the place for you!

The ambiance was lovely (although it was a little bit hot in our part of the restaurant), our waiters were very attentive, and the food was great. And if you go here, the house specialties are lobster and filet mignon, so at least I got one of their best meals!

Here is the food I had with a rating between 1 and 10, with 10 being the max:
- mashed potatoes (8.0)
- potatoes au gratin (8.4)
- filet mignon (8.8)
- mushrooms (9.6)
- chocolate cake (9.3)
- creme brulee (9.8)
- cheesecake (8.2)

By far, hands down, best creme brulee I have ever tasted. It has inspired me to go make my own!


The Thai Restaurant


Although the name of the restaurant lacks in creativity, I did not expect the food to also be bland. Maybe I chose the wrong thing on the menu (although can you really go wrong by ordering chicken dishes?), but I was not too impressed with my first Thai experience. I don't think I'll give up on eating Thai just yet, but I will obviously need more suggestions on what dishes to choose. Or perhaps I'll convince people to go try different Thai restaurants around town... Yes?

Anyhow, my meal was under ten dollars (before tax), but I feel that it was overpriced based on quality and taste. In fact, I feel as though all they gave me was plain rice, steamed broccoli and chicken. Why would I pay that much again for something I could prepare for half the price, you know?

Where shall I go next in my take-out adventures? ... stay tuned to find out!

Workin' my 9-5... and a little bit of Quiche!

I know I promised a blog by the end of last week, and we're already half-way through this one but my job has literally taken over my life. I wake up at 7ish and come back LATE late. Meaning Monday I left work at 9 pm, Tuesday I left at 9:30 pm, and today it was 10:50 pm. Why so late??

But anyhow, I made a quiche last week and it was delish! So at work, it was my turn to bring breakfast on Thursday morning, so I woke up extra early, went grocery shopping and here is the result!

So to make it...

I mixed fresh spinach with sour cream and put it at the bottom of the pie dish. I then fried some bacon, and after it cooled down, I crumpled it and put it aside. At the same time, I sauteed some onions and oven roasted golden classic chicken (from the deli, sliced on 10, diced). I mixed in the bacon and put the mixture on top of the spinach. Next, I put lots and lots of parmesan and mixed cheddar/American cheese on top. I beat some eggs, mixed them with half and half and poured that on top of the pie dish and put it in the oven. And voila! It really wasn't hard, but the preparation took longer than expected. 

Sorry for the short blog post, but I have to go sleep now... seeing as how I have to be back at work in less than 8 hours. 

Until next time, wish me luck bartering to get my living room furniture for cheaper than listed on craigslist! :)

It's Been a Long, Long Time...

So I've been on hiatus for the last three weeks, mostly because my life has quasi turned upside down since my last entry. In a good way, though, no worries!

Drumroll please....

I now work for The Man! I started working in Corporate America three weeks ago and so far... it's not that bad. :)

But now that I'm in a new city and have started my grown-up life, I had to go around and get all settled in. Between my 6-hour, 12-apartment complex, 29-floor plan apartment hunt and three-week legal paperwork wait for my car titles, I've found that there's a lot to consider and do when starting over. Advice for the future: get a ThankYou Rewards credit card before you go around buying expensive mattresses and furniture and stuff left and right. It will help and it's like free money! (Yes, I know there's no such thing as a free lunch...) Anyways, I just now discovered that there's an AT&T Universal Card that would get me 10% off all my AT&T purchases for the first year, and 5% after that... so it seems like a good deal... right? :) I mean considering I just signed up for cable, internet and a phone plan all through AT&T.

So, on to the more important things: Fish Tacos!

I know I promised in my last post (forever and a half ago) that I would talk about Fish Tacos and the time has come! I forget everything I was going to originally tell you guys about the tacos, but I DO remember that my whole family loved them and they were really healthy! But I did remember to take pictures... :)

Just in case the picture doesn't come out perfectly clear or anything, the plates in the picture above are like this (clockwise starting top right):
1) Lettuce
2) Sauteed onions
3) Sauteed red bell peppers and avocado
4) Grilled salmon
5) Tortillas!

It wasn't too difficult to make. The only thing I had a little bit of trouble with was grilling the salmon (which was marinated in this yummy sauce I made with lemons and garlic and pepper and I forget what else), but I only had issues with it because I've never before grilled fish in my life. But overall, I would say the fish tacos were a success.

Random question of the day: should I get a Starbucks Reward Card? I tried signing up for one a few days ago and for some reason Starbucks' website didn't recognize my card as valid so I took it as a sign to reconsider my sign-up.

Anyhow, this blog hardly seemed organized and for that I apologize. I actually had a very nice blog typed up yesterday and then I walked away from my computer and I guess it had one of those automatic updates that it does every two weeks and it restarted... without saving my work. Oh well... Look forward to a blog about quiche by the end of the week!

Love is in the Air

... or at least it's in my cookies.

Since today is officially the beginning of Valentine's Day Week (I just made that up, so don't try to verify it anywhere online), I thought I should start making themed cookies. Of course, chocolate had to be an ingredient (not only because of it's fabulous taste, but also because it's pretty much tied in to Valentine's Day -- at least as advertised by Hallmark). They weren't exceptionally hard to make,  but the decorating took a little longer than expected.

The actual cookies are coconut shortbread cookies, covered in chocolate ganache (which, due to my frequent use of it, I'll give y'all the recipe for it in a little bit), and decorated with pink chocolate. I've had two so far (because otherwise all my cookies wouldn't have fit nicely on the tray), and I thought they were delicious. We'll see the reviews the cookies get at school when I take them up there.

My advice for y'all: if you haven't baked before, or you're not overly confident in the kitchen but still want to start baking more, take baby steps. You could, for example, buy ready-made cookies and then cover them yourself in chocolate ganache. Or, so the final product isn't too sweet, you could just buy English tea biscuits and cover them in ganache and proceed. When I first started making cupcakes, I often just used cake mix and then, slowly, as I got more confident, I started actually making everything from scratch. Now, I've moved on to not even following recipes all the time, but making my own up. Remember, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

So here is the result of today's culinary adventure:

As you can see, I had a little bit of trouble with the decorating and not all my designs look perfect. But it's the imperfections that make these cookies so special. After all, Valentine's Day is based on being able to look past the imperfections, right?

Anyhow, here is the chocolate ganache recipe I promised:

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup milk chocolate chips

1/3 cup whipping cream

Heat up the whipping cream until it's boiling, then pour it on top of the chocolate chips. Stir. It will go from looking like poorly mixed chocolate milk to a nice creamy, chocolate-y goodness. Just keep stirring until it's homogeneous in texture. It is delicious. Also, try to use it as quickly as possible, so it doesn't harden in the bowl instead of on top of your cookies. You can store it in the fridge, too, if you have leftovers. 

Good luck in your baking adventures, everyone.

Next time... Fish Tacos!

Hey there, Puddin'

In keeping with my own advice from the last post, I went into my kitchen willing to try something I had never tasted before, something I had never heard of before, something I thought was a completely original dessert: blueberry mocha pudding.

Technically, berries taste good with chocolate. Chocolate tastes good with coffee. So, shouldn't berries taste good with chocolate and coffee? The suspense of that answer was motivation enough for me to venture to attempt the combination.

After doing a quick inventory of what I had in the kitchen, I chose blueberries (the only kind of berry we had, albeit frozen, not fresh). Luckily, we had cappuccino mix and my parents didn't finish their pot of coffee from the morning, making it an obvious invitation for me to use the leftover coffee.

Since I did not want to experiment with the texture of pudding, I thought it would be best to not put in whole blueberries. But since the berries were frozen, all I had to do to get a lot of their juices out was just thaw them. Of course, with my patience being unusually short when it comes to trying a new dessert, I put them directly in the microwave and it worked just the same. After squeezing and pressing all the juice out of them, I was ready.

I made regular vanilla pudding and regular chocolate pudding. Except the chocolate pudding wasn't completely "regular" per se. Instead of using just milk, as the recipe asked, I substituted some of the cappuccino and coffee to bring out the flavor. The result: mocha pudding! Upon initial tasting, the coffee taste was overpowering, but when mixed with the overly sweet vanilla pudding, they complemented each other perfectly!

After mixing the two puddings, my sister artistically poured the blueberry juice on top and voila: blueberry mocha puddin' for all! And it tasted fantastic, too. ;)

P.S. Stay tuned for more sweets soon, since the chemical engineering kids have requested some tasty treats from me this weekend!