Backstreet’s Back, Alright

Everybody, I am back. I know. You haven’t been this excited since Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” Which rocks, by the way. Right? Totally.

Anyway, I guess I should explain myself. I have mentioned several times I have been in a funk. I blame it on the longest winter ever; it was like 30 Days of Night. I blame it on my heavy wine and Law and Order: SVU consumption (but I don’t apologize for that). I blame it on the first year of my PhD. You are never good enough and you feel like a freshman all over again. I feel like I have been stuffed in a locker by the school bully for an entire semester. But, I’m better now. The sun is shining. I turn in my last paper tomorrow. I don’t have to teach freshman English next year (I get to teach Business Writing and work in the Writing Lab). I go to Scotland in a month. I found out my best friend will be in Scotland while I am there. Life was bad, now it is good.

I think I just needed to adjust. I think I just needed to be humbled.

Sorry, the post is late. I’ve been at the coffee shop most of the day, writing a paper. I look confused, because I was confused. It was an interesting day at the coffee house, because a Michael Lohan look-alike sat across from me. I was kind of rude to him, but he is a horrible father. Yes, I know. It is not the real Michael Lohan, but he kept staring. I’m not Kate Major, jerk. I’m busting out the pop culture references tonight, people.

Lars and I made dinner! Oh, by the way: I haven’t been posting (als0), because I never had time to cook. Double Oh: Lars is good. He got a professorship. He will only live 3 hours away. He is as cute as always. Blah, blah. Let’s not get mushy.

Lars and I teamed up and made a delicious Italian dinner. Lars made Herbed Chicken Piccata (Cooking Light). I love lemon and chicken. I love meals that don’t involve the oven. This was made in one skillet and it was fantastic. It was breaded. It was lemony. I made the very easy Tortellini with Olive Oil, Parmesan, Garlic, and Red Pepper from Cooking Light. It is simple and delicious, but I recommend adding the cheese after all the shit has gone down. If not, the cheese makes a big goopy ball that looks like an antagonist from a Goosebumps book. Yeah, dinner was awesome.

For dessert I had boxed wine and Starbuck’s Chocolate Java Chip ice cream. I didn’t eat the whole pint, which is a small victory.

Well, I’ll be spending the rest of the night commenting on y’all’s blogs and writing a paper. I’m glad to be back.

Sorry for spelling errors, I may be buzzed.

My face hurts from reading…

I feel like I don’t have control of my life. It sounds worse than it is, but I am so busy and rarely have free time anymore. When I get busy my body shuts down. My body says: “Hey you, I’m done. You will do something nonproductive.” I know I need this once in awhile, but my body shuts down when I need it the most. This morning was a long one. I couldn’t function. Ugh.

Emo time is over. I need an Emo theme song.

Breakfast was pretty awesome. I stopped at Starbucks for a Pike Place coffee and a low fast raspberry muffin. The muffin made my morning and went well with my fresh strawberries from home. I sat in my office at 7am with this meal and graded. Wah, wah. Grading is not fun. I like reading student work, but I hate stamping a grade on it. I rather give them muffins.

After breakfast I had class, then I taught, then I observed a colleague’s class, then I went to class again. THEN, I went to Zumba. Lunch was slipped in there somewhere. It isn’t important. Turkey on rye: blah, blah, blah.

After Zumba Lars and I grabbed dinner at a Korean restaurant, Green Sprout. Lars ordered the sushi salad, which was not only beautiful, but delicious.

I ordered the omelet filled with fried rice and spiced pork. Lars always has the best meal of his life, and I don’t. The problem with this dish was the fried rice. I’ll go to the place again (because it is spoken so highly of), but maybe I’ll order something else. We had fun removing the egg coating to reveal the solid rice cylinder below, though.

I have been reading all night, so I deserved ice cream. I have had the Breyers Smooth and Dreamy Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream sandwich before, and loved it. This time I bought the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough instead. It was good, but not as “cookie dough” as I would have liked. It was good, but I prefer the brownie.

Ugh, back to reading/writing/planning.

I am having a karaoke party Friday. Any suggestions for party foods would be appreciated.

Fried State Fair

Today Lars and I traveled to Indiana for the State Fair. I was slightly tired from the night before (beer), but it was a good time.

We met with my father and sister at the banquet hall since his company rented it out. Hey, it was a free lunch. I had a small plate of BBQ chicken, corn on the cob, and a small serving of mashed potatoes. It was okay. It was just nice to eat food at that point.

Then we decided to explore the fair!

We stopped by the dairy “barn” for fresh-from-the-cow ice cream. Their “single dips” were actually two large scoops of ice cream, so I didn’t finish mine. I got Strawberry. Lars got Chocolate Peanut Butter. This was some good ice cream, folks.

Then we decided to take a culinary journey down Fried Lane.

There were Krispy Kreme hamburgers. They slice a doughnut in half and use it as a hamburger bun.

And fried Pepsi…

Chocolate covered bacon…

And when all else fails…deep fried butter.

Lars decided to eat Fried Cookie Dough. When asked for a comment, Lars sums it up with, “it was too much.”

What is the weirdest fried dish you’ve heard of?

I serve a brunch tomorrow, which I will post about. But, I’ll be back to my normal schedule this week. Thank goodness, I have had blog withdrawal.

Pizza Thursday Gets Deep

Summer is ending. Wah wah, fo sho. I start a summer seminar of sorts on Monday. It lasts a week and it is basically a prep course for teaching first-year composition. Then school starts the following Monday. I am not ready to take graduate courses or to teach freshmen, but I cannot really hit pause. I must suck it up.

Sometimes I eat my emotions. To make sure I don’t eat an entire order of cheesestix from the local pizza joint, I try to have fun with cooking at home and within limits. Well, I was very excited to find a recipe for Chicago-Style Deep-Dish Pizza on Cooking Light‘s site. This is the start of a new tradition. Lars and I have decided to dedicate Thursday evenings to our favorite food: pizza. Each Thursday we will have pizza and most likely try out a new recipe. I hope you like pizza, readers.

What was interesting about this pizza was that it was made in a cast iron skillet. Even though we had problems with the dough, everything turned out fantastic. The recipe calls for mushrooms and Italian turkey sausage, but we used neither. We did use pepperoni. This could easily be a vegetarian dish, especially if jam-packed with veggies. The crust was crunchy on the outside and soft in the inside. The sauce was pretty fantastic, too. There may not be enough cheese for some, but my favorite part of pizza is the crust and sauce anyway. Did you know that I actually took the cheese off of my pizza until about high school? I don’t know why I preferred pizza cheeseless. Anyway, this was a real treat!

Bad Picture, Good Pizza.

For dessert I finally had a whole wheat snickerdoodle cookie with Double-Churned Yogurt Blends vanilla ice cream. This ice cream rocks, first off. Secondly, snickerdoodles and ice cream are a great pairing.

If you could invent an ice cream flavor. What would it be? Mine would be derby pie ice cream, of course.

Nursing a Sweet Tooth

Thanks for the kind words about the dentist. I don’t know what hurt more: the tooth or the hole in my bank account.

I was driving back to Ohio, and I thought I’d take a drink. Mouth still numb. Wet Lap. I got home around 2 and at that point I had only eaten a bowl of fruit. I ran inside, threw my stuff down, and searched for food. I found an Amy’s Spinach personal pizza in the freezer. I really enjoyed this, but I wish it had more tomato action. I love tomatoes.

I also had 3 tiny pieces of a dark chocolate bar I bought at Target. It is only 55% in Cocoa content. I usually like it very very very dark. I loved this bar, though. Inside it had dried raspberries  that had this sweet crunch to them. I cannot wait until I break off my next piece.

In an attempt to use up the food in my apartment before I move, I utilized the big pile of spinach in my fridge for dinner. I made a salad with grilled chicken and Annie’s Gingerly Vinaigrette. I was also able to use the random mandarin oranges in my cabinet. Fruits in green salads rocks.

The real highlight of my evening was dessert. I took one of my Oatmeal/Molasses cookies and crumbled it on top of vanilla bean ice cream. Yum! I still have more ice cream to eat before the move, boo. And, I still have that other derby pie to eat.

Whew, what a day! I need a cup of tea and an early bed time. I have a day full of baking (get ready for some serious cookie action), cleaning, and packing. Ew. And, I have to deal with switching over to a new insurance plan. Don’t you hate making phone calls? I do, especially when it concerns money. Boo. Maybe I can just mess with them, like this video:

Hope your hump day wasn’t bumpy!

I’m fine…AHHH!

I had a pretty uneventful, but relaxed evening at home. My sister and I watched Matilda, which still slightly scares me. I’m glad my elementary school principal didn’t lock kids in a closet with metal spikes.

My mother informed me that the Schwan’s man was coming, and I requested some Mediterranean Vegetable Couscous. This stuff is a vegetable explosion: couscous, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, capers…crap…I forget. Surely the colorful picture below shows the veggie variety. This was pretty filling, but I was still hungry. I finished off the fresh mango.

I rode my bike around and came home. I couldn’t separate myself from my bike, so I took another ride until my butt hurt. My legs are going to look hot if I ride this baby to campus everyday. I came home and wanted ice cream! So my mom and I both enjoyed a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich in Strawberry Shortcake. I could not wait until I took the picture, I just had to eat it!

I need some alone time, seriously. I’m looking forward to making a delicious pizza, pouring a glass(es) of wine, and watching television tomorrow night. If something comes in the way of this…I may break. Break! I am so sick of traveling, so sick of being on everyone else’s schedule, so sick of not cooking in my own kitchen. Ugh!

Okay, I’m done. I’m a roller coaster of emotion this summer. I’m trying to find my footing and it is July. Freaking July? I start my PhD soon. I have to make new friends, convince new professors I’m not a complete idiot, and move into a new apartment with Lars. I have to finish thesis crap so I can graduate.

AHHH!

::breathes::

::breathes::

I will make goals. This upcoming week I will finish all thesis editing and paperwork. I will finish the book I am currently reading. I will start packing.

::breathes::

What do you do when you are stressed?

Huh?

I am having one of the days when I am totally unable to function. I woke up feeling sick again, so I laid in bed all morning like that sick kid in the attic from The Secret Garden. Not to be confused with Flowers in the Attic, which is an entirely different sort of movie.

First things first. Breakfast was toast. I finished up the Cinnamon Explosion bread. Therefore, the breakfast posts may get more interesting. I ate my slice with jam and almond butter (a.k.a. nut crack), but made Lars (by request) Cinnamon toast. Did anyone eat this a lot in their childhood? You know, buttered toast with cinnamon and sugar. Anyway:

His

Mine

For lunch, I had another flatbread pizza with pepperoni, cheese, olive oil, and tomatoes. I also a little bit of the yummy soup Lars’s neighbor brought me when I was sick (not pictured).

The cheese burnt a little, but it was fantastic and fast.

Lars and I are going the farmers market today, so please stay tuned for a much more interesting post. I did want to bring up this interesting article I read in the Food section of the Huffington Post. I guess this ice cream man (in Washington) pulled a knife on another ice cream man, because he was on his turf. I hope no kids were around. I imagine him as a child, beating up other kids on his lemonade stand turf.

On a more positive note: What was your favorite ice-cream treat as a child?

Lars Guest Blog 1: Pizza and Ice Cream

This post is pretty epic. Feel free to just scan for the pictures.

Hi! This is Lars, Ashley’s boyfriend. I’m guest blogging about our dinner tonight, which was flatbread pizzas and ice cream with homemade chocolate whipped cream. I really appreciate Ashley giving me the opportunity to write here. Her only request was that I keep the tone of the post within the spirit of the blog she’s begun.

Ashley suggested that I begin by posting a picture of myself that showed me as scholarly, yet playful. I think this one I think best fits that description:

Thinking, Playfully

To the food!

After reading our friend Anna’s post about having fresh pizza, and after watching that episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy with Butch the artist, Ashley was excited to make flatbread pizza. We set out to our local Marsh (the store, not the wetland) to get the ingredients.

We were tired- Ashley’s been sick, and I had just worked out for the first time since February. We wandered aimlessly in the bread section. We couldn’t find much at first, but after walking three laps around one of the bread displays, Ashley pointed to a flatbread that was literally right in front of my dumb head. I had actually been staring at without realizing it was what we were looking for. It was this-

Flatbread! Not just for dour-looking peasants like the one on this package.

Flat enough to be flatbread, but fluffy enough to be more substantial than that “Flatout” bread, which is more like a tortilla.

We got the bread, some plum tomatoes, a head of garlic, and I had the deli slice a quarter pound of pepperoni. I also remembered that I had whipping cream in the fridge, which meant we had to buy some ice cream to go with it. What else could we do?

The other ingredients we would use for the pizza would be olive oil, fresh basil, and low-moisture, part-skim mozzarella cheese.  I have a basil plant at home (Basel the basil plant, Mark II- I killed the first one; not to be confused with Ashley’s disco-themed Bazzle basil plant), I have Sargento mozzarella from a recent plane crash of an attempt at the South Beach Diet, and I knew I had Filippo Berio extra virgin olive oil at home.

I name “Sargento” and “Filippo Berio” because when I express concern over the time that Ashley spends on her blog, she assures me that one day soon the brands she mentions will rain down free products on us like locusts in the bible. Like delicious locusts. She doesn’t really say that, but I dreamed it last night.

Cooking

We began with the bread, naked as jaybirds.

We didn't grill them, they came like this.

Ashley quartered the plum tomatoes like they were (simile omitted).

Ashley's immaculately-chopped plum tomatoes

I heated garlic with dried basil and oregano in my cast iron skillet on low-medium to get some of the flavors to mingle. It worked ok- here’s what it looked like on the bread.

Then Ashley added the chopped basil,

sprinkled the mozzarella,

and added the tomatoes. We put it in my (notoriously low-powered) toaster oven on Medium, and actually had to put it in for 1 1/2 toaster cycles (turning it in-between).  Here’s what it looked like when it was nearly completed:

And here’s what it looked like plated:

I topped my pizza with two slices of pepperoni, each of which I had torn in half, and some fresh minced garlic. Mine looked like this:

The meal was so good we literally sat in a sort of afterglow, not talking for a few minutes. It was partially from being tired, but the food had a lot to do with it- the meal had only taken about fifteen minutes to put together (you could easily do it in five if you’re willing to go a little simpler or prep some of the ingredients ahead of time), and the bread was really perfect. The puffiness of the flatbread gave it substance and the crisped, golden-brown crust had a delicious bite.

After our food coma had ended, I suggested we make the dessert. I had whipped cream in the fridge from last week, when Phase 1 of my South Beach Diet ended with me deciding never to go on the South Beach diet again. I then bought food that is bad for me and sped away from the store cackling, as I recall.

I’ve had good luck starting whipped cream by putting my KitchenAid mixing bowl and the whisk attachment in the freezer, so I did that for about a half hour. After it came out, I looked for recipes online.

Having made whipped cream before I decided I wanted a recipe that included the 1/4 cup of sugar, the vanilla extract, and chocolate powder to make chocolate whipped cream. I couldn’t find it, though, so I just went from memory.

I began the whisk on low-medium (4 on my mixer) so that I could gradually add the sugar. I’m not even sure if that matters, but I did it. Ever since I spent six hours trying unsuccessfully to make my egg whites into meringue, I treat my mixer and the things it does with cautious respect.

I gradually added the sugar, which was actually between 1/4 and 1/2 a cup. I used all the whipped cream I had in the carton, which was 1 pint, and it’s supposed to be 1/4 cup sugar for 1 cup whipping cream, but I didn’t want to add the full 1/2 cup sugar.

Anyway, I couldn’t find a blog that told me how much powdered cocoa (Hershey’s unsweetened) to add, and to I just added by teaspoons until it looked right. I ended up using 6 teaspoons, which made me feel dumb. So do yourself a favor and add 2 tablespoons, of course, if you do it.

We ended up with a whipped cream that was relatively light in chocolate color and taste.

Ashley took a crepe that we had made last night, two small scoops of ice cream, and a dollop (love saying that) of chocolate whipped cream, with just a sprinkle of cinnamon. She said the cinnamon worked really well with the chocolate, and when I tasted it, I agreed.

I just had a massive bowl of ice cream and whipped cream.

Look like too much? It was. After another food coma I wrote this. Sorry for the lateness of the post.

Tomorrow we go to the farmer’s market! Exciting things to come.

Oh-! and before I forget, Ashley forgot to post this yesterday. There was a tornado warning yesterday and the sky went totally yellow after it passed. Check it out-

Weird, right? I didn’t edit that photo at all. Everything went sepia, like The Element of Crime. I’ve seen that before, where I grew up (also in tornado alley), but I never get used to it.

Goodbye for now!

P.S. Thank you for supporting Ashley. I am very proud of her. And if you have an “in” with any of the food brands, please make it rain.

Change of Plans: Best Boyfriend Ever

So, remember how I was going to Louisville with Lars for derby pie? I was super excited, but part of me was stressed because of  too much long distance driving and sickness. I was sitting at my apartment last night watching a Lifetime movie (around 9) when I heard a knock at the door. I was expecting to skype chat with Lars at 9:15, but instead he was at my front door! I was still in my workout clothes. I WAS SHOCKED. Then he got 2 derby pies out of his car (one for freezing for later eating).

My first reaction was: DERBY PIE! My second reaction was: CRAP, I SHOULDN’T BE EATING THIS. WILL I BE ABLE TO STOP AT ONE SLICE. I was as well behaved as one can be with 2 derby pies fresh from Kentucky (Lars drove from Indiana to Kentucky, back up to Ohio). We each (and my roomie) had half a slice with a small amount of ice cream.

What is Derby Pie you ask? According to Wikipedia, Derby Pie “is a chocolate and walnut tart in a pie shell usually with a pastry dough crust. It is also commonly made with pecans, chocolate chips and Kentucky bourbon.” Now, listen. This pie I am about to present is NOT DERBY PIE, for copyright reasons. This pie uses pecans instead. So, this is not derby pie by definition.

I just prefer this one. For good homemade pie (their top seller is this apple pie covered with a layer of caramel; awesome) and ice cream go to Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen.

Here is a shot before the ice cream was added  so you can see all the layers: pecan, chocolate, bourbon pie filling.

And I should have had it without ice cream, but that is just a sin against the whole state of Kentucky.  The ice cream was low-fat.

This was a great pre-birthday treat. I am still shocked Lars did all that driving for my favorite dessert. So I couldn’t not eat it.

Rewarding Myself

Hello folks. Although I am still a bit cough-y, I decided to hit the gym. I did the elliptical for about 35 minutes. Embarrassingly, this is the first time I’ve worked out in a good while. Now that the thesis is done-ish and I have my life back, I can finally have “me” time for a decent workout.  It felt great! AND, I didn’t pass out!

When I got home I searched the fridge for some ice cream for my throat. I found one last Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwich (Peanut Butter and Chocolate). I am doing an excellent job of cleaning out the kitchen before my big move.

It was a refreshing end to a roller coaster of a day.  I also grabbed a Trader Joe’s Sparkling Water out of the fridge. I prefer this water over other brands that taste…artificial?

I will spend the rest of the night watching a four-hour Lifetime movie (Seven Deadly Sins) and packing for my KY/Indy vacation. Oh, this Lifetime movie is ridiculous a.k.a. awesome so far.

Side note. Thanks everyone for making my first week (and slightly more) so much fun in the blog world. I’m still getting the hang of food blogging, so thanks for your patience and insights.