Snow Day, part deux

Good news!  My 2 classes tomorrow were cancelled, so I'm saved over 5 hours of class-time and instead I can focus on another to-do list.  I will start out with the things I didn't get around to on my first snow day and take it from there (again, mostly fun stuff . . .)

* pedicure
* physics homework (I'll take it down to a single "ick" since I got the first icky task out of the way yesterday)
* work on valentines
* read for fun
* clean for the superbowl party
* finalize superbowl menu/recipes
* work more on quilt

Snow Day to-do list

Not that I expect to accomplish everything, but most of these things should be fun, so we'll see . . .


* bake scones







- I made blueberry scones and they are wonderful!



* put together tax stuff (ick)
* read in my architecture history book
* practice accordion
* pedicure
* work on valentines
* read for fun
* clean for my superbowl party
* physics homework (double ick)

* work on patchwork quilt
- 1/3 done in no time.  This quilt should be finished before I know it . . . right?

I may add to this as necessary.

Saturday afternoon cookies

In a few hours, I'm headed down to Old Town for an afternoon of Trivia with my Colgate Chicago Alumni group.  Since I rarely like to go to a party empty handed, and I haven't had much of an opportunity to bake recently, I decided to bake some cookies to bring with me.  Actually, I have baked so rarely recently that I didn't even realize I had only 1/2 stick of butter in the refrigerator, with no back-up in the freezer.  Unprecedented!

So the cookies I chose for this afternoon are potato chip cookies, from an old issue of Real Simple Magazine.  You may remember that I made these cookies last Halloween for the kids in my building.  I found them to be crumbly, so today I tweaked the recipe a bit and am pretty happy with the results so far.  They're still a bit crumbly, so I may try some more egg next time, but for now, here's the new recipe:

1 cup butter at room temp.  (the original recipe calls for unsalted, but I'm a salty gal . . . )
1/2 cup granulated sugar (extra, if you want to dust the cookies with it)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup potato chips, crushed (extra, if you want to dust the cookies with it)
1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Heat oven to 375.  Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer on high speed.  Then add vanilla on medium speed.  Add the egg, flour and cinnamon.  Beat on low/medium speed until incorporated, then fold in potato chips and pecans.  Form into 1 inch balls, then dip in either sugar or more potato chips (today I used potato chips, because I'm taking them to a bar, so I want them to be saltier than sweet).  Place on parchment 2 inches apart and press with a flat-bottomed glass.  Bake until the edges are a little golden brown, 13-14 minutes, depending on your baking sheets.  Let cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks.  Yield: about 3 dozen.

Thanks to Real Simple for the original recipe, which I have loved enough to want to try to make it better :-)

Home

Home is an excellent song by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, which I started hearing sometime last spring.  This morning, a friend of mine on facebook posted the cutest youtube video ever of a little girl and her dad singing it together.  If my friend posted it on facebook, chances are everyone in the world has already seen this, but since I believe my main blog following consists of people who are related to me, it might be new to some of you.
Happy Wednesday!



and in case you're interested, here's a link to the original song.

weekend paperwork

So I was sidelined for my Friday night plans (to finally see a fellow piano teacher's band playing at a real club!) by a gruesome headache, but after spending about 14 hours in bed, I hopefully am back on track for the rest of my weekend, at least to a certain extent.  Tonight's celebration is one I've been looking forward to - my friend Katy's birthday dinner at Sun Wah BBQ, then singing at Lincoln Karaoke (my friends have rented out a room).  For Katy's birthday, I wanted to give her the very large ice cube trays that I got from Ikea a few years ago; she always compliments me on my ice cubes (boy, that sounds funny) whenever I have them at parties.  Unfortunately, when I went to Ikea last week, they didn't have them, so instead I bought her some forest animal shaped cookie cutters, which I also already own and were actually featured in Martha Stewart's holiday cookie magazine.
            To complement the animal cookies, I made Katy a birthday card featuring a javelina (because she already has a javelina cookie cutter for these new ones to befriend) and some traffic cones (long story):

A: to wish Katy a happy birthday!

and maybe bring me back some ibuprofen.  Ugh.

Perils of Cupcakes

On Tuesday night, my foodie partner-in-crime Ruthie and I had a real treat.  We met for dinner at the Soupbox on Chicago Ave.  I've eaten at the Lakeview location many times, and of course this was just as good, with a few more tables.
Then we made our chilly way over to Sprinkles, where they were having a small party, I guess you could call it, to introduce a new cupcake flavor: German Chocolate (officially available today).  Now I'm not a German Chocolate fan in general, but I have to say this was a very. good. cupcake.

            What made it even better, and what Ruthie and I hadn't known before showing up, was that everyone on "the list" would get to take home a box of 4 cupcakes (one German Chocolate, and 3 others, of our choice).  Clockwise from the top left, my cupcake choices were: Milk Chocolate/choc. frosting (simple I know), Lemon Coconut (really good!), Vanilla/choc. frosting (even simpler, I know), and finally German Chocolate.  Here's what I realized, 3 days later, having finished all the cupcakes:
The best thing about being single is: if you get a box of free cupcakes, you don't have to share them with anyone.
The worst thing about being single is: if you get a box of free cupcakes, you'll eat them all yourself.
Oh, sweet gluttony.