Holiday Adventures

With the holidays coming up and a couple of office events, I've had more push to try a couple of new things.

First, I got a mini muffin maker from my mother-in-law. I'm actually really excited to use this gadget. My first trial with this was with a pre-mixed mixture for chocolate chip muffins. They cooked fairly quickly, but it was hard to get them out of the machine. I ended up using a spoon and some of them broke as seen in the picture below.


The other thing I tried is cinnamon hard candy. I've made hard candy before but never with a candy thermometer. I definitely do have to say it's worth paying for one.


My candy came out consistent and did not turn into a gooey mess in the mouth. It also didn't taste like a mouth full of sugar like my first time.


As for crafts, I can't really show any at the moment. I just sent out the 2009 12 days of Christmas swap. I will post pictures as they get opened. :) I will start working on my quilting now that one of my last craftster swap is done.

Day After Thanksgiving Break Cooking

I had a wonderful time in Hays, Kansas. It was nice to see Andy's family and my best friend from high school. It's back to reality now and I have to think about what's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. After seeing others cook dinner, I have gotten a much needed push to do more cooking at home.

For dinner tonight, I made Seafood Alfredo with Capellini pasta:

Ingredients
1 jar of Alfredo Sauce
1 bag (about 1 lb) of Seafood Blend
1 cup of mixed peppers (frozen and pre-cut)
Capellini Pasta

I first cooked the pasta according to the instructions on the bag, it took about 3 minutes after the water boiled. I then sauteed the seafood in some olive oil. I added the peppers after the seafood was cooked. Once the peppers had softened, I added the Alfredo sauce into the pan and let it cook on low-medium heat for a bit so that the sauce could inherit some of the seafood taste. Once everything was done, I added the pasta to the sauce.

After dinner, I decided to make some dessert. Most of it will probably be taken to work because Andy and I will eat it all and regret it later if we keep it at home. I decided to make Andy's mom's rice krispy treats since it's commonly asked for at work. :)

Rice Krispy Treats

Ingredients:

Unfrosted Rice Kripy Treats


Rice Krispy Treats Ready for Eatting

No Habla Español

When I lived in Miami, I was able to learn a little bit of Spanish. I definitely did better than the people that didn't speak Spanish regularly, but I definitely wasn't able to communicate at all in Spanish. I could say the words and connect a few words together but I could really talk to anyone on a normal basis.

I really wish that I pursued the language a bit. It is so much more common than French and definitely more alive than Latin. I don't know why I didn't study it in high school nor college.

Spanish is definitely a big factor in living in Tucson. I want to learn Spanish so that I can communicate better in this city. Yesterday Andy and I stopped by this hot dog stand for dinner, and we ran into a big obstacle. The people that ran the stand did not speak English at all except a few words here and there. We pretty much had to point at what we wanted and hoped that it was good. Although we couldn't say clearly what we wanted, the food we got was great.

I think it was called hot dog de hungaro. It didn't have bacon or anything. It was a hot dog with baked beans and lots of toppings. That's one of the things I've discovered and loved in Tucson, the cheap hot dogs with lots of toppings. :)

New Baking Recipes

I tried out out a couple of different recipes this week. Both of which are from bakerella.com.

The first one I tried was a brownie with cookie bites. I don't have pictures from it because I took it to work. Andy doesn't really like brownies and it turned out really rich. I think I made some new friends at work by bringing in treats, which is always a good thing. I think I've also made some enemies into not-so-bad enemies. I'm glad I can try things out now and they won't go bad before it's been eatten up, which is super nice.

The second recipe I tried was a cheesecake. I've made cheesecake before but it was from the back of a Nestle bag. The recipe from bakerella was much better. It had more cream cheese and it didn't include any chocolate chips, which made the cheesecake part stand out rather than the chocolate. The crust was regular graham cracker:

This was my first time making a crust from graham crackers. The most tricky part of this was blending enough to make a crust. It tasted really good. The rest of the cheesecake was really good too. This can be clearly seen here in the half eatten one :).

I've made a pumpkin pie last month already, but I'm probably going to try it again. It probably won't be done till sometime in November. I may try making the pumpkin pie bites that are the front page feature of bakerella.com.

Sunday Morning Baking

One of the things that I love to do other than knitting and crocheting is baking. I'm not super great at it, but I love to try different recipes. I wish I could make things pretty and become a pastry chef, but I'm not that talented.

Anyways, one of the things I got from Andy's mom is the Donut Bite - Mini doughnut maker.

I really didn't want it when she first offered it to us, but Andy did, so we took it. I didn't know what we'd do with it, and I really didn't have a recipe of any sort.

I decided to look a recipe one day online and try out the machine. The recipe I found sucked. It made the donuts too salty and extremely dry, even powder sugar couldn't cover up the saltiness. Halfway through the process, I decided to add some more stuff and made it much better. After a few attempts, I came up with the perfect recipe.

Mini Chocolate Chip Mini-Doughnuts
2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup milk
1 cup mini morsel chocolate chips

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together except the chocolate chips
2. Add wet ingredients to the dry mixture
3. Stir in the chocolate chips
4. Lightly oil the doughnut device
5. Scoop mixture into the device and close lid
6. Doughnuts will be done after 2 minutes

It's now a Sunday tradition for me to make donuts. It starts off with the recipe at top, plus my wonderful mixer:

Some time for the gadget to work:

Some time for the doughnut to cool:

The doughnuts usually disappear before the next Sunday arrives because of my little tester. It definitely makes me extremely happy seeing how much my hubby enjoys them.

Tucson Tamale Company

I had been craving tamales lately. I think it stems from the tamales I got last year from this guy dragging around a cooler. He was selling tamales his wife had made for very cheap. He only had two kinds, red or green. We got both, but I loved the green. We've been back to the shopping center where we saw this guy, however, we've haven't seen this guy again.

The Tucson Weekly just came out with the Best of 2009 list and they had one for Tamales. The winner was Tucson Tamale Company. We decided to try this out today, especially with my tamale craving. Between Andy and I, we were able to have 4 different Tamales - Jojo, Arizona, The Tucson Tamale, and Green Corn Tamale. We both got the tamale plate which came with a side and salsa. We both chose the green salsa made from tomatillo, cilantro, garlic and cumin. Food came out hot and very quickly. It was all very delicious and unique. Before leaving, we bought cold tamales for home. I hope that my microwave and or oven will produce as yummy ones as the ones we had today. I hope to try out the Thanksgiving one that I've been hearing so much about. :)

I think the only thing I have to complain about the Tucson Tamale Company is the hours. Most of the week they close at 7, and weekends at 5. With how long Andy and I work, I don't think we would ever be able to go there during the week. I think we will definitely visit this place again, if not for the hot plates, definitely for the cold tamales to go.

Jo Ann Coupon Commotion

This week is Jo Ann's coupon commotion week and it made me think about my life. It's amazing how cheap I still am even though I make more money now than I did in college.
I really discovered how much I enjoy crafting in college, but I was always too cheap to buy the nice yarn or tools to craft. A lot of the tools and supplies I used came from the thrift store. I would go to Michael's and Jo Anns once in a while but usually to look unless I had a coupon.
Now that I work full time, I am still the same. I refuse to buy full price and am always disappointed if I find the items cheaper somewhere else. I guess that's just the way I'll always be. I definitely can say that it's not a bad thing, but it's just funny thinking about it.