Valentine's Day Shout Out

I may or may not have worked ALL DAY LONG on Valentine's Day. And then stayed up all night (quite literally - I saw productive hours I hadn't seen since undergrad finals weeks) prepping to sub a pathology class the next day. All I can say is its a good thing I love what I do, or it would have been a sad day.

The highlight of the day was Nicki surprising me with these lovely flowers:

Who loves Tulips? I love Tulips. What a babe. I have the best friend ever. Seriously.

Irrational Fear Conquered

I had a feeling that I was going to get tired of naming my posts "new recipe #___", I just didn't realize it would happen so soon...

I have never made popcorn on the stove before. Yes, never. And for good reason. I seem to have (had) a completely irrational fear of making popcorn on the stove. Now, I consider myself a fairly able cook (with the embarrassing exception of more grilled cheese burnings than I can count), and capable of most things I set my mind to, and also realize that popcorn shouldn't be a scary thing to make. Yet, there was something keeping me from attempting the stove-top variety for years. Yup, years. I'm not sure whether I was afraid of burning it, or afraid it just wouldn't work, or what exactly the source of the concern was, but it was there. And it was time to stop being ridiculous and get over the irrationality once and for all. So when it came time to decide what treat to bring to Anna's Mardi Gras Party, I knew it had to include popcorn popped on the stove.

Here's the recipe for some pretty tasty Cajun Popcorn:

2.5 quarts popped popcorn
.25 cup butter, melted
1 tsp each: paprika, lemon pepper
.5 tsp each: onion powder, garlic powder
.25 tsp cayenne pepper

Pour butter over warm popcorn. Combine remaining seasonings and sprinkle over popcorn; toss to mix. Bake in 300° oven for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring once.

Success! Every last kernel popped in my first batch. Turns out stove-top popcorn is pretty simple. Irrational fear finally conquered.

Why yes I did craft those cute little paper cones to put the popcorn in. Thanks for noticing.

New Recipe #4: Baklava

I may have cheated a bit on this one, since it wasn't entirely a new recipe. My dear friend Anna spent some time in Turkey and Bulgaria awhile back and when she returned had a dinner party with traditional foods from those countries. I had dessert duty. I asked Anna for recommendations and she mentioned eating a chocolate pistachio baklava that was to die for. Now, I'm not a fan of baklava. At least I wasn't. Chocolate is my vice. And since any baklava I'd ever seen was sans chocolate, I figured, what's the point? Well, chocolate pistachio baklava may have made me a believer. It was delicious. I totally messed up the recipe and it was still delicious. (I accidentally omitted half the necessary phyllo dough...)

Enter Baklava Take Two:
In light of the recent happenings in Egypt, my friends Clay and Jessica orchestrated an evening of great company, delicious middle eastern food, and lively discussions of world-happenings. I was again assigned dessert duty - baklava specifically. The request this time was for a more traditional baklava, i.e. not chocolate. Okay fine. I suppose 'normal' baklava can be tasty as well. I added orange zest, cinnamon, and nutmeg to the mix, as well as vanilla to the syrup, and couldn't resist drizzling chocolate on half of them. And I learned from my mishap and used the proper proportion of phyllo dough this time.

The nice thing about baklava is that it has the appearance of being fancy, but in reality is really really ridiculously easy to make. So the next time you're feeling simplistically fancy, give it a go. You won't regret it.

In case you were worried, they were delicious. And the chocolate one's were the first to go.

Confession...

I claim to be a really healthy eater.

But then I go and do things like eat In-N-Out burgers and Costco pizza two times each within a 7 day period.

Gross.

New Recipe of the Week #3: Cinnamon Waffles and Caramelized Apples

The other night I was seriously craving some waffles. Cinnamon waffles. Like the one's at Bruge's Waffles and Frites in SLC. But it was 11pm - much too late to be making, let alone eating, delicious waffles. So I found this recipe, and determined to wake up early in the morning to make them before work.

The alarm went off at 6:30am. Not a normal hour for me, but I jumped out of bed excited for the much-anticipated waffles. The egg whites had been beaten to soft peaks (impressed?), the batter was mixed, the apples were caramelizing and I was ready to start the waffles. Except that the waffle maker was missing. I had lent it to a friend and forgotten that they had yet to return it. An early morning text failed to alleviate the problem and I proceeded to become ridiculously sad about not getting to eat those waffles for breakfast. I consigned myself to tea while reading some scriptures on the couch when Nicki came out of her room to leave for work and I told her the fateful tale of the missing waffle maker. She too was sad to not have delicious waffles for breakfast.

Jump an hour and a half later. I am ready for work and its 15 minutes before go time - still no waffle maker. I proceed to try to figure out what to have for breakfast: out of cereal, used the last of the eggs in the waffle batter, and oatmeal sounds entirely unappetizing... I'm seriously depressed about this missing waffle maker. But then it dawns on me. Waffles and pancakes are quite similar. Enter second best idea of the day: Make cinnamon pancakes with caramelized apples. Duh.

And then as soon as I finished eating my pancakes and was running out the door to work, my phone rang and the waffle maker was promptly returned.

The End.