Recipe For Fun

Well, hello there! Yet another week of my life has gone by, and I must say I have been thoroughly exhausted through and through. It's the third week in the row that I have been waking up consistently early, and it's starting to take a toll. I'm just way tired all the time! Silver lining: I'm entertaining the people in my class with my lack of awakeness. Apparently I'm funny when I'm tired.

Side note: Did anyone else know that there were Rudy's BBQ restaurants outside of Texas?? I tried calling one of my teachers out on it and he totally turned it around on me because i didn't do my research. Oh, the life lessons I am learning in college.

Yet again, this has been another successful and not-so-successful cooking week. (I'm thinking I should just give up and make this into a cooking blog- but I won't. I like writing about the other things in my life too, you know!)

So first: baked ziti. I called my Grandma Helena who is a FABULOUS cook, and she talked me through it, gave me a recipe that I almost followed exactly, and it was very successful. I made a whole 9x13 pan though, so I had LOTS of leftovers when I was done. I invited one of my friends over and we talked and ate and it was great!  I was very happy with how it turned out.

A couple nights later, I decided to try my hand at TEXAS SHEET CAKE! I called Heather from back home because I remembered that hers was amazing, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I took these ingredients:

And turned them into....

which I then turned into....

ta-da!!

Haha. So a few quick notes about the Texas Sheet Cake. The cake part tured out marvelously. I got a little creative with the topping. I'm not a huge fan of pecans, so I decided not to do those. Instead, I bought chocolate and vanilla Charleston Chew and put them in the freezer (a trick I learned this summer @ Aspen Grove) because it makes them brittle and really easy to crack and break. So I ended up smashing those and sprinkling it on top. I felt pretty creative.

However, I definitely struggled with the icing. It was a combination of mistakes- me not taking it off the heat, me putting too much powdered sugar in, me probably whipping it too much. In any case, the icing turned out to be a thicker, almost fudgy substance, and it was very rich. It covered most of the cake, but not all of it. I was really disappointed when I first tried it, just because I knew that I'd messed up the icing and that I'd had better. But then my roommates tried it and they absolutely LOVED it! So, with that boost of confidence, a roommate and I brought some over to some boys in our ward and guess what? They loved it too! So I guess in the end, it did turn out quite well.

Now for the strawberry cake adventure. I found this recipe that looked absolutely DIVINE online for a strawberry cake. I wanted to try it so bad. So my friend Jess came over and we made it! But we ran into some difficulties along the way. So here's what happened. We started with the cake batter. We mixed the batter:

(that's supposed to be "light and fluffy"

and we pureed the strawberries using my roommate's magic bullet. it really is MAGIC!

then we mixed some more!

(these are my artistic mixing bowl pictures.)

and we peeled the strawberries!

We also made icing, but we forgot to take pictures of that. You get the gist of it anyways. And here's a picture of the finished product:

It looks impressive, right? Well let me tell you a little secret. About 5 seconds after we took these pictures, everything started melting off! It was horrible! The strawberries on the side kept falling off, and it looked like everything was sliding off the plate. Then when we tried to cut it, it turned into a jumbled mess!

But.. that's not to say that it wasn't PLATE-LICKIN' GOOD! :) 

:)

And it was very scrumptious. Although it made a HUGE mess of dishes. Oops. But it was definitely a fun night, and another fun cooking adventure. I think I'm going to make a goal to try at least one new recipe a week. (I know I have to say only one a week because anything else would be very unrealistic.) 

OH WAIT. I have to mention a story that happened to me this week really quick.

So I was walking home from school, totally zoning out, in my own little world, and all of a sudden, this guy JUMPS out of a cardboard box and SCREAMS at me! Well of course I scream like the little girl that I am, and he just starts laughing hysterically. As I'm walking away, he points across the street and tells me that his friend is filming it. Gee, that's just really great, buddy. Yikes. Anyways. That would happen to me, right? I know.

Got a big week ahead: my first big paper and my first big test are due this week. So hopefully those go well! Fingers crossed. AND I'm going to try to get more sleep. I'm gonna. :)

Toodles!

Wake Me Up When September Ends

So every time that September rolls around, particularly near the end of September, I always think of that song by Yellow Card. (I think it's Yellow Card at least?) It kind of encompasses how I've felt about the last two weeks- it'st just been so crazy, I just needed to make it to the end.

Of course, that in no way solves my busy life, but that's okay. Why, might you ask, has my life been so busy? Well, let me tell you! I got a job! :) FINALLY. I'd been trying for at least a month to find a job and I finally got lucky! I now work at the Wheatley Institution, which is supported by BYU and located in the Hinckley Center. I am working as a secretary, and my hours are 8-12, M-F. I'm SO grateful for this job. Seriously. If you wanna learn more about what the Wheatley Institution is, you can go to this link: http://wheatley.byu.edu/.

I'd like to once again emphasize HOW MUCH I LOVE MY CLASSES!! Well, my English ones at least. I am seriously loving both of them. Now it might just be that I have awesome professors in both classes, or it could be that I love the subjects we're learning about. Probably it's a combination of both. But we always have great discussions, and I love learning new things. It was so amazing, the other day one of my teachers gave us a poem, talked to us a little bit about the author and told us that we were going to have an appreciation of art day instead of focusing on the technical. So he gave us the poem and told us to find our favorite spot on campus and read it, and then we were dismissed. Cool, huh? The same teacher also gave us the day off of class on Friday so that we could get our homework done for Monday so that we could appreciate General Conference weekend! I love BYU. So much.

I have to say, I've really been missing my freshman guy friends lately. Like a ton. I don't know why- probably because I used to hang out with them all the time and now they're pretty much all gone. It's just sad that I can't call them or hug them or talk to them. Of course, I'm so proud of them and I know that they are all where they're supposed to be, but it's still hard.

Cooking update, anyone? I swear, lately I have been so inspired to cook. I find inspiration in all shapes in sizes, whether it be Julie and Julia (such a great movie), or MasterChef, or even my roommate Cristy who cooks/bakes lots of yummy goodies all the time. There are just some days that I want to create a masterpiece. Of course, that's somewhere in the very distant future. I'm just at the beginning level right now. But, let me tell you about two dishes that I made and loved this last 2 weeks or so.

First: orange chicken! I bought a packet of frozen chicken that came with the orange sauce from the grocery store. While I was cooking that, I made some rice and I cooked some veggies and then I combined them all together and it tasted divine.

Second: Last night I made monkey bread! This was a classic from my childhood. I always used to love making it with my dad. I decided to make it for myself last night and it turned out PERFECTLY! I was so happy, cause it was my first time making it on my own and I was quite nervous, to be honest. But it was all good :)

So yeah! Those were just a couple of my cooking adventures recently. I also made Shepherd's Pie, but I didn't take a picture of it because it doesn't look as good as it tastes. 

I went to dinner with Haley and Alison today! It was so nice to get together and catch up. It actually made me kind of homesick. Well, that and the fact that I booked my ticket to Austin for Christmas this week! I'm way excited to go home, but it seems like it's a lifetime away. 

Let's see... I got new glasses! I don't have to wear glasses all the time, I just wear them when I need to focus or concentrate, but the ones that I had were old and scratched and I figured that it was about time to get new ones! So I picked out some way cute frames, and I'm really happy with them!

Oh yeah! I totally forgot! Last week, Haley and I went to a TEXAS PARTY! That's right. It was hosted by the BYU Alumni chapters from San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas. They brought BLUEBELL ice cream! They gave out door prizes and had a costume contest and it was just awesome. I was really anxious because I wanted to get a Texas door prize SO badly, but they just weren't calling my number. Slowly, I watched the prizes dwindle until there was only one left. Then, they called the very last number... and it was MINE! That like never ever ever happens to me so I was super psyched. Like hard core. It was a Texas plate, and it is my favorite.

Also, with September has arrived the FALL PREMIERES! My favorite shows are back! Community, the Office, Merlin, Grey's Anatomy, GLEE!! Ah. It's been a great month.

So I guess nothing too incredibly exciting to report. I'll try to be better on posting more regularly, but there are a lot of things I'm going to try to be better at- cooking, exercising, cleaning my room, doing my homework..... etc. etc. etc.

Oh, college life. You are turning me into a grown up. Yikes.