Cupcakes in College

I decided to go out and buy myself a cute little cheap mixer. To christen her, I made some cupcakes.

Key lime cupcakes be exact. Graham cracker flavored cake with some key-lime icing.  I guess not many people make cupcakes from scratch in college kitchens, but I decided to anyway because cupcakes make me happy.

 

I got the recipe from http://mingmakescupcakes.yolasite.com/

That site spurred my recent cupcake obsession.

The icing as written is a little too sweet for my liking, but you can put in less sugar. I just tripled the amount of lime in it. Why? Because I love limes.  I love cupcakes so much. They cheer me up.

January 10th, Day 1

I've decided to try and start a photo-a-day project. Well, at least one a day. Let's see how this goes! First off: Furman Snow Day!

I have a new favorite cake!

Luckily, it's one that I can make myself.  I am actually hesitant to share this recipe since it's as big of a hit as it was. I took it over to Nathan and Melody today (along with the chicken/garbanzos/paprika/tomatoes thing that I've blogged about before) and everyone really seemed to enjoy it. It's not too sweet, which is nice.  Next time I make it, I'm going to actually get the caramelized sugar to work. I conceded to it today because I got frustrated, so it's not as nice as I would have liked. Oh well :) Life is good lately, and not-actually-caramelized sugar will not ruin my day. Or even my hour. Here's the recipe!: Epicurious link

This is me being lazy and not typing it all out. My apologies. There's also a link to the poached oranges on there too.

We all scream for...

My dearest Aunt and Uncle gave my family an ice cream maker since they were going to get rid of it and I'm SUPER EXCITED about it. Why? For home made ice cream of course. I'll have to actually post a recipe eventually, but I think I'm going to have to just post pictures of what I've been enjoying and how much I'm enjoying more often so I don't neglect this as much. Right now? Home made ice cream is the best. I look like the biggest fat kid going to the store though, because I come out carrying lots of heavy cream, whole milk and sugar. It's so worth it. I promise.

I tried to tell someone the other day that my life doesn't revolve around food: eating, cooking, preparing, shopping, thinking about, but then I realized it'd be a complete lie. Since I've gotten this ice cream maker, I've had a bit of a berry obsession. I've been buying fresh blackberries because my favorite ice cream so far is blackberry ice cream. That's the picture up there. It's especially good when it's topped with freshly picked blueberries by yours truly. There's the cutest blueberry patch ever in the middle of Chapin (you know you live in a small town when....) that I've been frequenting. I love the feeling of standing inside the blueberry bush (ducking under branches and standing right beside the stem) and being surrounded by all of the ripest blueberries ever. I may or may not break the rule about "taste testing only". Oops.

I hope heaven is filled with berry bushes and ripe fruit. If I designed it, it would be.

When in Boston: Eat

So, I just came home (well not just, it's been a week) from beautiful, wonderful, fantastic Boston. I've determined that I want to live there at some point, especially if it takes the form of some time learning at Harvard. I have high hopes, oh yes, I do. I love all of the architecture and being surrounded by people, and most of all? FOOD. It is everywhere. All different kinds of food from all different backgrounds, and it's everywhere. Kind of like all of the men, but that's a story for another day and nothing really to write home about. Forewarning: There will be a departure from the normally well-lit, well focused pictures in this post because several of these were taken with one of two blackberry phone cameras usually for the purpose of twitpic and bragging to friends. (Sorry for making you hungry, guys :) )

Anyway: So the food. Boston made a great first

impression with this Reuben sandwich. The sauerkraut tasted really freshly made (that sounds like an oxymoron, but it's not, promise)

and I don't know what they did to the meat, but everyone should do that. Why? Because it's

incredible. By the end of the meal, the sandwich won though because if you can't tell from the picture, it was GIGANTIC. And delicious? Have I mentioned that yet?

There's this lovely section of town

known as the North End, which is the home of italian food and BAKERIES. Yum. The first night

there, we met up with one of my mom's high school friends a

nd had delicious pizza. This came in a very close second to New York pizza only due to a matter

of preferences. It was the type of pizza where

everything is just thrown on top haphazardly, without the neat layers of "sauce, cheese,

toppings" which I almost prefer to the cute layered ones.

Afterwards, Danielle and I made our trek to get some cannoli, because that was our goal from

the get-go. Oh goodnesssss. Word from the internet said to get them from Mike's Pastry in the North End, and that was certainly a good suggestion. Even after eating pizza, three cannoli were

devoured between us. One was an original ricotta

that was dipped in chocolate on either side,one had an amaretto flavored filling and the third? I'm not sure but it was awes

ome because the shell was a little bit different.

Can you tell I was excited from this picture? Also, my choice of hair styles for traveling is interesting. Please forgive.

Day two: We headed over to Cambridge, which is the home of Harvard University. I don't think I've ever had my breath taken away by a building until I saw the memorial hall of this place. It's beautiful. Back to food though, since this is a food blog after all. In Cambridge, there is a place

that was highly recommended by urbanspoon.com (If you've never seen that site, it's awesome and you should go check it out

after you finish reading my rambling.) called Russell House Tavern, which is deemed a

"gastropub" by the internet, whatever that means. Good job on the recommendation, internet. SO worth it. It was really cheap, but I

think I would enter a love affair the poached egg I had because it was AWESOME. This was one of my favorite meals of the trip. The egg had some sort of crispiness to the outside and was salted perfectly so that all of the flavors came out but

not so much that it was "salty". It was on top of a bed of greens with some sort of sauce. That guy describes it a lot better than I can. I didn't think I could ever be filled up by one egg dish, but it was so wonderful that it did. Also, it wasn't very expensive at all for such a great place to eat (with great atmosphere -bzzzzzzzzzzz- as people watched the World Cup). Oh Russell House Tavern, please make me poached eggs for the rest of my life.

After that, we wandered around Cambridge some more and found a cupcake store! I asked the

guy for his recommendation as far as their coffee-flavored ones went (since all of you should

know my addiction by now), and his recommendation was spot on. He recommended a cute little cappuccino cupcake

accompanied by a cup of coffee because the cupcake itself was dry and rich. Somehow, they made the cake part so that it wasn't terribly sweet, but it paired perfectly with the sweet icing and cup of coffee. Melody, this one was for you since I couldn't bring one back for you since I'd

devour it.

And of course, we couldn't go to Boston without going to eat LOBSTERS. We went over to a part of town with lots of fishing boats (forgive my lack of Boston geography skills) to a place known as No Name Seafood. I'll put the lobster itself here but go over to my facebook for pictures of us having way too much fun playing with our

food. By the way, eating lobster as a newbie is a barbaric process and I don't recommend it for any time that you want to come off as classy and refined. Also, everything (including my camera,

which is disgusting the next day) smells like

lobsters afterwards. Ew. Great taste, not such a great smell.

The next day we didn't eat much because we were still full from the previous day. Also, it wa

s the 4th of July! So we went on tours of navy boats (Oh hay!) and stood in crowded areas to watch fireworks (and take too

many pictures. I hope you all like the noises that SLR's make on burst mode: tch tch tch tch tch). Oh and to watch people get escorted out of the crowd by the police for being wasted in public. Way to go, sir.

We did a lot of wandering on the last day just because it's such a great city. First off: lunch in

Chinatown. We picked a random restaurant off the street, and figured it must have been good because it was FULL OF ASIANS (kind of like the rest of Boston). Hooray, authenticity, I suppose. I ordered some ginger duck because well, when in Rome... SO worth it. It was tender and falling off the bone. I could eat ducks all day long if they all tasted like this. Quack. Also, it was only like $15 for the both of us to get far more than we could have eaten.

Then we wandered some more until we saw a place called Red Mango. It is a cute place to get

frozen yogurt (that actually tastes like yogurt with the tasty bit of tangy-ness) with really fresh fruit on top. Mine is the one in the back, which was pomegranate yogurt with blueberries on top. (mmm blueberries) while Danielle's is in front with all of the fruit. She had a vanilla yogurt with all of the fruit that you see there. The fruit was so fresh. I could eat there every day (if I was rich and lived in Boston, of course)

Then, unfortunately, we had to return home. However, I think Danielle and I sufficiently ate our way through Boston. Hooray, food! It was seriously some of the best food I have EVER eaten. EVER. I want to live there at some point. Also, sorry for the formatting in this. I'm not sure what happened, but I'm too lazy to fix it.

What am I into right now?

I figured I should also write about other interests because sometimes I become obsessed with things for short bursts of time and then forget completely about them. So, right now:

In food related news: the grill is my new favorite place to cook everything. Those of you who know me know that I normally enjoy grilling, but now that it's summer? Everything is going on the grill. Yesterday, for Father's day, my grill met some bell peppers, zucchini squash strips, mushrooms and onions. The squash strips went directly onto the warming rack of the grill and drizzled with olive oil and salt. The bell peppers and mushrooms went onto sheets of aluminum foil (so they didn't fall into the fiery abyss) The mushrooms were just little white ones that I chopped in half (in later dates, I'll probably quarter them or something similar) and threw around in some olive oil. I also added rosemary to the mushrooms because mushrooms+rosemary is the best combination EVER. I could eat them all day long. The squash were absolutely delicious too. Some of the squash gets a nice crisp outside while the inside is soft, while it has a nice hint of saltiness that just brings out all the flavor. I put the chopped onions in a foil pack (I'm such a girl scout) with some Worcestershire sauce and then put that to the side of the grill. Those onions were awesome on the steaks that were grilled after all the veggies were done. I love me some steak, by the way. I like to say that I'm honoring the hard work of my ancestors by eating as much red meat as I do. They didn't fight through hunter-gathering and so forth for me to emaciate myself.

Oh? And when playing with olive oil on the grill? Watch out! It's highly flammable, so it becomes a game of "watch for flare-ups". I somehow managed to get out of all of this grilling alive without any wounds. Well, at least not from grilling. All my bruising seems to come from the next part:

Lifting weights. I'm interested in throwing around heavy things lately. I finally got my membership to the Y that I've been begging for since school ended. I swear this is the most addicting hobby. Load up the weights onto the bar; put the bar in the desired position; ask yourself what you got into because this is obviously too much weight; lift weight the desired amount of times while making all sorts unattractive faces and grunts; rest feeling proud of yourself; deflect looks from the guys who scoff at me being in "their area" (Too bad. I'm not moving 'till I'm done.); lift weight for number of desired sets; walk away feeling like a beast (or stumble away if it was a leg workout). The rush that I get when I lift the weight for the first time is incomparable. Take deadlifts on Satuday for instance: it's basically bending over and picking up a barbell off the floor. (If you're actually going to lift it, please consider your form first). I loaded up the weights because I factually know that I can lift 125lbs in that. However, that first time when I stand there in front of it and realize this is the weight of a small woman and my hands are like "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO US?" and my muscles are like "Put this down right now, young lady, or else we will collapse" and then do none other than lift it, which then shuts down the peanut gallery of my muscles. (Repeat 23 times.) Then you finish and are just want to yell something about "What now?", but then you realize that you're in a crowded room so you just smirk at it as you unrack the weights. Oh, heavy things, I think I love you. However, since I've got the grace of a drunk giraffe, I always end up hitting myself with lots of weights and generally making a fool of myself in front of strangers.

People! I've gone out with more friends in the past two weeks than I have in the past 6 months. Being single is awesome in this way. All of these outings usually involve food or otherwise fascinating events. I love going out and just laughing my head off for 3 hours (or more) with my ladies. This is very much tied to: The lake! Sometimes I go down to the lake and just jump in and swim around for like an hour. Why? Because it's refreshing. Owning a boat is awesome because that means I can constantly have people over to go boating and swimming.

And finally: British television, most namely Doctor Who and it's spin-off Torchwood. These are the two most addicting shows in the history of television. Well, the first must be recognized because it is the longest running sci-fi show EVER. The stories are so well written and the actors are all pretty good. Hello, David Tennant and Matt Smith, anyone? While Doctor Who is generally accepted to be more of a "family show", Torchwood is the more adult spin-off which airs later at night. It focuses more on the people whereas Doctor Who sometimes ends up just being OH NOES! ALIENS! However, since it is the more adult version, the producers feel like they need to include gratuitous sex which never ceases to make me feel awkward because with my luck, people always walk in to chat with me during these scenes. Oh, media, you're so silly. I don't want to see that.

So, these are my interests at the moment. I'm going to go give blood today at 4:00. That's exciting too, I suppose. I like to give blood at churches because then they have their little old ladies make cookies and refreshments for the donors. I bleed for cookies, as the one volunteer's shirt read.

In a better mood

Hello world! I get to eat delicious food for the next few days, and you all should be jealous. I'm convinced this week has been and will continue to be so awesome that the past two weeks can't even begin to eclipse it. So far: Food? Check. Best cousin ever? Check. Hot boys? Check. Carowinds? Check. Destroyed phone and starting it all over? Check. (Far too symbolic not to mention, of course.) Sharing stories with old friends? Check.

More to come, too. Graduations, graduations parties, boat rides, family, friends, MORE FOOD. Don't worry. I'll share wonderful pictures of all this food (and of course everything else) with the lot of you. I'm such a Garrett. "Of course we need food to celebrate this occasion." Lots of barbecue courtesy of Dr. Lanham and Palmetto Pig. Lots of good southern food courtesy of my mom and her sister. Lots of other food courtesy of myself.

Goodbye high school. Sup life? We've started off on a good foot, we should continue it. Let's do this. Time to really live.