You can't go wrong with Pretzels & Beer

So "Debbie-Downer" has been taking over my life recently - today was a happy day finally. Laughing and smiling like a fool is always a good way to go about your day. While a small emotional roller coaster ride completed the day all in all a great day. And as the law states (my laws of course) you should finish a great day with something tasty to eat and of course a good beverage.

In keeping with the fall German tradition of Oktoberfest I went with Pretzels & Beer... Germany was probably one of the greatest trips my family has ever taken and giant beers with delicious pretzels can never do you wrong. Highly suggest the Shock Top Pumpkin Wheat ... And any cooking project should never be done with out a beverage in hand :)

As usual - I saw this on Pinterest and borrowed the recipe from someone else :) 

Ingredients are as follows...

• 1 Cup Warm Milk
• 2 1/4 Teaspoons Yeast
• 3 Tablespoons Packed Brown Sugar
• 2 1/2 Cups Flour
• 2 Tablespoons Butter
• 1 Teaspoon Salt
• 3 Tablespoons Baking Soda
• Coarse Sea Salt
• Butter for Brushing

1. Pour milk into a large bowl & sprinkle the yeast into the bowl. Let it sit for about two minutes. As determined here this is just enough time to get your music setup because what is a night of cooking without a dance party? By yourself? Judge me. 

2. Mix in the brown sugar & 1 cup of flour

Honestly i'd show you the rest of the mixing process but it looks horrible and I think you would give up now. Be prepared the mixing part isn't pretty but stay strong - the pretzels are tasty! 

3. Melt the 2 tablespoons of butter and stir into the mixture. Then add the remaining flour & salt to form a slightly sticky dough.

4. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth but still slightly sticky. If there was any anger or aggression you needed to get out from the day - this is the time. Get it. 

5. Shape the dough into a ball and place in a slightly greased bowl. Cover with plastic and place in a warm area to rise until the dough has...

6. Doubled? At this point to you get a beat the shit out of your dough again. Jab - Cross - Jab and repeat on a floured surface. 

7. Now we get to pretzel time - divide the dough into 8 pieces. Roll and stretch each piece into a 25 inch section. 25 really? How about you do what I did and roll the dough to the size it feels like being and then give it your best effort to make a pretzel shape. Unless you have previous experience as a Pretzel Time Employee this is going to take a few tries and maybe even google "how to make a pretzel shape". But I have faith in you. 

8. Dissolve the baking soda into the water in a small dish. Once you've tried your hardest to make what looks like pretzel shapes give them a quick bath in the baking soda and water mixture. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper & give it a quick spray with some cooking spray. 

9. Lay the pretzels out on the prepped baking sheet and then sprinkle with salt. Bake them at 450 for 8-10 Minutes - Really just bake them until the color you like your pretzel to be. Mine ended up at about 12 but some of them were hearty little guys! 

Suggestions for future pretzel makers... Either A: take a little more time to perfect your pretzel shape of B: Drink more before you make the shapes and just forget that there is a real shape to pretzels all together. They are pretty tasty and would be great as pretzel nuggets with some cheese (Which is really what I wish I had right now)

Best of luck and more Creative Girl Dreams to come :)

Oh Shit We Forgot Dessert!

So tonight my parents were having some friends over. As usual I adopted all of the cooking responsibilities. Usually I prefer to be a part of the grocery store adventure but today I opted to sleep in - something I rarely get to do. Since I didn't get to go to the store and review the list 10 times before we left I didn't get to confirm we had everything we needed even though I was cooking.

Company was expected by 4 PM. At 3:30 I had everything prepped and ready to go in the oven at the right time. I've gotten really good at timing things for dinner parties. I had roasted veggies - asparagus & sweet potatoes - and I was all set to saute some mushrooms for the steaks. We even had some shrimp cocktail and veggies for appetizers but then after reviewing everything we had I asked my mom what she bought for dessert. It was then that we came to the same realization and in unison said "Oh shit, we forgot dessert!"

Since everyone was arriving in about a half an hour the pressure was on. What the hell did we have in my house to make dessert? I checked the "baking" cabinet - conveniently Barb thought the other day was a good time to clean that cabinet out - apparently EVERY box of cake mix I had bought in the last two months was expired. So I starting rooting through the fridge and looked at the fruit we had.

Apples were my best bet. And the only thing close enough to a crust or cake we had was a pillsbury pizza dough. I didn't want to risk making some sort of roll or turnover so I went with what the crust was intended for... I was going to make an apple pie pizza.

• Peal & Slice 4 Apples
• Spread the Pillsbury Pizza Dough on a baking sheet
• Place the apples in a mixing bowl and add the following
• 3 Tablespoons Flour 
• 2/3 Cup Sugar
• Teaspoon Cinnamon
• Spread the apple mixture on top of the pizza dough
• Next combine the following:
• 1/2 Cup Flour
• 1/3 Brown Sugar
• 1/3 Oats
• 1 Teaspoon of Cinnamon
• 1/4 Softened Butter
• Spread the crumble over the top of the apples

Bake at 350 Degrees for 30 minutes. It was done before we put the steaks on so it was cooled and settled by the time we cut into it. The only other thing we were missing was some vanilla ice cream! There are so many options I'd like to try to with this. I did some research on dessert pizzas afterwards and saw something about a s'mores pizza - sounds like a delicious option next time! 

Craft Time - Coasters!

So I knew I had some free time and desire to be crafty this weekend so I went to my go to "Craft Ideas" board on Pinterest. On what was turning out to be a stressful Friday at work I became overwhelmed in 5 seconds. How do you choose from hundreds of craft projects that you want to do?!?

I narrowed it down to a few things that I knew I could complete in a day or two. I decided on coasters. Not only was it appealing because I could be done quickly but also I hoped it would be inexpensive.

FIrst you'll need to gather your supplies - if you're new to crafting you'll need to get some investment items such as the modge podge, the Acrylic Crystal Clear spray paint, and a small x-acto knife. Your supplies list will include:

• Ceramic Tiles 
• I bought small square tiles from Home Depot for 16 cents each! 
• Scrapbook paper 
• I was making a total of 12 coasters so I bought 6 sheets of scrapbook paper. You can get 4 tiles out of each sheet but JUST incase you make a mistake you'll want the extra. Depending which pattern you buy the paper ranged from 59 cents - $1.99. 
• I chose a flat paper without any sparkles or raised pattern because I wasn't sure how it would turn out with the modge podge over it
• Foam Brush
• X-acto knife 
• I found mine in the scrapbooking aisle at the craft store
• Modge Podge 

• I have two different types - the Matte & Gloss finish so I figure i'll try both for this project
• Acrylic clear spray paint 
• I bought Krylon Acrylic Crystal Clear - You can get this either at Home Depot when you're buying the tiles or if you're like me and are so amped to find the perfect tiles at Home Depot that you pay, walk out, and drive away before remembering that you needed this ... you can just get it at the craft store. 
• Wine - no friday night of crafting is complete without wine. 
• You can see my choice for the night to the right >>>>

You'll want to start by cutting out the paper for the top of the tiles. Just line up the tile on the paper and cut around the edges with the x-acto knife.

Then take the modge podge with your foam brush and cover the top of the tile completely - make sure you get all the way to the edges because you don't want the paper to lift at all. Then set the paper on top of the modge podged tile. Make sure the paper lays flat and there aren't and wrinkles or bubbles. Brush on more modge podge on top of the paper. Also brush around the edges to make sure it is sealed onto the tile.

Repeat the process with each of the tiles and various papers you have chosen. I did four with the Matte finish podge and 8 with the gloss. Only when comparing them side by side can you actually tell the difference in the finishes.

Because the edges of the tiles looked unfinished I decided to choose an acrylic paint to pull one of the colors out of the paper. I painted the edges and the bottoms.

Finally spray the tops, bottoms, and sides of the tiles with the acrylic crystal clear spray so that the coasters are water resistant. And voila! Cute custom coasters :) My mom is insistant that I should sell them at craft fairs... We'll see about that - I think I just prefer to set my wine glass on them instead! 

Today's Request

Sometimes I'm feeling extra nice and I actually take requests for baked goods. Today, despite the fact that it was a Monday, I took a request for oatmeal raisin cookies. Now I'm always a fan of the traditional things in life but instantly I thought of how I might be able to spice up an oatmeal raisin cookie... Off to Pinterest I went!

The decision (after confirming that the requester also liked cheesecake) was to make oatmeal raisin cookie cheesecake bars. Yeah the name is a mouthful... a mouthful of deliciousness!

Credit for the recipe goes to...  http://www.eaglebrand.com/recipes/details/default.aspx?recipeID=5325

Ingredients

• 1 package (16 oz) Pillsbury® Big Deluxe™ refrigerated oatmeal raisin cookies (12 cookies)
• 2 cups Fisher® Chef's Naturals® Chopped Pecans
• 2 packages (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened
• 1 can (14 oz) Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 EGGLAND’S BEST eggs
• 1 cup Pillsbury BEST® All Purpose Flour
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup cold LAND O LAKES® Unsalted or Salted Butter
• 3/4 cup Hershey’s® cinnamon chips
• 1 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats

Instructions

• Heat oven to 350°F. In bottom of ungreased 13x9-inch pan, press cookie dough rounds evenly for crust. Sprinkle with 1 cup of the pecans; press firmly into dough. Bake 13 to 17 minutes or until golden brown.
• Meanwhile, in large bowl, beat cream cheese with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add milk, vanilla and eggs; beat until well blended. On low speed, beat in 1/2 cup of the flour. Pour over crust; spread evenly.
• In medium bowl, mix brown sugar and remaining 1/2 cup flour. Cut in butter, using pastry blender or fork, until mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Stir in cinnamon chips, raisins, oats and remaining 1 cup pecans. Sprinkle over cheese mixture.
• Bake 35 to 45 minutes longer or until set. Cool completely, about 2 hours. To serve, cut into 4 rows by 4 rows. Store in refrigerator.

I liked the sound of the recipe because half of it allowed me to cheat which was perfect for a weeknight baking adventure. The only thing missing from my recipe is the raisins... I was rushing at the grocery store and you know what - who actually likes raisins anyway? 

Squish the cookie dough down into the bottom of the pan... Don't worry about a utensil - get in there and get your hands dirty. It also says to use a cup of pecans here... I opted for a sprinkle because quite frankly I don't like nuts at all but I don't speak for everyone so I used a few. 

Bake the cookies about 14 minutes - You want to make sure they're done enough because they're going to act as the base for the cheesecake and the crumble. I had tried a similar recipe in the past and I think I would have purchased a second pack of cookie dough and crumbled that on top of the cheesecake - in addition to the crumble of course because everyone loves a good crumble. 

Cheesecake... I have no witty comments or additional thoughts on this part - just follow the directions. 

They say medium sized bowl for this part... They are liars. Use a big bowl because my crumble topping was all over the place. It could have been the bowl size or maybe I was just a bit too aggressive with the cutting in of the butter. Again I used way less than a cup of pecans. Also, I only did a 1/2 cup of the cinnamon chips and a 1/4 cup of mini chocolate chips. 

Pour the cheesecake over the cookie crust & spread all the topping over the cheesecake. I baked my for exactly 35 Minutes. It says to bake until it is set... Not a clue how you're supposed to know that when all of the cheesecake is covered in tasty crumbles but I stuck a toothpick in a few spots and it appeared to come out clean. 

The official Pinterest photo but I'm being ambitions and hoping that mine will come out exactly like this - minus those raisins on top because raisins shouldn't be recognized as a food anyway. I'll update on how they turned out after they cool - which is apparently 2 hours. See ya tomorrow cheesecake bars! 

**Post eating update - they said you could put the cookies onto the ungreased pan - don't ever believe them like I did. Give the pan a good spray first because the cookies definitely stuck to the bottom when it came time to cutting them. **

Cookie Squared

So to say that I enjoy baking and cooking would be an understatement. This is a very surprising fact to some... Mostly anyone who knew how little cooking my parents did when I was a kid. Meat loaf, eat out, (frozen) chicken cordon bleu, eat out, scrambled eggs, eat out, spaghetti & meatballs,  and then repeat. I owe all of my love for cooking and baking to my grandmothers. Clearly it skipped a generation but thankfully some sort of cooking gene was passed on to me.

My love for cooking and baking grew even more with the start of pinterest.com. To say I'm obsessed with Pinterest would be yet another understatement. Basically I would need to be both a millionaire and unemployed at the same time to be able to make all of the things that I've pinned. I've definitely been doing what I can to make as much as possible with the time that I have. Also I have divided all of my co-workers between those that want me to keep baking and those that hate me for baking because they can't stop eating it.

Most recently I tried, for the second time, Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies. Just the name makes me feel stuffed but then again how could you go wrong with two cookies in one? The recipe I tried the first time was... http://veryculinary.com/2011/03/22/oreo-stuffed-chocolate-chip-cookies/

How could you not want to eat those? I followed the recipe exactly the first round and they turned out EXACTLY like that picture. So enjoyable when a recipe comes out just like it said it would. They were an instant hit with everyone. WARNING: They are gigantic cookies and they are the equivalent of a meal.

The second time I made them... I cheated. Ok I admit it now - I didn't make the chocolate chip cookie dough from scratch. I was crunched for time... and by crunched I mean I wanted to drink wine with my friends instead of bake for two hours. I popped the cookies into the oven and waited. I just assumed they would come out the way they did in the first time. The packaged cookie dough didn't cooperate as I'd hoped it would. It spread over the entire backing sheet and I was left with what looked like UFO cookies. Despite their strange appearance they still tasted amazing!

Lesson learned - if you're trying to impress others with your baking skills - don't cheat.

More Pinterest recipe adventures to come...

What's really important.

Super surprise this weekend! My sister was out and about running errands for our party and she drove past my new house. She called me to let me know that they were having a moving sale and that I should go stop by. I quickly changed and found my purse and with RJ I was out the door!

 There were so many great unique pieces that they were selling. I told them immediately who I was and that I definitely wanted to take a look at some things since I didn't have many.

The first thing I spotted was the twin size bed they were selling upstairs. I found out from one of the daughters selling the house for their mother that the bed was hand made by their dad.

I loved the fact that there was a little history that went along with some of the stuff. I also got the dresser, mirror and nightstand in the picture below. Then the dining room table, china cabinet, and two hand made shelves in the dining room picture below.

 

It was nice to meet the sellers and have them see how excited I was about the house. Still just waiting for the contracts to be finalized and the title search completed then hopefully we can move right on to closing! 

Here we go...

So I was advised that I should begin blogging... because I would be "funny". I make no promises about humor, entertainment, or even good advice. I'm here for me - I want to remember the details of my life at this time. Why? Well because i'm fairly confident these are some of the best times of my life so far... I want to look back and remember the adventures - good & bad. Before you know it i'll be old and wrinkly and probably losing my memory like my parents are now... that's when i'll want to look back at this.

A lot of this i'm sure will be about what may be my biggest and most important grown up adventure yet... My new house.
Signing contracts tomorrow and closing by the end of the month... Still hasn't totally set in. A year ago - despite my unfounded desire to be independent - I decided it was best to continue living with the roommates (don't kid yourself Laura - everyone knows you live with your parents). I didn't want to live alone in a sketchy Middletown apartment and the comforts of a home... my home... were still important.  So I continued to function as daughter/employee/cleaning lady/personal chef with the parentals. I think they liked having me around until I decided I wanted to start redecorating... everything. They tried to hold of my redecorating energy - which is mostly fueled by my deep love for HGTV - by letting me redecorate the office. That went very quickly even with all the desk assembly and painting on my part (and the assistance of some not so willing coworkers... beer bribes work like a charm).

Eventually the roommates took a break from traveling which meant we had a lot of quality time together. It was then that we began to realize living & working together all day everyday may have worked for them in their 26 years of marriage but it wasn't going to continue working for the three of us. I began researching, budgeting, and planning for the day I would get to move on to my own house.

Somehow on a magical day I convinced Brad to go look at a house. It was a foreclosure and in ROUGH shape. Holes, mold, dirt, and more holes. It wasn't pretty but the potential was endless. The bank still hasn't made any moves on that house so House #1 was out.

House #2 was a bit better but those tricky banks forced all the potential buyers into a bidding war... a war I lost by a very slim margin.

House #3 was yet another foreclosure in rough shape... surprisingly enough right down the road from the 1st. Bank, bidding war, no winner declared yet? I gave up at this point - I thought, maybe it isn't the right time? Keep saving and keep dreaming.

Then House #4 came up with the disclaimer "There is already an offer that they like but let's have a look anyway". Going in and not really caring because I knew I wouldn't get it I thought it was really a waste of my time.

House #4 was it... I fell in love. That feeling everyone says you get when you meet your true love or try on your perfect wedding dress - "you just know". Well I knew. I was meant to have this house. Plenty of rooms, Bathrooms for guests, a kitchen that was screaming "please make me your dream kitchen!", a bedroom that was poised to be my dream closet, and all the "character & charm" an HGTV lover could ask for. I heard my dad whisper to the real estate agent "She really loves this one - what are our options." I always knew my dad knew me well but in this moment I was so happy he could read the look on my face he even said "this one has a lot of character" - it was like music to my ears. Once he started talking about what we could change and what we could do to spruce it up I knew he loved it just as much as I did.

A few days later we were back at the house again this time with the full entourage - Mom, Dad, Britt, construction manger, subcontractor. It was time to discuss numbers. I was terrified - I get my hopes up entirely too easy in life and this situation was no different. My hopes were high and each balloon holding them up was slowly popping, one by one, with each cost they started discussing. Roof, siding, electric, shutters, windows, kitchen... Terror started to spread across my face as they got down to the offer amount. I knew if we didn't go in strong we weren't going to get it because they had already liked the first offer they got.

Back and forth twice. We held strong after our first counter offer. The seller needed money and needed it quickly - we were the perfect fit. On Monday July 23rd I got the call I was hoping for. "We got the house." I was boarding an airplane back from California and made a scene. A little shriek of excitement followed by nervous embarrassed and excited giggles. I'm so excited to begin this adventure. So much work to be done to make this house what it should be and most importantly an entire house to make my own. It is going to be a crazy ride but I can't wait for it to start!