What I’m Reading
Jul
31
Excitement abounds! Tomorrow I, along with thirty other bloggers, will be posting the second edition of the Choose Your Own Blogventure: Sci-Fi Edition. It took some finagling but I believe everyone has sent me word that they are ready to go.
I would like to say thank you to RA for putting together the lovely spreadsheet in her spare time, listening to my irrational fears of the CYOB not being finished in time over gchat, and the recommendation that I create a separate CYOB page at the top of my blog, which will be up later today or sometime this evening. It would have been up already except that I got a call yesterday from the custodian at my school (WEIRD) asking that I come in ASAP to get my library ready to be painted. Finally! So today I am off to do unpaid manual labor, but tonight I will get to work on my FAQs. Keep an eye out for it.
Much thanks also to the following lovely blogs, who will be hosting their own CYOB story segments:
Definitely RA
Stefanie Says
Red Red Whine
Funky Carter
Shh! Librarian In Training
Pat and Fran
3Carnations
The Daily Tannenbaum
Bright Yellow World
Malfeasance
Notes from the NOC
Neuteronomy
In A Western Place
Sass Attack
Oh! How Lovely
Life In The Left Lane
The Modern Gal
Pink Lemonade Diva
Average 20something
No Ordinary Rollercoaster
The Prettiest Denny’s Waitress
Full of Snark
Gretch-A-Sketch
Elisabeth Writes
Crazy Says What
As I Was Saying
Constantly Arriving
Princess Sparklepants
Srah Blah Blah
Uniquely Steph
These people deserve mad props, yo. Since I have already read a few of the stories I can tell you with absolute certainty: you will not be disappointed tomorrow.
Oh, and in case you suddenly have a hankerin’ to read the previous CYOB from last April, it begins here. You’re welcome!
Jul
29
After riding my bike down to the local farmer’s market the other day I was giving myself a mental pat on the back for being so earth-friendly and buying locally. I didn’t burn any fossil fuels to get there! I didn’t have to run over fifteen college students to find a parking spot! I’m supporting the hard working farmers of my area! Am totally awesome! I locked my bike up and strode right into the throngs of people already there. Then the familiar panic started to creep in as I realized I had no idea how to choose from the multitude of different stalls, each selling very similar products. I had no real idea of what I even wanted, no real agenda or menu in mind, so I found myself wandering around aimlessly. Finally I just decided to buy a few things that looked really amazing and make whatever I could using those ingredients.
Ha! Oh, ha ha ha. Am dumb.
Don’t get me wrong, I got tons of great looking veggies. Red scallions, beautiful bright yellow summer squash, carrots so fresh they still had the tops and moist soil clinging to them. Once I got them all home I looked admiringly at my purchases and then threw them in the fridge to forget about them until they rotted or withered up to a husk of their former glorious selves. Then Chris had the brilliant idea to make a vegetable lasagna. I knew I kept him around for a reason!
I started by dicing up all the vegetables into manageable chunks. I actually cored out the green squash so that I could make delicious squash patties out of them later on, but the rest of them got tossed into the bowl together.
See? I told you they were pretty.
All together now! I also threw in some basil, rosemary, flat Italian parsley, kosher salt, crushed red pepper, and garlic and all that went into my giant wok to be roasted with some olive oil.
While the veggies were cooking I combined a small container (1 lb) of skim ricotta, about a cup of parmesan, a pinch of salt, one egg, and another handful of chopped parsley. Confession time: I totally just made up that recipe. Out of my head. I sure hope it comes out okay!
Second confession: I used the no-boil noodles. They’re so easy! I just layered down some sauce, then noodles, then the ricotta mixture. More noodles! MUST HAVE MORE NOODLES.
After adding more noodles I precariously balanced the heavy tray of lasagna on the edge of the counter to layer on more sauce and the roasted vegetables while singing Aerosmith’s Livin’ On The Edge. You wish I were kidding. Hmm. Do carrots belong in a lasagna? I have no idea, but these veggies smell heavenly so I don’t care. See how I am totally making this up as I go along? Recipes be damned!
After layering on even more noodles and sauce I realized I hadn’t grated any of the cheese. Very easily remedied! I shredded some super soft mozzarella, some Asiago, and some parmesan and threw them on top of my completely made up lasagna. 375 degrees later I popped that bad boy in the oven. Keep your fingers crossed!
Oh, and while I was waiting for my lasagna to cook I decided I had already made a gigantic mess, why not add to it? With the guts of the green squash I made these delicious squash patties and ate a couple of them right there with some pita bread. Even if the lasagna comes out terrible I will always have the memory of these delicious bites of heaven.
Then the timer goes off and- wait for it- the verdict is in. Magic!
Oh mah gawd, y’all, that looks deeevine. And Chris, being awesome, roasted up some garlic for us to have with the artisan bread from Whole Paycheck Foods.
A meal fit for a king. Well, a king and a queen. Or a librarian and a tech guy. WHATEVER, JUST GIVE ME SOME.
There. That’s better.
Was the recipe easy to follow?
Made up recipes usually are.
Did the dish taste good?
Chris said it was the best vegetable lasagna he’s ever had, and the boy comes from a large Italian family. That’s some high praise right there.
Would you make it again?
Hells yeah. My only worry is it might not come out the same, since I didn’t exactly write down every ingredient. But that’s half the fun, right?
Jul
28
Home Alone
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It’s probably a very good thing that I don’t live alone.
Since Chris left for his band practice a half hour ago I have: devoured half a bag of Baked Lays Cheddar and Sour Cream Ruffles, poured myself two rather large glasses of cheap white wine, watched yet another Food Network Challenge (this one involving cakes made for some random woman’s baby shower, whom I wanted to punch every time she made a comment because HELLO, she is judging a cake based solely on what she thinks her other friends with too much money and time on their hands will think of it), and turned on the Red Sox game only to yell at the screen because they are losing AGAIN, but at least this time it is not to the Yankees.
The list of what I have not been doing includes the mountain of laundry that has been accumulating since the Nixon era, researching new banks so that I don’t have to deal with the Bank of Suck-My-Checking-Account-Dry America, and replying to the multitude of school emails that I know are plaguing my inbox. Whatever! There is wine to be drunk! And anyway this is technically the first night I have been solo since my summer vacation began. Now that my cousin has gone back to Manhattan I am free to wander around in my underwear and eat ice cream straight out of the container.
Not that I do that or anything. No siree.
And here is where I confide that I totally would do just that except for the fact that there is an ancient woman who lives in the house directly across the street from us. Our second floor living room windows look directly into her front porch windows, where she likes to sit and stare at the street below. Sometimes I will be relaxing in the living room watching QVC and when I glance out the window she’s not there. Then I blink and suddenly there she is, in the same yellow t-shirt she wears every single day, staring without moving for incredibly long periods of time. I think it’s the fact that she doesn’t move that creeps me out the most, but it could also be that time Chris said that the woman actually died in 1978 and it’s just her spirit that remains in the armchair at 32 Fairfax.
Regardless, I don’t really need a freaky old spirit checking me out in my underoos when I’m home alone and so the pants remain.
Anyway, if I did live alone I would inevitably weigh three hundred pounds and would die of a heart attack while eating Haagen Dazs in my skivvies because I saw a sad old woman get up and turn the light off in her house across the street from me. Obviously I have issues. Luckily, Chris will be home in a half hour to make sure those issues remain intact and also to protect me from the weird creaking noises that are FREAKING ME THE HELL OUT.
Jul
28
I Can’t Even Remember What I’ve Been Doing For The Past Month
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This has been the busiest summer I can remember, and that is going all the way back to the days when there were forts that needed to be built in the woods, bikes that needed to be ridden up and down the street, and a little sister that needed to be tormented by me and my friends. Those were busy summer days, but the last few weeks in the life of NPW have been CUH-RAZY. No joke.
Sadly, I have not been at all inspired to write about them because they have been flying by too quickly; it’s all I can do to experience them before I am moving on to the next thing on my list. Then yesterday I thought, oh my holy hell it’s almost August! And THEN I made my deadly mistake: I started checking my school email, which led to a flurry of correspondence about my library that is supposed to be painted but is showing no signs of ever changing from the pink and orange, about the course I am supposed to be taking the second week of August that may or may not be happening, and about a dozen other little nitpicky things that I certainly did not want to be thinking about in the middle of July.
So instead I will tell you about a few of the many things that I have been doing!
I have been out until 3 a.m. drinking Irish car bombs, shutting down a very sketchy bar and in turn getting shut off of drinks. Before you get all judge-y, please note that it was my cousin’s last night of staying with us for the month, they were leaving the next day to go back to Manhattan, she had just completed another semester of her doctoral program, and she was trying to convince me to apply to to get a PhD of my very own. All of which are very good reasons to stay out drinking until the wee hours of the morning, I think you will agree.
I have ridden my bike many, many miles and enjoyed it thoroughly. I am getting used to riding in Boston traffic and it helps that I now have a helmet, as I don’t constantly feel like I am going to get mowed down and spend the rest of my life in a vegetative state. Riding a bike in the city is a lot like driving here- you have to be aggressive and always on the offense. The more people out there riding bikes, the fewer there are in cars, and that is definitely a good thing on these city streets meant for horses and not Hummers.
I have attended a cookout. But not just any cookout, oh no, I would not write about just any cookout. You see, back about 40 years ago my uncle had a child with his wife and they gave her up for adoption. I never knew about this because, you see, I was only born 29 years ago. Then two years ago, suddenly my mother told me I had a cousin I had never met, and lo, through the wonder of the internet she had managed to find our family and wanted to meet us all; well, I was understandably a little freaked out. Admit it, it sounds like the plot of a Lois Duncan novel! Minus the astral projection, of course. But we met her and she was lovely and funny and I was sad that we hadn’t known her all this time. This summer her adoptive family invited us to a cookout at their house so they could meet us all. And I went. And they were all great people as well, but it was strange to think they were examining us for signs of where their daughter got her freckles and perfectly straight teeth and curly hair. It was also strange to think that she went to the same high school as me (just ten years earlier), that she lived down the road from her whole life, that we might have passed each other countless times and never known.
I’ve been to a birthday party for my 90-year old great aunt who taught us to swear when we were children. My cousin still calls her Auntie Shit. I’ve spent a few days at the beach, been to a bunch of movies, done a ton of cooking and experimenting in the kitchen (my oatmeal cookies with cherries, pecans, and dark chocolate were a huge hit), and tried my hand at being a temporary dog owner.
So, yeah. I’ve been pretty busy. What have you been up to?
Jul
23
I am standing on the edge of a dangerous precipice and I need to be talked down, right quick. Help me, internet!
On a whim I started researching doctoral programs because, you know, what else do people do with a few month’s free time? There’s only so much Judge Joe Brown on the telly and I needed something to fill the hours. I thought I’d have a great laugh over the idiots that volunteer themselves for the torture of even more school after a Master’s degree, people like my cousin who get a PhD “just for the fun of it”, and then I’d resume my usual reading of US Weekly and the Huffington Post. Except… wait a minute! I didn’t know that if you get accepted to a doctoral program they waive the tuition fees. And they actually pay you? What kind of school is this?!
Well, it’s the number one school for Library and Information Science, is what. Where I would never in a million years get accepted. Even if I wanted to get a PhD, which I totally don’t!
Or do I?
It could be a way to access more opportunities. I could get a job in a big university library, where I would do awesome things like photocopy my butt at 2 a.m. after drinking a bottle of Pinot Gris in the stacks while writing my dissertation. Where everyone would have the same geeky dreams that I do, where cataloging does not mean perusing the latest J. Crew fashions, and where I would TOTALLY TEAR MY HAIR OUT FROM THE STRESS.
Why would I put myself through that? I already know how I get when I am in school. I am the total opposite of fun and pleasant. My feeble mind can only focus on one thing at a time and if you put a Statistics book in front of me it is going to be a shit storm of cranky NPW all over the place. I promise.
Of course, I am also a total masochist and so I continued to read about the requirements for the program. They want the best and brightest, eh? Well it just so happens that I am a total Ace Librarian! Dudes, I am so nerdy I am even in Beta Phi Mu. Shut up, I know.
So it couldn’t hurt to just apply, right? Because if I didn’t even get in then it would be a moot point as to whether or not I should get a PhD. They would decide for me! (I am totally getting a stomach cramp just thinking about a rejection letter.) The stress! I want to go back to the lazy days of being content with my measly Master’s degree.
Talk me out of it. Please. I like maintaining the status quo. I really, really do.
Wait a second. You don’t even think I could get in, do you? You think they would totally reject me. My intellect is at stake! I must get in at all costs!
And that right there is a preview of what I am like when I am enrolled in a school program. Please don’t let me subject Chris to that. The future of my sanity is in your hands.
Jul
22
Whip It Up #3: Homemade Ravioli with Butternut Pear Filling
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All that stress that I was feeling last week did not really dissipate any over the weekend, even though the days were filled with activities that under normal circumstances would be classified as Fun. Like how we went to see the Dark Knight to get out of the heat wave, but the theater was hot and muggy and I sat behind the man with the largest head on the planet combined with a giant unruly mop of curls that flopped into my view every time he shifted in his seat, which was approximately every 2.3 seconds.
Anyway. Now I feel like it is a Monday but it is not, I have a feedreader that has over 100 posts to read after being away for just one day, a bunch of emails to which I need to respond, and I have little to no desire to leave the house but have a million errands to do that I know I can’t put off. Oh, and I sent off the first story portion of the CYOB to RA and Stefanie and it is now making its merry way to the rest of the participants. So what better way to procrastinate than to write about my most recent foray into the kitchen?
Because my last recipe was super easy I made a mental note to myself to try something with a high difficulty rating, and since Chris just happens to have a pasta maker and I just happen to love ravioli I figured I’d give it a shot. How hard could it be?
Oh, famous last words.
As I mentioned last week, the memory card on my camera has been a bit dodgy lately and so half the pictures I took of the process itself erased themselves. So even though all 342 pictures of us totally drunk at a wedding are still intact, the five I wanted of my pasta-making are gone forever.
I used two different recipes, one for the fresh pasta dough and one for the filling. I started with the dough so that it could rest for an hour while I made the filling part. At Alton Brown’s suggestion, I made a well out of the three cups of flour and pouring in the liquid slowly, working it in with just two fingers so the dough didn’t get all hard and flaky. His method is at the end of the post, if you would like to read it for yourself.
I would just like to add to Alton’s recipe: no need to get all supercilious with your “Easy” recommendation, sir. This dough was not easy, it was a pain in the ass to pour all the liquid in and not have it go all over when you mix it together, the crust was hard to roll out and flaky, and I might have uttered more than one swear while putting it together.
ANYWAY. Once that was finished I wrapped it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for an hour to rest. After all, it had a stressful period of being made so why shouldn’t it get a little nap in before I rolled the hell out of it?
The filling was also kind of a pain. I chose a random recipe that had no reviews, much to Chris’s chagrin. He called me “brave” for making a recipe that had not been discussed in 75 internet forums already. What can I say? That’s how I roll, always living on the edge of experimental ravioli recipes.
Let me recommend that if you do make this filling (which you should, it was delicious) that rather than roast the squash for 45 minutes that you put it face down in a little water and microwave it for 10 minutes or so because it’s the same exact thing. Also, the recipe is kind of vague and does not mention smashing up the filling with a potato masher, but that is what I did because I didn’t want chunky ravioli filling.
After all THAT was finished, I had my mini-breakdown and Chris ended up rolling out the pasta dough for me because I was ready to throw it all away and chalk it up as a failure. He also cut out and formed the ravioli squares and filled them for me because he is the best boyfriend around. Here is what our kitchen looked like at that point:
Getting there! See how he used the fork to close them? He also added a little egg to the edges so they would stay sealed, even though the recipe didn’t mention that. He’s smart.
Once I had a good cry, I made the rosemary-butter-pecan sauce to go over the ravioli when they were done.
Annnd… the kitchen is officially a giant mess. But they look good, right? Chris made huge ravioli, probably because he was sick of “my” project taking up the kitchen and he wanted to get them done. You could probably make them smaller if you wanted. Personally, I loved the big ones.
The finished product: delicious!
And the wrap up:
Was the recipe easy to follow?
Well, I had to improvise a bit with the filling recipe, but I usually do that anyway. The directions weren’t super clear on some points but I finagled it just fine. As for the pasta recipe, Alton was pretty clear-cut. The only thing missing was how to fold over the ravioli to keep in the filling but the forked edges method worked out just fine.
Did the dish taste good?
Oh my god, so good. So, so good. Chris and my cousin Renna would heartily agree.
Would you make it again?
Yes, but only if I have ample time and Chris is there to help me with the dough because I do not have the required patience to run it through that machine over and over.
Jul
18
Stressed
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I didn’t have much going on today, or so I thought, so I figured I would attempt my next great kitchen feat: making my own ravioli. I know, I know, I can hear you now! “But NPW, why would you make your own pasta on a very hot day when you could have been perfectly content lying on the couch watching Price is Right and eating ice cream sandwiches?”
Because, my friends. I am certifiably insane.
So off we went to the grocery store to purchase the ingredients for said ravioli. I’ll save the full disclosure on my ravioli methods and recipes for next week’s Whip It Up post, but let’s just say it was an ambitious project and one that I had no business starting on a Friday afternoon. Then halfway through the pasta-making I had a mini-breakdown after a series of events occurred, leaving Chris with the task of rolling out my dubious and flaky-looking pasta dough and transforming it into beautiful ravioli.
First, we discovered that a potted tree in our living room had spawned a colony of fruit flies that were merrily buzzing around our faces all day and night. Then we found out that our dog-sitting charge, Brutus, sometimes has an unfortunate accident involving… errm… self-release upon waking up from a dog nap. So after cleaning up his happy mess and walking him, I came back to the house only to find that all the money I had transferred to my savings account last week caused me to accrue nine overdraft charges. NINE. At thirty-five dollars a pop. That is THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN DOLLARS. All because I was trying to save money! After a disheartening conversation with a representative of that bitch-ass Bank of America (EFF YOU, BANK OF AMERICA, I HOPE YOU HAVE AN EPIC FAIL AS SOON AS I TAKE MY ACCOUNT ELSEWHERE) wherein they informed me that it didn’t matter that I have never, ever had an overdraft with them since I opened the account in 1996, they wouldn’t refund any of the charges and furthermore, they also didn’t care if I closed my account and moved to another bank.
That is an awesome business practice right there. Thanks, asswads.
So I had a little lie down on my bed and cried off some of the hormones and rage while Chris finished up with the raviolis. By then I was totally uninterested in cooking but I boiled them up anyway and drizzled the sauce and then totally devoured every bite because holy frijole, they were amazing. Boxed pasta is officially ruined for me forever. HOMEMADE PASTA 4-LIFE!
And then I went to look at the pictures I took of the ravioli process and behold: CARD WRITE ERROR. What the hell? Did I have some bad karma saved up for today or what? I still got a few pictures out of the deal, including the finished result, so all was not lost. But STILL.
And that was my Friday. I think I prefer the stress of work to the stress of being home every day.
Please remind me that I said that come September.
Jul
15
Blog Share 3.0
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The following post was written by an anonymous blogger, one of the many participating in this round of the Blog Share. The links to each of the participating blogs will follow at the end of this post so make sure to stop in to as many as you can- a lot of good people are putting themselves out there in their writing. Happy reading!
Why I’m not going to BlogHer
I have a blog. I’m also a woman. Traveling to BlogHer later this week would be a relatively easy trip for me. But I’m not going.
It has nothing to do with the cost. It could be free and I still wouldn’t go.
I read several blogs written by women. Witty, smart, funny women. I, too am a witty, smart, funny woman. I’d love to meet some of the ladies I admire who are attending BlogHer. And yet. I’m not going.
In some ways, I feel like I already know some of these blogging women in real life, not in the virtual one, where I sit on my couch with my feet on the coffee table, while wearing pajama pants and a tank top. But these people are not real to me. Nor am I to them.
I wonder what people who read my blog think of me. Do they think my words are funny? Do I entertain? Inspire? Do they like what they read, or do they skip around from paragraph to paragraph, looking for the punchline? What emotions does my writing evoke in them?
I wonder what my readers think when they see my photo, on the rare occasion that I post one. Am I as pretty as they imagined me to be? As thin? Taller? Do they like my hair? My clothes? Did I live up to the image they created in their minds?
Why does this all matter to me? It shouldn’t. But it does. And that’s why I’m not attending BlogHer this year. I can’t see past my insecurities to realize the benefits of hearing speakers present their thoughts and ideas. I don’t see it as an opportunity to make new friends and broaden my audience, but as a risk of putting myself out there and feeling like a complete schmuck afterwards.
Where BlogHer is concerned, I don’t quite feel as tragic as Carrie in the Steven King movie. I’m not worried that someone will pour pig’s blood all over my new dress and styled hair. Rather, I’m worried that no one will notice that I’m even there.
There are bloggers out there known by their alias. We all know who they are. And while I do not aspire to be as “famous” as they are, I do know that when presented to a new person, if I were to tell most BlogHer attendees my blog’s name or my online alias, they most likely would have never heard of me or my humble little blog, even though I’ve been doing this for longer than some of the “celebrity” bloggers have.
Even on the internets, I’m not one of the popular kids. I never have been. Not in high school or college – even with sorority letters, I didn’t mingle with the “in” crowd. I know that I should be OK with that. And in normal everyday life, I am. But a conference of women who blog scares the shit out of me. I create all these scenarios in my head. “Everyone else will be so thin.” “They’ll think I’m fat.” “They all have great hair and makeup.” “I don’t have anything cute to wear.” “No one will even know who I am.”
My fear is that going to BlogHer will incite the same emotions as going to a dance in Jr. High used to. I will get all excited, by a new dress (or 4) get my nails done, and highlights retouched. I’ll walk through the hotel ballroom doors, anticipating a great time, excited about meeting these ladies whose fabulous words I read everyday. And I will find that I don’t fit in. It will be like the first day at a new school, where everyone knows everyone, and I’m the new kid, trying to find a new friend to play with.
So I will go into self-preservation mode: avoid any uncomfortable situations where I feel fat, frumpy, ugly, or boring and instead stay home in my pajama pants and tank top and wonder what I’m missing, digging my spoon into the pint of Haagen Dazs, safe as a hermit.
Blog Share Particpants:
Vent Vox
Turn On The Stars
Trudie – Life After AC
Swimming With Sharks
Stefanie Says
Shhh! Librarian-In-Training
Sauntering Soul
Sass Attack
Reflections in the Snow Covered Hills
Red Red Whine
Our Simplicity
One New Duck
Oh My Seven
The Occasional Truth
No Lady
Nancy Pearl Wannabe
Muse On Vacation
Messing With Texas
Melliferous Pants
Lizland
Live Work Dream
Just Below 63
Jonniker
Java Literally
Heidikins
Full of Snark
Face Down
Ex Everything
Everything I Like Causes Cancer
Did I Say That Outloud?
The Daily Tannenbaum
The Coconut Diaries
Citystreams
Catheroominations
Bright Yellow World
Breath Smiles Tears
And You Know What Else
Alyndabear
3 Carnations
Jul
15
You guys, I woke up super early this morning all in a panic because I feel like there are 10 kajillion things that should have been getting done that I have neglected to do. Tomorrow is -R-’s infamous Blog Share, so the post here will not be my own but an anonymous one. Which also means that I will be posting anonymously elsewhere, on one of the other participating blogs. I’ve also been madly writing the first section of the Choose Your Own Blogventure (it’s finished! yay!), and getting all the participant info together, as well as cooking up a storm for the Whip It Up Challenge but then forgetting to take pictures of everything. Not to worry: I did manage to get pictures of today’s delicious and extremely easy recipe.
Not that I’m trying to shirk my duties as a blogger or anything, but real life has also been hectic, what with yesterday’s root canal procedure (long and uncomfortable, but so far pain-free), dog-sitting (did I mention my cousin’s french bulldog Brutus is staying with us for the next few weeks? And that he pooped IN MY BEDROOM yesterday morning, right after I took him for a walk?), and still not having unpacked from the weekend wedding extravaganza. So basically my house is a mess and all I want to do is ride my bike and maybe pick up a new iPhone but OH NO, there is laundry to do. Bah.
Anyway, you came here for recipes and not my usual drivel, so here we go!
Last week I was cooking up a storm- I tried my hand at buffalo burgers with cheddar, jalapeno, and avocado, homemade no-knead bread, crash hot potatoes, and a pineapple-cucumber-mint salsa that was divine. But I will be talking about none of those today! Today we will discuss my yogurt cream with berries, shamelessly stolen from the Pioneer Woman. I wanted to make this recipe because I was looking for something to have for breakfast that wasn’t my usual store-bought yogurt, but I wasn’t ambitious enough to try making my very own yogurt (yet!). This seemed like a good alternative. And bonus: Chris doesn’t even like yogurt, so it would all be for me! Bwahahaha!
I started out with 1 1/4 cups of heavy cream and whisked in 1 1/2 cups plain, unflavored yogurt. I used fat-free yogurt, but you can use whatever your little heart desires.
Mmm. Yogurt-y.
Then I grabbed about a 1/2 cup of loose brown sugar (you can certainly use more if you like). Also, how much do you love the vintage orange Tupperware my mom bought me?
Then I poured out the mixture into a casserole dish.
Oh, fickle morning sun. Why do you forsake me when I’m trying to document my recipes?
Anyway, then I sprinkled out the sugar over the top, making sure there were no big clumps of it anywhere.
Okay, FINE. So I’m not great at sprinkling. I covered the dish with air-tight plastic wrap and threw it in the fridge for a few hours. It came out looking like this:
Gross, right? WRONG. I got my whisk back out, stirred all that delicious liquefied sugar into the yogurt mixture, and never looked back. Because this yogurt is amazing. Smooth and creamy and totally not fat-free. At all.
I poured it over some fresh blueberries for a belated breakfast, and voila! A meal fit for a lazy blogger.
Seriously: so good. I might even need to make more today. I also mixed almonds into a couple of the blueberry-yogurt mixtures, which was pretty good, and in case you don’t like blueberries (blasphemy!), I think granola, strawberries, bananas, or raspberries would also be delightful with this yogurt.
Full recipe after the jump.
Read more
Jul
13
Many Random Things, All At Once
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Firstly, I wanted to give a shout out to everyone who signed up for the CYOB. I got a bunch of emails and a whole lot of comments from people asking to participate, which is very, very cool. If you made the cut off, I’ve already sent out confirmation emails. If you didn’t get an email from me it either means you signed up a twee bit late or I am a big jerk and somehow messed up your email address, in which case it is my own damn fault. On Friday I will post a list of the participant blogs and you can all double check that you are on there.
As for non-CYOB business I wanted to let you all know that the wedding in New Jersey was actually a lot of fun once we arrived. We stayed over in Manhattan the night before and figured we’d GPS our way down to Jersey but due to some programming mishap we ended up driving through the mean streets of Newark and getting pulled over by a New Jersey state cop for not knowing that some random cones meant do not enter. Needless to say, we did not enjoy our trip through the Garden State.
The hotel we stayed in was similarly dreadful. When Chris had made the reservation he had requested a king-sized bed and confirmed it with them. When we arrived they told us it was first come, first serve and that all they had left was double beds. As in, not even queen-sized. As in, two average people should not have to sleep scrunched up in one. The rooms were dingy and dark and every employee I encountered was either rude or indifferent to the guests. The invitations had mentioned the hotel bar and restaurant, but when we arrived we learned it was undergoing reservations, which they had neglected to mention when we made the reservation as well. Overall, a very underwhelming experience.
Fortunately, the wedding itself was lovely. It was held in a beautiful arboretum out in the middle of nowhere. The drinks were free-flowing and we had a table of hilarious and rowdy college buddies. By the end of the night we were all best friends out on the dance floor, pledging our undying love for each other and twirling around with our glowsticks. Having had far too many drinks we had to take the last shuttle out of there so we stood in the middle of a field in the darkness watching fireflies over the grassy meadow with a very pleasant buzz on. Sounds nice, right? Then we all piled on to the shuttle and the driver, an older gentleman named Larry, was watching Terminator on the bus movie screen. My memory as to how the conversation with Larry started is hazy at best, but suddenly Larry announced that he had porn DVDs as well and the entire bus started heckling him to put them on. So for the twenty minute ride back to the hotel we watched a fairly horrifying pornography that was straight out of 1982. Ah, weddings.
Our last leg of the road was this morning when we drove back to Manhattan to pick up my cousin and then headed back to the old homestead. I am tired, slightly hungover, and very much not looking forward to my 8 am root canal appointment tomorrow morning. Please keep me in your thoughts when you’re arriving at your workplace ready to start another week because I will be strapped to the endodontist’s chair praying for my own death.
No, strike that. I don’t want to go out in a dentist’s chair.
Still, tomorrow will be one the few days this summer I will wish I was heading off to work with the rest of the world. Anything rather having my teeth drilled! Want to trade places?