The Great Doodle Meet

When my sister takes her kids to the supermarket, she lets her son (who's 3) choose one item. Recently, he chose Cheez Doodles which she 1) had never given her kids before and 2) didn't realize he knew what they were. But she promised and you may know what a three year old is like if you promise something and then change your mind (and for my nephew, take that anticipated reaction and quadruple it - kid is LOUD).

So when we went over for baby pool time on Saturday, her kids requested "Doodles" with lunch. Nate just looked on, not really caring, happily chowing down on his grilled cheese.

But Brooke decided that Nate really needed to experience the joy that is a puffy Cheez Doodle.

Natey, Natey, Doodle?
(For some reason, she calls him "Natey Natey" all the time now.)

Nate: Why yes, I do believe I will partake of this, um, delicious (?) flourescent orange crunchy snack.

Nate enjoyed his first Cheez Doodles, although I won't be buying him some anytime soon. We can broach this topic again when he's 3 and can ask for them.

7 Quick Tuesday Takes

1. Watching the dance numbers from the Tony's, I decided once and for all that dancers have the best legs. They just really do. I want dancers' legs. Guess I better get dancin'.

2. I realized that I haven't updated a few Pioneer Woman recipes I made! I am still slowly eeking my way through her cookbook. Two weekends ago I made her Basic Breakfast Potatoes and Huevos Hyacinth. Both were delicious, although the Huevos Hyacinth were far too liquidly - I'm not sure if I didn't cook the eggs long enough or if the juice came from the tomatoes. Either way, it was on the border of unappetizing so if I made them again, I'll have to play around with the broiling time.

This past weekend, I made her Blackberry Cobbler, but with blueberries. Blueberries are in season and are just SO good right now - so juicy and sweet. The cobbler was delicious. I made one for my in-laws and one for myself. (Ha!)  I've been eating it by the spoonful with some whipped cream on top. Not good for my pants size in the slightest, but soooo tasty. Next time I would make it with more of the cake part, though. It came out really thin; it was still really good, but I'd like to try it in a more cake-y ratio.

3. Speaking of sweet things I shouldn't eat, my brain is obsessed with Joy the Baker's Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread. I mean, have you looked at it? Are you not convinced you could eat the whole loaf by yourself?  Hence why I haven't made it yet. (Well, that and the whole dough needing to rise thing. I don't have the patience for that. Eventually the recipe will break me down and win, though, and I'll be making this. For sure. She recently said it's her most popular post... and it's so obvious why.)

4. Eating a slice of pizza doesn't negate the positive effects of eating something sold as a "low carb salad," right? I'm not asking for me. I'm asking for yesterday's lunch.

5. I love that I started this list talking about how I want to have dancer's legs and then go on to talk about a whole bunch of things that are part of why my legs look the way they do. (nom nom nom)

6. I'm going out to lunch with my boss today. I'm hoping for a raise and a promotion. I will probably just get a sandwich. (Aaaand, still talking about food.)

7. Is it Friday yet?

Bit o' scone, Mum?

It's 5am and I'm up without an alarm clock. I didn't think I was that excited, but I think I was more nervous to miss the start of everything.

You know, everything - Prince Duke William's wedding. Yeah, I'm up for it and I love it. I think it's great fun, like the Oscars - not incredibly important, but enjoyable to watch (especially for the fashion). I understand people who don't understand why it's interesting, but I do have to say I'm bothered by the comments I've seen saying, "I hope they get divorced in a few years." I wouldn't say that about nearly anyone. At the base of things, William and Kate are two twentysomethings getting married because they love each other (we hope/assume). Why wouldn't we want to celebrate that?

To truly celebrate the occasion, I've made a bit of a treat: PW's Maple Pecan Scones (from her cookbook). That recipe calls for forming the dough into a large circle and cutting it into eight wedges. I decided to instead form the dough into a large rectangle and cut the dough into twenty-four petite wedges, like PW's petite vanilla scones.

All in all, the recipe mostly went as planned. The only glitch was rolling out the dough, which I suck at, always. I need to get a silicone French rolling pin; I think that will help. So I ended up forming the dough by hand and that actually worked out just fine. (No pictures of the finished scones because it was dark when I made them and it's dark as I'm eating them and the flash makes them look unappetizing, alas.)

I definitely recommend this recipe - it is quite delicious. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a scone and a cuppa English Breakfast Tea to get to and a wedding to watch.

This post is another in a series where I attempt to make every recipe in The Pioneer Woman's cookbook.  You can click on "Pioneer Woman" in my tags to read the other attempts.

Pink Velvet Cake

For Easter, I made The Pioneer Woman's Red Velvet Cake, except I didn't have red food coloring so I used pink instead and told everyone I did this because it was Easter, not Christmas. Sounds good, right?

Until this venture, I had never made a layer cake before. Not one, ever. Not even from a box. Even my mother-in-law and the hubby were shocked at this. The hubby said I was like one of those star chefs who end up on a cooking competition and then go, "Oh, wait, I have to know how to boil water? I've never done that before." But it's true. Layer cakes have always intimidated me because there are so many stages at which the whole thing can go wrong. In her post about Red Velvet Sheet Cake, PW says she prefers the simplicity of sheet cakes because they're easier. However, she also hosts at home usually, I believe. I never do, so my desserts always need to be transportable and I don't see a sheet cake as being highly transportable (especially when you're also juggling a diaper bag and proto-toddler).

Things about layer cake that intimidate me:

-cooking the actual layers

-stacking the layers

-trimming the layers

-frosting the layers

-running out of frosting

I worry too much, in general, but I learned something valuable from this experiment: frosting covers a million sins. (Except when you eat a lot of it. Then you probably end up with cellulite.)

So PW's recipe calls for 10 inch pans and I only had 9 inch, so I baked them an additional 4 minutes until they seemed done (toothpick came out clean). After letting them fully cool, I did the initial middle icing and then stacked them.

And then I decided to get all fancy-pants and try to trim the layers so as to make a nice, perfectly round cake. What I ended up with was 3/4 round (untouched because I gave up) and one squared off side, like it was trying to start an octogon cake. I gave up on trimming and resigned myself to filling in the missing cake segment with icing. It worked, too.

Or at least everyone was nice enough to not saying anything to me about how I patched cake with frosting. I also forgot to put the vanilla extract in the icing. Oops. But I don't think that mattered too much.

I think the cake came out a little dry, which is a pattern I'm noticing with PW's recipes - well, or with my execution of them, probably. (And boy did I execute this cake, ha! Ba-dum-dum, I'll be here all week.)

For anything of hers I make that's flour-based (breads, cakes, etc), I find them to be a bit dry as well as a bit bland. (I'm thinking particularly of her cornbread, which I don't think I'd make again, truthfully.)

I don't know how many recipes I have left to complete in her book, but I know there are still several flour-based ones, so we'll have to see how those go. This cake was passable, but not the best I've had or the best I've made. I have another layer cake to make this Friday, so I'm glad I had this practice. Onwards and upwards!

This post is another in a series where I attempt to make every recipe in The Pioneer Woman's cookbook.  You can click on "Pioneer Woman" in my tags to read the other attempts.

7 Quick Tuesday Takes

1 - I finally recorded my video for class last night and posted the whole assignment around 1:30am. I haaaate watching myself on video. I always want to say, "Really? Why doesn't anyone stop me from making those faces?" But, funny enough, I noticed that I talk more like my brother than I realized. Watching myself talk on the video was really like watching him talk at times, as far as facial expressions and gestures are concerned. It was an interesting realization for me.

2 - Someone I know posted on Facebook about how she hopes Katherine Middleton wears a wedding dress with sleeves because the whole strapless wedding dress style is overdone and boring and frustrating to those "who can't wear" that style. I find this exasperating because saying the style is overdone is like saying blue jeans are overdone. Sure, they're everywhere, but they're a part of life. If religious restrictions don't require sleeves on a dress, I don't see a problem with strapless.

And part two of my exasperation is people who won't wear sleeveless things because of their arms. JUST WEAR THE SLEEVELESS TOP ALREADY. Truly, no one will care. Most likely, your arms aren't the largest they've seen AND you're not fooling anyone by wearing sleeves. I still know what size your arms are. Get over it already. (The whole "I can't wear sleeveless" is one of my biggest pet peeves.)

3 - I got TWO wall decorations put up yesterday! Hurrah! I got the hubby to hang up Nate's name sign (a photograph of a "Nathaniel Ave" sign) and I hung up a wall decal in his room that has a yellow sun and says, "You are my sunshine" above his crib. I can't sing the song without crying, but I love it anyway.

4. Last night I made Picky Palate's Chicken and Black Bean Green Enchilada Rice Bake - except I used red enchilada sauce instead of green, brown rice instead of white, Rotel instead of plain canned diced tomatoes, omitted the olives (yech) and added a layer of corn (yummm). It was totally scrumptious.

5. Speaking of Picky Palate (so in love with her), why haven't I made her Bacon and Cheese Egg "McMuffin" Cups yet???

6. Nate's birthday is two weeks from today. Oh. My. God. How is my little man already turning a year old??? I want to cry.

7. I'm thinking about hiring a professional cleaner to clean our house before his party. Then I think, "Wow, that really speaks to my failure as a cleaner." Also probably shouldn't spend the money - should just buckle down and get scrubbing.

Happy Tuesday!