Tranquilizer glove not included

Good things this week (as inspired by Portland):

*Dog is a celebrity. Well, as good as. Everywhere I take him people stop what they are doing to tell me how beautiful he is and the trainer at puppy class pulled me aside after to tell me how great and smart Dog is....this makes me hugely happy : )

*new Calphalon pans for $160 instead of $400

*got a new wireless printer, but didn't know I needed a wireless router....this is still a good thing because it gives me more of a reason to finally get actual internet

*the new cookbook my mom got me....although it is strictly a cookie cookbook, and although typically I thoroughly dislike making cookies, I'm going to give it a chance...there some rolled up apricot raspberry thingies that look promising

*for the last 20 min Cat has been sitting on the back of the entertainment center staring intently at the backs of the wii and antenna and jumping spastically...I'm entertained

One potato, two potato, three potato, cupcake!

So far this has been a very productive week in terms of baking. I promised my roomie, Portalnd, peanut butter frosting before she moved to Oregon, so that meant I had to come up with something to go with the peanut butter frosting. Don't get me wrong, in the process I ate about half of the frosting on its own, but I didn't think bringing a bowl of frosting and a bunch of spoons to work was going to go over so well. So after deciding against chocolate cake-ness (too expected and, really, not one of my favorite combos for cake and frosting) I did some research online and came across a bunch of recipes using banana cake. This looked promising, till I realized that it was Saturday....and I had to bake on Sunday....and there was no way that I was going to have over-ripe bananas that quick. So nix the bananas. But it led to a random recipe for applesauce cake...oooh! I like apples and peanut butter. And cinnamon. I like cinnamon. So I modified a favorite recipe and here are the results:

Aren't they cute!!!



...and delicious!

Several people at work were a little hesitant about the cinnamon and peanut butter (till they tried it and lovevd it), but it really added some depth to the frosting and the cake. All in all, absolute success.

Second episode of the week....I was approached today by Lady P (aka: my boss and the co-owner of the company) and asked to bake something for Owl's last day of work tomorrow. I was very excited about the whole conversation actually, basically L.P. offered to finance a fabulous state of the art bakery and pay me for it....and buy me a pony. Ok, not really any of that, but she did say that I had her support if I ever left my job to open a bakery, which is almost as good as that other stuff. Anyway, as a result of her offering to pay for any groceries I needed to bake for Owl, I decided to go with the dark chocolate hazelnut cupcakes I've been plotting lately. I'm totally thriilled with how they taste and look (dark chocolate hazelnut cake topped with Nutella and a piece of dark chocolate with hazelnuts in it), but I kinda misjudged their remove-ability-ness....that is to say, they don't come out of the wrappers so easy. But, messy eating aside, here they are:



It's a whole herd of them!



 I have 6 dozen of these....and 8 mini-loafs. I have a lot of chocolate. But, really, when is that a bad thing?

closure

Haven't written in a while, things have been kinda crazy busy. Loads of baking (fourless chocolate walnut mini cupcakes with a whiskey glaze) and even more working. I have already had two 10+ hour work days this week...oi. Dog had his first day of puppy school this week, but we kinda showed up to the wrong class since I wrote down the wrong time...he went through the advanced beginning obedience class when he is most definately not there yet. Oh well, we will try again next week.

Redneck was sentenced last week (my jury duty was cancelled at the last minute!), and tonight the deposition was finally posted online. I still need to go down to the records department because I don't understand all of it, but for the time being I know that he got at least 27 days in county jail and a $450 fine...not nearly enough of a fine if you ask me, but I guess I'm a little biased. I didn't realize how relieved I was going to feel when I finally found out his sentence. It's like the final closure. I stuck with him through the arrest and all that followed, and it wasn't the reason I ended the relationship. I feel like I've been waiting since March to find out what was going to come of it and now it's done.

And I'm exhausted.

Amazingness

I have been bringing my pastry creations to work lately (really good way to bake a ton and not eat it alll). A co-worker had gone huckleberry picking and asked if I would bake something with them. I have been dying to attempt making my own puff pastry for quite a while, and decided that this might be the perfect project for the huckleberries.

Not wanting the tartness of the huckleberries to be too overpowering, I sifted through my cookbooks for a recipe....I was all set to try a cream cheese puff pastry, but on Friday I jammed my thumb (lots of stifled explitives as I was with a kiddo). I couldn't pick anything up without it throbbing, so kneading that much butter and dough was not going to happen. I dove back in to the cookbooks and emerged triumphant with the Joy of Cooking's food processor puff pastry. Now that the cream cheese was out, I needed something else to compliment the huckleberries, so I hit the internet and came across a recipe for huckleberry and fig tart. I kept looking to see if there were any additional reviews about this recipe and found this blog. Amazing. The review of the recipe had me sold.

I made the puff pastry and set about finding fresh figs in North Idaho (not an easy task) and was about to settle for dealing with dried, when the produce lady at the natural foods store became my angel and held the last pint for me till I got there. With a minor modification to the filling recipe, I was ready to go. The result was amazing mini huckleberry-fig turnovers with an egg-milk wash and raw sugar on top. I had extra filling left over, so I made my mom's raspberry torte, substituting the huckleberry-fig filling in place of the raspberry jam. The results are below:

Mini turnovers cooling...so adorable and delicious!

Fig-Huckleberry torte....also amazing yummyness.

Figs+huckleberries=absolutely delicious. I was kind of hesitant about the figs (never having had anything figgy but a Fig Newton), but they compliment the huckelberries perfectly. Not sure if I will be able to find more figs around here any time soon, but if I do I have several more recipes I would love to try. In the mean time, I will enjoy the turnovers and torte!

Why you scream-a like a girl?

So far this being single thing has consisted of many first-experiences too. It started with spending a Friday night sneaking to the nearby fields and stealing mint plants. Then getting a dog, discovering a love for baking miniature things, taking off for an unplanned weekend to visit my sister. Ok....so the mint-stealing-night was probably the biggest first (unless you count the time we stole cactus, but that's a whole nother deal). But regardless, yesterday marked another major first...first crush in two and a half years. I feel very high school-ish, but it's almost unnerving to realize that you are super excited that you have a mini-crush on the cute guy at the toy store. The past 2 weeks have been so stressful that the silly-giddy-self-conscious feeling really threw me off. But in a good way.

In other positively happy news, jury duty has officially been cancelled! This is good for several reasons....or two. 1-I really couldn't afford to miss that much work, and 2-Now there is no chance of me running into Redneck on the day of his sentencing....woo!!!! Plus, my hours with Chatty at work have been reduced, super excited. I also have more hours with Wolfman (dat-a make-a me happy!) and with Whiner (not so happy). However, I am also scheduled to work with one of my favorite kiddos, Banana (that one was for you DonkeyOwl)...which makes me super happy. So all-in-all, not a bad day. Or two.