Cupcake Goals

I honestly don't know when I got good at baking.

I was never really bad at it, mind you, I had a great teacher (my mom ❤), but there are things that I can make that my mom doesn't really attempt. I don't have a big kitchen or any fancy equipment, in fact most of my stuff is very low-end and my kitchen is super small. People seem impressed when they see what I make despite having so little to work with, and I guess I'm just used to my limitations. I just...do it. I knew I did want to become good eventually, but I didn't really think about it in the moment when I was making my popcorn cookies or my thousandth batch of pancakes. But as I look at these cupcakes I made for a friend's birthday, I realized something. These were made from scratch, not a doctored mix. I made a frosting from a different recipe, and a drizzle on top of that. These cupcakes are perfectly baked and uniform size. They're rich and decadent, but not too sweet. They taste like they came from a bakery. When did I get that good?

Another similar moment happened when I was driving. Dallas traffic is awful, and scared me to death when I first moved to the area. I'm not a particularly good driver, and it just made me so nervous. The lease little unexpected event would give me a heart attack, and I played every lane change overly safe. Everything was a potential worst-case scenario, and it was exhausting. This last week, I was in a traffic jam due to an accident. Great. I was leaning on my elbow, watching my GPS estimate go up in annoyance, when I realized something: I was calm. I was surrounded by cars in stop-and-go traffic, and I was thinking more about how irksome this was than imagining every scenario in which I make this wreck traffic into double wreck traffic. When did this stop bothering me? I'm still not a great driver, but I'm definitely a much more calm and collected one.

In day-to day life, we often don't notice the little bits of progress toward whatever our goal may be, but they are there nonetheless. Sure, there are setbacks. I made some recipes that weren't very good, I had a few (okay maybe more than a few) close calls while driving, but they slowly just got fewer and farther between. I know that a lot of people get very "eyes on the prize" when looking toward their goal, but sometimes that's not the best thing. Sometimes we need to just enjoy the process and take every day as it comes. Then someday that goal may come and we don't even notice it. It's just there.

I'll keep improving my cooking, driving, and everything else I work toward.Setbacks are part of the process and big improvements are part of the process. Take both, and embrace it. Now, enough with the inspirational sunrise quotes, it's time for some CUPCAKES. I offered to make some tasty treat for each of the coworkers in my department (there's only six of us, so not a huge undertaking). I asked what this coworker wanted for hers, and she requested boozy and chocolate. That is definitely something I can get behind. I had had the honey whiskey buttercream recipe for a while, but I wanted a chocolate base rather than the vanilla one from the recipe. Also, this chocolate recipe just sounded delicious. And lemme tell you, the honey whiskey definitely comes through despite the strong chocolate, and it should. I used probably 1 1/4 cups of Jack Daniels in 2 dozen cupcakes between the cakes, the buttercream, and the drizzle. The alcohol is mostly cooked out, but that rich flavor remains. Please eat responsibly 😏.

These beautiful little masterpieces

Here's the recipe I used for the cupcakes:
Whiskey Chocolate Cupcakes

Sprinkles of Kim:
-Dutch process cocoa is the best thing here. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's cocoa powder that's treated differently and has a richer, but less "chocolatey" chocolate flavor, like an Oreo cookie. Hershey's Special Dark cocoa is dutch process, and it plays well with the flavors in this recipe.
-I used honey whiskey and highly recommend it
-To counteract that extra sweetness from the honey whiskey, I under-measured the brown sugar just a bit to ensure the cakes didn't get cloyingly sweet.

And here's the recipe that had the frosting and drizzle:
Honey Whiskey Buttercream and Drizzle

Sprinkles of Kim:
-I didn't measure the ingredients for the frosting, just added until I got a good piping consistency and flavor.
-The recipe for the drizzle makes way more than I could see feasibly using, so I'd recommend halving it
-The drizzle soaked into the cupcakes and made them all moist and delicious, but also a bit sticky and messy to eat (tragic, I know). Plan napkins accordingly.

Whatever your goals are, try to enjoy the process as much as you can, and let the goal come when it comes. Then maybe reward yourself with a cupcake!

Passion and Pancakes

Today, I'm going to tell you a little something about passion.

I am a passionate person, I like a lot of things and I like them a lot. I get really excited about a lot of things from science and technology to cooking and sewing. When I have passion for something, I enjoy talking about it and sharing it with other people. I can ramble for hours about my college research on salamanders, or what in my experience makes the best scones, or how to style a wig that looks straight out of a cartoon. In living as a passionate person, I have discovered something about the general population.

Some people are ashamed to be passionate about things. Or more accurately, people are ashamed to show how passionate they are about some things for fear of seeming boring or strange. I get it, I have been given condescending looks or told "Ugh, are you obsessed with x?" and it sucks because I was just getting excited over something I like. These things left me kind of deflated and feeling like maybe I shouldn't like things so much, or at least not show it.

When I first went to college, I realized I had a bit of a habit for apologizing every time I got "too excited" and saying things like "This must be really boring to you." But the people I chose to surrounds myself with, those who are just as passionate as I am, albeit about different things, told me something that I really value. Never apologize for liking something. And the more I though about it, the more I realized that they were right. I hadn't done anything wrong, what was I apologizing for? I didn't accidentally close a door on someone or arrive late to an event, I just talked about how much I loved raising rabbits. I was observing proper social decorum and not talking over anyone, and the other person was listening. I had committed no offense, yet I was apologizing and worrying that the other person was only feigning interest. What a waste of time and energy!

Now, there is a place for proper social decorum and communicating your passion in the proper context and in a way that engages the other person, but whatever you are passionate about, get it through your head: you are allowed to be passionate about it. Some passions may seem cooler than others, but in talking with other passionate people I have found that it really doesn't matter. If you are getting excited telling me about your collection of baseball jerseys from the 1980's, darn it that's interesting even though I don't share your passion in the least. Please tell me about it, and do so with feeling. I don't know if everyone is like this, but someone simply being excited about something makes me want to listen when they talk about it. So yeah, that's my soap box for the week. Passion, man. Show it, own it, appreciate it.

My recipe this week is another one that indulges a passion of mine: Pancakes. In case you haven't figured it out by now, I LOVE pancakes and I'm all about trying different recipes. This one is my current favorite for several reasons.
1. You make it in the blender, so I can just do it in my Magic Bullet and only have to wash that and the spatula (I am not passionate about washing dishes)
2. It's got a good balance of protein and complex carbohydrates that seems to keep me full longer than some of the other recipes I've tried.
3. They're fluffier than a lot of whole grain pancakes.
4. I generally have everything I need to make these on hand.
5. This recipe is so easy to modify, I've tried it with several different flavors and it works well with all of them.

I was so proud of myself for how pretty these came out. Pretty food tastes better, it's science.

I've made this recipe 4 times , so you'll see some parentheses with variations that I've tried, along with some different flavors at the end.

Ingredients:
-1/2 cup rolled oats (old-fashioned or quick, it doesn't matter, it all gets blended)
-1/4 cup cottage cheese (or Greek yogurt)
-1/4 cup applesauce (or half an overripe banana)
-1 egg (or 2 egg whites)
-1 tsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp cinnamon
-1/2 tsp vanilla
-1-2 T milk
-Dash of salt
Optional: Sugar to taste if you want your pancakes a little sweeter. I like to let my topping do the work when it comes to sweetness, but it's up to you.

Directions:
1. I recommend giving the oats a few seconds in the blender to grind them up before adding everything else in. It helps the thick batter to mix a little better.
2. Add in the rest of your ingredients and blend until you have a nice consistency. Be patient as this is a thick batter and it may take a little extra milk to get blended.
3. Let the batter rest about 5-10 minutes This allows the oats to thicken up (kind of like they do when you cook them) and the baking powder to start working its magic.
4. Make pancakes. You should know how to do this by now if you read my blog. This recipe makes 4-5 pancakes 3-4" in diameter. I recommend keeping them small to ensure they cook evenly. Top with whatever your heart desires and enjoy!

Variations:
-Cinnamon Roll: This is the one pictured because I think it's the prettiest. Double the cinnamon and top with some cream cheese frosting. My frosting is just cream cheese, vanilla, and some stevia with a bit of milk to thin. Put it in a bag, cut the corner, and make the pretty spirals or just spread it on there and make a nice stack.
-Thin Mint: I had just gotten a box of thin mints, sue me. Add 1 1/2 tsp cocoa powder and eliminate the cinnamon. Top with whipped cream and crushed thin mints.
-Lemon Poppyseed: Eliminate cinnamon. 1 tsp poppy seeds, 1/2 tsp lemon flavoring, and a splash of lemon juice. Like a little lemon cake for breakfast.
-Chocolate Espresso with Peanut butter: Eliminate cinnamon. Add 1 1/2 tsp cocoa powder and 1 tsp espresso powder. Top with peanut butter.

I'll probably make a thousand more variations on this recipe because it's so simple and delicious and I am passionate about pancakes! I hope you have something in your life that you get excited over, because if you do, I'd love to hear about it.

Delicious on Dimes

Guess who did nothing this weekend? Yup, me.
Hey, after last week's root canal and having to empty my entire kitchen for pest control, I needed a good relaxing weekend. I hung out with my best friend in the whole world and we continued planning our spring convention/crazy stuff we do for fun lineup. This one's gonna be a doozy, but I'm excited for it. WE got Ushicon, North Texas Irish Festival, AwesomeCon, Scarborough Faire, and Texas Frightmare Weekend coming up here. We're saving our money as much as possible, so there will be more cheap meals prepared at home for me. Not that I eat out a ton, but I'm being more conscious of how much I'm spending. So, it's appropriate that this week, I'm going to do a guide on how to make a restaurant-level meal at home!

Salmon is one of my favorite foods. Even if you've dined with me, you may not know that unless I've mentioned it. This is because normally salmon is one of the most expensive things on the menu, and unless a place is known for good seafood, it's not generally worth the cost. My absolute favorite way to have salmon is smoked or raw in sushi, but I'll save messing with raw fish to the experts here. Seeing a sale on frozen salmon fillets at my local grocery store, I decided that now was as good a time as any to learn something new: I decided to teach myself how to pan-sear a salmon. A properly seared salmon is a delicious main course that I would not mind having more often. After a bit of research, I found that though it is a very touchy process, it can be done! And it can be done deliciously. With this knowledge, I can make this very restaurant-quality meal for less than $5.

 Presentation is key when making a meal look expensive

This flake factor, right here. Just right.

Here is my process in making this beautiful meal:
1. Let the salmon thaw in the fridge and preferably to room temperature. I've done this from fridge temp, and it's also fine, it just takes a bit longer

2. If you plan on making rice or roasting potatoes to go with your salmon, get that started first. This doesn't take long, and you want everything to be ready around the same time Pro tip: for a flavorful rice pilaf, add some broth base to the cooking water.

3. Get your pan nice and hot. Let it heat over medium-high heat for a few minutes until water skitters when you flick it across the pan. Heat up some olive oil (if you want to avoid smoke, use another oil) in the pan.

4. Place salmon skin-side down onto hot pan for NOT VERY LONG. This depends on your stove. Everything I saw online said 3-4 minutes, but I got the optimum skin crispiness with more like two. Babysit your salmon, watch the edges, and right before the skin starts to burn...

5. Flip salmon (I used a wide spatula, but tongs also work) and turn off heat. Cover the pan and just let the residual heat do it's thing for a few minutes. For me this was about ten because I was steaming my green beans and making my topping. I topped this bad boy with olive oil, minced garlic, dill, and salt and pepper all mixed together. If you're not sure your salmon is done, just give the sides a lil' squeeze. It should feel like it's about to flake apart.

6. Plate that beautiful meal up like a Michelin-star chef and enjoy!

One reason I decided to learn how to cook well was that I wanted to be able to enjoy nice food whenever I wanted without having to shell out the dough and go to the work of acquiring it. This meal does require the foresight to defrost the fish, but the active hands-on time is less than 30 mins, which I can totally get behind when I'm home from work and hungry.

Keeping it Simple

Well, today marks a milestone that most people don't reach until well beyond my 24 years. I had my first root canal today. I had to drag myself to the endodontist's office this morning to have them drill out one of my teeth. Lovely. I may be dramatic about it, but honestly it wasn't that bad. I plugged in my headphones and just let them do whatever. I just hate how long it took, I hate not being able to feel my face for a few hours, and my bank account definitely hates the whole thing (thank you, insurance!). And because of the inflammation, they couldn't put in the permanent filling and I have to go back for more. Joy. At least this beats not being able to chew on that side. I was getting pretty sick of having a shock of pain every time an errant blackberry seed or popcorn kernel found that stupid tooth. Needless to say, I'm not in the best of moods as I type this.

In preparation for this procedure, I made sure I was well stocked on easily-eaten foods. And you better believe I bought an ample supply of ice cream. I had my wisdom teeth out, I know the drill (pun not intended, but I embrace it) for this kind of thing. I also made sure I had several days' worth of lunches prepared to take to work because I do NOT feel like cooking today.

One thing that has complicated matters is that I'm currently fighting a bug problem in my apartment, so any time I cook, I have to wipe down everything before I use it, and then clean everything thoroughly and sanitize it afterward. Pest control is coming tomorrow, which means that the bugs will be taken care of once and for all, but it also means I've had to get as much stuff out of my kitchen cupboards as possible. So all of my cooking supplies have been moved to other parts of the apartment, and any time I need something, I have to go hunting for it. One more day, one more day, then I can put my kitchen back together and be done with this nonsense. Did I mention I'm not in the best of moods today?

Despite all of this, I managed to create something that is actually pretty good. I'll take any small victory I can get right now. I wanted to use some of the awesome ingredients that I brought from Nebraska when I was there over Christmas. My mom had mentioned a tasty chili she had made from butternut squash with black beans, and I got an idea. After digging through my pantry and freezer, I came up with something that was not only a good meal to pack in my work lunches, it was something I'll probably make again. And talk about cheap: I used squash and corn from Nebraska, and leftover turkey I had frozen from Thanksgiving. With my current dental bills, cheap is definitely a good thing. So, allow me to show you the results of my pantry cleaning:

If you don't have "free range" vegetables like I did, canned will work just fine, this recipe is all about using what you have

Ingredients:

1 butternut squash, roasted and scooped out

~2 cups turkey or chicken, cooked and chopped

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

2 cups sweet corn, or about 1 can

2 campari tomatoes, diced, or 1 can

4 oz sliced mushrooms, can be fresh or canned

1 small onion, diced

2-3 cloves garlic

Grated Parmesan cheese 

Garlic salt

Paprika

Some sort of seasoning blend, I used one from a specialty spice store. A solid all-purpose spice blend would work here.

Salt and pepper

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the pulp. place in a baking dish with some water in the bottom. This steams as the squash roasts and keeps it from getting dry. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with paprika, garlic salt, and pepper. Bake until soft, 45-60 mins generally, but it varies a lot depending on the size of your squash. When you remove it from the oven, set broiler to medium for later.

2. While your squash is cooling enough to be scooped out, heat a skillet over medium and saute mushrooms, onions, and garlic until caramelized. Place in a bowl and mix with the turkey and sweet corn. Add seasoning blend, salt, and pepper to taste

3. Scoop out squash and spread on the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Add turkey and vegetable mixture. Layer on black beans. Top with tomatoes. Add more seasoning or salt and pepper if desired. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Place under the broiler until the cheese is toasted and brown.

Currently my life is complicated, so I'm keeping my recipe simple. Nothing too weird here. If you don't like an ingredient, leave it out. If you have something you want to use up, like Zucchini or bell peppers, add that in. Simple, tasty cooking is never a bad thing. I hope you all have a nice week, I'm going to go eat some ice cream.