valentine's day and other excuses to make sweets

So, happy belated Valentine's day! I have such mixed feelings about the day: I love the sappiness and the gushiness and the love, but not the "here is one day to express how I feel about you so let me shower you with lots of stuff" mentality a lot of people have taken on. I'm just a fan of love always being expressed!

Regardless, the day is an excellent day to make excessive amounts of sweets! The first Valentine's related sweet were just simple sugar cookies from here. You really can't go wrong with sugar cookies. I searched "World's Best Sugar Cookies" just for fun and it was very funny how many different recipes claimed that. These were very nomz, and fed our apartment, plus all the people in and out of it for about a week. This is a typical conversation around here: "What did you have for breakfast?" "Cookies. You?" "Yeahhh. Me too." Or this one: "I had seven cookies today!"

Rolling them in the sprinkles was fun. I was going to do them all solid colors... but then I got lazy. So i just mixed all the colors in with some sugar and rolled them in that. All in all, it made a nice plate!


On actual February 14th, my sweet boyfriend suggested we make chocolate mousse - my favorite dessert! My roommate had posted this recipe on my facebook a few days previous so we decided to try that. After my Le Cordon Bleu education in chocolate, I had a lot of fun picking out some delicious bittersweet chocolate from Central Market. BUT - I will confess - I am not a connoisseur of coffee or cooking with it. I enjoy it and drink it quite often, but I don't generally make my own. Or cook with it. The recipe called for espresso or strongly brewed coffee. But I put in a tablespoon of just coffee grounds. haha. I think it would have turned out more chocolate and less coffee if I had brewed it, but I still liked the taste! It was definitely a cooking adventure.

home made whip cream mmmmm.

the final beautiful products!

Also, my roommate made these chocolate covered strawberries that were too pretty not to photograph!!

She's a pro.

Dinner this week was nothing epic, just sandwiches. But I really do love sandwiches. If you have never been to scanwich, please go have a looksie! These were french bread, brie, parmesean, honey ham, sauteed onions, spinach and garlic. Anything with the combination of those last three on them is wonderful in my book. Anyway, I could eat sandwiches for most meals. They are a great invention.

Last, but certainly not least this week, was the celebration of Liz Day! This is not some narcissistic day I just declared to be my own. Remember when you were little and would write words on calculators like shell by typing in 11345 and turning it upside down? well, if you type in 217 and flip it, it says LIZ! Little nerd that I am got very excited, but never realized that 217 could correspond to the day February 17th until a few years ago. It's fun, because it's not a real holiday, but it is something totally happy and smile-making. I never had a good friend who shared my name to share it with until last year. This year, I was on campus for 13 hours - ick - but then I went over to her place and we made this! Can you say NOMZ??

Chocolate swirled cookie with Ben and Jerry's Milk and Cookies ice cream! What could be better? And seriously, it is SO easy. Too easy... might be making this one a lot. Plus, I bought myself a cast-iron skillet - special treat!

This was a fun week. The next one will be very busy, so probably not any huge cuisine adventures, but we shall see! Have a good week!!

engineer by day, foodie by night

Usually, my homework to everything else ratio is quite large. My roommates have told me that I study more than the three of them combined. That may or may not be true, but, regardless, school related things take up most of my time. I have always loved food and have had an interest in being a cook/chef since about second grade. Other interests grew as I did, but part of me still wonders sometimes why I am not in culinary school.

As of late, I have become more obsessed with finding fun meals to cook on my night of the week to provide dinner to my apartment, and my homework to thoughts of food ratio is decreasing. Instead of having these thoughts constantly bumbling around in my brain, I figured it might be best to organize them in some form or fashion. Maybe homework will be a little easier to focus on? We will see. I will try to update weekly with whatever cooking adventures or escapades I have been up to. So here goes!

This past week, we were indulged with a snow day!! What better way to kick off the morning before a day of play than with espresso cupcakes?? The recipe turned out to be a little wonky. After adding everything as instructed, the batter was super dry and was not mixing well at all. One thing college kids on a budget are good at doing in innovating. With an addition of an extra stick of butter, 3 more spoonfuls of sugar, 2 teaspoons of vanilla and a little more coffee, they were PERFECT.

I think the icing was my favorite part. It was the perfect consistency for these cupcakes. They were pretty flavorful, but the icing was cool and light, close to whipped cream consistency with a bit of coffee. NOMZ.



For my cooking this week, I decided to make lamb burgers. Lamb is my favorite meat, and though it is a little pricey for my budget, what the heck, it is delicious. Classes end at one on Monday and no homework is due Tuesday, so it is the perfect night to cook something exciting.

Y'ALL. I was probably too proud of myself for these. But they were NOMZ! The lamb meat was mixed with so many good spices and flavors: garlic, paprika, cumin, Garam Masala (Penzey's Spices), chili powder, cinnamon, and I think that is it. The sauce was a mix of Greek yogurt, cilantro, mint, garlic, and lime.




Last, but not least exciting thing about this week was going to the open house of Le Cordon Bleu Culinary School in Austin. In honor of February, they were doing some chocolate demonstrations. (I am a self-diagnosed chocoholic) I saw (and sampled!) a dark chocolate fudge and a flourless chocolate cake.

Since I do not go to culinary school, I will just go indulge myself at open houses and pretend. :O)