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)