Of frosting and friendship: Owl Cucpakes

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You can no doubt see where
the owl came from...

The college where I spent my undergrad years, amusingly, did not have an official mascot when I first attended. Since I had just left a high school where we were a color rather than some alliterative animal (Big Green was only marginally better than calling us "the Doors"), I didn't find it that odd. Still, as a writer for the sports section of the college paper, calling us the "Bryn Mawr College Mawrtyrs" had always seemed overly literal.

The owl had long been the school's unofficial mascot, joining the ranks of other Beanie Baby-esque animals wearing minuscule college t-shirts in the campus bookstore. In my junior year (if this is false, someone with a better memory please correct me) the college officially voted that the owl would be our official athletic mascot. It still blows my mind that next year will be my 10th college reunion. Weird.

Whooo wouldn't want one?

At a picnic potluck for college friends one spring day, I was tasked with bringing dessert. Deciding to embody the saying GO BIG OR GO HOME, I decided to make some adorable and thematic cupcakes. And so the Owl cupcakes were born.

This recipe is best made with friends, for manual labor if nothing else. Like all artistic cupcake decorating endeavors, please leave yourself plenty of time, as things as simple sounding as 'separate several dozen Oreos without breaking them' takes more time than you'd think. 

  Or at least more time than I'd think.

Recipe and more photos behind the cut!

Sugar and Spice: Snickerdoodles

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Everyone has their favorite dessert. My dad loves German Chocolate cake (coconut creeps me out, which is why it's HIS favorite dessert not mine). My mom always wants root beer floats on her birthday. Me? Give me a good chocolate chip cookie and I'm yours.

My younger sister's favorite? 

Snickerdoodles.

Now don't get me wrong, I like snickerdoodles fine, they just don't light me up. However, as recipes go, this one is excellent, not only because it's pretty easy, but because by rolling the snickerdoodles in cinnamon sugar, they retain all that lovely winter/fall taste and have an excellent texture and visual appeal.

 Details after the jump!

Harnessing the Power of Social Media: Link to Instructables!

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So I discovered the coolness that is Instructables. It's an amazing website that allows people to share their step-by-step instructions about basically anything.

Need to know how to make rainbow cupcakes? Check.
Super Mario question block that lights up? Done.
Anything else you'd ever want to know... yes.

While I'm pretty sure I have posted about my love of peanut butter and peanut butter cookies, I was inspired to turn it into an Instructable. The website is very user-friendly and easy to use. Of course, I had to rock a ridiculous name for the entry, but hey, who wouldn't. Don't these look delicious? Click the link to see what I did it!

Peanut Butter Cookie Perfection

Better Late Than Never: Food Blogger Bake Sale Write-Up

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So you know when you have those to-do lists, and they have lots of important things like “Feed Cat!” and “Wash Dishes!” and then down past “Go to Work So You Can Have Money to Feed Cat and Have Food to Put on Dishes!” you have things like “Finally write the SOS Bake Sale Blog Post”? It turns out those tasks down at the bottom really don't get done.

In other words, belated post is highly belated. In fact, I STARTED writing this post on Memorial Day and… only finished it now. I’ll give you a moment to check the date stamp, and be impressed at my procrastinatory skills. ANYWAY. Here is the picture/recipe/write-up post you’ve all been waiting for! An edge of your seat thriller! Either way, read on after the jump about the awesome day, filled with food, fun, and fundraising.

Of Memories and Freshness: Pasta alla Formiana

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"It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato." - Lewis Grizzard

When I was in elementary school (somewhere between 1^st and 3^rd grade, the dates are hazy) my parents, sister and I lived in a house in Southern California that had been previously owned by my grandparents. It was a bizarre kind of doubling of childhood memories: I can remember sitting with squirming impatience on the piano bench at the long dinner table during family Thanksgiving, waiting for the moment when I would be released to sit on the back steps with my Great-Uncle, hoping he would teach me more words to “You Are My Sunshine”. On top of that is the breathless weight of lying in bed in my uniquely constructed bedroom, three walls of windows swallowing me in the hum and buzz of a summer night.

But the most lasting legacy of my grandparents’ inhabitance of that house came from a row of tomato plants that ran along the back fence. If you’ve never had a fresh-picked tomato that still carries the fuzzy green scent of its attatchment to the vine, you’re missing out: I can still taste the tartfresh slide of it against a piece of cheese and bread, the overwhelming tomato-ness of it standing up to the bite of yellow mustard.

(I never said my tastes as a child were gourmet. I still contend that yellow mustard is awesome, though I have since discovered the magic of Dijon and other varieties on a sandwich and elsewhere.)

More nostalgia and tomato-fueled deliciousness after the jump!

It's Not Easy Being Green: Zucchini Bread

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Pin It Now! There's a saying that friends help you move, and real friends help you move bodies. Turns out that real friends also tell you things like "hey, we'll be out of town next week, and we have lots of lovely vegetables that are tasty and delicious and will be rotten and gross by the time we get back. You should pick them!" [This is not quite what they said, but approximately it.]

So last week I dutifully trucked it over to my friend's house (she was in New York City with her husband and sons, poor thing] and returned with a kind of extreme bounty of produce.

Check out the harvest and an overabundance of zucchini bread after the jump!

Interruptions of a Parenthetical Nature: Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

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Pin It Now! When I'm feeling particularly on top of things (which is almost never) I craftily solve the problem of curbing the "must write a blog entry NOW" bug by typing it into my email as a draft to post later.

So I did that. On July 8th. I'll give you a moment to think about what the date is today. At least it wasn't an entire month? Just almost...

Either way, I am happy to finally give you the following recipe, and promise that my next one will be posted in a much more timely fashion :o)

Want to know more about the recipe I chose? Click below!

Sometimes you feel like a nut: Peanut Butter Cookies

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I fully admit, I am a huge lover of peanut butter. I was (er, am) that kid who eats peanut butter straight off the spoon--don't worry, I don't double dip. Towers of Ritz crackers with the peanut butter smooshed between them, toast where the peanut butter starts to liquify a little bit from the heat and the texture mixing of the crisp and the gooey is just... mmm.
I'm sorry, where was I?
Oh right, peanut butter. I hadn't baked something in quote a while, especially something new. And as fun as it would be for this blog to turn into "and then I made Dorie Greenspan's Katharine Hepburn brownies again" (I totally did over the weekend, they continue to blow my mind and my taste buds) I thought I'd push my comfort zone. Any pushing of a comfort zone that involves peanut butter is okay by me. Also, my younger sister weighed in one what I should make and thanks to her, the peanut butter cookies went from pretty awesome to OMG delicious.

Recipe details after the jump!

Weather Outside is Frightful: Bean and Red Chard Soup

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The weather's been wet and cold (shocking in San Francisco... can you feel my sarcasm?) so I felt compelled to make soup. Also because it's such a nicely portable food item when you need to bring lunch with you, which I frequently do as a substitute teacher.

I knew that my soup had to use chard because it is the one thing in my Farm Fresh to You box that I always get confused on how to use. I found this recipe on Epicurious--it puts me in mind of a similar soup that my aunt makes which involves sausage. Sadly, this is meat-less, but the chard and the beans and the pasta create a nice sense of bulk and OMG it is delicious.

Some Assembly Required: Apple Crumb Bars

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Ingredients, or, Mis about to be placed...

Because I remember the apple pies of my childhood so vividly (and really, it's kind of unreal how good the smell of apples with cinnamon and sugar cooking is), I knew I wanted to make something related. After meeting Anita at the bake sale, I knew I wanted to finally try something from her book, Field Guide to Cookies. So I decided to make apple crumb bars. Because it's like a portable apple pie!

Okay, first thing: if I teach you nothing else today, get everything together before you begin. I really think I need to make myself huge sign called "GOT MIS EN PLACE?" because seriously, shenanigans occur otherwise.

My Feet are Made of Clay: Katharine Hepburn Brownies

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Pin It Now! Bonus points if you can pinpoint the quote from the title--also, it be clear that you have unexpected depth* ;o) I have a special fondness for Katharine Hepburn that is doubled (exponentially) by the fact that she is a fellow graduate of Bryn Mawr, which builds nicely into my continued point.

Shortly after Ms. Hepburn's death, the New York Times published a letter to the editor where the writer detailed Katharine--in true Mawrter kicking-butt fashion--quelled the author's doubts about school and happened to make her some awesome brownies in the process. It's awesome, so go read Straight Talk From Miss Hepburn; Plus the Actress's Own Brownie Recipe.

Seriously, read it. Don't worry, I'll wait.

Read it? Good. Isn't she awesome? It's a Bryn Mawr graduate trait ;o)

I'm a huge fan of brownies (and cookies. cake. pie, too...) and always meant to make the lovely Ms. Hepburn's brownies. But then I lost the recipe. Bummer, forget that idea. Yet Fate intervened!

In Dorie Greenspan's absolutely breathtaking cookbook Baking: From My Home to Yours, she has a recipe that builds on the Hepburn brownie requirements: gooey, chocolatey, not too dense, yet adds some awesome refinements.

Life Lessons: Butternut Squash Soup

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Exhibit S: a squash

I realized after I'd posted my first post (!!!) and then organized my profile, etc. that it is seems to be paramount that the first recipe I post over here is the "life changing" pot of soup I made. Which, granted, was pretty life changing: though not the first soup I made (I've made beef stew which is pretty awesome, don't worry, you'll get that one too at some point) it was a Big Deal because it involved Unknown Vegetables, aka I had to go to the store, buy a butternut squash (which are inherently kind of hilarious looking), break it down, and cook it. Amaizng stuff, I tell you. I wrote down the recipe the first time, but I will elaborate here with some useful tips and information that I found out after the fact. Let us begin.