hasta manana

Updated 4/16 to include pictures of the food! Also, Tim did well & we looked at new apartments today! I'm very happy. :)

I can't wait for tomorrow. I've been waiting for tomorrow for weeks...months even! Tomorrow is the day I find out for sure if I will be getting out of this god-forsaken place...the day I can finally relax and spend time with my not-driving-me-crazy-anymore Tim...the day he can relax & stop being the most ungodly frustrating human being on the face of this earth (exaggerate much, Sarah? sorry babe! i love you even when you're stressed out of your gourd)...the day when I can start making plans. At least, we hope.

In the meantime (as I haven't spent much time with tv, music, sleep or fun...I gather those are all rather distracting), this weekend has been a whirlwind in the kitchen. In fact, I'm rather unsure that I've spent any time NOT in the kitchen. As I write, I'm sitting beside a pizzelle maker, occasionally pausing to remove pizzelles & drop more batter onto the iron. Not only have I spent the last oh, I don't know, 12 hours making cookies (for Tim to bring to his presentation tomorrow), but I've also managed to squeeze in:

Coconut macaroon pancakes









(for which I didn't have coconut milk, so I sub'd skim milk & didn't have eggs, so I sub'd egg whites...still delicious!)

Failed Kozy Shack rice pudding experiment
(which was FAR too sweet, and I couldn't get over the flour as a thickener (ok, partly my fault since I didn't have any all-purpose flour, used white whole wheat...ewwy uncooked) with the weird texture the flour provided...still haven't eaten much of it. I occasionally take it out of the fridge & taste it, but then I kind of shudder & put it back.)

More white chocolate biscotti
(a new recipe, very much the texture like you'd get at a real coffee shop, which was cool. So good dipped in coffee. Mine personally didn't have much flavor, but I think that's because the white chocolate chips obviously didn't survive very well in all that heat. I made a bunch of changes to this recipe, so hopefully I'll update this with my recipe, but I appear to have lost the paper right now...)

Buckwheat galettes
(using entirely buckwheat flour...I didn't have any all-purpose. Also using 2% milk. I ran into some lumps in the batter...if anyone has any advice on how not to get those? Other than that, delicious & easy! I love crepes, but have never been to France, so I've only ever had them in the States & Montreal...& at home! We ate them with eggs & cheese, as well as with strawberries & whipped cream.)

Lucky muffins
(I tried incorporating some of the actual cereal into the cupcake...what's the use in getting rid of the yummy part of the cereal...it's the rest of the cereal that's hard to use up! It was mildly successful. I wasn't wild about them but Tim liked them, and we finally got rid of that box of Lucky Charms that's been sitting in the cupboard for months.)

Successful & delicious rice pudding
(In two parts: I wanted to try a recipe starting with cooked rice, but didn't actually have any cooked rice, so I "cooked rice" by simmering 2 cups skim milk & 1 cup basmati rice in a covered pot until the milk was absorbed. Then I halved the rice, made attempt #1 with the first 1/2, and put the other half in the fridge overnight. The next day, I took the other 1/2 out of the fridge, put the cold (2 cups) cooked rice in a pot with 3 cups 2% milk, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1/2 cup sugar & 1 tsp cinnamon. I let it simmer for about an hour, stirring frequently, until most of the milk was absorbed. Then into the fridge it went again, and it's still creamy & thick & lovely! And not flour-y at all, thank goodness. I roughly followed this recipe, once I had cooked the rice.)

I also attempted scalloped potatoes, but those didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. Tim liked 'em, but I wasn't satisfied.

As for the cookies, I made:

Chocolate Chunk & Cherry Oatmeal Cookies
(I'd been dying to try these. I halved the recipe, & used 1/2 light brown sugar & 1/2 dark brown sugar. I also used 1/4 cup white whole wheat flour & 1/2 cup all-purpose flour (in the halved version). Before adding the cherries & chocolate I split the batter, adding the cherries & chocolate to 1/2 the batter, and just adding raisins, 1/4 tsp cloves & 1/4 tsp nutmeg to the other half (oatmeal raisin cookies). Both halves were delicious. Great texture & the chocolate cherry ones had great flavor. Actually, I've decided to keep those ones...they're too good to share with Tim's department. :)



Patricia's Chocolate Sugar Cookies
(Didn't change a thing! These are really delicious. Mine looked darker than the ones in her pictures, but that might have been my camera or I added slightly more cocoa or something weird. Mmmm...I'm not usually big on sugar cookies, but add some chocolate in there & I'll be pushing my way to the front of the line!)



Chocolate Chip Cookies
(These I wasn't totally satisfied with, but I blame that on the fact that I left out the peanut butter...I know, I'm crazy...that's the best part...but this time I just wanted a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, so I used 1/3 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1 egg yolk & 1/2 cup flour instead. Everything else I kept the same (except...uh...clears throat...I used leftover "Santa" Reeses' peanut butter cups...don't yell! I know, we never eat candy! We had so much Christmas candy! I promise, it was still edible!) and I liked the texture of these a lot better.)

And that brings me back to pizzelles. I added some chopped hazelnuts to this batch...yum!

I'm hoping to add some pictures soon...right now it's dark & late so I'm not going to photograph yet. Wish Tim luck tomorrow! Here's hoping that my baking will soften them up a bit. :) Can't ask too many tough questions when eating delicious treats, right?