book club grub

i was excited to attend book club this weekend, although i totally put off actually reading the book until literally the day before the GTG.  heh.  by the way, the book was john green's the fault in our stars.  not necessarily something i would've picked up on my own, but that's why i love book club - and it was fantastic.  i'm really glad i read it.

now, as for what to bring as my potluck contribution - well, that was easy.  i have a whole bunch of fabulous things pinned to my "stuff i wanna eat" board on pinterest, and i'm always excited to have an excuse to try one of them.  of course, i always stress a little when serving something brand new to my friends, but in the end it usually turns out just fine.

this time was no different.  although i'd had a couple of requests for a do-over of those biscoff snickerdoodles, i wanted something new.  so i perused my board and after rejecting a couple of other ideas (mostly due to lack of ingredients in the kitchen, and i was too lazy to go out), i settled on this recipe for no-bake nutella cheesecakes.  i had half a package of oreos in the pantry that i wanted to get rid of, and a huge jar of nutella that was begging to be used up.  and this recipe?  so easy.  check it out:


take those oreos for a spin in the food processor.  in my case, it was the baby food maker that still comes in handy on a regular basis.

melt some butter, mix it in, and pull out a handful of paper cups to make things easy on the lucky ducks who'll be indulging in this chocolatey goodness.  press about a tablespoon's worth of buttery crushed cookie into the bottom of each cup.

crack open that vat of nutella and bust out the mixer to combine it with a brick of cream cheese and a little vanilla extract.  because i actually do try to cut as much fat and/or calories as i can wherever possible, i used the lower-fat neufchatel.  and then take an entire container of lowfat cool whip and fold it in.

now, if you're an anal freak like me, you pour that entire bowl of fluffy heaven into a ziploc bag so that you can pipe it nicely into each cup.

optional:  scrape what's left of the mixture from the sides of the bowl and stick the spatula in your mouth (i.e., perform an important test, "to make sure it tastes a'ight").

now turn your entire kitchen upside-down in search of a container with a matching lid that the cups will fit into for their overnight stay in the fridge.

the next morning, open the container(s), take a big sniff, and sneak a few out so you have some for yourself.  then you can put some leftover cool whip into another ziploc, snip off the corner, and drop a dollop into each cup.  spend about ten minutes looking for that piece of chocolate you know you have somewhere in the kitchen, break out the microplane, and grate a bit on top.

voila:

the glass containers that the original blogger used for her treats made for a much prettier presentation, but i had neither the goods nor the desire to wash them afterwards.

besides, it didn't matter.  these ended up being so delicious that i doubt the girls even noticed that they were eating them out of crappy paper cups.  if i ever make these to serve at home, maybe for a nice dinner, i'm totally gonna make some of those cool-looking cups using melted chocolate and a balloon.

i can't make this shit up, people.

faux pop tarts

ah, pinterest.  without you, where would i find all these fantastic ideas for delicious treats like homemade nutella pop tarts??

i woke up one morning with an intense desire to make these for breakfast.  only god knows what the hell i must've been dreaming about.  the only problem was that instead of the pie crust dough the instructions called for, my fridge contained a package of crescent roll dough.

but i was determined.  and i figured, how much of a difference could there really be?  well, as it turned out...quite a bit.  heh.

it started out looking just fine.  i unrolled the dough and pinched my way along the cuts where you would normally separate it into triangles.  then i decided to take a fork and poke holes all over, in the hopes of deflating the dough a bit.

i spread the nutella on pretty generously.

then i topped it with another piece of dough and crimped the edges shut with my fork.

i ended up with four pastries, which was perfect since it was just the bean and me at home.  yes, that totally meant i was allotting two apiece.  we were hungry.

after about ten minutes, my experiment was going slightly awry.  the good stuff was oozing right out of the sides and the whole thing was puffing up way more than i wanted.

but if you weren't trying to recreate pop tarts, these were actually pretty good - soft, golden brown, warm, and full of gooey nutella goodness.  how can that be bad?

apparently it wasn't, judging from the bean's very positive review.  "mommy, these are so delicious!  you're the best cooking mommy in the whole world."

ain't nothing wrong with that.

the best holiday EVER

saturday was world nutella day.  did you know that?

actually, i'd forgotten about it until my friend tater reminded me on facebook.  just one more reason why i love her.  ha!

we started the day off with the bean and the hub heading off to her school for "daddy and me" day.  she stopped to pose for me before they took off:

and later, we watched the teen and her team kick some ass and win their volleyball game.  sah-weet!

so when i got home and perused my baking pantry, i decided it was finally time to try macaron-ing again.  i thought it would be extra delicious to incorporate some ground hazelnuts into the mix, and i happened to have just enough to make half a batch.  except that the recipe i ended up using was really...strange.  the directions were not as precise as other recipes i've tried, but i was already too far gone into it before i realized it.  i can't seem to find it at the moment, so it's not linked in this post.  but if you really want it, let me know and i'll go hunting on the iPad for it.

and just as i suspected, the batter was really off as i piped it onto my baking sheets.  there were lumps of the hazelnut-cocoa-egg white mixture, and i resigned myself to yet another failure as i put them into the oven.

but when the timer went off and i cautiously peered inside, i was pleasantly surprised to find relatively smooth tops and even feet!

that doesn't mean that it was a total win - a few of the shells still cracked, even though i tried doubling up the pans.  oh, well.

i let them cool completely, peeled them from the parchment paper, and slathered some nutella between two shells.  they were still pretty chewy and rather fragile, despite some of them being cracked.  i don't think i'm baking them quite long enough.  still - not bad, right?  especially considering i was braced for another epic fail.

and when i bit into it, it was really delicious.  i'm definitely going to have to buy more hazelnuts and try again.  so scrumptious.

did YOU have some chocolatey, hazelnutty goodness on world nutella day?

cliffs notes for a busy weekend

too much good stuff. don't want to bore. abbreviating what could otherwise be a super duper long post.

kicked off the weekend thursday afternoon with a hair chop for the teen, who decided to give herself a fresh start by cutting off all of the dry, split-end-y parts of her hair. she ended up lopping off about six inches:

friday afternoon was a frantic rush to get my shit together (frenzied last-minute shopping for tablecloths and all sorts of stuff, which wasn't easy since i'd managed to lose my effing debit card) and finally resulted in a lovely display at urban renewal salon's beauty bash:

the teen was a huge help to me, not to mention that it was nice to have her to talk to for the four hours we were there. she got to take advantage of the free perks during the bash, though - one of the girls curled and styled her hair for her. and, well, i might have sat down for a few minutes and got some waxing done. heh.

and look, cute cupcakes! they were really delicious, too. even the fondant dots - they were soft and chewy and yum.

i made zero sales. i think that because the beauty bash was a free event, people weren't thinking about spending any cash, but i did get a few good leads for possible trunk shows. and i got a lot of catalogs and business cards out there, so it was exposure, at the very least. oh, well - it was good practice for the setup/teardown process.



saturday saw us making a run to the mall, because i had absolutely nothing to wear. and i must say - h&m's new "garden collection" is fantastic. such cute stuff - i picked up about four tops plus a little dress for the bean for $75. score!



after another quick search for a tablecloth that was unsuccessful, i gave up and the teen and i arrived here about 45 minutes before the event time:

another frantic (and sweaty) rush to get my shit together, and we were ready:

it was a fairly quiet launch, although i was excited to have my mom drive down for it and my buddy kelley make an appearance, too. there were a few other folks who came in, and a group of women who appeared just as i had to start packing up. i think my best bet for sales is going to be actual trunk shows, so hopefully i can start booking more of them.

afterwards, i took the girls out for some ice cream. the bean really got into it (apologies to those of you who despise messy food faces):

the next morning, the hub (who'd been out for six long hours the night before at a volunteer gig) suggested a drive down to the beach to relax and enjoy the absolutely gorgeous day. he got no arguments from any of us.

the bean settled in with a DVD and her headphones in the back seat.

while strolling through malibu country mart, we walked right past jermaine dupri. i'm still amused at how short he is. but i didn't take a picture of him - it was kind of awkward. instead, when we realized we were driving right behind him, i snapped one of his car. heh.

we headed towards santa monica and 3rd street promenade, where we encountered this borat-wannabe. "very nice, how much?" didn't really apply, but it was still funny to me.

not really wanting to maneuver the bean's ginormous stroller through the crowds (and narrow shop aisles), i busted out our trusty ergo carrier. she likes to ride piggy-back style.

we ended up having dinner at trastevere trattoria italiana, where we watched the bean plow through half a plate of whole wheat penne pasta with their delish marinara sauce. it's always funny to watch her get her grub on.

afterwards, her usual request of "ice cream? ice cream, pweese?" sent us to milk, our favorite joint for dessert out on the west side. three words: nutella. ice. cream.

oh, so rich, but oh, so good. even the bean eschewed her scoop of chocolate ice cream in favor of sharing my scoop of hazelnutty-chocolatey goodness.

it was the perfect way to cap off a nice, long, fun-filled weekend.