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.

trains, planes and automobiles

after a lot of calendar coordinating and a couple of reschedules, the bean and i were happy to join lilcee, mini cee, dailygluttony and mini DG for a fun playdate at travel town near griffith park.  i knew that the hub and brother wan had been here many times when they were little, but i'd never been and i was excited to take the bean to hang out with our friends.

travel town is a park and museum dedicated to preserving the railroad history in the l.a. area, and there are lots of trains to play in and around.  even better?  it's free!  well, there's a cute little train ride available that loops around the park twice, with tickets a whopping $2.50 per person.  sweet! 

it was fun to watch the kids greet each other, as we moms whipped out our phones and snapped away.

although the bean came prepared and turned it around on me at least once.

but i ended up packing it away into my backpack as they got down to the business of exploring the trains.

here, she's pretending that the train is a plane and she's the pilot, giving the announcements over the loudspeaker.  kids, man.

mini DG is an old pro at travel town and led us into the children's corner.

we'd gotten there right as the park opened, so it wasn't too crowded - yet.

we all peeked into a room where a local model train club was working on setting up a new display.

as they lost interest and ran outside, the bean found something to check out.

except that that wasn't really meant for anyone to ride - some park employee had probably gone to answer nature's call or something and i ushered the bean off of the thing before we were discovered.  after taking that picture first, of course.  come on now.

we chased after them around the trains one more time before deciding it was time to take that spin around the park.

this face is hilarious.

"look!  it's the pink train again, mommy - your favorite color!" indeed.

we watched families set up for fun birthday parties in the reserved areas.

and after the ride we made one last stop in the children's corner, where we found quite a few more people crowded around the train table.

after tossing around a few different ideas for lunch, the thought of delicious grub from porto's bakery lured us to glendale.

medianoche sandwich for me, turkey croissant for the bean (who was rather tired of taking pictures by then).

a fantastic time, as always.  we'd joked as we watched them race around that it would make for a pretty great afternoon nap, and sure enough...the bean passed out cold on the way home. 

most excellent.

signage, take two

after the successful hike a couple of weeks ago up to the hollywood sign with my friends, i decided that the teen and i needed to do it together.  she and rock-ell had unsuccessfully attempted to drive up to it a few months ago, and so i thought that it would be a fun idea to get them both out there. 

there was much grumbling and griping, but in the end i prevailed, and 8am on a saturday morning found us in the car, driving under cloudy skies towards griffith park.  it was drizzling on us as we left the house, and i was afraid i'd end up having to turn back.  but as we continued west, it cleared up nicely and we even saw the sun peeking out now and then.  phew.

because the weather wasn't as perfect as it had been the week before, it was much less crowded as we parked and began the adventure.  and like the last time, we did the warm-up hike up to the "batman" caves before the big climb.

so...yeah, somehow it seemed like a rougher hike this time around.  i'm not sure why.  i wasn't sore anymore from the first time, but it just felt like the hill was steeper than before.  heh.  and it was amusing to watch the teen lead the charge, striding confidently ahead of us as rock-ell and i huffed and puffed our way up.

as we finally turned a corner and came upon the fence that told us we were almost at the sign, i noticed something interesting - more cameras had been installed in the week since my last trip up.  look - before:

and now:

iiiiiiiiinteresting.

we climbed up the last little hill to admire the view and savor the fruits of our labor.  there was a group of giggly teenaged girls there who were blissfully hogging the best spot and taking picture after picture after picture, ignoring the growing crowd of people patiently waiting their turns to capture their own ascent to the top.  i was just hoping the teen and rock-ell wouldn't throw them all off the mountain in their irritation.

they didn't, and we finally got our turns:

we celebrated our awesome hiking expedition with a trip to both starbucks and mcdonald's.  chicken mcnuggets never tasted so good.  oh, and i might have also savored a delicious seasonal treat as well...it's shamrock shake time again!

mmmmm.  minty.

rock-ell isn't used to such activity and claims to have been sore for days afterwards.  i, on the other hand, recovered much quicker this time around.  and the teen doesn't seem to have suffered any ill effects - in fact, we've got plans to do another hike this weekend!

we'll see if we can drag rock-ell to this one.  it may very well be some good teen bonding time, just the two of us.  we can make it if we try.

rock star jacket, take 2

so remember how i promised a friend that i'd try to recreate the jacket i embellished for the bean to wear to the fresh beat band concert?  it occurred to me last week that the big day was coming up - in fact, it's this weekend! - and i realized that i needed to get this freaking show on the road.  yikes.
i'd scoured the google for a tutorial on how to sew up a simple jacket, and after perusing this one, i felt pretty good about what i was going to attempt.  using the bean's jacket as a guide, i traced around it and cut out a pattern to use for the silver pleather i'd bought at joann's.

i had a full yard to work with, but really only needed about half of it.  now i get to figure out a different use for the rest of the stuff.

using the tips in that tutorial and using what little sewing skills i've acquired in the last couple of years, i managed to put a pretty decent jacket together.  of course, this was not without a few bumps in the road - although i'd decided to make it really simple and leave it unlined, i just didn't like how it looked with the seams for the sleeves clearly visible.  i did french seams for the sides, which always looks better to me, but i ended up scouring through my fabric stash and finding a nice length of magenta satin.  i had just enough to fully line the sleeves and the sides, but came up a bit short for the rest.  oops.  plus, the sleeves were a little too big for the opening in the jacket itself and i ended up making a couple of pleats at the top.  but i kind of liked how it ended up - slightly more girly than the original jacket i was trying to copy.  and then i realized that i'd screwed up and should've lined the sleeves before setting them in the body.  crap.  oh, well.

but i'm crafty - i decided that if forever 21 could do partial lining in their jackets, so could i.  besides, i figure that this thing's only going to be worn for a few hours during the concert anyway, right? 

i added the stars to the front and back of the jacket, and then compared it to the bean's much nicer ready-made, professionally done jacket.

when she saw what i was doing, she was more than willing to try it on and be my model.

it's not too bad, right?  i skipped a collar (since the jacket that the band wears doesn't have one either) and didn't bother with a zipper or snaps (too complicated for this novice).

we put it in the mail to our friend, and a couple of days later she sent me a link to a video of her daughter excitedly wearing it.  i was so pleased to see that it fit her perfectly, and that they weren't too put off by my amateurish attempt.





so fun, right?  had i not been able to find that one for the bean, i would totally have her wear my homemade version.

oh, and i finally told her about going to the concert this weekend.  i wish i would've recorded her reaction - she lit up like a christmas tree and is so excited.  ah, it's gonna be such a great day.

(did you see what i did there, fellow FBB parents?  heh.)