These are mocha cupcakes…once again, the recipe is (mostly) from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. The cupcakes are vegan excluding the semi-sweet chocolate chips I threw into them. They’re just a basic chocolate cupcake batter with the addition of some espresso powder for a bit of coffee flavor. The buttercream frosting is once again not vegan because I used regular margarine that has a little bit of dairy in it. I made the cookbook’s basic buttercream frosting recipe and added a little bit of cocoa powder and a fair amount of espresso powder. The boyfriend thought the frosting tasted a little caramel-ly. I don’t know how but it was pretty damned good frosting.

This is Smoky Corn Chowder from the current issue of Real Simple magazine. Click here for the recipe. I didn’t really change the recipe at all other than I used regular paprika instead of smoked paprika. But I did use really good applewood smoked bacon and that made the dish plenty smoky. I also got to use the boyfriend’s immersion blender on this soup. I’d never used one before but I shall be using it again.

This is my Thai beef salad…kind of an old standby dish at this point. I make it at least every couple of months…if not more often . I posted the recipe for it last July.

I made very tasty almond cupcakes yesterday. There will be pictures soon from both my camera and the boyfriend’s much nicer camera.

Today I’m making chicken pot pie from scratch and some sort of chicken salad. The type of chicken salad is yet to be determined. The boyfriend is rooting for the pesto chicken salad he likes so much. I may try something different. We’ll see.

In other news, I stop managing in the restaurant entirely by March 1. I’ve got mixed feelings about this but I’m generally fine with it…I’ll just serve and bartend. I won’t be writing the schedule for the restaurant anymore. I’ll miss that. But on the bright side, I’ll be able to take pretty much any weekend I want off. We’re already talking about lots of camping trips as soon as it gets remotely warm enough to do so.

The boyfriend has also signed a contract to buy a house. It’s just an empty lot right now. The house should be built in about 6 months. He’s very excited…and so am I. Probably a little more excited than I should be since it is *his* house. But I might be lucky enough to live in it at some point. And either way, I will be doing all of my cooking there once it’s done. Oh, and my laundry, too.

So…in the interim, we’re both trying not to spend money. It’s nice not spending money with someone else. There’s a lot less temptation this way. I’ve managed to stick to my budget for January. The January budget was reduced from previous months and I’ve still stuck to it. I’m pretty impressed with myself for this. Of course, my MacBook didn’t figure into the budget…other than that, all I really spent money on this month was groceries for the massive amounts of cooking I’ve done.

I guess this is long enough…but here’s a picture of the boyfriend and I at the work Christmas party a couple of weeks ago…I’m posting it just to prove to myself that my camera does get used for something other than pictures of food!

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I promised a picture of these a week ago. Sorry…I’ve been busy.

Coconut and lime are good together. Very good. These have lime zest and lots of coconut in the actual cupcakes and the frosting is a lime buttercream with fresh lime juice and lime zest.

These aren’t actually vegan again despite being from the vegan cupcake cookbook. The cupcakes themselves are but I used normal margarine for the buttercream. It’s a lot cheaper than vegan margarine…and since I’m not a vegan, it makes little difference to me.

Half of these cupcakes were taken to work where they were greatly appreciated. The boyfriend thought they had a little too much frosting…but only because it made them a little difficult to eat.

It’s been a good week. The boyfriend took me home to meet lots of members of his family. I think it went well…or so he says.

I also got my new computer…my beautiful white MacBook. I love, love, love it. The boyfriend admitted last night that he was a tiny bit afraid I might not like it after spending so much money on it. He had nothing to worry about…I really do love it. The programs make sense and are very user friendly.

There’s more to tell but I’m on a break from work and *should* be writing the schedule on this break…

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The boyfriend thinks I should start titling my posts differently. Maybe I should…but I’m lazy.

He made these gingersnaps and had me take pictures of them despite the fact that he’s a pretty good photographer himself and has a very nice camera. I seem to enjoy taking food pictures so it’s my job whether I’ve cooked the food or not. He did threaten to let me use his camera sometime soon. I think I can safely assume that those pictures will be pretty good.

Tomorrow I’ll have pictures of coconut lime cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes. I cheated and they’re not actually vegan…

If I’m going to keep baking so much, I think I’m going to have to find some cheap sources for odd baking supplies online. Buying things like coconut extract at the grocery store is not cheap. This week is a bit busy with work and we’re going to Harrisonburg this weekend (for me to meet more of the boyfriend’s family) so I don’t have much time for researching…but next week I’m going to price things at Costco for baking and start looking at internet resources. It’s shopping but not real shopping…but I’ll still have fun doing it.

Off to frost my cupcakes!

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Tiramisu Cupcakes…as promised. The recipe for these is also from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. These are nearly vegan as I cheated and used regular cream cheese for the frosting instead of the prescribed vegan cream cheese. We already had regular cream cheese in the fridges so there was no sense in being wasteful…and we’re not vegan anyway.

I followed the recipe almost exactly otherwise…other than using multiple liqueurs instead of just coffee liqueur. The recipe also said these didn’t keep very well and should be eaten on the same day they’re made…but I think they’re still more than fine a couple days later.

I’m not going to get to bake much (if any) this week as I’ve got to work a bunch for the next several days and then we’re going out of town for at least part of the weekend. I’ve got Saturday, Sunday and Monday off so maybe I’ll make some good things on Sunday or Monday.

I’m probably going to order a MacBook in the next day or two. They released a new one today but it costs more than I want to spend. Boo.

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These are vegan “Strawberry Tallcakes”. The boyfriend baked these. They were delicious.

The boyfriend and I might be baking too much. In barely a week, we’ve made pecan squares, the strawberry tallcakes, two loaves of honey wheat bread, featherlight yeast rolls, ginger cookies, and almost vegan tiramisu cupcakes (pictures of these coming soon!).

I came up with a rule about the vegan (or semi-vegan) cupcakes I want to make all the time. Each recipe makes 12 cupcakes. We’re allowed to eat 2 each. The other 8 must be given away. Or we’ll be fat. Very fat. So…right now there are 8 tiramisu cupcakes in our fridges looking for homes…any takers? I’ll have to start planning the baking days better…the restaurant is closed tomorrow so I can’t take any to people there. My dad is also off from work on Mondays so I can’t give any to him tomorrow either.

An easy solution would be to stop baking so often. Too bad I can’t do that. I’m practicing for my future job as a baker.

More soon.

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Hi. Yes, I know I have a blog. Yes, I know I haven’t updated it in a long time. Yes, I’m a bad blogger. I’m going to try to do better.

These are yummy pecan squares from a few days ago. They’re from Baking Illustrated…which has become our go-to baking cookbook lately.

I altered the recipe slightly and used dark brown sugar instead of light brown sugar. I like the caramel-molasses flavor from the dark brown sugar. I also used a couple tablespoons of the Rogue Hazelnut Spiced Rum. I still have a lot of it left and can’t drink it due to my supposed rum allergy. The recipe in the cookbook had a typo and I used too many pecans…but that was mostly okay.

I’m busy and that’s good. I’m only taking one class this semester (Intro to Business) as it has been decided that I need to spend a lot of time researching the potential bakery. I kind of think I need a syllabus for the bakery…to keep me working on some sort of schedule.

I did make a form this week for all of our cooking and baking…every time we make something new, we fill out the form with the recipe and its source, changes to the recipe and lots of comments…what was good, what was bad, what should be different next time, how long it kept, and so on. I have to admit it’s kind of dorky but fun to write in the recipe log.

bedtime. more soon. really.

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