Finally!

I've been to a lot of weddings, bridal showers, etc.  This summer/ fall alone I had 4 bridal showers and 5 weddings.  After going to so many over the years, there is one question that is on every unmarried girl's mind... When will I ever get a Kitchen Aid Mixer?!?!

 I say this because a Kitchen Aid Mixer is stupid expensive.  Pretty much everyone in my age range that has one received it as a bridal shower gift, because who really can spend $500 on a mixer that weighs more than the cook? I've wanted one forever.  Problem being, I'm never planning on doing that marriage thing, so I figured I'd never get one.  When my little brother's fiance received one at her bridal shower, I thought about the lack of cooking they do and how neglected that poor mixer would be. I looked at the box longingly and thought, "I'll give you a good home little buddy. We can make cupcakes and pretzel bread and cookies..." If you love to cook, and don't have a Kitchen Aid- you feel my pain.

Back in August, Best Buy had an anniversary sale and had a red Kitchen Aid for 50% off. I wanted to buy it then, but I felt it was an irresponsible purchase with no job and stuff.  Last week they had it on sale again... Less than $200- I felt it was a sign and bought it.

Of course it came during a heat wave, so the last thing I felt like doing was baking.  But, as soon as the heat broke, I busted it out and it is sitting pretty on my kitchen table, waiting to be used.  Of course I'm busy all day today, but tomorrow-- I have big plans for it...

Let's talk pumpkin beer

As mentioned in my last post, I enjoy the fall beers.  The BF and his BFF share photos via text of each Oktoberfest beer they try every year because they both LOVE Oktoberfest to a ridiculous point. My bestie (who I refer to as my wifey) and I enjoy pumpkin beers, she actually enjoys EVERYTHING pumpkin, which most things I do as well, so I started the text tradition as well.  This year she has an adorable 6 month baby girl at home, so she has not been participating in the usual pumpkin beer obsession due to being responsible.  The BF and I often make "black o'lanterns" which is a black and tan using Guiness and pumpkin beer. I find the more pumpkiny the beer the better for those. BF prefers the lighter pumpkin spice flavor.

So for this post, I am reviewing some of the pumpkins I have tried this season to share the wealth and knowledge. Again, I apologize for the lack of artistic integrity in the pictures, this began as just texts between the wifey and I.

Leinenkugel's Harvest Pumpkin Shandy

Leinnie's is one that I love their various beers, but tend to be very sweet. The pumpkin is no exception.  This is a light and crisp beer, however, extremely sweet.  I referred to it as "cupcake beer".  The notes of cinnamon and spice are very noticeable and there are actually undertones of real pumpkin.  To me, I think of it more as a pumpkin spice soda. It would make a great black o'lantern. 

Kentucky Pumpkin Barrel Ale

This pumpkin ale was brewed in bourbon barrels and has the nice undertones of the bourbon. It also has the nice 10% alcohol content that has the extra kick.  It is less sweet, but has some nice spice to it. I'm not a bourbon drinker- as much as I really want to be, however, I do like some of the beers or ciders that are brewed in the barrels as well as some of the sauces (such as my bourbon meatballs I'll have to post).  I didn't get to finish this one, because 1/3 of the way through it I noticed on the label it said Contains: Wheat, Pecans.  I'm allergic to tree nuts.  It hadn't hit me yet, but since I was out of Benadryl I decided against finishing it.  Sad day in beer land.  

Cooney Island Freaktoberfest Big Ol' Pumpkin Ale

This one was quite good. It also complimented the chocolate cake I had for breakfast Saturday quite well.  The ale is brewed with pumpkin, spices and expresso beans.  It has a mild pumpkin spice taste and a darker ale. It's still sweet (as most pumpkin ales are) but not overly sweet. 

Ballast Point Pumpkin Down

This one was really tasty.  It was a nice light pumpkin flavor.  It's a Scottish Ale with pumpkin spices.  It had more of an ale taste rather than the pumpkin spice.  I will definitely have to get this one again. 

Crock Pot Oktoberfest Beer Chicken

As much as I love summer (I always have- but being a teacher also adds to my love for summer), I also love fall.  I love when it starts to cool off, the windows are open, weekend bonfires, hot apple cider and most of all the BEER! I love Oktoberfest and pumpkin beer! I do have a rule that I will not drink them until school starts, but so yum!  The boyfriend is even more obsessed with Oktoberfest beer.  He would drink them year round given the opportunity, with this being said- it was very hard to stick to my "no Oktoberfest before the school year" rule with him drinking it since the beginning of August (but I did!).  It was starting to get that fall feel around here for the last few days, we had the windows open, great sleeping weather and even had a couple of fires.  I decided I wanted to make the beer chicken that we typically do in the fall, of course since I started thinking fall it became super humid, air went back on, and it's going to get in the 90s this week.  Yay New England seasons.  No matter, I'm still going to enjoy the flavor, especially since this is a crock pot meal so no hot stove!

Ingredients:

About 1 lb of boneless skinless chicken breast (about 2 breasts depending on the size)
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground mustard
1/4 teaspoon celery salt
1/4 teaspoon seasoned pepper
1/4 teaspoon rubbed sage
salt and pepper as needed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 12oz bottle of Oktoberfest beer of your choice
(estimated amount of veggies)
1 cup baby carrots
1 cup cut parsnips
1 cups cut potatoes

I would like to provide a disclaimer: I do not measure.  I am guesstimating the amounts I put in, other than the beer cause that comes pre-measured.

Directions.

Sprinkle paprika, ground mustard, celery salt. rubbed sage and seasoned pepper onto chicken breasts.  Put into crockpot, drizzle with olive oil and cover on high for about 30 minutes.  After the first 30 minutes, switch to low and add the beer.  If you don't have time for this, it's totally ok to put the beer in as well and cook on low the whole time.  I usually just throw it all in together, but I was home and had time to experiment.

After it's been cooking for about 2 hours, add the chopped veggies, salt and pepper.  Again, it's an estimated amount.
What looks good to feed your family for the amount of chicken you have. This is what mine looked like.

I had some fingerling potatoes left from the farm, and also added red potatoes. I just love the colors of the purple and orange and white. If you don't like parsnips, add more carrots. I'm still not sure what a parsnip really tastes like, the BF wanted them so I got them.

Once you add the veggies to the crockpot, cover and continue to cook for another 4 hours or so until it's done.  I may have under estimated the size of my crockpot-- I used the small one instead of the big one. Ooops... still learning how to cook for two on a week night.

If you overfilled like I did, just mix them around a few times until they're cooked somewhat even.  After the first hour they cook down a bit so at least the cover fits all the way on. I would suggest using the 4 quart crockpot, as opposed to the 2 quart I used for more even cooking

Once it is cooked, serve all together in one yummy, messy pile.  I served with sour kraut and brown mustard, but do what's good for you.

I'm still working on my photos... As I keep doing this, I'll work on the presentations...

Superhero birthday extravaganza!

I am a giant nerd.  My boyfriend is a bigger nerd.  Together we are also big kids, and it's pretty awesome.  For our birthday party last month (our birthdays are one week apart) we decided to have a super hero birthday party!

As part of this party, we decided we wanted pinatas- two of them, one for the kids and one for the adults.  Have you ever shopped for a super hero piniata? They are expensive, so I decided to let my crazy out and build my own.  I made a huge mess, took a lot of time, but had fun making them so it was totally worth it.  I like crafting, so it was actually very relaxing for me to paper mache and paint.  I also did way too good of a job, they were unbreakable.

For the kids I went with a Captain America shield.  I took the idea from a few different websites and made it my own.  For this one, I started with cardboard and a xacto knife.


I first cut two circles from a cardboard box-- word of advice, trace something round.  It took me a bit of trimming to get the sides to match.

Step 1: Cut two circles out of cardboard

Step 2: Cut strips of light weight cardboard to form the outside. Tape to the base.

Step 3: Tape two bases together, leaving an opening to add candy

I then cut a cereal box and taped it to the edges of the cardboard. I used duct tape to stick it on, but secured it with scotch tape all around.  If you use too much duct tape you'll never break it.  I left an open part to get the candy in.


After that, I made my own paper mache mix. For this, I have no measurements, I just mixed a bunch of flour and water to make a thick paste.  At this point, one would normally cover it with newspaper.  I didn't think the whole process out, so I used old junk mail and student papers.  I ripped the paper into strips and overlapped one layer to cover the whole shield. Once this step was complete, I left it to dry overnight.

Step 4: Cover outside with paper mache.  Mix flour and water to form a glue, paint on the base, add strips of paper, and cover with more glue.  Let dry a few hours or over night.

To add the colors, I used a combo of streamers and tissue paper.  I had blue streamers that I wrapped around the outer edge with tape.  For the inside of the shield, I cut up red streamers and white tissue paper and layered it on with the paper mache mix. I cut them into about 3 inch strips and frayed the edges. I found the streamers to work better because they were thicker.   I also cut a blue circle out of tissue for the center.  I did this on both sides, waiting again, overnight to let each side dry.  I also happened to have a cool silver star cut out so I used that for the center star and glued it on.  Any short cuts are a good one- besides, I can't even cut a circle never mind a star!

Step 5: Cut strips of tissue paper and/or streamers for the inside color. Fray the edges to give it that fun effect. 

Step 6: Use blue streamers to cover the outside edge. Tape or glue as you wrap around.  Tissue would also work, but the streamers flowed so were easy. 

Once it was all dry it looked pretty awesome!  The kids loved it, although as I said, I may have over done it and they couldn't break it.  After they took a bunch of swings at it, a friend ripped it open Hulk style so they could get to the goods inside.  My boyfriend and I find it our jobs to be the fun "Uncle" and "Aunt" who sugar up our friends' kids and send them home.  One of his friends called the next day "thanking" him for sending his two kids home with more candy than they get on Halloween...

Step 7: Cut out blue circle for the middle and add a star, either cut out your own or if you're lucky enough to have random party supplies laying around like I do, glue a star cut out to the center. 

As for the adults, we also had a piniata.  I made a Deadpool one using a balloon and more paper mache.  The process was essentially the same, except no cardboard.  I paper mached a balloon over the course of a few days. Hanging it up to dry in between.

I did about 3-4 layers... again, maybe a bit much as it was a challenge to break.  After the paper mache was dry, I painted Deadpool's face on it.  Not bad if I do say so myself...

It was really heavy and fell to the ground when trying to break it.  I finally smashed it on the ground.  The adult one was filled with candy and nippers... my friends attacked the goods even quicker than the kids did. Oddly, they left a couple nips behind but took all the gummy bears. 

Ta-Da. This was my fun creation. I would totally do it again. Word of advice-- it makes a mess. Be sure to cover your work area with something.

Oh Yeah... I forgot I had a blog...

Hello anyone that may actually read this. So last year I became really busy once work started and totally ran out of time for anything not related to 6th grade. It was overall a kind of crappy school year and this summer ended up being super busy.

 So here's the update:  for more than a year the boyfriend and I have been trying to find a place to live,  and finding anything wheelchair accessible that also accepts cats is not possible.  In addition to that, I am no longer working at the school so budget is also an issue.  To resolve our problems, we decided to move into my apartment (sad face).  It's a way to save money and no lease so that when we're ready for a real house we will be able to go when we need to. The current projects we've been working on is rearranging the apartment, getting rid of stuff, and soon to be repainting the kitchen. Additionally, I've been trying to find a new job and organize my life.  I've done a lot of cooking this summer and wish I wrote down what I did so that I would have something actually on this blog, as well as record of these recipes I've made that I will never be able to duplicate.

 So I will try to get my act together, cook more,  and write what I have in order to get back in the habit of keeping stuff here and getting into a routine. Stand by for more...