Just Dessert

Happy Easter! Or, should I say Happy Spring Fertility Festival! (Hense the bunnies and eggs...). Anyways, it has been a very busy weekend. Yesterday I would have told you it was too busy and a regretted having so much scheduled, but today things seem a bit more relaxed and I am a bit more cheerful.

The weekend showcased my baking abilities and my abhorrent organization. Allow me to discuss the organization part first.

Starting yesterday morning:
9:20 AM Drive to the farmers market in worthington to meet friends (10 minute drive), then head up to Polaris and go to Target and Kroger, return home around 11:20
11:40 AM Go to Home Depot and Appliance Smart to Fridge Shop, wish I had price checked at Lowes when I was up there that morning. Return home around 1:00. Find the recipe I was going to make for easter. Promptly lose it.
2:00 PM Drive to the grocery store (half way to Worthington) to pick up things I forgot. Arrive home 2:30. Commence baking. Have people over, have a nice evening, so go bed.
9:00 AM Drive to the the grocery store to pick up things I forgot. Arrive home 9:30.

So... in other words, what should have been ONE trip, maybe two, was four. What should have been done with by early Saturday afternoon was dragged out until this morning. Now wonder I feel like things are too busy.

Onward to the nice part - the cooking. I have made three desserts for this weekend. At work on Friday we had a pot luck to celebrate making it halfway through probation. Our probation ends on Sept. 14th (the same day we started work... one full year). Hard to believe its half over, but my review went excellently. Anyways, for that pot luck I made my Mom's rhubarb crunch, and it turned out quite well. Yesterday was the trickiest dessert. It needed to be Kosher for Passover (Pesadich). I was having some people over to watch a classic movie, and one of them is Jewish. Kosher for Passover means almost no grains can be used. I found the recipe for a good crust online and then pretty much made up my own cheesecake recipe and I must say it turned out wonderfully.

Here is my new reciple, an Amanda Original:

Pesadich Strawberry Almond Cheesecake
Crust:
3/4 cup sliced almond
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup maza cake meal (this is a specialty ingredient for passover, if you don't care about it being Kosher you could use cornmeal or cookie crumbs)
1 stick butter

Toast the almonds (I did 10 minutes at 350 degrees), put them in food processor w/the cake meal and mix until the almonds are finally grated. Mix in butter (either in food processor or by hand). Melt the stick of butter and add to dry mixture, mix well and then pat down into the bottom and sides of a 9 inch springform pan. Be generous in the ammount that pats up the sides (let it go fairly high)

Filling:
2 eggs
2 pkgs cream cheese, softened
1/2 sugar
Almond Extract (I actually used imitation and it was fine)
1 lb Strawberrys, sliced

Beat sugar into softened cream cheese until well blended add eggs and almond extract, beat until there is a regular consistency. Almond extract.. I did not measure, more than a dash though. Its too taste I guess.

Spread half of the filling into the bottom of the crust. Carefully place one layer of sliced strawberries on top of the filling (so it covers it once, you still should have a lot of strawberries left!). Spread the second half of the filling ontop of the strawberries. With a fork, crumble edges of the crust over the top of the cheesecake. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until the top cracks a little. It still will be a bit wobbly in the center.
Allow to cool fully. Heap remaining strawberries in the center and serve.

This seriously looks and tastes amazing!!

The final desset of the weekend is yet to be completed or eaten. It is Springtime Dessert, another recipe of my mom's with only a few twists. We will see how it turns out later today when I head up to my Grandma's for easter dinner!

I know this post is ridiculously long but I also wanted to mention what pleasant walk I had this morning. I am all for springtime weather, but I was afraid that the weather was moving to rapidly towards summer for my taste. However, the past two days have been lovely - all the windows are open and its not to hot, just fresh air. This morning the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and I was nice and comfortable in my sweatshirt and jeans. It was just so wonderful.

April's Fool, Resolutions Re-tooled

It is now April 1st. We are officially 1/4 of the way through the year (by months.. not days actually). I think its a good time to pause and reflect, to look at how I am doing on my goals for this year and how I am feeling about life in general.



Here are my New Years Resolutions, and how I feel like I am doing on them:

1) Get Organized!!!

Lets face it, I have hardly touched this one. I did buy some storage containers that SLIGHTLY improved the use of our front closet and cabinet under the sink. That is pathetic though. I have not read the organization book I bought. I hardly have cut back on activities or tried to manage my time. We have slightly improved in responding to mail, but not by much. We have not fixed our filing. We are not keeping the house cleaner. We have not purged anything. I need to step up and get working on this. Clearly I need to set some smaller goals.



(2) Cook More, Eat Healthier

I have made some progress here, but there is more room for improvement. This task was LARGELY assisted by my Lent resolution to give up fast food, which took away the quick and easy option. I have been bezzling less, snacking less, and paying more attention to portions. The ammount of meals eaten at home has slightly increased. My weight has stabilized (I had been in a long gain), but is not really dropping. DH is also very into exercise/diet (on his own personal 90 day program), so I would really like to step this up another notch.



(3) Reading Goal
Finally, one I am doing decently on! The goal was to read 40K pages and to tackle some of the tomes I have been meaning to get to. I currently have read 10621 pages, meaning that I am 26.5525% done with my goal with 24.6575% of the year gone. I am just ahead of the curve, but will have to keep it up to finish this! As for the tomes, well, I am working on one. Sort of.


(4) Grimmy Grim
I have increased the ammount of walking I do with Grim, but not as much as my resolution called for. I will walk her longer if its beautiful out and I am not in a hurry. The puppy complicated this resolution significantly because she was too cold to take long walks before it started getting nice.

So... in Other Words ---
So what am I going to do about all of these resolutions? Not time to give up yet! I still have 9 months to achieve my resolutions! I think its time to break them down a little! Here are my goals for the month of April.

(1) Get Organized!!
a. Read my organization book
b. Clean out the rest of underneath the cabinet and buy appropriate organization bins to keep it clean
c. Make a list of all activities that I regularly partake in, including puppy time, and prioritize them, and act on my schedule accordingly.
d. Sit down with DH and make a list of all the little projects that are waiting to get done around the house.
e. Take Stock of My Office and figure out what exactly needs to be done to make it functional

(2) Cook More, Eat Healthier
a. Plan 2 meals for each week in advance (starting this weekend), and execute them. Ask DH to cook one meal a week.

(3) Reading
a. Finish Ulysses by the end of the month

(4) Grimmy Grim
a. Take advantage of the one day per week DH is handling dinner to take the dogs to the dog park.
b. Continue to try and walk them longer whenever the weather is decent.

Other April Goals -
(5) Clean the Garden Bed out and plant seeds inside to start
(6) Go Hiking
(7) Visit LEKT
(8) Make Springtime Dessert
(9) Visit Alum Creek Lake or another large Body of water (well, not that large)
(10) Order Pictures

Cleveland Jaunt

Tuesday I made a quick trip up to Cleveland. My little sister and mom are on a cross-country mother-daughter road trip for my sister's 16th Birthday (which was back in January), on her Spring Break. They stayed in Cleveland a few nights with my mom's family that is up there. I took the afternoon off on Tuesday and headed up. I met my Mom and sister and we went to a metro park (state road) where we walked an exercise course and my little sister showed off her athleticism, then we met the entire gang (aunts, uncles, cousins, cousin's kids), for dinner at a chinese buffet where I sampled Prawn and Frog Legs for the first time. It was a good time, always to short seeing family, but still nice. I had to leave first because I was exhausted and had the two-hour drive home to contend with.

I also returned to Trivia last night, where I was completely useless. But, that is relatively typical. We were doing well as a team until the final question, which we totally f'ed up. Put these shows in order of their premier date (oldest to newest) - Coach, Full House, Roseanne.

A Weekend Away

We spent the weekend in Urbana-Champaign with our friends from undergraduate, B&R. It was a fun and relaxing weekend! The main activities: Eat, Play, Tour

Tour - We got a nice walking tour of the Illinois campus, it is quite pretty! We also used the nice weather to throw the football around a little. We also did a driving tour of the cities, I always thought it was a bigger area than it is for some reason. Combined, it is about 120K. My hometown, Duluth MN has 86K, within the city proper and more in surrounding areas, and in a way almost felt bigger tha Urbana-Champaign once I saw the downtowns, minus of course the giant University.

Play - We played a lot of games! DH is all time champion in Mexican Train (a domino game that is quite fun and I think I will be teaching to my family the next chance I get) and in Monopoly. I am all time champion in Poker (texas hold'em) and Phase 10, though DH is claiming my Poker title is invalid because he was not playing like he would if it were for real money. However, I think that my overall poker record is better than his, so I will still claim the title. Sorry B&R for coming into your house and beating you at everything. LOL. You can try and return the favor when you come to visit next, but we won't make it easy for you.

Food - Wow, did we eat. Saturday lunch we grilled steak and veggies, and it was amazing. So delicious and tender! Saturday night we went to Bayernstube in Gibson City, a very authentic German resteraunt that took my back. It even had the real german bread for the appetizer. It was so tasty. I have to say, it puts Columbus' popular German Resteraunt, Schmidt's to shame, especially for anyone who actually wants German food, and not just German-like food. Sunday we had a nice Jause, also called Abendbrot, this is basically a spread of meats, cheeses, and vegatables that is eaten in many European countries (including of course Germany and Austria) for dinner, as lunch is the big hot meal of the day. Then we went for frozen custard at a local place, which was quite tasty. Unfortunately it was too cool to walk around more.

That was the weekend, we came back home to five pets very happy to see us! Too happy really, I got horrible sleep last night due to a combination of (1)worry about the puppy having not gone before we went to bed (2) all five pets demanding attention at various points throughout the night (3) overheating and (4) bad dreams. It was charming! LOL.

Wedding Weekend

This past weekend we headed up to Toledo to attend a wedding between two friends from my graduate school. It was a very relaxing weekend - not worrying about the housework that needed done or goals going unfinished, just doing what we felt like and what was fun.

The wedding ceremony was pretty and sweet, and the reception was very well organized and beautiful. The reception was at a old country club with hardwood and windows overlooking the golf course. There was a cocktail hour where waiters carried around trays of gourmet goodies, and then a sit down meal with amazing food. Eventually there was dancing, of course, and there was the basketball tournament on for those who cared. We had a lot of fun! The only two hitches - for all the good service, there was a major glitch with the cake (they either did not have enough cake for everyone, or did not cut a grooms cake they were supposed to cut), and the coffee service, which seemed to just skip tables at random, and the DJ insisting upon turning up the volume way too high. Everything else was spectacular!

Sunday morning I got up "early", that is earlier than everyone else (this may have had something to do with me being the designated driver... well... I was technically not drinking because I was the DD but DH ended up not drinking because he is watching his empty calories, and he ended up driving). Anyways, I got up early and went swimming. It was wonderful!! Then back to the room for a hot shower and lazing around waiting for everyone to get moving. We watched the start of some Jet Li movie that I want to figure out what it is and go back to. Once everyone was roused (10:30am?) we got together and headed out to the famous "Paco's", the resteraunt that Klinger continually raves about in M*A*S*H. We ate chili and hotdogs, fried pickles, and wandered around the resteraunt looking at Hot Dog buns signed by famous people. You know, Toledo has a reputation of being ugly, the "arm-pit of Ohio", and I can see where it get's that reputation. There is a lot of empty lots and a lot of factories right along what could be a beautiful river front, that said, the suburb the wedding was in was beautiful (full of big old houses), and there are lots of beautiful churches there, just scattered about all the neighborhoods. It was fun! A leisurly drive home, arriving to a clean house. We spend the evening reading on the sun porch, and then I came inside and watched Dirty Dancing.

Overall, a very relaxing weekend!

Family Portrait

When my cousin and aunt came over on Thursday to meet the new puppy they were kind enough to try and get a family portrait for us. Here are the results in all their glory (and hilarity)!!!

Age Fun

So... how old do I look in this picture?

I am 25 yrs old (almost 26). I think I look my age, and I don't feel one way or another about it (isn't that how your 20s should be?).

Thursday evening I answered the door, looking just like this (I had DH snap a photo a few minutes later with this blog post in mind). It was the Tru-green door to door salesman trying to tell us we should dump chemicals all over our lawn. Anyways, I stepped out of the house onto the front stoop to speak with (easier that way with the dogs), and the first thing out of his mouth is:

"Good evening, is your mom or dad home?"

The look of shock on my face must have been something. Seriously, it took me several seconds to process it and then an awkward moment before I told him I own the house. He was apologetic. I told him it was not a big deal, I should be flattered? Maybe? I don't know. I don't really care to look like I am young enough to live with my parents, but its not really an insult either. It was just a very odd situation because I really don't think I look that young, at all. DH and I talked about it and decided MAYBE with the tanktop and sunglasses I could look like I was an undergrad... but hardly. So odd.