Rainbow Pinwheel Cookies

Happy Easter! Yesterday.  Oops.  But don't blame me, I'm still preparing for Greek Easter next weekend.

Anyway, because I have this lovely surprise day off from school, I figured I would make something yummy.  One of my friend's birthdays was Friday, so I'm making these cookies for her.  She has a very exuberant personality so I figured these RAINBOW cookies would be perfect!  You've probably seen them floating around the internet for a long time now, but I only just now have found the time for them.  Except I definitely shortcut it by using refrigerated Pillsbury sugar cookie dough.  But, seeing as the rest of the assembly is a little time consuming, I figure why not go for the premade cookie dough that I know makes super good cookies?

Rainbow Pinwheel Cookies

makes approx. 17

Ingredients  <---running out of colors for my rainbow

1 16.5 oz roll of refrigerated sugar cookie dough

a few drops of any food coloring you would like (I used 4 neon colors and 1 regular)

omg! that ingredient list is so short!  Yay! for easy "recipes"

DIRECTIONS

1. preheat oven to 350
2. divide your cookie dough into 5 equal chunks

3. put a few drops of coloring into the chunk you want to color (I started with around 2 drops to be safe)

4. divide the chunks into little chunks about the size of large grapes (I got 17 out of each color)

5. lightly roll one of each color together until it resembles a mini beach ball (only about 1 or 2 rolls between your hands)

6. take a beach ball and roll it like a snake
7. coil your snake up into a pinwheel put make sure you twist you snake as you go.  This ensures a cool swirl
8. space about 2 inches apart on a baking sheet and bake for 9 minutes
9. let cool for 5 minutes and then transfer to a rack to continue cooling
10. Enjoy your rainbows!

2 Ingredients!

separate your dough into 5 blobs, gobs, or chunks ;)

mix in the food coloring (this stage gets a little sticky and messy)

This picture reminds me of Willy Wonka...yummm rainbow dough blobs

roll those little suckers into mini beach balls

 and coil away!  (don't forget to twist!)

 let 'em cool

 and cool some more

 even the gunk they leave behind is rainbow!

 sort of like how I don't like making 2 trips when carrying stuff, I try my hardest to fit all the cookies on one rack...stupid Valerie

 you are getting hypnotized by the swirls of color...wooooo

Some people have rolled the edges in rainbow sprinkles before they bake them, but I like my sugar cookies without any annoying crunch of sprinkles on them.  Feel free to do it either way.  Now the real challenge will be waiting to try one until school tomorrow...

Chocolate Supreme Overload Mug of Love aka Chocolate Mug Cake

It's Saturday night.  Normal teens might be out partying (or maybe not and I just think they are).  Me?  I just watched the Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.  And how exactly did I pick to watch this?  Considering I semi-exhausted watching HP for awhile I needed to get my British accent fix some other way.  Thus, the Chronicles of Narnia.  It actually ended up being a really good choice because I haven't seen it in forever and I actually forgot some parts (I love when that happens in a movie I've seen before).  

To complete my fabulous Saturday night movie plans I needed something sweet and decided on a "mug cake".  I've only attempted one of these once before.  And you wanna know what I thought?  This is too small.  So, when it came to making one tonight I definitely went with the bigger, the better.  I first looked online for inspiration and found a pretty standard recipe that seemed to make either 1 large or 2 small cakes so I thought it seemed like a good choice for my bigger is better policy.  

Average Chocolate Mug Cake

Ingredients

4 tbsp flour
4 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp cocoa
1 egg
3 tbsp milk
3 tbsp oil
3 tbsp choc chips
small splash of vanilla

It seems almost stupid to put the directions but...

Directions

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together.

2. Stir in the wet.

3. Microwave for anywhere between 1 and 3 minutes.  

4. Enjoy!

Well, sometimes being a girl means you just need some dessert. Y' know?  Like you eat all those salads and nuts and fruits and then it comes to dessert and you're like why not?  I deserve this!  If I don't do this everyday it can't be that bad...

My point is, I felt that this recipe needed more and thus I made a Chocolate Supreme Overload Mug of Love.

Chocolate Supreme Overload Mug of Love

Ingredients

4 T flour

2 heaping T sugar (I did one regular and then one heaping which ended up sprinkling all over the counter. yay!)

2 T cocoa 

3 T milk (I used almond milk because that's all we had in the fridge)

1.5 T oil 

1 egg

2 T Nutella (could've gotten away with 1)

splash of vanilla

as many add ins as you would like

Directions

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together.

2. Stir in the wet.

3. Microwave for anywhere between 1 and 3 minutes (I did 1 min 20 sec on HIGH in a pretty powerful microwave and I could've just done 1 min)

4. Enjoy!

I definitely got what I was asking for with this guy.  I wanted big and I got B-I-G!  I even used our special soup mugs instead of just a plain ol' coffee mug.  

yes, I'm using the Half Blood Prince as a coaster...

I didn't list my exact add ins because honestly, I don't know how much of everything I actually tossed in.  Oops.  You know how most people might toss in a palmful of something, well let's just say I put in handfuls.  Semi sweet chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, marshmallows.  Toss some in, eat some out of the bag.  Toss some more in, eat some more out of the bag.  Repeat process until there are enough choc, pb, and marshmallows in their to offend normal people (cuz remember, we're not normal).  

I put it in the microwave for 1 minute while I quickly washed my mini whisk and measuring spoons and then put it in for another 20 seconds or so.  I definitely could've left it at a minute because although it was not dry, it was completely set up and I was sort of hoping for that molten effect.  

A nice long squirt of whipped cream later and I was on my way to chocolate and movie-viewing bliss.  Ok, so I sort of wished I had put something a little heftier than whipped cream to cut through this stuff because it needed it.  Don't get me wrong, it was delicious, but I was just slightly overwhelmed by it.  Yes, I think some vanilla ice cream would've lightened it up quite nicely.  Because y' know, ice cream just fixes everything.

I think it needed crunch also or at least some other texture.  It was so uniformly gooey and globby and gahhhh in my mouth that I almost had trouble finishing it had no trouble whatsoever finishing it.  Actually, the whole thing was devoured all before Lucy even enters Narnia.  

Overall, a nice second try on the mug cake recipe.  I definitely think this is a very forgiving recipe and you don't really have to be too exact on your measurements, especially if you're just going to cover it in ice cream or something.  

Horses, Hunger Games, and Hot Dogs

Finally.  My 4-day weekend is here.  I got through 2 quizzes and a test today and feel pretty worn out.

I usually ride on Wednesdays, but seeing as yesterday I was studying my brains out, I rode today instead.  It was a nice treat to go to the barn free from worry about school.  I was really looking forward to today because last week I had an AH-mazing lesson on Zeus.  Dare I call it a perfect lesson?
Anyway, I ended up riding Holly.  Let's just say, if you could turn into a little Arabian pony that's a bit how I would describe Holly.  I've been meaning to get some pictures and videos of me riding and my mom agreed to come film/photograph my lesson next week.  Yay!  I love seeing myself ride, but I don't often have someone to come watch my lesson.  I'll definitely be putting the good ones up.

I'm a little random sometimes.  Like right now I have this little doo-dad stuck in my head and I'm singing it like the LMFAO song.

It reminded me of this one that I saw a few days ago.

So yeah, as you can probably tell I'm in a little Hunger Games zone right now.  Actually, I read the books last year and really enjoyed them.  I decided to reread the first one right before the movie came out.  This definitely rekindled my interest in them.  It definitely won't be like Harry Potter for me, but it's good to have other go-to books that are entertaining with a nice character list.

Well, I actually ended up going to the midnight showing of the movie.  So much fun!  I was on spring break at the time so I didn't even need to worry about being tired the next day.  I really love going to midnight premieres of movies.  I went for Deathly Hallow part 1 and 2.  Unfortunately I missed the 6th one due to...umm... some swing dancing complications...

Check out this video.  I love watching what people can come up with on youtube.  I have zero editing skills.  That would be my friend, Sophie.  She has a real talent for it.  I should put up some of her videos some time...




Watching this video makes me want some pita.  Oh wait, I got that wrong.  It makes me want Peeta.  Or better yet--I could get Peeta to make me some pita.  He is the son of a baker...   Why can't guys in real life be like Peeta Mellark?



Oh, and as for hot dogs...because today was opening day for baseball (or so I was told) my school decided to have a "ball park" themed day.  They told everyone to wear there favorite baseball team jersey (do baseball players wear jerseys??) and they served stadium food at lunch.  Hot dogs, chili dogs, french fries, and grilled vegetables.  I'm not really sure why they chose grilled vegetables, but seeing as I'm not a huge fan of hot dogs (except when they're sliced up and in Kraft mac n cheese) I had them for lunch.  The grilled green and yellow zucchini and carrots definitely made me think of summer.  I love when you can cook your whole meal on the barbecue and eat outside because its warm and light until 9 o clock... Ahh summer...

Now I'm off to watch a documentary called Biography: Harry Potter Kids that I got on netflix.  It got poor reviews, but I figured it was worth a shot... Plus, my night won't be totally wasted because I'm gonna make something yummy to eat while I watch it.  I had barely any dinner.  I was probably subconsciously preparing for popcorn and snacks!

Procrastination

You know it's not good for you.

You can't stop.

You regret it later.

Yup, I'm describing my procrastination right now. 

I'm supposed to be studying right now.  I have a history test and a latin quiz on thursday, both of which I have done nothing to prepare for yet...  Uh, and the thing about stressing for school is that it's making me hungry!  Not really, but I'm using it as an excuse to eat 3 of the peanut butter banana chocolate oat bars that I made the other day.  Yum! But bleh when you start to eat this many...It could be worse, I could be snacking on something like my sister's gluten free chocolate cake that's in the fridge.  Oh wait, I already did...  It's gluten free therefore it's healthy, right?

Anyway....

If you need any help procrastinating from your work tonight or just feel like killing a couple of hours, give these sites a look.

• dearblankpleaseblank
• iwastesomuchtime
• whatshouldwecallme
• good ol' fml
• mylifeisaverage

Your welcome! hehehe

If I can't get any work done, no one can!!! ;)

An Easter Surprise (With Some Pre-Homework Baking)

Hey!  You'll never guess what happened at our Monday morning assembly today.  Well, after all the announcements were done and I was preparing to head to class, our head of school announces that because we had no snow days this year (compared to 8 or 9 last year!!) she is making no school on Monday!  You should've heard the cheers of approval.  I didn't know teens could be so spirited on a Monday morning...


This means that in addition to having this Friday off for Good Friday, we now have a beautiful 4-day weekend in our midst thanks to dear old Mrs. Riley.  I'm looking forward to this weekend, although, being Greek, my Easter isn't until the weekend after, April 15th.  Still, I'm expecting a treat from the Easter bunny nonetheless!  


Today was as good as a Monday could be.  And, having a relatively easy homework load tonight (thanks to my diligence over the weekend), I decided to make something as soon as I got home.  Peanut butter banana chocolate oat bars from Sally's Baking Addiction to be exact.  


I was expecting something healthy and tasty but beyond that I didn't really know what to expect.  Because I was making this in somewhat of a rush, I didn't have time to make it a pretty picture post...but I will get there eventually!  Anyway, here is my version of the recipe with slight adaptions to go with my mood and also to make sure my gluten and dairy free sister could eat them too.

Gluten and Dairy Free Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Oat Bars

Makes 16 bars

Adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction.

Ingredients:

• 2.5 cups whole rolled oats
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon (will omit this next time)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (maybe I would try 1.5 tsp next time...)
• 1/2 cup vanilla almond milk
• 1 large egg
• 2 large ripe mashed bananas
• 1/3 cup dark chocolate dreams peanut butter from Peanut Butter and Co.*
• 1/4 cup dairy free chocolate chips (may or may not omit these next time)
• 1/4 peanut butter chips  (would increase this to the original recipe's amount of 1/2 cup or maybe even 3/4 cup!)

*no joke, I actually have to put this stuff at the back of the fridge out of my site line or else I eat unlawful amounts of this stuff straight from the jar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Line an 8 x 8 pan with parchment (or spray it).
2. Mix together oats, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.
3. Add in the milk, vanilla, and egg.  Mix together until evenly combined.  Looks like somewhat loose, wet granola
4. Add mashed bananas, peanut butter, chocolate chips, and peanut butter chips.  Stir well.  If your peanut butter was coming straight from the fridge, you might need to microwave it for 10 seconds or so to soften it a bit.
5. Pour the mixture into the pan and bake for 20 minutes.  Cut into bars and enjoy!

Val and Mel's thoughts:

• Wish I omitted the cinnamon from the recipe.  Both my sister and I agreed that it didn't exactly flavor the bars, it only made them smell like cinnamon.  Weird...
• The peanut butter chips were our favorite part! Def should've put more in!
• We thought it had an almost bread-like consistency.  I've never made a recipe like this before so I wasn't sure what to expect.

You see that?  That little crumb that looks like a banana bread crumb?  That's what I'm talking about!

Overall, I would make this recipe again with a few modifications.  It definitely was a healthy recipe and I would consider calling it a banana bread oat bar or something like that.  Depending on what you put in it though, it would seem more dessert than snack/breakfast.  I do think it seems like a great base for playing with different flavor combinations. At Sally's blog she also has a caramel apple variation that I want to try.

 Mmmmm :)  If it weren't socially weird to make fall flavored food all year round, I would. Actually...scratch that, I do make fall themed food all year round...

Considering I had 2 of these babies for dessert tonight and Mel had 3, I think they were worth making!

Again, sorry for the abysmal 2 pictures.  I promise this weekend I will make a real food post with pretty pictures using a real camera.  Considering it's a school night, I think I did pretty good! ;)

Any plans for this Easter weekend?  

I'm already twitching to write a bajillion yummy posts about this weekend and more importantly next weekend!  You have not experienced eating until you have been to a Greek Easter celebration.  Can anyone say "lamb on a spit!"

Trader Joe's Chili Lime Chicken Burgers

Term paper rough draft....done! (well it doesn't have a conclusion yet, but who's checking)

I occasionally always use food as  motivation to do my work.  Is that bad?  I already told you that my "reward" for finishing the rough draft was making cookies and reading Harry Potter.  Well, on an even more simplistic level: no lunch for Valerie until she finishes her rough draft.  No, I don't have psycho  parents that starve me until I do my homework.  I was the one who said this to myself.  Weird?  Whatever.  

So I know I said I would take pictures with a real camera and go all "pro food blogger" with the beautifully photographed step-by-step guide of how to make my meal, but I was lazy hungry not in the mood.  I think lazy probably covers this one.  Anyway, I can still tell you about my lunch. ;)

First, Trader Joe's Chili Lime Chicken Burgers.  Where have you been all my life?

http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/chilelimeburgers.jpg

On a recent trip to Trader Joe's I picked up a box of these bad boys.

Well, I'll sort of wrap my review of this burger into my post about what I had for lunch.  I cooked it on the stove with some spinach because spinach is my healthy best friend.  Then, when it was basically done I put a little cheddar flavored rice cheese on it to melt (dairy is my frenemy...).  I topped off my concoction with salsa and had a little Tex-Mex fiesta in my kitchen.  I even used the parrot plate!

Now you can admire the parrot!

So you're probably thinking I completely smothered this burger in other stuff and couldn't even taste the chili or lime.  Well, I have had these completely plain before so it's safe to say that these burgers are delicious whether you eat them au natural or covered in a fiesta.  

Wanna see another fiesta I had a couple of nights ago?  Here's a picture of my attempt at huevos rancheros. (notice the dinner sized parrot plate)

In an attempt to be a little more helpful, this burger isn't overly flavored in my opinion.  Even if you don't like "chili" or "lime" you won't really notice it.  When I eat these I think I'm eating a delicious, if somewhat neutral chicken burger that is not bland but not a flavor explosion.  Therefore, these make an excellent canvas for your own creations.  I know guacamole is excellent with these.  But, when is guacamole not excellent??  

In an attempt to be healthy, sometimes I venture away from plain ol' hamburgers.  Sure, I still crave them once in a while, but I also love veggie burgers, chicken burgers, turkey burgers, even salmon burgers.  

What's your favorite type of "burger"?  

Oh, wanna laugh?  Check out this picture of me eating a veggie burger...like a beast!

It's Term Paper Time

T-minus 10 days and counting.

My term paper for my history class (Atlantic Communities I) is due on April 12th.  Well, I'm 5 pages into it.  Not bad, not bad.  I only have a little bit left.  I'm guessing it'll turn out to be around 8 pages...

In case it interests you, my topic is about the Pequot Indians.  I picked the topic because Native Americans fascinate me and because I love visiting the Pequot Museum.  It's a bit of a hike for me (2 hours), but it's totally worth it.  Their Pequot village display is amazing.  It's so realistic looking (or at least I'm assuming that's what it would have looked like...).

Anyway, I've been procrastinating all morning even though I told myself I would finish a rough draft today (which I'm still planning on accomplishing).  I should've gotten a picture back in the research stage.  Literally, my desk and surrounding surfaces were covered in books about the Pequots.  Now everything is on my computer: outline, rough draft, bibliography, edited rough draft... all I have to physically hold is my stack of notecards.  I only ended up getting about 60.  Eh, if it gets the job done...

Well, for motivation to complete my rough draft today, my reward is making Easter sugar cookies with my mom.  Yay mother-daughter baking!  Oh, and I'll be able to leisurely enjoy reading the 5th Harry Potter as well without the nagging thought of term paper.

What do you do to motivate yourself to do something that is not very fun?  Is it cookies and Harry Potter?  A visit to the movie theater? Getting your nails done? (That reminds me, I NEED to find time to do my nails today)

P.S. April Fool's Day and Fred and George Weasley's birthdays!