Basic Brownies

I made a 9 by 13 of these brownies about 12 hours ago. There is less than 1/3 of the pan left and I just ate one for breakfast. Yep, my roommates and I are adults.

When I have to do something really undesirable...

...I like to put on a cute pair of shoes.

I have 27 footnotes left to write.

My roommate is also finishing her note. We (okay, more I) keep eating these cookies - yes they require the microwave and milk to be anywhere near edible.

Salmon Eggs Benedict with Dill

I just got back from Spring Break in Jamaica. It was very relaxing, and I enjoyed myself. I even read three whole books. I hadn't read an entire non-law school book since I started law school. For shame, I know. I was also reasonably productive, working on some work for the professor I assist with research and working on a paper for my seminar.

Instead of writing one of the 79 citations I've decided to add to my note, I went to the grocery store. And in my extreme loneliness, stemming from my roommates' absence, I bought a huge piece of salmon - 2 pounds. Because that's what reasonable people do when they're cooking for one, right? It look like this before I broiled it:

I also sprinkled some lemon juice over it. I am obsessed with this lemon juice from Costco.
I add it to everything. Plus, it's not standard bottled lemon juice - I have used it to make lemon meringue pie and lemon curd and it tastes just as good as fresh lemon. So, so, delicious.

Anyway, this eggs Benedict was my first, and it was good. I ended up adding black pepper and cayenne pepper to spice it up. I didn't make my own hollandaise sauce, because I didn't want to make too much. I used about 1/4 of a Knoll's mix, and it still was way more than I needed. At least I didn't waste the whole mix - I'll probably be making versions of this again since I bought a whole package of English muffins.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last week, M came to visit for his spring break. He brought me some glorious provisions from Costco, including vanilla extract and 72 ounces of chocolate chips. He also brought me a giant ahi tuna steak. It's love.

I am sitting at home this evening, not feeling very well. I think it's one of those things where you have a slight relief of academic pressure and your body shuts down. Fun.

Anyway, I baked these cookies because those stupid chocolate chips were just taunting me and I had a ton of butter because Hy Vee was having a sale on butter.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Panthera at All Recipes.

• 1 C Softened Unsalted Butter
• 1 C Brown Sugar
• 1/2 C White Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 2 tsp Vanilla
• 1 3/4 C Flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
  
• 3 C Quick Oats
• 1 1/2 C Chocolate Chips

1. Preheat oven at 325.
   
2. Cream butter and sugars. Add in eggs one and a time and mix until thoroughly combined. Add in vanilla.
3. Mix in flour, baking soda, and salt. Add oats, then chocolate chips.
4. Spoon dough onto greased cookie sheet and bake for 12-14 minutes. Cookies will still be soft.

Hummingbird Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

I don't want to talk about how I somehow misplaced my camera, yet again.

The first time I ever had hummingbird cake was at my office holiday party the year between college and law school. This was no typical office holiday party, however. The business school I worked for had just built a new building and the holiday party was a really fancy affair. There was a huge buffet with tons of cheese, entire fish, and lots of other fantastic food items that I wish I could remember. There was also a coffee bar with fancy liquors to mix in and a wonderful dessert buffet. The dessert buffet had a number of fancy cakes on it, and I went with the hummingbird because I'd never heard of it and it looked good. Oh, it was.

Fast forward to this weekend, when I was trying to come up with something to bake for the Phi Alpha Delta bake sale, whose proceeds were going to benefit Iowa Legal Aid. The theme of the bake sale was "Spring" because next week is spring break, so I wanted to come up with something fruity. I ended up going with a Martha Stewart recipe for hummingbird cupcakes and attemptws to make the pineapple flower garnish. I found the tutorial here really helpful. It took me hours and hours to get the pineapple to dry, so if I ever make these again, I'll be sure to get the pineapple slices even thinner. Mandolin maybe? I don't have one, but it might be a good investment at this point.

Also, I am am a baking grown-up now, because I finally sucked it up and bought some frosting tips and bags. I bought an Ateco set, consisting of 6 large tips, as I think they'll be best for cupcakes and that's primarily what I make.

These cupcakes were delicious and incredibly moist. I highly recommend them, with or without the pineapple garnish. The garnish was impressive for bake sale purposes and really drew people in, but I'm not sure it was worth destroying an entire pineapple over - especially when the end product is basically inedible.