A Taste of the Weekend

Usually, I have this strange craving to eat a lot of bad things for me on the weekend. That craving multiplies about 110% when it happens to be near that time of the month.

It's been a meltdown-free weekend though, so perhaps we have discovered that the key to keeping Brenda sane before Aunt Flo comes to town is to keep her well fed?

On Friday night, after lots of buildup about the surprise date we were going on, Ian took me to the Sweetwater Tavern in Falls Church for some after-dinner drinkin'. Really can't beat microbrews and my man all in one place. 

After coffee with a friend on Saturday, I was feeling chipper and sufficiently caffeinated, so I snapped a pic of my enjoying the sunny day in my sunny day sunglasses (the ones I reserve for the sunniest of days) and the fact that I wasn't wearing a coat. Yes, it sure is the little things. 

So when, much to my delight, cake mixes were 10 for $10 at Giant, I decided Saturday was finally going to be the day where I made cake pops. See, back in the day when I had a wedding to plan, I had at one point decided that I would hand-make thousands of these little guys for some fabulous favors. That motivation pretty much lasted until I went out and bought all the supplies to make them, and alas, packages of lollipop sticks and bags have been sitting in the cabinet. Until yesterday!

There is no shortage of cake pop tutorials in the blogosphere, so I pretty much gathered that you bake a cake, crumble it in a bowl, mix it with frosting, and mold it into cute little balls to be dunked in chocolate. I thought I would mix it up and dunk it in melted Reeses Peanut Butter chips. 

However, have you ever tried to melt those things? They don't melt. Instead, they form a nasty, hard glob of peanut butter-like substance that hardens in about five minutes. So forget that.

I melted a big bowl of chocolate chips and quickly found that coating balls of rolled up, mashed together cake isn't as easy as it sounds. In short, it made a mess and I gave up and Ian and I played Scrabble.

But the next day, the stupid balls of cake were sitting on the counter. I had to finish the job, so I went back to Giant on a quest to find chocolate that's actually meant for dipping and coating things. Didn't find any. 

So I settled for the next step: Google. Turns out if you melt chocolate chips on a double boiler and mix in some vegetable oil, it makes a lovely, smooth, chocolately mix perfect for coating your cake pops. 

Don't have a double boiler? No worries! Just improvise with what you have.

Again, it made a mess, but this time I winded up with some pretty tasty truffle-like balls of candy coated cake. Which kind of looked like turds. So I rolled them in sprinkles just for shits and giggles.

Yes, this weekend sure tasted good. 

A Delicious Weekend

Good morning!

I hope everyone had a fun and relaxing weekend, filled with I Love Lucy marathons, checking out new state parks in your area, and cooking up a storm with the ingredients you have laying around your house. Is that what you did?

Earlier this week, we enjoyed a visit from Ian's parents who bought us a delicious dinner on Tuesday, and then took us on a nighttime bus tour of DC on Thursday. 

Two sets 'o Brodies!

Ian and I arose on Saturday to go investigate the Burke Farmers Market. Since our awaking time tends to be later and later with every day, we rolled out of bed around 10:30, and made it to the Farmers Market (which ended at noon) around 11:30. There was still a lot to look at, although most things had been pretty much picked through. As we were sorting through a pile of corn on the cob, the old man who ran the stand came up and told us to just take as much as we wanted for free, since all that was left was the rejected ears that had yucky ends. 

So we scooped up the entire pile and brought home an entire pile of free corn. Do we know how to shop or what?

After our farmers market expedition, we went to check out Burke Lake, one of the many beautiful areas we happen to live by. How cool is it that we are 20 minutes away from the city in one direction...

...and 10 minutes away from nature in the other?

What was going to be a little stroll through the woods turned into a nice 2.5 hour hike around the lake. Ian scoped out new fishing spots, and I worried about ticks and snakes.

Hiking on a stomach full of nothing but coffee and Golden Grahams can sure work up an appetite, so we returned home to feast. Ian was dying to try out our Emeril cast iron skillet, so he set to work concocting the finest corn on the cob I have ever laid teeth on, along with some Greek green beans from Georgia's garden.

And I heated up the delicious homemade baked penne and cheese from the night before. It was a hard job.

Let's just talk about how good Ian is at cooking. He just has this knack for throwing things together in a pan and making the most amazing __________ (fill in the blank) you will ever taste. Like the other night when he took us back to Jamaica with some improvised Jerk Chicken sandwiches...

Although I don't care for her much as a writer, Elizabeth Gilbert sure had it right in her 2nd book Committed, which I read on our honeymoon (a really depressing book to read on your honeymoon, FYI): 

‎"I believe a woman's place is in the kitchen...sitting in a comfortable chair, with her feet up, drinking a glass of wine and watching her husband cook dinner."


Even though I definitely love to cook and bake (and decorating the kitchen was my domain), I'm pretty darn lucky that I've got such a talented man. Just saying.

Anyway. We finished off the evening with some Banana Frozen Yogurt (DELICIOUS and so easy!) fresh from the food processor...

...and some Sunday night Scrabble.

Yes, it was a delicious weekend.

And, as an added bonus, I got my replacement battery charger for my Nikon in the mail! No more crappy quality food pictures!