Winter Cleaning

Final reviews hit. Seriously. Hit hard. Not only did I have exams and a paper due, but my final design studio project was due. All at once! Therefore, no time to cook. I was really sick of eating the turkey casserole and baked spaghetti I had made when I had time with the intention of freezing it for when I didn't have time to cook. Regardless, it was a great day when I got home and threw the rest of it out.

I scheduled myself to work until 1 am and then be back in studio by 9 am. I did pretty well. My mom and dad came to the review and I'm pretty sure they enjoyed it. At least they can see what it is I spend all my time doing while I say I'm in studio.

When I finished up on the 21st, I came home with the intention of cleaning my house and stopping at the store for baking supplies. Turns out I was more exhausted then I though. I fell asleep at 10ish, but not before seeing Alex do dishes AND clean the livingroom.

I finally got to my baking on Tuesday night. It was a mess. The Merry & Bright Button Cookies I got from Tongue-N-Cheeky were super hard. Not in the sense of difficulty, though they were a pain in the bum, but literally hard. The dough was like little tiny balls and I had to squish them together. That meant, when they baked, they turned out hallow on the inside. Cool, but not helpful. I ate one almost straight from the oven and it was eh. Too buttery for my taste. (Insert Alex laughing at me because something is TOO buttery. I love butter) Anyways, Alex got home and poked at one, took a bite, and put it back down. He will pretty much eat anything, so when he didn't finish it, I took it as a sign they were pretty bad. I threw them away. Next up was the pretzel jello. In return for my birthday cupcakes, I told Terry I'd make him pretzel jello. For any disbelievers out there, it's delicious. I did everything by the recipe, but I still managed to mess it up. I guess I didn't spread the middle white stuff all the way to the edge and there was no seal, so the jello seeped down into the pretzels. AND the jello never set because I didn't cut back on the water when I added the raspberries. It was a mess, but Terry and Joe both enjoyed it when I stopped by Metro Group the next day.

Wednesday I whipped together a batch of shortbread cookies and they turned out! I did a glaze with some food coloring to get into the holiday spirit and created red and toxic green frosting.

Thankfully, I wasn't really allowed to do anymore cooking over break except for dessert on Christmas Day. Arvilla (my 99 year old Grandma) is finally feeling her age, so I was given the task of dessert. I decided on Apple & Ricotta Tartlets from Confessions of a Tart and they turned out pretty well. The custard in the middle didn't puff up like the pictures on the blog, but I think it was because I made them and then took them to Aunt Sue and Uncle Frank's to bake them after dinner. Next time I'll do them fresh and maybe add some raspberry or chocolate in there. Delicious.

I still haven't gotten the pictures from my dad's camera, so I can't update any of my old entries, but I promise I will soon.

Today I spent cleaning and organizing my life/room/desk/shelves and tomorrow I'm attacking the kitchen. First to do sugar cookies for Manuel and Sam and then to actually clean the kitchen.