Did you know that strawberries (8 of em) have more vitamin C than one medium orange?
The fun-filled weekend left both Nick and I rather tired on Monday after the flight took off, sending Derrek & Louie back to NE. (Coincidentally, an hour after they took off, the rain started too.) Yesterday, my general feeling of being tired took a turn for the worse, and I’ve got one crazy sore throat/pain swallowing/head cold thing going on now – to the point where I sent Nick out for sore throat stuff last night, and woke up in the middle of the night with it. Eigh. Add that to the low grade fevor that my body is spouting and you can bet that the only thing I want to do to day is stay in bed. Lack of extra vacation time has brought me into work to try to be here as long as I can – or maybe, it’s a want to use my extra vacation time for something fun rather than sleeping. I am hoping that I feel better by tomorrow afternoon so that I don’t have to go to the MD.
The countdown is on till I’m back in bed. T-8 hours to go. Time to go finish those strawberries, and grab some hot tea to boot.
- I’m probably cheating a bit by putting these here, because I only baked 4 of them yesterday – the rest of the batter was frozen into ‘ready to pop onto the cookie sheet for just out of the oven goodness’ cookies. I picked this recipe out from the bunch for a couple of reasons – as a 10 year old (a girl yes, but a 10 year old) – big cookies were really cool. And these are scooped onto the baking sheet by the 1/4 cupful – no tablespoons here my friends. In addition to being JUMBO – they are also made with the lovely candy coated chocolates that most of us refer to as M&M’s. My 4 test cookies were made on the airbake, and I’m still not sold on these cookie sheets, but all in all, the cookies were pretty tasty.
These, too, will require an addition – I have yet to make the chocolate glaze that will rain upon these mini bundt cakes prior to serving. I made these because Louie digs the chocolate cherry combination, or at least, I think he does. And it’s fun to use the mini bundt pan! The cake turned out really moist and I’m pretty excited about how these will taste with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and some chocolate glaze.
- These don’t look gorgeous, but boy are they tasty. These are part of the ‘breakfast pastries’ portion of the baking. If you know me, you know I’m a nut for maple products, and these are no exception – I made these once last year for a pot-luck brunch (though they were free-formed then, this time I used the biscuit cutter), and the subtle flavor of the fancy vermont syrup makes these tasty enough to go back for more. And I think they’d be pretty darned good with coffee to boot!
- Another breakfast pastry – these were selected because they have whole cereal flakes in the batter. You know how your cereal flakes will get mushy when you let them sit in the milk for too long? This recipe leverages that to add some whole grain goodness to the dough. I’m pretty excited about how these are going to taste.
- What kid doesn’t love reeses peanut butter cups? (Well, I didn’t – but I didn’t develop a liking for peanut butter until college.) I was excited to test this recipe because it uses actual cheesecake ingredients with a mini peanut butter cup in the center. I chopped a few more up and put them on top while the cheesecake was still warm, which melted them a bit but they won’t fall off! Nick taste-tested these when they were still warm and gave them the thumbs up.
– These were a freezer cookie, that seems sort of similar to the awesome bars that Merry Lou makes for Christmas. These are a little different – there is coconut in the chocolate based bottom portion, with seperate peanut butter and chocolate levels over the top. These turned out pretty tasty, if I do say so myself.
– Finally! I got to use the 
This weekend was no exception. We both got home on Friday at about 3:15 - Nick after attending AT’s proposal (pass!) and the CS picnic and me after a longer day at work (for a Friday). Power napped, and headed down to Mount Vernon for the Spring Wine Festival. This is our 3rd time going over the past 4 years – we had to miss it last year for my moms surprise birthday party. We got there a bit late, but still had plenty of time for the best part of the night – a picnic on George & Martha’s lawn overlooking the Potomac.
which was really cool – not too many races let you bring your dog! Pinot was really funny – the pack started, and we started towards the back, having a dog and all. She wouldn’t have any of that and wanted to be in the lead, so the first mile or so we were essentially sprinting with Pinot to get to the front of the pack. Another 1.4 miles at normal pace, and then Pinot realized – wow – I’ve just gone all out for 2.4 miles. I’m pooped! Nick ran ahead to the finish line, while Pinot and I walked for a few minutes, and then jogged at the end. She was definitely the top finisher in the doggie division, and Nick and I were pretty happy with our times too. Pinot was pretty tired for the rest of the day!
On the way back to home from the race, we stopped in Bethesda for the 2009 Strut Your Mutt doggie festival. At first, was pretty psyched that they had a big blow up cat too. And then we saw a dude that brought his (Cashew + 15 pounds) colored kitty on a leash. It was awesome. Pinot was tired after her run of runs, but still enjoyed socializing while we enjoyed brunch from Cosi.
awesome Greek restaurant that is maybe 2.5 miles from our house called 