It's Summer!!

A time of holy Batman heat, bees, and countless pitchers of iced tea.
We seldom have enough money to run the air conditioner, so we reserve what we have to run when my dad comes home. I relish being able to go to other people's houses, or even take a quick car ride because it means some form or cooled air. We do at least have a sunken basement that stays a nice cool temperature, but sometimes you just have to get out of the house.

Insert: Lagoon Season passes and the Pass of All Passes!!



With luck, these will be the salvation of the summer.
However, with my mom's skin cancer and me working at a movie theatre in Sandy,

^ That's my theatre!! ^

It's going to be fun juggling schedules.

Plus, i mean, who want's to cook when it's 99 degrees? Certainly not me. So, here comes the weight gain of the summer, where the thought of food makes you sick unless it's 2 or 3 AM, because then you can eat without sweating balls. But hopefully all the running around Lagoon and water parks will help, not to mention work; along with my mother trying to have healthy food in the house. But do you know how expensive fruits and vegetables get when you're dealing with a cleaner's wages? Yeah, it's like the supermarkets are Forcing you to buy junk, because it's cheaper and all you can afford.
And don't even get me started on trying to organize things with friends. Basically as long as I supply food and a gaming/TV system of some sort (I Do have the biggest TV out of all of us. . . ) they'll show up, eat, leave a mess, and be gone. Don't get me wrong, I love my friends with all my heart, I just wish they'd put a bit more effort in to help is all.
Anyways, here's to hoping that this summer will be filled with fun, with no more than the usual "I'm Booooorrrreeeeddddd coming from the kids," friends, food, and hopefully some money to maybe go on a trip to see my grandparents and my Grandma in Colorado at least Once this summer.

Spring Party

While perusing Facebook today, I heard the little Ding! that alerts me to an incoming message. I checked it, and my Young Women's leader was begging me to bring 3 dozen cookies to the church's Spring Ward Party.

While I have a recipe that does indeed yield 3 doz. cookies due to the size of my scoop, we were out of oatmeal! SO back to the drawing board. I was looking above my fridge, and I happened to see our Ginger-bread House bundt pan:

And that brought to mind this cake that I've made many times since Halloween:  

The best part? You can customise the colors to anything you want! 

All you need is two white cake mixes (or one white and one chocolate)

A super simple recipe, you only need:

• 1 box White cake mix
• 1 box Chocolate cake mix(or another white one, if you don't want/like chocolate
• Water, vegetable oil and eggs called for on cake mix boxes
• 2, 3, 4, even 8 food coloring bottles if you really want
• Your choice of Bundt pan
• and some icing-optional

Since I woke up late and was only given a few hours to prepare, I didn't have the presence of mind to take any pictures, so I borrowed all these from the Internet. 

Anyways, like I said the cake is simple. 

But I do have a quick little helpful tip for you: instead of doing the nasty oil-and-flour gook that covers your beautiful cake in yellow nastiness that you try to cover with icing but no one will eat the cake because they can taste it, reserve about 4 TBSP. of your dry cake mix. Fatten up your pan (Tee hee :D ) and dump the 4 Tbs. of mix in. Shake around, and if you have any left over you can dump it right back into your bowl and mix it right in. 

After doing that, take the two mixes (I suggest getting the same kind so that it's easier to make according to the instructions), make them according to the box instructions, and then separate the batter into clear bowls-this makes it easier to tell if all your color is incorporated into the batter when you mix it. 

I Do suggest using your electric beater, it saves you lot of time and arm strain. 

Once all of your batter is colored to your hue desires, grab some measuring cups. Pour the different colored batters in, alternating. 

The smaller the drops of color are, the more variety you get-just try to avoid putting the same colors next to each other. 

When it's done baking, allow to cool and then drizzle it with a simple icing or grab a tub of Pillsbury Chocolate Icing, and melt a bit to drizzle on top. 

Enjoy!

As I mentioned, I don't own any of these pictures, I just borrowed them for the sake of giving you a visual representation. Maybe next time I'll remember to take pics. 

Food for Thought

     I love food. I really, really do. I enjoy cooking it, I certainly love eating it, and all in all, food is just plain ol' great.

But you didn't come here for me to tell you something you already knew, right?

     As a teenager, I'll admit, I'm picky. When I was younger, I used to love the carrots, broccoli, and corn that my mom would rotate on the dinner table throughout the week. I was always more a meat and potatoes girl than a salad and fruit kind of girl, but lately it's been getting downright ridiculous to find a meal that I like unreservedly. As in, I can stab my fork in, or scoop up a spoonful  and just take a bite without picking things out and placing on the side of the dish to be discarded afterwards. It being winter here, the predominate thing in my house is Cup of Soup, Progresso, Campbells, Ramen Noodles, ect. You get the point. And while I learned some separate tricks to each one of those, a girl can only eat quesadillas and beef Ramen noodles so many times in a week.



   
As for home cooking, I use already establish recipes that I've watched my mom make throughout my life, and quite a few boxed items. Homemade Angel Hair pasta and Alfredo sauce is just not the same as a box of Pasta Roni's Angel Hair and Herbs. And if something sounds good, but I don't know how to make it, Google, Pintrest, and assorted blogs are my #1 friends.



     Bread. It's my  Number One weakness, without a doubt. Breadsticks, rolls, croissants, baguettes, french bread, pretzels, biscuits, crescents, sliced bread, toast, you name it, I'll eat 20 of them in 5 minutes.

                                               Dinner Rolls, from HowDoesShe?


     School food: Are you kidding me? I mean, are they Trying to poison me? Now, my first elementary school so spoiled me. It was a converted high school, so it had the literal floor to ceiling lockers, not the 5 ft. wannabes in my current high school. They also had a fully equipped kitchen, so lunch every day was a experience. Every Thursday  they would do soup and sandwiches. Three weeks out of the month, they did tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, with your choice of milk, fruit, and either pudding or a jello cup. But that one golden week, they would do chicken noodle soup with grilled Ham and Cheese sandwiches, and a cake/pastry of some sort. Ah, heaven on a spoon is too bland a description.

     Nowadays, I'm left with filler meat, water gravy (seriously, it's 3 parts water to .25 part mix), "wheat" rolls-I can assure you, that's not wheat. I don't know what it is, but it's not wheat.
Don't even get me started on our pizza. Just because it's now a vegetable doesn't mean you get to skimp on the sauce so that it tastes like I'm eating a brick of cardboard with some circle plastic pieces on top.
The salad? I'm pretty sure that those leaves come from the pile that Sid tracked poo onto in Ice Age. At least the bread sticks that come with it aren't terrible.
The nachos? What I see walking past me on a plate looks what comes out of the wrong end of a Mexican.
1% milk is exactly that: 1% milk, 99% water. I don't even want to know what "chocolate" they use in their chocolate milk.
Shall I continue? Bruised, unripe "fresh" fruit, nasty smelling canned fruit-it seriously smells like something died in there when the poor sweet lunch lady brings out the can to refill the troughs.

The good things? Much smaller list.

     The utensils. Those plastic knives are sharp. Surprising, really, but I'm not complaining.
Breakfast: Used to be much better, but still better then lunch. I only like Wednesdays and Fridays. Wednesdays is a breakfast pizza, and Fridays are these really good cinnamon pastry squares-but if they don't have icing on them, you're eating sweetened cardboard that turns your mouth into the Sahara Desert if you didn't grab that 1% milk. They do have these waffle irons that you can make big Belgian waffles with. They're pretty excellent with butter and peanut butter on them, but I also like them soaked in butter and dipping pieces into their syrup.
The servers: My lunch ladies are incredibly sweet and nice, and I always make sure to thank them whenever I grab a plate from the line. As I'm one of three out of 2,300 students to do so, I like to think that I make a small bright spot in their day.


Have I made you hungry yet?
I'll post a few link to some of my favorite recipes, and trust me, they'll be worth your time to try out.


                                     Baked Potato Soup, by LiveALittleWilder:

http://www.livealittlewilderblog.com/2011/09/loaded-potato-soup-recipe.html





                  Snickerdoodle Muffins, by Eat Me, Delicious:

http://www.eatmedelicious.com/2007/12/snickerdoodle-muffins.html



             Monster Cookies, by The Idea Room:

[Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for your addiction to these. And yes, you will eat 12 cookies in five minutes, I promise. :) ]

http://www.theidearoom.net/2012/09/monster-cookie-recipe.html





Double Disclaimer: I don't own any of these images, and I attempted to give credit where credit was due. Feel free to tell me if I missed anything, and I'll rectify it as quickly as possible.

About Me

My age titles me as a "Teen", but I've always felt more like an adult then those instagraming skinny people surrounded by 300 of their closest friends. 





Through all of our ups and downs, my mother has made me who I am today, and I can only say thank you. My dad, an over the road truck driver, has shared all of his stories with me at Least twice as we traveled all across the U.S.

 My parents, standing in line for the Rocket at Lagoon

I have a super loud laugh, and I love to cook and bake. I find new things every day and the only things that limit me is my non-refilling flour container, and my occasional lack of motivation.





 I've had some amazing support from my boyfriend, Ross. He picks me up when I fall, and convinces me that it's possible to keep going when all I want to do is break down and cry like a two-year old and never crawl out of my bed again. 



The oldest of three, my little chickpea, Elle, and my monster of a brother, Declan, are the lights of my day-most days, anyways. 



My Yorkie Cooper is the cutest, sweetest little pup ever, and even when he drives me crazy by barking at abso-freaking-lutely nothing, I love his furry little face too much to get too angry at him. Bindi is just as sweet-I just wish she wouldn't snore at night! My cat Mr. is one heck of a character, and Abbie is getting senile, so she forgets to be grumpy sometimes, but when a ribbon or treats come out, she streaks around and pounces like a kitten!  

Pictures? Too many? Never!!!

I can usually be found watching a movie while scarfing down popcorn, playing Sims on my computer, or limping around Skyrim with a lame leg, due to poor knee armor. If I have my headphones in, there better be a nuclear war going on outside my door for you to have a valid reason to bug me-and sometimes, not even then.


 I hope you'll join me as I cook, love, fail epicly, bake, cry, laugh, and have Life Adventures.