S'more what? I haven't had anything yet!

In light of the fact that I had to take something to work for our department's 'food day', the fact that everyone expects me to bring cupcakes, and the fact that that one child actor from 'The Sandlot' was arrested for domestic battery (reminiscing led to the title of this post), I decided to make S'mores cupcakes. I also made something I've dubbed quadruple chocolate bypass cupcakes, but these S'mores ones were the clear winner:

I've been toying with the idea of making them for awhile after a failed attempt a couple years back to make s'mores brownies (I blame a slight mishap with the graham crackers). All day at work on Friday, I pondered what kind of cake I was going to do. I wanted something that was actually going to taste like a graham cracker, and the few recipes I'd seen online merely used a regular yellow cake mix, which I personally think is the lazy man's way of doing things. Luckily, Nabisco has a recipe for just such a thing. I was able to make about 4 dozen mini cupcakes with the following recipe:

1/2 c. butter, softened
3/4 c. sugar
2 eggs, room temp
1 c. milk
1 c. flour
1 1/2 c. graham cracker crumbs
2 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and beat to incorporate. Add flour and graham crackers crumbs. Beat in milk, baking powder, and salt. Spoon into lined cupcake tins. Bake at 350, 15 minutes.

The cupcake part was really simple. The frosting was a bit frustrating. Marshmallow creme, ftw! It's bad enough that that stuff is as sticky as it is, but WHY, pray tell, does Kraft insist on packaging it in this asinine shaped container?!

That is one mystery I have yet to unravel. Moving forward, the frosting was such:

2 7oz. containers marshmallow cream
1 stick butter, softened
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 32 oz. package powdered sugar

After you've just about lost your mind scooping the contents of the jars of creme into a mixing bowl, cream it with the butter. Add the vanilla and powdered sugar and beat to incorporate.

I used a round tip on these when frosting, because I think a star tip would have somehow made them less fun. I pondered the idea of taking the torch to them and toasting them, but because i wasn't sure how that would hold up overnight to take the office the next day, I decided not to. I topped the cupcakes with crudely chopped pieces of Hershey's almond bars, I liked the appearance more than the nice little squares of chocolate.

They were amazing.

I have a breadmachine

It was a birthday present and it makes me ever so happy. I can cook just about everything (except for a damn grilled cheese as witnessed below, and bake just about anything. Except when yeast is involved. For some magical reason, it just refuses to work for me. But thanks to the magic of my bread machine, I have to worry about that no longer. I've already made (and almost devoured, along with my roommates) 2 1.5 pound loaves of white bread. The leftover ends are going to be made into bread pudding this weekend. I'm pretty excited.
Since April is national grilled cheese month, I took it upon myself to take some of the freshly baked bread and make a delicious sandwich of black forest ham and dill Havarti:

I also made the same sandwich the next day, but didn't toast it. It was actually better cold. What can you do?
I also made a batch of homemade snickers bars (recipe from Chow). I altered it slightly, in that instead of using 'real' chocolate for the coating, I used Wilton's candy melts (I had an excess of them from a 40% off sale at Jo Ann Fabrics). When making the caramel for this, you have to temp it. Poor old me, without a candy thermometer, right? I found a way to improvise, by clipping my digital read onto a wire whisk and precariously balancing it. Worked like a charm:

They were still delicious, and were devoured by my coworkers. i think they were slightly more of a Baby Ruth, but not gross. Perhaps what a Baby Ruth SHOULD taste like?

2nd Worst Doritos Ever

These can only be topped by those ones that were 'cheeseburger' flavored.

On my way down to my grandparents' house for Easter dinner yesterday, I stopped to get gas and something to snack upon. These were a BIG mistake:

They were not expired, but they tasted stale. After the first one, I was pretty disappointed, but for some reason, I had that reaction where there's some really horrible train wreck, but you can't bear to look away. I just kept eating them. And then I realized that they tasted familiar, so I had to eat a couple more. They tasted like soggy lettuce and bad sour cream. And then it hit me!!

About a year and a half ago, after I had my jaw surgery and had to be on a liquid diet for two months, my surgeon told me that a lot of his patients just pureed normal foods, like steak and pizza. I, for one, thought that sounded really disgusting. But, after a month and a half of nothing but soup, yogurt, mashed potatoes and discovering that I could just SWALLOW macaroni salad, I needed something else.

So one night I went to Taco Bell (gross, I know) and got a supreme burrito, figuring most of the stuff in it is pretty mushy anyway; I just needed to give it a quick pulse in the blender to smooth it out, because I really COULD NOT chew. So I got the burrito home and squooshed the innards out into the blender and just pureed it a bit.

I poured it (yes, I poured the burrito) into a bowl and got a couple spoonfuls. It was horrible! You would think that since it's all the same things, it wouldn't be bad, but the texture of it was absolutely revolting. I thought I was going to vomit.

That is what these chips tasted like! Like the nasty pureed burrito!!!

So I got to my g-parents' and I was talking to my brother and all I had to do was mention the chips and he's like "DUDE THOSE ARE NASTY! Don't get the popper ones either!"

Jalepeno popper chips?! Thank god he told me, because I seriously would have bought them!

to serve and protect?

It's angry blog time, because this has kind of been festering all weekend. On Friday, an off duty, and really drunk police officer careened into a vehicle on the side of the expressway, causing the other vehicle to catch fire and kill the two occupants. Not only this, but after someone helped him get out of his Lexus, he tried to walk away from the scene. I didn't know the two victims, but I know people who did. Some of my other friends have friends that knew them, and they were young. And talented. If this wasn't bad enough, this wasn't the first serious wreck this degenerate drunk piece of shit has caused. Nor was it his second, or third, or possibly even fourth:

Frugoli’s other accidents include a collision near the intersection of 37th and Wallace in Bridgeport when he allegedly ran a stop sign and struck a Chicago police car, injuring two officers, records show.

Seriously, what the fuck?! Is enough only enough when someone winds up dead? This guy really is a fucking piece of work. Joseph Frugoli, you are a piece of shit, and you deserve a lot worse than what you're probably going to get.

Best Dinner Service In A LOOOONNNNGGGG Time

Tonight, my sister and I went out to eat at Leona's, at the Elston location, and I would just like to say that it was the best dining experience that either of us have had in a very long time. I really like the food from Leona's but we usually wind up getting it delivered because generally I find the service to be only okay. Tonight was wayyyyy different. Our waiter was awesome. He was funny ("I can make it work for you to get half a meatball!"), extremely personable, and, as we wrote on our credit card receipt, "the best waiter ever!!!". Unfortunately, I didn't get his name, or I would put it here for all to see. I have not laughed so much (disrespecting my salad) or had as fun a time (Why aren't there any more bandits in the world) because of a server in any restaurant since before I moved to Chicago. Hand's down awesome. I will probably call there tomorrow and speak with a manager or whoever and let them know what an awesome job this guy does.

And my lasagna was phenomenal (They have a bunch of different ones, but I went with Italian meats, which had sausage and pepperoni in it). I'm usually very hesitant about ordering lasagna when I go out to eat because it usually comes in like a puddle of orange water and is disgusting, but not this time. I usually only get a burger from there and tonight I was very glad I tried something else. I even have enough for lunch tomorrow.

This was way better than the meal I had earlier in the week, which I will write a scathing review on next time. Oh yes.