a little like heaven

I don't even like peanut butter cookies, but these babies tested my will. As I vacuum sealed them, acutely aware of the Pavlovian effect occurring inside my mouth, I had to remind myself of the happiness they would bring to The Staff Sergeant. I only had one but it was memorable enough to warrant the need to share this (whole grain) recipe, along with my minor alterations.

Peanut Butter Chews

1 c. smooth peanut butter

1/2 c. packed dark brown sugar

1/2 c. granulated sugar

1 lg. egg

1/4 c. water

2 T. honey

1 t. vanilla extract

1 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 c. lightly salted dry-roasted peanuts, finely ground in a food processor (I used 1/2 c. steel cut oats intsead)

added: 12 oz. bag peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. LIghtly grease 3 baking sheets or line with parchment paper.

Cream PB, sugars, egg, water, honey, vanilla, baking soda and salt in a med. bowl, beating until smooth. Add flour and peanuts (or oats), beating until well combined. The dough will be very stiff; an electric stand mixer is the best bet here.

Drop the dough by Tbsp's onto baking sheets. Press the top of each cookie with a fork, flattening to about 1/2 inch thick. Dip fork in cold water if it starts to stick.

Bake cookies, reversing the pans midway through (top to bottom, bottom to top), until they're very lightly browned, 11 to 12 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and transfer them to a rack to cool. Repeat with the remaining dough.

19 of 31: giving (a little for me and a little for you)

My day can be summed up by my trip to Borders and my evening in the kitchen --

morning yoga

cardio yoga

for calorie counting

Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies (for my soldier)

5 of 31: giving (and taking)

Today I did nothing. I slept in much later than I should have, packaged up the real batch of Irish beer brownies, met a friend for lunch, hit the sporting good's store for a goggle request, the pharmacy, the post office, the bank and then home. I feel so relaxed.

[contented sigh]

I have to say that I'm mighty proud of the St. Pat's package that was shipped today:

• Lucky Charms
• Irish beer brownies
• Irish Springs soap
• The Leprechaun horror flick trilogy
• popcorn
• Shamrock boxers
• green M&M's
• green clover napkins
• and the norms: gum, clorox wipes, Muscle Milk bars
• oh, right, and the goggles (per request)

It was the most thematic box to date.

On another note, I'm stealing away to Atlanta tomorrow with a friend for a weekend of bonding, IKEAing, H&Ming and three days of distractions, a gift from The Staff Sergeant. On Valentine's day he told me to, "take some money, get a hotel and take yourselves out to dinner on me." So we are.

[he's amazing.]

bring on the beer

I just finished batch number one of Irish Beer Brownies. They'll be starring in the St. Patrick's Day care package that's coming up shortly.

Something about the recipe intimidated me at first, I think it was the bitterness of beer against the chocolate heaven of brownie batter. Whatever it was, I felt compelled to give the recipe a test drive before shipping them overseas only to hear how bad they tasted later.

The only trouble I had was with the cook time. Twenty minutes turned my mix into hot soup. Something closer to sixty minutes fluffed these babies into a very spongy-delicious consistency. You can taste the bitterness, but in a mature-palette kind of way, like dark chocolate or coffee.

Irish Beer Brownies

4 eggs
3/4 C. superfine sugar
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
4 oz. white chocolate, chopped
6 T. unsalted butter
3/4 C. all-purpose flour
3/4 C. cocoa
1 1/4 C. (Irish Beer) stout
Confectioners' sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 375° F. Butter an 8-inch-square pan. In an electric mixer, combine the eggs and sugar. Beat until light and fluffy. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the bittersweet chocolate, white chocolate and butter, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat and beat into the egg mixture. Sift the flour and cocoa together and beat into the chocolate mixture. Whisk in the beer. Pour into the pan and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out almost clean. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.

To serve, dust the cake with confectioners' sugar and cut into squares. Serves 8 to 10.

(recipe from cookie-recipes.net)

Look out, Martha...

It was a very crafty day at Chez Moi.  I finally conquered those pretzels and might I say, they look and taste fabulous.  I'm not sure I have completely mastered the twist, but I'm not going to complain.  They'll go great with the raspberry honey mustard pretzel dip I'm sending.  I care package gourmet style.  I did not, however, make it to the post office in time.  I crossed my fingers that they were open until 5:30pm.  They weren't.  I'll have to send it off tomorrow but a couple days late isn't so bad.  He hasn't asked for a thing, it's my freak schedule I'm trying to keep to - every two weeks, sent on Thursdays.  We all get through this differently.  It's probably okay that I turn into the package Nazi, right?  

After my failed attempt at the post office, I went by Hobby Lobby to pick up the print I got yesterday.  It wasn't ready but they assured that if I occupied myself for a half hour they could have it ready to come live on my dining room wall.  Of course, what would a day in my life be without 100 totally absurd things going awry?  Naturally the print was printed crooked.  Naturally I had to double mat it for an extra $14 to center it up.  Naturally I got it home and noticed the middle mat was off center.  So I'll be back, Hobby Lobby, tomorrow.  Grr.

While I killed what ended up being about an hour, I browsed for a few little things I needed and considered this sweet idea I had seen in a magazine recently, probably Domino, for monogrammed stationary.  Since I'm a whore for a good notecard set, I grabbed a little something here for myself and then there for a couple upcoming occasions that call for gifts.  Who doesn't love a hand crafted surprise...as long as it's sober-looking?  Then I came home, got cozy in the floor, turned on House and stamped to my little heart's content.  These are some samples of what happened:

Mmm...Tiffany blue, I love you.

[and in other news, I had the phone surgically attached so as to avoid any further missed calls.]

my REAL Valentine's gift(s):

I've been meaning to write about Valentine's Day.  The last post featured a little self indulgence, but the real surprise was these gorgeous roses that came on Friday.  He wanted me to get them a day early so I'd have them all day on Saturday and to maintain the element of surprise.  Saturday I got to talk to him for ALMOST AN HOUR!  It was the best 47 minutes in the last two months because it felt like we got to be ourselves.  An even bigger surprise was his nonchalance regarding the ring info I sent. I was absolutely certain that he would 1) panic and 2) never, never bring it up.  He did.  A reenactment is as follows - 

The SS: "I got the latest package - with a sack of potatoes and the jewelry quote."

Me:  "...I'm sorry, what?"

The SS: "I got the jewelry quote.  I thought that kind of thing was supposed to be a surprise."

Me:  "...I'm sorry, what?"

The SS:  "That stuff doesn't freak me out anymore."

Me:  "Oh...yeah...nobigdeal..."

It was one of those moments when the tables suddenly turned, I panicked having been caught completely off guard and I really didn't think that this was an appropriate time for shrieking-with-overwhelming-joy into the phone.  That we'll save for something more official with sparkly deal-sealers and whatnot.  It was a GOOD day!

Then I went shopping.  My way-too-expensive jeans will be ready at the tailor tomorrow.

your head will collapse if there's nothing in it

Tonight is going more smoothly than the last few.  It seems to be helpful when I move faster than my brain can follow.  If there is no time to dwell then dwelling is bypassed.  Simple.  

That said, I'm glad to be typing from the comfort of my very spacious dining table, which has finally been cleared of moving debris.  I made it my mission to tackle the dining room tonight instead of vegging in front of the television, a wise decision made in rare form.  It took several hours to shovel boxes and lost trinkets and plates and glasses into more appropriate spaces, but it's done.  My once very lonely vintage china hutch is now full and ready for entertaining.  My poppy arrangement is a wonderful focal point and coordinates with the new drapes just as I had imagined. 

As for the bar idea, I'm going with something a little different because I am a limited-income grad student and because I found an old IKEA shelf that has already been purchased.  It just so happens to be the perfect size for the designated wall and has been left raw, a blank canvas open for any kind of finish or paint I choose.  I'm contemplating its destiny with each glance-over this nearly completed room gets.  I will be sure to post pictures once it is painted, hung and complete.

During other episodes of Friday's frenzied productivity, I got Valentine packages sent out to the The Staff Sergeant's mom and brother and a plain 'ole care package sent to him.  Actually, it held a sack of potatoes so I'm not sure it can claim any titles of "ordinary".  I'm sending potato guns through Amazon to the guys he's with, thinking that the long days and nights could use some comic relief.  I'm fairly certain the box from me will arrive first and with it a likely, "WTF?, why the hell is she sending potatoes in bulk?!"  

I might have also included the specs on a certain eye-catching piece of jewelry - super nonchalant...thus proving my prior point (see above reference to "the rarity of wise decisions").  With that recap in brevity, I'm off to bed or rather to read Kate Northrop's Back Through Interruption [since I didn't last week].  

Friday

I finally started working.  I didn't really mean to but it happened anyway.  I have a few starter tasks before I can do any organizing in the English department.  One of those is a newsletter for the new semester, and while I really only intended to look at some possible templates, I somehow got sucked into the project and spent almost all day piecing together articles and important dates and a pretty, Spring-ish layout.  At 2pm I had to stop, take a shower and get dressed - I was needed in the Languages and Lit. office to sign some paperwork.  

Now I'm swiftly wrapping up some baking for my first army-sponsored event (lacking The Staff Sergeant) - a cookie swap.  I've got 8 minutes left on the last batch of Kitchen Sink Cookies and then I'm off.  They smell de-lish!  After meeting some of the wives and of course, swapping cookies, I'll be headed to Nashville to continue the birthday celebrations.  

I could get used to classwork and working from home.  It's doing little to discourage me from being a lifer.  It's been a wonderfully relaxing Friday.  Here's to a good weekend for everyone else!

If this were easy, everyone would be doing it.

"...if there's one thing I learned, it's that when our servicemen and women go to war, their families go with them. I saw how they take care of each other, heard how they fill in whenever the system fails and discovered that the trials they faced always were matched by the hope they shared that better days are still ahead." - Michelle Obama

Thank you for being strong enough to hold me up, live your dreams, and keep us safe all at the same time.  My flowers are beautiful and this morning's brief call made my birthday wonderful!  I hope the deluge of care packages adequately convey how much I love you and how proud I am to be waiting for you to come home.  I'd choose this life again and again and again to spend it with you.  See you in dreams tonight - let's meet somewhere warm!

Snow Day

Yesterday the ice came as predicted, though the worst of it was north of here [thankfully].  The skeletal limbs looked sugar-dipped and enchanted, and I can say that because I didn't lose power.  Paducah stole the spotlight on this morning's Today Show.  That's what I mean by "just north of here" - not so far North.  Driving into Nashville was incredible with the glimmering tree lines on either side and the frosted fields and rock walls adorned with icicles as tall as them.  For part of the day I didn't have cable or internet, but that's small in comparison to some others' inconveniences.  A friend of mine spent the night in a hotel after an outage at her home, making a memorable first birthday for her daughter.  

Today the weather softened with snow, weightless wafting snow that fell momentarily so thick that it was hard to see down the block.  It makes me wish that he was here instead of cooking in the desert.  It does this so rarely in Tennessee that even as an adult, it makes me giddy and excited, and I put on boots early in the morning to go out to snap photos and stomp around in the whiteness.  Unfortunately, I can't find the cord to upload my pictures from today, but trust that they look similar to that one up top and less like the ice-encased berries that I stole from a local news website to illustrate yesterday's conditions.  

I'm making snowball cookies to commemorate the snow day he's missing, thus increasing the cheese factor but I care not.  I care package with no shame.

Just when I thought sweet Tennessee wouldn't let me down, Winter returned quite unusually. Tonight, in fact, there are warnings of a second "ice storm" for this season. There's too much drama in that forecast, I think. It's more like, "possible inclimate weather," but you know how the news is these days. If they don't get your pulse racing, what's the point?

While I do like a justifiable excuse to spend my day in sweats doing lots and lots of nothing, I also DESPERATELY need a trim.  I'm still getting used to this small town business and having to drive an hour for a quality cut.  I have an appointment scheduled for tomorrow morning that I would very much like to make.  That's Plan A.  The contingency includes icy asphalt and a trial run at soft pretzels from this new cook book  I'm so itching to break in.  They are in the line-up for one of February's care packages. [Yes, I've planned that far...and further.]  But I'd like to practice at least once before shipping off a box of failure that he has to pretend was wonderful.