Blueberry Pancakes with a Crunchy Twist

Recently, I ate an amazing brunch at J. Christopher's in Savannah. My life was changed a little bit by what they call "Blueberry Crunchcakes." The menu describes these wholesome gems as their "delicious blueberry pancakes made with crunchy granola mixed in," and that just seemed way too simple to not try to duplicate at home. My version isn't perfect... but it's definitely something I'll make again.

I started with my go-to pancake recipe:


Wet
I cup of water
1 egg
2T canola oil

Dry
1 cup flour
4T buttermilk powder
1t baking powder
1/4t baking soda
1/4t salt

For these crunchcakes I added a glug (no, I can't be more specific) of vanilla extract to the wet. I also smashed up a bunch of Kashi granola cereal and pulled some frozen blueberries out of the freezer.


My workstation, clockwise from top: water boiling for much needed coffee, skillet of fantastic squareness, canola oil and silicon brush for surface of skillet of fantastic squareness, frozen blueberries, crushed granola.


Now this picture is more of a tease and, I guess, a hurdle to those who just look at the pictures without reading the text. Because... well... the process that you see laid out so carefully here... well... failed. Sprinkling granola on the griddle before topping it with batter, blueberries, and more granola results in burned granola on the top of the pancake. Hmph. So, I learned that only having crunchies on one side (the bottom side once flipped) was better than having crunchies on both top and bottom, half of them burned black.


Like I said before, my attempt at Blueberry Crunchcakes was successful only to a point. The pancakes were tasty and the granola provided a textural contrast that pancakes don't usually have. However, J. Christopher's Blueberry Crunchcakes were better, and given the chance, you should try them for yourself.


That said, I am not going to complain about saying good morning to something this gorgeous.

(And, no, I don't know how I managed to line up four blueberries in four different pancakes and slice directly through all of them. If you asked me to do it again, I wouldn't be able to.)

Now for some honesty and a question: I love breakfast and brunch foods soooo much, but even writing this post felt like deja vu. I think I need some new material... What is your favorite breakfast or brunch food?

Julie, Julia, and Amanda (Part 1)

Now I've done it. I've cut the dickens out of my finger!

(Not really. But who doesn't love that skit?)

Anyways... this weekend I was invited to a little shindig. Here's the deal (broken down like those invitations you wish you got to the popular kids' parties in middle school).

What: Julie & Julia Dinner Party

When: Saturday, Feb. 6, 6pm until...

Where: Blair's

What to Bring: A Julia Chid dish and copies of the recipes to share.

Sounds simple enough, right?

And it was...

Until I woke up the morning of the party (alright, alright, it was 11am... which is still technically morning) and decided that - in addition to my Julia Child recipe that was mostly ready - I needed to bake and decorate Julia Child cookies.

Once I had a plan for the day that involved baking, decorating, and (most importantly) no paper grading, I jumped out of bed and into action.

I rolled out the leftover Brownie Roll-Out Dough that I had frozen the other day.


And I asked Twitter to spot the theme. For the record... no one even came close.


While the cookies cooled, I made the royal icing and got to the delicate, precise work of outlining the cookies. White first...


And here, dear readers, is the danger of using Ziploc bags instead of decorator icing bags. How-ev-er, this explosion can be easily avoided by putting less icing in the bag and double bagging those suckers. This one explosion was my only one all day.


But don't you worry... I made the absolute most of that one explosion by dropping the squooshed out royal icing in the eye of the stove. Brilliant, I know.

Back to the cookies... six hours after I sprang out of bed and into action... I had a collection of Julia Child themed cookies.


Et voila!

Hopefully, hoooopefully you can identify fish, onions, pots or cleavers (your choice), French flags, and wine glasses.

I for one was pretty pleased with the cookies. I know my royal icing skills aren't perfect, but I think they are serviceable and I'm having a lot of fun getting creative with the stuff. Next time I make and decorate cookies, I'm going to make one or two shapes and cut down on the ridiculous variance. I don't want to jump the shark.

Now, for those of you keeping track, I still haven't told you about my actual Julia Child recipe. That is a project for another day. Stay tuned!

Bet you didn't see THIS coming!

You know that day you reach - after you've been sick for a while - when you are so fully fed up with soups, toast, orange juice, tea and all other sick foods? Well, today was that day for me.

It was also the day before the last day of classes before Thanksgiving break.

Feeling quite a bit healthier and totally excited about the week long school vacay coming up, I was primed and ready for an ambitious dinner.

I did some research in the office today and after school, I attempted to duplicate The Friendly Kitchen's Almond-Thyme Crusted Chicken with Maple-Balsamic Glaze, Pecorino Polenta, and Garlicky Kale.


What made me think I could manage a meal put together by a blogger with a $40,000 culinary education? What encouraged me to take on a dinner that requires two pots, two skillets, one pan, and various prep tools?

Honestly? ...Almond meal.

I'm still trying to use it up.

But... as you can see, my dinner was edible! And pretty good, actually.

I should never have been so scared of polenta. Wilted spinach (no kale at Smalltown Walmart... surprise!) is quite terrific. And almond-thyme crusted chicken is subtly flavored and will be great leftover.

But friends, I'll be honest. The drizzle isn't pictured because I forgot about it and instead of reducing it, I burned it. It turned into a balsamic, maple candy. Very black. Very sticky. And then very quickly very solid. Blech.

When it was all said and done, I learned a very big lesson.

No matter how many pots, pans, aprons (yes, two), whisks (again, two), knives, and measuring cups you use to make your dinner, it will still only take you about 15 minutes to eat it.

And then you'll have to do the dishes.

Dear Reader,

Never live alone.

Love,

Amanda

My 30 Day Plan to Separate Church & State

Loyal readers may have noticed that my posting history is an interesting one. I started this blog many moons ago without any focus or capitalization, and somehow I've wound up here. With you.

In the beginning I posted on the minutiae of my day and even tried my hand at poetry, but at present I mostly tease you with my successful culinary goodies and ask you to laugh with me about my kitchen disasters. I've moved the minutiae to Twitter, and some of you (bless your hearts) have even decided to follow me there.

Frequency of posting has fluctuated too. In March of 2009, I posted 27 times. That's one more post than the sum total of my posts in the year 2007. In spring 2009, I posted nearly daily, even without a working computer to call my own. I was a woman on a mission.

Then came summer and job applications and angst and an overwhelming apathy towards cupcakes. In August I got a job, moved to Georgia, and signed on for a whole new set of stressors better known as my 109 first year writing students. Cooking and baking has, of late, been my coping mechanism of choice so bring on the baking and blogging, right?!

Well... in theory.

This semester my blogging has been anything but consistent. When I've appeared to be on task and posting several times a week, it's only because I've sat down on a Sunday night, written three posts, and scheduled them for the coming week. I've started to treat blogging like homework. And for a teacher, that's not a good thing.

So, after some reflection, the reason for this behavior has come to me in an Oprah-like Aha! moment.

My work and my life have become one.

If I were not a teacher, I would be deemed a workaholic. However, it seems to be the predominant assumption that teachers are their work.

No one chastises a teacher for working on lesson plans on Saturday. No one scolds a teacher for heading home after a 10 hour day on campus and settling down to read student papers after dinner. Teachers who respond promptly to emails - no matter what time of day or night they are sent - are considered the "good" ones; those who only respond during certain hours are considered particular at best, and negligent more often than not. For some reason, our culture expects teachers to live for the classroom and I, as a new teacher, have done my best to comply with this expectation.

Within the first weeks, I learned that work would take over my life, so I responded by allowing life to seep into my work. If I'm going to be working all hours of the day and night, I figured I might as well allow myself little pleasures throughout the actual workday to break up the monotony. Therein lies the (social networking) rub.

Between 6:30am and 4:30pm, I'm always on. I tweet about the parking gate. I catch up on blogs when office hours are slow. I check Facebook during lunch. (I can't justify it during office hours for fear of being caught by students!) I compulsively check email addresses that will keep me posted on blog comments, Facebook messages, and new Twitter followers because... well... it's just that important.

And when I finally leave the office for the day, I go home to do much of the same. The social networks are all still there, but then again, so is my work. Student papers, lesson plans, grade rubrics, plaintive emails... they're all there.

So what I'm left with is a workday that starts at 6:30am and doesn't really end until I go to sleep. Or, if I'm lucky, until primetime television starts. Things slack off when I go home, for sure, but it's more like that last hour of work in an office setting after the boss leaves but before you clock out for the day: procrastination and general tomfoolery are not as covert, but when projects or deadlines loom, everyone gets serious.

No wonder I live for the weekends. They really are the only times I punch out. That is, until Sunday when I attempt to make up for my "absences".

For the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to come up with a 30 day challenge for myself that will give me something to do. I've contemplated adopting a raw food diet, meeting one new person each day, or forcing myself to the gym every day. None of these ideas really grabbed me, but now that I've had this Aha! moment, I know exactly what to do.

Over the next 30 days, I am going to rescue my life from my work. I'm going to separate church and state once and for all. (Well... once... we'll see about the "for all" bit at the end of 30 days.) I'm going to divorce my work life from social networking and frivolity of all sorts. I will then insert more work into work hours and reduce the amount of time spent on work at home in my "off" time.

Here are the rules.

1. NO social networking between 6:30am and 4:30pm, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or between 6:30am and 12pm, Tuesday and Thursday.

Facebook, Twitter, and blogs (mine and others) are verboten in the workplace, even on lunch breaks when the office door gets closed.

2. NO class planning or work email checking on personal computer.

This is going to be a tough rule to follow. But... if all goes according to plan with #1, I should free up office time in which I can plan classes, post assignments, deal with student emails and the like.

3. Paper grading, though probably done at least partially at home, will be rigorously monitored.

When presented with student papers, I will establish a reasonable schedule and hold myself to it. Naturally, social networking is verboten during scheduled grading times.

This is my challenge, should I choose to accept it. I haven't accepted it yet, because, well, I bet you can guess where I am at the moment... and it's not at home.

But you know what? Kick in the rear time. I accept this challenge and it will officially start tomorrow morning at 6:30am. With Day One as Thursday, Oct. 29th, I'll finish Day Thirty on November 27th.

I'll be updating you on my progress, but do feel free to call me out if I waver. You have timestamps. Keep me honest.

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Cakes

Update: Voting for Cupcake Hero is now open until October 21st at midnight. Check out the competition and vote here.

Complete credit for that winning title goes to my bff and former college roommate, Kira. This weekend Kira had the honor of being my first houseguest in Smalltown, Georgia. And... since Kira loves to bake as much as I do, we quickly decided to make some sort of complicated dessert happen while she was here.

And, in a perfect storm of blog contest deadlines and amazing thrift store finds, Kira and I decided to make A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Cakes.



In plain English, pumpkin and vanilla swirled cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese icing. As you might imagine, it takes a lot of ingredients to make that cake happen:

And there is just one more ingredient to pull the whole thing together...

Yes, indeed. A $7 Goodwill Cinderella costume.


Kira and I took turns wearing it while we made the cupcakes. Try not to be too jealous of our merriment. You could probably have just as much fun if you lightened up a bit.

Anyway... back to the cakes. We each tackled a batter. Kira made Billy's Vanilla halved by How to Eat a Cupcake and I was in charge of halving the Pumpkin Spice Cake by Joy of Baking.


Once the batters were ready, we got really fancy. I'd dropped and marbled and twirled and tie-dyed batters before, but I wanted these pumpkin swirl cakes to be more deliberately and artfully swirled. So... we filled two piping bags with our two batters, cut the tips, then dropped those two bags into a third bag with a large round tip.


And voila! A fairly labor intensive batter delivery method not for the faint of heart.

We made exactly 12 cupcakes and 24 minis.


In my opinion, it was all worth it. Look at that great loopy swirl! The swirl runs all the way down, around, and in the cupcakes. Ex-act-ly what I wanted. (yay!)

Once the cupcakes cooled, I made a quick cinnamon cream cheese buttercream. I used a brick of cold cream cheese, 5 tablespoons of softened butter, a splash of vanilla, and cinnamon to taste. Easy and delicious.


In keeping with our Cinderella theme, Cupcake Hero ingredient (pumpkin), Booo-tiful Cupcake Contest, we decorated 6 of the cupcakes with magical pumpkins just waiting to be turned into crystal carriages.


We topped the other 6 cupcakes with colored sugar, stars, and hearts and the next thing you know, A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Cakes.


And just take a look at the cross-section shot. Adorable. I just can't say enough about this swirl and how pleased I am with it.

And while we're at it, the flavor and texture of these two cakes works together extremely well. The batters were similar in consistency, so they piped well side-by-side. The combination of pumpkin and vanilla is a wonderful one, I think. I love pumpkin, but I do like to temper it with something creamy - think whipped cream on pie - so the vanilla addition made me very happy.

I would very highly recommend making these for any sort of fall festivus. They are light, moist, soft, and so delicately pumpkin and spiced. Mmmm...

I just might have to go downstairs for a minute... and... ya know... have a cupcake.

Too _____ to Live

My short stature is the big joke in my family. At a diminutive 5'1", I get all the Liliputian humor I can handle from just about everyone. Never mind the fact that they are no tall drinks of water themselves, my family just likes to remind me that I am, in fact, the shortest person around.

I really don't mind being short. I think it makes the overall package just a little bit cuter. But... when trying on clothes that are too long or trying to retrieve things from grocery store shelves, a particular Golden Girls clip quite often comes to mind.

Thanks to the almighty powers of YouTube, you don't have to suffer through my explanation of the thing. You can just watch it.



That's right. I'm too short to live.

My understanding of this fact was solidified recently when I decided that I need new tennis shoes.

Ugh.

I knew it wasn't going to be easy. You see... in keeping with my miniature condition, I have laughably small feet. And, though I wear "big girl" shoes every day, I wear youth-sized tennis shoes because adult tennis shoes just don't fit right.

So finding a pair of tennis shoes without sparkles, flowers, or lights on the back is tricky. And, sadly, I've fully given up on finding tennis shoes that are not pink.

Maybe it's something about Georgia, but on this most recent excursion, I found some real gems that I feel the need to share with you.

Exhibit A:


Elmo. ELMO. On my foot. I wish the picture weren't so horrible, but I think you can get the idea. EL-MO, people.

You want to know the saddest part? These shoes were ridiculously comfortable. So comfortable and supportive that I actually stood there and thought about whether I was gangster enough to pull off an Elmo New Balance. (I'm not.)

Exhibit B:


Cupcake Couture hightops. Again... not enough of a badass. But how h.o.t. are these kicks?!

Exhibit C:


Multi-colored Sperrys. Now... here we might have found the silver lining in all this. These shoes were real Sperrys, not those off-brands that look close, but they were half the price of legit Sperrys because they are youth sized.

These I also contemplated. And walked away from. I already feel like a prepenstein when I wear my tan Sperrys, I was worried I would feel like even more of a poser in the multi-colored ones.

So what do you think? Should I embrace my child-sized foot and wear some of these bossy sneaks with my head held high? Or... should I continue to try them on, laugh, take a picture, and walk away?

Oh, and for those interested, I didn't find new tennis shoes yet. The best fit was a girls Nike Shox pair in silver (ew) with hot pink shox (oy). Couldn't do it.

Starve a Cold, Feed a Fever (?)

Is that the way the saying goes? I... ya know... could google it. But it's not really that important. Because... well... I eat when I want. Sick or not.

But this weekend, I am a bit sick.

I blame my students. All 109 of them.

I used to be one of those people who could say, "Oh... I don't get sick." (It wasn't true. It never is when people say that, but they still say it.) Anyway, since I've started teaching, I can't even pretend.

So today I might be dealing with the swine flu. About a dozen of my students have it. It only makes sense.

But I'm taking it in stride. And tomorrow when I go back to class, I'm going to do my best to "Spread It Around!"**

And finally... I fed the swine flu. I fed it:

+ a baconeggandcheese bagel sandwich
+ a grande soy caramel macchiatto
+ Simply orange with pineapple
+ leftover spaghetti with rosemary sauce (stay tuned)
+ pita chips & roasted garlic hummus
+ V8 red pepper soup with a buttered, toasted honey wheat bagel
+ 2 cups of decaf coffee (in progress at time of typing)

Doesn't that just look ridiculous all written out like that?

Well... I regret none of it. And I can't promise it will end there.

** Cool people will have recognized the Golden Girls reference. "Spread It Around!" was Blanche's incorrect understanding of the Sunshine Cadet's motto. Dorothy quickly righted her: "Sunshine, Blanche! Spread sunshine around." And... like the cadets... I plan to spread around nothing but sunshine tomorrow. I'm no supporter of this pandemic.

BaconEggAndCheese!!!

or How Breakfast Says "I Love You"


By this point, you probably all know that I love breakfast. What I know that you may not know is that breakfast loves me back. With all her eggy, protein-rich heart. How do I know this?

BaconEggAndCheese sandwiches.

There is no breakfast food more rewarding than a perfectly constructed baconeggandcheese. And, yes, a proper one deserves to be one word. Out of respect.

Anyway, this particular sandwich was made with two buttered, toasted slices of my homemade honey whole wheat bread. I scramble-fried two eggs (I said protein-rich, right? Well... I meant it.) and topped those eggs with one and a half slices of good ol' American cheese. Three strips of bacon later, this sandwich was perfect.


(My picture of her is not quite so perfect... but I was hungry. And impatient.)

Now... here I might lose some people, but I don't care. I like to enjoy my baconeggandcheese with a bit of ketchup for dipping. It's magical and I will hear no criticism of the practice. Well... I might hear it, but it won't bother me.

Here's something that might bother me though:


I bought this ready-for-the-microwave bacon the other day. It stays in the fridge and fairly easily cooks up in it's space packaging if you give it enough time. What's troubling is that it dispenses itself. Like a kleenex. Am I the only one who finds this really bizarre?? (o_O)

This post is dedicated to the late, great Patrick Swayze. (._.) He's like the wind through my trees.

Dressing Room Diva

Maine is a land of many treasures. There are mountains, and mooses, and students, and movies, and... yes... several bars. But really... Maine is not a hub of cultural diversity or diversion. So my roommate and I got pretty creative when we needed to get out of the apartment and have some fun. One of our favorite things to do was hit the Ross, T.J. Maxx, Marshalls circuit and try on ridiculous dresses.

So... feeling precocious and in need of fun times, I resurrected the activity and did some dressing room dramatics. Please enjoy. (Or just stop reading. Either way... I won't know.)

I'd like to start by showing you just a few of the ways that Ross can hurt an LBD.

Now... the flowers are bad... yes... let's just look at the shape that this dress creates. I feel like there are two very important accessories that are not being given the proper respect. I'll also take this chance to apologize for my over-expressive facial contortions. The girl can't help it.


This little number reminds me of something one of the Golden Girls would wear if she were in her twenties on the show. It's got all the "NO"s: a bubble, some rick rack, and a really awkwardly blunted deep-V. Thank you for being a friend, but really... no thanks.

Here we have a little black dress complete with two extra bolts of fabric, just in cases. You never, ever know...

I have mixed feelings about this dress. I love paisely but this dress is just a little too champagne glass with chocolate handles. And if you didn't get that reference, then you need to pay more attention to Prince.


Okay... there is nothing wrong with this dress. It's classy. And shiny. And if I were 18, the role of girl-who-can't-stop-pulling-up-her-dress-at-prom would be played (really well) by me. In this dress.


Cute overload. This dress screams "Coffee, Tea, or Me?" Of all the dresses I tried on, this is the one I debated buying. Didn't. But I debated.

Let's throw some color into this dressing room!

I'm thinking Austin Powers girl #3 or maybe even Foxy Brown before she gets into the really violent parts of the film that demand the one-piece jumpsuits. Holla if you've seen a Foxy flick!


I was hoping this dress would make me look a lot tanner than it did. As it turns out, it's more Pebbles Flintstone than Portia de Rossi.

This burgundy ensemble is the perfect choice for the elegant linebacker out for a nice evening of ribs and brew with the boys.

My apologies for the disturbing headlessness of this pic: you're not missing anything. Anyway... this dress is my nod to the Mad Men epidemic that seems to be sweeping Facebook.

And... finally... this dress reminded me of an Easter dress. I used to get a fancy Easter dress every year (at Easter, did I mention?) and towards the end there, it was really a dreaded activity. Though my sister loved the dresses, I was decidedly not a fan for a while there. The random yet horrible clumping of white flowers on this emerald green dress resulted in a dress that should only be seen from the back.

Ah... doesn't it always feel a little bit like Christmas when you put your own clothes back on after a bout of dressing room dramatics? Everything just seems to fit so much better.

So there you have it. A day in the dressing room with Amanda. What do you like to do on a slow Tuesday in an even slower town? Fellow dressing room divas should also feel free to out themselves. We're all friends here.

An Ode to Soy Milk

I love love love soy milk.

When I first became lactose intolerant, I tried to have soy milk with my cereal and I just couldn't do it. As much as I love the creamy goodness of soy milk, I just see it as its own treat. So I very rarely buy soy milk for myself.

I usually only have soy at... Starbucks. If you've been paying attention, you know that I am no longer purchasing Starbucks coffee. And now I miss soy!

Well... I did. I bought myself a 1/2 gallon of Light Vanilla Soy Milk the other day. Since then I've been trying to create an at-home soy latte without the benefits of an espresso machine or foamer. I've been using instant espresso and just kind of heating the soy milk on the stove.


It's... okay.

Last night I made soy hot cocoa and it was so decadent and lovely. But hot cocoa has so much sugar in it.

So what's a girl to do?! I love soy milk and drinking it cold is fine, but I want to be able to make amazing hot drinks that I can pour into my thermos and tote to campus.

Do you guys have any suggestions?! I need help!

Cake Baking: Cheaper than Therapy

I promise that this will be the last "my computer died" post for a long time. I'm not going to jinx myself by saying I won't have struggles; I'm just promising that I won't bother you with those struggles. :)

Anyway...

This past Friday, April 3, 2009, my laptop went to be with Jesus.

It crashed in a festival of light and sound and blue screens. In all honesty, this was not a surprise. My laptop has been... well... failing for a while now.

The weather here on Friday night was stormy. And my roommate had left for the weekend. And I don't have cable.

So I consoled myself the only way I know how. I baked a really complicated cake.

I turned to The Joy of Cooking by the Rombauer babes. They never disappoint when it comes to complicated directions and multi-step processes.

I ended up deciding on a filled coconut milk cake.


What was it filled with? (you might ask.)


Let me see if I can remember. Homemade whipped cream, crushed pineapple, shredded coconut, chocolate chips, maraschino cherries, rum, and the cake cut from the loaf.

Yeah... it wasn't good, so I don't recommend it unless you need the stress releaving properties of a long, elaborate, cake baking, constructing, icing, covering experience. Caveat: the coconut milk cake was quite tasty on its own even though I couldn't find coconut milk and substituted regular milk with some coconut extract. That cake I try again.

However, my experimentation with filled cake has piqued my interest. There has to be a really tasty filled cake out there. I'm brainstorming some fillings that would be tastier than the semi-island themed disaster I made last weekend.

I'll keep you posted.

Oh, and today, in a brilliant twist of fate, my sister's "old" computer arrived in the mail. It's bigger, faster, newer, and shinier than my old (dead) one. I'm... shall we say... on cloud nine. The ninth one.