Meyer Lemon Sugar Cookies

I can't quite seem to catch a break.

Three weekends ago, I got to spend my Saturday night in the emergency room with my husband, watching Pit Bulls and Parolees, because my back hurt so bad, I thought there was a chestburster about to pop out like the dinner scene in Alien. Turns out I had a kidney infection, and I got to spend nearly two weeks on antibiotics that made eating anything a battle of wills with my gag reflex.

Nearly to the day of getting off the antibiotics for the kidney infection, I start hearing coughs and sniffles around the office. Which devolve into hacking coughs and rumbles. And multiply. It was only a matter of time.

Needless to say, for the last week, I've been fighting a rather wicked case of bronchitus, complete with requisite hacking and rumbling. My throat is so raw from coughing, it sounds like I gargled with shards of glass. I've been steaming up the bathroom on a regular basis throughout the day to help with the breathing. Slowly but surely, I am starting to feel somewhat normal again. But that being said...

...sometimes you just need some cookies. Meyer lemon cookies, to be exact.

Meyer Lemon Sugar Cookies
(adapted from LDS Living)

1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 whole egg
2 tsp grated meyer lemon peel
1 tbsp fresh meyer lemon juice
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cups powdered sugar


Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease light colored baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

2) In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon zest, and juice. Scrape sides and mix again. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly.

3) Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Roll around in loosely cupped hand to evenly coat the dough and shake off any access sugar. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.

4) Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte (not melty or shiny). Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

I've got to admit...these totally hit the spot. They were chewy and soft, buttery and delicious. The meyer lemon flavor really shown through and gave the cookies a sweet little zing. The only thing I can think of that would make them better would be a sprinkling of coarse sugar on top...something to consider for the next time around.

My love affair with meyer lemons continues...

::cough::

Slowcooker Coq au Vin

It's wintertime in South Florida, and by wintertime, I mean Slightly Less Hot-time. It's actually my favorite time of year - the humidity goes away, the temperatures cool down a bit, and we usually have about four very pleasant months before summer heat and humidity swoop in and suck the breath out of your lungs.

Every once in a while, however, we do get cold fronts that roll through, and it gets chilly. Very, very chilly. And on nights like that, you want something warm, flavorful, and home cooked to eat.

One of the new dishes at this year's Epcot Food & Wine Festival was a coq au vin au gratin in France...I had never had coq au vin before, but you slap macaroni au gratin with anything and I'd probably eat it. And honestly, it was quite delicious...warm, homey, and full of flavor...it was easily in my Top Five Dishes at this year's festival. However, coq au vin just seems impossibly fancy whenever you look it up in cookbooks. There had to be easier way to make it...right?

Slowcooker Coq au Vin

4 chicken thighs and 2 chicken drumsticks
2 cups frozen pearl onions
1 1/2 cups frozen sliced mushrooms
1 1/2 cups raw baby carrots
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups red wine*
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 tbsp butter, cut into three pats
2 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
3 tbsp fresh oregano leaves
3 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves
1 packet dry onion soup/dip mix
2 tbsp MarketSpice Salt-Free Country Herb Blend
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp ground bay leaf
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
Cornstarch (optional)

* We use a cabernet (like the flavoring a lot more), but you could use a merlot. 

Directions:

1) Lay chicken pieces in a single layer in the bottom of a 6 quart slowcooker pot. Sprinkle onions, mushrooms and carrots over top. Sprinkle entire dish with garlic, rosemary, oregano, and thyme.

2) In a small dish, whisk together onion soup mix, country herb blend, salt, ground bay leaf and black pepper. Sprinkle the mixture over top the entire dish.

3) In a bowl or a Pyrex measuring cup, whisk together wine, chicken broth and olive oil. Carefully pour into pot, pouring around the edges, doing your best not to wash off too much of the seasonings. Top dish with pats of butter.

4) Cook on low setting for four hours. Serve immediately with a piece of chicken and scoop full of vegetables. If you so desire, you can add small amounts of cornstarch (until you reach desired thickness) to the remaining cooking liquid to thicken it up for a sauce to drizzle on top the dish.

First, let me prefice this with the fact that the smell this dish creates in your home alone is worth cooking it. We set this up and had it cooking while we took Sandy to the dog park; when we got back home and opened the door, I wanted to melt into a puddle right there on the doorstep. It smells wonderful.

Second, this dish is wonderfully, wonderfully simple to make. Simply layer all the ingredients, turn on the slowcooker, and you're done. Simple as that, yet it comes out looking and tasting like a gourmet dish. Paired with a little wild rice and a nice baby greens salad, and you've got a meal fit for company.

Now, let me say this - I normally don't like recommending specific products (such as a certain brand of spice, or a certain brand of oil), because it forces people to go out and try and find a product that might not necessarily be easy to find or worth spending the money on if you're only using it for 1-2 recipes. If I use a specific "specialty" item in a recipe, I try and offer an easy-to-find alternative. However, with this dish, you absolutely need the MarketSpice country herb seasoning. The first time we made this dish, we didn't include it, but the second time, I added it in for variety...and it totally knocked this dish out of the park. Trust me, it's worth it...not to mention, it makes for excellent seasoning on roasted turkey or chicken. :)

Slap a Sticker On It

So, I was perusing today's posts by some of the blogs I follow on a regular basis, and I came across a post from the lovely Krysten at Why Girls Are Weird. She had come across an article by a 19-year-old girl out of the University of Buffalo talking about how tattoos on women are more-or-less the equivalent of slapping a tacky bumper sticker on a vintage Ferrari, and (being a gorgeous tattooed girl herself) was rightfully pissed off by it. Naturally, I had to see what all the fuss was about.

The article in itself is enough to make you want to stab a hot poker through your skull in sheer anger/frustration, so I'll summarize her thoughts with a few direct quotes:

"An elegant woman does not vandalize the temple she has been blessed with as her body. She appreciates it. She flaunts it. She's not happy with it? She goes to the gym. She dresses it up in lavish, fun, trendy clothes, enjoying trips to the mall with her girlfriends. She accentuates her legs with high heels. She gets her nails done. She enjoys the finer things in life, all with the body she was blessed with."

"Can you get meaning out of a tattoo? Arguably. If you want to insert ink into your skin as a symbol for something greater than yourself, then maybe you are proving a point to yourself or the rest of the world.

But at the end of the day, are you really a happier person? Has this tattoo, for instance, caused you to learn something new about yourself? Has it challenged you? Has it led you to self-growth? Nothing comes out of getting a tattoo. You get a tattoo, and that's it. You do something productive, though, and you see results. That's a genuine, satisfying change in life. Not ink.

Invest your time, money, and effort into a gym membership, or yoga classes, or new clothes, or experimenting with different hairstyles if you're craving something new with your body, not a tattoo.

I promise, it will be a much more rewarding experience, and you won't find yourself in a rut when your future grandkids ask you what's up with the angel wings on your upper back as you're in the middle of giving them a life lesson on the importance of values and morals.

God knows the last thing this world needs is another generation of kids questioning their basic values and morals."

I am a 28-year-old woman. I am a wife, a sister, and a daughter. I have two degrees and am in the process of earning a doctorate. I think I am a pretty intelligent, articulate person who is able to understand concepts simple and complex, and use deductive reasoning, logic, and common sense to solve basic and complex problems. I try to live my life in a manner that I can be proud of. I treat other people with kindness and respect, even when I don't necessarily think that their own behavior or treatment of others has earned either. I do my best to be a good person, and when I make mistakes, I take ownership and responsibility for those mistakes and do what I need to to fix them and make amends with those that those mistakes may have impacted. I dress decently, I have respect for my body and what I put in/on it, I don't walk around with my girls hanging out or my g-string showing for all the world to see. I don't go out and get sloppy drunk or sleep around...with the exception of a mild case of pottymouth, I think I am a reasonably well-behaved, elegant woman. I'm by no means a saint, but I think I have a decent amount of class.

I also have two tattoos.

One of the a tattoos that I have is a blue butterfly. It's about the size of a half dollar, on the back of my hip, and unless you're my husband or you happen to catch me in the right bathing suit, you wouldn't even know it was there. So, obviously, I didn't put it on my body to make this grand statement to the world at large, considering I put it somewhere on my body that wouldn't be visible to the naked eye.

I got a blue butterfly in honor of my grandmother. Butterflies were one of the things she loved most in this world. She had them everywhere. Figurines, paintings, photographs, embroidered pillows...you couldn't enter a room in her home and not find a butterfly. She'd plant roses and flowers every spring just to attract them. As for blue, it was her favorite color. Whenever I think of her, of my happiest memories of her, I always picture her in blue.

On the day my grandmother passed away, Erin and Sarah (who were just little girls at the time) called me crying. They were so young, and we were all so close to her...their hearts were broken. All of our hearts were broken. Erin was crying and telling me how she couldn't understand why she could never see her grandma again, and I told her that she would. I told her that every time she saw a butterfly from now on, every single time one flew by her or landed on a leaf as she passed by, that was Grandma. Whenever she saw a butterfly, that was Grandma, watching over her, protecting her, telling her that she loved her and was with her at that very moment.

When I said it, it was my way of trying to comfort a broken hearted little girl. What I didn't realize at the time was how much that would stick with her, with me, with all of us grandchildren. There are times where I'll be walking down the sidewalk on campus, or out shopping with girlfriends, and I'll see a butterfly flit by and for that split second, I'll stop. And somehow, in that split second, I get some amount of comfort. There are times when my sister or my mom will call me up, or send me a text message - "I saw Grandma today <3". And it brings us comfort.

My sister and I each got blue butterfly tattoos about a year after she passed away, right around the time that she passed. It was an experience that brought us closer. It created yet another permanent link in our bond with one another. It's a link that we could not have created with a cup of Starbucks, or a pair of Manolos, or a yoga lesson. Those moments, that day, is irreplaceable to us.

Will a blue butterfly on my hip magically change the world? No. Will it suddenly make all my problems go away and create unshakeable inner harmony? Not even close. Does that little patch of ink have tangible, irreplaceable value? Has it led to self-growth? You bet your ass it has. Call me crazy, but getting that mark inked on to me, where it can never disappear...it helped a little part of me heal. On those days where I miss my grandmother more than I can physically stand, and drawing her face up in my head isn't enough to bring me some degree of comfort, I can look in the mirror and see those wings. I can put my hand on my back and I can feel the lines where ink has embedded in skin. I can physically feel a little, tiny, tangible link to her, even if it is superficial, only skin deep.

Not every woman who gets a tattoo gets one because they are bored with their look. Not every woman who gets a tattoo gets one because it's the cool or rebellious thing to do. Not every tattoo is a picture of Tweety Bird riding a motorcycle with Mickey Mouse that you got one drunken night on Duvall (no, I don't actually have one of those). Not every tattoo is without meaning, or value. Not every woman with a tattoo is without values, or morals, or class.

I am a 28-year-old woman. I am a wife, a sister, and a daughter. I will someday be a mother, and you better believe I'm going to be fierce when it comes to the love I will have for my children. And I know, in my heart of hearts, when one of my babies touches that little patch of ink someday with his or her tiny fingers and asks where it came from, I will have zero qualms telling them what inspired me to have it done.  

Zero.

Meanwhile, In An Alternate Universe...

For the first time ever, the hubs and are hosting Super Bowl Sunday. In the past, we've always done Super Bowl festivities at a friend's house, but this year, with a big fancypants high-def big screen TV sitting in the living room, I thought it would be fun to take my turn at hosting. We're throwing a potluck bash, but I'm making quite a bit of food myself, just because I enjoy doing so and it gives me an excuse to try out some new guy-friendly recipes I've come across over the past few months.

So, last night, as I get ready to leave work, I finalize the grocery list that I had been prepping throughout the week. And, as I look at the whole thing, I did what you could call a double take. Why?

Farmers Market

Red bell pepper
Green bell pepper
Yellow bell pepper
Jalapenos
Eggplant
Zucchini
Cherry tomatoes
Roma tomatoes
Avocados
Garlic
Yellow onion
Red onion
Green onions
Limes
Lemons
Cilantro
Basil
Chives
Italian parsley
Peanuts

Grocery Store

Tortilla chips
Feta cheese
Chicken breasts
Poppyseeds
Extra virgin olive oil
  

Now, mind you, there are some other ingredients that are being included in said Superbowl food (our pantry is pretty well-stocked), but honestly, there's not that many ingredients that that list doesn't cover. And I picked mostly man-friendly foods. But that list makes me look like Michelle Obama throwing an Oprah's Book Club dinner party.

I'm wondering if I've somehow been sucked into some sort of alternate universe, because I'm pretty sure Superbowl shopping lists are supposed to look somewhat like this:

Farmers Market

Avoid altogether because manly men don't shop at sissy farmers markets, right?

Grocery Store

Beer
Meat
Stuff to dump on top of meat
Bread to put around meat
Beer
Doritos
Cheetos
Potato chips
Beer
Bacon
Insanely hot salsa that the wife/girlfriend will not be able to consume
Velveeta
Beer
Pizza
Wings
Beer

Something is wrong...very very wrong. ::shudder::

Demon Cookies

It's that time of year again. That time of year when I cringe anytime I have to walk into a grocery store, pharmacy, drug store or farmers market.

Because they are waiting for me.

They wait until you are at your most vulnerable...when you're starving because you didn't have time to scarf down a turkey sandwich for lunch and all you want to do is get in and get out and go home and eat something that resembles a balanced meal, but at this point, you're so damn hungry, you'd settle for an army boot slathered in peanut butter.

That's when they pounce, like a cougar in the mist.

DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One look at those cookie boxes, and you're seized by the overwhelming sensation of:

If you're lucky, you have the willpower to mumble out "no thank you" whilst wiping the Samoa-induced drool from your chin and powering past the adorable girls that you just turned into Sad Pandas due to your rejection.

You then spend a day or two perusing Pinterest for "homemade samoas" or "thin mint cheesecake", but then you remember this:

Eventually, they will wear you down. It's inevitable.

Today, that inevitable day came for me. It started off innocently enough. I popped into Walgreens on my lunch break for a 5-Hour Energy and a bottle of vitamin water. I was actually priding myself on the fact that I had actually eaten a sensible lunch and had resisted all temptations of a grease-laden or sugar-coated nature. And then I stepped out of the store.

And there she waited. The most adorable little girl I've seen in, well, forever, with her little green uniform on, surrounded by boxes and boxes of cookies. Seriously, the only thing that could possibly be cuter than this little girl would be if you threw a girl scout uniform on a kitten.

HOLY SQUEE OVERLOAD...::melting into puddle of awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!::

And then, in the sweetest little voice that you could imagine coming out of this sweet little girl, she says, "Ma'am?" (::cue heart melting::) "Would you like to be some Tagawongs?" (::cue melting into puddle::)

Somehow, I was able to mutter "Let me think about it, ok?" from my molten puddle of awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!ness. To which, I got a response something like this:

To which I responded by hightailing it to the ATM for cash and buying four boxes of cookies.

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!! HAPPY GIRL SCOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And this is where the battle with the inevitable begins.

Four boxes sounds like a lot. But for me, that lasts the hubs and I for quite some time. I may have a healthy appetite, but when it comes to sweets, it shrinks considerably. I love sweets, but I can't eat a huge amount of them all at once, especially since I kicked Pearl to the curb. About four cookies sends me over the edge and into the "ZOMGSTOMACHIHATEYOUUUUUUUUUU" zone.

So, I'm driving back to work with four boxes of Girl Scout cookies in my back seat. And they are taunting me. EAAAAAAAAAT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, they whisper. You know we're delicous! And you were sooooooooo goooooooooooood for lunch. One little cookie isn't going to hurt...which is why I had resolved to leave the cookies in my car when I went back to work. Even if they weren't out of mind, at least they weren't within munching distance.

Except, when I get back to my office, I spend 20 minutes driving around the parking garage trying to find a parking spot and there's nothing. Except on the roof. On the hot roof. On a warm winter day in South Florida. Where cookies will melt. 

It is around this time that I get the inkling that Satan decided today was the day to fuck with me.

So, I get back to my office, and I put the cookies as far away from my desk as I can legitimately put them before they become office-wide property. I even put a stack of papers in front of them, hoping to shield them from my eye line. And yet, they taunt me. They call to me...much like those medallion-peso things in Pirates of the Caribbean. 

 

 
Forgive me Father, for I have not the willpower of Bob Harper. I did manage enough willpower to only eat one three cookies. And I now feel like puking from sugar overload.

But hot damn...those Thin Mints were damn delicious. 

Update (3:47pm) - I just received this photo via Facebook from my friend Lyn. Apparently, Demon Cookies are achieving world domination as we speak.

Wedding Wednesday - The Rehearsal

It's Wednesday, so that means it's time for something long overdue that I've been (unfortunately) neglecting for some time...Wedding Wednesday.

Just to recap...when we last left off, my handsome boyfriend had proposed to me (complete with getting frenched by our dog mid-proposal), we had introduced the two sets of parents. About eight months later, wedding preparations and partying is in full swing...we had the bridal shower of the century, followed by not one, but two bachelorette parties, one of which included a sailor hat and some drunken Lonely Island sing-alongs. We hit a few hickups in the road, including an accidental viewing of my wedding dress, the inadvertant implication that we would be cannibalizing small children at our reception, and Flowerpocalypse 2011, but all in all, things were trucking along.

It's finally the day before the wedding, and it's all becoming very, very, very real. All our family and wedding party are here. All the dresses are hanging in the loft. The rings are in, the flowers are in, everything is down to the last and final detail.

Holy shit, we're actually going to do this thing.

But first, we have to rehearse it.

We held our wedding rehearsal the morning before the wedding itself...as it happened, our venue holding another wedding that night, so the morning it was. It actually worked out pretty well - the atmosphere was laid back (everyone was in short/tees/sundresses and flipflops abound, so no one was trying to practice walking up and down the grass in stilettos), everyone was comfortable, and we got to take our time (rather than rushing through the thing just to drive across town for dinner).

Annie (bridesmaid), my mom, Aunt Joyce (via the hubs), E (my unofficial wedding coordinator), me, Coley (matron of honor), and Erin B (bridemaid) in the lobby of the hotel before the rehearsal. Call it serendipity, but the hotel where all our guests were staying, the venue, and our house were all within five minutes of one another. Made for easy shuttling back and forth, that's for sure.

While we settled the last of our affairs (i.e. $$$) in the main office, our wedding party and families entertained themselves by the ceremony site...

Joe (groomsman), Brian (officiant), E, and Blondie (bridesmaid)

I'm not sure what kind of stand-off my brother (groomsman) and Annie have going on here, but it looks intense.

The crew trying to look like they're not plotting some sort of evil-type shennanigans...

My mother-in-law getting to know some of our wedding party...

My gorgeous mama and my equally gorgeous cousin Sarah (bridesmaid)...somehow, she became the Unofficial Bow Bouquet Guardian.

My in-laws. My father-in-law was also best man. :)

Either there's some sort of bridal party dance-off going on, or Coley and Annie suddenly converted to Gator fans.

"We just wrote a big-ass check...LETS DO THIS!"

Let me prefice this whole thing with stating our wedding wasn't what you would call "traditional". I think my mom had difficulty coming around to the idea (which she did, in the end, and she was wonderful about it) of what we wanted to do.

Here's the thing - we didn't want a big, fat, stuffy church wedding. Nothing against big, fat, stuffy church weddings - or church weddings or big weddings in general - but that's just not us. In fact, it was only the veiled threat of severely disappointed family that kept me from saying "fuck it, let's just elope".

We both have huge families, but we didn't want a huge wedding. We both are Christians, but we didn't want a beat-you-over-the-head-with-Biblical-references ceremony. We didn't want a stranger we just forked out $500 to get up in front of our family and friends and talk about us and our relationship as if they really knew who we were. We're not stuffy, formal, dignified people - we're laidback goofballs and humor is a major component in our relationship with one another and with the people in our lives. Big, stuffy church wedding? That just wasn't us.

In the end, we kept it relatively small at about 100 guests (70% of which were family). All but three (out of twelve) of our wedding party were immediate family. We did the whole shebang in a local country club because it meant our guests (80% of which were coming in from out-of-town) could go to one spot and not have to leave all night. We wrote our own ceremony. We had one of our best friends (who more or less introduced us, and happens to be a notary for the state) marry us. We did just about everything - from the flowers down to the thank you cards - ourselves. We inside jokes all over the place - from True Blood and chupacabra references to vows that included promising to root for the other's favorite football time (except when they play each other...then all bets are off and someone's sleeping on the couch). It wasn't perfect, nor was it what every little girl could say they dreamed of growing up. But it worked for us. It was us. 

Ok, I go off on that little soapbox tirade to make the point that the rehearsal in itself was, well, kind of a clusterfuck. We pulled it off, but it wasn't without it's comedy. It was the first time Brian got his hands on the ceremony, it was the first time we had all of the wedding party in the same spot at the same time, it was a miracle Joe was alive considering the last-minute "bachelor's evening" they threw the night before...

Wedding party lining up...

We've got the bridal party (complete with Blondie playing paparazzi)...

...and the groomsmen. And no, I have no idea why there is a water bottle in that particular position in Joe's pants, but apparently, it was happy to see us all.

Lining up for our practice walk. It was around this time I started practicing all the dirty jokes I was going to tell my dad the next day so he didn't cry his way down the aisle.

"YOU! STOP WITH THE CAMERA. YEAH, YOU. I SEE YOU, FATHER OF THE BRIDE."

Everything went reasonably well the first run-through...we had a lot of joking, a lot of my dad getting confused as to what exactly he was supposed to be saying and when (which would come back to bite him later...but more on that in upcoming posts), a lot of "NO KISSING! U NO MARRIED YET!"

We headed back down for a second run...

Brian does his best impression of that girl from The Ring...

The wedding party does their walk...and I bust out the sailor hat. Remember the sailor hat, from the infamous "I'm ON A BOAT but actually I'm in a bar" bachelorette party?

Yeah, that one. I slap that bad boy on, E happens to cue up her "I'm On a Boat" ringtone, and all hilarity ensues. I believe it was around this time that our venue coordinator started seriously questioning how seriously the hubs and I were taking this whole marriage thing.

Wrapping up the shennanigans...

Once the rehearsal was over, The Hubs and I each took our respective members of the wedding party out for a bridal party/groomsmen lunch. I took my bridal party, E (who was more-or-less our unofficial wedding coordinator) and my mom to Bubba Gumps right on the main drag, and the hubs took his guys to a local beach pub that we like to frequent. We wanted to make sure that, even though we couldn't get married on the beach, our wedding party at least got to enjoy some beach while they were in town.

Enjoying some lunch. Apparently, I was really enjoying that margarita the waiter brought me lunch.

My girl Sarah <3

Blondie, E, and Annie

The two Erins :)

My gorgeous sis <3

We ate seafood, we (of legal age) drank margaritas, we opened gifts, we just all-in-all enjoyed ourselves. Until the waiter made me doing a single-ladies dance for dessert. Unfortunately, no dollar bills were involved, but the ice cream was delicious.

Apparently, this is the last dance of a single girl. Observe and document.

Up next week...the rehearsal dinner and pre-wedding cocktail party...and the infamous chainmail handkerchief. :)