Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Good night!

*Updated*
The story of my life:

Time for bed! I tell myself! 10:00

I just need to finish this email.
I'll check a few blogs before I go to bed.
I'll put away the things I bought couponing yesterday.
Oh no! My bin is full! Time to reorganize.
Oh! I'm visiting Dad this weekend, and I intended to put together a Fathers's Day assortment of coupon freebies. I'll put those things aside.
I'll give some to Tim, too.
Oh! So much more space in my bin for my other freebies!
Whoops! If I'm celebrating Fathers day this weekend, I need to get in gear for my gift/project. I better paint my canvas tonight.
Paint.
I'll paint these other wood anchors I found downstairs too. That'll be great for the Rhode Island party.
I'll wrap dads freebies up cute. After all, they have to transport somehow.
I'll wrap Tim's too. Oh man! He graduates from high school next month! I'll need a gift for that! Yikes!
Oops! Wasn't it bedtime?
11:41 pm


*Updated, 2:10am* Before above mention of 10:00 bedtime, said individual consumed 1 pint of iced tea. It was refreshing and delicious. At 12:15am, still wide awake in bed, said individual got up to continue on her many projects. She got MANY things done for the party decorations. This makes her very glad. She knows she is tired, because when she uploaded files to FedExOffice online (prints much nicer than my skewed inkjet), she had to do it THREE TIMES. THREE TIMES, PEOPLE! (4 separate documents). Ok. 2:12. Updating blog and going to bed. (With a hungry rumbly tummy!)

Craziness

I'm going back to the Yucatan this summer with my church. Did I already say this? Zach is going too. We are having a party to fundraise for his trip costs. (And maybe some of mine?) The party is 100% Rhode Island themed. This is really fun, but a TON!!!! of work. What have I gotten myself into? What is a quahog (I'll remember it for scrabble now) and how the heck do I cook one??!!

Oh dear, oh dear...I may be in over my head...

Friday, May 14, 2010

Frosting: Better than Stroganoff

Last weekend I took a break from the obsessive couponing. I had all these women pictured over to my house! We created 11 10 fantastic frostings and 1 mishap. My goals for the morning were to spend time interacting with all these awesome ladies and know be able to test a bunch of frosting recipes at once. We had mixers running from every plug in the kitchen!!

Now the next time I make brownies, or cake, or cupcakes, or anything that needs frosting...I'll have some great go-to recipes! We dyed each one a different color so we could tell them apart later. We sampled them on graham crackers then decorated cookies and cupcakes to take home. I have the recipes in a .vsd file, as soon as I figure out how

We've already agreed that we have to repeat this idea on both salsa and spaghetti sauce.
It took a lot of organizing to figure out exactly which ingredients we would need for the recipes I planned. These are the ones I was in charge of bringing.

I also hid all of our various kitchen counter clutter and even mopped the floor!

It was CRAZY with so many people in the kitchen at once! But we all had fun!

Notice the double boiler action in this picture. Talk about complicated! Wanda's recipe called for using a handmixer for 7 minutes while double-boiler-ing the frosting. I was skeptical about the results from such a complicated recipe - but it was amazing! So light!
Here is my favorite recipe in the mix: Janelle's Chocolate Cake Frosting. MMMM.
Krista and Christina had the other very complicated recipe. Double Boiling, Kitchen-aid, and an ICE BATH!! Amazing results though!
I can't remember which one this is, but Marian tried 2 easy recipes with cool-whip and marshmallow fluff. They got devoured like the rest!
And for some of the results shots, including decorating:

The pink one is buttercream and that one was my biggest surprise. I loved it! I've always thought store-cake buttercream was awful. This one was even shortenting instead of butter! Next time I'll try butter.