The Erratic Project Junkie

One of Those Calgon...Months...

2012-02-20T20:52:00.004-07:00

This isn't so much of a blog post as an apology. Life has gotten crazy over the last few weeks and promises to continue to grow increasingly busy. This past weekend my only free time was spent on the couch watching Love, Actually with Collin...blog posting kind of took a back seat.

I'm planning on continuing to blog as much as possible, but I can't say how regular my schedule will be. Collin is very busy with work and is rarely home. In the next three weeks he'll be home for a total of about four days. It's getting hectic.

My work hours have been a little heavier lately, which is great for the practice, but very much wears me out. The pain that I thought was becoming more controlled with my new meds has come back with a vengeance and I'm popping ibuprofen during the day like they're Pez and sleeping fitfully at night (which makes me super fun to be around).

With Collin gone for work, that leaves me home with Darian, attempting to get him back in line. We spent time with his teacher the Friday before last to try and rectify what has become a huge problem. Our very smart and normally straight A student child has become increasingly lazy over the past few months, not bringing homework home, lying about having homework, not doing or turning in his assignments and lying to his teacher. He is currently sitting with one C and an F. Needless to say, we are not pleased.

So...our evening plans will be changing some. I'll be spending more time keeping him busy on homework and other tasks. In the past we have given him quite a bit of freedom to do as he pleases since he had been responsible about doing well with the things that needed to be done. That is no longer the case. We're keeping him on a shorter leash and making him more accountable for his actions. Additionally, he's started working on a science project that is going to have us being away from the house for a couple of hours at least two or three times a week. That eats up valuable blogging and reading time.

My days sound like a blast, don't they? By the time I'm done with all the "have to's", I honestly just feel like falling into bed. And many nights I have done just that.

Please forgive me if my posts are sporadic and more heavily directed to book reviews and recipes rather than larger projects. I promise that there are more tutorials in the works, but I haven't had the time to devote to them...for some reason, everyone around here seems to think they need clean clothes and dinner...

I hope to get into a routine over the next month or so and be more stable with my writing. Until then...hang in there with me. I really appreciate your readership. One of these days I'll get my crap back together.

The Best Thing I Ever Ate - Cookie Edition

2012-02-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

Okay...so maybe I'm patting myself on the back a little here...but I'm telling you, these cookies are ridiculous. Let me back up and tell you the story before I share the recipe with you.

As I mentioned last Sunday, I went on a huge cooking spree last week. Many of you already know of my addiction to Pinterest. Well, I've been gathering recipes here and there from the blogs I read and pinning them to my Pinterest boards. I've also been finding some great ones through repins. As I was putting together my meal plan for February and March I made sure to put a bunch of these new recipes in the mix.

The trek to these fabulous cookies began with Buttermilk Blueberry Breakfast Cake.

My picture isn't as pretty as hers because I totally forgot about taking pictures until we'd eaten up half of it. I meant to take more of just single slices before we finished it, but that didn't happen. Let me tell you...delicious. We snarfed this up like it was going out of style. And just to make it that much better...I put butter on top of mine to melt. Holy crap it was good. Needless to say, it's a keeper.

Well...the next day I was working on making my very first homemade pasta. If you remember, I have just a tiny bit of pureed pumpkin stored in my freezer. I decided it was time to do something about it. So I busted out this recipe for Pumpkin Sage Ravioli from Bad Mama Genny. (By the way, she is hilarious and her recipes are awesome. You should check her out.)

I thawed out some pumpkin, made some dough in my handy dandy Kitchenmaid Mixer and then went to work rolling out pasta sheets through my pasta roller (FYI...I have owned this item for about seven years. This was the first time it's been used. Sad.)

There was a lot of cursing and some very ugly initial results, but ultimately I learned to make ravioli. I'm super proud of myself for that.

Well, part of the recipe for the raviolis calls for ricotta cheese. Great. No problem. I had already bought some. The issue? Half of the tub was left over. What was I to do? I had no other recipes in mind for it and I knew it would go bad if I didn't put it to use immediately.

So I made Siri find me a recipe using ricotta. I quickly decided that I didn't want to make another pasta dish (or any main dish, for that matter). I wanted something sweet. Now, you may be thinking ricotta? like the stinky gooey cheese? Yes. That stuff. It smells like sweat socks, but it tastes awesome cooked. Trust me.

And then it happened. I found the recipe that shall have it's name shouted from the heavens, the Italian Cookie. Plain name, yes. Plain taste, no. I'd share the link if I knew where to find it. Google Italian Cookie. Your head might explode. So I'm just going to share it with you...in a minute. I'm not done telling my story. If you want this recipe, you will read this. Trust me, you want this recipe.

As I mentioned earlier, I had made the blueberry breakfast cake. Minus the small handfuls (read: crazy armfulls) of blueberries that Collin and I had eaten while I was making it, I had a decent amount of blueberries left. I decided (because I can't just leave well enough alone) that I was going to punch the recipe up a notch. Blueberry frosting was born.

So this is what I ended up with...

Don't judge them by their looks. These babies are addicting.

If you want to enter your own state of bliss due to cookie ingestion, here's how you can do it :

Italian Cookies
1/2 c. butter, softened
1 c. white sugar
2 eggs (room temperature)
1 tsp. vanilla
8 oz. ricotta cheese
2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt

Blueberry Frosting
1/4 c. butter, softened (Don't judge me. I like butter. Call me Paula Deen Jr. No diabetes yet.)
2 c. confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 tbsp. milk
1/4 c. blueberries

Ready to get to work? Let's do it. It's simple.

1. Heat your oven to 350F degrees.

2. Start with the batter. Cream the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla and ricotta.

3. Separately, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add the dry mixture to the cheese mixture.

4. Place tbsp. sized balls onto a greased cookie sheet at least 2" apart. Bake for 10 minutes until the edges are golden. Cool on the cookie sheet for at least 20 minutes before icing.

5. While the cookies are cooking/cooling, make your icing. Place the blueberries, milk and vanilla in a blender or food processor and puree. Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the blueberry mixture to the butter mixture and blend well.

6. Frost your cookies.

7. Try to stop eating them. Good luck with that.

2012 BOTY: Once on a Moonless Night by Dai Sijie

2012-02-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

Well...boo. Apparently, my choices in books are not as good as they were last year. I admit though...this one was a slight fluke. I actually didn't mean to read it. I was searching through my Nook, trying to decide on a book after The Night Circus, and my fat finger opened this one instead of scrolling down the page. I went with it. I shouldn't have. But, to give it some credit, I didn't give up on it like I did poor Bill Bryson. To take that credit away...maybe I should have.

Once on a Moonless Night by Dai Sijie is a historical fiction novel set in China. It is the story through multiple eras of a torn sutra written by Buddha. The narrator of the book is telling of its perceived importance via information she learned from Tumchooq, a greengrocer in the streets of Peking. Tumchooq becomes obsessed with locating the missing half of the text, written on a piece of silk.

Honestly, blegh. First of all...it's a bad sign when you're nearly half way through the book before you realize that the narrator is a woman. I assumed it was a man from the beginning. I don't know if this mistake was due to some oversight on my part or the writing, but I only realized it after she began to describe the relationship that developed between herself and Tumchooq.

The story also frequently shifts time frames and narrators without much explanation. I frequently found myself lost and had to really focus to keep things straight. This was not a leisurely read. I had to work way too hard for it.

Ultimately, I ended up feeling..."that's it?" The book just ended. As far as I'm concerned, the resolution was lackluster and disappointing. I invested way too much time in this book to feel like the author just got sick of writing and thought, "hmm...I think I'll just wrap it up here." A very sad state of affairs.

Because I actually finished the book, I figure that it has to rate above a 1. But let me tell you that it doesn't deserve much more. So...ultimately I rated Once on a Moonless Night with 2 out of 5 stars.