French Breakfast Puffs of Heaven

Recipe Club is exactly what you think it is.  It's a group of ladies that get together about every six weeks to drink wine, eat good food, and exchange recipes.  It's basically a book club, because we all know that that's exactly what happens at book clubs after the first two months when everyone quits reading the book and just shows up to eat, drink, and gab.  (And I am certainly not finding fault with this.  In fact, if anyone knows of a good book club in the Twin Cities I'd be happy to join.  We're just cutting to the chase.)  Each time we meet there's a different theme.  It might be appetizers, soup, pasta, Mexican, Asian, pie, or any number of other things.  Since I enjoy cooking and discovering new recipes I generally use Recipe Club as an opportunity to make something new.  So far I think the best thing I've taken was a homemade red velvet cake, straight from the cookbook I picked up in Hershey, PA while on a road trip with the Spain girls this summer.

This month the theme is breakfast.  Missy gave me a fantastic (inscribed!) cookbook called The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes From an Accidental Country Girl for Christmas and the first recipe I tried from it (a pizza crust) turned out great, so when I found the recipe for French Breakfast Puffs I decided they'd be a fun thing to try for Recipe Club.  (If you're not familiar with The Pioneer Woman, she's famous for her blog and I'd definitely recommend checking it out!  I respect her for living a lifestyle I could never live!)  Anyways, I've just finished making the French Breakfast Puffs, and I've decided to re-name them.  Henceforth these shall be known only as French Breakfast Puffs of Heaven, because they just might be the most delicious thing I have ever made.  Ever.  And they were SO easy.  The next time you have overnight guests I highly recommend whipping up a batch of these.  Did I mention how easy they are?  They take maybe ten minutes to mix up:

Then they go in the oven for about 25 minutes, giving you plenty of time to wash up your dishes and get the coating ready:

And when you're done they look like this:

I'm hoping you all made it this far and didn't leave me for The Pioneer Woman.  She IS kind of addictive...kind of like the French Breakfast Puffs of Heaven!  Here's hoping they're a hit at Recipe Club tonight!

White Bear Surprise

If you've been on a road trip with me (Beth, Colleen, Eva, Missy, Nancy, Ryan...) you pretty much know what to expect.  If you haven't, you probably haven't seen The World's Largest Chocolate Moose, The Land of Make Believe, The World's Tallest Land Structure, The World's Largest Ball of Twine, a family of hamburger people in tribute to A&W Root Beer, a tennis shoe bigger than a Cadillac, or a 15-foot tall swan.  I have seen all of these things, and many, many others.  In fact, spotting these random roadside attractions is one of my favorite activities, and when I spot something I didn't expect to see there is generally a lot of giggling and clapping of hands followed immediately by shrieking at the driver to pull over while I dig furiously through my purse for my camera.


I generally try to have an idea of which major roadside attractions are in my immediate vicinity, but Julia and I ventured into new territory in the Minneapolis metro area today and I was not prepared for what we discovered:

Isn't he great?!  Now Julia and I haven't had much experience traveling together so this was her first roadside attraction spotting with me, but fortunately I was pretty calm about this one and didn't start screaming about pulling off the road the second I saw it.  (I think it was because I spotted it from a ways away, giving us plenty of time to plan our attack.)  I think she was pretty entertained by my reaction to it, and she quickly pulled into the parking lot of this Chevy dealership and then drove all over the parking lot to allow me the best shot of him.  And, as if this isn't great enough, in talking to a local about him we found out that they dress him seasonally (swim trunks in the summer, etc.), so guess who'll be returning to White Bear Lake, MN four times a year?!

Spinning My Wheels

I went to a spin class this morning that I haven't been to before.  I'm trying to get back into going once a week, and in the past I've always gone at 5 or 6 in the evening.  I didn't want to find myself making dinner at 9 o'clock tonight so I went to class this morning for something different.  And boy, was it!  First of all, there are something like 60 bikes in the studio and there wasn't a single one empty.  It's a 60-minute class and the instructor was 10 minutes late.  (Don't worry, he kept us late to make up the time.)  When he arrived he just sort of swept into the room without acknowledging that he had 60 people sitting there waiting for him.  Kind of rude, right?  The lady next to me leaned over at one point and said, "Geeze, he's always late, but he's not usually THIS late!"  So apparently it's a pattern.  Too bad you have to show up so early to claim a bike!  Anyways, we started cycling and in case I wasn't already sure (and I was), I knew I was in the stay-at-home moms class when Wilson Phillips came on.  And everyone rocked out.  I guess he knows his audience.  The instructor spent a lot of time posing on his bike and eventually he unzipped his 1/4-zip top (slooooowly) and announced, "I've EARNED the right to do this!  Yeah!"  At another point he accused the whole class of eating the entire bag of Cheetos last night.  Then he kept yelling at us to talk to him.  I was like dude, I'm spinning here.  If you're doing your job I shouldn't be able to talk.  Then he was all, "You hate me.  You hate me, don't you?  Yeah, you hate me.  Well I'm transforming your body."  I can't decide if it was the best spin class ever or the worst.  He simultaneously cracked me up and irritated the daylights out of me.  I was like, dude--just shut up and give me more hills!  It'll be interesting to see if I go back next week.  If nothing else, it was nice having my workout in before noon!


(Note: I did not take the photo above.  I found it at www.nymag.com.  I felt the need to share the caption, because it was probably the best part of the photo: "A normal, sedate spin class. The type that could go to hell at any minute."  Which is pretty much how I feel about spinning.  It's a love/hate relationship.)

Baby Steps in a Long-Term Project

Since I moved into my condo over two years ago my office has been full of textbooks, ugly company-issued furniture, and not much else.  I painted it when I painted the rest of the place (a year and a half ago) but this room has never been what I envisioned when I moved in.  Since I packed up the company furniture and textbooks and shipped it all away I've realized that I now have the opportunity to start turning this into the room I've been wanting...and maybe even one that I'll use!  Since I'm going to need to buy furniture it's going to be a process, but there are small things I can start working on now.  My first project was a small but important one: transforming my bulletin board into something useful.  I'm really pleased with how it turned out!  Here are the before and after pictures:

Before

After

Quite an improvement, huh?  While seeing my photo with the girls in (old) Yankee Stadium and my ticket stub from the New Kids on the Block concert make me smile, I think I can find other places for them.  A little paint and ribbon and I now have a cute, functional calendar!  And yes, I'm available for hire.  (Kidding!  Kind of...)

World Domination

Okay, so maybe I'm not out to rule the world, but on the list of things I dominate, I've decided that roasted chicken with carrots, potatoes, and herbed cream sauce should be at the top.  Seriously, I make a mean roast chicken.  If you don't believe me, just take a look:

Kinda makes your mouth water, doesn't it?  Tell ya what--the first person to visit me in Minnesota while there's still snow on the ground gets a roast chicken.  (And for the record, I never, ever serve this meal without wine--even if I'm eating it alone.  So just in case that sweetens the deal, there will be wine included in your prize.  Wait, wait...okay, so I have never before found myself in a situation where it actually made sense to say this, but since it does I just can't resist: WINNER, WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER!)  Seriously.


Now don't worry--I perfected this meal a long time ago, so you don't have to lose your job to learn to make it.  In fact, to prove it my mom made it for Ron for the first time just a couple of days ago!  I always make it for them when they visit, so I gave up the recipe and now she's making it herself!  And she's still working, so there's your proof.  Hopefully they'll still visit...


Oh, and the best part?  The leftovers make a delicious chicken pot pie!  Yum.  Time to pour a glass of wine and enjoy my dinner!  Wish you were here!

Happy Holidays!

As usual, Christmas 2009 came and went in a whirlwind of carols, gifts, delicious home-cooked meals, family game nights, and a whole lot of hours on the road.  We're fortunate that we still get to have my brother and his family (wife Paula and step-daughter Amanda-16) for Christmas each year, so we all meet at Jan & Ron's house in Chicago for the festivities and some much-needed quality family time.  Since they say a picture's worth a thousand words I think I'll post a few photos and let your imaginations fill in the gaps.

There was a family dinner with Tyler and Debbie (Ron's son and his fiance):

There was family caroling on Christmas Eve:

Some of us caroled in our pajamas:

We admired the snow and scoped out the gifts while we waited for Jan & Ron to make their Christmas morning debuts:

There was a lot of coffee:

And then there were the annual family portraits in front of the tree:

We got a little silly:

And then we opened gifts:

There was a blast from the past:

And people plotted how to get their hands on other people's gifts:

There was roast beast:

There was primping:

There was hijacking of cameras:

And on the way home there were snowflakes that actually looked like snowflakes:

And before we know it we'll be doing it all again.  Happy Holidays!