The Mangoes are Ripe

Last Tuesday Jay-Z and I got mangoes. They were on sale at Ralphs for $1 each. By Friday I decided my mango was ready to fulfill its destiny. You see, I love mangoes, but they are such ass pain to eat. You have to peel them with a paring knife making sure you're not taking off too thick of a layer; you have to cut around the pit; then you get the threads stuck in your teeth. That's why I rarely get mangoes unless I find a volunteer to cut them into bite-size pieces for me.

I am growing up and running wolves! Look at me. This is clearly the only proper way to eat a mango.

Mmm... check out this pit, nicely cleaned by yours truly. Can a knife do this good a job of getting every last bit of mango off it? I think NOT!

I am only not showing teeth because I was pretty sure I had a huge piece of mango thread stuck between each pair of teeth. Let me tell you, I had a very satisfying floss session right after this picture was taken.

No Rolling Pin

Last week was a little hectic, as was the weekend. (I had my first 2 day ultimate tournament!) I only saw Jay-Z briefly during the week. I knew that her grandpa had suffered a stroke last week and was in the hospital but when I texted her on Sunday to ask how he was doing he was gone. So, I made sugar cookies for Jay-Z as soon as I got back.

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Sugar Cookie Dough

3.5 cups of all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 sticks of butter (room temperature)

1.5 cups of sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

1. Mix the dry ingredients together.

2. Beat sugar and butter until fluffy. (wee!) Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined.

3. Add the flour mixture and beat until you have a smooth dough. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.

I then rolled out the dough (without a rolling pin, mind you) and sprinkled the surface with sugar and cinnamon. I rolled up the sugared sheet in a log and refrigerated it until it was "cuttable".

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YUM.

Tuna at Midnight

So, I've been super busy, so not blogging as much. Oh, but you just wait. Break is coming soon and I am going to Russia. You know what that means? A blogging diarrhea where I let out everything I've been meaning to say for the past quarter but never had the time.

But for now look at me have delicious tuna steak and potatoes at midnight.

This picture is time stamped 11:53 PM. I kid you not. You see, I had a paper due today. So, I had been procrastinating ALL day on Tuesday just so I could stay up all night and turn it in at 11 AM on Wednesday. Oh joy. At 11:30 PM I realized I hadn't had dinner, so I had this!

My roommates, especially one particular one, are extremely relieved that I had finally used all my potatoes. I buy a lot of potatoes in the beginning of the quarter and just use them over time. I think they taste better after they had been sitting out for a while. Well, last night I finished my beginning of the quarter batch.

Oh! Paper is Kobed and I'm actually proud of it. I think it's good. Slept all day today though.

Reckless Abandon

a moment, a love

a dream, a laugh

a kiss, a cry

our rights, our wrongs

a moment, A LOVE

Kitchen Aid Christening

I love cookies. I love making them, I love smelling them, and I LOVE eating them. Here, at Belle Château, Jay-Z and I embark on this task of making/consuming cookies quite often. Oh, and we do it well, we do it very well. (Especially I.) I've been using this chocolate chip cookie recipe since high school. It's the Neiman Marcus $250.00 cookie recipe. It uses espresso powder, and since J and I love coffee we jack up our cookies with that stuff. This was the first time I used my Kitchen Aid mixer, hence the title. I am very excited. It's my very first mixer. It's not a standing one YET, but it's lovely.

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Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 cup light brown sugar

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1-3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1-1/2 teaspoons instant espresso coffee powder

1-1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

1.	Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Cream the butter with the sugars using an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy (approximately 30 seconds)
2.	Beat in the egg and the vanilla extract for another 30 seconds.
3.	In a mixing bowl, sift together the dry ingredients and beat into the butter mixture at low speed for about 15 seconds. Stir in the espresso coffee powder and chocolate chips.
4.	Using a 1 ounce scoop or a 2 tablespoon measure, drop cookie dough onto a greased cookie sheet about 3 inches apart. Gently press down on the dough with the back of a spoon to spread out into a 2 inch circle. Bake for about 20 minutes or until nicely browned around the edges. Bake a little longer for a crispier cookie.

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2 tips:

- Do not over-bake.

- Do not put too many chocolate chips.

(I am addicted to sugar, so I always try to slip in more chocolate/sugar than the recipe calls for. You really don't need to do that for this recipe.) (Well, maybe just a couple of extra tbsp of sugar.)

Delicious cookies make for happy roommates!

Is This Mama?

So, I was doing this iPhoto faces thing last night. It's supposed to learn faces of people to the point where you can just search for a name and it will show you all the pictures of that person. It's kind of cool. It does really well. I only had to tag a few pictures of Vova for it to identify most of the other ones. I am not tagging myself in any of the pictures just because I rarely go to my iPhoto to look for pictures of myself. So, iPhoto keeps trying to identify all these pictures of me as Mama.

Silly computers. I do not see the resemblance of mom in these at all. (Check out Vova's suaveness though. That was taken on September 1st, 1997. My first day in 1st grade.)

Jessica, how is your iPhoto faces thing doing? Has it learned that Ayn Rand on Vova's t-shirt is not a real face yet?

Run It DOWN

I got back from San Jose this morning. (Feels like weeks ago.) It was an awesome weekend. The best one I've had in a long time. Lots of laughs, delish food, frisbee, tree climbing, longboarding and other shenanigans with JY. Now it's BACK TO WORK time! School is great. I have a lot of work to do, but I'm feeling pretty good about it. I have a Digital Logic (CS M51A) midterm on Wednesday. I think I'm adequately prepared. Most importantly I need to catch up on my Linux projects.

Today was ultimate practice. It was a gooooood one. Awesome hard drills topped with 30 minutes of scrimmage time. My left foot hurts like a biatch. I'm making an appointment at the Ashe Center. So, one of the drills was a modified Huck drill. You run deep with defense on you. I was on the offense, Omega was D. I tapped her shoulder and ran for the disc. It was far in front and I sped up to catch up with it. I caught the disc way in front of me, my legs failed to keep up and I slid with the frisbee in my hands scraping both of my elbows, my right knee and right hip.

It doesn't look very bad and it's not. But it buuuuuurns.