It's been awhile...

My life lately has looked alot like this (mid-terms next week).

My house (which I hate <-- long story) is looking like this.

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I haven't been cooking much because, well no time. My little Mercedes needs a haircut so bad, she can barely see. I'm such a mess lately :(

Things that are important to me:

1. Have kids soon (medically important)

2. Raise my children (no daycare)

3. Do something I love (i.e. cakes)

4. Finish school (3 more classes!)

5. BE HAPPY!

Every single thing on my list seems unattainable. I'm unhappy with Mr. P lately. I want my own place. He had the house before me and it's become such a burden for both of us. It's too big to keep clean, the yard is too big to manage and the mortgage is too expensive. Everyday I come home, I'm reminded of how unhappy I am with my life and goals. I'm working on school and almost finished. Everything else is way off in the distant future.

Mr P and I are on such rocky ground lately because of the house. He's so focused on the house, I've been feeling like I'm off on my own. I told him to pay more attention but he said he has too much going on. I'm at the fork in the road again. Do I wait it out and hope things get better or just go and make things happen for myself ? 

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Cooking School Week 3

Another crazy busy week. Here are my latest creations from last night. If you want any of the recipes, just leave me a comment! I miss being around more, but my doggies gotta eat!

Chicken Salad with Lime Vinaigarette dressing. Hot German Potato Salad. Curry Chicken Salad with Nuts and Coconut

This was my centerpiece. It's made from pastillage which is basically corn starch, powdered sugar, gelatin and vinegar. Pretty neat huh?

Week of 2 of school

As promised I'm busy busy between work, school and my dogs. I was able to snap a few pictures before things in class were gobbled up! I'm trying to plan out dinner, but my brain is zapped. Enjoy the photos from this week.

 Manhattan Steak Salad with homemade Balsamic Vineagarette Dressing

Individual tarts: apple, blueberry and walnut chocolate chip raisin

All super simple and super tasty! Have a great weekend!

My life as of late...(with pictures)

Has involved alot of challenges. Getting back into school is becoming difficult and it's only week 2. All of my "free time" has become homework time. I'm picking up longer hours at work to make up for time when I'm in school. My life just went from 30 to 120 in 5 days. To say I'm exhausted is like telling a child in Ethiopia that they look hungry. I've spent the last 2 days in the ER with Mr. P and they can find NOTHING wrong with him, but he's still "sick".

I've done a few meals and desserts, but only took a few pictures. We've taken to eating quickly and not caring what it is. Mostly me, I hate cooking for one.

Mushroom Pork Chops with Stuffing

Mr. P's basketball cupcakes :)

Hope ya'll are having a fun week! I do still check my email when I get time, so feel free to send me a quick note. I do get breaks at school :)

I've been a little gone lately....

Because I started school! I'm a full-time college student and I have a part-time job and I make cakes on the side and raise my pups and have a boyfriend. I'm busy. I need some tips on how to keep up this blog while I'm busy getting back into my new "routine". I would like to start scheduling posts. I have a few pictures saved up on my phone that I need to transfer and type out the recipe. This is going to be a grueling semester, but I will have some pretty cool pictures to share with you. The art of sugar pulling & casting, different meats and how to prepare them and lastly, pastry arts! I can't wait to get things under way and get my books and binders organized. Any tips on organizing and scheduling and all that fun stuff, email me or leave me a comment. I hope to be back soon!

I hate Mondays! - Skittles Vodka

My weekend was again, too short! I think everyone should strike for a 3 day weekend, I hate working 5 days and then only getting 2 days off. I have entirely too much to do. I feel like crying I have been so overwhelmed. Mr. P called about adding me to his health insurance under a domestic partnership (he was tipped off by a former employee, but lucky me) which his company refuses to recognize. I have been trying to focus solely on school to finish and that will never happen :(

I register for classes tomorrow. I'm hoping to take 3 classes and shorten my work schedule (not sure how my boss will feel) but I have 6 classes left to get my 2nd associates degree. If I'm unable to get into the classes I want, I will be forced to transfer to a different school over an hour away and pay the higher tuition and commute :(

I hate how everything in this world takes money, YUCK. Yes, I guess I'm in a bitter mood, but if you didn't get that from the title, well I have to blame you. The extra hour of sleep did zero for my mood.
On a happy note, we are having a girl's weekend @ my friend's this weekend to celebrate my birthday :) Finally, something good. Only bad news is Mr. P doesn't want to go. He wants to, but would have to stay the night and worry about the dogs and get up early for work the next morning. Oh well, more skittles vodka for us girls! Oh yes, skittles vodka :) I will pass on the recipe for you lovlies in case anyone is interested.

Ingredients

There are just two ingredients in this: vodka and skittles.

Skittles
You need to end up with 180g of each flavor of skittle. Since skittles are approximately 1g each, you can accomplish this with 180 skittles. We used two 450g bags for our experiment -- other bag sizes are perfectly acceptable.

(Of course, if you want the vodka to be more flavorful, you could definitely try more skittles than this.)

Vodka
The vodka quality is actually pretty important. We found that using middle-quality vodka created an end-result that tasted a lot like medicine (particularly the cherry flavor). I would suggest using a better-or-best-quality vodka instead. 

step 2Creation

Remove the labels from each bottle by soaking them in warm water. This makes it easier to see the dissolving process.

Sort the skittles into different bowls based on color. We weighed ours with a scale to make sure we had approximately the same amount for each bottle.

Remove and reserve a small amount of vodka from each bottle -- around 1/8th of the bottle.

Drop the skittles by color into each bottle.

Top off the bottles with the reserved vodka. Enjoy the leftovers at your leisure.

Give each bottle a good shake to get the dissolving process started. 

 

step 3Filtration

Once all the skittles have dissolved in each bottle, it's time to filter. For us, this process was pretty quick: almost all the skittles had dissolved by the next day.

The best method that we found for  was to run the liquid through a filter made of several layers of paper towels pushed down into a strainer. It'll take a while and the stuff left in the paper towels will be pretty gross, but it's worth it in the end. Or a coffee filter can be used.

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