Girls Night:: Spanish/Latin food

Another great night getting together with my favorite girls. We tried to do a latin/spanish inspired dinner. We ended up with Quesadillas and Paella, both which were awesome. Sadly, the picture of the quesadillas came out poorly, so I omitted that. I'll also post the recipe for the paella once I get it :)

Girls Night: True Blood

So over the summer, while I was ignoring this poor blog, I got into the habit of going to the gym with a group of wonderful women. We were awesome. We went 4x a week and actually worked out... until the second half of summer came with all the freshmen came and filled up the gym. Instead of waiting in lines that only frusterated us, we made a girls night. A night dedicated to catching up, eating great food, and watching some sort of TV show/movie. Sadly I haven't written about the wonderful chicken parm that was made or the phenomanal enchiladas... but we're going to start now.

Tonight was dedicated to True Blood (as probably the next girls night, seeing as the Season finale is in 2 weeks). For those NOT on the band wagon, true blood is an HBO show about vampires coming out of the coffin and integrating into socitey. It's pretty much a guilty pleasure with bad dialouge, crazy storylines, and hot vampire sex.

So onto the food part. I was the main entree (I made Buffalo chicken and the bleu cheese dressing that goes along with it. What we do is one person normally makes the dinner, one side, and dessert. Tonight was great.

Above: My entry

Above: All our food with my horrible camera!
Please note french fries were not present in this picture.

This is probably the highlight of my week with getting together, getting to cook. It's wonderful and I suggest to every college student if you can do something like this it's wonderful!

Double Delights

So I feel like I haven't made food in forever!

That's actually not true, I've just gotten in a routines of making potatoes for dinner, maybe with a side of chicken. I should remember to make a post about my awesome potatoes. But for now, a bit of story time and two wonderful sweet treats.

One of the best things I can advise any new college student is to get into a routine or habit of hanging out with friends. Whether that's going out to dinner on saturday nights or having late night study groups, it's important to remember that socializing is a good thing. For me, I (normally) get together with friends Monday nights to watch House MD. We often have dinner, either I bring dinnner or some appetizers are already made. Lately we've had to put our weekly meetings on hold because of school conflicts. But the last week we met I brought along some Ginger Cookies:

Ginger Cookies:

• Box of Gingerbread cake mix
• 1 tbsp flour
• 2 tbsp melted butter
• Optional: Butter cream frosting
  

Directions/Overall: BASICALLY on side of the gingerbread cake mix tells you how to make ginger cookies (soft) or gingersnap cookies (hard). I opted for the middle ground using only 1 tbsp flour instead of 2 tbsp, which would have given some crisy cookies. They were crisp enough that they didn't fall apart when you picked them up, but soft enough that they didn't break your teeth.

So my gimick was melting a little butter cream frosting and spreading a thin layer on top. Best to do this when the cookies are cooled. And then refridgerate. You only need a thin layer otherwise it's very overpowering.




Cut to Valentines day:

So my Valentine is across the world for the military. Instead of staying at home moping I decided to hang out with my friend, Tiffany and have a lovely smorgasbord of desserts. Honestly this girl bought chocolate cake, 5 different cookies, cupcakes, and strawberries. It was awesome. I decide to bring brownies (because I did not know the extent of her sweet tooth!) Here are my mint chocolate brownies (inspired by Sandra Lees Slow Cooker Mint Brownies)

Mint Chocolate Brownies

• Package of brownie mix
• 8oz cream cheese
• 1 cup confectionary sugar
• Andes chocolate mint candies
• 2 tsp mint extract (she used Creme de Menthe, which is fine but I don't know where to get that)
• 1/4 cup water

Directions:
1) Mix the brownie mix as the directions say.
2) Add in chopped Andes chocolates (it's okay you can sneak one :) )
3) add in mint extract (truth be told I don't remember if I added 1 tsp or 2. I would start with one, taste the batter, and if you want more of a minty flavor add one more tsp)
4) pour in 13x9 pan
5) In a separate bowl, combine cream cheese, confectionery sugar, and 1 tsp mint. Use a hand mixer/whisk to beat together until smooth.
6) Add cream cheese mixture on top of brownie mixture. Using a tooth pick or a knife, draw in vertical lines to give it a marbleized look.
7) Bake at 350 (or whatever temp on the box) for the time needed for the pan size.

Overall: Yeah these were awesome. I very much enjoyed the cream cheese layer. Yummy.

Featured Blog

So my very good friend down home decided to venture out on her own and start cooking for herself.

The New Inexperienced aspiring cook! is her first food blog. I have no idea what this blog will become, but I'm excited to see.