Week 31: Horrible looking deliciousness (Nov. 7-13)

I am not much for scary movies, in fact I flinch at previews of scary movies, but I was willing to give one a go to spend time with friends. A friend recently received his copy of The Human Centipede and we decided to have a themed party. The movie is quite graphic and I actually don't recommend it at all! But in an effort to make it a themed party a couple of us came across a recipe that looks intestine like, but modified it to make it healthier and gluten-free. We think ours turned out very realistic looking and I just couldn't get over how horrible it looked. Every guest that walked it was "wowed" but its disgusting appearance! We ended up coming up with our own filling (chicken, a bunch of veggies, sweet chili sauce and more) then overlapped spring roll wrappers and stuffed our intestine. I attempted to paint the blood (with food coloring) on the intestines, but realized I am not good at veins and so FS took over with some help from LC and they finished it out. I love the see through look of the spring roll wrappers and it was DELICIOUS!! I can't wait until our next themed party.

Our spring roll intestines. Stretched out it was 8 feet long.

Week 25: Cheesecake and New Friends (September 19-25)

Early in the week there was a dinner party to celebrate some dear friends who are moving far, far away to California. I jumped at the chance to make a yummy dessert that would be gluten free and a big hit with all. After looking at bunches of recipes, I settled on a cheesecake with a macadamia nut crust. It was scrumptious and many went back for seconds. I never realized how easy it was to make a cheesecake and can see myself making them for many other dinners and celebrations in the future. I have a couple tweaks to make, but over all would change very little.

This week I also flew to Roi for a W&D Girl's Night with KC, LC, and MJ. We flew up Saturday after work and returned late Sunday afternoon. It is funny how I build expectations and thoughts of how things will go in my head and then it is all thrown out the window and my expectations are exceeded. Us 4 girls, we like to think that we are an entertaining and fun bunch and that was confirmed this weekend. We started playing some card games and before we knew it had 4 new freinds from Roi that joined us for the fun and ended up in mass quantities of booze flowing. I know that you are thinking, wait didn't you and KC decided to go dry for 30 days, well we modified it to only cover Kwaj. We figured that since it was our challenge we could change the terms:) Well the night ended with me hanging out with one of our new friends for 12 hours. It has been a long time since I talked that long to someone that I just met, and it felt good to let the guard down, well not all the way down, but just a little.

Week 11: Black Bean Brownies(June 20-26)

Nothing like writing a little late (like 2 weeks late). I have been on the road going from NM to UT to now CO, where I will spend the next month. It is funny how before I left my little island, I thought 8 weeks, no big deal, but now that I am here: I miss my bed, I miss my friends, I miss my simple island life. 5.5 weeks left to visit and take in the states before I head back.

Week 11- I found a recipe in a recent Consumer Reports and thought hmmm... I should try that. They were interesting. I ended up adding a THICK layer of chocolate frosting that made them ohh so yummy!!

Black Bean Brownies

1 box brownie mix
1 can (15 oz) black beans

Open the can of black beans, rinse well. With beans back in the can, add enough water to cover beans. Put in blender or food processor and puree. Add puree to brownie mix, and then bake according to package directions.

You DO NOT add the eggs or oil that the recipe calls for, JUST the black bean puree!

One note, I baked for 50 minutes and they just never quite finished. I figured since there were no eggs, it didn't hurt to take them out even though the middle wasn't quite done. A night in the fridge helped to harden them up and make them very fudgy.

Week 6: Quiet week and Invented Recipe (May 16-22)

This week was just a typical week, not much out of the ordinary. Work, Work and More Work. I did a School Improvement Progress report to the school board, but I talk in front of others all the time, so don't really feel like it counts towards a new experience. I have a few quiet evenings; that fed my need for quiet time and relaxing after the stress of some long days.

My item that I am counting for the week was inventing a new recipe. I am known for making a delicious variety of yummy brownie desserts (peanut butter and cookies & cream are my 2 favorites). I had offered to bring dessert to a BBQ on Sunday night and planned to make a few kinds of brownies and thought not everyone likes chocolate, why not try a blondie. So I found a simple recipe for a blondie and jazzed it up by adding white chocolate chips, chunks of semi-sweet chocolate and 4 mashed bananas. They were AMAZING, I am calling them "funky monkey blondies" and will definitely be making them again in the future. I had a couple issues, like a pan that was too small and having to put foil underneath it part way through baking to catch the bake over. In the end, I had 5 different desserts to take (I WAY overdo things sometimes). We ate brownies all weekend long and I had leftovers to send home with friends last night. I may need to start reading up on other brownie/blondie recipe variations on the interweb before a work potluck next week.