Midnight Baking Madness With Cornbread and Mug Cake

SO, what do you do when you are bored college students on a thursday night? BAKE of course! Now I was going to bake my famous cornbread anyway because it's about the perfect time for it, but I got a special request for an experimental super chocolate mug cake! How could I refuse, I mean it's CHOCOLATE?!

A few quick notes before I get into the baking fun, first: Two weeks ago I flipped over the handle bars of my bike avoiding a car and running into a pothole on my way to work. Knocked myself out for a few minutes when I smacked my head against the ground and gave myself a nice concussion. Also apparently I had put my arms up to try and shield myself when I flew over and thats how I ended up breaking my wrist. So I've been a one arms gimp for a bit as my friends call it. So I'm sorry about the spelling, it takes a great amount of time to write these posts when you are one armed.

Two: I smashed my wonderful love of my like iPhone 4 when I flipped over, but the coffee mug in my bag on my back somehow survived. I'm not sure what gods thought that was funny. BUT the new screen today and my super genius tech friend was able to spend over an hour taking the phone completely apart and replacing the screen with some youtube instructions and a replacement I bought off amazon. <3

NOW!
ONTO THE NOMS!!

My super simple delicious cornbread! In a Cast Iron! This is in high demand! I used to make it twice a week last semester. 

 Yes, thats a WHOLE stick of unsalted butter (the best kind) 

 Lots of sugar, why? Because cornbread needs to be sweet people!

 Drop the sugar into the melted butter, remove the pan from heat and drop in two eggs. Keep stirring!

 

 Add in the buttermilk quickly and keep stirring!

 I put just over a cup of cornmeal in. 

 Then just under a cup of flour.

 Mix until it looks this delicious.

 Bake on 375 for 30 min

 AND WHILE WE WAIT, SOMETHING CHOCOLATE THIS WAY COMES. 

 The Starfox mug is mine :D

It's all so simple!

 Add Flour

 Brown sugar!

 A little (a lot) of my love

 This is what it looks like dry

 Then add two table spoons milk and vegetable oil

 Mix!

A staple in every dorm room.

 Why you ask? Because I can. 

 Pop in the microwave for a minute, but make sure to monitor it, depending on the size of your cup you might need more or less time. 

 ............*dies of happiness*

 It fills up about half the mug.

NOM! 

AND NOW, BACK TO THE CORNBREAD!

Tap the top and center of the cornbread to make sure that it is fully cooked. The more you make this the more you realize by the color and touch when it's done.

 You can put a toothpick in it if you are unsure.

 How perfect is that cut?!

 I think it was enjoyed by the friends

Mostly since this guy polished off his and the rest of hers. 

 I think they were good! Can you tell?

 Midnight baking is fun, but the highlight of my day is that fact that the new screen for my iPhone4 came in! And since my wrist is still broken my friend swapped them out for me! Apple charges 180$ and they just give you a new phone, amazon charges 35$ and you can spend an hour doing it yourself. It's EXTREMELY tedious but it's worth it.

 I messed this up real good.

 This was in the hand with the broken wrist, it came in direct contact with the ground when i flipped over the bike.

It strangely worked just fine too, I was shocked and for two weeks walked around and used it just fine. So glad I don't have to look at my phone and cry now though. 

Anyway guys, Happy Midnight Baking! 

OH and this Thursday I'm heading out to a farm to pick up my 20 lb organic Heritage turkey! But more about that later!

Music of the night: Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmeron sound track. 

Bake on!

Something Fishy

When I got back this past weekend from my cousins wedding I was greeted with a wonderful text message. "Guess what I got us!!" and curiously I wondered and guessed. (all wrong) until finally my tormented gave up. "I got us salmon!" and instantly I remembered why I love her so much.

So thus dinner was a few days ago but I was very busy writing a paper as well had a little accident where I pulled a muscle in my back/neck picking up some heavy boxes at work. Health services was FUN. (NOT) So this post is a bit late, sorry!

This is my friends FAVORITE rice, she makes it all the time and it's wonderful!

Read the directions! Cup and a fourth of water.

                  Add the packet of the rice into the water and turn it up to high. 

 Add the seasoning packet to the water as well and give it a good stir. The secret to good rice is actually doing nothing at all. Just leave it and turn the heat down until the water sinks below the rice and then give it a bit of a stir. 

 It smelled heavenly!

 This is a salmon steak for one or two, my friend and I split it. Add salt, pepper, a dash of soy sauce and a little brown sugar. (Lemon doesn't hurt at all either.)

Bake for about 10 minutes in the over on about 350

 Ok, I admit it, I love broccoli! Even if its frozen :P

 Add water and toss it in the microwave.

 When it's half done just add a little bit of butter and put it back in the microwave. When it's done drain the water and excess melted butter and add some salt and pepper.

Arrange it all nice and pretty on the plate. My friend and I split the salmon, which was more than enough for the both of us since it was so thick. 

I really loved this, it was healthy, delicious, and devoured. 

What I would do different:

Um, not much. 

Fresh broccoli would have been nice. 

Band of the meal:

Maroon 5

Enjoy! 

Amtrak Bento

Well I'm finally on my way back from what was and interesting weekend to say the least. My cousins wedding was absolutely spectacular in every sense of the word. Although I really expect nothing less from a Vera Wang bride. The food was out of this world. And I completely broke tradition and wore a long white gown. (the only one out of 200 people)People stared. Some were in shock. And my cousin was madly in love with it told me how much we needed photos of us.

Anyway onto today's bento breakfast/lunch.

I wanted a bit more snack than food because I'm on a train for over 6 hours I'd love to munch a bit more on pretzels and cucumbers than something heavy.

That's 12 grain bread with low sodium turkey and horseradish mustard
Snyder's pretzel sticks
Cut up cucumbers and carrots.

Of course all with the clean canteen full of water.

Song of the day is Generator. By Freelance Whales.

And the movie of the trip is Beauty and The Beast. :3 I'm a big kid at heart. I love this movie.

Thursday & Friday Bento

So on Thursday I had a test. And essay due. And a debate presentation which I was elected to speak for. (yey me) so I decided to pack myself a nice lunch even though I didn't get to eat it until classes were over and I was sprinting to my bike to get to work. Real women bike in skirts. Short ones. Ha ha I just sit on the back of it, but with the Chipotle hat and aviators I bet people were confused.

Casher butter and smuckers grape jelly on whole wheat cracked oat bread

Green grapes

Leftover spagetti from tuesday nights mildly planned dinner

Now I'm updating this from my phone because I'm still on my 6 hour train ride back home to attend a wedding. So I thought it would behoove me to pack a lunch and not have to pay Amtrak more money for over priced bad food.

Grapes
Annie's Organic Cheedar bunnies
Annies Organic Cheesy bunny Mac and Cheese

Plus there is a clean canteen full of water. :D Eco awesome FTW.

Thank you iPhone for the ability to post via anywhere.

Have a good one. And the music of the day is everything that's been playing on my iPod for the last 5 hours non stop.


Oh yes. And Dear Sarah.
Thank you for feeding my soy milk double chocolate chip frappachino with whipped cream addiction this morning at Starbucks. <3 (Yes thats a reusable cup that I draw all over with window markers)

A Mildly Planned Meal

This is a day late but thats the life of a college student I suppose.

My roommate came home with a whole bag of fresh still in the husk white sweet corn. (I think I nearly died of happiness) I ADORE sweet corn, and fresh from the stand is even better! So I decided to try and make some kind of meal that we could have the corn with.

My two trusty friends and I set to work (The third was on RA duty and we brought her, her meal at the front desk), we took a quick trip to one of the campus stores to pick up some of those handy skinless bones frozen chicken breasts. (It sounds absolutely terrible I know.) This fed over 4 people and had at LEAST another serving which I packed a bit if it for lunch. (I'll post that later)

So here is where it started:

Whole wheat spaghetti
2 Boneless, skinless Chicken breasts
Half of a white onion
About 5 medium sized regular mushrooms
Any type of red pasta sauce
Oregano
Basil
Garlic powder
Parsley
Salt
Cracked pepper
Tablespoon butter

It took my two friends to husk 4 ears of corn, I'm not sure why it was such a complicated job but it was pretty funny. It's kind of funny the GUY was the one taking his time.

Some of the corn had to be trimmed because there were brown spots on the ends or some dried up kernels. I then cut them in half to boil.

Finely chop the half of onion, if you like your onion pieces larger thats ok too but it takes longer to caramelize. I just roughly chopped the mushrooms. (And had to stop myself from eating the pieces as I worked.)

Toss a tablespoon of butter into a cast iron pan, you can use pretty much any other kind of oil you want but I like to add to the seasoning of my pan. She is my baby and I make everything in her. (Sounds dirty) Boil water for the pasta and another smaller pot for the corn.

My friends hands sure are lovely as she chopped up the chicken, I suggest thinner and shorter strips since they will be easier to eat and cook.

As she chopped I tossed the onions into the skillet first, once they were about halfway done I tossed in the mushrooms and waited until they were halfway done before I tossed in some salt and pepper.

Pasta is done!! Whole wheat pasta takes a bit longer than normal pasta so I suggest being careful and testing it out as you go. We made the whole box because we knew it would be eaten.

Toss the chicken in and season with Oregano, basic, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and a little parsley to taste. (It SMELLED amazing) Usually I toss the sauce directly into the skillet because if you are using jared sauce I suggest playing around with the taste. I love to modify the sauce, I love to make homemade sauce more. But I wanted to try something different.

We served massive potions because we were all starving/drooling. This is after I poured the sauce directly into the pasta and then put the chicken, onion, mushroom mixture into the pasta as well and gave it a good mix.

Boil corn (What else is there to say?) I add a bit of salt to the water. It takes about 8-10 min depending on the type or corn and how in season it is.

I love corn on the cob, this was just teasing me.

I love my pasta with extra cracked pepper on top, and of course some (a ton) parmesan cheese has to be added as well. I suggest you pull out the grater and get it off the block but if you can't obviously any store brand works. Also I noticed now I didn't put the second ear of corn that I ate on there... It was delicious!

The decision was unanimous: MMMMMMMMMmmmmmMMmmmMmmm <-- In that order.

What I would do different:
I would have added fresh chopped garlic to the caramelizing pan
Used homemade tomato sauce
Put the sauce in the cast iron like I usually do
And have my friends roommate make her homemade bread. (Its to DIE for people, there will be a post on it.)

I hope you enjoyed some college family dinner time!

Band of the meal: Maroon 5 (We were singing as I took photos.)


******** BENTO LUNCH **********

I tossed together some of the pasta leftovers from dinner as seen above ^
Added some stolen dining hall carrots I acquired yesterday.
As well as half a whole grain oat bread sandwich with Smuckers grape jelly and organic cashew butter. (I like strange things I know)

By the way I eat the pasta with the little mini chopsticks the bento gives me. It's just highly amusing.

If you have any questions, concerns, trepidations or comments don't hesitate to ask!

Peace Out All

-Silver
<3