Tag: Guilty Pleasures

Everyone Loves a Braggart...Right?, Food, Uncategorized, Wipe the Drool

Food Porn

Go Jules Go

You know what I don’t talk about nearly enough for someone who claims to be a guilty pleasure connoisseur?

FOOD!

I love food. Food is great. I totally live to eat (and not the other way around). Last night I made an in-my-head-recipe for vegetable lasagna that was so good I feel compelled to tell everyone I’ve seen since then about it. I always use whole milk, full-fat cheeses (lots of different kinds: provolone, asiago, mozzarella, parmesan, ricotta), and this time I blended a bag of fresh spinach into the ricotta cheese blend – WOWZAH! Look:

The green on the sides is the ricotta-spinach blend...oozing out, delicious and creamy and gooey.

It also helps that I was able to use 3 kinds of fresh, organic basil from my husband’s (a.k.a. The Peppermeister) garden.

And as long as we’re on the topic of my culinary prowess, I should tell you I have quite a reputation when it comes to baking. I’m excited to share with you a few of my favorite online dessert recipes, along with some of my trade secrets. I hope you’ll try one (or all) of them out and let me know how it goes!

General Baking Tips (I wouldn’t do this for just anyone, guilty pleasure snookums)

  • With rare exceptions, FOLLOW THE RECIPE! People who like to cook sometimes struggle with this baking principle; the order and the measurements make all the difference in baking
  • I HIGHLY recommending using AirBake pans for your cookies and keep a close eye once they’re in the oven – cookies still look a little soft/raw in the middle when they’re done (that is, if you like soft, chewy cookies like me)
The AirBake pans I use look like this.
  • The more you try, the better you get! You have no idea how many things I’ve screwed up on the first go ’round
  • Don’t worry about having your butter and eggs sit out until they’re room temperature before you start making your recipe if you don’t have time (just soften your butter in the microwave and use cold eggs) – it really doesn’t matter that much, despite what you might have heard!
  • Barefoot Contessa would burn me alive for this, but don’t worry about using unsalted butter – just don’t add any additional salt to the recipe if using salted butter
  • One thing that DOES matter: real vanilla! I’ve heard real vanilla bean is best, but I’m very happy with McCormick’s pure vanilla extract (NOT imitation)
  • If you don’t bake often, be mindful of when your dry ingredients expire/go stale

Black Bottom Cupcakes – you and your family/friends will go into a happy food coma from one of these!

Cupcakes before frosting. Photo credit: http://www.allrecipes.com
  • Use foil muffin tin liners – they peel off easily
  • Once cooled, frost with cream cheese icing* and sprinkle with the leftover mini chocolate chips
  • Refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight before serving (like anything with tomato sauce, anything with cream cheese seems to taste better after it ‘settles’)

Thumbprint Cookies – these are soft, buttery and delicious and changed my opinion on thumbprint cookies!

Photo credit: http://www.landolakes.com
  • If rolling in nuts, toast the nuts first (I use my toaster oven and it only takes about a minute) and then chop them into nearly a powder using a mini Cuisinart (if you have one). At Christmastime, I like to roll some in nuts and some in red or green sprinkles (they’re very pretty)
  • Make sure you’re using a jam filling that you would want to eat on its own (and remember that some people will only eat seedless jam) – it’s the centerpiece of the cookie. One of my favorites is Dickinson’s Cascade Mountain seedless raspberry jam (I can usually find this brand at any grocery store), but the best I ever had was some random gourmet brand I found at HomeGoods (I really should have written the name down!)
  • You do need to grease your baking pans for these (unlike with most other cookies) – it doesn’t really matter if you use a spray or softened butter

Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Raisin Cookies – just like grandma made, if you were lucky enough to live near a grandmother that baked

Photo credit: http://www.landolakes.com
  • You also do need to grease your baking sheets for these
  • Remember to buy quick-cooking oats, not old-fashioned (I guess the name of these cookies is pretty misleading!)
  • I like to buy raisins that come in a ziploc pouch; they seem fresher/softer
  • I’ve determined that it’s the 2 cups of brown sugar that have people react by saying screaming they’re the best oatmeal-raisin cookies they’ve ever had

*My tried and true cream cheese icing recipe

1 bar (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened

1 stick (1/2 c.) butter, softened

1 tsp. vanilla

2 c. powdered sugar

Beat butter and cream cheese together using an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Blend in vanilla, and finally sugar, about 1/2 cup at a time so you don’t turn into one of these guys:

We should have listened to gojulesgo. Photo credit: http://www.partybuzz.com.

HAPPY BAKING!

TV Junkie, Uncategorized

Show Me Your Treasures, Gypsy…Wait, I Didn’t Mean Those Treasures

Go Jules Go
"Love, you forgot the front of your dress. Here, we'll distract them with the sequin hearts on ours."

TLC’s new show, “My Big, Fat Gypsy Wedding” is breathtaking (as in, “your baby is breathtaking”). The other night I insisted my husband record the first two episodes, mostly because I didn’t know what a modern-day gypsy was, but also because they had British and Irish accents.

Last night, for the better part of each hour-long show, I sat there shaking my head with my mouth agape, unable to make sense of things. It was such a mish-mash of cultures that my head was spinning. If you take 1 part hippie, 1 part traveling circus and 1 part Catholicism, you might have something resembling a modern-day gypsy.

The show hones in on the young gypsy girls, whose lives revolve around two major milestones: at age 8, communion, and around age 16, marriage. They look forward to these two events the way I dream of retiring at 30, and their willingness -fervent desire, even- to wear dresses that are twice their size and weight for these occasions is seemingly sincere. A favorite gypsy dress designer (who referred to the gypsies as “travelers”) had the most inside scoop, and described the lifestyle with a mixture of skepticism and guarded fascination. The girls design their dream dresses from the time they can walk, she says, each one wanting the biggest.

I will never forget the image of an 8-year-old gypsy girl waddling into church for her communion, suffocating under 70 pounds of tulle, while ‘regular’ girls in simple white cotton dresses gawk and giggle. More memorable is the after-party, where young gypsy children dress in what can only be described as hoochie wear, dance provocatively, and use moves they say they learned from Beyonce.

After seeing that picture, you might be surprised to hear that single gypsy girls aren’t permitted to wander around alone, or if they do, risk being seen as unsavory. Sex before marriage is also off-limits, so the outfits the tweens and teens wear is all the more baffling.

Female gypsies describe the mating ritual as ‘grabbing,’ where the boys pull the girls and ask for a kiss. If the girls refuse, the boys twist their arms, literally, until they oblige. If the immaturity of this practice doesn’t prove that they’re not yet ready for marriage, watching a 16-year-old giggle through the entirety of her vows certainly will.

Married girls are expected to leave their families for the first time, to live in a mobile home with their husbands. The men go out and make the money while the girls gladly stay behind to cook and clean. The families help each other out, they say, and try to keep off the radar, something which is becoming increasingly difficult as they’re forced to take permanent homes which the government then later tears down, a sad reality with far too little explanation. (When asked why they were bulldozing his home, a young gypsy boy responded simply, “They don’t like gypsies.”)

Looks like I’ll have to keep watching.

TV Junkie, Uncategorized

M-Tee-V’s “My Life as Liz”

Go Jules Go

I love MTV’s “My Life as Liz,” and here’s why. They make being uncool cool again. Now, I’m not into Star Wars and comic books like Liz and her nerd herd, but you won’t ever hear me saying I’m too cool for Twilight. Or Maroon 5.

I also like the show just because I like to see what t-shirt Liz is going to wear next. In the transition shots, she wears a red and black Fangtasia shirt. Nice. Her will-they-won’t-they boy “friend,” Bryson, sometimes wears a “Legalize Gay” shirt. Dig it.

There is, too, Liz’s hot-ass new love interest, Louis, that keeps me tuning in. He sings and plays the guitar, and you must know by now how I feel about that (wait, singing on MTV? What is this, the 80s?).

Liz has got some singing chops herself, which she FINALLY busted out again on this week’s episode (ironically, at an 80’s club). You can watch the full episode here (skip to minute 17:30 to get to her performance with Louis).

While I am eternally grateful that they made it to season 2, I wonder how much longer they can keep this going. As it is, after commercials, there’s only 20 minutes worth of show a week. And that’s the only reason I think this might be [kinda, sorta, maybe] based on Liz’s actual life. In 28 years and 363 days, I’m pretty sure I only have enough ‘interesting life occurrences’ for two episodes. Two and a half, if you count the time I almost died.

Lists, Uncategorized

My Top Ten Guilty Pleasure Professions

Go Jules Go

Lists in and of themselves are a guilty pleasure for me, and I can often be found tallying up tasks I’ve already completed, just so I can cross them off. Like this one.

1 down, 9 to go…

10. Keebler Elf

First order of business: deep fryer. (You thought those Fudge Stripes were good before?)

9. Debbie Downer Sound Effects Specialist

We all know one. In my case, let’s call her Phyllis. Because that’s her name. Exhibit A:

FRIDAY – MIDDAY – INT. WOMEN’S BATHROOM

ANONYMOUS COLLEAGUE: How you doin’, Phyllis?

PHYLLIS: Oh, you know. It’s just too much. I’m having a mental breakdown. How are you?

ANONYMOUS COLLEAGUE: Oh pretty good, thanks. TGIF!

PHYLLIS: They even replaced the paper towels. How are we supposed to dry our hands with these?

Sad Trombone

8. Merkin Maker

Don’t know what a merkin is? You’re better off. Don’t Google it. Do-on’t do it!

7. Robert Pattinson’s White Chest Make-up Applicator

Time is running out on this one.

6. Demotivational Speaker

“Thanks for joining me today. Have you guys all seen ‘March of the Penguins’?”


5. “Jersey Shore” Stand-in

I would go to jail for you, Snooks. Cawl me!


4. Character Actor, Harry Potter Theme Park, Walt Disney World

When you wish upon a star…that star usually gets a restraining order.


3. Bubble Wrap Packaging Popper

Click here only if you dare: http://fun.from.hell.pl/2003-11-24/bubblewrap.swf


2. Baby Lamb BMI Calculator

Looks like Bonnie’s at 35. It’s time.

1. “Dawson’s Creek” Background Actor

Oh wait, been there, done that.