When I think of your kisses my mind see-saws

Oh I love you when I forget abooooout meeeeeeeee
I want to be strong I want to laugh along
I want to belong to the liiiiiiving
Alive, alive, I want to get up and jive!
I want to wreck my stockings in some juke box dive
Do you want - do you want - do you want
To dance with me baby
Do you want to take a chhhaaance
On maybe finding some sweeeeeet romance with me baby
Well, come on : )


How much do you love that song? Seriously! I have listened to it about a million times... well sometimes I alter it with California... I'm obsessed!

This is my other favorite bit...

Iwanttohavefun,IwanttoshinelikethesunIwanttobetheonethatyouwanttoseeIwanttoknityoua sweaterWanttowriteyoualoveletterIwanttomakeyoufeelbetterIwanttomakeyoufeelfreeeeeee

I can tell my summer music will be all Joni Mitchell.

Undomestic Goddess

So as many of you know, or are about to find out, I am not so great around the house. My blog about my fear of gas stoves and knives may have given you the slightest glimmer of that idea a few days ago (although tomorrow night I am cooking a glorious dinner of vegan ribs, organic corn, and buttermilk biscuits. Anyways, thats besides the point. Just felt the need to brag before completely embarrassing myself.). I was the little girl who thought parading around with my feather duster was down and dirty cleaning and putting away the silverware was an exhausting afternoon of doing the dishes. I never had really put much thought in to how they got done, I was a whimsical child and my best guess was it was probably all thanks to a magical dish washing fairy. Sadly, I can't say as I aged I found out the dish washing fairy wasn't real (well, I have this suspicion that it may be my dad... but, how crazy is that?!). I had more important things to do with my time than laundry or vacuuming or any other domestic mystery. So when I found this video tonight, I found a kindred spirit (and when I found it I swear I wasn't searching how to do dishes out of idle curiosity... I swear....). 

Fellow undomestic goddesses, rejoice! I have found an informational guide for us!

How To Do Dishes In 1 Min - For more amazing video clips, click here

Penuche Frosting

Cook Book, originally uploaded by appleschloss.

Ever since I was little I have been addicted to Penuche frosting. I would save the left over frosting until it hardend and it would taste almost like maple sugar candy but I guess it would be more like brown sugar candy. Either way... it's amazing... and life altering... and you must try it!

The wonderful recipe is from the Better Homes and Gardens cook book from 1976 (passed on from my Dad)

Melt 1/2 cup butter; add one cup brown sugar. Bring to boiling; cook and stir for one minute or till slightly thick. Cool 15 minutes.

Add 1/4 cup hot milk and beat smooth. Beat in enough of 3 1/4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar for spreading consistency. Frosts two 8 or 9 inch layers or a 9 x 13 sheet cake.

As usual this cake went very quick. My dad thought it might be a good idea to cut him one of the last slices this morning, all for the sake of the photo shoot, of course.

Oh and for those of you wondering how to pronounce Penuche you can learn how at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/penuche and listen to an audio clip. This will help you to not spend 21 years of your life mispronouncing it like someone I know... *cough*

Amy + Rosa

Today I was inspired to start a new line called Amy and Rosa (no, Rosa is not a partner in this, she's my invisible donkey friend! You see, I have always wanted a donkey... but since I don't live in the country I just have to dream about my future donkey, Rosa, who inspired these clothes!). I'm waiting to list anything in the new shop until I have more items finished. So far I've made a few embellished women's shirts and a bunch of adorable baby onesies! This one is my favorite...

California Love!

It was also the most labor intensive! It was my first attempt embroidering on t-shirt material. Not as easy as embroidering a dish towel!

After a long and fun night of working on Amy and Rosa I rewarded myself with some of the best ice cream I have ever had. Has anyone else tried Haagen-Dazs 5? I am completely addicted to the brown sugar variety! Only 5 ingredients... so great!

I imagine this is what heaven tastes like! Go try it yourself!

Chocolate Dream Sandwich Cookies

After being inspired by the Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies on Bakerella I decided to make the chocoholic version of them! They were all gone within the day! Apparently I have a chocolate loving family too! To make these delicious cookies all you need is...

1 Box cake mix (I used a triple chocolate mix)

1/2 Cup butter, softened to room temperature

2 Eggs (or 3 t ener-g and 4 T warm water)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix ingredients until combined.

Drop spoonfuls of cookie batter onto baking sheet about two inches apart.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Cool.

For the filling I didn't bother to measure anything out. I melted a bunch of organic chocolate squares for about 2 minutes at 50% , added a bit of butter and enough powdered sugar to make it a fudge like consistency. When it got a little too thick I heated it a bit more and added some milk. Then it was perfect for spreading between the cookies!

Enjoy!

Lets Cook!

Cooking to do:

-Start making more from scratch

-Get over my fear of knives (although my plastic knife I joyously picked up at whole foods is great for some things... you really just can't beat the real deal)

-Learn to "zest" things... that word always makes me flip to the next recipe in the book that involves things like chocolate! Or cinnamon! Or some sort of fruit that doesn't need to be "zested"... it really can't be that difficult. I'm going to attempt it.

-Get over my fear of gas stoves (When buying our new convection oven *woot woot* I wouldn't even get near the gas stoves in the store... yes thats right, the ones that didn't even work. After being told the story of how my mom burned her poor roommates eyebrows off by not knowing how to use a gas stove has forever freaked me out. I'm sure stoves have come a long way since then but I'm still playing it safe. Especially since she always says I remind her of that roommate. I can't help it! I'm very attached to my eye brows!).

-Learn to garden so I can grown fresh herbs and veggies and such... lets ignore the fact that I've never been able to keep a plant alive in my life. Well, other than what I so kindly referred to as the "love fern" which I tried and tried to kill but it just kept on survivin.

-Try out that thing that sits on top of the oven with all the circles on it.... now I am pretty sure it is used to make things other than ganache but I couldn't swear to it!

-Make these delicious looking recipes... listed in order of most do-able by Amy appearance:

Walnut Blondie with Maple Butter Sauce that I spent hours staring at on Bakerella



Smashed Chickpea Salad from Smitten Kitchen (just discovered this great blog today!)



...and last but certainly not least, Farfalle with Zucchini. A Yummy Summer Meal! From The Pioneer Woman (one of my favorite reads)!

Can you tell I'm hungry?