Celebrations

Hello friends!

As I said in my last post, I have a lot of things to catch you up on.  The last few months were a whirlwind, but I am happy to report that this semester was much better than the last AND now it's O-V-E-R.

While I haven't had a lot of time to document my adventures on here, I have at least had a lot more time to cook and bake.  In the spirit of celebration, I'm going to highlight some of the foods prepared for holidays, birthdays, and other happy occasions from the last few months. 

More babies!

My friends Adam and Kasey and Amy and Steve had a joint baby shower this spring.  As my contribution to the party, I made these adorable little monkey cupcakes.  I used Ina Garten's chocolate cake recipe (and just shortened the baking time).  It was super cold that day so the icing turned out a little chunky, but I loved them all the same.  

Valentines Day

I had a lovely Valentines Day with my super wonderful boyfriend.  Our menu that night was beef stew with crusty bread (the best way into someone's heart is their stomach, right?) and freshly made cookies and cream ice cream with raspberry sauce.  

Here's the raspberry sauce through it's stages of creation:

Getting the seeds out is crucial!

Finally, I made Valentines cookie's for my honey.  I used the Cake Boss' recipe for his black and white cookies, but a different icing recipe.  They were very cakey and, from what I gather from the consumer, pretty good :)

Birthdays :)

For my honey's birthday, he requested that I make him dinner instead of going out.  We had steaks with hasselback potatoes (uh..yum! and SO easy) with roasted green beans.  He's a Boston native and loves a Boston Creme Pie Donuts, so I made him some Boston Creme Pie Cupcakes instead:

The batter was very airy (baking soda) and I will use the cake recipe for future fruit stuffed cupcakes because they weren't too sweet. 

Here's one of the finished products.

For my birthday, we went to Pops (one of my fav restaurants in downtown Durham) and I had the minestrone soup and pork scallopini with crazy good polenta in a mushroom tomato sauce.  So good.  My honey also knows me well and knew I wouldn't be craving cake for my birthday dessert, so we went to Local Yogurt afterwards.  It was my second visit that day, as my best friend Jenni took me during our break about 4 hours before :).  

Unfortunately, no pics of that meal, but later in the week my girls and I went to go see Wicked and we ate at L'uva in downtown Durham beforehand.  

I had the pork belly with white beans and artichoke hearts seen above.  So yummy-- I just can't thank everyone enough for such a wonderful week birthday week!  Also, thanks for getting me through this crazy year-much love to you all!

Alrighty, that's my update for now! Looking forward to more adventures this summer!  See you all!