Hurray for Warm Weather!

I love spring because of the warm weather and how pretty everything looks. My cats feel the same way. Unfortunately when we first moved to where we now live we had a problem with our cats not staying away from the road and lost a couple. To solve this problem my dad built my mom a yard for the cats.

It is constructed of chicken wire and garden mesh that prevents the cats from being able to escape while they still get to enjoy the outdoors.

They love it.

 

Even if sometimes they want to get out ;)

Fun with the Housemates

This year as a senior at college I chose to live in a townhouse with 7 other girls. Though we had our disagreements at times overall it was a good situation. We had a lot of fun this year.

 

For Halloween we hosted a party for the other people living in the townhouses and flatts. Here we are with some of our friends. 

 

 For Christmas we did Secret Santa and had a house party where we made cookies, pizza, and watched movies.

 

During Spirit Week there was an 80's dance that a few of us went to together. 

For Valentines Day a few of us took pictures with the campus store mascot Willard J. Houghton.

 Five of us eight girls were seniors on the track team. Here we are after our final athletic banquet.

 Last weekend a bunch of us went 'glow bowling.' Here we are glowing. ;)

 This week we finished our finals and have a few days off before graduation. To celebrate being done a few of us went to the Cheese Cake Factory. Here I am with my cheesecake, it was delicious.

So there is an overview of our year as a house. As crazy as it could be sometimes, I'll miss them next year.

 

Cake Fail

So funny story. My mom had to have back surgery so to celebrate a successful surgery we decided to bake a cake. Mind you my mom is the only one in the family to ever have successfully made a cake from scratch so I decided to make a cake from a box. Easy enough right? I mean you have to add 3 ingredients, mix, and bake. Well sometimes I surprise myself how I can mess up the most idiot proof things.

This is how it went down. We have a big family so I was using 2 boxes of cake mix. Still easy enough you just have to double the ingredients. This is where the trouble started but you see I didn't notice it until the cake was baking. You see the outsides were cooking nicely but the inside was a wet mess. I was afraid of it burning so I mutilated the middle to expose the liquid cake mix underneath the cooked layer so the cake would cook faster. When the cake was finished it hit me. I think I actually tripled the water. It called for a cup but instead of 2 I think I added 3. I will never know but that would explain why the batter looked off (I thought it might be the brand at first) and why it cooked so funny. Well leave it to me, maybe I should go back to kindergarten, lol.

Anyways the cake was good but had more of a pound cake consistency then a sheet cake consistency here are my fail photos:

Here it is right out of the oven

To make it easier to frost I inverted it into a plastic dish since we don't have a cake plate

I guess it wasn't a total fail since the cake was still edible and mom's okay so its the thought that counts right?

 

Well I hope so since I obviously need to also work on my frosting skills :+P 

Wow its been awhile.

Hey guys,
These past 7 months have been ridiculously busy. I am currently finishing up my senior year of college. Can I just say that I never expected my senior year to be any busier than the other 3 but that's the way it's worked out.
Exciting news is that I am graduating in 60 days. Yes I am counting down! Also outdoor track season begins this week. In fact we have our first meet in Virginia this weekend. I'm excited hopefully the weather will be nicer then it is here in NY.
In cooking news I made chocolate chip oatmeal cookies this weekend but they weren't from scratch, they were from a Betty Crocker mix. I just haven't had the motivation to make anything from scratch. For being from a mix they were pretty good cookies. I would recommend them.
That's all for now. I have some chemistry homework waiting for me.
Thanks for checking out my blog.
-Veronica

Easy Peasy Fudge

Today I wanted to make something after forever of being in the woods with small children as a camp counselor so I planned on making no bake cookies, my favorite. My mom asked me instead to make fudge. I was hesitant but soon found out that nothing could be easier. I used the recipe on the back of the sweetened condensed milk can.
Easy Fudge
-18oz semi sweet chocolate chips (about 3 cups)
-1 can sweetened condensed milk
-dash of salt
Add to sauce pan, melt, and pour into serving dish and cool for 2hrs.
Seriously what could be easier. It even tastes good and as you know sometimes the simple recipes taste awful. So if you ever want fudge and want an easy recipe try this one. :)

Chocolate Chip Cookies: Yum!

I've become quite the recipe website and foodblog junkie. Being a member of Tasty Kitchen does not help matters as it just manages to expose me to more cooking blogs. Recently the writer of the blog LaFuji Mama friended me on Tasty Kitchen and I have come to really enjoy her blog.

LaFuji Mama posted a chocolate chip cookie recipe that was supposed to be better than the recipe on the Toll House food bag. The trick to this new recipe was to essentially follow the same recipe on the bag but half the butter and don't add nuts. LaFuji Mama baked both recipes and said that yes this cookie was better than the original.

At my house we love cookies. If I could I would eat cookies all day. My mother and sister's favorite cookie just happens to be chocolate chip so I decided that I would try this recipe when I made these cookies the other day. However instead of ommiting the nuts I only halved the butter. I made a double batch but only added one bag of chocolate chips and some nuts.

The Verdict:
These cookies were delicious. I have to agree with LaFuji Mama and the original poster of this trick to the Toll House recipe Chris Garboski. These cookies were not oily and were chewier than the original. They were a hit in my family. :)

The Remains of the Day

Well I'm home from college having just finished my spring semester and since I had nothing better to do I decided to watch The Remains of the Day. The movie was good but very depressing.
*Spoiler Alert*
The movie stars Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins. These are both excellent actors and did an excellent job in the movie. The problem I had with the movie was that both characters were in love with each other but both failed to act on their feelings and never ended up together. What made the movie good is that the characters were so real. The movie had no real action but I personally found it interesting. I don't think I will ever watch this movie again but I have to say that it was good even though the ending was so sad.
Has anyone else seen this movie and have anything to add?