Pizza, P-I-Z-Z-A. Gimme pizza.

One of the perks of my job that I've mentioned before is that I have the opportunity to take baking classes. I honestly don't think I take advantage of this enough! I took another one this past week and not only was it fun, and I learned a lot, but I left with so much food - we had to give over half away because the two of us just couldn't eat it all!

This time, I took a class on making pizza!

In class, we made two different kinds of pizza: New York style, with a thin crust and light toppings, and Chicago style, deep-dish, with lots of cheese, sauce and sausage.

(I totally blanked on taking pictures of the Chicago style-but it was just as pretty as it was delicious, I promise!)

We were able to make both doughs from scratch and made pizza with those, so we left with two full, ready to eat pizzas. We also had enough dough left over to make two more NY and one more Chicago! Told you it was a ton of food!

One of my favorite parts of the class was being able to bake our NY pizza in our wood fired oven.

It was amazing how fast the pizza cooked in there and it smelled so good! I even got to load my own - which I did successfully without ruining it ( it's harder to use a pizza peel than I thought it would be haha)

I'm trying to convince Jimmy to take a class with me - I think it would be so fun to do it as a couple!

Have any of ya'll ever taken a baking or cooking class?

Anyone make homemade pizza on the regular?

She's not in bacon; not in sausage; and she won't eat eggs.

Last weekend, my friend Katie had a few of our friends over to her house for a little dinner party-she made a delicious vegan meal and it was sooooo much fun!

I brought over a yummy salad...


and while Katie finished getting ready, I hung out with her cat, Iggy Pop...


I made some vegan ranch dressing...


and green beans with vegan "bacon" (which was actually bacon flavored tempeh lol)...


I didn't get a picture of the full spread, but we had seitan "ribs" (she made me tempeh "ribs" so they would be gluten-free-so sweet!), au gratin potatoes with nutrional yeast which sounds kinda weird, but was really good and buffalo tofu bites, which were my favorite (but I'm a sucker for Franks hot sauce lol)

After dinner, we had some vegan cupcakes...


and it wouldn't be a party without some games, of course!


It was such a good time-I hope we are able to do it again soon!

Do you guys have dinner parties?
What are your favorite dishes to bring/serve?
What are your favorite games to play?

But I can't keep my hands out of the cookie jar.

One of the benefits of working at the bakery I work at, is that we are able to take the classes we teach for free and bring people with us-which is great, because they are lots of fun! I've taken a few before, so I was pretty excited when my Grandmother suggested that her, my mom and I take one together.

She came down for the afternoon and we met up for dinner before class. The class we took was all about Jewish cookies-including how to make rugelach, my grandfathers favorite!


We made rugelach (cream cheese pastry rolled up with currants and walnuts), mandelbread (Eastern European biscotti with almonds and citrus) and apricot hamentashen (sugar cookie-like dough filled with apricot preserves).

The second best part of taking the classes is that everything is done for you-all the ingredients are provided and measured out for you, and they do all of the clean up. It's baking without any of the hassle, only the fun part! lol

The best part of it, is of course, all of the goodies you get to take home :-)

So I'm gonna keep on living the way I live, doing the things that make me smile. Cause I never want to forget, these days.

Oh, my gosh. This week has just been ridiculous. Mostly good stuff, but, phew! Am I glad to be done with this week!

I said on Twitter that my life wouldn't feel nearly as busy if I didn't scehdule things around the Tigers and the Lions and it's so true! But with playoff baseball and the Lions hosting Monday Night Football, those were just events not to be missed! Unfortunately, the Tigers season ended last night, but it was fun while it lasted-I'm already excited for next season!

But at least we still have the Lions....(there's a sentence I never thought I'd say!)

Tuesday my mom and I took a cooking class at work. This was the third I've taken and the second with my mom. The class was all about gluten free baking and we both learned a ton of stuff! We got to take home lots of yummy things too!

(clockwise)
brownies, foccacia, white bread, banana muffins

Wednesday was a day that I was dreading, to be completely honest. I had a lawsuit brought against me and Wednesday was out mediation. Luckily, we were able to settle, which means it's over and we don't have to appear in front of the judge. I really feel like God had a huge hand in that because we both were able to come to an agreement, and I was pretty convinced that was going to be impossible. I'm just so thankful for my friends and family for all their support-I really would have been a wreck without them! And for all of the wonderful people in blog land who have sent me prayers and good vibes-I couldn't have done it without each and everyone. Seriously, the support just brought me to tears. So blessed.

After that was done, I was able to spend some time decompressing with a friend before heading to babysit. Another thing I'm so thankful for is the kids my temple has brought into my life when I was teaching. Having them remember me when they see me and give me the biggest hugs is one of the best feelings in the world. Plus, getting to babysit a few of them and spend time with them is just such a joy in my life. Totally helps me put things in perspective!

I was trying to get tickets to see the Tigers on Thursday, but everyone had to work so I ended up working an entire 8 hour day on my day off-love when that happens, right? haha

Friday, I actually got to enjoy my day off-got my brows waxes, bought some new nail polish and...went on a date! It was the first one in entirely too long, and we ended up having a pretty good time. I'm not sure if he's my "type" but it was nice to be able to just enjoy the company of someone of the male variety for a few hours!

This coming week is going to be pretty busy as well, but luckily it's all fun things this time! Like I said, I'm just glad to be done with all the crazy-ness!

Valentine's Day is over.

Whew! What an eventful week this has been! Even though I don't feel as crazy busy as I have in the past, at the end of the week, I look back and can't believe how quick it went. With. out. fail.

I had my friend John over for dinner last weekend. I owed him a home-cooked meal after he rescued me when my car broke down a while ago-such a sweetheart! He cooked for me a few weeks ago at his place in Royal Oak, and then last week, made the trek down to Ypsi on Sunday. I made butternut squash enchiladas and flan for desert. I also picked up some pimento cheese from the creamery and fresh made pretzels from the bakehouse-it was all so good!

The enchiladas were super easy! I made up the filling on Friday during my day off so when I got home from work on Sunday, I just had to fill them and bake them. I used a recipe I found online that is similar to the recipe used at a vegetraian resturant in Ann Arbor. I, of course, made too much and there was lots of left overs.

Prebaking with lots of yummy Mexican cheese on top

For desert, my lovely friend Sider at work, gave me her mom's recipe for flan. Oh my lord! It was a cinch to make and was perfectly, wonderfully creamy. It, again, made too much, but I gave some to my parents and brother and saved one for myself for later hehe :-)

I was a little worried about boiling the sugar because I haven't really done it since I worked in the kitchen, but it turned out perfectly. It doesn't take much to turn into the yummy, syrup-y goodness and it only took about 25 minutes to get to the perfect brown color.

Hot suga

I also chopped up my leftover pretzels that I made and baked them to make pretzel chips. They are SO addicting! I brought some over to eat with my mom and we just about devoured the entire bag. I'm in love with them, for realz.

Yummy.

Monday was a very uneventful Valentine's Day.

Cookie from work

I worked, did some homework and got coffee with Hannah. I did ask my friend Christie to be my long distance Valentine, though.

Me: Will you be my long distance Valentine?

Christie: Do you put out?

Me: Hells yea...you know how I roll.

Christie: Then I will be your long distance Valentine. I got a buy one, get one free coupon to Dunkin' Donuts. I will think of you while I eat the second one!

Me: I like the cream filled ones, just fyi.

Christie: That's what she said.

I *heart* her.

On Tuesday, my cousin Haley, my uncle David, Grandpa and his wife Judi, and I went to dinner for our belated birthdays. Haley's birthday was in November and mine was the beginning of the month, but since were so busy and Grandpa and Judi are often out of town, we decided to all go to dinner together. Since Uncle David just moved back up to Ypsi, Grandpa invited him to join in as well. We went to PF Changs, which is my grandfathers favorite-he takes everyone there for their birthday meal! It's not too bad, but the desert Haley and I got for our birthdays was by far the best part of the meal.

It was really dmily lit in the resturant, but it's a fried banana's foster wonton, with coconut-pineapple ice cream and fresh fuit. It was sooooooooooooo good! I couldn't stop eating it!
The weather this winter has been nothing if crazy unpredictable. First we had almost a foot of snow, now, less than a week later, it's all gone! The weather has been in the 40's for the past few days and even though I think they are crazy, I've seen people in short! Shorts in Michigan in February? Crazy!

View from outside my window at work.

Unfortunately, it's getting colder again. Apparently, we are going to have an ice storm tonight. Blah! I'm heading over to my parents to watch the Social Network, so I'll probably end up just waiting out the storm at thier house. It's kinda nice to stay the nice with my parents though :-)

So this is the New Year and I have no resolutions, for self assigned penance, for problems with easy solutions

My New Year's was completely different than what I had imagined (and to be honest, kind of wanted...) but I'm so happy with the way it turned out! I ended up having about 10 or 15 people over to my place and we had such a great time! We played Apples to Apples which is the best game ever, watched some football and had a sparkling juice toast at midnight.

My day started at 6 am to work out then off to Meijer and Target for some last minute supplies. I got home about 11 and immeadiately started baking and doing some *much needed* laundry. (Seriously, during the holiday season I may have done 5 loads tops and four of those were probably my jeans).

While the cupcakes were baking, I worked on the dips. I made a Jalepeno Popper dip, a recipe from a friend at work, and a Garlic Feta dip, from my room mate. They were both sooo delicious! I'll definitely be keeping the recipes handy for more parties.

After the cupcakes were cooled, I decided to be adventurous and pipe the frosting on to them.

They look pretty good, huh?

My mother loaned me all sorts of serving dishes and decorations so I made a little table scape.

I was really happy with how it turned out :-)

But I think the best part was watching all of this:

Turn into this:

All in all, it looks pretty darn good, I think!

I was pretty much in the kitchen from 11 am till 4:30 and then finished up cleaning shortly there after. I did get to give myself a nice New Years Manicure though:

(I know it looks like I have some sort of deformed foot, but oh well)

I got two new polishes from the Sonia Kashuk at Target line. The base is silver-it almost looks like tin foil on my nails! The top is black and it has some silver sparkles in it that are kind of hard to see.

Last weekend my mom's brother and his family were in town. It was bearable at best, but we did get to see True Grit, which I really, really liked. Besides seeing the movie with them, I didn't see them too much. I had to work and stuff and they were only here a few days. I know my mom was pretty happy they were here though.

My January 1, 2011 was spent working and following the Michigan and Michigan State games on ESPN.com. After work, I jetted home, packed up mom's stuff to bring back and went over to watch the Winter Classic with my dad. The Capitals ended up beating the Penguins 3-1. I fell asleep before the end (I'm old! :-( I was so exhausted and I was in bed before 2!). I ended up falling asleep in the guest room haha

Also, we've had a pretty crazy winter so far. We've only had one snowstorm, which was more like an ice storm. We had about 6inches from that, so it wasn't too bad at all. Then, n Dec. 31st, it rained and all the snow melted!

So weird!

It's snowing a bit now, but nothing's sticking. I just can't believe it's December and we have basically no snow on the ground.

To sum it up, it was a pretty good NYE/NYD. I wish I would've been at home watching football, instead of at work, but besides that everything was A+!

I woke up in a car, traced away the fog so I could see the Mississippi on her knees.

That's literally what I feel like. It's as though I went I went to sleep on October 31st and woke up on December 23rd. A lot has happened in between then and now (obvs...) but here are the highlights:

My parents spoiled me for Channukah and got me three (yes 3!) new purses, fleece lined leggings (amazing), clothes, books and a lovely, comfy new Tigers hoodie. Basically, a bunch of awesome stuff.

Helped Hannah put up her Christmas Tree, which was taken down approximately one week later because her kitties terrorized it.

The Metrodome in Minnesota collapsed, leading to the Giants v. Vikings Monday Night Football game being played at Ford Field. They gave out free tickets at 9am the morning of the game, but I didn't get a chance to get down there because of work.

Luckily, my boss, Jaison, is amazing and let me use his stub from the Sunday Lions v. Packers game (which they won!) so I was able to go.

I tried to find someone to go with me and after calling/texting/begging about 15 people, I finally found someone. Clark and I ended up sat 12 rows behind the Vikings end zone.

The game was pretty routine, except that it broke Brett Favre's streak of games started at 321. By the end of the game we moved down to row 4.

It was pretty fun-made for a long night, but definitely worth it.

Spent the night helping my mom in Jackson at one of her trainings and ended up driving through the Holiday Light Show at the Jackson County Fairgrounds.

Recieved quite possibly the best cookbook ever from Kim, my friend at work. With the inscription "Now that you're all adult and shit, get cookin'!" Love it.

Made a "Pimp Cup" for Randy, our sales guy at work.

Attempted to make a fondant covered, two tiered cake with my mother...

"Attempt" being the key word.

Also, even though this happened before Thanksgiving, it's definitely worth mentioning. I met up with John and Scott, who are friends from high school (which was the first time I'd seen anyone since graduation) and headed down to Detroit to eat at Slow's BBQ. Oh. My. Lord. So good! I had a pulled pork sandwich and mac & cheese. It was delicious and I was so stuffed by the time I left! And now, they are one of my customers at work, so hopefully I'll be able to eat there more often hehe

After we went there, we drove around the city for a bit, before ending up at this really cool art deco, jazz bar called Cliff Bells. It was so cool-a really great vibe, beautiful architecture and art, and when we were on our way out the jazz band started playing. It was a pretty perfect end to the night actually :-)

All in all, it's been a pretty busy month, on top of finishing the semester and taking my finals (I ended up with an A and a B-whoo hoo!) and spending $900 on my car for new tires (planned) and a new catalytic converter (unplanned). We also had a record year at work and were pretty much way over our planned sales every week, which is great but tiring! But everything worked out and Holidaze 2010 are officially over! I'm basking in the post-Christmas lull, before we get busy again for Valentine's Day. There's no rest for in the bakery world.

We also had our first major snow/ice storm which put the entire state of Michigan out of commission for about 5 days. The roads were so slippery, my Jeep kept sliding around on the *surface streets*! I was too scared to even attempt to get on the high way. It looked really pretty though, but unfortunately, as soon as I have to shovel/scrape my car and thought of it being the tiniest bit pretty flies right out the window!

Christmas involved my uncle coming in from Chicago (to find a place because he's moving back!) dinner at my aunts with my grandmother Christmas eve (where I scored a few more vintage purses, including another Louis Vitton yippee!) brunch with at my grandfathers and then my mom's twin brother and his family coming in tonight. A lot of family stuff for sure, but on the up side I did find my Hanson Christmas cd, so all is well :-)

Lord knows I'm weak and won't somebody get me off of this reef?

It's been a pretty eventful week, to say the least. It started out with a test in my Logic class (which I got an 89% on- Woo Hoo!), moved on to work being crazy busy (the Holidaze have hit, and with a fury!) plus some good stuff, but my hormones were crazy so I was one big ball of nerves (and tears) for most of the beginning on the week. Yay....or not.

Thursday I went to the dentist for the first time in like 3 years. I know, I know, it's bad. I just kept putting it off and since I knew I was going to have to get work done, and I couldn't afford it, I really put it off. But my wonderful mother (and father too, although I'm not sure if he knows it yet) are going to help me pay for my dental work, which includes one filling, one crown and getting three wisdom teeth pulled. I'm getting the filling in two weeks and I'm going to schedule the appointment for the crown for January probably and I have to go see the oral surgeon about my wisdom teeth. Blech.

I was feeling pretty domestic this past week and ended up baking some Butterbeer Cupcakes (yes, from Harry Potter) in honor of the premiere hehe

The turned out pretty well:

They are butter cake (with cream soda and butter flavoring in the batter-yummy!), filled with homemade butterscotch ganache and topped with butterscotch butter cream and a butterscotch ganache drizzle (say that five times fast-whew!) I had a minor melt down, when I couldn't find mixing bowls in my new place and had to rush over to my parents house with all my ingerdients at 9:30 at night. But they turned out pretty darn good! I gave a few to my family to sample, and brought some in for my co-workers and everyone gave the rave reviews-so yay!

And speaking of premiere, you know I was at the midnight show!

They look so old! I can't believe it's almost over :-(

I liked the movie for the most part. The special effects were cool, the action scenes were pretty sweet and the I actually really liked the music too. But, they left out my favorite part of the book (with Kreacher and the locket-that part gets me every time I read it. So sad) and they shortened a lot, I'm sure because the book was so jam packed and even with splitting the book into two movies, there was just too much stuff to show. So, all in all, I liked the movie but the book was definitely better.

I already want to re-read the books again! I just re-read the entire series before this movie came out, so before the next one comes out (in July!!!) I'm going amp it up- re-read all the books *and* re-watch all movies.

Me= huge nerd

And I'd like to say, "I'm sorry", but we lived to tell about it .

I know I'm a little late, but I wanted to post a picture of my Halloween "costume". Halloween this year was pretty low key. The only parties that were going on, were on Sunday and since I had to work both Sunday and Monday, I wasn't really that interested. But, I did promise my co-worker I'd do my hair for work so....

I present "Walk of Shame Snooki" haha

I had a dress and stuff all picked out since I thought I was going to a party, but when I didn't I ended up just doing up the poof, throwing on a men's button down, and my Uggs (hence, the "walk of shame" designation). Surprisingly, I got a lot of compliments about my hair, which was kind of weird lol

This past Friday, my mom and I took a baking class at work where we got to make these:


We learned how to make fondant, then roll it out, cover the cake, dye it and make decorations and we left with a nice little 6 inch cake. I knew if I took the cake home to my house, it would go to waste, so I brought it with me to some friends who were more than happy to eat it. I still have about half of it left to eat, along with 3 lbs of fondant to use...oh my lol

Work is pretty crazy right now. It seems like as soon as Nov. 1 rolls around, everything goes insane. I've already had a mini meltdown so hopefully I got it out of the way and the rest of the holiday season will be smooth sailing. I can hope, right?