Let’s Talk about food, shall we?

Monday. Argh.

 

I’m pooped but I don’t want to go to bed without posting something yet. If I sleep at this hour I will wake up 3 hours before dawn. Not good, because I’m starting a new job tomorrow that will need me to be on my feet til 6pm.

 

I’m excited about the job though!

 

A while ago, I promised pictures and recipes. Then Uni starts to hit me with workloads so I had to delay it. I have more time on my hands now that the midterm is over. Workload is far from over, unfortunately. I still have two assignments to battle, a concept test is coming in three weeks time and after next month is finals.

 

Last night I finally got around to uploading the pictures I had in my phone and from my borrowed digital camera. I realized then halfway through making my Vindaloo that I forgot I was supposed to snap pictures for recipes. I ended up with only snaps of onions.

 

However, here’s a delitastic picture for you:

 

(Ok, forgive the bad and tasteless photo taking skills. Can’t blame me for cupcakes inability to pose though. They’re beautiful, but just like Hollywood beauties they’re depressed. They’re even in Gothic dark trays, see? Maybe it’s because they know they’re going to be eaten soon. They should be honoured to fill Hero’s tummy. Huh!)

 

Cupcakes! The easiest thing in the world to bake even the most manly man can do it. Providing they care enough to, that is.

 

I got the idea of coffee cupcakes from The Journal of a Girl Who Loves to Cook. So genius I wonder why I’m too dense to never think about it. Well, uh, maybe that’s because I don’t drink coffee. So having something that taste like coffee is the lowest in my priority list. But Hero does and I’m loving like that. I just need to feed my baking and cooking addiction, and since I don’t necessarily eat everything that I will bake or cook, I need him. Not to mention he is the one with the baking stuffs: the mixing bowl, the measuring cups, measuring spoons….THE OVEN. And then he will eat whatever comes out of the oven.

 

Bliss!

 

Meanwhile, I strongly recommend you to check out that blog!! Go, I beg you to. Make sure you drink your slimming milkshake/slimming tea/burn off some fat on the treadmill because her bake work is so delitastic, the photography so sharp that you can almost taste the cakes in your mouth. She is so talented I cannot sputter it enough. I’m beginning to love her as much as I love Ree. Two blogs in the blogosphere that will make me come running to my Google reader the moment they post something.

 

Why does she have to be all the way in New South Wales? Why can’t she be here in Brisbane? I’m sure I’d be happy to spend more money on her stuffs than on Starbucks’s Chocolate Hazelnut Cakes. On the other hand, NSW is just a few hours drive away. Aaaah, the possibility is enough to make me gain a few pounds and develop long-distance imagination induced diabetes. Besides, the Blues loose to the Maroons so surely someone who lives in a Blues’ turf should pay homage to a Maroon supporter by way of baking truckload of cakes, right? Right? RIGHT? I love geographical advantages!

 

Being the cutting-corners cook I am I picked up a ready cupcake mix that was…wait for this..designed for kid’s baking. That is why you get the pink colouring, pink icing and complete with pink sugar fairy dust. And I’m serving this pink concoction to my macho, manly man. Oh dear. I honestly didn’t know it would turn out that pink. I was mainly preoccupied with making the cakes taste like coffee for my caffeine addict Hero. Since I’m too rushed to want to bake cupcakes from scratch (South Park will be on, okay? Like, for 4-5 hours straight. I don’t like missing South Park!!), I thought I’d just grab the ready mix ones and add instant coffee mix to it. Idea courtesy of the abovementioned blog.

 

Despite the pink colouring, Hero loved it. Note to self: if self is coffee intolerant, even pink colourings and sugar fairy dust won’t mask it. Second note to self: when using ready-mix cake stuffs, remember that there are already added sugar inside. I think adding those 3-in-1 coffee that comes mixed with sugar is a definite no-no. Learnt the hard way when my eyes almost bulged out of its sockets. I only managed to gobble two, Hero ate up the rest.

 

Hero also loved The Pioneer Woman’s Twice Baked Potatoes. I don’t like cold cream to be honest and….ehem….the amount of butter in that thing limit me to only three half potatoes. Which makes it one and a half potato if you passed Math in school. Hero ate the rest of it and proclaimed he loved it. I would never know with this man. He might say it just to please me, who knows. There has never been any of my cooking or baking that he has not loved yet.

 

But if he was indeed in love with the twice baked potatoes that his lovely lady made for him, then Ree’s prediction was right: “Just serve these up with my Brisket or Tenderloin or even a nice, juicy steak, and the recipient, man or woman, will lick your ears and perform foot reflexology on you and proclaim their never-ending love and appreciation for YOU, the maker of these Twice Baked Potatoes.”

 

If you’re lucky, you’ll get more than ear licks and foot reflexology though. Not telling you!

 

So people, for the love of food, cooking, baking and all that is double chin, PLEASE visit this two delitastic blogs!

 

• The Journal of a Girl Who Loves to Cook
• The Pioneer Woman Cooks!

 

Additional plug: The Pioneer Woman Cooks! is a companion blog to The Pioneer Woman. Ree has been posting installments recently on how she met Malboro Man. Die-hard Ree fans already know the general story, but this time Ree is presenting it to us in details, bit by bit.

 

She is torturing me, I need the fourth installment dammit!!

 

Alrighty, time for bed. Good night everyone, muah!