A Post About Cookies

This blogpost is all about cookies.

On Friday, I hosted my 4th annual Holiday Cookie Swap Party. I hosted my first Cookie Swap in Boston with some of my girlfriends there, and it was so much fun that I've continued it every year since. The idea is this- you bake one kind of cookie. Invite your family and friends to make one type of cookie and bring it to your house. Everyone swaps cookies and then gets to go home with a variety of cookies after only having to make one! Whoever came up with this idea is genius.

Of course, you also have to test all of the cookies during the party and then vote on them too. Or is that just us?

This year we made everyone go around and say which cookie they brought and what it was. People got really into it this year as far as trying new and more difficult recipes. Some turned out really well, and some... not so much. Whether their cookie turned out great or not so great, everyone seemed very stressed by the whole process this year. I have a feeling people may not be as adventurous next year.

Baby Henry got to join us at the party even though he didn't get to try any of the cookies. :( Maybe next year, Henry!

And while we're on the subject, can we talk about how freakin' cute Henry is ALL THE TIME?!?!

After we ate entirely too many cookies, it was time to vote. This year we voted on Best Looking cookie, Best Tasting cookie, and a booby prize for "Aw, at least you tried. Maybe baking isn't your thing."

Of course there were prizes.

And the winners were.... Jennifer for best tasting- SHE MADE HER OWN CARAMEL. WHAT?- Anna for Best Looking -she made the polar bear cookies - and Laura for "aw at least you tried" because her cookies somehow became one giant cookie that was kinda collapsed in the middle and may or may not have fallen apart if taken out of the pan. It's ok. She owned it.

We had such a good time, and even though I was awake with a stomachache most of the night from too many sweets and felt like I had a hangover the next day, it was totally worth it. I can't wait to do it again next year!

(The group minus one- Pat had left already when someone said "hey we should take a group picture!" If I knew how to photoshop I would put her in but just imagine her standing to my right.)

Winter:1 Chuck&Rachel: 0

You guys. It's cold. Lately Chuck and I haven't felt like doing much of anything that involves going outside, even for just a minute. With the exception of work, we haven't left our apartment much because frankly it's just too much work to get that bundled up all the time and also, staying under a blanket on the couch just seems like a better idea than going out there.  Winter is defeating us.

When we HAVE ventured out into the cold and snow, here's what we've been up to.

A couple weekends ago, my friend Kate invited me to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships which were held in Boston at TD Garden. She received tickets from her family as a Christmas present and I was lucky her husband was out of town and she asked me to go to a couple of the sessions! We spent the entire day there and saw all of the Pair's finals and the Women's Finals. It was especially exciting this year because the winners go to the Olympics in a couple of weeks! It was also fun because Kate knows basically everything about figure skating so not only did I get to enjoy the skating, but I got to learn too.

Here are a few of the skaters you'll see competing in the Olympics in February.

Meryl Davis and Charlie White

Gracie Gold

Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir

This past weekend, we drove to Connecticut with our friends Clayton and Christen to watch Louisville play UConn in basketball.  It was a big game because it was College Gameday, so we were the game of the day. The arena is small, so tickets on stubhub were WAY expensive, but luckily we were able to score some cheap tickets from the UofL ticket office a few days before the game!

Before the game, we found one of the only restaurants in Storrs, Connecticut, and it happened to be Chuck's Margarita Grill. I think the restaurant was made for us! We spent a few hours there, eating appetizers, our meals, and of course, enjoying margaritas.  The game was pretty intense because I would guess the stadium was 75% college students. In the middle of the game, their coach got thrown out and things got really heated, but luckily no one bothered us. Louisville came out with a victory which made the trip a lot more fun than if they had lost like they did last time we drove to Connecticut to see them play.

Other than those two events, we've pretty much been hiding in our apartment, watching football, watching movies, cooking food, and... yeah that's about it.

We also saw this gigantic teddy bear at the grocery store.

We lead an exciting life.

Thanksgiving with Friends

Due to extremely pricey airline tickets and only 4 days off from school and work, we had to make the decision to stay in/around Boston for Thanksgiving this year.

We toyed with several ideas for how to spend our first married Thanksgiving, but after realizing that (my favorite idea) going to the Macy's Parade in New York would probably be just as expensive as the trip to Louisville, we decided just to stay put. Lucky for us, several of our LGO friends were in a similar situation and were also planning to stay around for the holiday.

So we are spending the holiday this year with friends. I am picturing tomorrow will be kind of like this:

Our friends Kate (SO) and Ryan (LGO) graciously offered to be the hosts for our Thanksgiving dinner and it was decided we would do it potluck style- everyone bring a dish.

I signed up to take stuffing and pumpkin bread- two things I am pretty positive I can make without screwing up!

Remember when Rachel put beef in the Thanksgiving dessert she made after mixing up two recipes? That's totally something I would do.

We are really bummed to be away from our families but excited that many of our friends are here to celebrate with. This Thanksgiving will definitely be different for us. Good, but different.

 

I'm planning to wear my stretchy Thanksgiving pants, pretend to care about football so I don't have to help in the kitchen, and hoping for a guest appearance by Brad Pitt. (All just Friends references, fyi. I promise I'll help in the kitchen!)

And hopefully THIS won't happen to anyone at our Thanksgiving:

  

But I'll be sure to let you know if it does!

Happy Thanksgiving, friends!

(One of my favorite scenes from Friends... ever.)

Adventures in Cooking

Those of you who know me well, know that cooking has never been one of my strong points. Ok. That may be an huge understatement.

Exhibit A: The time I tried to make guacamole by putting an entire NOT RIPE avocado into a blender to mash it up. (I don't think I have to tell you this but, it didn't work.)

Exhibit B: The time I cut an entire green pepper with the wrong, non-sharp side of the knife. (In my defense, I had just woken up from a nap. I didn't know who I was much less what I was doing.)

Exhibit C: The time I cooked a frozen pizza but forgot to remove the cardboard from underneath, so the pizza never cooked. (Yes I know. It is nearly impossible to screw up a frozen pizza but I somehow did.)

I have several more of these incidents I could share but in an effort to not make myself look like a COMPLETE fool, I will keep them to myself.

In college I survived on a typical 18-22 year old's diet. Keep in mind that all of these things were consumed for breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner at some point in my college career. Cereal, chips and salsa, chips and queso, cheez-its, pizza rolls, pop tarts, rotisserie chicken, spaghetti, scrambled eggs, muffins, bagels, popcorn, and last but certainly not least, Velveeta Shells and Cheese. As you can see, none of these things really require any kind of skill to cook, except maybe the homemade spaghetti sauce, and none of these things are the least bit healthy. 

The years between college and Boston, I was living with my parents, who recently began an obsession with Master Chef and other cooking shows, and now make gourmet meals for practically every dinner they cook. Grilled corn on the cob, stuffed red peppers, grilled portobello mushrooms.... Those were the good old days....

Now that Chuckie and I are here in Boston alone, I feel a very strong responsibility for keeping us both alive.  Well, maybe alive is the wrong word. A responsibility for keeping us fed, and somewhat healthily fed if I can.  If I left it to Chuckie to feed us, we'd probably eat hot pockets or frozen pizzas every night. (Please note, he actually can make a frozen pizza without screwing it up. He also makes really good Easy Mac.)

I've made a lot of dinners from different cookbooks, websites, etc. but my favorite is still Skinnytaste.com, and so far none of the recipes have disappointed. Here are a few things I've made and the links to the recipes:

Fiesta Lime Rice
Garlic Shrimp
Pumpkin Cupcakes with Pumpkin Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting (aka the best thing you'll ever eat, ever.)
Angel Hair with Zucchini and Tomato (I substituted the regular noodles with Spaghetti Squash and also left out the chicken broth and used butter and lemon juice instead of olive oil.  So a slight variation of this.)

Coming up this week, I will attempt to make this one: Lowfat Baked Ziti with Spinach.

I think I'm really getting the hang of this cooking thing, although cutting open an uncooked spaghetti squash is probably one of the most difficult and dangerous things I've ever attempted. It may have taken 15-20 minutes, some sweat, and a few choice words, but I did it.

I think the key to cooking is confidence and it's just something that you have to work on, or at least for me it seems to be.  Some people are just naturals I guess. I am not one of those people. I need confidence! And luckily, Chuckie is good with boosting my cooking confidence. He'll eat anything.

Sometimes I feel a little like I Love Lucy when I'm cooking and something goes wrong. At least this has never happened to me. Yet....