breakfast bundt

Recently I inherited a bundt cake pan. I will be honest, I have never baked a bundt in my life. I haven't even baked a 9x13 cake that turned out like it was supposed to. As I was rambling to my mother-in-law about what exactly I was going to do with said pan, she pulled out a cook book called "The Cake Doctor" and sent me home.  The book is written by a woman who spent years testing recipes made by fixing up cake mixes. In the last two or three weeks I have already made three bundts, all of which turned out moist and delicious!

I have to give the credit to the recipes, for my reading/following instructions abilities have not vastly improved (if anything they are declining).  I snapped some photos of the most recent cake, a breakfast cinnamon cake.

I started by putting the walnuts on the bottom of the pan so they would have a chance to toast while the batter baked.

Pictured is the fabulous book (I now must go and buy my own copy instead of holding this one hostage), some ingredients, the batter mixture, the cinnamon sugar mixture, and my amazing hand mixer!

 

Just out of the oven

 

 

On the cooling rack, you can see the toasted nuts and the two layers of the sugary filling. Also my MIL gave me the pictured owl towel for Valentine's day. We literally own four towels that do not have owls on them.

 

Final product with the glaze 

(Clayton was not patient enough for me to take the picture before cutting out the first slice).

Despite being a "breakfast" cake, it is delicious at all times of day. The best part is, since I am adding additional ingredients like pudding or sour cream I feel slightly closer to making some thing from scratch.

 After the cake was finished and the dishes were washed I was tapped out on the "good little wife" front. 

This is what I made for dinner last night:

 

their crust is seriously the best.

so this is what wednesday night has come to

Lately, I have found I have a weird and until recently subconscious obsession with going to the grocery store. More specifically the Safeway at 7th Avenue and Osborn. Between shopping for cooking groups at work and fulfilling my personal cravings for Luna Bars and puffy Cheetos I am at that establishment about twice a day. Is it weird that other customers ask me where to find items? Even weirder that I know exactly where to find the frozen cornish hens? (They are in the frozen aisle on the bottom shelf near the other frozen meats)

Recently I confronted myself with the idea of being a shopaholic. Not in the sense of that movie with the cute red head girl or the even more popular book series by Sophie Kinsella, but that I literally HAVE to buy something everyday. Even if it's just half and half or a Country Living magazine. Or maybe it is just that I like the smell of the Starbucks coffee in the air and the feeling of familiarity. Either way, something amusing and essential can always be found in the seasonal section.

When constructing shopping lists I make organize them in geographical order starting always with produce and wrapping up with bakery and deli items. The most annoying part of this little revelation is that my memory for the new found favorite-place-of-mine is only good at that specific Safeway store. The same grocery chain near both my mother and father's residences are completely backwards and jumbled. Of course I would be the one to devote good brain power to a completely useless cause based on convenience.

While were on the subject of grocery shopping, I have to admit that I have about seven reusable shopping bags but only use them about 3% of the time. Even when going on planned grocery trips and leaving from home I forget to bring them. My Willo neighbors totally judge me when I unload my groceries, as they are usually doing something annoyingly wonderful like jogging or taking out their recycling in a Trader Joe's paper bag.

I tried shopping at Trader Joe's, but it was a joke since it's about six miles away. The nearest Sprouts is just about that far away, and if I went to AJ's twice a day I would be homeless. Homeless, but I would have some damn fancy cheeses that's for sure. The other nearby chain grocers are too scary (Bashas and Liquor Mart) or don't have enough variety (Fresh and Easy).

I guess for now I am fated to take the "Safeway" which is darn fine with me.

obviously obsessed with food.

i know its been slow around here

On my 24th birthday I made a '25 before 25' list of things to do. One of them was to blog weekly. Obviously not checking that one off, but I have been making more of an effort to throw pictures up of what I am doing or post a blerb of recent happenings. In an effort to attempt to blog more I have even downloaded the blogger app for my android mobile device.

I have unfortunately uninstalled the app due to not being able to access RLA and post (that was the whole flippin' point!!!) all the amazing stuff I do. I guess this was just the world saying I shouldn't be treating my blog like a facebook status update.

Currently, the Nelson household is gearing up for a fabulously busy week full of back to school dinners, testing out a new bundt cake pan, and spending time with my momma and sisters before she ties the knot next weekend! Woohoo San Diego here we come!

yay for happily ever after!

increased storage

Lately life has been something like this equation:

living life > blogging

But I am here to report that our stab at refinishing a desk has festered into somewhat of a hobby.  I was at a second hand furniture store and found this sweet little night stand for an amazing price of just $2! I knew I couldn't beat that deal, so I handed over a couple crinkled up ones and jammed it into the back seat of the cavie with ideas buzzing about.

I made the impulse purchase just a few days before our Salt Lake City trip, so I brought it home and it sat until we made it back. Upon our return we realized we had committed ourselves to house sitting, so we brought it along and had glorious amount of space to redo the piece.

 

We had picked up some paint samples while on our trip from various Walmart type stores, but in the end I scratched what we had found and went with "Fern Gully" from the locally owned Ace Store. Thanks Paul!

Quickly we found out why the nightstand had been so heavy, it wasn't actually comprised of wood but made with some particle board type stuff. I mean, technically it is wood but not the kind I was hoping for.

 

Eww.

 We basically followed the same steps used for the desk, except I forgot to water down the paint so it took a little more elbow grease to make the night stand look "roughed up".

In less than three days we were able to get from start to finish. I am so excited to have more drawer space in our room now!

i. am. ecstatic!

made with love

Hello my friends! I have a new and very exciting hobby to report that I have recently taken up. Clayton and I really wanted a different/more practical look for our little bungalow. We settled on the idea of finding older furniture and re-finishing it instead of spending gobs of money on something we'd come to hate in about 2.5 years. I'd have to say for our first attempt we did a fantastic job! I had a rough start, but after one week, a handful of blisters, and four separate trips to Home Depot we have a lovely piece of furniture living under our window in the new sitting room.

Yay for us!

 We found the desk at a little antique trove in the Melrose District at a place called Magpies.

Before it just had a finish on top of the original wood and a little leftover red paint from a previous owner.

 Step one was to strip all the finish and old paint from the desk and drawers. I used a citrus stripper because it was less caustic.

 After scraping everything off we sanded the wood down so it was nice and smooth.

Thank god for power tools, it made this project much easier!

I totally missed out on a few in between pics... we painted a coat of brown before putting on a bright blue. We sanded the parts we wanted to look worn (edges, corners, and bits that are supposed to be worn over time) and put a dark wood finish on it. The last step was to put a matte varnish on it and move it inside!

i hope you know husband deserves almost all the credit :D

the potty dance

At the hospital I work at we have automatic everything and hand sanitizer everywhere. As a result we have automatic flushing toilets (the last thing you want to think about is putting your hands all over the handle of a toilet that's been the victim of a scary spraying situation/been stomped on 1000 times). I know this is probably not a new technology to anyone, but it is not the "automatic" bit I am having trouble with. My friends what my problem is, is the timing of these flushing systems.

 On almost a daily basis I find myself flying into a stall and attempting to arrange the magic paper buffer on top of the toilet seat. This is usually fairly difficult for me as I am also doing the "potty dance" writhing around like a two-stepping snake on crack (shut up, it makes sense). I always have to use two of the complimentary hygienic barriers because I rip the first one in half while trying to separate the middle circle part from the section that actually covers the toilet seat. (If you do not complete this first step and attempt to use it, you will have boomerang reaction with whatever you were trying to keep off of your pants in the first place.) After arranging the covers on the toilet seat, you must carefully balance them so that they do not slip off and fall into the toilet water. This will cause you to begin the potty process all over. By the time I turn around and yank my pants to my knees I hear the dreaded clicking and "whoosh" of the toilet. All my hard work literally goes down the drain and I must start from the beginning, this time with my pants down.

A few times my bum has made contact with the toilet seat just before the mass of paper is sucked away and suddenly I know exactly what it must feel like to be using the loo right as the pilot of an airplane flushes everything out. What I can't help but wonder is how the censor bot sitting on top of the toilet is mistaking my routine of cleanliness while attempting not to wet myself for someone actually peeing into the toilet. Is the bot being overworked? Have its censors gone mad? Maybe I am just in the slow category when it comes to getting my tush on the seat. In any case I will continue to perfect the potty process until one day I dance so much I acquire the thigh muscles to hover my self above the toilet seat.

i hope peeing is less complicated at your work.

shamefully obsessed

The thing about puffy Cheetos besides the fact that the orange dust accompanied with the tasty snack stains your fingers, clothing, and all furniture in a close vicinity is that they are addictive. Also, it is not a snack you immediate think of when choosing a terrible-for-you-but-absolutely-delicious snack. Right away my mind skips to sweets: peanut butter m&m's, milano cookies, reese's peanut butter cup blizzards. This puffy snack makes it attack at Superbowl parties and 4th of July celebrations. It was at a similar event where my taste buds were captivated.

Mistakenly, I purchased a rather large sized bag of puffy Cheetos twists, far superior to their straight counterpart in my opinion, for a sweet 16 party. (The large bag was warranted, there were seven girls.) I may have had one or seven of those tasty twisters, and ever since the only food that has been on my brain (except for chimichangas, which lets get real, can't really be surpassed by much. except for maybe a fairytale brownie sunday...) is puffy Cheetos. Even the straight ones. Clayton literally had to pull me away from a display of Cheeto sale items set up seemingly to tempt my weakness for junk food last week on a beer run.

Note to self: Last sentence may contradict itself....

Anyway, since last Thursday I have been dodging the bags of orange goodness. Lord knows I would open a bag to have "a couple" and the entire contents would be finished in under an hour. Despite my futile attempts to replace the cheesy snack with popchips I still find myself day dreaming about consuming handfuls of Cheetos and then riding off on the back of Chester Cheeto's motorbike (I know he isn't technically featured with a motorbike on the packaging, but those sunglasses give it all away) and into a smoky orange sky. 

 But today my friends, is a day of weakness. For fear of my job, health, and general safety of others I have every intention of marching into the grocery store and stopping only until the largest bag of Cheeto twisters is safe within my death grip. Maybe then the weird dreams will stop...

i hope you are this passionate about food.