I'll never be this good...

Earlier this week I was looking up some author information on the Princeton University website, and the homepage had this amazing video about a student who organizes a Rubik's Cube tournament on campus. These folks are amazing! 

In other news, I'm three recipes ahead of my last post. Last weekend I made Cardamom Cornmeal Biscotti (not really photographable, but surprisingly tasty) and Snickerdoodles. I think these might be my favorite cookies from the book so far. Very easy, and so delicious!

Today I made the Chocolate Sugar Snaps. They were supposed to come out looking kind of like a chocolate version of the snickerdoodles, but they didn't really work that well. They're still tasty, but a little too fudgy for me. And I thought the dough was really hard to work with, even after having chilled. So even if I had time to remake recipes, I don't think I'd try these again.

A Very Smoky Kitchen

It's been kind of a terrible week, since I've been sick with a really bad cough. For some reason this season it's hit me a lot harder than it has in the past. Greg pointed out yesterday that I'd spent three of the last seven days in my pajamas, mostly on the couch, so that tells you something about how gross I've been feeling.

Luckily, last night I finally started to come out of it. To celebrate, I decided to make use of the Star Wars cookie cutters we got for Christmas. I made the Classic Sugar Cookies from Great Cookies, including all three of the variations.

The storm trooper is the classic recipe, Yoda is the pecan version (with obligatory green sprinkles), Darth Vader is chocolate flecked, and Boba Fett is cinnamon swirl. I actually think they came out much too dry and not very flavorful. They may have been rolled out too thin, especially the plain batch. And honestly, I just don't much like sugar cookies.

Today, still feeling much better than I had been, I tried the Chocolate Coconut Devils for tomorrow's book club.



They are just as chocolatey and delicious as they look. And I love the fact that they have a little bit of almond extract for an unexpected flavor. The only problem was that I didn't have any baking parchment, so I just went with wax paper, not realizing it would fill my apartment with smoke. Oh well. In my defense, the picture on the wax paper box is over a baking sheet covered with wax paper and chocolate chip cookies. But now I know for future baking projects. Wax paper ≠ Baking parchment.

An update on the cookie project:

Cookies made - 13

Recipes to go - 141

Yikes, I might be in trouble. New rule: Make cookies every weekend, and volunteer for every church bake sale I can find!

Mind Games

I mentioned last week that I recently dug my Rubik's Cube out of a drawer, and since then it's been taunting me. I made some progress on it a while ago, and kind of forgot about it. Here's how it stands now:

I remember reading somewhere once that the key to solving these was to go layer by layer, so I'm in good shape with one layer done. But I haven't been able to figure out what to do next. I've only spent about 5 minutes at a time looking at it, though, so I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out. And no, I really don't want hints or links to solutions. The math part of my brain that's been lying dormant since I left grad school almost three years ago is up for the challenge.

In other news, I've officially decided to do Boston's Run to Remember, the half marathon through the city on Memorial Day weekend. Originally I had been leaning toward the Wallis Sands Half Marathon at the beginning of May, since I have family who are running it. But I haven't been running much the last couple of weeks because of weather, traveling, and a nasty stomach bug, so I don't think I'll be ready to start a real training plan for another couple of weeks. Plus, doing one at home means fewer travel expenses, and I can rest up in my own bed the night before. So barring any major problems, 5/29 is the day I become a half marathoner!

Restarting

I really like to have a normal routine. Tuesdays and Thursdays I go to the gym, Wednesdays I go to ballet, on the weekend I clean, grocery shop, and cook. So as much as I love the holiday season, I also love getting back to life as usual in January. So far I've gotten back into my normal workout routine, and I feel like I'm able to cook and eat much healthier (and usually tastier) meals.

And now I'm getting back to blogging. I've made minimal progress on my Thirty Things over the last month, but I haven't forgotten them either. I'm currently trying to decide which half marathon to sign up for this spring, I recently dug my Rubik's Cube out of a desk drawer, and I'm about 200 pages into Anna Karenina. Even just reading over my list again tonight, I'm getting excited to do a lot of new and fun things this year, and I'll be sure to post here more regularly as I get them done. Here's to 2011!

Making Progress on #3. and (Always) #11.

I've slacked off a little writing lately because our weekends (and weeks) have been pretty busy. I absolutely love the holidays, but I'm essentially a homebody and miss the quiet downtime of the rest of the year. On the other hand, plenty of excuses for baking!

Since it's still the holiday season, I only have time for a quick rundown of what I've been up to. More interesting (hopefully) posts to come after it gets a little less crazy.

#3. Book club ended for the year on November 30, and I have two months until the next meeting, so I thought it would be a good time to get into Anna Karenina. I'm only about 75 pages in so far, but I'm enjoying it a lot, and I'm actually a little surprised at how accessible it is. I'll post a full review when I'm finished.

#10. I've been a little thrown off in my workout schedule lately, which is frustrating because it really helps to keep me sane. But I'm signed up for another 5K on Sunday (pray that the rain and snow hold off!) and I'm determined that 2011 will be the year of the half marathon. I have a couple possibilities for May, and some back-ups for the fall, so it's definitely going to happen. (On this one, you should keep asking me about it. It'll keep me honest. (o:  )

#11. I've made two (very delicious) batches of cookies lately. For November book club I made the Giant Ginger Spice Cookies:

The photo doesn't do them justice. They might have been my favorites so far out of this book so far. And this weekend, just because I needed to get out of a funk and baking seemed like a good way to do it, I made Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies. I overcooked them a little (my family refers to this as Rachel's Cajun-style cooking), but they're still tasty.

I plan to do some more baking this week and next weekend, but probably out of Joanne Chang's Flour cookbook. Her gingerbread with coffee glaze sounds amazing. Plus I did an event at the store with her this week, and she was one of the nicest, most amazing people I've met in a while, so any chance I have to be more like her is well worth it!

More soon, but in the meantime, happy holidays!

#8. Finished My Hat! and #11. Coconut Apricot Icebox Cookies

Things here are pretty busy these days, with the store's busiest season coming up and us going out of town for a few days for Thanksgiving. I did have time to get a lot done this weekend, though, including these two projects:

1. I finished the hat I've been working on! I made my maiden voyage to Windsor Button on Saturday, and found a cute button to go with it, so I sewed it on last night.

I actually think this hat is really cute, so I'll have to make another one sometime for myself! Next up, though, I'm going to tackle a multi-color project: a cute take on a basic striped scarf. Knowing me, it'll be about down about mid-April....

2. Greg surprised me by bringing home a food processor earlier this week (it's no dozen roses, but almost as good!), so I had to try it out this weekend. I'd been wanting to try the Coconut Apricot Icebox Cookies out of Great Cookies for a while now, but didn't have the patience to chop either the coconut or the apricots by hand. The food processor worked miracles! The cookies were still a little labor intensive, but they're delicious (like little apricot-studded macaroons), and remind me a little of these little apricot bites I used to get when my mom ordered from Sweet Energy.

I'm not baking for Thanksgiving (thanks so a Groupon for Petsi Pies, our Thanksgiving pie commitment is taken care of), but I'll be making more cookies for book club next week. More pictures then!

#8. My Goal Sweater

I only started knitting last winter, when my grammie gave me a basic knitting kit for Christmas. Since then I've made a few dishclothes, and a pair of fingerless mittens. The mittens I sadly didn't finish until about April, just when I stopped needing them for the summer, but I've been making good use of them the last month or so.

Now that the weather's starting to get colder, I'm getting excited about knitting projects again. I'm just about done with the hat I started at the end of the summer (yeah, I'm still pretty slow). I'll post a picture next week when I find a button to finish it off. This one won't get much use by me either, though, since it turned out a little small. Christmas present for one of the nieces!

I haven't figured out yet what I'll do for my next project. The ones I've found lately that I like either seem a little too difficult for my skill level, or require a bigger yarn investment than I'm prepared for at the moment. I have to find something this week, though, because I'm off to Windsor Button next weekend to finish up that hat, and I'm hoping to pick up some new yarn too.

In the meantime, I did find a sweater that I aspire to making. I'm not sure it'll be my first (and therefore the one I get to check off my list), but it looks cozy and totally doable, if a tad complicated. Here's a photo from berroco.com, which has the pattern posted: