Posts Tagged "Spanish Club"
Girls just wanna have fun
What a delightfully busy weekend! As much fun as I had, I’m looking forward to a much tamer Memorial Day weekend. W00t for three-day weekends!
I started my weekend right with a trip to the Giants game with Jacki. It would have been even better had they held the lead and won but instead we had to be content with our yummy dinners for carnitas nachos and a bacon-wrapped dog [oh yeah, I went for that one again] and our traditional cup of hot chocolate in the fifth inning and a churro. So yummy. Especially when you dunk that puppy into the hot chocolate.
On Saturday I hosted a special edition of Spanish Club in honor of Akilah’s bachelorette party at the house. My mom was kind enough to make a bounty of Korean food and the girls came over for some good eating and then a trip down to North Oakland for karaoke.
We went to Jaguar Karaoke since they had private rooms [in the style of a Noh-rae-bang] and it was a pretty cool set up. We all sung to our hearts content, even Vattey, who wasn’t feeling too well. It was definitely a lot of fun and while it is more fun in front of random strangers at a karaoke bar, at least we knew we’d be able to hit the stage and had multiple goes. Can’t guarantee that at any bar. Plus, we were able to belt out with minimal embarrassment. Even when you’re singing along to Britney Spears and Taylor Swift [yes, both me].
Sunday was impossibly hot to deal with. After getting home late after karaoke, I was up early to teach Sunday school to a group of hyperactive kids. Just a side note, but is it horrible to be mad at birds? I know they’re God’s creation and all but for the love of all that is holy why do they have to chirp so freakin’ loud? I had to close my window even though it was hot just so I could sleep! /rant. Thankfully Denita was able to help corral them because I was thisclose to taking them back downstairs to sit in silence. They are always a little tougher to handle when they’re sugared up on syrup. Serenity now indeed. I had a quick art project to go along with the story where they would be making props out of Play-Doh…yeah, I dropped that idea the moment I saw them wriggling around. It would have been utter chaos had I even brought out those cans of Play-Doh.
At least I got to return it to Target afterwards.
So Sunday afternoon was another scorcher. It was too hot to do anything else but sleep so that’s pretty much what I did until it cooled down enough to function. After some errands that included picking up dinner since I didn’t want to cook [I know I had leftovers but I had decided to eat that for lunch and well, sometimes there is such a thing as too much of a good thing], I relaxed the rest of the night. Such is life eh?
Read MoreIn the Kitchen: Strawberry cupcakes
I’ve developed a small reputation of being quite the baker. Obviously I’m not much of a baker. I know real bakers. I’m but a novice but I do enjoy myself. That said, contrary to my friends’ beliefs, not everything I make comes out looking utterly fantastic.
Or fit for public consumption.
Case in point: the cupcakes I made for Spanish Club. Oh boy. Where to start? Since the theme was “Red, White or Pink” I decided to make Red Velvet cupcakes. Except I couldn’t decide on a recipe and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to just buy a box mix [mainly because I couldn’t remember which box mix I used the last time that netted a dry cake]. I hemmed and hawed until I stumbled upon a strawberry cupcake recipe purported to be the one used at Sprinkles Cupcakes. We all know how much I dig Sprinkles. So I decided this was the one to make.
And it was pretty easy. Puree some frozen strawberries, which actually works better if they’re thawed but hey, a little orange juice helped make that process go easier, mix the batter, pop them in the oven and then bing, bang, boom, like magic – strawberry cupcakes.
Except not.
There was a very slight pinkish color to them and when I pulled the wrapper away, the cake broke apart, and not in a good way, which was obviously because they were fresh out the oven and needed time to set. However I was still skeptical because it didn’t look like it baked all the way through so I popped them back into the oven for a few more minutes.
In the mean time, I worked on the frosting. This was my very first attempt at make frosting since I always just buy a tub and call it a day. But I was determined to give it a go for the complete package. It came together easily enough and tasted pretty good to boot. I popped it into the fridge to keep cold because I was not feeling confident at all about the cupcakes.
And they did not turn out well. They had a rubbery consistency, which I think resulted from me over beating the batter. I was very disappointed to say the least but instead of sulking over it too long, I hightailed it out to the grocery store to buy strawberry cake mix and cheesecake flavored pudding mix instead. I added some of the strawberry puree into the batter and they baked up perfectly.
Then I frosted one of the new cupcakes with the frosting and wouldn’t you know it, I didn’t like it. At all. Sigh. So I had to pick up a tub of frosting on my way up to Jacki’s house and finish the cupcakes there [of course not without a shot of vanilla extract to bump up the flavor of the frosting]. I was kicking myself for not buying a tub while I was at the store picking up the cake mix. Oh well.
But in the end they turned out delicious even though not exactly quite to plan. I’m so glad I thought of the back up plan because I was seriously bummed things didn’t turn out, though that’s the risk whenever you try a new recipe. Speaking of which, I don’t think I’ll be trying that recipe again. Turns out Tami had trouble with a strawberry cupcake too. So see, even real bakers have issues too.
And yeah, I totally bit the look from Sprinkles. But don’t they look fabulous? The buttons are made of royal icing. Totally doable!
And the winner is…
I can safely say that I’m feeling [and sounding] much better now. All that’s left is a slightly stubborn cough but that’s nothing. I’m just glad to be over the worst part of it. Even though I will admit it did feel nice to just stay home and sleep. But I can see how quickly that gets old.
Though I probably could have rested a bit more than I did this weekend but hey, who’s complaining? I’m definitely not. So I skipped church and went home to make cupcakes for a Spanish Club get together and I’ll save the dirty details for another post [with pictures!] but let’s just say that things did NOT turn out accordingly to plan and I was actually kind of glad that I skipped church because had I not, well I would have been royally screwed. Praise Jesus for Betty Crocker. And everyone says, “Amen!”
Saturday was spent at Akilah’s house just hanging out with the girls. There was plenty of food, as usual, and a lot of gossip; mostly about Akilah’s upcoming wedding [and a preview of her dress: HAWT] and Vat’s doctor crush.
And Scrabble. Although I did not get the occasion to bust out “qat” for a triple word score.
But I did land a nice sequence of double letter squares coupled with a triple word score for 30 points.
I guess the most surprising thing that happened this weekend was the fact that I watched the Oscars. Granted, not the entire thing but a good chunk of it. The bf mentioned something about the Oscars and next thing you know, we’re watching it and commenting. It kind of made me wish I had the foresight to print out an Oscars Bingo Card to play along. Oh well.
Anywho, I gotta cut this short and finish some work before I close shop for the day. This week: cupcake pictures. I promise!
Read MoreLet’s see how long this one lasts…
So remember how I said I wasn’t feeling well and then I said I was feeling better? Well I was tricked. So evilly tricked.
I woke up Wednesday morning without the body aches and actually did feel better. So much so that I happily wore my contacts instead of my glasses to work. Well that good feeling lasted a few hours until I started to get warm to the touch and progressively grew warmer throughout the day. Then I started coughing and then my body started hurting all over again. I mean, really? This was a lot more than I had ever anticipated. So here I was, all warm [so warm that I didn’t even need to turn on the heater in my car like I normally do!] and no wanting to make any kind of movements and heaven forbid I had to cough…ugh, that hurt the most.
So when I woke up on Thursday suffering from more body aches and dizziness, I called in sick for the first time ever. I hadn’t felt that bad physically since I broke my butt snowboarding that first time. My mom was even shocked that I stayed home. But it was for the better. After calling in, or more aptly, emailing, I set to work on finishing up the written analysis for a case report, emailed it to the group members and went back to sleep. I slept off and on for the rest of the day but did start to feel a lot better. My mom made sure I had all the orange juice I needed and even made me a sandwich for lunch that I ended up finishing for dinner.
Even though I sounded like I had choked on death, I eventually felt well enough to truck it down to Target to pick up some cough medicine, tissues, cough drops and oatmeal. And wouldn’t you know that is the day I run into an old family friend? Of course. But it was great catching up with her regardless.
But yesterday was a much needed rest day. I’m glad I did take the day off to stay home though. I really needed that. And sleeping throughout the day kind of rocked too. I’m still taking it easy on the foods for now but hopefully I’ll be well enough to make it to Spanish Club tomorrow. I hope, I hope, I hope.
Anywho, my computer usage was sporadic during the day; on and off as I saw fit to nap. I had thought about uploading my pictures briefly and writing up a post about the muffins but then I wasn’t at all motivated to dig through my bag for my camera because that would have required me to lift my arm and quite frankly, that was too much of a burden to deal with.
Which makes it pretty hard to figure how I managed to lug my laptop from off the ground onto my bed huh? Well, it was only on the ground once during the day. Once I pulled it up to finish the case report, I just left it at the end of my bed and pretty much slept around it the rest of the day.
Tonight I have plans on making cupcakes for tomorrow’s Spanish Club meeting. I figure I might as well prepare as if I’m going for sure, like I did with work the past few days. Besides, if I don’t feel well enough to make it, at least I’ll have cupcakes!
Now that’s the definition of a “win-win” situation.
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