Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Grad Students

You know that old country song "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to be Cowboys"? Well, I am here to whole heartedly disagree. If I were a cowboy, I would be outside all day. I would be communing with nature. I would be getting exercise.

Instead, I am a graduate student. I am chained to a desk, writing my dissertation. If it weren't for my dogs, I probably would not have been outside or showered in the past week. Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be grad students. It is a terrible life decision.

I set a deadline for writing a chapter - it was last Friday. I finished a DRAFT of it today. It took me two weeks to write a draft. Which means I am nowhere near done. Not to mention that I have two other chapters that I have not even started on and this entire thesis is due to my committee in less than two weeks, plus my boss wants to read it before hand and make edits. At this rate, I am not going to finish this thing until I retire in 2045 (and yes, I am counting down the days until I retire even though I haven't even finished school and gotten a job yet). Why is this taking so long? I usually love writing. Right now, I despise it. Needless to say, I am a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

(Side note: I know what you are probably thinking to yourself right now - how does she have the time to write this blog right now? The answer is that I don't. I just really wanted to see what it would feel like to type something other than the word cytochrome P450 for the first time in two weeks.)

So last night I forced myself to turn off the computer, walk away, and watch the Olympics. Oh how I would rather be skiing. How awesome are Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso? Ladies, you are my heroes. Why in the hell didn't I become an Olympic skier?

Another problem associated with this lack of free time - I have developed the worst eating habits on the planet. If you can buy it in a drive thru, if you can microwave it, if it has 9 bazillion calories, you can bet that I am eating it. If it wasn't for the aforementioned dogs forcing me to exercise twice a day, I would easily weigh 200 pounds by now. So yesterday I forced myself to spend 20 minutes (and only 20 minutes) at the grocery store in a quest to actually cook something that was not wrapped in plastic and flash frozen. Of course, due to my time constraints, it had to satisfy the following requirements:

1. Fewer than 5 ingredients.

2. Less than 10 minutes total of prep time and cooking time.

Luckily, I came across this beautiful, giant container of basil:



and I decided to make pesto. For those nights when you would like to step away from the ice cream and eat delicious real people food, but only have 10 minutes to spare between breakdowns.


Pesto

2 cloves of garlic
4 oz basil
1/4 cup pine nuts
salt
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
pasta (penne or rigatoni work best)

Add garlic to food processor and run until finely chopped. Rinse basil and pat dry. Tear off stems and add to food processor. The food processor bowl should be nearly full, like so:


(Don't get scared by how much basil is in there - once you spin it down, it becomes a very small amount.) Add pine nuts and salt. Spin until well blended. With motor running, add olive oil by pouring in a slow steady stream. Once all ingredients have been incorporated, stop motor. You should end up with something that looks like this:


Serve over pasta (as pictured above) and garnish with grated parmesan. If you don't use all of it, refrigerate or freeze for later use (one easy thing to do is scoop the pesto into an ice cube tray and freeze it. That way, you can thaw one cube at a time per serving of pasta).

I leave you with my sous chef, who is always hoping for a crumb of some sort.

Food, Friends, and Festivities

Since working for a university has the benefit of getting federal holidays off of work, Paul was able to fly out for the long President's Day weekend. We marked the first night of his visit by heading up to his good friend Charlie's cabin up at Alta. It was a great night of food, wine, and catching up with good friends. One of my favorite parts was sitting in front of the warm fire and being surrounded by snow, but the late night snow jumping was up there as well.


I was charged with bringing an appetizer, so I finally took the opportunity to make the delicious baked brie that my good friend Hailey posted on her blog over the holidays which I have been dying to try. It was seriously the easiest appetizer I have ever put together (it took less than a minute to assemble) and was a crowd pleaser, so I definitely recommend it for your next get together. And the next morning I even skied Alta for the first time after years and years of hype about how difficult it would be - I can't help but think the brie fueled me through it.


Baked Brie

1 sheet puff pastry dough (you can find it in your grocer's freezer section)
raspberry jam (although any jam would probably work)
1 disc brie
1 egg (used as an egg wash for the crust)

Thaw the pastry dough for 40 minutes at room temp. Spread jam on the thawed dough, place the disc of brie in the middle of the pastry sheet, and wrap the sheet around the cheese. Brush the outside of the pastry sheet with egg. Bake at 400 F for 20 to 30 minutes (or until cheese is melted and pastry crust turns a nice golden brown).

In Honor of a Milestone

It seems that March is going to be a month of milestones. Not only am I graduating, but Paul is turning the big 3-0 (gasp), and in honor of this milestone, I wanted to do something really special. I tossed around a number of ideas and finally came up with the following. One of Paul's lifelong friend's mom, Patty Kimball, is a local painter who does amazing portrait work (you can check out a selection of her work here), so I decided to hire her to paint a portrait of our dogs. (Yes, that is right readers - I am finally writing a post about my dogs, one of the original inspirations for my blog.)

The original idea was to get the two dogs to sit nicely for a portrait together. Of course, if you have ever met my dogs, you probably realize that they are way too hyper and energetic to ever sit still for more than a minute (especially when a new and exciting person comes over to the house). So instead, we scrapped that plan and took the dogs up to the dog park. We had a fun day of watching them run around and play and Patty took a ton of pictures, which she spliced together to make the following sketches, all of which capture different parts of their personalities:



I have to say that I am really torn between number two and number three. I'd love to hear which ones you like best!

Let the Final Countdown Begin

After 5 long years my career as a graduate student is coming to an end. I have set a defense date (March 18th) and have begun to write my dissertation. Which is incredibly un-fun. I have two chapters done, but still have three more to tackle, plus a lecture to give on Tuesday, as well as a postdoctoral fellowship application that is due two days before my thesis has to be turned in, and a poster which I must put together and present two days after my thesis has to be turned in. Needless to say blog readers, telling you that I am stressed out does not even begin to cover it.

But I had a glimmer of the light at the end of the tunnel the other day when I ordered my cap and gown and the following graduation announcements:




It feels surreal to see these (I can't even tell you how many times I felt that this day would never come). But I got a flutter of excitement thinking that in a month and a half this will all be behind me!

My Semi-Homemade New Year's Eve Party

If you, like me, are addicted to the Food Network then you have no doubt at one point or another come across the show Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee. I have to say that she drives me crazy with her "No one will ever know it's semi-homemade" and her outfits which are somehow color coordinated to her set decorations and table decorations which somehow magically change with EVERY episode. Who has the time (or money for that matter) to do that for every party they throw? In spite of my frustration with her show, however, I couldn't help but think of her when I designed my New Year's Eve party menu this year because everything I made involved at least one pre-packaged item. And although she annoys me, I have to give credit where credit is due - it sure did make my party prep a whole lot easier.


First and foremost, the cocktails - I wanted to make a champagne cocktail in honor of New Year's and I found a bottle of Creme de Cassis in my liquor cabinet, so I decided to go with the Kir Royale, which simply consists of one glass of champagne and a tsp (or more to taste) of Creme de Cassis. Super easy yet elegant looking, so right up my alley.

For my first appetizer, I decided to go with smoked salmon toasts, and just like the cocktails, these really couldn't be easier to put together. I picked up some store bought smoked salmon, pictured here:

then assembled these toasts:

using the following recipe:

Smoked Salmon Toasts

one baguette
one 4 oz package smoked salmon
sour cream
chopped chives (you could also substitute fresh dill for the chives)

Cut baguette into slices. Broil at 500 F for approx 5 minutes (until toasted but not burnt). Spread each slice of toast with about 1 tsp of sour cream. Top with one slice of smoked salmon and sprinkle chopped chives on top.

For my vegan guests, I made a variation on another Food Network star's recipe, Giada de Laurentiis' Polenta Squares with Mushroom Ragu. Instead of making the polenta from scratch (as Giada's recipe suggests), I purchased store bought, ready to serve polenta:

which I then cut into rounds and broiled for about 5 minutes at 500 F. I then followed her mushroom ragu recipe, but substituted portabello mushrooms for cremini mushrooms and omitted the butter and flour combo and instead used cornstarch to thicken the sauce (so that I could keep the recipe vegan). It worked well and no one missed the butter at all.

Mushroom Ragu

1 Tbsp olive oil
8 oz sliced portabello mushrooms
1/2 cup white onion, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 Marsala wine (I used a non-alcoholic Marsala cooking wine)
1 tsp cornstarch

Heat oil in frying pan over medium heat. Add mushrooms and onion, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and saute for about 8 minutes. Add garlic and saute for 2 minutes. Decrease heat to medium-low and add marsala. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes, or until wine has reduced by half. Add cornstarch and stir to incorporate. Cover and let simmer for 2 minutes or until sauce has thickened. Remove sauce from heat and spoon over polenta.


(I apologize that the picture is not so great due to my shadow covering the food, but hopefully you can get the idea).

Party Pleaser

Because fate is cruel and for whatever reason we can never seem to live in the same place at the same time for more than 2 months in a row, Paul had to move back to San Diego to start his new job and my evil committee refused to let me leave until after I defend my thesis (a mere 81 days from now but who's counting?). Of course instead of working on said thesis, I decided to throw him a going away party. One of his friends was nice enough to volunteer to bring duck tacos made with a duck he had shot and killed that morning, so I decided to stick with the Mexican theme and try my hand at making a seven layer dip.

Seven layer dip is one of those dishes that always looks so elegant and delicious when other people make it, but I was sure that I was going to manage to ruin it somehow and make it look unappetizing. I read some tips online and was encouraged when I read that the nice thing about seven layer dip is that you really can layer the ingredients in pretty much any order that you like (basically the only rule is to be sure to put the guacamole layer below the sour cream layer so that the sour cream does not turn brownish) and it will still be delicious (in other words, a dish that is pretty much impossible to mess up, which is right up my alley). I thought I would share it with all of you because a.) it is super easy but looks fancy and time consuming, b.) it is delicious, and c.) I think it would be the perfect thing to make ahead and take to a New Year's Eve or Super Bowl party.

Seven Layer Dip

1 oz package of taco seasoning (I used Old El Paso, pictured below)
16 oz can of refried beans
1 cup guacamole
1 cup salsa
16 oz sour cream
1 small tomato, diced
6 oz can sliced black olives
2 cups cheddar cheese (or Mexican cheese blend)
1 bunch green onion, sliced

Mix refried beans with taco seasoning and spread over the bottom of a 13" x 9" casserole dish.


Top bean layer with guacamole and spread with spatula to cover.


Top guacamole layer with salsa. Top salsa layer with sour cream.


Garnish sour cream layer with diced tomato, olives, cheese, and green onion. Serve with tortilla chips.

A Cornucopia of Cookies

When the holidays roll around there is only one thing on anyone's mind in the Weems household - cookie baking. We show no restraint. Each year we end up with so many cookies that we can't even find enough tupperware containers to store them in. So naturally with Christmas creeping up, I kept finding myself dreaming of holiday cookies, but fearing the thought of having hundreds of cookies floating around my house (I have no will power when it comes to dessert). But then I got to thinking about how life is short and the holidays only come around once a year (thank god), so I threw caution to the wind and made a batch of my favorite holiday cookie of all time. You can thank me later.

Ginger Molasses Cookies

3/4 cup butter (or shortening if it strikes your fancy)
1 cup granulated sugar, plus extra for rolling cookies in
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses (make sure that you do not use a molasses that is too dark - I recommend Grandma's Original Unsulphured Molasses with the yellow lid)
2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinammon

Mix butter (or shortening), sugar, egg, and molasses well in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cloves, and cinnamon. Add to wet ingredient mixture in thirds and stir after each addition to incorporate completely. After all ingredients have been incorporated, chill dough for 1 hour in the refrigerator.

After chilling dough for one hour, preheat oven to 350F. Roll tsp sized balls of dough in your hands:


and then roll each ball of dough in sugar:


Place balls of dough on a cookie sheet (only place 8 - 10 balls of dough per average sized cookie sheet - although the balls of dough start out small, they spread out to be much larger during the baking process). Bake cookies for 12 - 15 minutes. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for 1 minute, then transfer to wire racks and allow to cool completely. This recipe makes approximately 30 cookies.