Do you want fries with that?

Project Proposition:
After being inspired by Bakerella (and by fate having all the materials necessary to take on such a task) I decided to do something fun for Father's Day.
Here is the Bakerella link Fast Food Fun.

My Thinking:
I made some gluten free vanilla cupcakes from a box mix for my G.F.F. (gluten free friend). I set aside 4 or 5 cupcakes after realizing there was brownie mix in the pantry. Also, I manage to find some nutella (to be the "glue") and left over Gingerbread Men decor. Furthermore, I had some sugar cookie dough in the freezer. So why not put all these great treats to use?!

Buns of Gluten Free Goodness - I cut the cupcakes in half horizontally.

Burger Brownie - I just dropped the brownie mix in a cupcake liners and cut the brownies down to size accordingly - think smarter not harder.

Nutty for Nutella - I used the nutella to hold the brownie burger patty to the cupcake bun, and to stick on my green Xmas dollops for lettuce and red sprinkles for ketchup.

Sweet Fries - I rolled out the sugar cookie dough flat and cut up in long skinny rectangles to bake on a cookie sheet. I added some sugar to look like salt and did a bit of fry trimming after baking and cooling.

Success:
The mini sliders came out great - Dad was impressed! Below are some pictures. Also, I got a lot of positive feedback via FB. Thanks Bakerella for the idea (and making me hungry every time I check out your blog...)

Near Future Topics...

As I stated yesterday, I have been a little too busy to update my blog. However, I have still been busy doing projects, here is what to come....

• External Hard Drive Excursion
• Hang Man Hanging Clothes Rack
• A Picture Worth a 1000 [Minus 955] Words
• My Mint Julep
• Do You Want Fries With That?
• Empty Nesters
• Sister Sister
  

Now if only there were more hours in the day.

....Determined

Success:
As promised for an update - my defrag worked (no clue how long it took because I let it run throughout the whole day). I successfully defragged my hard drive by approximately 40%, did a little more cleaning up of uncessary files and ran it again with less than 15% space available (took about 30 minutes).

Thank goodness this was not a mishap...

To be determined....

Sorry for being MIA, have been busy - but lots to come!

DEFRAGMENTATION.

Talk about a scary word.

Projection Proposition:
Clean up my old Dell - restore to better working condition by getting rid of some old pictures and backing up photos to an external hard drive. (External Hard Drives for Dummies....there's potential for a new post....)

My Thinking:
Go through and uninstall old/unused programs, clean up registry files, etc. This article gives suggestions of places to clean up before defragging your computer.

I went to go analyze my c drive this morning. I got an error saying I didn't have enough space to defrag (apparently you need at least 15% free space perform defragmentation, however you can choose to override this error, I only had 7% space available).

Success or Mishap?
TBA

Because of the space error I believe a couple things may happen.
1) It will take forever for my defrag to complete
2) My defrag will not complete
3) My computer will crash

Will keep you posted....(keep your fingers crossed)

Cooking without failing....

Project Proposition:
Successfully cook seafood without burning down the kitchen or giving anyone food poisoning.

Please note I have set a kitchen on aflame with a grease fire that resulted in a half melted microwave handle (so I try to keep baking soda in reach). The following recipes are by all means fool proof- if I can do it, so can you!

Lobster Tails:
I bought frozen lobster tails from Central Market the day before I cooked them. As soon as I got them home I threw the lobster tails in some Tupperware (no ice) and put them in the fridge.

When I was ready to cook them I followed the instructions on this link to butterfly the tails. I will admit when I started separating the meat from the shell I was questioning what I kind of mess I had gotten myself into.

I then followed this very simple recipe I found on food network. I believe I only had 12oz of lobster, but I pulled off the lobster in about 6-7 minutes instead of 8 minutes (you could tell the lobster tails were starting to look done).

I nuked some butter and the tails were perfect.

Mussels:
After eating some pretty tasty mussels at an Italian restaurant, I decided to try making them myself. I also bought my mussels from Central Market.

The guy behind the seafood counter told me to rinse and boil the mussels for 3 - 4 minutes (you can tell the mussels are fully cooked when they open their shells). I boiled the mussels for a full 4 minutes because I was not planning on getting sick from consuming anything questionably raw. I then drained the mussels from the pot.

I also created a white wine - butter sauce. I heated up a third to a half of a bottle of white table wine, then I added half a stick of butter and a little garlic powder. (You have to make sure the wine is hot enough otherwise it will not mix well with the butter). I poured this wine sauce over the mussels and served them.

And no....6-12 hours later I was not sick, my mussels were a success!

Fish Tacos:
Tilapia can be cheap to come by, but also can be used for awesome fish tacos. Here is the recipe I use for the fish.

I like to put out lettuce, onions, tomatoes, grate fresh Monterrey jack (it makes all the difference), and Trappy's pinto beans with jalapenos. Kroger sells fresh flour tortillas that are to die for and make the fish tacos stellar.

Enjoy and best of luck!

Carwashin'

Fun Fact:
If you don't have any car-washing soap, dish washing soap (not the actually soap for the dishwasher, but the soap you use to hand wash dishes) is gentle enough to use if you need to wash your car (or in my case, wash off the smudge marks from the roommate pressing her face against the outside of my window).

Black is Back

Project Proposition:
Dyeing my faded corporate, cotton-blend pants back to black.

My Thinking:
Google dying clothes, see how much effort and how big of a mess I can make. I find that clothing dye is actually easy to find at many different grocery stores, pharmacies, etc. I stumble upon a brand of clothing dye called Rit (it comes in either powder form or liquid and I opted for the liquid).

Dyeing without Dying [threat of an angry roommate]:
In order to avoid a mess and turning the rest of my apartment black, I bought rubber gloves and set up my handy-dandy plastic car washing bucket in the kitchen sink. I also grabbed a plastic hanger from my closet.

I let my pants soak in the a rinse cycle in the washer and proceed to throw them in the plastic bucket. I put on my rubber gloves and followed the instructions on the back of the liquid Rit bottle (I used about half a bottle). The directions call for constant movement of the clothing sitting in the dye, this is why I grabbed a hanger- to stir things up- and so I wouldn't have to put my rubber gloved hand at the bottom of the bucket (potential for spattering or dripping, and so on).

After about 30-45 minutes, I took the bucket outside to dump the dye solution because I was apprehensive about putting it down the drain. I threw my pants back in the washer and washed them on a delicate cycle in cold water.

Success...sort of:
The pants came out very dark and looked great even after a good iron. However, the pants were not back to their original black color, but they looked better than before.

For Future References:
You'd be better off buying a pair of pants that don't have a high cotton content if they are made out of blended material. My pants are from express, they fit perfect, however I was a little disappointed with the color quality.