If you’ve never been to wegmans, that’s a darn shame. It’s basically the most spectacular grocery store on this planet. Crazy brands that no one’s ever heard of, gourmet pre-made foods, and even dinnerware! Basically all of my favorite things in one place. Did I mention the fact that there are no fluorescent lights? Yeah, well, there aren’t. I meant to do this as a whole finds weeks ago, just before I had issues with my iPhoto. Now that it’s all fixed I finally can! This isn’t really a post about one cool thing I found at the grocery store. This is just everything cool about one grocery store. I feel like it shouldn’t even be called a grocery store. An entirely new category should be made up for Wegmans.

ahh, the ethnic foods aisle. Selling the same soda that we have in America, but with spanish labels!

Cases of baby pellegrino (pellegrini?). Need I say more?

Yeah, I like my water in fancy glass bottles.

I also really like beautifully packaged pasta…

GIANT bags of the best tortilla chips ever created…

Because everyone needs four different varieties of almonds. Standard almonds simply won’t do sometimes.

I think Willy Wonka might have a timeshare in Wegmans.

^These lollipops are the funniest thing. No one can stand to not buy them, yet no one can finish one either!

In case you decide that you’re in need of some garden gnomes and giant snails while you’re picking up some cold cuts, Wegmans has got your back.

And lastly, for all of your Cinco de Mayo needs…

I think I’ll name him Larry.

So thanks Eric, for going to school in a town where the greatest entertainment comes from a grocery megastore. (Megastore makes it sound cheesy. Make no mistake, Wegmans couldn’t possibly get any classier.)

-Audrey

Fifteen years ago today, you decided to pop that little ginger head of yours out and say hi. You have no exciting birth day story as you informed me last night. That’s okay. I have enough exciting birth day stories for the both of us combined. You can just be perfect, I’ll be the difficult one. I’m really glad that you had this day of birth. Because you’re the best. And I mean it. You really are. You’re good at making things special. Making them happy. Making them colorful.

Last night we celebrated your fifteen years minus four hours with a birthday dinner, as everyone should. Painters, of course, was the destination. Since it would be your last dinner as a fourteen year old, naturally you ordered pasta with butter. Why have it any other way? Pasta with butter is really difficult to make at home…

{photo credit: eric}

After dinner you enjoyed this. I hope. I remembered that a few years ago you mentioned that you wanted me to make you a rainbow cake. Before I’d become a blog obsessed human, I had no idea that you could rainbow the actual cake. I’d just pictured the outside being rainbow. I like surprising people, so I tried as hard as I could to surprise you with this cake. I think you were. Happy Burt-day Maggie Kay.

My new favorite ruffle technique!

Neon leveled cake scraps. Breakfast of Champions.

more ruffles. I can’t help myself.

Surprise!! I don’t think I’ll even give a tutorial of this cake, everyone else has done it already. Just google rainbow layer cake and you should find 10 different ways to make it. I used white cake and swiss meringue buttercream!

Oh by the way, Painters lets you play with fire and crayons and make art while you wait for you food. They’re cool like that.

see?

Enjoy fifteen maggiekay.

seems like you’ve gotten the whole enjoying life thing down already.

-Audrey!

Happy Today! I discovered a lot today. I remembered a lot today. Today was delightfully disgusting. I remembered that one of the reasons for my positivity is shrinky dinks. One of the outlines to make your own shrinky dink that I saw in like 5th grade said happy today and I thought it was the coolest and funniest and craziest thing ever. I was so right. Today is happy. Especially if today is the day that you are coloring shrinky dinks and watching them shrink in your toaster oven.

Today I also learned that rain can be fully enjoyable. I knew this previously, but today I proved it to myself. I walked to the bagel place during lunch in the pouring rain. I made an imprint of the sound of my flips squeaking to flops with each step in my mind. I avoided puddles in the most fun way, by walking along the ledge of the sidewalk. I got to put my hands up and balance my walking. I kinda felt like I was in a really happy ending scene of a movie. Or on an album cover. Either would be fine. I got to wear my Audrey Hepburn trench coat. I even wore big sunglasses, just for effect.

Sometimes I wonder why people don’t appreciate the rain as much. We usually love water. Oceans, showers, baths, pools. What’s so bad about a few drops from the sky? It can be really cool, if you choose it to be. Next time it rains by you, try as hard as you can to enjoy it. Go outside. Play running bases. Slide. Get mud all over you. Do some laundry after, you won’t mind. You’ll be too busy smiling from your rainy adventures. Seriously, I may sound crazy, but just try it. For me? Thanks. You’re the best.

Here’s a little teaser of what I’m hoping to post tomorrow, on MaggieKay’s birthday. I feel kind of weird posting about her birthday before her birthday even though we celebrated it today so you can just see this for now. happy fifteenth birthday eve maggiekay!

One week since you looked at me. I could keep going with the barenaked ladies lyrics but they really have nothing to do with this week so I won’t. I hope you’ve all had a lovely week, I’ve had a busy one. First of all… I made this many eggs

(five dozen)

turn into this many…

(zero)

Nope, I didn’t host an omelette party. I made 400+ cupcakes. For this…

The cupcakes had nothing to do with the show, but they were to be sold as a fundraiser at intermission. They didn’t do so well, I think because of the lack of kids at this show. The previous play put on by my high school was Beauty and the Beast. Baked goods were flying off the table at that one. This show’s audience was primarily made up of high schoolers and their parents, both of which are more contentious of what they eat than four year olds.

Aside from learning the importance of a target audience for baked goods, I learned something huge this weekend. That I do not want to go to Johnson and Wales. The second I stepped onto the campus something wasn’t right. It was industrial. Everyone wore white coats. People weren’t smiley. There was no individuality about the students at this school. I need that. I thrive off of other unique people, characters. I don’t think I want to go to culinary school at all. If I do that, I’ll end up working in a hotel as a pastry chef. I don’t want that. I want my own quirky cafe. Where every wall is painted a different color and the kitchen isn’t only stainless steel. Relaxed cooking is where it’s at, not perfection.

On the way home from Providence we stopped at a farm stand for some asparagus.

There were chickens and roosters there.

There were also some really cool tractors. Clouds were eating up the sky, so the lighting for pictures wasn’t the best. I only took a few.

Something random. A precious squirt.

And here’s Maggie. Her birthday week starts today so I thought you should get to see her beautiful face..

Hopefully I’ll be back in the kitchen with some new recipes this week!

Happy National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day! Go Nestle your toll house.

-Audrey!

Let’s talk about something. Something cool. Something rad. Something really really awesome.

Moms.

You know what moms are good at?

Finding lost things. Y’know, sometimes you’ll be looking for a jacket for hours and you’ll yell out, “MAAAAAHHHHMMM!” before you even get to ask where your jacket is, she’s holding it in front of you. “Where was it?” you might ask. She’ll reply, “I just know things.”

Fixing boo boos. Even imaginary ones. “Mommy I stepped on a teddy bear and now I need some boo boo cream for my foot and a Rugrats band aid. My teddy bear needs one too.” The four year old cries. She promptly whips out the magical neosporin and band aids, sets the squirt on the bathroom counter, and within the minute with the help of a few mommy kisses the squirt is good to go.

Making mac n cheese. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but every time someone expresses a craving for homemade mac n cheese, everyone instantly goes, “my mom makes the best mac n cheese. With breadcrumbs and everything!” Apparently breadcrumbs make mac n cheese legit. And the best.

Being Proud. Yeah, you might be that kid who trips on the way up the staircase to receive your middle school graduation diploma, knocking down the table that all of your teachers are sitting at, spilling water everywhere and breaking the mic, but guess who’s still shouting, “WOOOOOOO!!! LOVE YOU SWEETIE!!” as tears stream down her face at the fact that you will no longer be in middle school. That’s right. Your mom.

Holding the phone between their ear and shoulder. Only moms can do this. It’s like the second they find out they’re pregnant they start practicing, knowing that in nine months they will no longer have a free hand to hold the phone while they talk.

This is just a short excerpt of the interminable list of things that moms are good at. She deserves today. I think that every other day should be Mother’s day, but I don’t think most mothers would like that. Because mothers are selfless. They don’t like getting credit for all they do. They just do stuff because they want to, for their kids.

So if you’re reading this and thinking, “I can’t believe I forgot to do something for her for mothers day, it’s just that last week was AP tests and college finals and SATs and it just slipped my mind and now it’s 3pm on Mother’s day and I have nothing for my favorite person.” fret not. I have a solution. The solution is called Oh Baby Bars. Pretty much a homemade reeses as a bar. I might as well rename this blog chocolate and peanut butter. You probably have all of these ingredients already in your house, so you won’t need to ask mom to take you to the grocery store to get what you need to give her her gift. These took less than 10 minutes to put together. The rest of the time they sit in the fridge. In true mother’s day fashion, make sure you wash the dishes. Otherwise the entire thought of the gift is negated.

Oh Baby Bars

adapted from Eat, Live, Run

ingredients

-3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

-1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened

-2 Tbsp brown sugar

-1 1/3 cup confectioners sugar

-1 12 oz bag chocolate chips

-1 Tbsp butter

Line a 9×13″ pan with foil.

Beat together the peanut butter, 1/2 stick butter, brown sugar, and confectioners sugar. Press down into the bottom of the pan. (I used a sheet of waxed paper on top of the dough to help me do this. This is also an awesome job to give little siblings).

In a heatproof (NON METAL!) bowl, put the chocolate chips and 1 Tbsp butter. Microwave at 30 second intervals on power level 5, stirring after each 30 seconds until smooth. Pour over peanut butter dough/crust thing, spread evenly. Refrigerate for about an hour before cutting into small pieces.

they should look kinda like this from the side.

These would be fun to eat while kite flying at the beach on this stupendous mother’s day!

Happy Mom’s Day, Mom.

-audrey.

First of all, I got both my Food Network Magazine and Food & Wine in the mail today. Helllloooo Saturday night. Oh, I also got the B&H seasonly photographical supply catalog. Lucky me!

Glorious cupcake domeage.

Now I guess you’ll eventually get sick of chocolate cupcakes. I’ve already posted one recipe for them and I have another one planned, on top of this one. But this one is really really fun. And cute. And inviting. And messy.

Cute curly q.

Of course, you could make the base of this cupcake whatever you think would taste good with this fun marshmallow-like frosting. I just chose chocolate because, well, I couldn’t think of a reason not to. I had used a magnolia bakery chocolate cupcake recipe before and not been totally pleased. It was almost too light and airy for a cupcake, it was easily crushed with a thumb and forefinger. This devil’s food recipe from Magnolia is much sturdier and can handle 1/4 cup of pillow-like frosting.

I adore this frosting.

The frosting I used was a modified seven minute frosting. I didn’t feel like making a double boiler and all that jazz so I made this using meringue powder. Very simple method, and it comes out just as shiny and smooth and delicious as the real egg white deal! To transfer the really sticky frosting from the bowl to the cupcake, I used an ice cream scoop. I made the tiny peaks using the back of a spoon by just letting it touch the surface and then pulling it away to leave a peak over and over until the cupcake was covered. This would also look really cute if you smoothed the frosting out and rolled the sides in multi colored sprinkles. Have fun with it, the frosting is very pliable and easy to play around with!

Magnolia Bakery Devil’s Food Cupcakes

(about 28-30)

ingredients:

-2 cups cake flour

-1 cup cocoa powder

-1 1/2 tsp baking soda

-1/2 tsp salt

-1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

-1 1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed

-1/2 cup white sugar

-3 large eggs

-1 1/2 cups buttermilk

-2 tsp vanilla

Preheat to 350. Line cupcake pans with paper liners.

Measure flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl, whisk together.

Cream the butter and sugars for 3 minutes until light and fluffy.

Add eggs, beat until combined. Scrape down sides of bowl occasionally.

Add one third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, stir on low just until combined.

In a measuring cup, add vanilla to buttermilk. Pour half of this mixture into the batter and stir until combined.

Add half of what remains of the flour mixture to the batter and stir, add the rest of the buttermilk mixture and stir, add the rest of the flour mixture and stir.

Using an ice cream scoop, divide batter amongst cupcake pans. Bake for 16-18 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely on wire rack.

Seven Minute Frosting (using meringue powder)

ingredients

-3 Tbsp meringue powder

-1/2 cup cold water

-2 cups granulated sugar

-1/4 cup corn syrup

-1/2 cup water

-2 tsp vanilla

Using the whisk attachment of an electric mixer, beat together the meringue powder and 1/2 cup cold water for 3-4 minutes until stiff peaks form.

In a small saucepan, combine sugar, corn syrup, and 1/2 cup water. Heat over high just until it boils. Remove from heat and let sit for about one minute.

With the mixer on medium speed, pour the sugar mixture into the meringue mixture in a slow, steady, stream. Beat on high for about 4 minutes until shiny and almost stiff peaks form again. Beat in vanilla until combined. Frost cupcakes, store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

As always, enjoy!

-Audrey!

This whole find is a perfect example of how fantastic marketing is. It totally messes with your mind, makes you want to spend $1.50 on something that comes from your faucet. I have no issues falling for marketing. If the company is smart enough to come up with a beautiful package, I’m sold. There’s nothing I can do about it. This brand is genius because it not only incorporates the latest trend of simplicity, but it also gets a giggle out of it’s consumer. It’s really hard to not smile when looking at this bottle of water. Smiling= good feelings= purchase!

It’s kind of tough to see on the next picture, but the speech bubble says, “FEEL SUPAAH” through the bottle. Chuckle.

happy tuesday!

-Audrey

ps…I’m thinking of doing another once a week post that contains nothing but photos wrapping up my week. I’ll try to use as few words as possible. Maybe I’ll get my photos to tell a story. Who knows? What do you think?

I like to be prepared. Always. I’m the person who has a camera, tissues, gum, lollipops, purell, hair bands, safety pins, band aids, extra pens, and food for anyone who needs it. Of course, this means that I usually carry around a large bag with me. I wish that I didn’t need to, I really kind of hate carrying bags. And then one time I got a tiny scratch on the screen of my rebel and decided that I needed to get a camera bag. But I hate camera bags, and most of them don’t have room for all of that other stuff that I needed. Until I saw this. I immediately knew that I needed it. It’s description was calling out to me. And the gorgeous nautical red stripes, sigh. Unfortunately, it had a rather large price tag. It took me 3 cakes to pay off this one. So worth it. I waited three months to be sure that it was the one. I might seem crazy, talking about this bag like it was the biggest decision of my life, but I’m not a big designer person so $150 for a bag is a huge amount for me.

^sloop in action. I’ve heard people complain about how the strap gets all twisty like that, but it really doesn’t bother me. I’ve also heard people say that it looks like a stylish diaper bag. I’m strangely okay with that.

So what does all of this prepared-ness have to do with food? Good question. Whenever I’m going on any sort of day trip, be it a field trip or even just a day out with my friends, like to the beach or something, I make sure that I have food. When I was little, I used to go crazy when I didn’t have food every few hours so I just got used to having a little nosh (thanks Kate’s dad, I now use that word constantly) with me at all times. Now I’m a normal human being who can go more than two hours without eating (sometimes), so I carry food with me mostly for other people. For example, I was going on a field trip to six flags the other day with my physics class. This entailed getting to school at 6:30 so we could be on time to sit on a bus for the better part of three hours. We’d spend the entire day at the park only to drag our exhausted butts back onto our ever so comfortable seats on the bus. I knew that a little sugar kick would be needed by all.

So I made these. Peanut butter candy bar cookies. I figured that they had some protein with the peanut butter, making them the perfect early morning or late afternoon pick me up. These are outrageous. Melt in your mouth peanut butter cookies chock full of dark chips, bits of snickers, and reeses. I made them extra small so I can have lots of them. Sometimes I use my noggin.

Peanut Butter Candy Bar Cookies

makes: a lot

Adapted from Brown Eyed Baker

ingredients:

1 1/4 cups flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

1 cup peanut butter (I use skippy natural, or at least they say it’s natural, there’s no need to stir!)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed

1 large egg

1 Tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup chopped snickers

3/4 cup chopped reeses

3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat to 400. (For mini cookies, which this recipe provides. If you want normal size cookies, preheat to 350 and skip the splitting in half balls of dough part at the end of the recipe).

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Cream together butter, peanut butter, and sugars for about three minutes until light and fluffy.

Add the egg and beat until combined.

Add vanilla and milk and beat until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally.

On low speed, add the flour mixture just until it’s mixed in. Stir in snickers, reeses, and chocolate chips by hand.

Using a tablespoon sized cookie scoop, scoop out tablespoon sized balls of dough. Break those in half and place on a parchment lined baking sheet about an inch apart. Flatten slightly with the back of a spoon. Bake at 400 for about 5-7 minutes, until the edges just start to become golden.

Because there is only one egg in this recipe, the cookies tend to break apart very easily. This makes it so they are more of a melt in your mouth texture. Leave the cookies on the cookie sheet until they are completely cool before transferring them anywhere, or slide the parchment off of the sheet and leave them on it to cool.

Devour.

-Audrey!

*I’d just like it on the record that yesterday, April 29th 2011, I conquered my fear of heights and went on my first ‘real’ roller coaster. I loved it. I’m so happy. Not that I’m not usually happy.*

Now for some cupcakes on this lovely day. This was my first attempt at making browned butter, and while I do think it looks beautiful in the frosting I was not a huge fan of the taste. I don’t like feeling like I’m eating straight butter. I guess when you brown the butter the flavor gets much stronger, because this was just waaaay to buttery for me. Everyone else who tried it seemed to enjoy them though! The cupcake was delicious, it reminded me of a chocolate chip cookie without the chips. I bet it would be delicious with a chocolate ganache glaze instead of the browned butter glaze.

Brown Sugar Pound Cake Cupcakes

Recipe from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes (makes 28)

ingredients

-3 cups all purpose flour

-2 tsp baking powder

-1/2 tsp salt

-2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

-2 1/4 cups light brown sugar

-4 large eggs, room temp

-3/4 cup buttermilk (I didn’t have any and just used whole milk..it was still delicious!)

Preheat to 325.

Line standard muffin tin with paper liners.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

Cream butter and brown sugar about 3 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat until incorporated, scraping down the bowl at intervals.

Add the flour mixture in three batches, alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour. Only mix in the flour until it disappears into the batter.

Using an ice cream scoop, divide the batter amongst the lined muffin cups, filling each 3/4 full. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Cool before frosting. After frosted, store at room temp in an airtight container (this is okay because the butter in the frosting has been cooked).

Browned Butter Icing

ingredients

-1 stick unsalted butter

-2 cups confectioners sugar

-2 tsp vanilla extract

-2 Tbsp milk, more if needed

Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat, swirling pan occasionally, until nut brown in color, about ten minutes. (Mine came to a simmer for a bit and it took longer than 10 minutes but still came out fine).

Remove pan from heat, pour off butter into another bowl, leaving any burnt bits behind.

Whisk in confectioners sugar, vanilla, and milk until smooth. Add more milk a little at a time until it reaches your desired consistency. Use immediately.

To ice cupcakes…

Put cupcakes onto a cooling rack about an inch apart, and spoon frosting over cupcakes just until it begins to spill over sides. Let them set for about 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

-Audrey

I’ll have lots of food coming at you in the next few days. Until then, try looking at your world upside down. It’s totally rad.

I guess any normal human being would’ve taken the photo standing up and then flipped in on the computer or something. Hah. Normal human being I am not. I wouldn’t have even thought of this picture had I not been such a weirdo that I was leaning as far back in my barstool as possible without tipping over. And then I went to take the picture and needed to do it on full manual, so I sat in the chair facing the ceiling but almost the wall like a freak for at least 6 minutes. I almost got stuck in that position. It was kind of worth it.

Oh, and today was absolute PERFECT wiffle ball playing weather, if anyone was wondering.

Elaina. Not our best teammate. That’s okay. She’s the best in many other ways.

Kate. It’s very easy to get pictures of her laughing.

Ta Ta for now!

-Audrey

Sorry, just one more time. Sometimes upside down things blow my mind.