I'm alive, I swear!

I really need to get better at this blogging thing. I'm great at READING them and even trying out new recipes, but not so great at posting these endeavors. To buy me some leeway from whatever loyal fans I may have, I've added a blog roll to the side so that you all can enjoy in the primarily blogs that inspire me! And a testimony to demonstrate that I've been staying true to spending lots of quality time in my tiny kitchen, I give you this!

Colleen and Amelia, two of my best friends and labmates, came running into the office yesterday looking for cookies. I've been making them weekly, so people have come to expect them at this point. Anyways, at the request of Colleen I made another batch of brown sugar cookies. I found the recipe at Baking Bites last week and made it for those who are less chocolate inclined, but apparently both chocolate and non-chocolate aficionados alike appreciate this recipe! They came out EVEN better since I made sure to really cream the butter and sugar for a good 5 or so minutes. Then I also baked a recipe from the Flour cookbook for "Chunky Lolas", but I made some adjustments to the recipe. Overall, they might be my new favorite recipe, as they are loaded with raisins, choco chips, oatmeal, and coconut flakes. It calls for pecans, which I would have loved to add, but I don't have a wholesale club membership yet, so I'll save off on buying nuts for baking since they're so darn expensive. Anyways, they came out PERFECTLY!

Then today I continued the kitchen mayhem. I practically sprinted home from work in order to try my hand at the creamed spinach recipe from smitten kitchen that I had been oogling. I had never had creamed spinach as far as I can recall, but man, I have not had such delicious savory scents filling up my kitchen in I don't even know how long! I made the dish to my likings, so with smaller portions, especially with respect to the roux it calls for. I also loved the idea of an over easy egg dribbling over the creamed spinach, so I went ahead and included that, but because I lacked a baguette in my kitchen, I included some potatoes in the creamed spinach. But really, just make it now! Stop reading and make it!

Still reading? Okay, I just played around with Deborah Madison's basic buttermilk muffin recipe from her Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone book. If the apple muffins come out well, which I will test tomorrow for breakfast, I will be sure to come back and post the recipe I used! I will also try and create some sort of tasty picture to go with it, since this post right here is a whole lot of text.

Happy eating, folks!