Cooking with the Hubs

Two of my most anticipated recipes have just been sitting on my boards on Pinterest for just way too long.  Today had to be the day.  Tonight was a pseudo-date night for my husband and I and I thought it would just be peachy to spend it watching a movie, cooking together, and eating.  Of course, I would have to make my most anticipated recipes tonight... These recipes were highly anticipated for three reasons: mac and cheese, avocado, and cinnamon toast crunch.  Yum.  

The first recipe I found on Pinterest, of course.  The pin originated from twopeasandtheirpod.com.  When I saw the picture, my mouth started watering.  Tonight was the night.  After months of waiting and wondering, tonight was the night.  

I started off by making my husband do all the things I dislike doing, shredding the cheese, juicing the lime, paying for the groceries...  Putting the avocado mix together was pretty much just making guacamole, but with fresh garlic.  This was the main mistake.  I trusted in the fresh garlic.  Don't repeat my mistake.  The recipe calls for two minced garlic cloves.  This is going to be a bit strong.  Next time I will do it just like I make my guacamole, to taste.  The following is my modified recipe.

• 10 ounces dry pasta (I used rotini because the ridges absorb the sauce nicely)
• 2 avocados, peeled and pitted
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• Salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• 1 cup shredded Pepper Jack cheese
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Fresh tomato wedges, for garnish

1. Bring water to a boil in a large pot. Salt the water and add in pasta. Stir and cook until Al Dente, about 8-10 minutes. Drain and set aside.

2. While the pasta is cooking, make the avocado sauce by placing the avocados, lime juice, cilantro, salt, pepper, and garlic powder into a food processor or blender. (The trick the garlic powder is to add a little at a time and taste it after mixing it all in - go easy.  It's better to have to add more and blend again than to have too much.)  Process until smooth and creamy. Set aside.  (Or leave it a little chunky if you want a chunkier sauce in the end.)

3. To make the cheese sauce, place butter in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat. When butter is melted, whisk in flour to create a paste. Whisk in milk until smooth. Stir until the sauce starts to thicken. Add in Pepper Jack cheese and stir until cheese is melted and sauce is creamy.

4. Place macaroni in a large bowl. Pour the avocado sauce over the macaroni and stir until well coated. Add the cheese sauce and stir until macaroni is coated and creamy. Serve warm. Garnish with fresh tomato wedges, if desired.

Delicious.  

The next recipe was simple, to the point, and my childhood dreams fulfilled.  Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cupcakes.  Yes, I'm serious.  I would rename them Little Pieces of Heaven Cupcakes or maybe even Magical Crack Cupcakes because of their addictive quality.  I found this recipe in a dream, or a vision, whichever.  This dream happened when I was exploring a favorite blog called Baked from a Box.  To get to the point...

• Vanilla cake mix and it's required ingredients (eggs, oil, water...)
• 2 cups Cinnamon Toast Crunch
• 1 tablespoon Cinnamon
• Buttercream Frosting

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Blend Cinnamon Toast Crunch with cinnamon in blender until it is like dust, but still has some chunks in it. 
2. In a large bowl, beat the cake mix and necessary ingredients together according to the directions on the box.  
3. Line cupcake pan with cupcake paper cups.  Fill cups one third full.  Sprinkle some of the cereal dust on top of the batter.  Add more batter until cups are two thirds full.  Sprinkle more dust on top and mix each one gently with a fork.
4. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.  
5. Let them cool completely before frosting.  After putting the frosting on, sprinkle lightly with more of the cereal dust on top and garnish with a whole Cinnamon Toast Crunch square.

Tips:  If you have a cupcake batter dispenser (mine is the Tovolo Cupcake Batter Pen Dispenser)  it makes life so much easier (except when you have to clean it), but if you don't, fill a baggie with the batter and cut a corner off to keep things cleaner and help make filling the cups a lot easier.  When you are ready to frost the cupcakes, put the frosting in a bowl and whip it with an electric beater to aerate it.  This will make it fluffier and easier to spread.  Then (if you don't have a frosting tube) put it into a baggie, cut off a corner and apply it that way.  It is cleaner, easier, and more attractive than spreading it on with a butter knife.

Make sure you fold the top down and use your hands to scrape the frosting off the spatula.

I started with one layer on the bottom and added another layer to add some height.

Monkey see, monkey exfoliate.

As I was browsing through Pinterest today through the beauty section, I found a recipe for an exfoliant and method for your legs.  The post came originally from Gluten Free Navy Wife on blogspot.  The recipe reminded me of another sugar scrub I have tried that works really well and is super simple.  So why not give this a try for my legs.  Especially since it is winter and my legs are starting to look a little bit like teen wolf.  I was a little hesitant to give it a try at first because I just got back from Colombia and have a nice (although unintentional) tan.  But, once again, it is winter and showing off my tan is something my face and neck are responsible for.  Sooo... here goes nothing.

The Process

First things first, gather the ingredients,

• 2 1/2 cups of sugar
• 1 cup of oil (Any old kind, I used vegetable oil because that's what I had, but I would much rather prefer coconut, almond, or almost anything else with a nice scent to it.)
• 5 tablespoons of citrus juice (I used lemon.)
• A few drops of some kind of essential oil (Optional, but I used Tea Tree Oil)

Next mix 'em up in a bowl.  

Get the bath ready, make sure you have your razor blade ready because it's about to get some exercise.  

When you are in the bath, enjoy a nice soak for about five minutes (which is as long as I find baths enjoyable anyway).  After that, use the sugar scrub on one leg, use circular massaging motions and make sure to spend some time on your knees where skin tends to get dull.  If you feel like it, get your feet too, they will thank you later.

After rinsing, shave the leg.  Exfoliate again. Yes, that's right, again.  Then, shave it again.  Excessive, nope.  The first shave gets rid of the hair and skin you sloughed off the first time, the second shave gets rid of even more skin your sugar scrub just removed.  Repeat with the other leg.

When I filled the bath tub up, I put some bath salt and shower gel for bubbles in the tub.  I really didn't want to smell like olive oil when I was done and I might as well make this bath enjoyable.  One Republic channel on Pandora? Check.  Even with the music and the bubbles, I still got impatient waiting for my five minute soak to be over.

Then the scrubbing and shaving happened.  It took a good ten minutes.

The Result

After doing this, my legs felt so silky and I had so much of the sugar scrub left over that I decided to do the rest of my body (without the shaving step...).  Now my whole body feels super smooth and the peeling burn/tan I had on my shoulders and back is more evened out, but there was a whole lot of dead skin just pouring off my body.  It was really quite gross.

Afterward, I felt pretty oily and the bathwater was absolutely disgusting, so I drained it at the same time as taking a shower and washing with my regular body wash to get some of the oil off.  Pampering myself like this felt so good I continued the fun to my face with a charcoal mask.  The multitasker that I am did my nails as well while I waited for the mask to dry.  I also lotioned my entire body.  Back, chest, and neck with pure aloe vera gel and the rest of me with my favorite lotion, Curel Ultra Healing Intensive Lotion.  I am now fighting the urge to drive around to hair salons and find someone to cut my hair and wax my eyebrows.

Overall, I loved it.  I would do it again, but cut the recipe in half so that I don't have to find a way to con my husband into using what's left again.  In the beginning I was worried about scrubbing my tan away, but it turns out my tan just looks better, more even, and glows nicely.

Edit: I tried this again with coconut oil and I loved it!  It is thicker so it makes it easier to use the scrub and smells so much better.

Best part of being in a foreign country: learning how to do your hair all over again.

During some time spent in Colombia, I decided that my usually curly/wavy hair needed to be put up as the climate was making it a little bit high-maintenence.  Where I'm from, all I have to do is massage in some leave-in conditioner and let it air-dry.  My layered haircut is really perfect for the look I like so that's all I need.  Colombia, however, made my hair bigger and frizzier.  So one night, before going out I decided to do something different.

I knew I was going to leave it natural and I was thinking of sweeping it to the side into a side pony.  But that can't be all because of the layers in my hair would come out and curl around it with their big frizzy selves.

So I did what anyone would do.  I put in a waterfall braid from behind my right ear going to my behind my left ear where I completed the braid and let it hang.  Then I secured it (and some of the cascading hair) with a couple large bobby pins (the kinds you would use for rollers).  The braid and the pins secured my hair to the side and some pretty tendrils were loose as well.

Then, I used a long necklace I have and wrapped it around my hair for fun.  I then secured the loose ends with bobby pins, also making sure to secure the whole thing to my head.  I only had to use four bobby pins, two for each side of my head.

This is the result.

Then, because my hair was so frizzy in this wonderful climate, I used a shine spray to smooth it out and give it some shine.  This also helped to define the natural curls.  As far as glossing sprays go, I like Garnier Fructis Brilliantine Shine Glossing Spray because it gets the job done well, smells pretty good, and only costs $3.47 at Wal-Mart.

Wish I had taken more pictures now, but you know what they say about hindsight, it's always 20/20.