Happy Halloween

Can you guess which one's mine?

Going to bed to sleep off my overdose of pumpkin-shaped Peeps. (Can you believe they were all out of chocolate-covered marshmallow pumpkins earlier?! A girl just can't catch a break sometimes.)

Candy consumed while writing this post: one Kit Kat, one fun-sized bag of Skittles, two Hershey's chocolate nuggets

It's one of those nice, quiet days here in the office. No one's breathing down my neck to get something done. This is both good and bad. Good in the sense that I get to slack off, browse the internet, look for Halloween candy. Bad in the sense that I get to slack off, browse the internet, look for Halloween candy.

I just got off the phone with the Husband after a conversation that went something like this:

Me: I'm bored. Give me something to write about.

Him: Write about eating too many caramel apples and now you don't get any Skittles for a week.

Me: That's rude. And dumb. It was only one and a third caramel apples, anyway. Give me something else.

Him: Why don't you write about how you're so addicted to candy that nothing else matters and that if you were offered a GOLD BAR or a lifetime supply of candy, you'd TAKE THE CANDY?

Me: (pause) Well, what's wrong with that?!

Him: Do you know how much a gold bar IS WORTH?

Me: Maybe I can sell some of the candy.

Him: A GOLD BAR. You'd take CANDY over a GOLD BAR.

Me: Okay, wait. How much is the gold bar worth? Maybe I could take the gold bar and use half to buy candy and half to buy, I don't know, a house or something. Then we both win!

Him: When it comes to you and candy, WE ALL LOSE.

Me: Maybe I should write about how prone to injuries you are.

Him: (pause) That's only when I play sports.

Seriously, Internet? You should see this man's poor knees. He plays softball and he likes to show what a big, tough man he is and how he can slide. I tell him all the time that there are much more productive things he can do while he's on his knees (LIKE SCRUB FLOORS), but if it doesn't cause bleeding, forget it.

Anyway.

Happy Chocolate Eating Halloween!

I thought serving it like this would be much more fun.

Popcorn off the floor anyone? Don't mind the bits of cat hair. It's nutritious.

It's like Netflix threw up in my mailbox.

Four DVDs is a lot when you were only expecting one and never get more than two.

And I don’t know why I feel the need to share this, except why have a blog if not to share the most boring and mundane parts of my life?

Did I mention I'm working my way through all the Academy Award winners? I know. I'm so ambitious and centered.

You can read all about that here.

Frey Supreme White Lemon & Lime

Let me introduce you to my new BFF favorite chocolate.

They sell this brand exclusively at Target and I always walk past them, intrigued. But, at two bucks a pop, they're a bit pricey. I can get a pound of Hershey's chocolate for two bucks. And I love me some Hershey's chocolate.

One day, after having spent countless hours minutes staring upon this chocolate, I couldn't resist any longer. I finally decided to give this one a try because I thought it might taste like Key Lime Pie. And I love me some Key Lime Pie. (Okay, I'll stop.)

Well, I was right. This decadent white chocolate had tiny little bursts of lemon and lime flavors and it was an amazing combination.



I um... I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I unintentionally ate the entire chocolate bar right then and there as I watched Hope Floats on A&E.; This was after the bowl of Risotto (more on that later) and I fell asleep, fat full and happy, in front of the TV.



It was just too good to resist. And I didn't.



As a bonus, here's a fantastic and super easy faux Key Lime Pie recipe that I found here.

Ingredients
1 large tub of Cool Whip
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 can frozen limeaid mix
2 pre-made graham cracker pie crusts
(I insist they be pre-made so that I don't feel bad about myself for not making them from scratch, but come on, people! This is supposed to be easy!)

Directions
I think the original recipe says not to defrost everything, but I'm a terrible reader and let everything defrost before mixing together. And it worked brilliantly. In fact, I don't know why you'd even think about not defrosting. Everything would be much more difficult to mix together if you didn't.

So, go ahead and let everything defrost on the counter.

Then dump everything into a bowl and mix until creamy.

Pour into your two pre-made pie crusts and freeze.

Then eat an entire pie by yourself because that's what I did and, again, I don't want to feel bad about myself.

Thank you.

Why I love Sundays, part II

Pancakes.

(Chocolate makes everything better.)

Why I love Sundays

The Husband makes coffee.

Pumpkin Cakies

I'd like to start with a public service announcement.

Please, for the sake of all cookies everywhere who DESERVE to be baked just right, buy yourself an oven thermometer! I picked this one up last week for all of A DOLLAR and it was damn worth it. Probably the best thing I've ever purchased for my kitchen.

The photo above shows said beloved oven thermometer at 375, but that's after it had a minute to cool down from the oven door being open long enough for me to grab my camera because when I first opened the oven door to check the temp, it was at 400 degrees and I had set my oven to 350 and now I had to grab my camera so I could blog about the injustice of a malfunctioning oven!

So, please, get yourself an oven thermometer. Do it for the cookies. Do it for the cakes. Do it for the brownies!

Thank you. That's the end of this PSA.

Now I must share with you this amazing recipe which I think just entered into my top three favorite cookies of all time.

Hello, my darlings.

These are Pumpkin Cookies, or, as I like to call them, Pumpkin Cakies, because they're fairly cake-like. But, whatever they are, they're delicious. And I'm a tough judge. It isn't often I make something that I fall in love with. I'm too critical. I always wait to hear what others have to say about it first. But these... these I love. And maybe I'll be the only one, but I'm okay with that because MORE FOR ME.

Or maybe I'm just a sucker for anything with pumpkin.

I started with the usual suspects. Butter, sugar, and brown sugar.

This is your brain.

This is your brain on drugs.

Or is this...

Your brain...

On drugs?

(Don't do drugs.)

After the eggs and vanilla came my BFF.

I love you.

And, of course...

Mmm, cinnamon... another of my favorites.

After baking in a controlled oven temperature of 350 degrees for fifteen minutes, they came out all golden brown and lovely and smelling amazing and tasting even better.

I love my counter all covered in cookies.

Then, I took this cookie right here.

And I...

Drizzled a glaze all over the top.

And then...

Well, it had to be done.

These cakies are fantastic. Please try them immediately. No, like now. Thank you.

Go here for the full recipe.