I know that I have not been posting lately. Time has really caught me up as of late. Things that do not involve food have decided to invade my life. I know. THE HORROR!!!! I have this massive back log of yummy goodness to share with you too. Sigh. I am thinking that maybe I need a new way in which to force share my cooking adventures with you. I know you are interested my wonderful readers reader... you want to know all about me don't you? STALKER!

Well my good friend Renee over at Flamingo Musings tagged me with a "meme". Now I generally do not do meme's, but I thought to myself - why the hell not. I know how nosy much you all love me and want to know all about me... quit laughing I can hear you from here. Oh and this is a One-Word meme. But we all know how well I follow the rules.

So without further ado - more about me then you could ever care to want to know about - but somehow you just can't stay away can you?

1. Where is your cell phone? Bed

2. Your hair? Bedhead

3. Your mother? Listener

4. Your father? Constant

5. Your favorite food? Sushi

6. Your dream last night? Wonderful

7. Your favorite drink? Ice Cold Beer

8. Your dream/goal? (To be / stay) Complete

9. What room are you in? My LivingBedOfficeFrontDiningFamilyRoom. (The whole place is 450 sq ft remember...)

10. Your hobby? Food et al

11. Your fear? Defeat

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Farming

13. Where were you last night? Bed (with my phone apparently...)

14. Something you aren't? Helpless

15. Muffins? YES!

16. Wish list item? Success

17. Where did you grow up? Chicago

18. Last thing you did? Answered 17

19. What are you wearing? socks

20. Your TV? WGN

21. Your pets? An adopted ninja

22. Friends? True

23. Your life? Amusing

24. Your mood? Improving

25. Missing someone? Deeply

26. Vehicle? Jeep

27. Something you're not wearing? Pants (you asked...)

28. Your favorite store? Barnes & Noble

29.Your favorite color? Blue

30. When was the last time you laughed? 2 minutes ago

31. Last time you cried? This morning (Watched Three Rivers...)

32. Your best friend? My two J's

33. One place you go to over and over again? Home

34. One person who e-mails you regularly? Katie

35. Favorite place to eat? With company


WAIT!!! Are you waving a white flag?

It was the no pants answer right? TMI?

I. L O V E. Fall.

And for the past many years I have been without. No colors changing, no pumpkin patches, no caramel apples, no hay rides or hot apple cider and smores while snuggling around a roaring fire.

Is it any wonder I went completely crazy and escaped back to the Midwest?

Especially for me who absolutely LOVES HALLOWEEN. I had a good 5 boxes of Halloween decor that came with me to Chicago. Including a life size skeleton which would have sat next to me for the 30 hour drive had I not been lucky enough to procure a co-pilot in Albuquerque... (The labor there is so CHEAP!) Sigh, I do regret not slapping him behind the wheel just for photo's sake...

So September came and went and then here came October and suddenly something in me clicked. I ACTUALLY get to enjoy FALL! I get to bake with pumpkin and not die of heat exhaustion when the 375 degree oven makes my AC turn on in October... I get to enjoy FRESH APPLES! No such thing as fresh apples in AZ... Unless if by fresh you consider 3 week old grocery store pithy vile things. My carved pumpkin wont ROT within 3 days from the SUNS GAMMA RAYS of DEATH. No more MICROWAVE smores... Yay!

But really, bottom line? Pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin!

In the coming weeks we plan on buying some pie pumpkins so we can roast our own and make fresh puree, but till then, to satisfy my cravings, I went and bought myself that old standby can of Libby's pumpkin and baked up some Scary Chocolate Drizzle Pumpkin Scones.

I call them "Scary" because you can easily eat the whole batch... and because unbeknown to me, I bought the last can of pumpkin in the tri-state area due to a "pumpkin shortage".

Gasp!! The horror...

The goods:

1 1/2 C All purpose flour
1/2 C Cake flour
2 T sugar
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/4 t allspice
1/4 t ginger
6 T butter
4 oz. cream cheese
1/2 C pumpkin puree
1/3 C buttermilk
1/4 C maple syrup
1 t vanilla

The deal:

Preheat oven to 375°

Cut the butter into small pieces and chill out in freezer.

Cut the cream cheese into small cubes and chill in freezer with the butter. You want the cheese to be slightly frozen.

Mix together the pumpkin, buttermilk, syrup and vanilla until well blended and then also chill out in freezer. Of course as I am quickly learning, you could also just put it out onto your 32° window ledge if you happen to live in Chicago by the LAKE...

Now, in a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt.

Retrieve the butter and blend it into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or your fingers. This mixture should look like coarse crumbs.

Now do the same with the cream cheese, only less vigorously. You want to see the cream cheese chunks. Do not pulverize them.

Okay, add the buttermilk mixture to the flour and mix just until the dough comes together. Do not over mix. Remember. Want to see chunks of cheese... Cheese good.

Dump this mixture out onto a lightly floured surface, knead a few times to form a flat circle about 1.5" thick and 7"- 8" round. (I tried saying "form a disc" but I kept typing in dick dick dick and I am TRYING, to almost no avail, to keep this site family friendly... god dammit...)

Now cut this circle into 8 pie slices and place on a cookie sheet and put that cookie sheet on top of another sheet so that the bottoms of the scones do not burn and slide it all into your oven...

Bake at 375° for approx 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool. (As opposed to leaving in the oven to cool which, yea, doesn't work...)

The Chocolate Crack Glaze

While the scones are cooling pour 4 oz chocolate chips into a glass bowl. Heat 1/2 c of heavy whipping cream to a boil. Pour cream over the chocolate and slowly stir until blended. Add one T of butter and stir till smooth. Drizzle over scones.

Lick spoon.

Lick bowl.

Fall into sugar coma.

Bribe your friends and family into doing anything you want with the mere promise of one of these amazing scones.

Yes yes, I am alive and kicking. Just been busy. I mean B U S Y. When I capitalize AND space the letters out like that I mean business. Doesn't mean I haven't been cooking or baking or eating or enjoying. It just means I have not been posting. Did you miss me at all my loyal readers reader? Maybe a smidgen? No? Eh. Truth me told you didn't miss much. I have a few back logged posts that I am saving up for another time, however today is a bring you up to date on the BBA post. That is, the Bread Bakers Apprentice Challenge. Yes. More bread. Are you excited or what? (Yes Dad I know you are, I meant the readers reader that doesn't feel obligated to read what I have to say...) I DO PROMISE that when I get my act together you will be the first to know. Heck you might even recognize it before I do.

Anyway, for sake of yeast product documentation... here is where we are:

We baked the French bread:

& the Italian bread, which we turned into bread sticks. They didn't stand a chance...

and they are posted in slightly more detail here. (NOTE: I helped BAKE but did not help POST so therefore cannot be held accountable for the lack of punctuation. You've been amply warned.)

Okay, so we skipped the Kaiser for now because we are just CRAZY like that...

And moved on to the Lavash. Which was an adventure in itself and the tom foolery can be found here as well.

And then, ha, get this. Someone actually left town to avoid baking the wheat breads with me. I mean seriously what gives? So hence, in my mini-kitchen I baked the Light Wheat:

And I baked the Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire. Which I guess was like the light wheat just with more... "crunch"??? I also can't for the freaking life of me find the damn photos I took of it and no I will NOT bake it again. So kids, let's all close our eyes and imagine that yummy multigrain bread with - like - rice and seeds and psudo cereal. Now slather some home made butter on it, yea yea that's right...

Um. Okayyy. That got weird. So, moving on. We also skipped the marbled rye. "We" meaning "I" because "I" was going to do this bread when someone fled the country to avoid baking with me, but lo and behold - NO ONE SELLS RYE FLOUR. Don't you look at me with those judging eyes and scream King Arthur Dot COM woman!, I wasn't going to place an order for just one type of flour. I looked in 5 different stores. It is like it didn't exist which forces me to ask - where is all this rye bread coming from if there is no rye flour?

Anyway, we moved on to Pain de Campagne & Pain a l'Ancienne. The Campagne we baked into baguette's and they tasted like mmm... bread.

And the a l'Ancienne we froze for impromptu pizza during the week, but I turned one lucky blob o' dough in this yummy apple focaccia:

Which I promptly ate. Alone. HA. Serves you right for abandoning me mid baking book...

But I digress. If you are interested in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge just click here to visit Nicole at Pinch My Salt and get the details. And if you decide to bake along with us I suggest you buy stock in King Arthur before you purchase any supplies, because you are going to spend your retirement in flour and yeast...

The weekend after I moved into my MASSIVE apartment in Chicago, Lollapalooza came to town. A weekend of lewdness and drunkenness and bawdy lascivious women and I decide to leave for the weekend. NICE HUH? Who makes these plans for me?!? I had this massive kitchen in which to cook and create... and here I was leaving.

Yes, YOU DO remember what my kitchen looked like right?

Seriously - it is THAT small. That is a real penny. Was my change from laundry. The laundry room is bigger then my kitchen.

Actually it is bigger then my apartment. But I still lurve it.

I decided after I got back from my weekend (which, I may add contained some debauchery, some bread, a few beers... did I mention debauchery?) that I wasn't going to let such a small kitchen scare me into a life of carry out. I could still cook and boil and maybe even saute' in my lil kitchen. Ooh and maybe even bake! Oh yea, this winter mah teeny little apartment is so going to smell like fresh baked bread and cookies and cupcakes all season long and it is so going to RULE! (But it won't ever smell like cranberry walnut bread. I'm just saying...)

However tonight, I craved a nice & healthy light dinner for myself. Something tasty and satisfying, and not to heavy. So over carryout from Jimmy Johns - I retro-fitted my lil kitchen, and chopped my way into Tabouleh heaven.

In case you were wondering, tabouleh is a bulgur and parsley salad, that is not only yummy, but rather healthy as well. It fills you up and is chock full of fiber and antioxidents - it was just what I needed after the two beers I enjoyed with my #12 unwich.

Here are your required ingredients:

2 bunches of fresh parsley (1 1/2 cup chopped, with stems discarded)
(Traditionally curly parsley is used here, however I prefer flat leaf Italian.)
2 tablespoons of fresh mint, chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
4 medium tomatoes, diced
1/3 cup bulgur
3 - 4 tablespoons lemon juice
3 - 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 t salt (to taste)
1/2 t pepper (to taste)
dash of cayenne (again... TO TASTE)
optional - left over cucumber (diced) from last nights peanut butter and cucumber pop tart swammich. (I so ROCK the eating for one adventure!)

First - soak the bulgur in cold water for 1 hour.

Drink a beer or 5 while waiting... then,

Chop the parsley:

(I propped my cutting board over my mini-stove top to make room for all the ingredients. It didn't quite work.)

Then chop the mint, the tomatoes, the onion, and you get where I am going here right? It is tabouleh - not bioengineering.

Toss all the chopped goodies with the drained bulgur. Top with the olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. Then add the cayenne and stir to incorporate. You can serve it immediately with pita or leaves of romaine, but I like to chill it for at least an hour. Mmm yum!

My kitchen is Tabouleh friendly! Yay! Next up little kitchen - chateaubriond. Chateaubreoind? Chateaubriand!! Ah screw it. Chocolate Chip Cookies!...

Be afraid.

Did you miss me?

Wait... who am I even talking too?

Me: Hello?

Mr. Echo: Hello hello hello hello hellooooooooo...

Just as I suspected. Ghost town.

Not that I can blame you. I have been - well rather gone. Tho you should know I had good reason to be gone. Big changes happened for this bodacious girl - that even the MOST BODACIOUS of girls needs time to adjust to.

The most important being I am A CHICAGOAN again!!! insert applause

Second most important is I got my appetite back! insert more applause. It was getting almost impossible to write about ice water and potato chips. I mean there are only so many combo platters one can make with that. (13. There are 13 combo's you can make and no I am not going to reveal them.) The biggest bonus? I took applications for a baking buddy to help me back on the BBA track. The right candidate had a functioning Kitchen Aid, an amazing King Arthur flour supply, and a nice ass. Hey, a girl has to have her priorities.

Needless to say with the creation of this:

We are officially caught up. Ta da!

More news on the Chicago front. My blog features, layout, postings, etc... going to change. Things are different now, and not everything is relevant. Like grilling bread in the hot Arizona desert. Or What the hell am I going to do with all these damn lemons? No. They just don't work anymore. Look more for "Holy CRAP it's cold here in December!" and "How the hell does Heather cook anything in THIS???"

This. Is. My. Kitchen.

It has no dishwasher... Oh positive thoughts of joy and joyness...

Anyway, if you are still reading (insert cricket sound here) - watch for new fodder. More mid west gardening folly's, farmer's market pillages, keeping up and kicking back with the BBA and my oh so lucky assistant baker, and every other food related thing I can attend, enjoy, pursue, cook, create, dish out, raise or grow. And more... much much more...big changes. HUGEEEE! (No I don't know what yet... I have been drinking and it is 11:20 at night. Cut a girl a break huh?)

Okay. Thank you for indulging me and hopefully sticking around these past 45 days while I gallivanted across country to my new home.

You, my fellow readers reader, rock.