adventures in curry: easy mulligatawny

Well, the fog still persists and so does my urge to make copious amounts of comfort food. Today after I got home from work, husband and I took the dog to the beach. We're fortunate enough to have a state park only a couple of minutes away from our house so I try to take advantage of it whenever I can.

In the summer, it's crazy busy with Canadian tourists, but I love taking walks on the beach in the fall and spring, when it's blessedly free of other people. :) I know I'm too introverted, but it's just so peaceful when we have the whole beach to ourselves.

After returning home, I wanted to make something warm and cozy. So I turned to one of my favorite women of all time, and definitely my favorite blogger: The Pioneer Woman. I love P-Dub with all my heart. She's warm, witty, creative, and glamorous in a country kind of way. And her recipes never lead me astray. I decided on her Mulligatawny soup (and not only because she begins her post with a Seinfeld reference).

Easy Mulligatawny 

I've never been averse to curry, but I hadn't exactly sought out recipes that had curry in them, just because it had never seemed that delicious to me. This soup changed all that when I first discovered it a few years ago.

The photo really doesn't do it justice, not even a little bit. With diced chicken, an onion, a granny smith apple, curry powder, chicken broth, and half & half as its main ingredients, it's pretty amazing. The half & half gives it a beautiful velvety texture and the apple gives it a surprising sweet crunch. If you're looking to experiment with curry, this is definitely the way to begin. It's easy, has simple ingredients, and has a deliciously unique flavor.
Just be sure to wash all the dishes ASAP. Otherwise your house will smell like curry for one whole week as opposed to only one day. ;)

While I was going through my email after dinner, I found this amazeballsness in my weekly newsletter from ThinkGeek:

Catty Stacks Modular Cat Condos Cats are sort of like babies in that they tend to love the bags and the boxes that new toys come in more than the actual toy themselves. Give a cat a box and she can play for hours trying to discover the untold secrets of every last corner of that cardboard mystery. Rather than wasting anymore time with toys, why not just get your cat her heart's desire: moar boxes! Build your cat a box mansion with these stackable, superstrong Catty Stacks Modular Cat Condos. Big or small, nimble or not, Catty Stacks are made from strong Corrugated Ultraboard that can handle cats up to 20 pounds. Stack Catty Stacks high and low and your cat can explore, jump, play, hide, and scratch the day away.

Despite the fact that one of my cats doesn't fit the weight requirement (*ahem*...), this looks pretty rad. Some day I will buy a ton of these and make the most epic cat fort of all time.
Because that's what crazy cat ladies do. :D

seriously, try this: cinnamon roll cake

Happy Sunday! Our house has been surrounded by fog for the last few days and it's felt very cozy hanging out at home. It's brought out the domestic in me a bit. Not domestic enough to finally finish putting away all of our wedding presents (I need more storage space!), but enough to do fun domestic things. Such as baking this incredible recipe that I found on Pinterest a couple of weeks ago.

Sometimes on Saturday nights when our cupboards are horrifically free of junk food I just get the urge to bake something sweet to satisfy my craving. So far, the husband doesn't seem to mind. Scrolling through my nom nom Pinterest board last night, it seemed impossible to find something that I had all of the ingredients for. But then I came across this beautiful gem of a recipe (pinned with the caption "perfect for Christmas morning!") and I knew I had found a winner.

cookin' up north: Cinnamon Roll Cake 

It's a fairly easy cake to make and it has basic ingredients that are easily found in your pantry...buuut it's also probably one of the most unhealthy things I've ever made. Lots of sugar and butter. Which is what makes it so damn good. This truly is a great dish for special occasion breakfasts/brunches orrrrr for if you just want to eat something really effing delicious. 

While making the cake, things went pretty smoothly but I did have a little "oh, shit!" moment when I ran out of milk like half a cup away from what I needed. But husband and I had a fun little late night adventure to the gas station to get more (and also mini oreos...) so all in all it was a pretty stress-free baking experience. However upon reflection, I wish I had left it in the oven for just a couple of minutes longer. I only kept it in for the minimum cook time of 28 minutes due to the fact that I hate overcooking things. So it's a little doughy in some places, but that's not a terrible thing. I also didn't wait to glaze it after taking it out of the oven, which in retrospect I should have. It's supposed to be poured on when the cake is warm, not hot. So the glaze kind of absorbed into the cake, which is why it's so thin in comparison with the original poster's. But honestly, I think it just made it more awesome. :D

It is literally one of the best things I have ever put in my mouth. Seriously. I can't believe we have a whole 9"x13" pan full of this stuff. There's no way we're going to be able to eat it all ourselves - I may have to bring some to work with me tomorrow. So bear that in mind if you don't have a household or a party of people to help you eat this. With 1 1/2 cups of butter and 4 total cups of sugar (1 c white, 1 c brown, 2 c powdered), this shit is decadent. This cake is better than actual cinnamon rolls, in my own unprofessional opinion. So bake and eat with caution.

I think it's time to go use my sugar rush to do something productive...such as working on other projects I've found on Pinterest! (Which as we all know, means "trying to find that one project on that one board that I pinned months ago but then getting distracted by all the new pins on my home page so then staying glued to my couch for a couple of hours, aimlessly scrolling through page after page of pins before forgetting why I started looking in the first place.")

Why fight the inevitable...

to infinity and beyond

 "Life...is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, has a few pips in it, and some folks have half a one for breakfast."
-Douglas Adams

Hello gentle reader. Welcome to my new and improved blog. I hope to take you on an adventure through space and time, or at the very least through my kitchen. But then, food blogs these days are a dime a dozen. So I plan to amaze you with ALL of my attempts (failed and otherwise) at living life as a productive human being. Or as a lazy human being, depending on the day.

I plan to cover anything and everything that may interest me - opinions about books, movies, TV shows and pop culture along with any random crap I may find on Pinterest. Be it recipes, DIY projects, interesting ideas, or whatever. I hope you don't find it terribly obnoxious, but if you do...well...that's too bad.