Peanut Butter and Jelly Shakes

I may live off of these for the rest of my life.
I found the recipe in one of our Disney cookbooks and it was so simple, there was no reason not to try it.
The ingredients:

 Milk, Ice Cream, Peanut Butter & Jelly. (Too good to be true, right?)

 Blend until thick & creamy.

See? Nothing fancy here.

One sip and I was in heaven. I've been obsessed with peanut butter & jelly lately, it's all I want to eat and the roomies can testify to that statement.

I made them for the family and my dad said he just wanted half of one. "Oh that's too much," he claimed when I handed him the half glass. Five minutes later I spotted him in the kitchen standing with the class completely overturned  with his mouth wide open trying to get every last drop.

I'm not joking when I said I could eat/drink these for the rest of my life. AMAZING. Leave it to Disney :)

Something for Saturday

When I was a senior in high school, I had to great opportunity of going on a Europe trip the summer after I graduated. It was a trip consisting of over 300 band kids in Arizona. The deal was we traveled to seven different countries over a span of sixteen days and performed concerts in a few towns. Sometimes we would perform in beautiful basilicas, while other times it would be under a ramada in a city park. Whenever we weren't performing, we were sightseeing and getting the whole Europe experience.

We traveled to England, France, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein (for lunch), Italy, and Germany.

It truly was an unforgettable experience, and I was so fortunate to be able to take the trip. I just thought I'd share a few of my favorite pictures from throughout the whole thing.

 Obviously London, England. Big Ben-my favorite structure throughout the trip.

The massive building and ornate design is almost jaw-dropping. Oh & did you know it's actually named Big Ben for the bell inside the clock, not the actual clock?

 The cliffs of Dover. This is on the ferry to France. It's a tad windy out here. :)

 Underneath the Eiffel Tower. I'm a little disappointed with the pictures I took of it from a distance. I did climb the stairs to the highest tier, but didn't pay to take the elevator to the very top. I wanted time to go have crepes instead.

 The Moulin Rouge. I loved the movie, therefore I love the building. This streets is lined with sex shops...thought you all would like to know. hahha

 Crans-Montana, Switzerland with my dear friend Kacey. This place was absolutely gorgeous. If you're wondering where to visit while you're in Europe, you cannot skip out on Switzerland. The scenery is stunning, as you can tell.

 Tanner, Kacey, and I not long after we got off the flight. Right now we're in front of Windsor Castle. Not a great picture of the castle, but this is one of my favorite pictures of all time.

 The Matterhorn with a slight cloud cover. Beautiful Switzerland, once again.

 A little hotel in Austria. My favorite is the flowers hanging over the ledge.

This was taken while I was "walking the wall" in Rothenburg, Germany. It's a little medieval style town that's super touristy. Germany is also very green and gorgeous.

Nonsense

I've hit the dreadful writer's block.
I can't think of anything worthy of posting or something interesting enough to read.
Hopefully this will improve with the start of a new weekend. I have at least one "cooking" adventure planned. (It's a secret...Ahh the suspense is killing you, I'm sure!)
Other than that, it's the roomie's birthday and a weekend filled with work.
In the mean time, here's something for you all to play around with.
I found it awhile ago on stumble and I've been telling myself I'd go back to fill some of it out.
It's a blog called Grace is Overrated and she posts journal pages you can print out, fill out, and decorate yourself. I filled out one of them so far...got a ways to go.

Just thought you guys might enjoy it. Well I'm off to eat my bundt cake! Yum!

Pizza Bites and Pizza Bistros

I like to think that doesn't count as alliteration.
So I'm extremely upset I haven't been able to post for a while. It seems like I've been working nonstop. Either that, or sleeping. Work has been a lot of fun. It's been crazy at times, I get a little stressed since I'm a newbie, but everyone's there to help. Only downfall: forcing myself not to take home a pizza cookie every night. Those things are deadly. I can barely keep my hands off the pizza and pasta as it is.
For those not aware of Oregano's and their world famous pizza cookie (some may call it a pizzookie), it's a deep dish pizza pan filled with half baked, gooey pizza dough and topped with a heap of ice cream scoops. They serve it hot out of the oven so you have to eat it right away before the ice cream melts. My favorite flavor is peanut butter chocolate chip. They also come in white chocolate macadamia nut and traditional chocolate chip. If you have never tried one, you must. It's not an option, I'm forcing you.
Along with working, I've found some time here and there for friends. On Saturday after work, I went over to housesit with my dear friend Ali. Her addiction to food blogs is almost as bad as mine. We had been gawking at this pizza bite recipe for awhile and were finally able to test it out that night.
We cheated a tad. Instead of pizza dough, we used premade biscuit dough and since we didn't have any pepperoni, we chopped up some meatballs and put them inside.

 Here are most of the ingredients we used. We're missing the olive oil, Italian seasoning, and meatballs.

 Darling Ali drizzling olive oil and Italian seasoning. (Love you! :D)

Before

After

I'm going to go ahead and say our version was better, no need to try the true recipe. :P

Tasting Sprinkles

I'm sure most of you Arizona natives have been to Sprinkles. It was all the rave when it first arrived. For those who haven't tried it or have never heard of it, this one's for you. Specifically, this one's for my Aunt Bonita (shout-out! <3).
It's my last full day with Grandma. She heads back to the bitter cold Nebraska tomorrow. We've been constantly discussing baking and how my aunt has taken up the hobby of baking cupcakes for parties. I was telling her about Sprinkles and how you can make bank selling cupcakes if you charge enough and have a tempting recipe, of course.
My mom and I decided to take her down there so she can see what the cupcake business is all about. Then she can go back to small town Nebraska to tell my aunt how she should run things.
I had only been to Sprinkles a couple times. Once to see if I wanted to work there when they first opened. The other time was when the Cardinals were playing the Super Bowl and they were handing out free Red Velvet cupcakes to anyone who wore Cardinal attire.
Deciding on which cupcakes to get was a pretty difficult decision. Luckily Grandma and Mom were there to help, otherwise it would be up to Lolo's difficulty status.
We eventually decided on four cupcakes that we could all cut up and sample. They were Red Velvet, their most popular, Chocolate Marshmallow, Pumpkin, and Peanut Butter Chocolate.

 I can't afford nice jeans since I buy $3.50 cupcakes.

Look how adorable!

 Top left: Chocolate Marshmallow. Top right: Red Velvet. 

Bottom Left: Pumpkin. Bottom Right: Peanut Butter Chocolate. 

And the results are in:

1st place: Peanut Butter with four votes.

2nd place: Pumpkin (my mom's favorite and everyone else's second favorite.)

3rd place: Red Velvet and Chocolate Marshmallow tied.

Surprisingly no one was impressed with their world famous Red Velvet. It didn't have much flavor at all. Both the Chocolate Peanut Butter and the Pumpkin had rich flavors. I think the reason Peanut Butter won is because my family is filled with peanut butter lovers. The Pumpkin's cream cheese frosting complemented the spiced cupcake very well. The Chocolate Marshmallow was cute, but the flavor was lacking.

I grabbed a copy of their baking schedule on the way out and I'm definitely going to have to go back on Friday, they have a Chai Latte cupcake. Yum! So many flavors, so little time (and money...and calories.)

Cinnamon Rolls and Biscuits & Gravy with Grandma Bonnie

I stayed the night at my parents' house since Grandma's in town and she told me we'd bake cinnamon rolls today. She gets my room whenever she stays over, so I always end up crashing on the couch if I'm not staying at the apartment. Once I woke up, I rolled off the couch and went to brush my teeth. When I walked out, Grandma was already in the kitchen and said, "Your mom said she had some sausage. Why don't we make biscuits and gravy this morning?"
Ohmygoodness. I LOVE Grandma. Andrea and I had just discussed the previous day at Lolo's how we loved biscuits & gravy. I hadn't had it in years, and had never actually made it.
Still in my p.j.'s and sporting my bed head, I started pulling out the ingredients as Grandma listed them off the top of her head. I didn't even realize it was on my Bake-it List until tonight, otherwise I would have lovely pictures for you all.
One note about cooking with Grandma: nothing is an exact measurement. "Just throw some of that in...Knead it some more until it feels right." I can only dream to have that sort of sixth sense someday.
So I learned how to make homemade biscuits and a roux with sausage. We ended up using Trader Joe's sun dried tomato chicken sausage, which had great flavor, but we still had to season the sauce.
Fantastic breakfast. I wish I had proof for you all!
After a short jog, and some sunbathing for Grandma (she has to soak up as much as she can before she heads back to Nebraska) we started her world famous cinnamon rolls. How I had been waiting for this moment.
Warning: You must reserve a full day to make cinnamon rolls. You cannot rush the process; they are delicacies that should not be tampered with.

First you add the flour, sugar, oil, milk, water, salt, eggs, and yeast. It all needs to be room temperature so it can rise properly.

 Then you add some more flour. "Just keep adding till it feels right. You don't need to measure it," says Grandma.

 "How long do you knead it for, Grandma?"

"Oh, forever."

After you knead it for forever, stick it in the microwave to rise. (Don't turn it on.) It's airtight in there & somewhat warm, which helps the process.

 Wait until it's double the size, if not more & knead it down again. Then stick it back in the microwave and do it all over. This takes about four hours. We both got a good amount of sunbathing in today.
Maybe a little shut-eye here and there.

 Now get the pan ready. Grandma said you have to use a metal pan. Glass gets too hot and that's why my mom's always burn.




First type of rolls, we put margarine, Karo syrup, and brown sugar in the bottom. These were the gooey rolls. Then you roll out the dough and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on them.

 This is my favorite step. After we roll up the dough, we slice it with a piece of thread. It's a little trick my grandma taught me years ago. Slices dough like butter.

 Set them in the pan, like so.

 The next rolls we put margarine, brown sugar, cinnamon, sugar, and chopped walnuts inside. You can sub the walnuts for about anything you want...raisins, pecans, etc. If I recall correctly, we only grease the bottom of this pan. No fancy syrup or anything.

 Rising...again. Told you it was all day thing. Always "double the size."

 <Nutty ones we'll put frosting on.

Regular gooey ones.>

Can't I just eat them already??

 Finally, after six hours of hard labor and a golden tan to prove it, the masterpiece is complete.

Look at these babies. Crispy, sugary coating on top of a warm, fluffy dough. I had to hold everyone back so I could get a picture before they were annihilated.

 And the nutty ones with frosting. Didn't quite make it to the camera in time.

We just left these in the pan and frosted them with a margarine, vanilla, milk, and powdered sugar frosting.

Not gonna lie, might've had more than one.

Might take some back to the apartment, too...

96 Left!!!

Strawberry Romanoff

Here's a little glimpse into my legendary Summer in Estes. (I formatted it like that, because I feel like it should be a major motion picture.)
As I mentioned previously, Andrea and I set out the summer between our freshman and sophomore year at Arizona State to live in the beautiful tourist town of Estes Park, Colorado. We got jobs as waitresses up there and getting to work was the only responsibility we had all summer. Rough life, obviously.
Neither of us had worked in a restaurant before we moved out there, and we were pretty much thrown into it. My first day of training was with Ricardo. I hadn't met him, but I heard he was known for changing in the back room before his shift and would occasionally walk out in his pink undies. This made me a little nervous to go look for him. Luckily when we met, he was nearly fully clothed.
The entire night consisted of shadowing him for the most part, but he would push me out of my comfort zone once in a while and make me carry a tray or list off the salad dressings to a table.
Each night the restaurant would have a dessert special. That first night happened to be strawberry romanoff. I had no idea what it was, but once a table ordered it Ricky said, "Okay, you watch this time and next time you do it." He grabbed a cart from the side of the room and rolled it over to the table. There was a small gas burner on top, a dish of strawberries, ice cream, and a few other ingredients.
I wasn't aware the restaurant was also an ideal location to watch a fireworks display. Ricky had a pan full of flaming strawberries right in front of these people's faces and I was about to do this?! I could barely lift a skillet in the first place. I was convinced I was going to burn down the restaurant.
Well Ricky, the wonderful trainer he was, stood by me the whole time and made sure no one would be leaving with third degree burns. And more good news: the restaurant is still standing.
So Grandma's in town and Mom decided it was time to show off my flambéing skills acquired over the summer. She bought the good stuff this time, too! Go Mom!

Wash & slice strawberries. Mom says pesticides aren't good for you. I like to think they strengthen my immune system.

Happy Valentine's Day! I thought it looked like a heart :D

 And here's the lineup:

Butter, Cinnamon, Brown Sugar, Strawberries, and 151 Rum.

Told you she got the good stuff.

Oo! Almost forgot the ice cream!

Side note: my dad used to tell me when I was little he'd pay me $.50 for each one of these bowls I broke. For some reason he hated them when my mom bought them.

Please excuse my ghetto backyard/grill. My mom isn't as encouraging as Ricky and makes me cook it outside.

First step: Melting the butter (or burning it, if your name is Callie.)

Next add the strawberries & cook a tad.

Then the rum!
Props to my sis for this awesome mid-pour shot!

Tell Grandma to back up, tilt the pan & set fire!
Also note that I'm tossing the cinnamon into the flames. It creates the "firework effect."

 Once the rum cooks out, add in the brown sugar.

Make sure brown sugar is well dissolved & pour over ice cream.

Finished product. I admit, I need to work on my displays. They aren't the prettiest.  Although, I promise you it tasted delicious.