Rocky Road Cookies

Apparently, there are different versions of the "Rocky Road" flavour. Therefore, I don't think it's wrong calling these leftover-Halloween-candy-pieces cookies "Rocky Road" cookies. They have oatmeal, marshmallows, peanut M&Ms, rock-shaped chocolate with realistic rock-like sugar coating (I used to pass by a chocolatier at Penrith Plaza when  I was younger, in Australia, and they used to have golden and silver beads/sprinkles/candy balls on display. I don't remember if they had rock-like coating chocolate, though), one peanut butter bunny from April, 3 malt balls, and milk chocolate chunks.

My sister and I made half a batch of cookies using a recipe from a brand-name sponsored recipe book. Why did I buy a recipe book full of food company advertising? ...This was 4 years ago (wow...that long?) and I was in NY and the Strand was having a sale (closing sale?) and I got a thick hardcover recipe book for $1 with pages after pages of shiny, colourful pictures of scrumptious desserts!! So, I did it for the pictures.

Come on, why else -apart from the images- do recipe books sell nowadays, with millions of equally fancy (or, even better...like the recipes I have, which have comments on better technique and economical energy usage?) recipes online?

Half the batch ended up providing us with 31 cookies. Yummy.

By the way, the Australian version of "Rocky Road" is evidently superior to the American version (in my opinion, drawn from experience). According to Wikipedia (I know, not a completely correct source), the American version is just marshmallow, nuts, and milk chocolate--that is true. The Australian definition, however, includes things such as COCONUT, TURKISH DELIGHT and jelly!--that is true also.

Rainbow Marshmallow Treats

I don't think that my sister deserves these treats because she hasn't exactly been a good girl recently, even though I'm home and she said that she'd be nice when I'm home. She's still bratty, still yells at my mum, and still refuses to eat her vegetables and protein. Nevertheless, we ended up making some cereal marshmallow treats because she had found a recipe on the back of a cereal box. The Fruity Pebbles cereal box (Yes, Pebbles is italicised, but Fruity is not). Fruit Pebbles are basically cornflakes coated in sugar and bright colouring. I'm quite mesmerised by the bright purple and green, especially.

Since we only had half the box of cereal left, we used 4 tbsp of butter and five blue marshmallow Peeps as the "marshmallow" component. My sister doesn't like marshmallow Peeps as much as the cylindrical marshmallows, so this was a great way to use up the marshmallows from March.

1. Melt 4 tbsp butter for 20 seconds in microwave (honestly, we could've used oil for this)

2. Cut marshmallow Peeps and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir. Microwave again. Stir. Microwave again. Stir. See above image.

3. Pour in about 2-3 cups of cereal and stick the mixture into a plastic container. I don't understand why there would be any need for non-stick spray/greasing the pan or parchment/wax paper lining. Even if you used an empty tissue box, I'm sure the marshmallow treats wouldn't stick too badly.

Feed to people who care about bright, rainbow-coloured treats.

New Year Party!

First post of 2011! I will now post about my "birthday party" on the 31st of December 2010. It's actually not my birthday on the last day of the year [but I do know someone who is born on that day!], but the idea was that I meet up with my friends from high school and celebrate my birthday which is around this time of year. The funny thing is that my mum actually let my friends stay overnight. The sad part is that 80% of the people I invited couldn't come due to another party or travelling. So, my brother invited his friends [and they took the TV to play games], and my mum invited her friends, so we ended up with a group of around 20 people. I also made a birthday cake, since I didn't want to buy a cake that had icky stuff in it. The cake I made included whole wheat flour and balsamic vinegar.

This layer of cake actually turned out alright [I was using a brownie recipe, so it's a bit flat and dense], but the first two layers were way too thin; when they were piled together they looked shorter than a pie. Or a fruit tart.

Orange glaze - 3 tablespoons of orange juice, 1 tablespoon of milk, and 1 cup of sugar! The glaze only had a hint of orange when it was dry, though.

See how flat the first batch came out?

A very coarsely-ground recipe for this cake [if you want 1-2cm-thick brownies that fit two 9.5 inch pans]

Ingredients:

2 cups of whole wheat flour

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of milk

1 cup of oil

1 cup of cocoa powder

3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

1.5 tsp baking soda [want it poofier? add 1-2tsp baking soda]

some salt

Method: Mix and bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees F. Add more time if you want to.

First layer=blackberry jam

Second layer=marshmallows [Should've gotten marshmallow fluff, which doesn't have gelatin, but I didn't realise that I was going to be making a four-layer cake].

Third layer=peanut butter icing!

And... the cake! I have more pictures but I'm not uploading those because I do not want people to know my real name.

[The best] Sprinkles [in the world]! They're just like the ones from Australia - the Hundreds and Thousands that my mum used to put on honey bananas [except that these are only pink, green, and white, instead of rainbow-coloured].

So there were other foods, and I took pictures of them too, but this is one that I want to commemorate. This was brought by HM's family, and HM is my sister's friend. It's primarily composed of glutinous rice spotted with quartered jujubes [red dates]. Enclosed in the chewy, sticky layers is a mound of warm red bean paste. Curly swirls of orange and lime rind gently garnish the outside of the hemispherical [or parabolic... Actually, perhaps more parabolic, since bowls are generally more parabolically shaped] dessert.

Everyone said that the cake was nice, but they could've just been saying that because they knew that I had baked it. Apparently, one of the kids had been eyeing it for a long time before my mum realised that the kid wanted cake. The kid's mum told me that it tasted "fresh" and "rich", which are nice compliments! Another comment includes the "It's good". My sister, who had helped me with it, of course was scarfing down cake and burping out compliments.

We later watched some Harry Potter upstairs because my brother and his friends were still playing games on the TV downstairs, and then we watched the ball drop, which was seriously anti-climatic [as it is, every year].

We finished Harry Potter, and BV and I watched some Snoopy [yes, Snoopy and Harry Potter are awesome!]. It was a great birthday-partyesque-dinner-type-thing.

Graham Cracker Houses Studded with Sugar

Is it bird or a plane?! It's... both. It's in the bird's eye [or plane] point of view! So, the question is, is it a tree or a house? It looks like a Christmas tree, sure, but it's actually...

GRAHAM CRACKER HOUSE! Whoot! I don't really eat graham crackers [ever since I found out there's PHO in them... I don't like trans fat], and I don't eat premade icing either [PHO], but it was sure fun creating houses! I decided to make a triangular one because... well, everyone elses' houses' angles added up to 360 degrees. Or two pi [aw, I can't make a pie joke here!], so I decided I just wanted one pi.

It looks like a monster... note the eyes, the wrapper nose, and the tongue/path thingy. "Why the long face?" Haha...

AK had a graham cracker house party, so that's why there are all these houses [and one igloo!]. AK's house looks like a summer outhouse! :D

The ingredients included: graham crackers, brown or white icing, M&Ms, York peppermint pieces, gummy worms [well. Those got eaten...], gummy bears, marshmallows, yucky gumdrops, dots, fat jelly beans, Skittles and Rolos.

I need to make some gingerbread... Well, that'll be something I'll do on the 26th.

None of this food is healthy. Maybe there are vegetable/fruit/whole grain houses, out there, for Christmas, but the kids would overwhelmingly prefer sugar-sprinkled houses, right? It's the activity to do, even for people who don't actually believe in Christmas. It's become a holiday that's commercialized, and I'm not sure why I'm partaking in this commercialism. And this weight gain...

My first meal at Penn

I know that I should've updated this a LONG time ago [read: April] but I was so caught up in school and stuff... plus, the quality isn't great, due to the fact that I was using my camera phone, which does not have flash. On the other hand, my camera phone has served me really well, and is the most useful function on my phone. Honest. [I don't use text messaging]. So, for the Penn Preview Day, we all had lunch at the 1925 Commons place. I'm definitely going to be blogging about this cafeteria a LOT during the next... wow... four years [unless I get expelled or drop out or something...] so this post technically shouldn't be a big deal. It was a Friday, and the garlic bread/toast was really crunchy.

These are vegan wraps, filled with lettuce, tomato, onion, and tofu. The grilled tofu wasn't that great in my opinion, and the wrap itself was really dry. And bland. I suppose this is the cliche "diet" or "vegetarian" dish. It was sorta mediocre... I don't mind eating it, but its lack of flavour is rather disappointing.

The chocolate cookie was dry. I like chewy, soft cookies, so I can't really vouch for them... I suppose those who like dry, crispy cookies would like these, though. I also learned that I don't like pretzel Goldfish crackers. The tortilla chips, were very crunchy and aesthetically pleasing. I wonder if they actually make these from scratch?

Okay. The marshmallow and rice cereal square is amazing! As you have noticed...I ate at least three of them. [I actually ate more than that. This reminds me of a day two summers ago, when I ate at least 10 packets of Kellogg's Rice Krispie Treats. In one day. Yes, I was obsessed that one day. I've yet to do such a thing again...] They were soft and gooey, and NOT stale, even though they'd been sitting there for ages...[trust me, stale marshmallow squares, like the ones at Borders, are dry. And not sticky. And lack the marshmallow texture]. These ones were really moist and I could literally "sink" my teeth into them and have them stuck there perpetually... except that sugar is polar and my saliva is polar.

I don't think anyone knows what I'm talking about when I mention the pizza crust from the Pizza Hut pizza [mini, cut into 4 pieces] at Penrith Plaza in 1999, or 2000. However, if you consume the pizza crust at 1920 Commons... you get a nearly identical taste. And texture. And smell. Oh nostalgia...This would be the only reason I'm going to be consuming pizza at Penn. Well, the topping was nice, too :), but the crust was a reminder of childhood. Which is ironic, since I haven't had "American" Pizza Hut pizza, ever.