The Wright kind of breakfast!

More often than not, you can find me at my auntie's house hanging out with my favorite blondes in the world: Jack, Grady and Kyla! This morning I came over and found the boys playing with their new Nintendo games and Kyla running around all giggles. After getting all dressed and ready for the day, I was out to the task of making pancakes! They weren't anything fancy, but I just wanted to share the pictures :)

Peppermint Squares!

Happy Holidays! YAY! 

School is out

It's cold outside (somewhere)

CHAM Xmas!

Strep Throat? 

Yeah, what a fun week full of a horrible case of strep throat! Not a fun way to start break! Anyway, once my antibiotics kicked in, I was read to bake and shake! Well, maybe not shake, but definitely bake!

I decided to take another Pinterest recipe, Peppermint Rice Krispie Treats!

Here's the recipe! (Click to enlarge.)

Ingredients!

Crush those peppermint candies!

Mixin' the magic!

Delicious! Yum! NomNom!

These were super easy, and I made them in like 40 minutes and they are super delish! I only wish I had had a thicker pan sot they weren't so thin, but I still throughly enjoy these!

Well to all those who celebrate Hanukkah, I hope you had a fabulous holiday!

And if you are celebrating Christmas this next week, have a great one!

Here are some of my festive photos!

My sister and I by our Xmas tree!

CHAM Christmas!

My best friends and I.

Love you guys!

One of my hilarious presents!

Vi Ses,

Holly

Thoughts on animals

Now let me preface this with saying that I respect everyone's opinions, no matter how differing they may be from my own. As you may know, I am a vegetarian. Why? Because I personally can't eat the flesh of a fellow animal. What has been bothering me lately are so many people are posting on Facebook and twitter about how horrible dogs and cats are treated and how everyone should be adopting these animals. I totally agree! I think domesticated animals should be treated kindly; I do however question some of these people preaching these words. Why value one animal so highly over others? What about cows and pigs? Why are they seen as food, but consuming dogs is almost blasphemous in the western world?

These are just a few of rhetorical questions I ask myself; many of which will meet be properly answered because I would just be hearing excuses upon excuses.

So this holiday season, if you do celebrate (because remember not everyone does, so be respectful of that), think about how you value some of our fellow creatures on this planet and try to show some respect for your fellow animal cousins.

Challah at yo girl!

Inspirational Tea Quotes!

As an anthropologist, and a food enthusiast, I've decided to make challah bread in honor of Hanukkah! As a lover of experiencing cultures, this is so fun! I haven't made bread in a really long time, so this is an adventure! Plus its FINALS WEEK! Crazy time!

So I'm almost done with my finals, but I have one more paper to write (on cannibalism! Rock on, am I right?) and one test to pass, or at least get enough points to pass the class (lame!). As a mid week break, I thought to myself, "challah sounds so delish right now!" and boom! It was decided! Challah time!

So this was pretty easy, just a tad time consuming...

Click to enlarge!

First, mix the warm water with the yeast and then whisk the honey, oil, eggs and salt until combined. After that, add the flour one cup at a time and start kneading once it gets really thick. Then set in a bowl and place a wet towel over it and let sit for an hour and a half. 

Once it has doubled in size, cut it into half and knead each part for 5 minutes. Once they are kneaded and ready to go, cut each piece into four more pieces and look up some cool braiding techniques! There are a ton of options, so have at it!

Then bake for like 35 minutes at 375 and voilà!

As I've been waiting for these babies to rise, I've been watching the TV show 'Undeclared,' kind of a not-real-spin-off of Freaks and Geeks (not the same cast, but still awkwardly awesome as hell)...

Challah at yo girl!!

Well I just pulled them out of the oven and they look so good!

El verdict-o!

Well, I think I over-baked them a bit... But the flavor is great! It may need to sit for a bit, cuz I was a bit impatient and had to have piece before bed! : )

Well that's all for me at this time! I'm totally pumped for the next few days ( :

'

Plus, The Hobbit is coming out this week! And guess who is going to the midnight showing? This girl! It's going to be so fun! Well, have a very great finals week and and if you are Jewish, Happy Hanukkah!

Vi Ses,

Holly

Peppermint Kisses!

Before I get started, I'd just like to announce... I have been accepted to culinary school! Guess who is moving to LONDON in September 2013!!?? Cheerio!

Back to baking :)

I love the holidays! Why? Because the food is always so fabulous! Chocolate, pumpkin, cinnamon, and PEPPERMINT! Peppermint is one of my favorite flavors ever! So while I was at Target yesterday, I grabbed some candy cane kisses, white chocolate candies with a peppermint twist! So that got my baking wheels turning in my mind, and I remembered a cookie my aunt seems to always have one hand, peanut butter kisses! So I found a peppermint kiss version, and here we go!

Click to enlarge!

I had to wake up wayyy early this morning to go to the store for butter and sprinkles, and I was totally rewarded by finding peppermint sprinkles! Double score!

The recipe is from the Hershey website (since the kisses are Hershey brand)... And it's super easy!

 So since finals week is quickly approaching, these will definitely serve as a 'pick me up' for the many late nights ahead for my comrades and myself! Just today I have a group meeting, a study session, dinner, and I need to finish up my most important presentation of the semester! AH!

YUM.DELISH.OMG.

It's going to be a crazy two weeks, but I think I'll pull through... Maybe even with some laughs and giggles to make it all the sweeter :)

So I just pulled the cookies out, and they are a little dense and the kisses are quickly getting gooey, but hopefully they will solidify a bit before I have to take them to school! I'm giving some of these to a friend as a 'thank you' and then hoarding the rest for my own pleasure! (OK, maybe not all of them...)

Anyways.. I think these came out pretty good! they are minty, but not like 'OMG MINT!' As I said, they are a little dense, but that's how kiss cookies always come out, so the actual kiss can be inserted (that's what she said? LOL).

Yes, so I would give these a 7/10, I think I'll definitely make them again, probably when I go to my parent's house for winter break!

Well, I have to get ready for a library/study/food/presenting day! Have a fantastic start to your December! Stay warm!

Why hello, there!

Vi Ses,

Holly

Ron Swanson FTW.

I may not eat meat (a part of my life I sometimes heavily question), but I can appreciate a good old fashioned turkey burger made by Nick Offerman!

Enjoy!

I'll leave you with one of my favorite Ron Swanson quotes:

"The whole point of this country is if you want to eat garbage,

 balloon up to 600 pounds and die of a heart attack at 43, you can! 

You are free to do so. To me, that's beautiful."

Well I need to get back to my homework...

Vi Ses,

Holly

P.S. GO WATCH PARKS AND RECREATION

.

Croissants and Good Times

So the past two weeks  have been so much fun! Staring with a 4 day trip to San Francisco with some of my Anthropology friends to attend the 2012 American Anthropological Association National Meeting. 5 of us presented some of our ethnographic research, which was such a great experience! The rest of the time we were there, we had the opportunity to attend a ton of lectures on every topic imaginable! I went to some Culinary Anthropology, Digital Anthropology, and Queer Anthropology lectures, all of which were super interesting! We had so much fun attending these lectures and trekking around San Fran, eating great food, numerous giggling fits, and fantastic memories! I wish we were doing it again next semester!

Wreck it Ralph with my crew!

After that, I continued down to my parent's house in Orange County for Thanksgiving break. I finally got to hang out with my sister and little cousins, all of whom I missed so much! During the semester my goddaughter started walking, so that was exciting to see!! The week was fun and definitely interesting and it all ended with a 15 hour road trip yesterday trekking back up to Humboldt County!

While I was in Orange County, I did a bit of successful baking... I made croissants! YUM! I almost forgot to take pictures, but luckily I did! I got the recipe off of pinterest, as usual :) 

The recipe is really long, and I am currently too lazy to type it all out so here's the wonderful link:  

 http://food-pusher.blogspot.mx/2011/12/croissants.html 

Go check it out if you think you can handle some delicious croissants (it's not even hard, so you have NO excuses!)

Flaky Goodness!

I hope you had a wonderful time with family and friends, like I did, over the past week!

Vi Ses,

Holly

Pumpkin Biscotti & Pumpkin Mac 'N Cheese!

Holy Pumpkin B@man!! 

It has just been a Pumpkin-tacular weekend my dear friends! Last night I made some delicious pumpkin muffins, and since I need to use up as much pumpkin as I can before I leave, I decided to make some biscotti and pasta! YUM!

I've made biscotti once before, and it's always one of those cookies I forget about... But a few weeks ago, my grandma sent me some almond biscotti in the mail, and I was reminded of how delicious it is!! So naturally, I wanted to make a pumpkin version! On top of everything, I even have pumpkin seed, so this was made to be :)

Also, since I not-so-intelligently opened a LARGE can of pumpkin last night, I made some pumpkin pasta sauce, which ended up being improvised into a mac and cheese sauce! And instead of bread crumbs, I used toasted pieces of my pumpkin muffins, so my house is literally exploding with PUMPKIN! 

 So the biscotti was super easy, just follow the recipe and you will be good to go!

The Pumpkin Mac 'N Cheese, on the other hand was seriously an improvised endeavor, but here's the base recipe I used...

I replaced the parmesan with about 1 cup of grated cheddar cheese (since that's all I had) and replaced the sage with rosemary and cayenne pepper... Then I simmered it all until it was a bit thick (I added about a tablespoon of flour as well). Once the pasta was cooked, I added it to the sauce and put it all in a dish, topped with cheese and toasted muffin pieces! VOILÀ! (Baked at 350 for 20 minutes) Add a bit of Tapatío and you are good to go, bro!

As I was exploring in the land of pumpkin, I was watching Nickelodeon's show Avatar! We watched an episode during the last AnthClub meeting, and I was pretty intrigued! One of my favorite shows is Phineas and Ferb, so when I found Avatar, it was a match made in cartoon heaven. It's hard to find witty and well done cartoons nowadays, so these two shows are awesome! They're great ways of escaping from the pressures of school every once in a while (ok, maybe a bit more often than that).

One of the coolest things I've seen in Avatar so far is an animal called a Platypus-Bear! Which is really cool because, in P&F Perry dresses up as a bear too! Supes cool yo.

So back to the baking!

My Pumpkin Mac 'N Cheese is really fantastic! It's not too overpowering, but very pleasant! It could use tweeking and reworking, so at some point I'll have to make it again :)

 

 UMM HELLO AWESOME! 

The biscotti is pretty fabulous, if I do say so myself! And the best part of biscotti is it's fantastic to travel with, so if it lasts until Tuesday, it will be a great car snack (but considering all the studying I have to do it may not last that long!)

Look how delicious!

Well, I really should get back to writing... I have an outline due tomorrow night! Yikes! Any ways, have a great Veteran's Day!

Vi Ses,

Holly

Pumpkin Muffins!

So I only have a few days until my life gets a whole lot crazier!! On Tuesday, I leave for the American Anthropological Association 2012 National Meeting in San Francisco!! Myself, and some of my comrades are presenting research we completed last year, so it's going to be super exciting! Plus a trip to San Fran! Double cool! Then it's off to Thanksgiving break!

Anyways, so since I'm leaving soon, I decided to use up my excess pumpkin! I've already made pumpkin pie and pumpkin cookies, so naturally pumpkin muffins come next!!!!

Clickkkk!

I specifically looked fore a recipe that used applesauce, because well I was feeling saucey... hahaha just kidding (not really)! The recipe is super simple, mix the dry ingredients and add the wet, mix until its all silky smooth and put into greased muffin tins... Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, and voilà! C'est fini!

While I was baking these delicious muffins, I was doing some test corrections for my Human Biology and Evolution class, it took me forever to find information on bipedalism beginning in the Miocene... which I finally found. Gosh this is boring me just thinking about it!

To escape this, here's an ecard my BFF sent me:

PERFECT!! (insert laughter here)

Well, this was a short and simple post, but lemme tell ya, those muffins we DELISH! They will be fantastic during my long long weekend in the library! I may ask the librarians if I can just rent a couch and stay there for the night tomorrow, just joshin' but you get the point...It's going to be a LONG weekend...

Vi Ses,
Holly

Granola!

Let me start off by saying: I have never made granola before. Now this will either be a "Sweet! I'm a granola goddess" moment, or a "Well, I warned you I hadn't done this before" moment.

I added pumpkin seeds instead of sesame!

Granola is one of those nostalgic foods for me. When I was small enough to be sitting on the back of a bike in a toddler seat, my grandpa and I would ride around the neighborhood and eventually end up at one of our many park dates. While I was sitting in my seat, he let me have a tiny cup with some granola in it, so now whenever I eat granola I always think of those sunny bike rides.

So before I went into town today for some grocery shopping, out of the blue I decided I wanted to try to make some granola!! I grabbed my computer and opened my favorite recipe book, the internet! Funnily enough, one of the food blogs I started reading the other day was one of the first sites to pop up, so I had to use it!! The blog is by David Lebovitz, a chef, who is totally awesome! His posts are super fun and informative and his food looks delish!

Anyway, here's the recipe:

Lookin' good!

This is a really simple recipe to make! Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Then mix the wet ingredients (I used all honey because I couldn't find rice syrup) in a sauce pan and warm them up. Pour the warm wet stuff onto the dry stuff an mix! Easy-Peasy! Then pour evenly on two cookies sheets (with raised edges preferably) and throw in the oven for 45 minutes. However, you need to take the granola out every 10 minutes and stir a bit to evenly distribute the baking magic. Other than that, you are set, bros!

So good!!

While we wait for the oven to work it's mojo, guess what?? Only two weeks until I get to be home in Orange County! YAY! So much has happened while I've been gone... My Goddaughter started walking, my sister became a star volleyball player, Jack (my cousin) started kindergarten, and so much more! I'm so excited to see all my little homies :) But before all that, I'm going with some other Anthropology students from HSU to the American anthropological Association 2012 National Meeting in San Francisco! I'm a bit nervous to be presenting some of my research, but I know it will be a really cool experience! Plus we get to hit up San Fran, which is always a plus! 

The Verdict:
Well that went AWESOME. The granola is so amazing! The nuts are toasty and the oats, crunchy! I ended up having to bake it about 25 minutes longer than the 45, but I think it came out perfect! I highly suggest making some granola for yourself this weekend! Even if you don't, have a fabulous weekend!

Vi Ses,
Holly













Photos par moi!
Recipe Source:

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2009/10/granola-recipe/

Orange and Purple Cookies?!

Last Night's Adventure!

YES! I love to use food coloring! Even though it's kinda gross when you think about it, food coloring is so fun to use in cookies and cakes! In my high school baking class, I made an electric pink and purple swirled cake, no joke, it was awesome! So last night, after a day of attempting to juice cleanse (which did not really work out...) I used the last of my orange sugar cookie dough for some delicious halloween cookies! And tonight, while taking a break from making a presentation, I decided to make some purple cookies :)

On top of everything we ran out of flour, boo. So I used up the rest of our whole wheat flour, we'll see if they still taste good....

I used a super basic recipe today:

Dough... Let's hope it tastes good...

I switched out flour for whole wheat flour, and added some purple food coloring to the dough... YAY!

Just mix the wet ingredients and then add the dry and you're good to go! I used mine as drop cookies, and rolled them in sugar, for that extra delicious-ness.

Oh and if you were wondering, 3OH!3 was the soundtrack today... My gym playlist is all 3OH!3 for whatever reason, so I continued on listening to them when I got home! I'm not sure why I even like them, but I do! I went with some friends a few years ago and we saw them in concert, so sick!!

Anyway... The verdict!!

Frankenstein Cookies?

Well defiantly not my best baking, but not bad either! For working with what I had they are just dandy, but I could imagine using regular flour and no coloring would have been a tad bit better... But I like the "personality" they have! HA! Maybe it's just because I made them, I really must like them! Anyway, don't be afraid to experiment every once and a while, and use up whatever supplies you have! I'm almost sure anyone can make something right now with just the contents of your cupboard and refrigerator! Happy Baking!


Vi Ses,
Holly

Anthropology and Food

Jamie Oliver giving his TED talk.

Jamie Oliver is a big inspiration to me. He is such an incredible advocate for heathy living! I don't even know if he's doing it, but he is researching the Anthropology of Food. He critically analyzes 'Food Culture' particularly in America, and how the Food Culture of America is ultimately creating an obese nation. Remember, he is not an academic, he's a chef, and in my opinion one of the most incredible chefs in the world. Not only is he advocating healthy, natural food, he's constructed means of CHANGE!

I hope someday to follow in his footsteps, after culinary school, and utilize my degree in Anthropology and my culinary knowledge, to help change the Food Culture of America.

Here's Jamie Oliver's TED talk:

"I wish for everyone to help create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity." -J.O.

Vi Ses,

Holly

Cupcake Picture

I think I just died of cuteness! I absolutely LOVE walruses!! I need to make these!

Vi Ses,
  Holly

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies and the Final Debate

Tonight the final 2012 presidential debate was held, topics surrounding foreign policy. As a young American and first time voter, I think it has been important to stay aware of each candidate's views and positions. I tend to get very uncomfortable while watching these debates and speeches, because it is just so awkward how everyone is so upset at each other. Nonetheless, watching and assessing how I feel is important.

Anyway, while watching the feisty debate tonight, I decided to utilize the last remnants of my canned pumpkin from last week for some delicious pumpkin oatmeal cookies!! YAY!





Ingredients: 

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 2 cups quick oats
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup unpacked brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 6 tbsp canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup dried cranberries

Preheat the oven to 350 and bake for 12-15 minutes! 

Man oh Man! These are good! They are a bit "cakey" but I kind of like that! The pumpkin is not super overwhelming, but still apparent enough to be officially 'pumpkin' cookies! I love using oatmeal as well (as I'm sure you've been able to tell) so this recipe was a double whopper!

Roommate Review!

My roommates just walked in and LOVE the cookies! We've decided they are similar to muffin tops, in that they have a sweet and delicate crunch (Thanks, Gina!)... 

Well I'm proud of myself! These are FAB-U-LOUS!

And don't forget to VOTE!!

Vi Ses!
Holly

Recipe Source:

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/09/pumpkin-spiced-oatmeal-pecan-cookies.html#more