Stuffed Soft Pretzel Bites

I don't know how long I've been waiting to make and share these soft pretzel bites with you, but I can assure you that it's been a while.  A really, really long while.  I first had this idea, oh I don't know, maybe way back in the day when I first made these amazing soft pretzels.  That was only like 2 and a half years ago or so.  I knew the idea for pretzel bites was a good one, I just needed time to actually sit (or stand, I guess) and make them.  I always wanted to make them around this time of year, and since the idea first popped into my head, two Super Bowl Sunday's have come and gone, and no pretzel bites were ever made.  This year, I decided, would be a year of change.  I was going to make sure I made these pretzel bites no matter what!  I took some time on Sunday to mix up a big batch of soft pretzel bites, and I can say that I have no regrets.  These pretzel bites were some seriously amazing snacking material that need to make an appearance at any and all Super Bowl/football/sports/midnight snack parties from now on. 

From the beginning, I knew I wanted to make stuffed pretzel bites, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to actually stuff them with.  I knew it had to be something easy that I already had inside my kitchen (as is the case for most of my baking predicaments).  The first thing I thought of was a jalapeño cream cheese.  I love anything with hot jalapeños, so a homemade cream cheese spread studded with spicy peppers and sharp cheddar seemed to be a perfect solution.  I also wanted to create a sweet version of these pretzel bites, to resemble my favorite mall soft pretzels.  Deciding what to fill the sweet pretzel bites with was easy, since I still had some Hershey's chocolate spread left after working doing some work with them.  I used the hazelnut flavor, and I'm so happy I chose to use chocolate in half of these pretzel bites.  The combination of the rich chocolate spread and the coarse salt on top of the pretzel bites was just too good for words.  It was the perfect sweet and salty snack!

Buffalo Chicken Empanadas for the Make and Takes Blog!

Hello everyone!  This is literally the latest I've ever published a blog post, but believe me.  I've had a super, super, super long day.  Today I started a new freelance position, and of course, with my luck, my first day just had to be the day right after a huge snowstorm hit Long Island.  Sigh.  I was so stressed the night before just trying to think about how the hell I was going to make it to work on time that I completely forgot to write this post in advance and schedule it to publish automatically (I actually realized I had forgotten to do so while I was standing on the train in the morning, and I got really upset at myself).  Then, after a super, super, super long day at the office, my brain just stopped working and I got on the wrong train, and ended up going downtown into Brooklyn instead of uptown towards Manhattan.  Now, I love Brooklyn, but it was literally the last place I wanted to be tonight.  I just wanted to be home already!  After a very extended commute home due to weather complications that messed up all the trains heading to Long Island, I finally made it home.  It's 10:30 PM, and I've just finished dinner.  I'm about to just put on my comfiest sweats, curl up in bed, and fall asleep to the sound of terrible reality television, and hope that tomorrow goes just a little more smoothly.  In the meantime though, here's those empanadas I promised you guys yesterday afternoon.  There was no way I was going to fail on my promise!

With the Super Bowl coming up in just a few days, I thought it was high time that we make some awesome snacks!  I have a few more yummy goodies to share with you guys in preparation for the big game, and these empanadas are the first.  I'm hoping a few of you guessed they were going to have a buffalo chicken filling, due to the celery sticks and blue cheese dressing in my Instagram pic, but if not, here's a formal announcement:  I MADE BUFFALO CHICKEN EMPANADAS GUYS, AND THEY WERE AWESOME.  

And with that, please head on over to the Make and Takes blog, where you'll get the full recipe instructions and more pics!  

Quiche Lorraine

Hello, again!  I'm back already, and I have yet another delicious recipe that is perfect for Mother's Day to share with you.  Yes, I know it's Saturday, and that Mother's Day is tomorrow, but you know me.  I leave everything to the last minute and am then always in some kind of major panic mode with my brain scrambling to frantically pull things together. Today is no exception.  I have two more assignments left in my college career.  They're due in only a few very short days, and I'm not even close to feeling comfortable enough to say that I'm ready for them.  Sleep deprivation from portfolio season made me skip/fall asleep in one too many Japanese architecture lectures, so now I'm stuck with incomplete notes and a mega pile of 275 flashcards to memorize (this is not a joke), and my independent research project...sigh.  I can't do it!  I just can't bring myself to write up the final report, because I just want to be finished with work, and I'm so close!  But anyway.  My last exam and last presentation in college have had me working nonstop since Tuesday, since I literally can't put off my prep-work any more than I already have.  

I've found all kinds of ways to put off doing work though, regardless of how soon my deadlines are.  I've done my laundry; I've cleaned my room; I've started packing; I've taken naps; I've gone to the gym.  I'm even writing this blog post, which I had been hoping to publish a few days ago and then decided to simply post after Mother's Day due to lack of time, as another attempt to avoid doing the work that's looming over my head. Yep.  I'm that desperate.  But I mean, Mother's Day and quiche are legitimate reasons to put off doing work, right?  I think so. 

Mini Corn Dog Muffins

Looks like one of the biggest weekends in American culture is soon to be upon us, Super Bowl weekend!  Let's be perfectly clear that football and I just do not mix.  Forrealz.  It may be totally un-American of me, but I'm sure I'm not alone in my sentiments. I've just never taken the time to sit down and attempt to understand the rules of the game, and my memories of the football games that I have seen are both limited and unpleasant.  I've only attended football games in high school and at this past year's homecoming, and both types have been underwhelming.  In high school, our symphonic band (which was a fantastic band) was forced strongly, strongly, strongly encouraged to participate in the school's pep band.  Attendance was required at a minimum of three home games per season (or something like that), and I dreaded going to each game.  I just wasn't into it!  My disdain for this American pastime continued into college, and I have only attended a single football match, and it was at this year's homecoming (and I only stayed for about fifteen or twenty minutes of the game).  What can I say, I got bored!  

For me, I look forward to the Super Bowl for three reasons: the commercials, the half time show, and Super Bowl snacks.  Buffalo wings, chips, pretzels, all kinds of dips, and most Super Bowl food items tend to come with bacon in some form or another.  These are all good, wonderful things.  I figured I needed to supplement my favorite Super Bowl foods with a treat of my own, and these mini corn dog muffins were at the very top of my list of things to make.  

Two-Bite Cheddar Bacon Scones

I'm currently back at school. I've attended all my classes for the week, and have gone back to my internship. I've also been freezing my butt off while at school because for some reason, my dorm building has no heat and the weather in NYC is like 15 degrees F or something like that.  The 20-minute walk to work the other day was horrible.  Womp.  I'm happy to be back at school, don't get me wrong.  My classes this semester are really interesting (I'm taking a seminar/workshop called "Darkness and Architecture," how cool does that sound???), and my schedule works out so nicely (my earliest class when I don't have work is at 1!).  My last semester at Columbia seems like it's getting off to a great start, but still...womp.  Winter break was just so nice! 

Winter break was perfectly perfect (aside from getting sick every now and then).  I did nothing, nothing, nothing (aside from the occasional baking project, of course).  It was so nice to just take a break from a crazy end to a semester, along with the fact that it is probably the last time I'll ever have four consecutive weeks of vacation again.  Sigh.  I spent my winter break mostly watching movies.  That might sound like a normal, very ordinary thing for most people, but for me, it's something completely different.  I've always had a hard time getting into movies, or just watching them in general.  I'm too restless, and I guess my attention span is too short.  My boyfriend says I'm culturally deprived when it comes to movies, and he's totally right.  I've missed out on pretty much all the movies that have made it onto "the-most-important-movies-to-see-before-you-die" lists, so his goal for this break was to help bring me up to speed.  We watched one or two movies every night, and you know what...I somehow grew to actually like watching movies! It's like I'm a member of normal society or something!  Crazy how that happened.  

Skillet Cornbread

There's something about cornbread that's been baked in a cast iron skillet that just seems really legit to me.  I don't really know why, but it just does.  I guess I like how it looks.  I'm usually all into clean lines and uniform shapes, and being neat, but there's something about the cracked top of freshly baked cornbread in a cast iron skillet that is just so great.  I just love that kind of "rustic-ness".  Sometimes, it's all I'm really after.  

Cheddar-Zucchini Drop Biscuits

Biscuits are pretty irresistible treats, in my opinion.  They're perfect to enjoy with breakfast, or on the side with a home cooked dinner….or whenever really…

I had been craving a savory biscuit of some sort for the longest time now, and quite frankly, I have no idea why it took me so long to get around to making them.  I mean, I made these things in like, five minutes (ok not really, maybe like fifteen since I was photographing the whole time, but if I hadn't been taking photos, I could have definitely made them in five minutes after the zucchini had been sufficiently drained).  There's no real excuse for me having waited this long to make them.  There really isn't, so I'm not even going to come up with one.  

Maybe I was just being lazy.  Or using my procrastination skills.  Maybe a combination of the two.  I need to stop doing that.