Peanut Butter Cheese Cake Brownies.

I admit, I have a problem. You see I'm sort of in love with Sweetened Condensed Milk. So I constantly search recipes to avoid just eating it straight from the can. Yes, I am that gross, don't judge me.

I also have a huge problem with chocolate and peanut butter together. I admit alone I'm not too huge on either, but put them together and it could be dangerous to put a child between me and them.

So when I found this recipe on Pinterest http://pinterest.com/pin/339370637/ I knew what I had to do. By knew what I had to do I mean that first I pinned it and clicked on it a few times a day reminding myself that I had all the things I needed to make it. Then I posted it to facebook, if I'm going to suffer, everyone there will too. Maybe if I'm lucky someone local will make them first and then I don't have to eat 75% of the pan of brownies myself. This plan didn't work, so today I broke down and made them.



First off the recipe calls to use your favorite fudgey brownie mix, personally I don't keep mixes. I'm not against them it's just that I have no will power. I've tried to keep them in the house for birthday cake emergencies but they never last longer then a week before that little voice in my head yells "MAKE ME A CAKE, BITCH!" So I found a fudgey brownie recipe and got to work. Start by setting your oven for 350*f

1/2c butter
2oz bittersweet chocolate
1/2c sugar
2 eggs
1/3c flour
pinch of salt

Melt butter and chocolate together, I did it in the microwave in 30sec increments. Stir together until smooth.

Stir in Sugar and eggs

Stir in flour and salt.

If you were just making brownies you would stop here and bake for 40 minutes. But we're not so we're just going to pour them in the greased pan and set then aside.



Well now we get to the fun part. I call it fun because I made the mistake of buying the cheapest hand mixer I could find and it's lowest speed is "fear for your hands while you awkwardly try to angle the flying batter away from the coffee maker"

So now we have our hand mixers ready, we're going to beat an 8oz brick of cream cheese until it's looks like this:



Add 1 can of sweetened condensed milk and 1/2c creamy peanut butter to the cream cheese and beat into submission, I mean until smooth. Then add one bag of Peanut Butter chips [the original recipe called for Reese's Pieces].



Spoon evenly over brownie batter:



Bake for 40mins until it looks like this


Mix a bag of milk chocolate chips with 3 tbsp of heavy cream [I used half and half] and microwave on high for 1min, stir until smooth and spread over the top.



Cover and chill, then eat until it takes heavy machinery and Richard Simmons to get you out of your house.

Better late then never.

So those appetizer recipes, it's about time I posted them.



Cream Cheese Stuffed Baguette.

I cut about a foot off of a baguette, I cut then end off of it and used a bread knife to hollow it out like this:


I ended up with this:


I set that aside. While I was carving up the bread I was also frying some bacon, 4 strips were for this, when the bacon was crisp I set it to drain and sauteed a small onion with some balsamic vinegar until translucent.

In a bowl I used a fork to soften an 8oz brick of cream cheese, I added 1tsp seasoning salt, 1tsp garlic, 1tsp basil, and 1tsp paprika then the onions and the bacon [now chopped]. I mixed it all together and using a butter knife I filled the baguette with the cream cheese.

The end result:


Then I did the puff pastry packages.

You can really fill these with whatever you like I did three different ones. While I was cooking everything else I also had half an acorn squash in the microwave steaming [flesh down 1/4c water 10-15min]. I pulled it out, scooped out the flesh and mixed it with 1tsp butter, salt&pepper to taste, a pinch of basil and 1/4c white Cheddar.

I rolled out the pastry to about 1mm thickness and cut into about 20 squares. I put the squash together first putting about 1tbsp of filling per sq.



The others were done similarly. The second packages were portobello mushrooms [which I'd sauteed in balsamic and lime cordial after the onions], smoked muscles [2-3 per package], and onions [1/2tsp per package].

Smoked oysters, bacon [about 1/4 slice per package], and parmesan.



Bake 400*f 15-20 min Until they look like this:



Tada! They were even enjoyed by my picky eaters:




Of course, my husband got home 2 hours later unexpectedly, so I made him bacon and eggs.

Reborn as a food blog?

I'm sorry Blog, I neglected you. I created this blog to help me get through my husbands tour, however I managed without it. The thing about having a soldier overseas is there's only much I can share with the public, especially when that public is the internet. But he's been home safe and sound for a few months and is now back to work. I thought today was the day to dust you off.

Sometimes my husband gets sent on short overnight jobs that don't involve leaving the city, we're a training base and he's in communications so by sometimes I mean, a lot. Tonight is one of those nights. I tend to take advantage of those nights, I get extra cleaning done, maybe I let one or both kids stay up late. And I cook food my husband won't eat.

He now he was gone 3 nights last week and I got most of my normal cravings out in that time. Hamburger mess [1lb ground beef and a can of vegetable soup with an onion and some mushrooms, serve it with beets and boiled potatoes nomnomnom] and Saurkrout and Sausages. So when he said he'd be gone today I thought "shit what craving can i take care of?" It's only one night so stinky fish was not in order, not enough time to get the fish smell out... So it's an appetizer picnic night.

I had to pick up a few groceries the other day so I took a look in the cupboard/fridge to see what I need to use, there wasn't much that needed to go. I did have half a package of puff pastry, two packages of cream cheese, half a bag of shredded cheese and half a pepper squash though. So this is what I decided to do. I'm going to do puff pastry packages in three flavors, Squash/cheese/caramelized onions, Smoked Mussels/balsamic portobello mushrooms/parmesan, and smoked oysters/bacon. Nom right? Also I'm going to hollow out about 12" of baguette and fill it with Cream cheese, bacon, cheddar, caramelized onions, and herbs/garlic. The other half? Bruschetta.

I'm sort of inventing on this one folks so as I make it I will keep track of my ingredients, take photos and will post an update tomorrow with recipes and photos.

I tried to find a picture of the tequila monster but I couldn't, I think I'm too drunk.

The Shattering

So today the pre x-pac patch hits. Am I speaking in another language, if you don't play World of Warcraft, then it probably seems like it. The Shattering is a start to a new in game world. World of Warcraft, or WoW as it's known to most, has been around in it's base stage, known by many as classic, or vanilla WoW, for some 5 years, more if you were lucky to get into the beta. Now we prepare for the third expansion and by far the most anticipated, imo.

The other two expansion left us with a few new zones in Azeroth, 2 new races, and 2 new non-Azeroth zones. In short very little changed in the vanilla world that the oldest players (by length of playtime, not age) remember. This time that world is gone forever. When the servers come back up today and I log onto my own characters the world I logged out in will no longer exist. So I'm going to take this moment to remember all the things I loved about Azeroth, all the things that I've missed for a long time, and all the things I will start to miss from now on.

When I first started playing WoW I was a sucker for a new server. The competition of a starting area filled with players who raced to kill or collect first and fastest. Eventually the servers lost balance and population and new servers stopped being released, people had gone back to their original server after the race to 60 was won or lost. However I really hope when I get to log in tonight or tomorrow that I see packed starting zones. It will be a nice start to the new world, to see it as populated and not empty.

Lately when you leveled a new character, ignoring the quest text you've read a million times before, the world is empty, no one fights for this quest boss, or that quest item, the only people you see are NPCs or level 80s completing some achievement or another, if you're really lucky that 80 will invite you to a group and fast track you to the next map. Heck once you get your newest Alt to 80 you're really just spending your days doing the exact same thing, every day. If you're lucky you already have some friends to make this less daunting then it sounds. And if you're really lucky those friends Raid or PvP in a group and you still have fun while doing it.

One thing I miss that I doubt I'll ever see again is world pvp, I'm not talking about ganking that guy who stole your ore node, or getting your guild together to take Haala or even winning a Wintergrasp. I'm talking about the first few months of WoW when you'd be wondering along doing some quests and there's a group of level 20ish horde attacking your alliance city, and people are fighting back. No, not a few level 80's one shotting the offenders but equal level players defending their city. Does anyone remember Hilsbrad battles that lasted all day and by the time it was over Southshore guards were in Tarren Mill fighting the Tarren Mill guards and vice versa. Those were the short lived days. At least I might see some pvp over quest mobs and farming spots again, even if it isn't really the same.

Gone are the days of Desolate Desolace and the Tanaris desert, the Barrens are no longer Barren and Azshara is no longer going to be an empty zone you only visit if you want to do you level 50 something class quest. Shimmering Flats will shimmer for a different reason. I'll miss the Azeroth that made me the player I am today, even if that player is somewhat cynical at times, but I look forward to discovering a whole new world that makes leveling new and exciting again. A world that gives new players a glimpse of what made me love this game.

I will bitch, I will complain, I will be unhappy at times with other players, or confusing quest instructions. I'll miss how simple plotting talents was, but above all that I will be interested, I'll be paying attention and learning a whole new way to play. I won't be alt tabbing and reading facebook while I auto attack that monster. I will be enjoying myself no matter how miserable I sound.

on writing about vampires

I think what a lot of popular vampire stories have in common are unhealthy relationships. Whether it's between two vampires, or a vampire and a human the relationships that develop, especially on the romantic level are often emotionally abusive on some level if not physically. As I work on editing my own stories involving vampires I can only hope that I break out of the trend. I admit a lack of respect for Stephanie Myers keeps my from reading the twilight series but I've noticed the same with Anne Rice, Charlene Harris, Michael Romkey and many others.

However it's a difficult task to tackle. In most authors own lore there is a hierarchy amongst vampires, the older the individual the more powerful they are is pretty standard. Even in my own lore there are varying factions of vampires, with different strengths and weaknesses. When you're putting these creatures together it becomes difficult to verbalize equality however amongst rivals or platonic character interaction this isn't a huge focus.

When you come to writing relationships there's a lot to consider. Especially between vampires and humans. You're dealing with a creature who is physically superior and generally incredibly older. A lot of authors like to let their vampires personalities be dated by when they were human. In my opinion this is were a lot of the issues of healthy relationships come into play. While I agree that the period in which a person became a vampire would influence the vampires values I think it's too much of a stretch that they would be that attached to the time itself. However this also varies depending on the lore an author works with and how reclusive the vampire in question is.

Suffice to say some vampires may hang on to their past, my own villain is a vampire like this. In fact while doing edits on my own novel I noticed that I was hopefully breaking this trend. A lot of my book center's around my main vampire realizing that she is in an emotionally abusive relationship with her maker. While not my original intent when I started writing this book many years ago, it was a present realization.

What happens in a lot of stories is you have a vampire protecting a human, when you throw a relationship into a situation it's hard not to have an overbearing white knight. Two things can happen, either this vampire is so protective that they refuse to change the human, thus leaving themselves as the literal superior life-form in the relationship (we're talking physically here) often times using their human lover as a walking vending machine. The other option is that the vampire fails in some way and is faced with the death of his/her human love or having to change them.

Ultimately when you write about humanized vampires you're going to get compared with the popular authors I mentioned above. For a long time I was afraid to keep writing, as I wanted to stand out and not be compared but I've realized that it's unavoidable, and not necessarily a bad thing. If I get compared to a popular author, especially a popular author who no longer writes vampire themed novels that can open up my reader base, and hopefully it will be these people who see the difference.

Tonight when I came down from putting Lyra to bed the phone started ringing, I was still on the stairs and Ace was next to the phone.

She shouted "OH NO MOMMY," and picked it up off the charger, but the phone continued to ring.

"Aisy," I said. "Can you take the phone to someone?" It rings a second time

"Mommy! Mommy! Oh no, Mommy!"

"Aislyn, can you answer the phone?"

A glimmer of hope shines in her blue eyes, she smiles a crazed smile and starts pressing buttons. "Mommy!" She shouts gleefully. "Mommy! Phone, Mommy!" The phone rings again but is cut off by another button as she runs to the kitchen. "Ka-kew!" she proclaims to her Grandmother. "Ka-kew, Ka-kew, Ka-kew!" she thrusts the phone into my mothers waiting hand.

Whoever was on the other end was very confused.