YAY IT'S FRIDAY NIGHT! The week has been full of low points (particularly not getting the job I wanted so badly) but definitely more high points (starting summer semester classes, seeing my friends, spending more time with my Hubs... I could go on and on). So, obviously, I'm grateful for it being the end of the week and being happy. :)

I had another interview this morning, with a staffing agency, and I have an interview with the actual company on Monday at 11 am. WOOT. lol Since it was with an agency, I had to do the requisite computer testing, except this time I got to do it from the comfort of my own home. Hope this opportunity works out!

In anticipatory celebration, I made a pretty tasty dinner, that was unintentionally meatless! On the menu: "Chicken" cordon bleu with roasted asparagus, spinach salad with spinach from my mini garden, french fries (for Hubs lol), and my first ever attempt at risotto... apparently, I did a damn fine job, because even Hubs ate it and he's not a fan of savoury, creamy things. I'd post the recipe, but to be honest, I didn't keep track of how much rice or chicken stock I used. I just know I sweated down a bit of white onion and garlic in olive oil and butter before adding the rice, and letting it toast a bit... then I started in with adding a ladle of chicken broth, and stirring until absorbed. My arm is super sore, but it was worth it. I was tempted to add peas or asparagus or mushrooms or something like that, but I wanted Hubs to try it first (he loathes asparagus and mushrooms he can see). I took a poorly lit picture of the risotto in its serving bowl, and I may post it at some point, but it's such a poor picture, I doubt you'd be able to tell it's risotto and not something like oatmeal. lol

This is why I like cooking-- sometimes, you just cook by sight and taste, and less by measurement. I've done this a couple of times with baking cookies and cupcakes, but only with recipes I know are fairly flexible and can withstand my additions. Heh.

I hope to post pictures of tomorrow night's dinner- Loobia Polo. One of the first and easiest Persian dishes I've ever learned to make, and soooo good. I've already got meat defrosting and basmati rice soaking in warm salted water in preparation. :-D Not only will there be pictures of the food, the pots being used will be my mother-in-law's pots that she got as a wedding gift over 20 years ago. They are fantastic pots, and so insanely beaten to hell and back, but I love those things. Hope everyone enjoys the pictures and recipe tomorrow!!

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Like I promised last night, I attempted to do some photography while I baked brownies this morning. I tried to model it after one of my favorite blogs (Pioneer Woman- http://www.pioneerwomancooks.com/), but as you'll surely see, I'm amateur... completely and totally amateur. lol Here we go!

This would be "The Cast of Characters": All Purpose flour, Cocoa Powder, Eggs, Vanilla Extract, and Sugar (which should be white, but I didn't have nearly enough, so I used my favorite demerara sugar!)

Oh yea, and there was some butter... ok, it's actually margarine because I was out of butter too, but I wanted brownies dang it!



So you start with 1 1/2 cups of sugar and 2 tsp. of vanilla. I tend to add a bit more than that, but I'm a nut job like that...


Looks like someone else wanted to join in the fun!! I found a bottle of coffee flavored liquer I had stashed in the fridge, and decided it might make things a bit interesting. I think I added 1 tablespoon or so? :-D


Mmmmmm... melted salty goodness. Meet sugar-y sweet goodness. You will be the BEST of friends.

Like I said, I'm an amateur. I use little plastic bowls for Ikea to crack my eggs into sometimes. I then washed out that bowl, and put my apple in it. lol

Plop... plop... plop...


Like I said... amateur. But oh so delicious.

So this was supposed to be 1/2 cup of cocoa powder. I'm a chocolate fanatic, and don't know when to stop, so that's probably closer to 2/3 cup. So sue me. :-P


3/4 cup of all purpose flour, sifted in only because I already had the sifter/strainer out and figured it couldn't hurt.

That little bit of rich dark brown peeking out makes my heart flutter.

This just sends me into full-on drooling idiot mode.

My lame attempt at a semi-artistic shot of the whole mess poured into a greased Pyrex baking dish.

Hmm... looks like it's time to clean the back of the oven again. That poor little dish sat in that dark lonely place all alone for about 40 minutes, at 350F.

In the mean time, looks like I have some cleaning up to do...

Ahh that's better. Salmonella who? lol

And the finished, uncut, burned-my-finger-because-I-forgot-it's-hot fresh brownies!

I apologize for my heinously horrible pictures. lol If anyone has any constructive tips on how to do better, feel free to let me know! :) Hope it hasn't been too painful to read all of this non-sense...



Mmmm... Brownies
1 1/2 c. sugar (white or brown)
3/4 c. butter, melted
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. coffee liqueur (optional)
3 eggs
1/2 c. cocoa powder
3/4 c. all purpose flour

1. Pre-heat your oven to 350F. Grease whatever baking dish you'll be using and set aside.
2. While the butter is melting in the microwave, mix together the sugar, extract and liqueur in a large bowl. When the butter is melted and cooled, mix into sugar mixture. Then add eggs one at a time.
3. Sift in cocoa powder and flour. Mix until just blended. Pour into baking dish.
4. Bake in the center of the oven for 40-45 minutes. (40 minutes will give a fudge-like texture, 42 will be between fudge and dense cake, 45 will be like dense). Wait at least 30 minutes before slicing into it.

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*sigh* So I've spent the last week, stressing about a job I interviewed for last Monday- a fantastic admin assistant job with a great boss. Fast forward to today... Considering I haven't heard from him and was told that he make his decision tonight, it's safe to say that I didn't get the job... again. I'm not surprised, to be completely honest. Not working for several years combined with only one reliable reference and nerves do not make a desirable combination.

But enough whining... tried out Ayurvedic yoga tonight, with my friend Anita. The instructor was the most hilarious 64 yr. old Hungarian woman who talked the whole time and was making us laugh SO hard. lol For $3.75 a session, I think we'll do it every Monday night. :) Maybe it will make me as flexible as I used to be... *wink wink nudge nudge*

Tomorrow is the first day of summer classes-- one day a week for about 6 weeks, then FOUR days a week. ACK. Oh well, I have my four girls in one class, and one in the other class. :-D We're going to tear the summer semester up. I'm going to be baking brownies tomorrow morning to take to them, so this blog will see my first lame attempt at food photography, and I'll try my best to take process pictures as well.

Click here if you're hungry!

So you've stumbled on my humble corner of the web... whether you've been gently nudged here by me or accidentally found me somehow, I offer a warm Southern, Vancouver granola-laden "Howdy, eh!"

There really isn't any particular theme to this right now, but I will probably ramble about various topics related to whatever is going on in my simple yet somehow complicated and hectic life.

I guess a little introduction is in order... My name's Tia, and I'm a university student in Vancouver, BC. As you can tell by the title and first paragraph, I'm not Canadian-- I was born and raised in Louisiana and moved to Canada in 2003, after meeting my dear husband on the internet (If eyebrow raises could be converted to money, I'd go around announcing this ALL the time. lol) I'm studying Psychology, and doing an extended minor in Linguistics, all in a vain attempt to get accepted to a good speech-language pathology grad school next year. I'm currently unemployed but hope to change that very soon.

Hmmm... Oh, I like to cook and especially bake. It's a wonder I still have all of my teeth- I have a sweet tooth that amazingly strikes all day, every day. So, I adopted baking as a habit, and I tend to bake a lot when I'm especially stressed about something. Let's just say, my friends are very well fed during midterms and finals. lol I have tons of other interests that include gardening, reading, dance/music, and animals. My husband and I have a pup named Toby, and I will probably talk about him tons on here-- I'm one of those crazy animal people, where I talk and treat my pet like he's my child. And if and until hubs and I have kids, he IS my child. :-P

So I think that's a pretty rambling and ADD style introduction. It's randomly ADD because I'm cooking dinner, which I may post the recipe for at some point... So thanks for taking a peek at my blog, and I hope my odd ball style hasn't scared you away permanently! Toodles for now!

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