St. Patty's Dinner!!

I forgot to take pictures for it! I'm a tard.

So not to bore and just to sum: the food that was cooked as planned was the goulangeres, the main dish was of course the corned beef and a the side were bangers and mash. The goulangeres did NOT look like the pictures in the slightest. The corned beef was DELICIOUS and had a brown sugar and mustard topping that I absolutely loved and want to make again. The sauce from the bangers went awesome with the mash.

Dinner was running late (as usual if I have anything to do with it) so Margaret helped me out and brought an extra appetizer: Gouda and crackers. I love cheese and crackers, really one of my favorite appetizers. Also, I forgot that Ashley was a vegetarian and pretty much everything involved meat so I ran out and bought some asparagus for an extra side dish. And I didn't have time to make dessert so Margaret also brought little short cakes with strawberries, blueberries and whipped cream.

And, although I had planned to be the master chef for this master dinner I ended up kinda just being the coordinator. Alex and his little brother Dan helped a ton (they made the goulangeres and helped with the corned beef) and Margaret and Cally did the asparagus. I used premade mashed potatoes and cooked the sausage. But I swear I was busy and running around the whole time! I'm not very good at big dinners though, and the Easter dinner got canceled since the Irish dinner was only three days before and was a LOT of work, so from now on I'm gonna not say I want to cook everything. Maybe I'll just stick to desserts, that's what I'm good at.

I swear this was just a summary, I really could have gone on for pages more, but what's the fun without pictures? I've got some really exciting blogs coming up soon, as soon as I upload my pictures!

Post Secret

This is my favorite Post Secret card for this week:

What an interesting tale THAT would make!

St. Patty's Day Dinner!

Which will be roughly a week late, because it's still in the planning stages. In fact, it's barely even a plan because I have yet to invite anyone to it. And I want it to be BIG! I love big dinners. However, because I am excited about all things irish, and because yesterday was St. Patrick's day so I still have GREEN on the mind, I'm going to start planning the food I want to make right now. And beware, I may have relied heavily on TastyKitchen! Hold on to your coattails boys and girls!

The Appetizer:

Blue Cheese and Irish Cheddar Gougeres

These babies from TastyKitchen have three VERY scrumptious sounding main ingredients (two of which can be found in their name): Blue Cheese, Irish Cheddar, and Dry White Wine. I'm going to start making these an hour before I tell everyone to come over, so that when people arrive these little suckers will have just been taken out of the oven and will be ready to eat!

The Main Dish:

Authentic Corned Beef and Cabbage

This picture is just a random picture of corned beef and cabbage because the recipe I'm going to use doesn't come with a picture. St. Patrick's day dinner is just not the same if it doesn't have corned beef. I loooove corned beef SO MUCH but I get it less than once a year (because there isn't always a St. Patty's dinner) so to skip it on this important day is just sacrilegious. At least in my eyes. The TastyKitchen corned beef recipe I found looks delicious, and comes with a perfect score in its ratings. It claims to be a recipe from an old irish pub, and just that fact makes it sound even more perfect for the dinner I'm planning!

The Sides:

Bangers and Mash

Bangers and Mash is apparently the irish way of saying sausage and mashed potatoes. And wow, I like their way of saying it! This side is actually labeled as a main dish in TastyKitchen, I guess because of the sausage, but I'm still going to make it anyways, probably just because of the name. I think it's actually the only side I'm going to do because the corned beef is made with cabbage, so we'll have cabbage, mashed potatoes and sausage all as sides. Does that sound good enough? I was also thinking of making some type of bread item, although I'm not sure I need to because I'm making the Gougeres for an appetizer. Thoughts anyone?

The Dessert:

Irish Potatoes

I actually really don't like irish potatoes. The main ingredient is coconut, and for some reason I can't make myself chew and swallow coconut. Unless it's in a pina colada, but in that case it doesn't have the waxy gross texture, which is where my problem with it lies. BUT. Just like corned beef, St. Patty's dinner is just not St. Patty's dinner without some irish potatoes, so they will be made! I'm going to be calling up my mom for the recipe on this one. I'm also looking for ideas for another irish dessert... any suggestions?

So that will be my St. Patrick's Day (A Week Late) Dinner! I'm looking forward to it! I will of course also be decorating the place with lots and lots of green, and I will probably be serving Guiness as a drink. Wish me luck!

Bored of Pandora?

I was playing with my Stumble Upon button (which come to think of it I don't think I've ever blogged about and I should) and I stumbled upon a new music site. I haven't decided yet whether I like it more or less than pandora, and it definitely has some drawbacks, but overall I've had a lot of fun playing with it.This is a picture of the site.

The main drawback with it is that to really play around with the site you have to pay for it, which I refuse to do. But you can still have fun with the free options. What you do is choose what type of mood your in, energetic or calm, and dark or positive. You can also choose what decade you want your songs coming from, and what style of music. There are buttons at the top where you can say "play your favorite artists," "similar artists" and "discovery." Unfortunately you can't choose "favorite songs" which plays your fave songs (duh) but I don't really mind that. The "discovery" button searches for less popular songs which I think is pretty cool. The annoying thing is you can't skip around the map it's drawn out unless you get the "premium version". You can still tell it what songs you like and what ones you don't like tho, so I'm happy enough with it. The interesting thing (to me) was that when I was signing up all the questions were in french (or another similar language?). But it wasn't hard to tell what they were asking. You can also use it without signing up, but where's the fun in that? I've liked most of the songs they've played, once I got my settings in a good place, and now I'm rocking out! :) You should try it.

This made me laugh today

Redneck Love Poem

Susie Lee done fell in love;
She planned to marry Joe.
She was so happy 'bout it all
She told her Pappy so.

Pappy told her, "Susie gal,
You'll have to find another.
I'd just as soon yo' Ma don't know,
But Joe is yo' half brother."

So Susie put aside her Joe
And planned to marry Will.
But after telling Pappy this,
He said, "There's trouble still...

You cain't marry Will, my gal,
And please don't tell your Mother,
But Will and Joe and several mo'
I know is yo' half brother."

But Mama knew and said, "My child,
Just do what makes you happy.
Marry Will or marry Joe,
You ain't no kin to Pappy!”

To do or not to do?

Applying for jobs recently has gotten me to thinking about what exactly I want to do for my career. And really, I have not yet gotten it narrowed down yet. My favorite options, in no particular order are:

~Become an EIT (on the way for that, I'm signed up for the FE) and then a PE. Meet lots of contacts in the professional world and find "a niche in the market," as my dad would phrase it. In other words, when I'm a PE I want to be meeting contacts so that I can open my own consulting business, hopefully by the time I'm thirty. I just need to figure out what exactly people would be consulting with me for. But I do already have a logo!This is me working at a construction site working for ECS. On my way to becoming a PE!

~Become a world famous novelist. Of course, that means I have to become any type of novelist first, but if I never write a book in my entire life then I'm going to be very disappointed with myself. Also, this is something that I plan on doing whatever my career is, and this would only be my MAIN career if I did become world famous. And rich.

~Open a bookstore. This is definitely one of my favorites. And the least likely. Belonging in this category is also opening up my own pastry shop. I've been doing a lot of baking recently, and I've discovered I'm pretty talented at it. What would be really cool is if I could open up a bookstore with a pastry shop in it. I guess I might as well serve coffee there too. But does that sound too much like Barnes and Noble or Borders? If I opened up my own bookstore I would want it to have some cool twist so that I could compete with the big boys.I've posted this picture before, but I haven't taken any other pictures of my baked goods apparently! I should have gotten a picture of my peach crisp... it's my fave so far.

~Work for Forella Group. Maybe expand what we do so that I can use my ME degree. I would want to become a PE before I did this though, Forella Group needs more credentials. Also, I could help Forella Group really grow and then open my own branch in another part of the country (Florida). That would be awesome.

~Go back to school and get my Masters or PhD and figure out what I want to do from there. I don't know what I would do with it though.

So those are the most likely options at the moment. Of course, winning the lottery should be in there too, but I'm just going to take that one for granted.

Automatic Replay

I have a new song I'm totally obsessed with and can't stop playing. Actually, I don't think it really is a new song, it's probably just the first time it's come to my attention. Whatever the case may be, I've been playing it over and over ever since I downloaded it... yesterday. But just because I've only had it one day doesn't mean that this will not be a long and hard obsession... I may need to make it my ringtone. BUT. I am almost embarrassed to admit this, but I'll do it anyways. The song is from the new Dante's Inferno EA game that's coming out. And boy did they do good marketing because now I'm not only obsessed with the song, but I want the game too. SO BAD. It reminds me of Diablo, and Diablo and I really had some good times together. Oh, and of course seeing the commercials for the game also really makes me want to read the book Dante's Inferno. It's next up on my list. The song is Ain't No Sunshine (When She's Gone) by Bill Withers. Check it out. Like right now.

This is a picture from the game... I know I'm a dork but it looks SO COOL.