millionaire's shortbread.

Doesn't the name of these bars sound fancy? You don't need to own a yacht (or yachtmaster!) and wear  limited edition $50 Gucci t-shirts to make / eat these.

They have a shortbread crust, similar to that of my recent eggnog cheesecake. Its high fat to flour ratio makes for a crumbly, absolutely delicious base to the bars.

Sweetened condensed milk is reduced until thick and slightly golden in color, before being poured atop the buttery crust. The milk turns into a light, milky caramel that is sweetly fragrant, and firms as it sets.

Finishing off the entire bar is a layer of chocolate, melted down with just a touch of ghee (butter is traditionally used). That last little addition prevents the chocolate from hardening to a stiff, un-cut-able shell, and lends a silkier mouthfeel to the chocolate.

eggnog ricotta cheesecake.

Coming home is the most wonderful thing ever. I am always reminded of how important family is, and that there is more to the world than just education, although that's obviously important too.

I have also become enlightened in many different ways. For one, my parents are an unending source of wisdom. And humor. Yesterday my dad mentioned how he totally expected me to come home with a puppy, as I've been wanting one for a while. 

I said our current dog would act motherly towards the puppy. He responded by saying no, the puppy would just be annoying to my current dog, and bite her legs all the time. 

My mom countered by pointing out that my little brother doesn't bite my legs all the time, so why would a puppy bite my dog's legs?

cranberry walnut stuffed french toast.

Sometimes you want to forego the oatmeal and cereal for a hearty, sweet, satisfying breakfast. This definitely fills all those requirements.

specialty pans: zoo animals & stars!

Holiday time has arrived! I am inclined to put a little more effort into making things look nice and be more themed around this time of year.

Enter: these molds.

Look at them. They're adorable! I want to go buy a pretty plate so I can display them on something other than a scratched up 9x13 baking pan or the really old white bowl I eat oatmeal in. Actually, with only one final to go and all day to study, I may just go shopping now ...

But that's besides the point. The focus is on these molds.

review: Pepperidge Farm Caramel Apple bread!

So I was excited, because this bread was quite a journey to get, and at the time, I thought, wow! I have an epic story to tell about this bread for my blog!

But now it's one day later, and my story doesn't seem quite so epic anymore.

I'll still say it, now I've brought it up. I was returning from class, and decided to stop by the new awesome grocery store nearby before going home. I pick up green squash, black cherry Chobani, some dried lentils to use in my new teeny pressure cooker, and then what do I see?

review: Crumbs caramel apple cupcake.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I thought of something today, while consuming my body weight in delectable victuals and then later, in my food-induced comatose state.

Someone should invent a service available annually on Thanksgiving day that rents wheelchairs. This way, if you eat too much and can't follow the crowd as it shifts from the kitchen/dining room to the family room, you can just make your youngest sibling or one of the more lively of your family members to wheel you over!

This is even more applicable if you go out to eat. You know how there are volunteers as the hospital to wheel patients out of out-patient? Volunteers to wheel stuffed patrons out of the restaurant. Bam.

I'm not sure how well this will catch on. In the meanwhile ... eat away! Thanksgiving is not over yet!

apple pie bars.

"In one moment, I lived centuries." It's my favorite line from one of my favorite songs. Well, that's what the lyrics translate to, anyhow.

Although not quite as melodramatic, I feel the same way about these past two weeks. It's been a whirlwind of meeting new people, doing new things, and getting new perspectives.

It's been exciting! Interspersed among there I've had random food quests and cravings. These apple pie bars - the perfect homey autumn dessert - were obviously included.

pumpkin chocolate chunk oat muffins.

This past week was so odd.

Hurricane Sandy hit. And believe it or not, it barely rained! It was mostly wind damage, by where I lived. I know the Jersey shoreline suffered severe damage, as did parts of New York. The subway system was flooded! All that salt water corrosion!

I won't add to how much you've been hearing about this natural disaster on the news and other social media networks. Instead I will give you my narrative of what I did during these last 7 days.

owl cupcakes! (+ other Halloween-themed ideas)

Do you have any plans for Halloween?

I'm not a fan of the holiday. My favorite part are those thick Reese's peanut butter cups shaped like pumpkins! And the candy corn. Brach's has my back. 

Despite my general aversion to Halloween festivities, I did think writing a piece on Halloween-themed finger foods for the university newspaper would be a fun idea! These adorable cupcakes were featured.

caramelized banana bread + browned butter glaze.

Have you heard of bananas foster? Butter and sugar are roasted in a pan, then sliced bananas are added until they start to soften. At the very end, some rum is sploshed in, before the whole mixture is spooned over ice cream while still warm.

The same concept is applied to this (relatively healthy) banana bread. The bananas are roasted with butter and sugar until they caramelize a little, and then the mixture is mashed together until everything is homogenous.

That sweet sticky mixture is incorporated into the rest of the ingredients, and baked in a loaf pan till golden. Afterwards, a thick glaze is spooned over the entire loaf, so that it dribbles into every crevice.

fall harvest salad.

Rainy days are so annoying. Unless you're sitting inside doing nothing all day, well then they're beautiful. You get to be lazy, bum around, and snack all day. It's pouring outside today, but I tried to make an effort to change up my usual rainy day diet of snacks and cookies.

oreo truffles.

These are quite unphotogenic - just know they taste amazing.

It's good to take breaks sometimes. Enjoy life, ya know.

Wake up at 9 am instead of 6 am.

Take time to eat a relaxing breakfast of steamy oats + pumpkin + banana + cinnamon + chia seeds + walnuts.

Flip your phone over so you stop seeing that maddening green blinking light, indicating a notification, out of the corner of your eye.

Get off Facebook. (Unless there's a huge message thread with some old friends you lost touch with.)

chocolate pumpkin pie bars.

So I had the weirdest dream ever. If you could care less about my random mental thoughts when I sleep, go down to just before the recipe for a review. If you do care (AW THANKS), keep reading.

Quick preface: I have had lucid dreams before. I dream quite a bit. My dreams are usually vivid. But this one was particularly unusual.

I was home for the weekend and taking a nap. I quickly entered dream-mode. I was at my university, in the library. The usual dream sequence passed, but then something weird happened.

tell me about: chia seeds!

I love these suckers.

Have you heard of them? Do you like them? Do they look too much like ants for you to try?

I'm here to tell you about these crunchy little seeds. I feel like a MythBusters host, or these guys, writing that. 

cornmeal buttermilk cake + chocolate frosting.

Haha.

That's my response to life right now. Junior year started a week ago, and I just realized I have zero expectations for the year. Initially that seemed kinda sucky.

But then I recalled a conversation I had too many times with too many people last year about how unspontaneous and boring our lives had become. I felt like an old person who had nothing to look forward to in life.

So maybe this unpredictable-ness is a good thing!

honey custard.

Folks. I wrote one complete blogpost. All it needed was pictures, BUT it didn't feel right. So I deleted it and wrote another one. But the second one felt less right than the first, so I tried "command z"-ing my way to the first version. I didn't think it would work, because each "command z" only deleted one word. However, it seemed to be working! I had hope!

But there's no happy ending to this story. Command z failed me. It stopped working when there were less than 10 words left of the second version. Victory was so close .. but alas, command z has limits. That's the moral of the story, guys. I'm too tired to offer much more than that.

Besides these delicate honey custards, that is.

toasted marshmallow squares.

Hey guys ... I'm forcing myself to break away from buffers, muscle contraction, and fluids momentarily to bring you these delicious squares I recently made.

I needed to bake. You know that point when food becomes an emergency more than a want? Yeah. I needed to bake today, or else I don't even know. 

I'm planning on doing crazy, outrageous things after my MCAT .. like shopping. Responding to my friend's texts. Talking to my parents. Baking something interesting. And maybe, just maybe, getting my nails done. 

orange cornmeal cake + blueberry compote.

Hello.

It's been a while ... I think I'm losing my mind.

For one, I can't type. This will not come in handy during the essay portion of the MCAT.

For two, and this is even more trauma-inducing, I'm losing the deftness I had at baking. As in .. I used to do simple things really quickly- could make four wet mixtures and two dry without messing anything up, and I could improvise pretty easily. Now?

tell me about: "Alter Eco" Dark Chocolate Quinoa Bar!

When I become a billionaire, I'm going to spend all my money at Whole Foods. Kombucha tea? Chia seeds? Make-your-own almond butter?

Yeah, definitely. At that point, I won't be circling the store in awe for half an hour, or covertly munching on large amounts of the caramel apple cinnamon popcorn and guacamole with chips that were put out as samples because I would already have all those things at my own home, stocked in cute containers, ready for delicate snacking.

In the meanwhile, I'll have to settle for little things I can afford, like this unusual chocolate bar.

citrus carrot cake + dulce de leche cream cheese frosting.

I have a carrot cake recipe I swear by.

This isn't it. One day, I promise I'll put it up, but for now, I wanted to try something a little different - this citrus carrot cake!

There were oranges and carrots in the fridge. I could've left them there to be eaten plain or, in the carrot's case, be made into muthia or grated into a wrap .. but cake is so good. And do you ever just do things because you feel like it?

orange bread pudding.

Today was so nice. I bonded with the family. We had a very casual barbecue with impromptu grilled fish tacos that were ahhhmazing, perfectly toasted marshmallows that occasionally (thanks to my wonderful brother) got nudged directly into a pile of ashes, juicy grilled cherry tomatoes bursting out of their skins, and grilled pineapple.

The weather was gorgeous. I got some studying done. I got past the climax of the novel I've been reading (One Day, as noted in my Books page) and woah!! It totally caught me by surprise! I need an opinion on it.. I'm still digesting what happened.

I didn't even text anyone all day .. felt kinda nice!

mini falafel bites.

Ever have those times where you just want to eat everything?

I tend to be fine during the day, but as soon as night comes .. my ability to gauge proper food portions and my self-will are completely and utterly destroyed. Tonight is one of those nights. I just had chocolate cake with dulce de leche (excellent combo .. also, that dulce de leche is not going anywhere anytime soon, there's a lot of it), a huge thick chewy chocolate chunk (> chip) cookie, and whatever skim milk was left in the container. There's something liberating about drinking milk straight from the gallon carton sometimes.

Or maybe I just need to do more spontaneous things.

dulce de leche brownies.

Summer has officially started! It seems to also be the season of new houses. So many visits to friends' new homes, particularly when you find yourself with extra time, after your MCAT class got cancelled because the teacher went to the wrong city, 40 mins away.

These brownies are easy enough to make before you have to leave for any housewarming parties, though. Remember I mentioned that the dulce de leche would come up again?

Yeahhhh man .. right here. Right now. Kitchen. Go. 

dulce de leche.

Duuuuudes, what's up?

Besides that absolutely gorgeous spoonful of dripping dulce de leche.

I think the only appropriate response I would have to that question right now is: life. 

Every once in a while, life gets super busy. Other times, you have work to do that ... is annoying so you never do it. And it piles up. And sometimes everything just gets so overwhelming that all you really want to do is sit, be a blob, and ignore everything for the entire day. 

You need those kinds of days every once in while. I'll do that .. when I find time. But in the meanwhile, this dulce de leche has been greatly improving my quality of life. 

coconut cream pie cupcakes.

It's summer.

Okay, well ignore the rain that's been the backdrop of the past couple days.

But in general, it's hot. Tan lines come very easily. Tinted moisturizer is used in lieu of heavy foundation. Shorts are established as an outfit staple, and ice cream becomes a daily indulgence.

Don't you also feel like eating lots of tropical & refreshing things? Like papaya? And watermelon? And acai juice? Mmmm. These coconut cupcakes are an example of a perfect summer dessert.

pear galette, with vanilla pastry cream.

I think my brother has been watching a significant amount of "Chopped." Recently, he told me he wanted to bake something "interesting."

By he, he meant me. And by interesting, he meant something super good & out of the norm of cake and cookies. Well, the younger brother kept yelling "flambe!!" .. me and the older one just kind of ignored him. I eventually decided on a fruit dessert, and also made a point of making them come with me to A&P to buy pears, because jeez, if I'm baking for them, they need to do at least a little bit for me.

chocolate chip whoopie pies, with espresso filling.

I reformatted the blog!! It was a lot of work .. had to code HTML and adjust tons of image sizes. I like the new look. It puts more attention on the pictures, which is what usually catches people's attention. Besides my highly entertaining writing, that is.

My hair's in a crazy bun right now. I have headphones in my ears, but no music on. The yellow light of the little bed clip-on lamp is casting dramatic shadows on my hands, emphasizing my newly acquired tan (50 minutes outside is all I need) and sculpting crevices, making everything more angular. It's 11:55 pm and although that's not particularly late, I'm questioning why I'm up.

I feel like the novel I've been reading is influencing my writing a lil bit. Anyway, what I'm not questioning is my decision, an hour ago, to have another one of these whoopie pies. I'll tell you why.

whole wheat breakfast muffins.

I'm in that mood. You know the one. Where you lay in bed, headphones streaming music from the iTunes playlist dubbed "Mellow" (the Drake & Linkin Park songs that belie the actual mood) and thoughts, instead of focusing on the relaxing chilling session earlier with the bestie, cannot progress past ce;swlfuehsfi;.

It may've been eating dinner so late (9:30 pm). It could also be something else.

It's probably the dinner. Weirddd. These muffins are weird, too. They have so many random (super healthy) things in them, because I made the recipe up totally by myself. I'll keep the focus on the muffins.

homemade oreos, rose + peanut butter filled.

So I was eating turkey chili just now before I sat down at my laptop to start writing this post. Of course I got distracted and checked up on the food & fashion blogs I regularly read, all my email accounts (way too many), and tastespotting before finally arriving hurr.

Then I got back up to get my new favorite "chapstick" because my lips were simply parched, and I saw that I hadn't finished all my chili .. !!!

Best feeling. The same thing happened with these oreos. I'll explain.

vanilla baked alaska with browned butter cake.

My brother's been asking for baked alaska for ... ever. Probably a year. Every time I would come home from college, he would ask where it was. One late afternoon, after a long day of indulging in old video games, I decided to just make it.

There are three components to the entremet - a base of cake (traditionally sponge, but more commonly pound cake), the ice cream, and meringue. I forewent the traditional domed shape. I found my individual assembly style cuter, albeit slightly more difficult.

It's one of those, the sum is greater than the parts, things. It's totally worth the effort.

baked cinnamon mini doughnuts + cream cheese glaze.

I'm really excited about these. They're mini doughnuts. Everything is better mini .. well, most things.

They're adorable, healthy (baked, not fried), and virtually fat-free. I usually don't like cinnamony things, but I love these.

The texture is perfectly fluffy. I could pretty much drink the glaze on top, and the way in which it settles and slightly soaks into the top of the doughnut ... you are going to need to try these.

randoms.

I have these random food pictures all over the place that I decided to just collect into a post. I usually like reading these types of posts on other blogs, and it seems fun to write, so here it goes!

layered chocolate birthday cake.

I just backed up my computer. I feel so accomplished .. for two reasons. One, it's break. Almost everything qualifies as productive. Fix my hair? Awesome. Change my clothes? Go me. Leave the house? Woah I'm wild! And will need to sleep by 10pm to compensate for the exhausting day I had.

Secondly, I feel like backing up a computer is something that's always advised to do, and no one really does it.

I'm trying to do things I should be doing more. Like backing up my data. Not eating PBJ's everyday. Exercising. Stimulating my brain. Keeping up with responsibilities. All these things juxtapose what I said earlier, my idealized vision of break.

But long term .. they'll help me, right?

pineapple cream cheese blondies.

I realized why I have so much more to blog about when I come home. Because when I'm at college & have something (anything) to say, someone is usually around to hear it.

I guess that someone is you, now! I think my parents have become proficient in tuning out the random stuff I think about.

I hope you're excited. You can hear about how I recently found out that one ostrich egg is the equivalent of about 22 chicken eggs. And how Rutgers is working extra hard to recruit more students directly from China. This greatly baffles me. Also, how the Affordable Care Act is going to affect our lives. I was not aware that it extended coverage for young adults! I can stay underneath my parents' plan till 26 now! WOOP WOOP.

Oh, and I guess you can hear about these blondies. I mean, if you really want to.

chocolate cake + coffee buttercream.

It's April 28. The year of the Dragon. As classes wind down, the apathy rises.

Sounds so dramatic, right? Reminds me of Edgar Allen Poe. He was quite the depressed individual .. his work was so macabre. Have you seen the commercials for the movie based on his short stories? I can't watch the trailers. Too creepy.

But anyway. The amount of work I need to do and the time I'm actually spending working ... theoretically should be a direct relationship (with a correlation coefficient of 1, if you want to get precise) but that's not working out so well. The number of times I bake does go up, though!

cookie dough stuffed chocolate cupcakes, with cookie dough frosting.

I can't believe it's Tuesday! This week was supposed to be crazy filled with work. I haven't yet done said work ... which is probably an issue.

I did make these beautiful cupcakes as promised on Monday night, however.

crazy brownies.

These brownies are crazy. Why? Because there's crazy things going on with them.

As a corollary, there have been lots of crazy things going on with me, too. Corollary .. coronary .. artery .. heart attack.

That's my train of thought, without fail, when I hear/see/say corollary. I guess heart attack is kind of depressing. But doesn't everything lead to cancer anyway?

chocolate cream pie.

Dudes. Not going to lie, I am blatantly using this chocolate cream pie to reflect on things that have been going on lately.

This weekend, I had probably the craziest, most ridiculous, and most rewarding experience of my undergraduate life. Rutgers University Dance Marathon was this weekend, from March 31 - April 1. You can read about it at marathon.rutgers.edu.

I was (originally wrote "am" but realized it's over now ... well AD apps are out next week, so we'll see!) part of Catering, which is a job of incredible manual labor, dedication, and hard work.

tell me about: amande yogurt!

Hello!

When I was at home, my mom had this coupon for $5 off a $50 purchase at A&P. Were you expecting me to say J. Crew, or GAP or something? Nope. I most look forward to food shopping. And I spent approximately 90 minutes searching for the way to maximize my expenditures. My final bill was $50.03. Winnaaaaa.

As I was browsing (it's not Whole Foods or anything, so it took some effort finding unusual things. I almost paid four bucks for a tin of clams. They had 50% RDA iron though! woahoaohhoahh I need iron. I got three types of tortillas instead.), I noticed this yogurt. I love yogurt. And I love almond milk. And so, when I saw that this yogurt was made sans dairy & with cultured almondmilk instead, I was intrigued. And coconut flavored! The only real, and actually good quality, coconut-flavored yogurt I have had was in Poland a couple years back. That had shreds of coconut in it, and was nothing like the Dannon Light n Fit Pina Colada flavor.

omelette crunchwrap.

HEY THERE. Want to hear about something awesome?

It's not the PS3 my brother just got. 

It's not my new favorite color from Essie that is not only a gorgeous coral, but is how my grandmother once lovingly described me. It's good to be "healthy" in the Indian culture. 

And it's definitely not the story about how I survived getting attacked by a deer on a golf course in pitch black darkness. 

roasted carrots with cumin + sea salt.

There's garlic because these carrots were meant to be something else ..

Thursday's over! Friday's tomorrow! Yay! You can come back from work or school, picking up some carrots & good crusty bread on the way home. Change into sweatpants or other comfy clothes, such as lounge pants, before plopping on a couch to take pleasure in senselessly whiling away your time online, on blogger, food blogs, and tastespotting.. oh wait that's just me. You can devour nibble on the dark chocolate covered pretzels your brother just got from a fundraiser while you watch youtube videos or TV shows. Fuel that oft-unquenchable desire to just do nothing.

whole grain superman muffins.

It's half past midnight (do people tell time like that anymore?) aka - far too late for me to be awake during break.

I just ate one of these muffins. There are so many good things in here. Whole wheat flour, oatmeal, bran, flax, wheat germ, yogurt, cinnamon. Yeah man, cinnamon has minerals and stuff. I added "0.25 tspn ground cinnamon" to my iProfile when I was keeping record, and it boosted my mineral counts incredibly. Winnnn.

I could eat these little baby muffins all day. This for breakfast, and the chicken chili with bell peppers & fresh tomatoes atop brown rice pilaf with lentils I had tonight for dinner every evening. And whatever for lunch. My day would be awesomeeeeeee.

rose cream hearts.

I just beat two worlds in KH1. What else have I done since being home?

Uh, made these beautiful cookies, duh. I adore custard. Custard anything .. crème caramel, egg tarts, bread pudding, the filling of cream horns, eclairs, cream puffs, and lobster tails (aka - sflogliatelle). Look at this beautiful picture of a lobster tail dissection I randomly found. I swoon.

I could continue, but you get the point. And I realized that despite my love of custard, I barely have any custard things on here. So here is one. These rose cream hearts are light delicate cookies which can be cut into any shape (I did hearts), and in-between is sandwiched a filling. I made my filling rose-flavored, with zero food coloring, because I am also obsessed with rose anything, but you can easily make them regular custard-flavored or vanilla.

browned butter bread pudding + salted caramel sauce.

I wanted this blogpost to consist of just one line and tons of beautiful pictures. But it's difficult to capture the process/result of what you're making when you are making these things in a dorm. And then coordinating the surprise party.

birthday cake for two.

Oh Monday. Every week, I wake up to you, so determined that the day will be good, a strong start to the rest of the week. And every week, without fail, I end the day exhausted. tired. not in the mood to yoga & workout, but I usually do anyway.

Well I give in this week, okay? My day started at 6:40. I put on winged eyeliner despite the way it made my sleepy eyes burn. I went to all my classes despite my intentions of skipping every single one. See this bear cake? (Third one down. Below the creepy as hell Cookie Puss.) A friend of mine and I ate it all. Including the nose, which consisted purely of crunchy bits ... so good. I went to Rutgers Club with Andrea. I ate massive amounts of German Chocolate Cake. I ate buttery pecan bars. I ate two rainbow cookies. After all that, I skipped yoga & the usual hourly gym session I have. I walked back to my dorm from Sonny Werbs instead, to digest ... hair curly & down. plus incredibly windy. equals bad. I later went to Shoprite to find that they did not have challah. #upsetting. I bought birthday Oreos and ate one instead to continue with the theme of fatass for the day. It was so sweet.

How was my Monday? Long. So long.

That's what she said. But I wouldn't end on a bad note. Complaining sucks (hopefully the above narrative was at least slightly amusing. funny how one's pain is another's amusement, right? whatever works.), so I am here to tell you how my Monday turned up.

blueberry hazelnut coconut oatmeal.

I am here today to introduce to you - delicious oatmeal.

No sugar. Plain oats. Simple things combined to make the classiest breakfast you've probably eaten in a while, unless you have the good fortune of eating at Café du Monde every morning.

But us normal folk tend to either not eat breakfast (bad!!!) or eat breakfast sandwiches or something portable and convenient.

I won't necessarily concede to the fact that this is portable (although it could be! in a paper cup, I've eaten it that way for two years straight in high school .. while driving. so no excuses.), but it is quite easy. If you have ten minutes, I highly recommend it.

vanilla browned butter cake with truffle frosting.

It's been a long (very) Fat Tuesday. Fat, because my roommate and I totally went HAM on the bread pudding served at the Mardi Gras dinner at the dining hall tonight. And then Andrea and I devoured half this browned butter cake in approximately 30 minutes, max. Long, because I had an exam this past Sunday and today, and a ton of other things on top of that. Thankfully, that higher power up there was looking out for me and caused the physics page to crash today. And so my physics online homework was delayed!

And so I proceeded to use the remainder of my time researching HTML. Because I wanted to add a Recipe Index to my blog and didn't realize it was so easy! You just go on "Pages" on your dashboard and make a page with whatever name you want.

But here's the tricky part. You need to make sure to SHOW your pages! This is the most difficult part. But I'm warning you guys now. Cause I'm such a tech pro. I'm soo ready to answer questions to work in the computer labs. And also prepared to bake enough cakes until they accept me just for my food.

nutella cheesecake layer cake + truffles.

Remember Andrea? We've made awesome french toast (I actually made her a heart french toast on Valentine's Day morn teehee) & gone secret santa shopping together, and she also decided what my last surprise birthday cake would be. Well, today's her birthday, and that means one thing: make a more awesome birthday cake than the last one.

Which is kind of extremely difficult, considering this was the cake from Andray dray's birthday last year ..

tell me about: Naturally More Peanut Butter!

I really like peanut butter. Freshman year of college, I went through seven jars of peanut butter - the 40 oz (2 lb 8 oz.) ones. Not including all the pb I would eat in the dining hall.

Maybe I should've started out with less disturbing stories. At least I got a lot of protein! And fat .... but protein! I need protein now. These weekly Monday yoga classes are getting to me. As is the hour of gym time I put in directly after each time. And the one hour Just Dance session I had yesterday ... I don't care if you think it's sad that a Wii game affected me, it was intense. 

Need protein to feed all that torn muscle, you know. And this peanut butter has not only protein, but iron and fiber! Yeeeey everything I need. 

There's a blood drive tomorrow. Every blood drive for me ends in disappointment. I guess not eating red meat is detrimental to my blood-donating abilities. Maybe I will eat this entire container of peanut butter right now so my body will be ready to fake enough iron in about 12 hours for me to donate! 

challah french toast. (+ optional steps)

Hey there! It's a fyne Sunday noon, a perfect day for french toast.

But not just any french toast, no no. What I'm talking about is a thick slice of challah bread, doused in a slightly sweet cinnamon egg milk mixture, placed on a hot pan sizzling with butter. As soon as it's cooked through, it's transferred from stove to tray. Brown sugar is crumbled indulgently atop the golden brown toast. Served on a satisfyingly heavy ceramic plate with a sturdy fork and knife. Authentic maple syrup sits in a cute little jug on the side, waiting to be drizzled (and inevitably get everywhere, making every singly surface sticky).

I live for Sunday mornings. 

apple butter bars.

When did there start being not enough hours in a day?

Sleep. Classes. Schoolwork. Meetings. Lab. Club. Eating. Seeing civilization.

The last two get kind of neglected nowadays .. one day, by 3pm, I had eaten Greek yogurt & one of these bars from Dudley's that have 0.8 grams of plant sterols. They're actually super healthy and taste really good. But I learned in my foods class that sterols are cholesterols that are only derived from animal sources, and the way that vegetarians get it is from milk. So how can "plant" sterols exist?

No clue, but I want to ask my cute little Indian professor, I am sure she would know. Speaking of that class, the exam is in two days ... I have yet to buy the textbook. Yeeeeeeeey let's see how bad this week can end up being.

On the bright side, this weekend was awesome!

marbled banana nutella muffins.

I like using the word marbled. I feel like marbled things are fancier, like marbled cheesecake brownies & neapolitan marble cake.

Anyway, good thing Thursday is over. We have passed the major hump of the week! Yay us. And yesterday was such nice weather. I wore shorts. SHORTS, people, on the first day of February! There's something wrong with the world ..

review: ilili.

ilili. allylic. a milli a milli.

ilili is the restaurant my aunt & I went to for NYC Restaurant Week Winter 2012. It's turned into a tradition, ever since the first time we went two years ago, for my aunt to take me out for my birthday dinner during Restaurant Week. Two years ago we went to Spice Kitchen, which was absolutely amazing. I loved every single thing I ate there .. and it was a good seven or eight course meal.

We went to ilili this past Friday night for dinner. Say that name out loud .. doesn't it sound like allylic? Writing it reminds me of A Milli, too.

Speaking of Lil Tune, I would recommend against looking up the meaning of rap lyrics. They might simultaneously surprise and disgust you.