sugar with a side of sugar

Ah, Easter. All religion aside, Easter is a time for hiding colored eggs from children, standing in line to get your picture taken a big white bunny and for adults, eating a wide variety of overly sugared candy. This peep bathed in chocolate is just one of the ways that I managed to consume several pounds of sugar during the holiday weekend. Looks delicious, right? Good. Because this post is about pictures and I have a lot of them.  

Greg and I began our Easter weekend in the car with a six and a half hour drive to West Virginia to visit his family. What better way to start a long car drive than by eating a supply of the best donuts in Indy before you even get on the highway?

I have been a huge fan of Taylor's Bakery ever since someone brought a box of their donuts into work one day. Greg has never been there so we had to try a wide variety of donuts...

Chocolate donut holes

Jelly-filled donut

My all-time favorite - a cake donut with the best white icing I've ever tasted

Normally I eat four of these babies throughout the course of a work day. This morning I only had one, but I also had a colorful sprinkled version.

Note the coffee in the cup holders. We needed some caffeine after the sugar rush wore off. Greg is now a fan of Taylor's as well. See for yourself.

After three hours on the road, we stopped in Columbus, Ohio for lunch at a local place in German Village.

Katzinger's is a German market/deli with a smorgasbord of sandwiches to choose from. I went with a turkey, Swiss, and coleslaw-wich, while Greg chose a pastrami-wich.

The best part about Katzinger's? The pickles. There are two big barrels of pickles that diners can help themselves to while they eat.

They also had a variety of scrumptious looking desserts on display, but I was still feeling the sugar from my donut devouration that morning. Maybe next time I'll try some Kugels.

We spent two fun, relaxing days with Greg's family and there were enough treats to take out ten sugar cane fields. Bags of jelly beans (those things are addictive!) and other fruity candy, plates of cookies and cupcakes, ice cream pie, carrot cake, and several of the standard chocolate bunnies. You name it, it was probably at Grandmother and Granddad’s house. I allowed myself to indulge and try a lot of new treats, but my teeth feel like they have been soaking in a sugar bath for awhile.
   
Even a building on the campus of West Virginia University looked like a treat to me by the end of the weekend. Any guesses on what treat that might be?

I hope your Easter was as enjoyable and sugar-filled as mine. Time for me to go brush my teeth again.

hostess with the mostess

I morphed into a hostess with the mostess this past weekend when Greg and I had a few handfuls of friends over on Saturday night. I made two batches of paradise cookies and there were only five of said cookies left on Sunday. These cookies are light and fluffy and the pineapple involved kept them moist all party long. They were also a nice balance to the decadent mocha chocolate cake that my BFF Kristy brought with her from Fort Wayne. I asked her to bring something chocolate and she just about Betty Crockered her way into a bake off with me. Perhaps my cookies were almost gone because every time someone tasted and complimented her cake I made them eat a cookie as well...Hey, pastry chefs in the making need validation, people.

Here I am loading up a plate with cookies before the soiree.

And practicing my hostess with the mostess skills.

Kristy showed up with the mocha cake of decadence and began serving out slices later in the evening. I told her if the cake was good that I was going to take credit for baking it, but in the end, I gave credit where credit was due. See for yourself.

Decadence up close.



One of our friends managed to get cake on the front of his shirt and his sleeve while devouring a piece of cake. I promptly told him to wipe it off with a paradise cookie and make sure to eat that as well.

Since Greg was the host with the most for the evening, he also helped whip up something special. "Gin and titonic" ice cubes. Check out the vengeance of this iceberg (on the right) floating next to a few titanic-wannabes. Guaranteed to make any drink more fun - even the gag-worthy whiskey pictured here.

In the end, the party was a success and everyone had a great time. And don't worry; Kristy and I are still BFF's. Did I mention the cake was a box mix? ;)

orange you glad it's Spring?

Happy Spring everyone! Yes, I realize it was officially Spring at the time of my last post, but now it actually FEELS like Spring outside. And I, along with my creative juices, just love it. This weekend I pondered about what a chocolate chip cookie would think about having orange and oats injected into it. I decided it was a fabulous idea and that I was going to guesstimate the inclusion of these ingredients without looking up a recipe online. This is the story of the Chocolate Chip, Oat and Orange Cookie.

I'm a firm believer that no good idea can be successfully executed without a good breakfast. Which is why I was excited to start my Sunday with a breakfast of waffles and sausage made my by thoughtful fiancé. It's hard to go wrong when the trio of George Foreman, Hungry Jack and Aunt Jemima are in the kitchen with you.

This was all I needed to kick off a very productive Sunday. Mmmm pancakes, sausage and coffee...yes, I ate three waffles. No judgment please.

Later that day, I was set on adding orange and oats to my plain old mini-chocolate chip cookies. The oranges on my counter were begging to be zested, although I passed on the one sporting an inked smiley face (courtesy of the fiancé). Just the smell of the orange zest made me happy and I decided that the zest alone would add a nice flavor without being overpowering like an orange extract or juice might be.

The cookie recipe started out like the normal chocolate chip variety, but ended with a cup full of oats and a tablespoon of orange zest.

Ten minutes later, my fingers were crossed and my nostrils smelled a chocolate covered orange aroma. Much to my delight, these cookies tasted exactly like they smelled. Sweet cookie dough filled with chocolate chips and oats for texture with a little punch of orange in every bite.

See punch of orange below.

Welcome Spring! Next weekend will be filled with the fruits of paradise...