N7 Day Part 2

OKAY I'M SORRY this is another N7 Day post, sue me it happens once a year let me have this. Let me take a bunch of selfies of me and my Shepard tattoo and harass you with them.

Sooo, today has been pretty goddamn great. Like, this might be my second favorite holiday now, tied with Thanksgiving, because let's be reeeaalll Christmas is just completely on another level. Anyway. Today has been wonderful. I wore my N7 shirt (AS U CAN SEE), geeked out with other fans across the interwebs, and of course I made N7 cupcakes all alone all evening Because OBVIOUSLY?

It took me way too long to make these, and this is only half of them, but they were WORTH IT and came out way better than expected as I have pretty much zero experience decorating baked goods with icing?? I'm super proud, regardless! And they taste so good. Dark chocolate fudge frosting, you guys. Dark chocolate fudge.

Anyway just a short lil post this time, but I just... I want to say again, thank you BioWare for creating such a wonderful thing that even my crusty old bitter heart can love so much it consumes me entirely. Thank you for bringing Stacey and me together. Thank you for reconnecting me to old friends. Thank you for making me feel like part of a community of amazingly talented, enthusiastic, and lovely people.

Here's to us! Who's like us? Damn few! And they're all dead.

Whoopie Pies With Mom

Many apologies for the prolonged absence -- my mom was visiting from Montana for a few days and I took a break from the blog to spend more time with her. I was so excited to show her our new apartment and go shopping and everything! We didn't get matching cardigans, but we did make these AMAZING pumpkin whoopie pies (recipe here).

I've been wanting to try making whoopie pies for a while now, and since my mom is an incredible baker, I thought it would be fun to make them together! They turned out so good, but you guys... they are so disgustingly bad for you! I had to stay home today due to a sick stomach, and I have a suspicion that the whoopie pies are to blame. We ate way too many of them over the weekend; there are only three left, and we started out with about a dozen. In the frosting alone there's 8 oz of cream cheese, 3 cups of powdered sugar, and a whole stick of butter! And then the cookies themselves have 2 cups of brown sugar in. I couldn't even finish the first one I ate, they're so heavy. But so good.

If you guys end up making these, don't go crazy like we did and decide to make them bigger than recommended! We were like "ONE TABLESPOON IS TOO SMALL" so we made them huge, and they are quite difficult to eat. But clearly it's possible, as we ate like 10 of them.

I'm sad that my mom has gone back to Montana, but we'll be visiting her for Christmas next month so it won't be too long! Sadly we won't be able to bring the XBox with us in order to sate her new addiction to Peggle.

Pumpkin Spice Muffins!

Last night I made these super delicious pumpkin spice muffins, and I've already had two today for breakfast. I can't stop. If you want to make the same ones, it's super easy and doesn't even require a real recipe. Here's how I did it!

1. Go and buy pumpkin muffin mix. I bought Kroger's Pumpkin Quick Bread and Muffin Mix, which can be made into... you guessed it, bread or muffins. You could probably buy pumpkin bread mix and just pop it into a muffin pan instead of a bread pan; I'm pretty sure the recipe is the same, or quite similar!

2. Pour the mix into a big mixing bowl. And here's the trick: before adding any of the wet ingredients (water, oil, eggs), put in some sneaky spices! These are pumpkin spice muffins, after all. I added cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves (all ground). It's ultimately up to you how much of each spice you want to add, but I added a bit more cinnamon than the others (a few dashes), a couple dashes of cloves, a dash of ginger, and a dash of nutmeg. It doesn't seem like a lot but it will make the pumpkin muffins taste just like your favorite Starbucks pumpkin spice latte!

3. Follow the instructions on the side of the box. My recipe called for a cup of water (or milk), 1/3 cup of vegetable/canola oil, and 2 eggs. You should probs follow the recipe that goes with your mix though!

4. Bake, eat, and enjoy!

I know this is totally not even a real ~recipe~, as it's just boxed mix with a few spices added in, but who knows, maybe somebody will be glad of the help! I had an issue finding spice cake mix, which I guess becomes pumpkin spice muffins if you add pureed pumpkin, so I just did it my way instead. I'm sure there are a billion different methods for making pumpkin spice muffins out in the world, but hey, here's how I did it! x