Cranberry Orange Cookies

On New Year's Day, two of my cousins and my little brother shared dinner with us at our house (a seriously awesome way to kick off 2013).  Because I had half a bag of cranberries leftover from making neighbor gifts, I tried making some cranberry orange cookies.  They ended up being much more delicious than most of my try-a-random-recipe experiments, and there's been a request for the recipe, so I thought I'd post it here.  I was going to take a picture or two, but the cookies weren't around long enough for me to do so.  Given that the majority of my blog readership has seen (and eaten) the cookies, though, and all of you know what cookies generally look like, hopefully that's ok.

1 c sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
1 c butter or margarine, room temperature
Zest and juice from one orange
1 egg
2 1/2 c flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 c chopped fresh cranberries (the recipe book says frozen ones work too, but not dried)
1 c white chocolate chips
1/2 c chopped nuts (optional)

Heat oven to 375.  Beat sugars, butter, orange peel, orange juice, and egg.  Add flour, soda, and salt. Stir in cranberries and nuts.  Drop by rounded spoonfuls, two inches apart, and bake 12 to 14 minutes, until edges just start to turn gold.  Remove to wire rack to cool.

Recipe adapted from Betty Crocker Annual Recipes 2008.

TTMMH

(Things That Made Me Happy [this weekend])

Finding out I was 1,000 words further along on my 10,000 word paper than I had thought ~ hot cocoa with whipped cream and snowman-shaped marshmallows ~ putting up Christmas lights ~ over-hearing one first grader ask another first grader to marry him when they were both grown-up (she said maybe) ~ naps ~ watching Mike finish up the Christmas decorating

Better-than-anything cake ~ wearing ridiculously comfortable outfits ~ looking at apartments online and planning how I would arrange the furniture ~ toast with cinnamon sugar ~ finding potential job opportunities ~ getting sympathy from my awesome brother ~ stumbling across exactly the right quote for my paper ~ imagining life in 12 days (after my last final) ~ eggnog french toast ~ not crashing on the way to church, despite fishtailing all over the road ~ getting a boost on my paper from Write or Die ~ pretending I own this coat

And (finally!) 5 glorious, fluffy inches of snow!!

Being too lazy to go outside in the dark and take my own pictures, I hope you all enjoy this image taken from WikiCommons instead.  Quebec, South Bend... it's all the same thing, right?

3, 2, 1, - Back to writing my paper!

I may be looking towards a late night of paper-writing, but I'm not here to complain about it, I promise.  Not that my random observations will be any more exciting:


3. Running in the rain is not nearly as awesome in practice as it seems in theory.  Especially when the individual contemplating the running is as out of shape and un-runnerish as I happen to be. 


2.  Cadbury mini eggs are incomprehensibly delicious.  I may or may not have (ok, may have) eaten an entire bag since Easter.  Why do they not sell these things all year?  They make M&Ms seem so inadequate in comparison.  Plus, unlike M&Ms, Cadbury eggs are animal-cruelty free (although, unfortunately, still the product of all sorts of awful child labor... my Transnational Corporation and International Human Rights class is ruining my life by giving me a conscience.... as if the calories weren't already enough to feel guilty about.)


1. Ok, so I promised I wouldn't talk about my paper, but: so glad not to live in China!  Let's just say the reading I've been doing about forced live organ donations from prisoners who refuse to denounce their illegal religious beliefs is making me more than a little bit squeamish.  Also, I dislike most rice, so the country probably wouldn't be a good fit for me anyways.

Three Reasons to be Ridiculously Happy

1.  It's still Spring Break, for another 48 hours and 4 minutes

2.  Thanks to the motivation provided by this delicious-looking photograph taken by my cousin, I have a giant container of homemade oreos sitting on my counter!

3.  At the outlet mall, I picked up this amazing hat for a mere $2.  I feel like a plaid Charlie Chaplain (despite the fact that this is most definitely a trilby, not a bowler - yay Wikipedia for clearing that up).

\

Granted, I can think of other reasons to be happy too, like having good health and a place to live and whatnot, but they're currently being cancelled out by the fact that it is literally raining on my parade.  Or at least on the parade that we would be downtown watching right now, were it not raining.

The Problem with Living in a City that Embraces Alcoholism

Like most former Utahans who have been forced to venture out into the wilderness of the eastern half of the United States, Mike and I miss Cafe Rio a lot. At least here in Indiana, there's not much Mexican food at all - the only popular Mexican restaurant chain in the area has gross, overpriced food, and even the people who love it admit that they really go for the cheap margaritas.

So every time we fly home to visit family, Mike and I make a point of stopping by Cafe Rio. He always gets a pork burrito, but I tend to mix things up... the burritos are good, but so are the salads and the tortilla soup and everything else on the menu. When it comes time for dessert, though, I insist that we get tres leches. If they're out (which happens far too often) then we hit up another Cafe Rio later in the trip to make sure we get some. Luckily, Mike loves it too, but I think my affection for the dessert borders on the frenzy otherwise reserved only for heroin addicts and meth moms.

To be sure, I've tried making the dessert myself a few times - my life would be much easier if I could conjure up tres leches on demand. Duncan Hines makes a mix that results in a decent cake, but I'm pretty sure you can't get them out here in the Midwest (I've definitely looked). The few from-scratch recipes I've tried were only theoretically edible, and ended up being a waste of whipping cream and sweetened condensed milk. In short, it's a sad, cruel world.

The other day I was pining for tres leches instead of doing my Fed Courts reading, when suddenly I had a brilliant stroke of inspiration. I opened up the internet and Googled "tres leches South Bend IN". And, believe it or not, the results showed that there is a local Mexican restaurant that's supposed to have good food and has tres leches on the menu. Less than two hours later, we were there at La Esperanza.

The food was delicious, and while not dirt-cheap, there were plenty of filling options in the $7 range. It was Mexican food as it's supposed to be - like it is in every random "Dos Amigos", "Del Sol", and "El Burro Agradecido" in Utah (no idea if those are the names of real Mexican restaurants... but hopefully you get my drift). We'll definitely go back next time we're craving Mexican food. But overall, the trip was a disappointment, and not just because our server allowed us to run out of water early in the meal and only came back when we were finished eating.

No, the real problem was the misrepresentation of the tres leches. Sure, they had it, and from the picture it looked pretty delicious (although not as good as Cafe Rio's). But thanks to the description, Mike and I didn't try it. A moist cake soaked with three milks and topped with cream and berries sounds delicious. A moist cake soaked with three milks and wine... not so much, no matter how many strawberries they thrown on top.

So here I am, still craving "real" tres leches and determined to eat one every single night I'm in Utah for my summer internship (which might leave me unable to fit into any of my suits, but it'll be worth it). Until then, if any of you want to commission a refrigerator truck to send a pallet of tres leches my way, I'd be most grateful.

Discover an Amazing Brownie Recipe? Check!

So ages ago, I posted a list of things I wanted to accomplish over Summer Break. Surprisingly, I did almost all of them - the Law Review writing competition, interviews, travelling, moving, reading, swimming. I failed at writing a novel (the three sentences I jotted down before realizing my plot premise was more than a little creepy* were definitely not sufficient to count), and my new apartment, while adorable, is generally less-than-clean. But for the most part, my summer was a success.

Except for the brownie recipe. I tried at least five different brownie recipes over the summer, but none of them were as good as the box kind. Except for the kind made out of a box mix, with some coconut and sweetened condensed milk thrown in (sweetened condensed milk has a magical way of making everything taste even better). When the summer ended, however, my quest did not. Rather, the cooler fall temperatures, along with the apple harvest and sales on pumpkin puree, pushed me into a baking frenzy. And then, last week, I found it - the brownie recipe I've been hunting for. They're quick and easy to make, have a texture at least as good as a boxed mix, and are a great way to get rid of the lonely, browning banana that is inevitably left on our counter after his friends were all devoured. I bring you deliciousness.

BANANA BETTER-THAN-BOX BROWNIES

1/2 c. margarine (or butter, if you're richer than me or feeling fancy)

2/3 c. semisweet chocolate chips

1 egg

2/3 c packed brown sugar

1 medium banana (overripe is fine)

1/2 t imitation vanilla extract (or the real thing, if you're richer than me or feeling fancy)

1/4 t salt

3/4 c all-purpose flour

More semisweet chocolate chips (1/2 c. is good)

Grease an 8x8 pan, and preheat the oven to 325. Put the butter in a small saucepan, and melt over medium heat. Remove from stove, and stir in the chocolate chips. Set aside. Beat the egg lightly in a medium bowl. Add the brown sugar, and the banana. Mash the banana up fairly well as you stir things together (it would probably be easier to do this before putting it in with the egg and sugar, but that would require getting another bowl dirty). Put in the vanilla and salt, then dump in the butter/chocolate chip sauce. Stir everything together, and gradually add the flour. Dump everything into the pan, and add a generous sprinkling of chocolate chips on top. Bake about 30 minutes, until a knife poked in the middle comes out mostly clean (some moist crumbs are fine). Wait to cool a little bit so you don't burn your mouth, and enjoy with lots of cold milk.

So good! My quest was definitely worth it (ignore the crazy hair... today was just one of those days).

*Turns out a story about a 16 year old who gets into law school but doesn't tell anyone she's 16 because she wants to be treated normally and then starts hanging out with a twenty something classmate she has a crush on who is weirded out when he inevitably finds out how young she is and then causes a huge scene in criminal law while the clueless professor is lecturing about statutory rape, while it makes for an entertaining daydream in Crim Law, had probably best be left unwritten - there's just the little plot problem that 16 year olds, prodigies or not, really shouldn't be going after 23 years olds.

("Evan stared at me icily as he raised his hand.

'Yes, Mr. Jasper,' the professor said.

'What if the girl mislead everyone into thinking she was older than she really was?' My heart sunk to the pit of my stomach. 'What if this wasn't a situation where the defendant took home a girl from a bar, but one where the girl deliberately crafted a false identity and exploited the trust of people she pretended to befriend? What if," he spoke slowly and deliberately, his eyes continuing to drill into my soul, "she was a fraud?'

The professor blinked several times, as though he realized Evan hadn't actually been talking about criminal law, but he answered the question. 'You should read the Lafave hornbook more closely, Mr. Jasper. The intent of the victim would be relevant if this were a crime of scienter, but such details are technically irrelevant in the context of a strict liability offense. Of course, they might sway a sympathetic jury, but juries are unpredictable, as Texas v. Scott makes clear. Mr. Hensley, will you please recite the facts of that case?'

Class continued for another 45 minutes, but my notes stayed blank. I felt too guilty to concentrate, and was too angry to care...")

Reasons I Wish I Were Still a 1L

I've decided I'm going to just go back to being a 1L. Why, you might ask, would I want to give up being able to choose my own classes and occiasionally have new students look up to me like I'm smart or important for having finished a year of law school, only to go back to the bottom of the pile?

1. For 1st years, 15 credits involves reading about 180 pages a week. Which takes about 18 hours to get through. For 2nd years, 15 credits involves reading about 300 pages a week. Which, as you might deduce if you have the math skillz, takes about 30 hours a week to plow through.

2. Because of their lesser reading load, plus not being allowed to work, not being on journals, and not having to find a job for after graduation, first year students occaisionally have time to go to the grocery store/load the dishwasher/have brief conversations with their husbands.

3. So far, it seems that a substantial part of the 2L experience is gettting letters of rejection from various firms you were hoping would hire you

4. The busyness, the emerging journal cliques, and the fact that you don't have classes with the rest of your cohorts mean that you never really see any of your friends anymore

5. Getting to choose your own schedule means having to worry about final exam conflicts

6. All those 1L's might look up to you, but they also overrun all your favorite study spots and spend a lot of time complaining about how they have a ridiculous amount of reading. It was much more fun to be the one blissfully comiserating about the 180 pages.

7. 1L orientation is still going on... which means lots of free food (for them)

8. The most important reason I wish I was still a 1L? As a first year, I spent my days sitting in class, hoping I didn't get called on. Totally innocent, normal behavior. As a 2nd year, though, I challenged myself to occasionally volunteer in class, because class participation actually factors into our grades. The problem is, once I started talking, it became really comfortable, and now I'm having a hard time sitting on my hands during class so I don't overvolunteer. It's obnoxious... I spent all of graduate school getting chewed out my teachers for never participating, and now law school's turned me into a gunner. Sounds weird, but I miss my formerly timid 1L self... it was much less embarassing.

Ok, so maybe I'm being a little dramatic. I love my job, I love the journal, and I like almost all of my classes (one class I'm taking only for a graduation requirement wasn't quite as interest grabbing, but it's definitely growing on me). I'd just like 50 hour days (with mandatory nap times, of course), a job offer for next summer, and some kind of muzzle. Ooohh... and some brownies!

"Cookies" and my anti-climatic visit to a bar

In case it hasn't already become apparent, I am completely obsessed with desserts. In fact, some of the highlights of my week have been Rhubarb-Strawberry Cobbler and Zucchinni Chocolate Chip Cake - and it's been a really good week.

So last weekend, when some of my classmates invited me to go to a neighboring city's summer festival, my first thought was naturally about the bake sales. After watching the little parade (the town has a population of less than 2000, so the parade was basically a procession of horses, firetrucks, and regular cars with posterboard advertisements taped to the sides) and wandering around the craft fair, we went to go get food, and I began scoping out the dessert options.

Unfortunately, my options were limited by the $1 I had in my pocket, so the chocolate dipped cheesecake on a stick was not a possibility (Mike, who was working, usually carries all the cash, and I had forgotten to borrow any). I looked over the booths run by local church groups, hoping to find some home baked brownies or pie.

The only brownies I could find, though, were being sold by a weight-loss group and, with visions of artificial sweeteners and whole grain flours ruining the chocolatey goodness, I passed them by. At the next booth, though, I spotted a bunch of elderly women selling cookies, 3 for $1. The cookies had obviously been donated by different women - in the peanut butter cookie basket, for instance, there were smaller cookies and larger cookies and some that had been rolled in sugar. They all looked delicious, though. After much indecision, I decided to buy some oatmeal cookies - there were several different kinds in the basket with delicious looking chocolate chunks or dried cranberries.

When I handed over my $1 to the woman at the booth, she reached in the basket of oatmeal cookies and handed me a baggie of cookies. I was disappointed to see, however, that my cookies did not have chocolate chunks or cranberries or even raisins. In fact, they looked very odd - flat and perfectly circular. After one bite, I realized why. These weren't bake sale cookies! They were the Great Value brand oatmeal cookies sold for $1.50 a package and found on the bottom shelf of the Walmart snack aisle. I was grandly disapointed - although I did still eat them. After all, they were vaguely cookie-like.

In other news, last weekend was also the first time I'd ever gone to a bar (the law school was hosting a social event to help welcome new students to South Bend). I was very excited to finally get to go to one of these things - I missed most of the law school social events last year because they were all in bars and I was still underage. When we got to the bar, I realized that I'd left my ID in the car, a few blocks away. Turns out, though, that I didn't need it. No one ID'd us when we went in (the ID checker didn't appear to watch the doorway until about five minutes after we went in) and the waitress missed me when she ID'd our group before taking drink orders (of course, I did only order a huckleberry lemonade, but she checked Mike's ID, and he only had a water). It was nice not to have to go back to the car to get my license, but also vaguely disapointing to know that it wouldn't have mattered if I had still been 20.

So now I have two more tasks to add to my To Do This Summer list - get (or make) some real oatmeal cookies, and be ID'd. It's going to be a busy three weeks :)

The Good, The Bad, and the... Cute

Last night I made some of these.  Very good!

Last night our nextdoor neighbor and his girlfriend broke up.  At two in the morning.  Very loudly.  Right outside our window.  Very bad...

Last night, I discovered this when I was supposed to be working on my Con Law outline.  Very cute.  (And an even worse procrastination technique than baking goodies or blogging.)