March Has Come and Gone Already

yeeeaahhh you know what time it is. march is girl scout season. because they're all over the mall on the weekends, and i bought a case worth of them to stuff away in my freezer. i mean, i think at this point they are officially done selling for the year, but every weekend in march? yep.

i know they don't look that fancy, i need to invest in one of those super big round tips to get that big bubble of frosting on top, but i mean, it's thin mint frosting, so it doesn't have to look pretty when it's tasty af. the pretty part, i will get to another day. i honestly just made these for myself to eat. i had been meaning to do a girl scout cupcake for a while, and what a perfect opportunity to present itself!

the cupcakes are my usual hersheys cupcake, topped with buttercream frosting with crushed thin mints IN the frosting! yes, that's right. probably top 5 frostings i have ever made, and its only because of the addition of the cookies! it's crazy what one little change can do in some cases.

i actually spent a bit of time in the kitchen this month, even though for the last week straight i haven't been home at all. i made these cupcakes, i made some roasted tomato sauce, we had a gathering for st patricks day and had corned beef/cabbage (etc), baklava and a mint chocolate cake, i made more cupcakes.....tacos. because tacos are great.

this recipe came from foodiecrush. it really is a simple sauce, and it's really great! you roast basil, tomatoes and garlic, then blend it all up! add spices if you'd like, or even ground beef, sausage, etc. i haven't added any meat to mine yet, but it is tasty on its own, with a little sprinkle of parmesan.

man, i am trying to be excited over all of this, i really am. i have been sitting by my computer for over an hour. you ever just get overwhelmed by feels and just don't know what to do? i am feeling at a loss, slightly unmotivated, just want to eat a pile of donuts or cake or something (but at the same time no to the sweets?). i will probably go running in a bit, but ehh. seriously, its been a straight week since i have been home for more than 20 minutes, and it's great to not have to do anything, but i have so much on my mind, that it catches up and i can't figure out what to do. a friend is also going through a tough time and i wish i could do something more to help, i feel pretty useless, amongst other things. sigh. anyway....how about some more march stuff?

in case you haven't heard, spring has been kind of the devil  in new york lately. about 2 weeks ago now, it was sunny, happy, 60 degrees, and then it was 20 or lower and dropped 2 feet of snow on us in the course of a four day period. i actually got called out of work because the mall closed down early because it was so bad. i was going a little crazy because this gave me three days off in a row unintentionally (was off monday, called out tuesday, and off on wednesday). i didn't leave the apartment except to shovel my car out, and then ron and i went for a walk....through the 2 feet of snow...which was his idea, for the snow part. i am short, so walking through snow a third of my height proves rather difficult, and was so much effort.

 my baklava came out absolutely magical, on the other hand! it took a long ass time to make, and a lot of butter, but totally worth it. would make again.

acquired this awesome recipe and tutorial from natasha's kitchen! it looks difficult, but seriously it is just timely. you make a honey glaze before baking (it needs time to cool to room temperature), then crush some walnuts and cinnamon together, and layer that with the phyllo and butter. this site tells you just how to layer it and whatnot, so it comes out just right.

i didn't take a picture of my cake because it looked like a melty mess. i mean, it was mostly the filling, i added too much milk and it got runny, but regardless. my thin mint cupcakes looked better.

look at how beautiful this turned out! AND....it was delicious. it was a (somewhat) request for our friend who lives in florida, she was up to visit for the week. apparently baklava is a holiday thing here (which was last time she came up), sooo i made it, and i am totally glad i did.

just at the beginning of this week, i made a birthday cake (a mini one) for a friend, too. she found it on the internets, from shugary sweets, so i set out on an adventure to make this. i put a twist on it though, i mean plain frosting is great, but it's even better when it's unicorn frosting:

ZE MAGICKS

i tagged her (shugary sweets) on instagram, and she even liked and commented my picture! i was not expecting it, so i was pretty excited. to be recognized by the internet famous! next step, get out of this tiny apartment so i can have a proper photo taking kitchen, rather than dragging all my goods out to our only window to get some natural lighting. or photoshop the crap out of everything (which a lot of times i end up too lazy for).

kind of like this one. dat fluorescent lighting tho, making everything cool tones. chocolate cupcakes are chocolate cupcakes though. this was another batch of the hersheys cupcakes with the remainder of the cream cheese frosting from the carrot cake PLUS some cocoa powder. chocolate cream cheese frosting! brought these out for "mom's" birthday (kristen's mom, she passed away 2-1/2 years ago and we have celebrated it every year anyway), and for cards/laundry night. will probably bring the rest to work tomorrow night. i love chocolate as much as the next person, but i wanna experiment with something else. like i bought these two pie crusts- granola pie crusts- and i want to make a coconut cream pie. probably a key lime pie as well, i found this triple layer one on the pinterest i want to try.

on a last note here, i am also attempting a small garden, more specifically a container garden! i hope i can manage to not kill everything, since it seems my black thumb is getting closer to green. my pineapple plant is two years old! i also inherited two other plants from this lady in my apartment complex for helping her move, and surprisingly enough, they haven't died in over a year. haven't killed the second orchid yet. so let's see how this goes!

i have tomatoes, jalapenos, bell peppers, basil, kale and cilantro. so far the bell peppers and cilantro have not sprouted yet, but the pack says they take a little longer to germinate, so i am still hoping.

every time i say i will try to keep up here, it gets to be a longer gap, so for now, here's "til next time!" next up: galaxy hair was great, but not feeling it anymore- probably some more cakes- ze veggies: will they survive?- birbmaster 9000: how to become one of them

visit my instagram @birdladyleesh

thanks for reading, check back, and have a great week! ♥☺

Sweet 16 Cake

hello! i know it's been a while again. seriously haven't had much going on. just been working all the time, as usual, taking care of things at home (like the birbs, i can't remember if i've mentioned it, but poor punk ass is on subcutaneous fluids, which basically means he has to get injections in his legs every few days), and just being lazy in general. even though its only a half an hour later and a slightly longer drive, the new job makes me tired. i don't even do anything all day, except fight people with light sabers and stuff.

anyway, i suppose you don't want to hear about me being tired, so lets get on to this cake, shall we?

i kind of wish i knew more people who would share coconut treats with me that i would actually see every now and then (that darn work thing again). this cake was a vanilla cake with raspberry filling for the bottom tier, (homemade raspberry filling i found on pinterest) and the top was a coconut cake out of my southern cakes book, with toasted coconut between the layers. i rarely get to make any coconut treats, so i was pretty surprised with how well it came out. it called for juice from a coconut, but i didn't have that. i took the milk needed for the recipe and heated it with some coconut flakes over the stove to infuse it! i left the coconut in there and dumped it all in, it worked like a charm!

my bow was a little derpy looking, but it turned out pretty good. this was for my sony rep's daughter, just over the weekend. he told me the entire cake was gone and everyone loved it! i hope there was enough!

i didn't really have a "sweet" 16. it was just me and three of my friends, because for some reason everyone else bailed or was sick (i mean, like 4 other people i invited), and we ate a whole cake between "dinner" and "breakfast." one thing about my parties, however, was that where everyone else got pizza, i made tacos. because who doesn't like tacos? shut up. (i want tacos...)

i had (have? theres still a piping bag in my fridge) some leftover pink frosting, which i made some cream cheese swirl brownies and topped with most of the remainder of the frosting. everybody needs frosting covered brownies. i brought those with me to my friends to do laundry. have i ever mentioned free laundry is always a good day, too?

not much else has been going on, other than ron and i took our "valentines" day on saturday by going to the auto expo and dinosaur bar-b-que. super awesome, by the way. here are a few pictures from the expo, though!

the only time i get to touch the pretty cars....well, not entirely true. somehow or another i've met/known someone who was nice enough to let me drive all of these except the ns-x (and an older version of the corvette) so i can't complain. the new model of the prius is the prime, which i just had a good laugh because i was thinking transformers, and how all the badges should be replaced with the autobots logo. that's just the way it should be.

anyway, i will leave it at that for now, and with this picture of punkass just because i can. have a good week, thanks for reading!

January Treats and More!

hello again all! i suppose this is almost turning into a bi-monthly thing, or something like that. i dont dare say i might have a consistent day off, because if i do, i will probably curse it, just like every other time. as per usual for my posts lately, here is another summary of the last couple weeks.

we start with one of the best things- i made (more) cake! except this time, i made it just for me to eat. because everyone needs a little cake now and then! also, because chocolate....

i feel like ive been needing too much chocolate lately. people get stressed out and drink and spend lots of money, i just gorge myself with chocolate until i cant stand it anymore....which usually takes a while or doesnt happen. i mean, even with this cake. i made this super awesome dark chocolate frosting, courtesy of sally's baking addiction, to try and tame the chocolate beast, but i basically just wanted to eat it with a spoon and call it a day. i put it on top of a devils food cake from my book, all cakes considered, and filled it with a homemade strawberry jam. that little hint of strawberry was a perfect combination with the cake and the frosting. oh, i am sad to see it go (we just finished it with dinner tonight). i suppose i can make it again though. i'll probably make something different to change it up a bit.

it has been a long couple of weeks with work and whatnot. since i have the joy of continuing to work for gameshop, i got to see their continued love for their employees with all the payroll theft to stay under our 10% budget for the fiscal year. what that means is, i get to spend a lot of time alone in a busy mall store, and it sucks. it continuously makes me want to eat chocolate all day. i really hope things will change next month (end of fiscal year).

i got really sick not long after i posted the last post. i actually left work early two days in a row, three times in total since one day i worked doubles and left both jobs early. it was a hard weekend. thankfully i ended up with a sunday off and did nothing for the most of the day. kind of like today. anyhow, one of the days i camped out on my couch, kairi came over to sleep near me. i barely remember him flying over, but i woke up and there he was. they all need to be attached to me. those other two pictures, one was when i woke up in the morning, the sky was really pretty with all the orange and purples, and the second one was kind of an "accident" or coincidence? it is this lamp post outside our window, and ron had lit a candle, when i looked out, the reflection of the candle in the window lined up with the lamp and it looked like the light was in the lamp. i thought it was neat. this coming from the person who cant stop laughing at bird videos.....

....or the fact that i am a living birb meme. because, like i said, they all need me. miraculously, they didnt try to kill each other in this one. kairi is on my knee, satch had a shoulder, i was holding cosmo away, and nubs is at his house. that was not long after i was sick. maybe even one of the nights i came home early. i dont really remember.

i DO know that the weekend after, we had our grand opening weekend, by which time my boss had captured my plague, and was unable to make it through the day, so i got to supervise and make sure everyone was doing their thing.

oh, and take pictures. ☺

i took pictures for all of our cosplay contestants with my fancy camera and hung out with our dm for the day. he is from florida, so it is probably the only time we will see him around here. he was pretty cool though, along with the other guy from home office.

i wish we had gotten a few more people who dressed up, but oh well. our opening celebration took place 3 weeks after we had opened initially. there will be more in the future i hope!

aside from all that, things are okay i guess. post holiday cooldown. aside from rons car, which we have dubbed "princess," now i am just working on saving up for our annual north carolina trip. we are going the first week of june! i just hope things work out.

today, the most exciting thing i did was make lasagne. i havent done so in a while, and it seemed like a good idea. with any luck it will feed us for a few days. the only thing i need at this point is a good sauce recipe so i dont have to use canned sauce. nothing wrong with it, but i put everything else together, so a nice home made sauce would be great. for the cheese layer, i use a part skim ricotta, mozzarella, eggs, oregano, basil, onion and garlic powder, thyme, and rosemary, then there is a layer of sweet italian sausage. i was pretty satisfied with it. i still am on a soup kick, maybe next paycheck i will make my cheddar broccoli soup.

also. this year.....i WILL make a goddamn coconut cream pie!! im pretty sure ive said this like 3 years in a row now. like, a legit pie, not out of a bucket or a box. soon.....

the last thing i got, last week i went ice skating for the first time EVER. kris and ron were with me, it was pretty fun. a little weird because its different from rollerblades, but fun. it was really cold in the rink. i mean, i guess it has to be, but i couldnt feel my fingers after an hour or so.

ron just had fun either dragging me around, or threatening to throw me somewhere. i was also unintentionally really good at spinning in circles when i tried to stop. i dont really trust front brakes on blades or skates, i just feel like ill end up catapulting forward and fall on my face instead of stopping gracefully or something. not that there is anything graceful about me to begin with, but whatever. i am kind of hoping to go again, i guess this place shuts down in march for the summer.

anyway, i guess i'll leave it at that for now. kris was just here and we played a round of clue- the harry potter edition. it was pretty cool, even though i am not good at guessing games. better than the game of life, where i couldnt avoid getting through life without any kids. my birds are better.

have a good week all! thanks for reading!

New Year, New Things?

congratulations!  you made it to 2017! now what?

...

......

....yeah, i dont know either. but here are some cakes i made this week!

neat, huh? these were for our friend gabby's kids, i painted woody on the one cake, and made another style pokeball! i was a little worried on how woody was gonna turn out, but he worked pretty well.

that's been about it cake-wise over the last month or so.  work has been pretty crazy busy with assembling the store and finally opening three days before christmas. oh my goodness. it is totally worth it though.

it took us four days to get everything checked in, sorted, and displayed. i rang out our first sale ever, and here we are! we even had this group, gathering of the sabers, come in on that friday to hang out and promote us!

 yes, i totally got to hold a $700 light saber. it was purple. it was fucking glorious. we are having our "opening ceremony" on friday january 13th, where they will be giving out prizes and stuff. its almost like we get two grand openings! needless to say, i basically get paid to hang around and play with stuff all day.

the longer drive to work makes it a little tougher to have any time, but  now that the holidays are over, hopefully things will tone down a bit and i can sort things out. i am still at the restaurant two nights a week, and i just signed up for a gym membership so i can go running while its nasty cold outside (it was 9 degrees this morning. NINE DEGREES.)....that is at least after i recover from my second bout of the plague. i got sick again a few days ago, i even went home early. twice. three times if you count that i worked twice on thursday and left both places early.  that is a rare occurrence.

this was last week, random light saber fights just break out sometimes, you know? ☺

it makes me so happy that my regulars from fayetteville have found their way out here and have braved the mall to come see me. i mean, not all of them, of course, but a few. it's pretty great. maybe i will have new regulars here, but who knows. it's so busy compared to my other store, and i actually have employees to tell what to do because of that. it's really weird. at least i have good employees.

i made these salted almond fudge truffles for christmas, and they were some of the tastiest things i've ever made. ron said they reminded him of a 3 musketeers bar. i got the recipe from heather, actually, and made them mostly for her. she found them here, at will cook for smiles though. they're fairly easy, although i think doubling the recipe made them come out a little softer than they should have (i dont think i had enough chocolate in them, but oh well), but they still were workable enough. i will probably revisit this recipe in the future. nubs, is just because nubs in a stocking. hes such a little poop.

in final news, though im sure not many of you care, my car reached the 100k milestone last week! oh, it doesnt seem like it should be so soon. although, i guess after 6 years it was about time. she will be ALL PAID OFF in february!! its so close, yet so far away! i love my girl. ron got her a short throw shifter for christmas, too! now i just have to find someone to install it.

well, that's all i got for now. i am going to sit for the next hour until i have to get ready for work. sick doesnt go away overnight. clearly. -_-
have a great weekend, all! thanks for reading!

December! Say Whaaaat?

oh my GOODNESS i am such a slacker and it kills me. i do actually think about this from time to time. work has been so weird lately, with the making up hours thing, and more driving. woah. i miss running, but it is too f*cking cold outside to do anything, and being sick for the last week hasn't helped.

it's official though- ThinkGeek is coming  to syracuse! december 23rd is our grand opening! so you better come out. i had the opportunity to visit the buffalo store on monday, and will be going to the albany grand opening tomorrow. this place is made of magic. i am super excited.

work aside,i was able to sneak out a batch of these fancy space macarons! because galaxy themed is where all my favorite colors happen to be. they came out pretty great if i say so myself. it is hard to see in the pictures, but i totally had silver shimmer on them as well!

work is going alright for the most part. i am still stuck at gamestop, meaning since we are owned by them, we are training our new employees with their registers, and are acting as free floating payroll to help the stores around us. the hours are whatever though, meaning it's like "make your own hours," which sounds great, but you have to pay attention to make sure you get them. also, training the part timers has been between 10a-7p, so it's pretty much the entire day. it's quite tiring, and i can't wait to have somewhat normal days again, although the recent weekends (or saturdays and sundays) off has been nice.

but then there's that motivation factor....to do stuff...or to stay home and relax?? lately i've chosen the latter, especially with this cold. blah. it's almost gone, at least.

thanksgiving has come and gone, and i managed to sneak out a pie and a cheesecake! oh, and some cookies, that i realize i never took a picture of. they were these awesome pumpkin spice molasses cookies from nestle. i got the pumpkin spice chips on sale and found these, the perfect use for them. i also used an actual pumpkin rather than the canned stuff for my pie and cookies! the pie recipe came from my fall taste of home book. it came out pretty good according to ron. i still stand to this day, i am not a huge pumpkin supporter, but in tiny amounts, like the cookies, i don't mind it.

that cheesecake though...

i spent over an hour poring through recipes and researching (kind of), what makes the chocolate hazelnut crunch cheesecake from the cheesecake factory. i think what i got came out pretty decent, but it is not quite there yet. that hazelnut crunch layer. i need to adjust that. probably more nutella on top, but my version is lighter than that of the chain restaurant's counterpart.

it was still pretty tasty, regardless. i let it cook slightly too long, too. i had stepped out for something (i can't remember for what), and thought i had enough time, but when i got home, the timer was going off. just the outer edge was a little over done, but the rest was fine.

this was of my own mish-mash of recipes! i used an extra thick graham cracker crust, a layer of crushed wafer cookies mixed with a little nutella (the "crunch" layer is like the inside of those ferrero rocher candies, which is mostly wafers with chocolate), a chocolate hazelnut cheesecake (i have a chocolate cheesecake recipe in another taste of home book, where i substituted straight nutella for the 6 oz of melted chocolate chips), a sweetened sour cream layer, and topped it all with a layer of nutella. thanksgiving dessert! because why not complete the day with a super indulgent cheesecake?

that sunday after the crazy weekend, ron and i went up to ontario orchards to cut down a tree! surprisingly, the weather wasn't too bad for the end of november, and we found a pretty good one, along with $20 worth of halfmoons, fudge, and apple cider donuts. you know, local bakeries and such, or rather farm stand? i don't know- the halfmoons were as big as my face so i had to get two- one chocolate and one vanilla. i can't say no to my favorite cookie of all time. he mostly wanted to say he used his roof rack, and to post a picture of the tree on top of his car. at least it wasn't a tire.

today i was able to sit down and go through my recipes and decide on what i am going to make for my holiday baking list this year. a little late, but i'll most likely start them next weekend, or during that week around work. i have:

chocolate chip
chocolate italian cookies
mint chocolate pinwheels
chocolate orange biscotti
salted almond fudge truffles

yay! lots of chocolate! because holidays. i also plan on making a batch of gingerbread cookies for home.

with any luck, i may have some more to share, but in the mean time, thanks for reading! come back soon! ☺

**these were cupcakes for my boss, my other co worker baked them for him since i was leaving. my last weekend. XD