May 19, 2013
by Not Crocker
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Buttered Nipple (Butterscotch and Irish Cream) Cupcakes

I go to trivia ever Wednesday with a great group of friends. We used to attend trivia at a bit of a rowdier, louder bar but have since found Moose’s Down Under. This bar truly makes us feel like home, we know all the staff, they know us, and Corina, the owner is absolutely fantastic. Erin runs the trivia night and does a wonderful job. Anyway, it is an awesome way to get together with all our friends once a week and I thought that there would be no better place to bring some donation-encouraging mini cupcakes! I made up the poster below and baked up two shot-themed cupcakes, the Piña Colada cupcakes and Buttered Nipple cupcakes. I offered the cupcakes in exchange for a donation of any amount, and the wonderful trivia goers answered in full-force! We made $240.70, including the jackpot that the winning teams (they joined together to guarantee a win) donated to us. I was so thankful for such a supportive group of people and for Corina letting me set up there!

DadPosterNoQr

Anyway, we had a great time and are really looking forward to the Spring Sprint this coming Sunday, May 26th. My sister, mom, nieces, and a bunch of our wonderful friends are coming into town for the walk, so it is going to be a great time!

ButteredNipple

Let’s get to the first mini-cupcake recipe! These are made with the flavours of a Buttered Nipple shot (also called Cock-Sucking Cowboy). The shot contains butterscotch schnapps and irish cream liqueur. I’ve made these with some rum, and a butterscotch/irish cream sauce to top. The consensus was that these are moist and delicious, I had a hard time stopping scooping up the butterscotch sauce! Sorry about the less-than-great pictures, I didn’t get to sauce them until we were at the bar (didn’t want to haul that many sticky cupcakes from my apartment).

Buttered Nipple Cupcakes

INGREDIENTS

Cupcakes:

  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 2 cups dark brown sugar, lightly packed
  • 4 eggs
  • 1/4 cup dark rum (I used Kraken Spiced Rum)
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • ¾ tsp baking powder
  • ¾ tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 1/4 cup sour cream
  • 1/2 cup Skor toffee bits

Butterscotch Sauce

  • ½ cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed
  • 1/4 cup Bailey’s Irish Cream
  • 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 1 tsp coarse salt
  • 1 tbsp vanilla

DIRECTIONS

  1. Heat the oven to 350˚F.  Line mini cupcake tins with paper liners and set aside.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the butter and brown sugar and beat until light and fluffy.
  3. Beat in the eggs two at a time, mixing well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
  4. Mix in the rum and vanilla until smooth.
  5. Add half of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and beat until just incorporated. Add the sour cream and mix well.
  6. Stir in the remaining dry ingredients, again mixing just until incorporated. Stir in the Skor chips, making sure they are evenly distributed.
  7. Spoon the batter between the prepared liners, if you are making mini-cupcakes, it is just over a tablespoon of batter.
  8. Bake for 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
  9. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.
  10. For the butterscotch sauce: Melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepan over medium heat. Add the sugar, cream, Bailey’s, and salt, and whisk until well combined. Bring to a boil then reduce the heat and boil gently for 5 minutes.
  11. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the vanilla extract. Spoon over the cooled cupcakes and allow to set. The sauce will keep well in the fridge for a few days, feel free to eat extra as needed!
IMG_4630

Speckled with toffee, these are great on their own as well!

May 12, 2013
by Not Crocker
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Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Toasted Coconut Cookies, whew

Well we’ve had summery, lovely weather for the past few weeks. Yesterday afternoon the weather broke and we are slated for a rather drizzly week to come, but I am alright with that. The intermittent rain is just one thing I love about Vancouver; cool days to break up the hot ones is my favourite kind of summer!

Lots has happened in this last week. First, I found out that I’ve been chosen for a wonderful graduate award (that I am not sure if I am allowed to formally announce yet). They are flying myself and the other recipients to Toronto in the middle of June to attend a Board of Director’s dinner. I need to write a 5-minute speech to say at the dinner and a bio about myself in case my story is picked up by media, crazy! Anyway, I have been so fortunate to have such wonderful references for opportunities like this, as well as the job opportunities that have come about, so I definitely have to thank my wonderful former-boss and friend, Johanne, my internship supervisor, Lindsay, and my lovely and talented best friend, Caelin!

Also, I’ve been in straight-panic mode lately about our impending move from our amazing apartment. When I sent in our second year’s worth of cheques last year sometime, our landlord had told us that they’d like to retake the place in September of 2013. We were sad about the date but were so thankful to get to live in this wonderful spot for two whole years. Anyway, this whole week I’ve been determined to find us a great place so that we can move this summer instead of having to hustle out of here last minute in the fall. On a whim, a whim that my mother suggested, I emailed Marta (our wonderful landlady) to confirm that they were still needing the place for the fall. WELL, I’ll be damned if she didn’t email me back to say that we could stay for another year. HUZZAH! We are so love this location, the apartment, and now we are getting to know our neighbours. And, to make things better, she mentioned that they’d like to swap out the carpet for laminate (this carpet is terrible!). So, things are great. My husband said, when I called him about the apartment, “We are so lucky, well no(thinking of my dad), but this is one great thing.”

These are bribery cookies. No, donation-solicitation cookies. No, donation-encouraging cookies. Okay, so they are cookies that will sit beside a sign that tells the story of my dad, his battle, our loss, and the Spring Sprint that is yet to come. We are in the last leg of our fundraising campaign and I’d love to top out our fundraising at $5000 (we are at $3,500). So, I am bringing cookies into work and into trivia to encourage people to either donate-to or join our cause.

BrownButterToastedCoconutChocolateChipCookies

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May 4, 2013
by Not Crocker
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Chocolate Chipotle Cookies- kicky treats

I am knocking on wood while I type this, but it looks like summer has arrived in Vancouver! It has been gorgeous all week and is slated to be in the mid-twenties for the weekend and into next week. I will take all the doses of summer that I can! Gen and I have even planned a picnic for today at the beach and we are really looking forward to getting outside and getting some well-deserved sunshine.

I can’t believe it’s already been a week since my mom was here, actually it feels much longer, like her visit hadn’t even happened! I keep thinking how excited I am for her to get here, even though she just left. BUT she is coming back, hence my continued excitement. Kellie, the girls, and mom arrive on the 23rd of May. I am really looking forward to seeing everyone, including all of our other friends and family who are flying in/boating in for the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada’s Spring Sprint on the 26th. I can’t believe how quickly the event has come, and I am so looking forward to being part of this important event. Again, if you are interested in donating or knowing more you can click here now, or click the image to the right of my posts.

ChocolateChipotleCookies

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May 2, 2013
by Not Crocker
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Chicken Crust Pizza. A successful experiment.

Gloomy weekend! It has been quite chilly and rainy out, which has left me feeling snoozy and glum. Gen and I did some stuff around the house, I reattached the closet door that he had hulked off its hinges on his way to work the other day. I feel like we got some other stuff accomplished but it just went by so quickly that it is truly hard to say. In any case, it was a good enough weekend around the house, over too soon.

ChickenCrustPizza

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April 28, 2013
by Not Crocker
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Curried Cauliflower Salad

My mom was here for a visit all this past week and we had a wonderful time tooling around the city, eating out at some lovely restaurants and just generally enjoying each other’s company. Mom proved invaluable at trivia, answering lanolin and others correctly, though let it be known that she was unable to produce Princess Diana’s maiden name. She fell in love with Game of Thrones, bought two pairs of shoes, and bought us a lovely bouquet of tulips. Mom seemed content to sleep on our ancient couch but was very troubled by our loose toilet seat. I have also been troubled by the loose toilet seat but found it was easier to strategically sit than to try to figure out the best way to go about fixing it. After work on Friday, after mom had left for Whitehorse, I set about tightening the toilet seat bolts.

It should be known that the toilet is already kind of strange. It is a low-flow toilet that has two buttons, one for the little stuff and one for the big. It is all one piece, the tank is part of the whole. And the frigging seat is a slow-close miracle that is unlike all the diagrams that I have looked at online (yes, I researched proper toilet seat tightening protocol). So, Friday after work I set about tightening the darn seat. I had studied the diagrams and understood the mission. Find the caps near the hinges, pry them off, use my pliers to tighten the bolts, replace the caps, and voila, a sturdy sitting experience. No such luck. I stared at the seat, perplexed by the lack of caps that EVERY toilet seat tutorial made mention of. OK, new strategy, pry the seat off the obviously hidden caps, right? No. Some desperate tugging, prodding, crying, and excessive (or not) hand washing later, I was back at the computer trying to figure out how to solve this mystery. I Googled, “slow close toilet seat fixing no caps” and many variations of that general combination of words but all the tutorials suggested that there should either be caps or an easy-release button somewhere in the general vicinity of the hinges. But our toilet seat is smooth with no visible access points. I squeezed the sides in an attempt to release it, I gently and not-so-gently tugged at it, I peaked into the bowl to see if the bolts were accessible from there, I started to cry. I was so frustrated at the seemingly impossible task of tightening the frigging toilet seat that I sat at my computer, staring at pictures that did not look like my toilet seat, and just cried. Then, an hour or so after starting this ridiculous journey, I marched into the bathroom, slapped my hand on the side of the bowl and felt a frigging bolt. Reaching around the other side I found the matching bolt and realized that I had not looked in the most obvious place, the outside of the bowl. A quick couple of turns on the plastic nuts and the seat was secure. I washed my hands and forearms (I felt too close to the toilet not to) and schlumped on the couch, totally embarrassed that I let a toilet seat bring me to tears.

It’s hard to segue from a toilet story to a recipe, but it must be done.

This salad is pretty amazing. (Smooth transition, right?)

CurriedCauliflowerSalad

 

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April 27, 2013
by Not Crocker
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Baked Coconut Rum Balls with Kraken Rum

I am just terribly embarrassed, wouldn’t you know it, I fell again. These boots, that I love so much, will be the death of me. My knee that had just recovered is now bloodied and bruised. Ooph, what a day! The funny thing is, these aren’t boots with any real heel, they are just out to get me.

In less terrible and embarrassing news, I’ve been asked to be the media representative for the Vancouver Spring Sprint for the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada. I am pretty thrilled about the opportunity, and am still not sure what it will involve. So far, I know that I will be doing some interviews, and I’ve had to answer some questions, so there is that. And, I made rum balls with my favourite spiced rum, The Kraken Black Spiced Rum.

 BakedCoconutRumBalls

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April 19, 2013
by Not Crocker
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Lemon Poppy Seed Scones with Lemon Cream Cheese Glaze

Ugh this is terribly embarrassing, so prepare! I took yet another spill in the EXACT SAME SPOT across the street from my apartment. This time though, I was holding my umbrella and bashed in my other knee. I am thrilled to have a fresh wound on my right knee to distract from the furiously itchy scabbing happening on my left. If I fall another time in that spot, I am certain they are going to erect a plaque in my honour. Genesis thinks this whole thing is hilarious, and really, so do I. There are no real defects in that stretch of sidewalk that I am getting caught up on, it is just me, the corner, and clumsiness.

I went to a beautiful brunch/lunch that lasted 5 hours yesterday. It was a partial reunion of MPubbers, and it was so wonderful to see some of my favourite ladies again. On the way back from brunch, around 5:00pm, my friend Heather and I emerged from the train station to an immense crowd of people, at first we brushed it off as a Saturday crowd, excited about the weather. But we quickly realized that we were in the middle of the MASSIVE 420 celebrations in downtown Vancouver. As we hustled through the throngs of people, I couldn’t help but wonder what the poor tourists wandering this area must have thought. The smell of weed followed me all the way down to my apartment, where I ran into the purple teletubby cruising with some friends, looking for a bite to eat. In all, it was an interesting Saturday.

lemonpoppyscones

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April 13, 2013
by Not Crocker
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Sunshine Lemon Poppy Seed Loaf- Willing summer to come!

Well, I’ve officially completed my second week at the NFB. I am still doing a lot of learning but have had the chance to get my toes wet with some contracts, so that’s been fun. While I am really excited about my position, I would love to get a chance to work on the creative side, there are a lot of things tossed around that I would love to get my hands on. Anyway, things have been going well, aside from the fact that I had a ridiculous tumble on Monday that left my knee in a bit of a mess. I was walking across the street towards a corner-crazy (hanging out, yelling at traffic). I was wearing my newish boots that were still a little slippery on the edges and right when the man asked me “How far are you going?” I slipped my right leg under my left and came down hard on my left knee. I got up quickly and hustled it down the street, trying to ignore the searing pain. Fortunately, I didn’t do any lasting damage, just a small lump, significant bruises, and some really impressive scrapes. I was pretty thrilled though that my new jeans were no worse for the wear.

In any case, I am fully ready for summer, I have a few new pairs of capris, a new pair of sandals, and the deep desire for a tan. Sadly, as with the rest of Canada, we’ve been having a second winter of sorts. Fortunately, we are in the paradise of Canada and our second winter consists of drizzly days rather than snow drifts. In an attempt to bring about some sunshine I baked up some lemon poppy seed loaves! I am not usually a fan of citrus desserts—my many, many recipes show a trend towards chocolate—but I’ve been craving a little brightness. And, wouldn’t you believe it, THE SUN CAME OUT! Seriously, I whipped this loaf up on Tuesday night, brought it in on Wednesday to work and the sun raged straight through Wednesday afternoon through Thursday night!

LemonPoppySeedLoaf

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April 6, 2013
by Not Crocker
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Checking in, plus you get to hear about stuff!

So, this has been a pretty busy week for me, I’ve not had a chance to make anything particularly special, whether for dinner or for snacks. I did however start my job at the… (drumroll) National Film Board of Canada! Huzzah! I am so thrilled to have accepted a 6-month contract with the NFB to work as a Production Coordinator for this digital studio. Things are off to a slow start, but I am learning a lot and really excited to see things take off.

Also, I’ve had my first dental experience in far too long and it went great! I’ve never had a filling and I just finished getting three, no muss, no fuss! I haven’t had my mouth numbed like that since I was a really young kid and they had to snip my little gum-bridge to make my teeth move together (sorry for that image). Anyway, my dentist is deep in the West End side of Robson, so I just walked back up Robson to home with half my face feeling like it had melted away. I think I looked fairly normal, but I kept checking “discreetly” to make sure I wasn’t drooling. None of the thousands of fancy shoppers gave me a second look, so I think I am okay.

Anyway, all of this to say that I am sorry I’ve been MIA, and I don’t have anything to post yet. But I am getting back into a working rhythm and will be sure to start posting again quickly! I hope you are all enjoying your spring, we’ve finally got flowers and leaves on the trees here in Vancouver!