FOOD!

If only you could taste this picture... you would DIE! El Rose Panderia is to die for. Tamales, cookies, Pan dulce, candy, everything!

Homemade Acai Bowl... not as good as Cafe Brazil in Santa Cruz, but on a budget it will do.

Even though I sometimes hate how hip and trendy Verve Coffee Roasters is they do make a mean hot chocolate! YUM

Burger and fries from paradise beach grille in Capitola. I'm not a big fan of this place but the food is really good... so I'll deal with all the drunk, snooty people that dine there.

Fondue

If you want to have a heart attack while simultaneously eating one of the best things you have ever tasted, order this from Paradise grille. A cheese cake, rapped in puff pastry, covered in hot caramel, with vanilla bean ice-cream, and fried bananas.... yea

As you can probably tell lately I have been consuming tons of food.... It may seem a little gluttonous, but I promise it's totally under control ( I think ). I have been on a roll making things from scratch as well as just going out. I have become really good at procrastinating on my homework...."Well I'm hungry, and how can I possibly think of doing any work if I don't have a full stomach. Guess I have to make a home made pizza and wait for the dough to rise, OH WELL"  (one of many thought processes I have had)

I thought it might be fun to share with you some of the things I have either purchases or made myself. All of them are worth trying, and if you like it then it's really a win win scenario at that point.

From lovin in the oven I found an amazing Monster Marshmallow Cookie recipe, that I just so happen to have all the ingredients for. Well to be fair Colman's family had all the ingredients and in a failed attempt to wake him from his 3 HOUR  NAP! I started bakin' up these bad boys. These were really quick, and the only "problems" I ran into was when I tried to push the minnie marshmallows into the dough. It just didn't work, so I kinda pushed them in then covered them with more dough. I am also not really big on how something looks, I'm more about the taste. These defiantly won me over I will make them again

I halved the recipe because 4 dozen is just way too many for Sam and I, but I will put the link for the full recipe on here as well. I also didn't use white chocolate chips because I think they are disgusting (and I didn't have any) but mostly because they are gross.

1/4 Teaspoon Baking powder

1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda

Pinch of salt (I didn't add this)

1 Stick unsalted butter (8TBS), softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 packed brown sugar

1 egg at room temp

1 Teaspoon vanilla extract (the original calls for more)

1/4 cup peanut butter (I added a tad more for more of a peanut butter taste)

1 cup quick-cooking oats

1 cup chocolate chips

minnie marshmallows

1 cup all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 

Stir together: Flour, Baking powder, Baking soda in a large bowl

Cream butter and Sugars until fluffy, Beat in egg, then add vanilla

Add peanut butter and mix until smooth.

Mix in flour mixture until just combined.

Stir in oats and chips with a wooden spoon.

Drop the dough by heaping tablespoons onto baking sheet, then push in 4-5 marshmallows (or in my case don't)

Bake for about 10-12 minutes depending on your oven it could be more or less.

Next thing I made recently was a pizza and calzone. Both of which were so good, but it is pizza so you can't really go wrong. Having to make dough, and deal with yeast has been the reason why I haven't made homemade pizzas yet. I stumbled upon the cooking blog simplyscratch and it changed my view on pizza making all together. She makes it so understandable and easy to make bread type things. I followed her recipe for homemade calzones but made a pizza dough out of half instead of two calzones. It worked out just fine too, so I'm basically a winner. Sam loved the pizza and I loved the calzone and the pizza!

Hope you weren't hungry

-M