Happy Friday :)

I'm heading home to Ohio for a week over Easter and I couldn't be much more excited!! I've made a list of all the foods I want while I'm there, have appointments made, tickets bought, list of things I need to take there and bring back with me, lists of what I've just gotta do while I'm there..

Today I stocked up on some travel-snack-junk food (buy one, get one free mini boxes of Cheez-It and Oreos, say what?!) I also went to the library and stocked up on new books for the trip as well as my time at home since I'll probably be getting my wisdom teeth taken out and have plenty of down time. All I need is one of those travel neck pillows (something I've been wanting for the last couple years and need to just hurry up and buy!) and I'll be all set!

In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy New York and all it offers :) Tonight I'm going out for a late supper with a friend. I said I was craving mac n cheese and she suggested a couple places that specialize in and only serve mac n cheese, because stuff like that happens in the city! (Hehe, it still kindof amazes and ahhs me). And later meeting up with some friends at a ping pong lounge place.. Should be a fun night :)

My Confession of Love for Dessert

I love sweets, just in case frequent readers haven't realized that yet ;) My largest board on Pinterest is the one I have devoted to dessert recipes (with over 200 pins to date) and I am especially obsessed with chocolate and cupcakes.

My version of a "Super Sweet 16" party meant that all my guests had to eat was colorful candy in pretty dishes and a few desserts. Seriously. They begged for veggies. Fortunately we had a platter of those made up just in case. My graduation party was also all desserts. Cookies, cupcakes, mini cheesecakes, some scones...

One of my favorite desserts though, is cheesecake. I have weirdly vivid memories of eating All to Myself Cheesecakes at various rainy Easter celebrations and in high school I once tried to woo my crush by bringing a chocolate cheesecake I'd made into class on my birthday. I love eating at the Cheesecake Factory and I fondly remember the days when our family friend Patty got on a cheesecake experimentation kick, my favorites from those being Turtle-Brownie-White Chocolate and White Chocolate-Strawberry.

The point of all that being, well, I really love cheesecake! So, naturally when I saw a recipe for Cheesecake in a Mug, I had to try it! When I'm trying something new, I like to make things according to the recipe the first time, then make some changes the next time.

Since I'm not a huge fan of cheesecake that's totally plain, I decided to mix it up with some peanut butter (another of my favorite things) and Nutter Butter cookies I've had in my cupboard. The results weren't aesthetically beautiful... I'll still have to work on that for the pictures, but it was delicious:

Peanut Butter Cheesecake

2 oz cream cheese, softened

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 egg

2 Tablespoons sour cream

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

2 Nutter Butter cookies

1 Tablespoon peanut butter

In a mug, combine the cream cheese and sugar until smooth with a fork. Add the egg, vanilla, and sour cream and mix thoroughly. Break the cookies into smaller pieces or crumbs and add them. Drop the peanut butter into the mixture, about a teaspoon at a time. Stir or swirl the peanut butter and cookies into the batter then microwave about 1 1/2 -- 2 minutes or until the edges are set but the middle isn't quite (cheesecakes continue to bake a little after they're removed from the oven, or microwave). Let cool and keep in the fridge until you're ready to enjoy you're super quick and easy cheesecake.

There's so many alterations that you could make to this cheesecake! I can't wait to try it with Oreos, chocolate chips, cookie dough, try adding a crust... Endless possibilities! I'd love to see some comments with what you try! Happy nuking! 

Oh, Is This What A Weekend Feels Like?

I'll be the first to admit that I don't always take advantage of the fabulous opportunities that come with living in New York City. Honestly, my free time usually consists of hanging around my apartment. Isn't this the city with something for everyone? Don't I love adventures? So what am I doing?? (Well saving money mostly.) 

Yesterday though, I had the day off and decided I was going to go out, take a "me" day, and do something new and fun! I still didn't want to spend a lot of money so I gave myself a limit of $30 to spend and came up with some fun ideas that would be cheap. 

I thought about going to a museum with my sketchbook and sketching some of the sculptures and whatnot, something I've seen others doing and love the idea of (I really want to get back into drawing, I haven't done much since college but I loved it when I was doing it everyday). I also thought about going to a coffee shop and being one of those people on their laptops who just sit and take up a table for hours (I figured I could get more done in terms of job searching and getting important stuff done in a different environment). 

I had some other ideas too and ended up meeting a friend for lunch at Qdoba before she went in for work. Then I went thrifting! Which is something I absolutely love to do and hadn't done yet in New York. There's two places on the same street as HC and I always walk by and want to go in, so yesterday I did! And I found some really awesome stuff! If only I wasn't on a budget... But I did find some stuff I've really been needing, a pair of skinny jeans for just $8.50 then I went to a mall and grabbed some basic stud earrings I've been eyeing. Both exciting purchases :)

Still in an adventuresome mood, I paid my first visit to Trader Joe's and oh my word! I fell in love! Haha, everything was cheap and organic and awesome! I really love that it's all store brand products. The line discouraged me from buying anything, however, I will most definitely be returning :)

I had the day off again today (this is feeling like an actual productive weekend!) and am writing this from Argo Tea, a great little tea place with stores throughout the city. Where I plan to chill for a couple hours, maybe meet a friend, and overall get some work done so that I can start to have a better answer to the question, "What are you doing with your life?" 

xo ash

Baked Oatmeal In A Mug

It's back! Another installment of Mug Monday! After a very long sabbatical...

Ever since my days at summer camp, I've loved baked oatmeal. In fact, baked oatmeal is actually one of the best-loved and well-known breakfast meals at Camp Luz.

When my parents opened the Cream & Sugar Cafe while I was in high school, we found a recipe that my sister and I decided was close enough to camp's and the love of baked oatmeal spread throughout West Liberty.

Now, in New York, I still love to make baked oatmeal. However, like everything that requires an oven, it was a little inconvenient to have to carry all my supplies to the kitchen one floor up.

Then I got to thinking, I can make regular oatmeal in a mug. And I can bake muffins in a mug; I wonder if I can make my baked oatmeal in the microwave?

I did a little experimenting, cutting down the recipe, adjusting ingredients, and I found that yes, yes you can make baked oatmeal in the microwave! The best part is it's super quick! Just 2 minutes at most to mix up the ingredients and 1-2 minutes to cook it! Plus it's filling, healthy, delicious, oh, and gluten free!

Baked Oatmeal

(Gluten Free)

1 Tablespoon butter

1 1/2 Tablespoon brown sugar

1 egg white

1 Tablespoon milk

dash salt

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup quick-cooking oats

2 teaspoons cranberries, raisins, dried cherries, chocolate chips, etc. (optional)

Melt the butter in your mug. Add the brown sugar, egg white, milk, salt, cinnamon, and baking powder. Mix together then add oats and any extras. Stir until oats are coated and liquids aren't settled at the bottom.

Microwave 1-2 minutes (my microwave takes exactly 2 minutes but it's not a very powerful microwave, I would guess that 1 minute 30 seconds would do in most microwaves). When it's done, the oatmeal will pull away from the sides.

Give it a couple minutes to cool, as this is very hot when first out of the microwave, then enjoy warm with some tea, milk, or coffee.

Failed Projects and A Star Studded Life

Hi All!

Sometimes, I really want to blog but just don't know what to write about. Which is why my posts are kindof sporadic.

Today is one of those days. I knew I wanted to blog from the moment I woke up, so I thought "I'll do something from a Pinterest board then share it with everyone!"

So I did. I did this hair mask which was egg whites, olive oil and water. You massage into your scalp and let sit for 20 minutes then rinse out and wash your hair as usual. Unfortunately, it didn't work out for me... Even after rinsing and repeating. Then letting my hair dry and washing it again. The mask was supposed to leave my hair shiny and healthy but it just looks oily. Good thing I had the day off work! And got to try a new hairstyle... Looking back at the 'recipe' I realize I was actually supposed to use egg yolks instead of whites... Haha oops! Maybe that was my problem?

Anyways... Next I tried a new mug recipe for a s'more mug cake. And because I couldn't imagine putting almost FOUR TABLESPOONS of butter into a single mug cake, I cut that down. Then the cake was a little dry sooo there will be a little tweaking of the recipe before I share that one.

I did do my nails pretty but I don't feel that's worth sharing haha and in the meantime watched some movies: Peter Pan because I don't want to grow up, Legally Blonde because it's just a great movie, and now When In Rome because it has Angelica Huston in it and one of my friends here teaches her Pilates. Which is really cool :)

In other celeb news, one of my girlfriends and I went out for coffee with a movie director/screen writer and his marketing guy over the weekend! We'd both met these guys on different days while at work and they promised to get us into a screening of the movie they're working on (starring Alexis Bledel!!) at one of the colleges here in NYC. And I know all of that sounds crazy and sketchy BUT it's actually legit. First, I have a pretty good sense of people when meeting them, second, we were very careful about the whole meeting and we ended up grabbing coffee at Birch Coffee and having a great time!

The movie, Violet & Daisy, doesn't have a trailer yet (they're working on it now) so I can't really vouch for it but I'll let ya know how that screening goes ;) if it goes.

Love from New York!
Ashley

Oven Roasted Tomatoes

Similar to bananas, tomatoes are another thing that I find difficult to eat all of before they go bad. The last time I bought a little case of cherry tomatoes I decided that I was not going to let any go to waste! I ate them on everything, purposely making a lot of salads, sandwiches and even scrambling them into my eggs but I was still left with a handful of slightly wrinkly cherry tomatoes...

Then I had an idea.

Oven-roast the tomatoes! Sun dried tomatoes are delicious and make any normal salad or sandwich seem fancy while adding some extra flavor and seasoning. They also can be frozen and keep awhile. Since it was winter I wasn't going to try anything crazy involving actually sun-drying the tomatoes so I earched for how to oven roast the tomatoes. After adapting the instructions to suit my toaster over I went to work and was not disappointed with the results :)

To anyone looking for something to do with tomatoes that aren't going to be very good much longer, I'd suggest oven roasting them. And to anyone who doesn't have an oven, keep reading and see how it can be done in a toaster oven!

First, gather your ingredients. I use cherry/grape tomatoes since I just have a toaster oven but I believe roma are the common roasting tomato. You'll want some olive oil, seasonings (I like Italian seasoning and garlic salt), and a muffin pan (for me that's what fits in my toaster oven if you had a tiny cookie sheet or baking pan that fits use that! BUT don't use aluminum foil!! Usually when I'm baking something here I just use a sheet of aluminum foil and roll the edges a bit but the acid from the tomatoes will have some sort of chemical reaction to the aluminum and bad things will happen.) 

Pour a little olive oil into each muffin tin cup. Then swirl it around to coat the bottoms.

Wash your tomatoes, then cut them in half. For the muffin pans you can fit 3-4 halves in each cup. I used a 6-cup pan so I cut up 11 tomatoes but do what you feel.

Put the tomato halves into the tins, swirl then around to coat them with the oil and sprinkle with the seasonings. On the far left I used just Italian seasoning and on the far right I only used garlic salt then in the middle column I mixed them. 

Pop them in the toaster oven for about 20 minutes at about 375* If you were using a real over you'd want to roast them at 450* but as I learned the hard way that will make a toaster oven spit oil everywhere and smoke up and probably be a possible fire hazard... So keep an eye on the temperature and attitude of your toaster oven :) The higher temp the better for the drying process but if you can't have it very high, bake them a little longer. 

The timing is pretty approximate but once the tomatoes are pretty dried out you can remove them from the oven. 

Let them cool a couple minutes then move them around with a fork or spoon to keep them from sticking to the pan. Once totally cooled they can be bagged or packed up and eaten or frozen or refrigerated. Supposedly they'll last 6 months in the freezer and 3-4 days in the refrigerator. I have not tested this but one of the sites I was originally learning from gives those times.