July 4: National Independence Day and Spare Ribs Day

Happy Birthday America!

I spent the day working. All day. And then I went out to dinner with my parents and some family friends.

That's when things got interesting.

We were going to eat at a BBQ place. I had never eaten at this restaurant before. Neither had my dad. We get to the restaurant (or I should say, we thought we were at the restaurant.) I remarked that the inside looked like a Mexican restaurant. They had a lot of tequila bottles decorating a shelf.

We get seated about 15 minutes later and they had baskets of chips on the table. This is even stranger considering this is supposed to be a BBQ restaurant.  But I was hungry and started eating them. It is then, that my mom realizes this is not actually the BBQ restaurant, this is in fact, a Mexican restaurant.

Yes, we were at the wrong restaurant.

We burst out of that restaurant and I was dying. I was laughing so hard tears were streaming down my face. We walked right next door, to the correct BBQ restaurant, and met our friends.

I realized later that I had already eaten some of their chips. Oooops.

We finally ended up at the correct restaurant. Where the server was fascinated with the scent of my hand sanitizer. I let her smell it. Then the whole table had to smell it.

Because you know, I can never have a normal experience.

Anyways, we ended up at my brother's where we watched the fireworks.

 
It was a perfect view. The best part, (and many would agree with me), was when the butte the fireworks were being shot off of, caught on fire. This happens every year.

Except this year we could actually see the fire's flames! Now that was something.

They had the fire put out almost immediately. But it was exciting while it lasted.

Sadly, I don't find fireworks that spectacular after working at Disneyland and seeing them almost every night. They were still good though. And they made me remember the good old days at Disney. Which I liked. 

We had spare ribs, you know, to celebrate National Spare Ribs Day, but we had them the day after. Because we were going out to eat BBQ anyways. (Do not tell anyone this.) (This is not considered cheating.)

My dad barbecued them. Because I don't barbecue. I don't know how to, and if I am being honest, I am probably not the safest person when it comes to barbequing.

Notice how he is drinking wine?

 My dad however, is a very talented when it comes to barbequing. Except for that time he left the extra grease in the barbecue in the middle of winter, and a hungry mountain lion kept stopping by because he could smell the grease. And then my parents went to see a movie and the mountain lion appeared again on the back porch and I locked myself in the bathroom crying and called my parents and my mom had to suppress a laugh as she explained to me that mountain lions can't actually get in the house as they don't have hands to open the door. But that's a story for another day.

Happy 4th of July!

April 3: National Chocolate Mousse Day

Christopher Henry was very excited to celebrate this day!

Until he realized, it wasn't about a moose eating chocolate. Poor guy. He was disappointed. I let him eat some anyways.

Christopher Henry argued that today should be about celebrating him, because he is a chocolate colored moose. Ohhhhh Christopher Henry...



JazzyJ's Light and Fluffy Chocolate Mousse Recipe:

Ingredients:
- 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate
- 8 ounces heaving whipping cream
- 2 egg whites
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- Any toppings you might want (shaved chocolate, crushed Oreos, whipped cream...)

Melting the chocolate.

Instructions:
1. Put a metal mixing bowl in the freezer.
2. Using a double boiler, melt the bittersweet chocolate, stirring often until completely melted. Take off heat and set aside.
3. Get the metal mixing bowl out of the freezer, and beat the whipping cream until stiff peaks form.
4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually add sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.
5. Using a whisk, blend the chocolate into the egg white mixture.
6. Add the chocolate egg white mixture into the whipped cream and gently stir until well blended.
7. Cover and refrigerate for an hour before adding any toppings and serving.
8. Serve some to Christopher Henry (He made me put that in here!)

Melted chocolate

The cream all whipped up.

Stiff egg whites.

Adding in the chocolate.

The finished chocolate mousse, ready to be refrigerated!

Let me tell you, this was sinful! There were some arguments on this recipe because some people believe mousse should be light and fluffy and others believe it should be creamy and smooth. Just so this doesn't disappoint anyone, this is very light and fluffy. And chocolately. And high in calories. And very very delicious. It's a light dessert that would be a great addition to finish off any heavy meal, because it is just so light and fluffy! Christopher Henry gives it two antlers up!

March 29: National Lemon Chiffon Cake Day

I had never heard of chiffon cake. The directions said to use a tube pan. What the heck is a tube pan? I looked it up, and a tube pan, appeared to be the same as a bundt pan. Perfect! I know we have one of those, somewhere around here. After finally locating it, I was happy.

So this is what I used:

But I also found one of these:

Huh. Well the one I used would create a pretty curvy edge, so I went with that one. Well, later I found out I was wrong. There is a difference between a bundt pan and a tube pan. And you guessed it, I used the bundt pan merely because it looked prettier than what was actually the tube pan. But there really couldn't be a difference, could there?

WRONG again. There is a difference. You are not supposed to use a bundt pan to bake light, airy, or sponge-like cakes (which is pretty much the definition of a chiffon cake). Oooooopps. Well, you really do learn something every day.

So just to reiterate.
If you make a chiffon cake, use THIS PAN PICTURED BELOW!!

USE THIS TYPE OF PAN! IT'S THE WINNER!

Anyways....

JazzyJ's Lemony Luscious Chiffon Cake:

 Ingredients:
- 7 eggs, separated
- 2 cups flour
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cups water
- 1/2 cup canola oil (except I only had olive oil so I just used that instead)
- 4 teaspoons grated lemon peel
- 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

Mixing the egg whites in.

 Directions:
1.  Put all the egg whites in one bowl and let sit at room temperature for 30 minues.
2. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3. In another bowl, mix together egg yolks, water, canola oil, lemon peel, and vanilla. Add to the dry ingredients and mix.
4. Add cream of tartar to egg whites and beat until stiff peaks form. Slowly fold the egg whites into the other ingredients.
5. Pour into a ten inch tube pan and bake for 55-60 minutes. The cake should kinda spring back at you as you gently poke it.
6. Invert pan and cool for one hour. Remove from pan and frost.

Note: It should be noted that I inverted the pan and immediately removed the cake while it was still hot from the oven. I now clearly see that I luckily avoided a cake disaster. Only a little piece fell off of the cake and you couldn't really tell.

Ready to bake.

Lemon Frosting:
Note: This was very lemony, if you don't like a strong lemon flavor, I would recommend reducing the amount of lemon juice and grated lemon peel.

Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup softened butter
- 3 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup lemon juice (this was about the juice from one large lemon)
- 4 teaspoons grated lemon peel

Gently pour the frosting (which is more like an icing) on top and kinda let it run over the sides.

Fresh out of the oven.

See? You can barely see the chunk that fell off.

I personally think it looks beautiful, like someone would pay some serious money to eat this bad boy! The icing dripping over the side makes it look so fancy! And it didn't disappoint! I would make and eat this again. So take that! I made this chiffon cake using a bundt pan, not a tube pan, and this cake kicks butt!

March 22: National Bavarian Cream Crepes Day

First of all, I would like everyone to know that Bavarian Cream Crepes auto-corrects to Barbarian Cream Creeps. Several of my friends were quite alarmed as they tried to figure out how I was going to celebrate Barbarian Cream Creeps day.

I knew today was going to be successful because, well, CREPES! YUM! Let's just say that the crepes part was successful, but the Bavarian cream part, well not so much.

Crepe Recipe:

Ingredients:
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup water
- 2/3 cup flour
- pinch of salt

Instructions:
1. Mix all ingredients together and let sit for about 30 minutes. (This allows the gluten to relax which adds to the taste, apparently).
2. Make sure your pan is really hot and greased before pouring in 1/4 cup of batter. Swish the pan around so there is a think layer of batter. Let cook for about 1 minute and then flip and let cook for another minute.

Easy right?

Now for the Bavarian Cream part...

Bavarian Cream:

Ingredients:
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup half and half
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 2 teaspoons vanilla

Instructions:
1. Beat all the ingredients together except for the vanilla in a microwaveable bowl.
2. Heat in the microwave for about 8 minutes, stirring every minute, until thick and creamy.
3. Add vanilla. Set aside to thicken.

See? Only 3 easy steps. Except not. What happened to me (well first of all the mixture kept over flowing in the microwave so every minute I had to clean up a little mess. I didn't have a very big microwaveable bowl), is that the egg started cooking. I ended up with a thin egg-y mixture. It wasn't thick and creamy. It also smelled strongly of egg. I wasn't going to dare put a thin egg-y mixture on top of my beautiful crepes. So what did I do? I threw that bad boy out and decided to make chocolate whipped cream instead. I mean, it's still a cream, it may not be Bavarian, but it is chocolate!

See? Thin and egg-y! YUCK.

A small overflow in the microwave which I cleaned up immediately (MOM!)

Chocolate Whipped Cream:

Ingredients:
- 1 cup whipping cream
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

Instructions:
1. Beat all ingredients together until you have a whipped cream consistency.


I then put a little of the chocolate whipped cream on a crepe, topped with raspberries, rolled them up, sprinkled a little powdered sugar on top to be fancy, and there you go! Delicious (non)Bavarian Cream crepes!

March 19: National Let's Laugh Day

I love to laugh. Laughter happens a lot around here because I am both extremely awkward and embarrassing. Take a look at yesterday's blog entry if you need a good laugh.

So what made me laugh the most today?

It started out normal as I opened a package from a clothing store I had recently ordered from. I saw all the clothes I was expecting and then...something purple with Batman on it? Was that part of a tutu? Upon a closer examination, it was determined that it was a purple toddler girl's bathing suit that featured a batman design and a tutu on it. I definitely did NOT order that.

I laughed so hard that I immediately had to face time my friend to show her.

The ironic part is, I love Batman. Like I really really love Batman. I can't wait until I have little kids and I can dress them in cute Batman clothes. So I could kind of see myself ordering a cute toddler Batman bathing suit for a kid ahead of time, even if I didn't have a kid yet. But I didn't!

My friend Courtney texted me back and said, "Are you sure you didn't order it? It looks like something you would buy for a future child!"

My friend Molly texted me, "Hahahah of course this is mailed to you!"

It evoked quite a long laugh from me. I still laugh every time I think about it or every time I see it. But now the question remains, what am I supposed to do with it?

I mean, it is really really cute!

March 2: National Read Across America Day and Old Stuff Day

Today, is Dr. Seuss's birthday so in his honor, it is Read Across America Day. I've been traumatized on this day ever since 4th grade.


In 4th grade, we were celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday by reading all day long in class. One of those incidents happened that would only ever happen to me. We were encouraged to wear our pajamas and bring sleeping bags to school. We had a student teacher who brought her dog to class for the day. All of a sudden,another classroom dog burst into our classroom, and in order to mark his territory, he went to pee on the closest thing. Which just happened to be my sleeping bag. Great, now my sleeping bag had dog pee on it. Of course, I cried and cried. I had the nicest teacher, but even the nicest teacher can't really help you once a dog has peed on your sleeping bag. It was a bad day.

Some of my friends reading for Dr. Seuss day!


Anyways, moving past that. National Old Stuff Day, is actually to encourage you to do something different to break up your regular routine. I'm currently down in SoCal visiting some friends. We went to Disneyland today. I'm not sure that counts for doing something out of my routine. I had an internship at Disneyland that just ended in January, so I went to Disney plenty of times. However, I haven't been back in almost 8 weeks (gasp!) so I guess that counts as doing something different.


Oh yeah! But something weird and out of the ordinary did happen today. It was weird even though it happened at Disneyland, which is saying a lot! I was exiting from a ride and there was a dance party going on, and a cast member dressed in a Winterland costume flagged us into a random congo line that was happening. When a lady dressed as a snowflake, flags you into a congo line, you join that congo line. So I congoed for a little bit and then went on my way. I guess you can say that was out of my routine! It was great to be back at Disney. I love that place and I miss it everyday.


Check back tomorrow because it involves free food and pancakes. What could be better than that?

Update: I have just been alerted that it is called a conga line, not a congo line? Who knew? Certainly not me. Anyways....

February 18: National Drink Wine Day

Funny story, luckily I checked to see what National Day it was before I posted this blog post. I thought it was National Love Your Pet Day, but it turns out, that isn't until February 20. I gave my cat lots of attention and took all these photos of her.

Turns out, it's National Drink Wine Day. So here it is, almost 11 at night, and I rush down stairs and yell "Quick, I need to drink some wine." Luckily, there was an open bottle and I was able to drink some which reminded me of a funny story. Almost two years ago I was on my way back from Europe. On the plane, they had given me a free mini bottle of wine, but I hadn't gotten around to drinking it yet. Back in the United States, we had to go through security again, and my mini bottle of wine was over the allotted ounces! Good thing I suddenly remembered! I went into the corner, drank that mini bottle of wine, and then I went through security. Good thinking, JazzyJ, good thinking.

Anyways, here's a picture of the wine I drank.

Good thing is, I now have plenty of photos to share of my cat in a few days. Check back February 20 to learn why my kitty is sometimes called "Clearance Kitty."