Domesticated

Lately I've had the urge to bake things. First it was a zucchini quiche that I was introduced to when I lived in California. It's topped with tomatoes. I don't like zucchini and I don't like tomatoes but oh how I like this zucchini quiche! And then, because I had zucchini on the mind, I made zucchini bread (what was I saying about not liking zucchini? But really - it's bread, so that makes it automatically better. It's like banana bread. I don't like bananas, but I can sure eat banana bread!). My mom assumed that someone had given me zucchini from their garden, what with my zucchini-fest. But then she recalled that it wasn't in season, and said I must be nesting. Bret said "if this is nesting, I hate to see what you're like in 3 more months!" I said "maybe I'm getting it out of my system now and in 3 months the house will be a mess and I'll never cook dinner". Bret said "Good! I'll get to have frozen pizza more!" (We have an ongoing discussion about frozen pizza. He thinks it's one of the best dinner ideas ever - good (enough), cheap, and doesn't create dinner dishes. I contend that it's not "real" food. He generally feels that "real" food is a lot of effort and a lot of dishes, so it's a trade off - frozen pizza doesn't taste as good, but it's simpler. And the debate goes on!)

Most recently, I saw these and these on the Bakerella blog, and thought I'd give them a try. (Incidentally, Laura commented recently on how amused she was at my usage (some might say excessive usage) of embedded links in blog posts. I am inordinately proud of myself for figuring out how to do them (ok, all I had to do was Google it...but that took at least a little thought, didn't it??) and so I use plan to shamelessly continue using them whenever I can.)

So anyway, I saw these on the Bakerella blog (ha! got to do the embedded link thing again!) and mine didn't turn out anywhere near as cute as the example pictures. See proof below:


The picture's blurry, but trust me, it actually helps the presentation. Both my Grandma & Laura said some of them looked "creepy", and a couple people asked what the yellow round ones were supposed to be (um, clearly they're chicks!) and if the white round ones were snowmen (apparently the orange beak looks like a carrot nose). Hmph! On behalf of the chicks, I was offended. Each of them was near & dear to my heart (except the ones that I did in assembly line fashion at the end when we were late and supposed to have left for mom & dad's to celebrate Easter a half hour before). The good news is, at least everyone said they tasted good!

I made chocolate & funfetti cake mixes, so with the other half of each flavor I made this:
I think I have a long way to go before I can come close to rivaling the chocolate chip cookies Mom made for one of my sisters to take as a treat to share for her birthday when they were in grade school. Mom made oval shaped, extra large cookes, and piped each classmate's name on a cookie in chocolate icing. And if I had a picture, I could have done an embedded link to show you. Darn it. Lost opportunity.