Early Birthday Celebration

February is usually a really busy month for me because of Lunar New Year, my birthday and generally just a short month anyways. Time seems to fly a little faster in February because weekends are taken up with traveling and other sorts of celebrations.

This past Sunday, the Boyfriend took me out to wine and dine at his favorite restaurant in celebration of my Birthday/Valetine’s Day, although the real celebration lies in the fact that it’s the end of the initiation process to the deployment of his experiment. I’m pretty sure it’s for that reason as well as him wanting to take today off (my Birthday) to play Marvel vs. Capcom as it’s just released. ( If you must wonder, I’m currently seated next to a very fidgety Boyfriend as he pushes and swipes away on an xbox 360 controller trying to look calm and relaxed despite swinging his arms and moving his body to the figures on the TV screen, exclaiming various mumble jumbo and telling me he’s going to save the Earth. Dr. Doom,…Dooom, he says. LOL)

Anyhow, we went to the Irish seafood restaurant, McCormick and Schmick, which I blogged about previously here. Dinner was lovely, but the best is as always the coveted Crème Brulee to which the Boyfriend raved to no end. It apparently is the only place that makes Crème Brulee the way, the Boyfriend thinks,  ought to be.

For dinner, I got to dress up because what better reason have than to celebrate various things. Deconstructing by layer… the Boyfriend just flashed me the peace sign… I think he’s losing it.

I didn’t want to go with a red dress because it really is a dramatic color for me so I decided on this really gorgeous lemon yellow, boat neck with black jewels embellishment. Photos are taken on the Boyfriend’s iphone because I forgot to charger my camera, ah.

  

Dress: Thrifted; Lydia by Lydia Procanik, sz: Small
Jacket: Kate Hill, sz 2
Scarf: Forever 21, one-size
 Tights: Target, sz: Medium
Belt: JCrew, sz: small
(below) Shoes: Banana Republic flats, sz: 6
(below) Earrings: Forever 21

Here are some close up for detail purposes:

 

I love the earrings (left). They were purchased from Forever 21 last year and I wear them quite often. Freda and I are both dangly earrings type of people so we both fell in love with this pair, but I won the fight to get them because she got other stuff on the same trip. The scarf reminds me of little grapes!

I purchased another one of it in the blood orange color which Freda currently has; I’ll probably purchase another one for myself. Got them because Kileen from Cute and Little had a ruched blood orange scarf in one of her previous posts over which I obsessed.

 

I love this blazer jacket by Kate Hill, and wonderfully, they also have petite sizes. This jacket was purchased maybe a couple of years ago from Lord and Taylors when they had one of their semi-annual sales for a very small ticket price of probably less than 20 dollars.

The Jacket is double breasted cape- like with wide 3/4 length sleeves. I especially like the wide collar mixed with the cape silhouette gives the jacket a very feminine and classic feel.

I just realized how awkward my right leg looks in the above picture. In real life, it’s the same size as my left leg so I really don’t understand why in this particular photo it looks like it’s twice the size of my left leg. I just double checked as well!

Cheese Biscuits

I was having, for some reason, an incomprehensible craving for cheese biscuits. This is coming off of the fact that I have recently  discovered Havarti and have an incredibly hard time keeping my paws off of the water crackers and sliced cheese. Rummaging through the fridge in hopes of easing the pain with a healthier option but… I found only more cheese, Cheddar this time, and it’s awful to say that I wouldn’t mind having it over baby carrots.

Conveniently, Jenna, over at Eat Live Run, blogged about her time at an externship making cheese wafers. ‘Twas a sign from the kitchen god.

Jenna’s recipe, as well as my personal favorite Peg Shea’s cheese biscuits, calls for one stick of butter, which as much as I love and want to, I could not justify to myself how I could possible run through 1 lbs. (four sticks) of butter in a week. Begrudgingly, I skimped out on the butter and used only half a stick and made adjustments befittingly (or so I believed).

I also cursed Boston for, yet again, not having the things I want; this time being yellow cheddar. It has become an increasingly tedious process to run my brains for new curse words to which I resolve to the usual damn.

In any case, the grated cup and half of cheddar gets into the mixing bowl. By now, I’ve learned the art of creaming butter with anything and everything, last time being brown sugar (courtesy of Jenna’s chocolate chip’s cookies).

Look at that baby, all creamed up and smooth like…butter. Time to work in the flour and all the additional additives adapted from Jenna’s recipe. My only gripe with myself being that I fail for using stale flour, ugh… the what if’s is just eating me.

Flour, additives, and one egg after, cute and pretty greasy from melted butter. I rolled the salty cheesy blob into thin sheets and used a handy ice cream scoop to cut somewhat medium sized circles.  Onto baking sheet and oven it goes for 350 degrees for about 2o minutes, in my case until it was golden around edges. 

A couple things I’ve learned from this:

• If I want to retain the biscuits taste, I will need to add Peg Shea’s original amount of cheddar. Maybe it was just the flour’s fault?
• Do not use old flour. Ugh.
• Skimping on the butter is like shooting yourself in the foot; the make up for the adhesiveness of the ingredients was thru an egg which I suppose is a bit healthier.
• Yellow cheddar really completes the visual appeal, damn you Boston for not allowing me to find it.
• Thou shalt not try to mix recipes while in Novice status.

Jenna’s recipe for Cheese Wafers can be found here, Peg Shea’s recipe was my first recipe and I actually do prefer it.

Peg Shea’s Cheese Biscuits:
Taken from New York Times

1/2  Cup (1 stick)  Unsalted butter at room temp.
2 Cup Extra sharp cheddar, grated
1 Cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. Cayenne pepper (optional, adjust to liking)'
A pinch of Salt, if desired

Instructions:

1. Cream butter and grated cheese until well melded.
2. Add flour and mixed well using finger tips. They should look like coarse cornmeal. Add salt if desired, but taste the mixture first; some cheddar are quite salty.  Add cayenne if desired, then mixed together very well.
3. On a very lightly flour board or marble countertop, form mixture into 2 long, thin rolls (1 to 1-1/2 inches in diameter). Wrap each roll in plastic wrap or foil and place in refrigerator until firm, one to two hours. They may be kept longer, if desired, or frozen, but be sure they are very carefully wrapped so that they don’t dry out.
4. When ready to cook, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut each rolls into thin slices, approximately one-quarter-inch thick. Arrange the slices on an ungreased baking sheet such that the edges don’t touch. Bake for 5-10 minutes or until golden around the edges and dry in the middle. Serve immediately or let cool and store in a container to be served later.

Yields about 48 biscuits.

Enjoy.

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Thank you everyone for commenting on my PFC entry. I haven’t allowed myself to look at the comments yet because I haven’t finished going through all the PFC entries. Once I do, I’ll visit my own entry to make replies. I’ve been extremely busy with work, studying for my exams, and being sick.