I use to be the pickiest eater...

... but after meeting Matt, I ever really had a choice. He introduced me to the awesomeness that is coffee, avocado/guacamole, mustard, scallops, etc. One of the most awesome introductions was to chocolate hazelnut spread, most popularly, Nutella.

Enter: Gooey Chocolate & Hazelnut Cupcakes. The story goes, Matt came to visit this weekend and I wanted to bake some cupcakes. Since Matt isn't the biggest sweets eater, I let him pick which cupcakes I ake when he's around. Not too surpising he chose the Gooey Chocolate & Hazelnut cupcakes from Cupcake Heaven.

Maddie became really impatient waiting for me to get baking, so impatient even, she decided she would let me know with a meow.

                                                

Essentially with the recipe you create your own chocolate hazelnut batter. The recipe calls for ground blanched hazelnuts, but of course blanched hazelnuts did not exist at Whole Foods. And of course I don't have a grinder. So I chopped the non-blanched hazelnuts that I bought. Then I chopped some more. Then I chopped a little bit more. I'm sure it wasn't the 'ground' texture it was supposed to be, however Matt likes crunchy peanut butter, so I figured it'd be ok.

While I was chopping, Maddie and Matt, well mostly Matt, were helping put the cupcake wrappers in the pan.

Once the batter is ready, you spoon about half of it into the cups. You put a spoonful of hazelnut spread on top. Of course, we used crunchy hazelnut spread (this can be found at Cost Plus World Market). You then spoon the other half of the batter on top of that. Finally, once the cupcakes are baked and cooled, you frost with home made chocolate frosting. The frosting is made by heating up whole whipping cream and mixing the heated cream with chunks of bittersweet chocolate. After the mixture cools, it's chocolate frosting! We were supposed to top with more hazelnuts...but we decided to forego that step.

Finally, the cupcakes were ready to eat! Contrary to how it may appear, Maddie was satisfied to only eat the crumbs that came from taking the paper cup off of the cupcake.

My mom likes cupcakes too...

...and because she was coming to visit this weekend, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to try out the new mixer. But before I could do that, I needed an apron. And, as I bet you can predict, instead of going an buying some random apron at Target, I decided to make my own. I googled "apron pattern" and stumbled upon this. I set off to Beverly's Fabric and Crafts and found the most perfect cupcake fabric. After a short search, the complimenting polka-dot fabric was located and the apron was created (it looks much more like an apron and not just a chunk of fabric on, but Maddie doesn't know how to use a camera, and I don't have a full length mirror.)

Once the apron was created, it was time to bake. I sat down with Cupcake Heaven in search of a cupcake that my mom would enjoy. I settled on the Creamy Coconut. I'm pretty sure I am not allowed to re-post the recipe, but let's just say they have coconut with a hint of lime and are complimented with a cream cheese frosting. And yes, they are topped with dried coconut. Yum!

I have since purchased (or rather my mom has purchased for me) a sifter and a cooling rack so I believe the next batch will be even better!

I use to play competitive soccer...

...which means I accumilated tons and tons of tournament t-shirts. It's just what you do, you go to a tournament, you buy a t-shirt. Now most people would wear these t-shirts to practice, or to school, or whatever. But not me. You see, I am a bit of a hoarder, so I never wanted to mess these shirts up just in case I needed them in the future. I figured if I got mud stains on them they wouldn't do my any good. Who knows what I was saving them for, but I was saving them for something.

I had heard of t-shirt quilts before, and I even had a shipment form to send in with my shirts to get one made, but I never did (along with being a bit of a hoarder, I am a bit of a procrastinator). So two years later, and still not having the quilt made I received my sewing machine. My mom suggested that this would be the perfect first project, so I started on my jounry of creating my first quilt (if you can even call it that...).

I picked out 21 t-shirts (believe me when I say there were more...) and decided on a 3 wide by 7 long layout. I measured the biggest logo to figure out the length and width of each square and then proceeded to cut them out. The next step was to play around with the squares to figure out the layout that looked and felt right to me. Luckily I have a kitchen floor that was big enough to do this. Maddie helped out by laying down on the squares when I needed to move them around. Once I figured out the formation that suited me, I sewed the squares together to create the rows. Once the rows were created I sewed them together. Then I sewed a twin flat sheet to the back, and viola!

You would do well to develop a new collection or hobby...

...was the fortune in my cookie at P.F. Chang's the day after Christmas 2009. Luckily for me, I had asked for, and received, 3 major appliances/gadgets for Christmas. The first, and most unrelated, was my Bissel Cleanview Helix Bagless Upright vacuum (thanks mom and dad!). The only collection I could really develop with this would be mounds and mounds of Maine Coon fur that Maddie sheds. But after 3 years of her shedding with only a small Dirt Devil to clean up with, it's pretty exciting! And it's amazing what good vacuum suction can do for your allergies...and your floor.

My parents also gifted me with my Sunbeam Hand/Stand Mixer. I have always been a cupcake fan, even before the cupcake boom and places like Love at First Bite in Berkeley, CA existed, so when my birthday rolled around this year and Matt asked what I wanted, I told him $30 worth of cupcakes. I don't think he wanted me to eat that many cupcakes, so being the genius he is, he went and bought me Cupcake Heaven, a beautifully illustrated cupcake cookbook. Of course what good is a cupcake cookbook if you don't even have a mixing bowl? Enter: the Sunbeam Hand/Stand Mixer. I love the dual functionality of this mixer, and it allows me to test out the "stand" function without shelling out hundreds for the KitchenAid.

And for the trifecta, my Nan and Pop bought me the Brother XL-3750 sewing machine. Now, this request was kind of a whim seeing as the only thing I ever remember sewing was a felt bear with a needle and thread, but according to my fortune cookie, it's really going to pay off.

So follow me on my journey as I try to create with my mixer and sewing machine to see what the writers of PF Chang's fortune cookie fortunes had in mind for me.