Brunch and yummy scones

Today was really good, although I am so tired now from all my baking and the party last night, and then more baking this morning.

We had made a breakfast/brunch date with Abby and Jason, and so were summoned awake at around 9:45 by Jason’s call. I think he wanted to make sure we didn’t sleep too late and make his brunch too late because we were up late for Cody’s party, hehe. Anyway, we had made plans to hang out and make them brunch because we haven’t seen them too often lately because Abby’s pregnancy has been pretty hard on her and she’s stayed home a lot, and we have all just been really busy lately.

So anyway, we headed on over to their house at about 10:45 after packing up all the breakfast stuff we bought. I then baked them some homemade scones from a recipe I had been using off of allrecipes.com, but I decided to make the recipe my own by adding mini chocolate chips and Cody’s suggestion of chopped almonds. Cody fried up some bacon and made some cheesy scrambled eggs. Add some sliced apples, freshly whipped cream, coffee, and jam, and we had a really great breakfast going. I would love to find a thicker, fluffier scone recipe one day (all of the ones I find say to roll them a ½ inch thick, and would like to make some really big, thick ones just once), but the alterations to the recipe worked out really well. I didn’t measure the nuts or the chocolate chips, I just kind of eyeballed it until the dough looked right, but I’ll have the recipe at the bottom with my approximates added in.

After dinner, Jason generously washed all the dishes for us, and we say around until about 3:30 just chatting about Anneke’s birth coming up in August, the wedding, comedy, and other such things, and just generally hanging out.

After leaving, I then proceeded to be productive and create a pretty great numbers powerpoint using the ‘Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed’ song for my online 3rd graders, and then do these blogs, since I haven’t been too good about blogging when I mean to lately.

Whew, it's hot. I suppose since it's 9:18 I need to go get the Kimbap I said I'd go buy three minutes ago, lol.

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Chocolate Chip Almond Scones

INGREDIENTS

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 5 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup chopped almonds
• 1 cup mini chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a baking sheet.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in butter. Mix the egg and milk in a small bowl, and stir into flour mixture until moistened. Fold in almonds and chocolate chips.

3. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead briefly. You may need to add more flour because the dough may be too sticky. Roll dough out into a 1/2 inch thick round. Cut into 15 small wedges, and place on the prepared baking sheet.

4. Bake 15-20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.

Cody's 25th bithday: almost without a hitch!

I am so happy; Cody’s birthday went off wonderfully yesterday! I’m going to include my recipes at the bottom of this blog, so if this sounds particularly tempting, refer to the end of my ramblings. Just make sure to give me credit!! ;-)

My day started at about 9:30 when my body decided that I was not allowed to sleep in anymore. Cody’s body apparently felt the same way and so we both got up and showered and made sure the apartment was in fit shape for Fallon to come over and help me bake Cody’s birthday cake and mini cupcakes. After that we just kind of rested and picked up some 참치 김 밥 and 고기만 두 for lunch. For those of you that don’t read Korean, that’s Chamchi Kimbap, or kind of like a tuna and spam California roll without the imitation crab and with pickled radish instead; and Goki Mandu which is a steamed pork and veggie dumpling. After eating and relaxing 12:00 finally rolled around and I proceeded to kick Cody out of the apartment so that I could start the process of making his Ugly Duckling cake. This cake is a calorie monstrosity of two homemade chocolate cakes with a chunky peanut butter, butter cream frosting in the middle, and the same frosting spread on top. You then make a chocolate ganache, which you then pour over the whole cake. The cake is then decorated with piped peanut butter butter cream and chocolate ducks made in silicone ice molds.

After the cakes were done baking and were cooling, Fallon came over around 2:00 to help me make some mini cupcakes. These ones were only yellow cake made from box mix, as I was only willing to overachieve and spend a ton of money for the cake, I didn’t want to make more batter from scratch for the cupcakes, and I wanted something other than chocolate and peanut butter as well.

I also used this opportunity with Fallon to give her the Maid of Honor present I had put together for her:

A really nice silver necklace, and miscellaneous face packs, cleansers, hand cream, makeup, and nail polish I picked up from Skin Food and The Face Shop.

I am happy to report that she loved everything I got her. i also guessed the exact facial cleanser she uses from Skin Food and kind of cheated by finding the necklace on her amazon.com wish list. But, considering the necklace was the main present, I wanted to make sure she liked it.

So anyway , with Fallon’s help, I made a ton of mini cupcakes frosted with chocolate icing from a can and an entirely homemade cake for Cody’s birthday with only a few mishaps, which all involved the from-scratch cake, and all led to the ugly-duckling name.

While I had always intended to put the chocolate ducks on the cake, this is not why I called it the ugly duckling cake. The cake was so moist and the day was so humid, and I didn’t have parchment paper to line the cake pans, that when I tried to release the cakes from their pans, they fell apart on me, tearing when they stuck to the pans. I didn’t panic, I used the peanut butter butter cream as glue and put the cakes back into a rectangle shape, and while still having the clear peanut-butter layer in the middle and on top. This, of course, caused my cake to look really, really ugly. I thought the ganache would make it look better, covering much of the problem, and it did make it look better, but it was still really ugly. I then added the piped-on butter cream and the ducks, which pulled the look together. I was originally going to call it my Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake, but I suddenly had an inspiration and decided to call it my Ugly Duckling Cake, or Cody’s Ugly Duckling Cake. And so a delicious monster was born.




Fallon and I finished baking and decorating almost exactly on time, and so we headed down to meet everyone with the cake, and headed to the all you can eat Galbi place (Galbi is pretty much any grilled meat, but this place had some other things than Galbi, as well as a ton of sides to eat) to gorge on an unhealthy amount of meat for Cody’s birthday. After eating for way too long (about an hour and a half), we broke out the cake, and everyone then proceeded to have sugargasms and tell me I should have brought milk. It was delicious, and Cody announced that it is now in his top 2 favorites for cake (carrot cake still being a close contender).

Following dinner and cake, everyone headed home to get refreshed, the boys having played ultimate Frisbee before dinner and being all sweaty and tired from the oppressive humidity. I stuck the left-over cake in the fridge and we grabbed the mini cupcakes and headed to Kathryn’s house to play card games, play around on Fallon’s Wii and use her Wii fit to see how we ranked with our heights/weights/balances, and gorge on the cupcakes and other snacks and drinks provided (though no one gorged too much after that cake).

At about 2:00 everyone headed home, stuffed from cake and happy from celebrating Cody’s big 25 in Korea. Happy Birthday honey!

Also:

Thank you to Fallon, Chris Walker-Bush, Kathryn, Hugh, Stephen, and Chris Snell for showing up to come out with us to make Cody’s birthday so special. You guys are awesome!
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Peanut Double Chocolate Chip Cake
Ugly Duckling Cake

Cake:

• 2 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature (3/4 cup)
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 1/2 ounces semisweet or bittersweet dark chocolate, melted and cooled (1/3 cup)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups cold water

Peanut Butter Butter Cream:

• 1 (18-ounce) jar chunky peanut butter, at room temperature
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature (1 cup)
• 2 1/4 cups powdered sugar

Ganache:

• 9 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped (1 c)
• 1 cup heavy cream

Chocolate Ducks:

• Silicone ice cube molds in the shape of ducks
• 1 ½ 7 oz large sized candy bars (Makes about 19 ducks) – chopped or shredded into small pieces

Directions:

Position an oven rack in the center of the oven and pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the cooled chocolate and vanilla and beat for 3 minutes to incorporate. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for another 3 minutes. Gradually mix in the dry ingredients in 3 batches, alternating with the cold water. Beat for 1 minute after each addition to incorporate the ingredients. Mix until the batter is smooth.

Coat 2 (9-inch) round cake pans with non-stick cooking spray. Cut 2 circles of parchment paper to fit the pan bottoms and place them inside the pans; then spray the paper for added non-stick insurance. Pour batter into the prepared pans and smooth the surface with a spatula; the pans should be 2/3 full. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes *.

Leave to cool for 40 minutes. Prepare the butter cream and the Ganache.
Make the butter cream: With an electric mixer beat the peanut butter and butter in a large bowl until creamy. Add the powdered sugar and beat until spreadable.

Make the Ganache:

Place the chocolate into a medium bowl. Heat the cream in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil, watching very carefully because if it boils for a few seconds, it will boil out of the pot. When the cream has come to a boil, pour over the chopped chocolate, and whisk until smooth. Stir in the rum if desired.

Allow the ganache to cool slightly before pouring over the cake**.
Turn the cakes out of the pans and remove the paper. With a metal spatula, spread 1/2 cup butter cream on top 1 of the layers. Start in the center and work your way out. Carefully place the second layer on top. Smooth the sides with butter cream, and then spread the rest over the top so that the cake is completely covered. Refrigerate or place in the freezer for 5 minutes to firm up the butter cream.

Pour the ganache on the cake, starting at the center of the cake and work outward. Be careful of the platter you have the cake on and watch the ganache, it is prone to overflowing out of your platter.

Refrigerate or freeze for 5 minutes before decorating. Pipe any leftover butter cream onto the cake in any style you desire and decorate with your chocolate ducks.

Refrigerate for 5 minutes before decorating or cutting.
*Cook's note. The cake is cooked when a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean and the cake springs back when touched
**For a fluffy frosting or chocolate filling, allow it to cool until thick, and then whip with a whisk until light and fluffy.

How to make Ducks:

Bring 1 ½ inches of water to a simmer in a saucepan or the bottom half of a double boiler. Do not let the water come to a boil, that will mess with the tempering of the chocolate, and the moisture from the steam may get into your chocolate, causing it to ‘seize.’

Place your chocolate into the top of the double boiler or into a stainless steel bowl (Use a towel or oven mitt to hold the bowl in place), and place on top of the simmering water. Make sure the water level is low enough that the bowl does not touch the water. The bowl should not go down very far into the pan. As soon as you have the chocolate in place, start stirring constantly until the chocolate is smooth. Take off the heat as soon as it is entirely melted, and remove the bowl away from the pan to allow the chocolate to cool slightly.

Now spoon the chocolate into the clean molds, filling to the top (no greasing or anything is necessary with silicone molds). It may be easier (it was for me) to fill a piping bag prepared with the small decorating tip. This way you can avoid too much of a mess and you can fill in the details in the mold better (I have read a zip lock bag with the very tip cut off works, but I find piping bags so much easier).

Once the mold is filled, tap the tray on the counter a few times to release any big air bubbles that will make your candy look misshapen, and you may need to add more chocolate if the level goes too low.

Now, place your mold into the freezer for 10-15 minutes. When the chocolate is solidified, tug on the edges around the silicone to loosen them from the candies, and then tap the mold upside down onto wax paper. The ducks should fall out relatively easy. If the day is very warm or humid, you may need to stop halfway through and freeze all the sucks again, as they may start to soften quickly.

Freeze the chocolates until you are ready to use.

Counting Down Depression and Stuff

There is so much going on. I almost wish it was July 19th so that there will be so much less for me to do.

According to the countdowns I have going on Facebook right now I have :

~Only about 92 classes left to teach (and some will be cancelled, and some will be parties)
~28 days until my wedding (26 until I'm legally married though)
~About 42 until we are in the Philippines (Maybe, we won't buy our tickets until Monday, so something could change, but I hope not)
~And 63 days until we fly back to Portland

Of course, I can't forget to mention Cody's Birthday party tomorrow, and that next month sometime we will finally be able to ask Cody's Aunt to file our taxes for us and we can both get back quite a big chunk of change from last year, yay!

Of course, I am not looking forward to trying to get a job back home, or finding a place to live, but I am looking forward to starting my diet and exercise regime that was working so well for me back home. I've lost some weight while I have been here, but not as much as I hoped to lose in the past year. Some of it has been excuses I know, but some of it has been the problems I have run into here. It's so hard to keep try of calories or points here (I did a little of both back home), it's also hard to enter my food into my sparkspeople page because even if bibimbap is listed, or kimchi, it's something that someone has entered in themselves, and you just never know if they were correct, of if the adjumma who made your bibimbap put that extra 300 calories worth of sesame oil in when she added that extra shake she thought would make it better.

It's frustrating also not to have my 24 hour fitness to go to and my pool. they do have gyms here, but women aren't as frequent and you get stared at and laughed at when your a women using the "men's" equipment. there is also not as much of a variety of equipment. The gyms are also horribly expensive here. It's about 7,000 a visit when you don't buy a membership. You can buy a member ship for 3 months, but typically that's 150,000 - 200,000 won for the member ship. That's about $50-75 a month, and most of them do not even have a pool, and the pool isn't included in the membership.

I also miss pools and swimming. before I came to Korea I was starting to get back into my old swim team habits (to try and get my Varsity swim team body back, hehe). and I was up to swimming about 1200 or more yards in an hour. For those who aren't in the know, that's 24 laps in a pool. I think one day I did more than that, but I often just zoned out and got into the rhythm and lost track of whole lengths of the pool, so who knows. I know there are pools here, but I just never made it. Partially because it took me months to even hear of a good, swimmable pool, partially because I couldn't find a swim cap (And you must have one to swim in the pools here, and I hate lap swimming without one anyway, it slows you down, and just feels wrong), partially because I couldn't afford the fee per time with all of our budgeting right now, and partially because I was lazy.

Like I said, I do have to take some credit for my problems, but I can't wait to get back as i'm starting to feel extremely huge again. I know I'm quite a bit smaller than I was, my cheekbones are back, and I don't have as much of a second chin, and my clothes are much smaller, but i need to get better. My wedding dress fits pretty well luckily, but I ordered wedding lingerie and it doesn't fit right, even though I ordered what torrid recommended for my measurements. I think it's partially because it was a cheaper set than most of them, and it fits everywhere except my waist, which sucks. If I hike it up a tiny bit, it works, but otherwisde it doesn't, and it also looks funny on my boobs. Oh well, the underwear fits perfectly. i'm going to try and lose a little, even an inch to make it work, but we'll see, if it doesn't work it's not the end of the world, I have more to worry about right now than my stupid wedding lingerie. It will work out. And my wedding shoes did come, so that's great.

I just have to keep track of the good things. When I finally realized I had become obese and found the will to change it I clocked in at 285 pounds. That's not good, even for a girl of my height and bone structure. I realized I was still reating the same way I did in high school while on the swim team when I has to load up on calories for meets and practices.

Since then I have lost, and kept off so far, 35 pounds. I will lose more, my goal is the 270-285 I was in high school. I also wish to fit into a size 16 pants again. I am already down to a 20, and maybe an 18 if I am lucky. I used to wear only 2x shirts and some 3x when it came to sweaters and jackets. Now some of my shirts are 2x, but i have at least one xL that fits well, and I found a large that fit well in Seoul, so who whows where I'm at, but I'm definitely smaller, and most of my clothes are wat too big, even the size 20 jeans my dad just sent me.

I'm feeling fat, but feeling very motivated to get home and start moving again. Let's hope I keep this motivation and always remember my reasons for getting skinny again. My family used to tell me I should be a model. I want someone to tell me that again. Friends used to joke and call me a muscular barbie because I was thin and my arms were huge from swimming. I didn't believe them at the time. now I look at pictures of myself, and I believe them. I will get that way again, and I think it will be in the very near future.

Wedding!

Things also seem to be falling in place for the wedding. Cody's grandma is sending me a
package with the wedding "intimates" needed for a strapless dress and stuff, as well as a pair
of white flip flops (in case the shoes I ordered don't come, because I'm feeling dread that
I ordered them from a bad website, because they never really confirmed shipping), hair dye to
fix my highlights and low lights I got in Seoul in September and can't afford to get re-done
right now, Cody and my wedding rings, wedding jewelry for me (hopefully simple enough for me),
and the presents for Cody's best man here and my maid of honor, Fallon.

I received my veil already, and my hair-piece, all I need now is my wedding dress, which should
be here any time, as soon as they finish making it and ship it, which should be any day now.

I'm getting really excited. We decided to have our wedding on the local mountain, Yudalsan
(Yudal, and San literally means mountain, although I think it's an honourific as well, because
'san' in Japanese is an addition to the name of someone above you, or who you respect). If the
weather is nice, we will have the ceremony in front of a giant bell there. If not, there is a
pagoda up the mountain a little bit that we will have the ceremony on, some of the guests
standing under umbrellas if need be.

After the ceremony, we haven't decided 100% of what we're doing, but we're thinking of having
the reception in the banquet hall of a brand-new buffet in town that has really yummy food
(and sushi!), and people will buy their own dinners. After that, we might head out to drinks
with whoever is feeling like attending, but, like I said, we haven't decided for sure quite yet.

We will also have some sort of reception when we get home, but it will probably be nothing more
than a cake and family and friends bringing food to a park and having a small party in the park.
But, it will be fun, and we're really excited.

We're also haveing our bachelor and bachelorette parties in 10 days, and we will have to see
how those go, hehe.

One funny thing about this, is the ceremony doesn't even legally marry us here, it's just for us.
In Korea, you fill out the paperwork and that is all that counts (I think it's similar in
Oregon as well). So, we will officially be married two days before our wedding. Ah well, I will
still count July 18th as our wedding anniversary, not July 16th. How funny though.

The countdown for this starts as well:

11 days to our bachelor and bachelorette parties!

and

45 days until our wedding!

Getting things in order

It seems things are slowly falling in place for going home. I purchased my plane ticked home
and in a few weeks I can officially apply for my reimbursement. It seems that Cody was
successful in getting the Office of Education to buy him tickets for the same flights home.

*For those of you who don't know the story, the Jeollanamdo office of Education decided that
they were going to buy the tickets home for all JLP and JCP contracts, but that anyone on the
Regional contracts still had to buy their own tickets and be reimbursed at the end of their
contracts. It seems that they get some sort of discount by buying their tickets through Korean
Air. What irks me is that meant I had to buy my ticket through Korean Air in order not to fly
home alone (and I do not do flying well sometimes), and that means I didn't get to partake
in this discount, which could have saved me some money and hardship up front. I could have
gotten a flight for about $800 US up front,but this meant I had to shell out about $1100 up
front. I just hope that the exchange rate doesn't bomb between now and August, or that they
will reimburse me before the exhange rate might decide to tank again.

Oh well. Cest la vie. We both now have our tickets and it will work out I suppose. We will fly
out of Seoul Incheon International Airport on korean Airlines at 4:45 PM (so 12:30 AM Pacific
Standard Time, I think) on August 22nd. We will then fly for about 10 hours to San Fransisco
(SFO) Airport and will arrive at around 11:30 AM PST (So, maybe 5:50 am Korea time). We will
then have to hang out in the San Fransisco Airport afor about four hours (but we may have to
go through customs here), and then at 3:20 we will hop on an Alaska Airlines flight to Portland
International Airport (PDX) where we will arrive at about 5:05 to hopefully a bunch of family
members waiting for us.

From there, some of our family will take us to my dad's house where we can pick up my car. We'll probably head straight to a restaurant or grocery store before we go to where we'll be staying with our friends Adam and Jacob until we find jobs and a place to live. Soon after we get home, we will also have to buy new wardrobes (all of our old clothes are either too big for us or worn out and stained), and we will be traveling a little bit as well (visiting friends and family). We will also have to send out official announcements of our marriage, since it's difficult to do that from here, and write thank you cards for any gifts we receive between now and then.

I'm looking forward to going back, but I'm really not looking forward to getting a job. I know I can get a job, no problem, but the question is, can i get a job in what I really want to do? Ah well, I suppose we will see.

And so the countdown continues. Only about 81 days to go!!