The One With a French Friday: Cocktail Nuts

I'll go ahead and make it known that every joke, pun, and bad innuendo that could possibly be made about "nuts" has already been made, either by D or by myself, so anything I say within this entry that could possibly have "That's what she said!" after it, consider it already there.

When I made the last update I made, I commented about how I needed to get back into the swing of French Fridays with Dorie. After I finished that entry, I was going about my merry way when I thought, "Um, Sarah? TODAY is Friday." So I went through the list of Things to be Made and pulled out the easiest one: Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts.

Here are the ingredients:

Sugar, salt, chili powder, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, egg white, and nuts. Dorie suggests using perhaps a mix of nuts, but seeing as to how I'm very particular about which ones I'll eat, I went with a combination of peanuts (because who doesn't love peanuts?) (besides those people who are allergic to them) and walnuts, which I had in the freezer, waiting for just such an occasion.

First, you mix together the dry ingredients.

Then you beat the egg white and mix it with the nuts.

Then you add the spice mix. . .

And mix all THAT together.

I should mention here that I was having a tough time with some of these pictures, because I wanted an over-the-bowl shot, but while I'm already tall, I'm not QUITE tall enough to pull that off. It was at this point D built me a little step stool out of two 12-packs of Diet Coke and a large wooden cutting board.

Awesome.

I have to admit here that I didn't follow Dorie's directions exactly. She was all talking about how you needed to take each nut piece out of the bowl individually, "let the excess egg white drip back into the bowl," and separate everything "as best you can."

I saw no excess egg white. Everything seemed to be pretty well mixed, and I didn't have the patience of take each individual one out of the bowl and place it on the pan.

So I just kind of dumped everything onto the cookie sheet and spread it out.

Into the oven they went.

When I pulled them out of the oven, I saw why Dorie had indicated that they needed to be separated. What I had was kind of like a peanut brittle textured creation.

But you know what?

I kind of preferred it that way.

It was DELICIOUS.

I feel like you could break it into chunks and sell it as some kind of holiday gift basket item.

So, so good.

Chalk up another FFwD win for Sarah!

The One Where I Have a French Friday Disaster

Sorry I've been ignoring you. I kind of feel like one of those parents who go on business trips all the time and then bring back lots of little trinkets and sometimes food to make up for the fact that they just Were Not There.

Unfortunately, I do not have anything with which to bribe you and to apologize for the fact that I've been a lax parent blogger, but I can update you on things that have been going on.

I attempted to make my FFwD recipe for my mom's side of the family's Thanksgiving, which is held the Sunday before Real Thanksgiving.

I've had a few recipe disasters in my day, but none like this one.

I had everything ready. My greased casserole dish held sliced potatoes (all sliced with my new-to-me Cuisinart, which, I'm convinced, could chop ANYTHING), fresh-ish herbs, garlic-infused cream, and a couple of other things. It was lovely.

I did what Dorie told me to do, and that is to put a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet and put the casserole dish on top of that, just in case anything spilled. If something spilled, you don't want it going into the bottom of your oven.

Indeed.

The thing about parchment paper is, NOTHING sticks to it. When I made my parents a moose cake for their anniversary, and I tried to tape parchment paper to an outline of moose antlers so I could use melted chocolate to fashion the antlers, the tape wouldn't even stick to it.

Keep this in mind.

So I'm in a hurry when I'm putting this thing in the oven. I'm in a hurry because we have to leave in 45 minutes, and this stuff needs to bake for an hour. 15 minutes won't make THAT much of a difference, was my rationale.

For whatever reason, I chose to pick up this parchment paper-lined cookie sheet containing my potato thing with one hand. Now, when you pick up a rectangular pan with one hand, it's going to tilt a little to the other side where you (for whatever reason) have no hand. This happened. What also happened, thanks to the parchment paper, was that as I went to put the thing in the oven, the entire dish slid off the sheet and exploded at the bottom of my oven.

The dish didn't explode (thanks, Pyrex!) but everything in it did. It was a fountain of potato, cheese, and garlic-infused cream. So I cursed, grabbed the glass dish out of the bottom of the oven, turned off the oven and then did what any good chef would do.

I freaked out and cried.

D was in the kitchen when all of this was going on, so when I started freaking out, saying, "What do I do? I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!", he was all, "Just leave. I'll take care of it." I tried for another second to figure out how to fix it, and he was all, "Sarah. Leave."

So I did. I went into the bedroom and cried some more. And then I thought, "I should take pictures of what's going on so I can write about it!" But then I thought that taking pictures while D was fixing my epic, epic error might be considered bad form. So I did not.

Needless to say, this dish did not go to Thanksgiving with us. An apple cake did, though.

This was not the end of the potatoes, though.

D somehow saved a lot of the ingredients in my erstwhile potato dish. They sat in the fridge for a while, and then, the other day, I decided to give it another go.

Rather than carefully infusing the new cream with garlic, I whisked it with onion powder. The recipe said to fill the cream to the edge, and if there wasn't enough, to add milk. I did just that. Then into the oven it went.

This is what happened:

. . .um?

I should note that there were some other potatoes in the dish (it didn't bake as empty as it looks), but I'd taken them out to try them, before discovering the sea of cream in which these things were swimming.

Maybe it's because the potatoes sat in the fridge for a while. Maybe it was the milk. Maybe it was the cream. I don't really know. What I do know is that this dish ended up being an epic fail.

I didn't do the last week of November's FFwD (I forgot, plus we were out of town), but hopefully, I'll catch up soon. I also have other things to write about, but I've been overwhelmed with my new Web site project, I've just kind of shut down, bloggily. I'll get it all figured out one of these days.

And, just so you don't think I'm a total failure, I'll show you my blueberry-cranberry pie I invented:

A little on the sweet side, but D said it was "the best berry pie [he'd] ever had." And he's got Southern grandmas, so I think that's saying something.

If you wonder -- My new blog/Web site venture is going to be baking-centric, so while I'll still be talking about non-baking food here, when the spirit moves me, my baking stuff will be moved to its own site shortly. I'll be sure to post the address for that for those who are interested.

The One With My First Video Blog

I did my first video blog today. It's quite rudimentary, as I've never done one of these before, and I'm still figuring a lot out, but it was kind of fun.

Enjoy. (And be gentle!) :)

(Also, my face looks kind of weird in the screen shot here. I promise, my face doesn't always look like that!)

The One Where I'm Late with Friday

I've had an awesome weekend and due to this, I have not yet posted my newest FFwD. I'll do my best to get to that tomorrow. I'm sure you all understand.

I hope everyone's been having an awesome weekend and has been spending time with people they love like I've been doing!

The One With a French Friday: Roast Chicken

Warning: If you are a militant vegetarian or just incredibly squeamish, you may want to skip this entry. I'm just saying.

Also! I'd like to thank people who've been leaving me comments. I'm not sure how to deal with them, and I want to explain this so people don't think I'm ignoring them.

I read them all (obvs, since I have to approve them), but I don't always respond to them because I'm not sure if people come back to read the responses. So if you've left me a comment and come back to see if I've responded, and I haven't, please don't think I'm a jerk. I just don't know the proper etiquette.

On to French Friday!

Full disclosure: I'm a baker above all else. I love cooking, and I love preparing meals, but baking is where it's at for me. As a result of this, I have never in my life (until this project was completed) cooked a whole chicken. I've eaten many chicken nuggets, and I've handled cutlets of chicken and stuff like that, but a whole chicken, all pieces intact? Never before.

That was until I came into contact with Clyde.

Yes. I named my chicken. I had to. Because otherwise, I never would have gotten through the horrifying, horrifying experience of cooking this whole freaking chicken.

The recipe name is Roast Chicken for Les Paresseux. This translates into "Roast Chicken for Lazy People." So, in other words, ideal for me.

Here are the players:

I'd like to apologize now for the lesser quality photos in this entry. . .D was out working when I did this project, and all I had was my camera phone. Which is a fine little phone, but just not as good as usual.

There's a weird thing in this recipe. Dorie says that if you put a piece of bread in the bottom of your pan, and then put the chicken and everything on top of it, you'll have a lovely treat when all is said and done. And who am I to argue with Dorie?

That's actually two slices of bread. My rationale here was that if it was that great, I'd like to have one for D when he got home. (That didn't quite work out like I'd planned. Read on.)

I chopped up the veggies. . .

And then there was the garlic. . .the recipe said to chop the head in half, horizontally, and to leave it unpeeled. Even though I'm all about not arguing with Dorie, that didn't make sense to me. I don't want papery things in my chicken. So I compromised and took the outer papery skin off and put half the pieces in the chicken, as directed, and half of them around it.

So then we get to the chicken. Now, mind you, I have, as I mentioned, never in my life done this before. I was under the impression that all of the organs would be collected for me in a little bag, and all I'd have to do is stick my hand up this poor chicken's ass (Sorry, Clyde) and pull out a paper bag.

As a side note, I feel that this picture below looks like a bulldog. A one-eyed bulldog. D said it looked like something more obscene. You be the judge.

This was not so. As I found out later, they only do that for turkeys. Not for poor chickens.

So what does this mean? It means I have to stick my hand all up IN this chicken and get all of its innards out. This means that I stuck my hand up in there to feel around, got nauseous, and had to put on rubber gloves in order to finish the task at hand.

(Um, yes. I'm wearing a shirt. It's a tank top.)

I'm scrounging around in poor Clyde to get all the organs out. I think I've got them all, so I stand him up (as you do). . .and his liver fell out, giving it the distinct impression that this chicken had just taken a crap in my kitchen sink.

I dropped him back on the plate like he was a. . .chicken that had just taken a crap in my kitchen sink. At about this point, I was ready to give up and wait for D to get home and take care of this disaster for me. (That's what guys do, right?) But then I thought, no, Sarah, this is YOUR French Friday and YOU will stick your hand into that chicken's inner cavity and remove all of the things that used to be life-sustaining organs before it just became a chicken on a plate from Valentine's Day in your sink.

So I did.

When all was said and done. . .

I had a liver, a gizzard, a heart, two kidneys and. . .two necks.

Two necks??

Clyde was a freak of nature.

Next came the trial and error of trying to get this damn chicken into the pot.

It was done and done with finesse.

He went into the oven. Then the veggie were added. An hour and a half later, Clyde emerged a new man chicken.

Niiiiiice.

(Um, I know he looks discolored and not fully cooked, but that's the light, not Clyde.)

The chicken was moist, and tender, and freaking DELICIOUS. And I survived it. Oh, and D loved it, too. He said it was excellent.

Oh, and as for the bread? What ended up happening there is because I stacked two pieces on top of each other, one side of it was soggy and chicken juice-ladden, and the other was crispy and gorgeous, with the consistency of light melba toast. I was put off by the soggy side, but I decided to taste it (because, hey, I'd already had my hand up a chicken that day) and it was amazing. I was going to eat half of it and see if D would be willing to try it when he came home, but half became 3/4, and then it was gone.

Gone, like Clyde's dignity.

There's the story of my first chicken-cooking experience. I survived it. Clyde. . .well, he didn't survive it, but he WAS delicious. And I'll be back next week for another installment of French Fridays with Dorie!

The One With My Birthday

Saturday was my birthday. It was also the JDRF Walk-a-thon. We got up. . .7-ish and then promptly went back to sleep. Got up again about 8:15. Registration started at 8 and the actual walk didn't start until 10:30, so we weren't late or anything. By the time we got there, the crowd had died down a bit, and registration didn't take long.

Apparently, there were about 7,000 people there. I, personally, didn't reach the goal I'd set for donations, but with that many people, I'd be willing to bet the foundation made quite a bit of money.

We walked 2 miles, with music along the way, and then were provided Jersey Mike's for lunch. The weather? Perfect. All in all, an awesome event. I also saw one of my teachers from high school who had a baby like a month ago. Cutest. Baby. EVER!

We then went home and rested briefly before going to Mom's house to have dinner with the fam. we went downtown to Hi5. Everything on the menu is $5, so it's a good place if you don't have a ton to spend. Mom and Johnny had never been there before, Katie was the one who introduced me to it, and D and I used to go weekly, at least. (Before the, you know, no money thing happened.)

After dinner, it was back to Mom's. She hadn't taken her daily walk yet, so we waited for her (Read: we took naps) until she got back. And then it was time for cake.

Let me tell you about this cake. You know how I make a lot of cakes, right? How baking is kind of my thing? For my birthday, D made me this cake that blew me and everyone else away. Check it out:

Holy crap, you guys. It's a cake! And a stack of books! How effing awesome is that? He made the entire thing from scratch (except, you know, a cake mix.) Made the fondant, built it so it stayed. . .and it was delicious. So awesome, awesome, AWESOME cake.

Then, presents! Money from the parentals, and Katie gave me these:

She made that plate. Or, designed it.

Also, D gave me a kitchen apron that I can't seem to get a good picture of. . .it's black, and has a little V-neck and is pinstriped. I'm sure it will be making an appearance in future posts.

After we left Mom's, we stopped by Dad's to give him a book of cake and to hang out for a while. It was during this time that we watched the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" version of Glee. I've never seen RHPS, but I've had songs from it stuck in my head SINCE Saturday. ("Toucha, Toucha, Toucha, Touch Me," "Dammit, Janet," and the Time Warp song are the ones that have been stuck there.) I've heard from many people that they didn't like the episode because of the "sanitized" changes that were made to lyrics, but having never seen the show, none of it bothered me.

Since then, I've had a Lady Doctor appointment (thanks to an irregular Pap) that has set me back $500 that's going to take me 20 years to pay off. (Thanks, no insurance.) And I still love my job.

Also, I've prepared a whole chicken for the first time. It was horrifying, but if I tell you anymore, it'll ruin this week's French Friday entry.

Oh! And I'm also taking part in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), the point of which is to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. I'm up to speed so far, but it's only day 3. We'll see.

The One With a French Friday: Apple Cake

via FFwD

I know I've missed the last few French Fridays, but I'm back with baking! A dessert! My FAVORITE!

The title of this recipe is Marie-Hélène's Apple Cake. The recipe can be found here. Yes, please.

I'll go ahead and tell you how this ends. The cake was FABULOUS. D described it as "elegant" and I'm fairly certain nothing I've made in my entire life has been described that way. But the cake was great. I did have to make a couple of adjustments, as the recipe called for an 8" springform pan, and I only have a 9" pan. I took the ingredients and added half. Like. . .if it called for a cup of flour, I added a cup and a half. The only thing it changed was the baking time, which about made me CRAZY.

That's what I get for starting a project like this at 11 at night.

Onward!

The ingredients:

Yes, that's rum. Yes, I used the whole bottle.

The recipe calls for 4 different kinds of apples. I made a trip out to the Farmer's Market to get said apples. I mention this because I had to drive on I-40 East, a stretch of highway that terrifies me to the very soul of my being, to get to said Farmer's Market. I did it all for you, Fellow French Fridayers. All for you. But these apples are all of different varieties. (And yes, I'm aware that there are 5 apples here, and not 4. Since I one-and-a-halfed the ingredients, I threw in a rogue apple that was left over from a bag of apples we'd bought earlier. I felt sorry for it.)

I was instructed to "generously" butter a springform pan and put it on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Dorie sure does love her parchment paper. . .I'd never used it before embarking on this project. My apples are peering at the pan in the background, beginning to get nervous.

Dry ingredient mix-up:

The next image may shock you. I apologize if you feel it is inappropriate. It's what I call Nekkid Apples.

And then it just gets more obscene.

Oh, jeez.


It's OK. You can look now. It's all over.

Wet ingredients combined. . .gratuitous egg shot!

Mixing everything (except the apples. . .) together:


Now, here, Dorie is very specific. She says, "Switch to a rubber spatula and fold in the apples." And who am I to argue with Miss Greenspan?

Apples folded in. . .


Everything poured into the pan. . .


And into the oven. The recipe said 50 to 60 minutes, but mine took longer. Closer to 75 or 80. I was tired, and not amused.

D actually took that photo, and when I saw it today, I was like, wow. I look SO SAD.

Fear not, sad Sarah. Because the cake is now out of the oven!

And then it's out of the pan.


Pretty!

And delicious.

FYI: This cake is less than 24 hours old, and it's already 2/3 gone. You do the math.

I'm not sure what next week's FFwD recipe will be, but maybe I'll be back for it. Enjoy!

The One Where I Am Maybe Unnecessarily Hateful

I have figured out what I'm going to do with my life.

I am going to continue working at the library, because obviously, it's a badass job, and come summer, I'm going to enroll in the technical college here and get my Associate's in Baking and Pastry Arts.

Sarah's gonna be a pastry chef, y'all.

I've been saying this for. . .a while now, but I'm putting it into black and white on October 25, 2010, so that in a few months, if I haven't said anything else about it, you can be like, "Um, Sarah? Lies."

The main thing I need to figure out is the money. Clearly, I have none. I need to go by the school and find out about financial aid, etc. But I'm DOING IT.

Today at work, people were working my nerves. This happened yesterday, too, but today could have had something to do with the fact that my boss brought in this bundt cake for the birthdays in October, one of which is mine.

(By the way, while I'm thinking about it. . .I'll be doing a French Fridays with Dorie this week! I know I've been remiss since that first week, but my excuse is that the things chosen for weeks were, A) something I didn't want to eat or B) something with expensive ingredients I could not afford at the time. But since this week's recipe is a cake [Awww, yeah!] and all I need to purchase is apples, we're on for Friday.)

(OH! Another by-the-way, speaking of baking, Katie's 19th birthday was on Friday, and when I'd asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she said she wanted a dinosaur-themed cake. So this was her cake, enjoyed by my family last Saturday:

I KNOW, RIGHT?! Awesome. Also, in case you were wondering, and I know you were, those are indeed milk chocolate rocks at the bottom. WIN!)

OK, where was I? Ah yes. The October Birthdays Bundt Cake. I got super busy at work this evening, and by the time I got to the back to enjoy some of the cake, it was gone.

GONE.

My name was one of the ones on the little October Birthdays sign, and I didn't get any cake.

So that bothered me. Maybe you'll say it bothered me more than it should have, but then I'd tell you to SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH. It bothered me. So I was a bit moody.

What I should explain about the library is that different librarians deal with different Problem Patrons (PPs) differently. If a PP doesn't have their library card, some librarians will ask them for their name, others will ask for their photo ID, and still others will give them kind of a hard time while asking for their name AND ID. (I ask for a driver's license, if you're wondering.) Stuff like that. There are guidelines in place, yes, but if you mess with the wrong librarian on the wrong day, it's going to be a lot different than if you are sincerely apologetic for leaving your card at home and are nice, and you do not think we OWE you something.

So this kid comes up to me and has like $38 of fines on his card because two of his books are "long overdue" and when that happens, the system adds in the price it would cost to replace the book. He asked me how many books he could check out on his card. I said there's no limit, and he was like, "No, THIS card."

After I saw the fines, I explained to him that the system said I should not let him check them out, due to the fines, but how many he could check out would really depend on which librarian he got. I let him check one out. Nice, right?

Then. This lady waddles up to the desk. I say waddles not because I'm being mean or cruel or whatever, but she was one of those ladies that is approximately as wide as she is tall.

She hands me her card, all surly. I scanned it, and she had $48 dollars of combined fines and lost books dating back to 2008.

I say, "Um, this card has $10 of fines on it, and $38 dollars of book replacement charges."

(There's also a note in the system indicating she is "aware" of the charges.)

She glares at me and says, "Yeah?"

I said, "The system is indicating that you need to clear some of those fines before you can check out anymore books."

She glared at me again. "I ain't got no money with me."

(I'm thinking, "You've had two years to have some money with you.")

I said, "Well, I'm not able to check anything out until some of these fines are cleared."

Now. . .this is not ENTIRELY true. I have the ability to override the system message and check stuff out despite the fines. But this woman's attitude rubbed me entirely the wrong way. If you're going to use a place that has rules, you need to FOLLOW THE DAMN RULES.

She looked at me, confused and irritated, and didn't say anything. I'm guessing this is the part where, in the past, people have said to her, "Oh, OK. I'll take care of it for you this time. Just make sure you bring the money next time you come in!"

Clearly, she had never gotten into Sarah's checkout line.

She just stood there, staring at me.

"You could have a friend check them out for you," I offered.

She shook her head and stared at me.

"Well," I said, "once you get those fines taken care of, you'll be back on track."

She stared at me for another 30 seconds and walked away.

I wondered if I'd been unnecessarily mean. But maybe not. If she'd been nicer to me, it would have been a completely different story. But if you're going to be rude to me, I'm not going to go out of my way for you.

Another problem we have at the library is people leaving. Or rather, not leaving. We close at 9 Monday through Thursday and at 8:45, a message is given over the loudspeaker, indicating we will be closing in 15 minutes. Then another warning is given at 5 'til. Then one says, "The library is closed." Generally, people will wait until the 5-minute warning or the actual "We're closed" message to try to check out their books. At that point, the self-checkouts have been closed down, and I'm forced to do their transactions.

Tonight, though, I'd just HAD ENOUGH. I saw this lady browsing books in the self-help section (!!!) and when the security guard announced, "The library is now closed!", she then started to make her way to the desk. I, however, as soon as I heard the announcement, powered down the computer and went about making arrangements to leave as soon as we got the "All clear!"

She comes over and says she wants to check out, and I say, "Oh. . .I just turned off the computer because the damn library is closed."

To her credit, she says, "Oh, OK. I'll come back tomorrow."

But then the lady who was at the desk with me who is. . .SUCH a people-pleaser, one of those that wants everyone to like her, you know?, says, "Oh, I'll just turn this one back on," and I want to say, "NO! If you do that, they will NEVER LEARN!"

As it turns out, the desk at the back had not powered down their computers yet, so she checked out there.

Am I wrong to do what I did? Am I wrong to be so frustrated with these people? Is society, as a whole, just getting more and more dumb?

Maybe.

The One With a French Friday: Gougères

via FFwD

Today marks the beginning of something I'm super excited about. I've joined this. . .group of people who are members of French Fridays with Dorie. Basically what happens is that everyone in the group cooks the same thing out of the same cookbook (in this case, "Around My French Table" by Dorie Greenspan) and then blogs about it and posts their posting in a giant list of Who Did It.

Blogging? Food? Being a part of a group whose members I never actually have to meet face to face?

I'm in.

The first recipe was actually chosen by Dorie Greenspan herself, and was super easy to make. This is good, because it did not deter me from making future things. (I should note that I will not be participating every week. Some foods are way too expensive for me. Some foods I will not eat. Mushrooms are the devil.)

This week, the recipe was for gougères, which is this little cheese biscuit thing. Very light and fluffy on the inside. (Warning: This entry is photo-heavy, as D was nice enough to let me use his camera, and as a result, I went crazy with it.

Here are the ingredients:

Milk, water, butter, salt, flour, eggs, and cheese. Pretty easy, right?

Yes, actually.

Mmmm. . .cheese.

I went in to see D whilst the oven was preheating and everything was coming together.

"Say hi, D!"

Hello, everyone out there in French Fridays with Dorie land!

"Is there anything else you'd like to say?"

I'm going to keep smiling, but you'd better be careful with my camera!

He was in the midst of working on his podcast, hence the reading glasses. He doesn't wear them all the time, but is. . .really, really hot when he does. He reminds me of a college professor. You know, all, "Hey, Professor HotBod, I could really use some extra credit. How about I come by your office after class so you can give me some hands-on instruction?" And then you stop by the office, and he's all, "Hey, I'm so glad you could make it. I was just working on my podcast. Why don't you sit right here beside me and we can discuss chemistry."

I'm sorry, what?

Oh, yeah. Gougères.

Next, I spread parchment paper on my cookie sheets. And by "cookie sheets," I mean micro-baking pan and broiler pan. Don't judge me. I'm quasi-unemployed.

Next, the milk, water, butter, and salt are put into a pan. . .

. . .and brought to a rapid boil.

I had to include the above picture, because I was so busy trying to get an awesome picture of the boiling mixture, I almost burned it. And then that would have been a sad day in Whoville.

You're not putting my camera in peril, are you?

No, of course not you hot professor-looking guy.

Is it hot in here, or is it just my gougères?

Then you add the flour and it turns into a lovely dough.

Uh. . .a dough, at least.

At this point, you put in the eggs. Now, keep in mind here, I'm making these things and taking the photos simultaneously, with someone else's camera. I'm taking pictures and running back and forth with the camera so I can leave it on the dining room table, lest some horrible gougères-related something were to take place.

I really wanted an "egg-dropping-into-the-bowl" shot. I had 5 opportunities to make that happen. I got it in 2.

Eggcellent.

All the eggs are added in, and then you put in the cheese. Note the chunks of cheese melted together. Remember the photo at the beginning of all the ingredients? The bowl of cheese stayed in that EXACT SPOT whilst the oven was pre-heating.

Needless to say, I did not major in rocket science in college.

Mix everything up and put it in nice, neat rows on your boiler pan cookie sheets.

Stick them in the oven. . .get impatient. . .

And then, oh my God, they're finished and out of the oven.

Um, it looks a bit like a fried egg here, but trust me. They're gorgeous.

So there you go. Gougères a la Sarah. They were light and fluffy and everything I ever imagined a gougère could be. Next time, I might use a more exotic cheese. But they were pretty awesome.

(D liked them, too!)

Awesome.

(Also, I still made it on Friday with 3 minutes to spare!!)