Weekend Update

Where to start... I guess I can begin with an update on Bicycle Guy. We had out fourth date on Saturday and are still going strong, or as strong as one can be going after four dates. We rode our bikes over to Eastern Market in the afternoon, walked around looking at the crafts and foods available and got lunch inside the food hall from the crab cake place. Best of all, the crab cake place had sweet tea. I'm sure Bicycle Guy was a little overwhelmed by how excited I was about this. I may have mentioned it several times. I couldn't help it; every time I took a sip of my tea I got excited all over again. I mean, I was really good sweet tea. We went our separate ways for a couple hours and then he came over for a home-cooked dinner and a movie. I made salmon with mango chutney and peppers served with cheese grits and tried to walk the line of I'm-a-good-cook-but-not-a-crazy-50s-housewife.

Dinner wasn't finished until after Bicycle Guy arrived and I thought he might be freaked out if I mentioned I wanted to take a picture of our food so that I could blog about our date later. 


Also, there is now a picture of the two of us (available only by email request). It's not a great pic of either of us but what can you do? I'll work on it.


Ever since I gave up chocolate for Lent (four days, 12 hours and 11 minutes so far... not that I am counting), I have been craving sweets nonstop. So over the weekend, I decided to attempt cinnamon rolls. I tried this same recipe (also from The Bread Baker's Apprentice) a few months ago in Atlanta and my dough never rose. My mom remade the dough (EXACTLY the same way, I swear!) and hers, of course, rose beautifully. 


I decided to get right back on that horse though. I made the dough in the morning...

And two hours later it looked like this...

EXACTLY THE SAME

Figuring I had nothing to loose besides some flour, I just left the dough sitting in the kitchen the entire day and reinvestigated late that night. The dough had finally risen some and even made bread in the bottom. I took off that part and formed the rest into one big log roll that was then cut up into individual rolls. 

I was finally able to cook the rolls this morning, a delicious treat after a 8k race. Yay for copious amounts of cinnamon, sugar and powered sugar!!

This wasn't enough though to satiate my vicious chocolate craving so I made some rice krispies treats, something both my roommate and I can enjoy. One batch is the original recipe and one has peanut butter.

Did I see you admiring my new cookie jar? Well, I guess it's a rice krispies treat jar at the moment but I am super excited about it. AS and I made a trip to Marshalls today and saw some interesting items (including a giant chocolate salmon)...

... and I picked up the jar for $5. AS and I spent about 20 minutes in the clearance isle (yes, there's a clearance isle even at Marshalls) just picking up items and exclaiming out amazing and cheap they were but then deciding they were probably not particularly useful. Did I mention I was really excited about the jar? I may or may not have made the rice krispies treats in part to have something to put in the jar.