Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Jan 14, 2012, 8:59 pm
Hi there, Hope you are having a fabulous weekend. I am. I went to lunch with a couple of my best friends earlier and then spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on the sofa. Our sofa has its own gravitational force field… Ripley’s Believe It or Not! ;) Okay, don’t believe it. But it is d...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Jan 10, 2012, 10:08 pm
According to Urban Dictionary: Functionista: Someone who consistently wears situationally appropriate clothing. Anyone who dresses purely according to the dictates of function, in response to actual weather conditions and in pursuit of personal comfort. The opposite of fashionista. In other word...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Dec 30, 2011, 8:10 pm
Hey! I’ve been thinking about you. How are you? I’m good! You ready for 2012? I AM!!! I’m excited. I think it is going to be a great year. I have lots going on… I’m taking an acting class (for fun), I’m finishing up a leadership program that I started in the fall, I’ll be working on ...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Nov 15, 2011, 3:13 pm
Photo: Me and Dan finishing the San Jose Muddy Buddy I was out for a run yesterday when I had an idea for a series of blog pots that would focus on those things that maybe I’ve been keeping to myself… afraid of saying out loud (on line) for fear that you would think I’m weird. Well, the fact...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Nov 3, 2011, 7:15 pm
Did you watch last night’s Top Chef? You know, the new one in Texas. I recorded it then watched it this afternoon. And while I usually love Top Chef, this episode left me feeling… well, a little annoyed. I get that they wanted to make it bigger being in Texas and all that. But shouldn’t we be...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Nov 1, 2011, 8:48 pm
Photo: Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting I hate when bloggers disappear for months then come back saying “Sorry I haven’t written in a while” and “Hey, I’m still here”. It just seems… silly. I mean, we all get busy. And blogs are like friendships: sometimes we ar...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Aug 16, 2011, 1:38 pm
A couple of months ago, I went to my friend Christine’s baby shower. The food theme was “babyQ”, so they had baby back ribs and baby-sized burgers. And I contributed some baby-sized ‘hostess’ cupcakes. Sitting on the back patio, I watched as her brother pulled rack after rack of saucy rib...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Jul 5, 2011, 11:35 pm
Last month I was back in Georgia visiting family and ventured out to Metter to visit my Aunt Helen for lunch. She is a vivacious Southern lady, always good for a story and a tasty bite or three. For lunch she served a Greek-inspired salad to keep things light so that we could indulge in dessert: i...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - May 28, 2011, 1:37 pm
"Love what YOU Love " - Ray Bradbury   My fingernails are caked in paint. Not like a pretty manicure, more like a mottled mess. But I don’t care because I love to paint. This is new. In the past whenever I’d try to paint, I would only see the mistakes. I’d think, “I’m not an artis...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - May 14, 2011, 12:08 pm
Can you believe it is already May? I’m shocked. And relieved as well. April was a marathon of family events from simple visits to weddings and a funeral. Overall it was a good, albeit hectic, month. But now April is gone (whew) and May is here (woot!). And now with all this free time, I’ve...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Mar 31, 2011, 3:10 pm
Cornbread. When it’s bad, it’s bad. Dry and flavorless, or too cakey and sweet. But when it’s good.. it is so good. That said, when I have chili, I always want cornbread. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe it’s like gestalt. You know, “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts�...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Mar 28, 2011, 4:17 pm
Winter has been overstaying its welcome. And I’m tired of it. With a string of day upon day of gray and rainy, I have had it. I wanted a piping hot bowl of comfort. But not if I have to work for it. Cause you know… I’m lazy. And somewhere in the midst of that lazy gray mood, we invited s...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Mar 25, 2011, 1:16 pm
I love to see new ways to solve (what should be) simple problems. This is one reason I like Real Simple. Still, what usually happens is I read how to use aluminum foil to scrub your glass bakeware, for example, and think “Hey, that’s a good idea.”. Only to forget all about it when I have al...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Mar 23, 2011, 3:21 pm
So far we have baked and frosted 200 cupcakes while keeping our cool, stored them overnight and got them to the venue, and now we are going to show them off. Cupcakes can entice nearly anyone into their presence like the Sirens luring sailors to their doom. Without any special displays or fancy de...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Mar 21, 2011, 3:23 pm
So you’ve got 200 cupcakes piled up in your kitchen, now what do you do? First, figure out how to store them I have 2 cupcake carriers. Each holds 36 cupcakes. Normally this is an excessive amount of cupcake storage, but for this endeavor it came up short. I don’t necessarily recommend havin...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Mar 7, 2011, 2:19 pm
I haven’t forgotten about part 2 of the cupcake saga (I promise I’ll post that soon), but this morning I had something else on my mind so please bear with me… I spent the weekend in a coaching class and learned a lot about the power of choice. We choose how to look at things. And by choosin...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Feb 26, 2011, 12:29 am
Well, almost. Even though I estimated that I needed 100-140 cupcakes I wound up baking almost 200. What can I say? I’m an overachiever. As freaked out as I was the night before, it wasn’t so bad. I’m not saying that if you’ve never baked a cupcake you should start by baking 200 in one da...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Feb 14, 2011, 11:55 pm
I am now covered in smokey-meat-scent.  Perfect for a night of romance :) I hope you had / are having a great Valentine’s Day!
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Jan 21, 2011, 2:00 am
Even though Dan and I ran off to Hawaii and got married by ourselves, we do want to celebrate with friends and family. So this Saturday we’re doing just that. Savory & Sweet is catering (mm, tri tip and polenta lasagna). Coffee Zombie Collective is jamming. And I… I am making the cupcakes. ...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Jan 7, 2011, 5:24 pm
I’ve been working on a healthy recipe for oatmeal pancakes off and on for over a year. You can ask Dan, he’s had to eat most of them. I’ve had the flavors right for a while, but the pancakes still fall apart when I try to flip them. Needless to say, the recipe is not stage-ready. So there ...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Jan 5, 2011, 7:09 pm
Yesterday, I mentioned that 2010 felt like the year of less. So I’m declaring 2011 the year of more (I like balance). I don’t really like resolutions because they don’t really work. Well, at least not for me (how many have you kept? be honest). They feel like rules and I get weird about rul...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Jan 4, 2011, 7:36 pm
Where did December go? One day I was thinking “I should start baking for the holidays” and the next thing I know we’re celebrating the new year. What the heck?  Anyway, so Happy New Year! I feel all grinchy for neglecting my oven throughout the holidays.  There was no baking around here.�...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Nov 29, 2010, 1:30 pm
Here we are just a couple days away from December, and I am not ready. Last year I made 12 days of cookies and wanted to it to be a tradition but I’m really not ready. I am not ready to bake for 12 days straight. I’m not ready to eat cookies for 12 days straight. I’m not ready to run the...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Nov 24, 2010, 1:47 pm
I had plans, but Mother Nature had other plans. And while I have a respectable amount of power in the kitchen, when Mother Nature decides to intervene, there’s not much I can do. I’m up at the cabin with Dan and the boys and we are having our first white Thanksgiving. Without power. Withou...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Nov 16, 2010, 11:26 pm
Before I tell you about this pie, I first want to thank you all for your support and kind words. The comments on yesterday’s post made me feel warm-and-fuzzy-special which is a nice change from the short-bus-special I normally feel. I never rode a short bus but I did ride a special bus in high...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Nov 15, 2010, 2:26 pm
Sometimes there is a sign in the road that you can’t ignore. My infrequent posts and general blogging malaise is a sign to me. Maybe I’m not doing something right? Maybe I need to slow down and look at that sign before I hit the hump going full speed and find myself flying through the air lik...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Nov 4, 2010, 2:13 pm
A few years ago, I decided I needed to make a pumpkin pie using an actual pumpkin. Do you get these kinds of urges? I get them all the time. Like what’s the best kind of pie crust? How do you make brown sugar? And what would happen if I substitute a little butter with bacon fat in some chocolate c...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Oct 12, 2010, 6:41 pm
Hi, it’s me again. Last time it was my fault, I was lazy. This time, it wasn’t really my fault. Honest. PS Isn’t Raven cute? You see, I had every intention of writing a post to follow up the apologetic roasted tomatoes but then I bought a ticket for the crazy train and paid for it through...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Sep 27, 2010, 6:11 pm
This is one of those moments when I feel compelled to make apologies about being a slacker and all around delinquent when it comes to blogging, but I promised myself I wouldn’t say something like “Sorry I haven’t posted in a while”. So I’m not going to say that even if I am a bum blogger....
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Sep 8, 2010, 8:20 pm
We grew onions in our garden this summer. Aren’t they pretty?
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Sep 1, 2010, 8:23 pm
It doesn’t get much easier than this: marinated feta. I first saw marinated feta on my friend Kristen’s blog Passion 4 Eating back in January, and now I am hooked. I eat it in sandwiches, crumbled onto pasta, atop burgers, with hunks of baguette, and sometimes just straight from the jar. To m...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Aug 31, 2010, 6:10 pm
Hey, I’ve been meaning to tell you about something lately but kept putting it off. No, it’s nothing bad, but because it’s not really food related I’m feeling a little shy.  And besides, there’s been cookie dough and lemon bars.  Yeah, those got in the way. Anyhow, ...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Aug 30, 2010, 6:59 pm
Remember all those lemons I didn’t know what to do with? Well, I decided to punt. I deferred my decision. I froze my assets, if you will. More specifically I froze the zest and the juice. To freeze lemon zest: use a microplane for fine zest or a peeler to take off strips of zest (avoid t...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Aug 28, 2010, 12:27 am
That’s right, chocolate chip cookie dough on a stick. No baking required. Freeze it, dip it in chocolate, and then… Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!… Wow, are these things good. It all started last week when I asked Dan’s oldest son (let’s call him L-Train) what sort o...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Aug 25, 2010, 9:21 pm
Last week I had a pickling urge. Am I the only one who gets these kinds of urges? Anyhow, the pickling urge was strong. No vegetable was safe. I made pickled beets (which I’ll share later) and then early Friday morning I attacked the carrots. A note about pickling early in the morning: you...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Aug 23, 2010, 11:55 pm
The last few weeks the temperature has been feeling almost fall-like, and I was starting to cook fall-like stuff. You know, soups and roasts and stuff. Then today, I sat there writing a post as sweat rolled down my knee pits, and suddenly soup felt all wrong. Actually, everything felt wrong exc...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Aug 19, 2010, 2:11 am
Dear friends, I made lemon bars. I made them and I ate them and ate them. And then I sent them away. Truth: I cannot be left alone with an entire batch of lemon bars. It all started when a friend gave us a bag of lemons. I love lemons. But I was paralyzed by the question: what do you do with t...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Aug 16, 2010, 2:24 pm
For any of you who read lots of food blogs like I do, kale chips are old news. I first saw crispy kale on Steamy Kitchen in 2009. That’s like so last year. I wasn’t into the whole kale thing back then. No, I was still making and eating dozens upon dozens of cookies. Ah, yes…...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Aug 6, 2010, 10:00 am
I’ll be in a class all weekend so while you are out enjoying the sunshine, I’ll be stuck in a classroom learnin n’ stuff. But it’s all good. I can bake on Monday (it’s not so much that I want to devour a bunch of sweets as it is that I miss baking. Is that weird?). ...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Aug 4, 2010, 2:56 pm
Back in May I had turned over a new leaf.  I was walking with a pedometer and eating more veggies and felt pretty good about it.  I had even lost 1.5 pounds.  Soon after, I swapped running for walking and ditched the pedometer (only partly because I felt like a dork wearing a white pod on my pant...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Aug 2, 2010, 12:54 am
Mackenzie by Jenny Yoo Hey, so how bout it? Want to look at dresses with me? Great! Let’s go… I saw that dress in an issue of The Knot and it was love at first sight. When I looked up the designer Jenny Yoo I found that I liked several of her dresses and her overall style. But that w...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Jul 26, 2010, 1:31 am
Can you believe it is almost August? Eep. Where has the summer gone? Even without all the E’s, the last few months have been pretty busy around here. At least it feels like it has been really busy, but I can’t really say what I’ve been doing. Okay, fine… I’ve been ...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - Jul 13, 2010, 1:50 am
I have been delinquent in all things blog this summer and for that I apologize. But it’s not my fault. The letter E has taken over my life. I’m not kidding… Raven, the kitchenaid and I evacuated my apartment, bringing all of the craft supplies with us. Yep, we moved out. There...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - May 18, 2010, 6:45 pm
I started reading The Lightning Thief last week, and now I am a little obsessed. Okay, maybe a lot obsessed. I’ve already blown through the first 2 Percy Jackson books and am halfway through the third book. At this rate I will be done with the entire series by Friday. Or maybe tomorrow. (...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - May 13, 2010, 11:04 pm
Did you know that May is National BBQ Month? How did no one tell me sooner? I just found out a couple of days ago and at first I was devastated. Me. Lover of all things barbecued. Has missed half of the month devoted to said love. Then I remembered: May is just the beginning of BBQ season. No m...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - May 11, 2010, 11:46 pm
I have had a love-hate relationship with Pad Thai for a while now. I loved it when I had it in Thailand and I hated it anytime I ordered it at a restaurant stateside. You see, the so-called Pad Thai I’ve had in restaurants has always been coated in this weird orange-colored sauce that scares...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - May 10, 2010, 1:31 am
As I sit here, it is almost 10:30pm Sunday night and I feel a warm fuzzy looking back on this weekend. It was full of friends and loved ones and time in the kitchen. It all started when I baked a cake… And I squeezed a few lemons. I made a little moat with 7-minute-frosting and filled it ...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - May 8, 2010, 6:55 pm
So, let’s say hypothetically that you went to a party on Friday night and had a smidge too much champagne.  Maybe you woke up Saturday morning with a tiny headache and a slightly delicate stomach. Not a hangover, goodness no, nothing like that, you know better than that.  You just woke up ...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - May 5, 2010, 11:01 am
Things around here have been a little crazy so I haven’t planned anything for Cinco de Mayo this year. I’ll probably end up just eating a quesadilla and making a margarita at home (as the weather heats up I’m looking forward to making a pitcher of watermelon margaritas again somet...
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Patricia S. posted an article on Brownies for Dinner - May 4, 2010, 5:25 pm
In the last couple of months I’ve faced the truth about my eating habits, and though I struggled a bit at first to make changes, I had a bit of a breakthrough recently. And while I am ecstatic that I finally saw the scale move in the right direction last week (I lost 1.5 pounds!), the biggest...
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