My Coping Method - Cooking

The last few weeks have been a bit hectic. My semester is done - finally - but involved three final exams and a final project on top of each other. In addition, my grandmother passed away and the funeral was up in Connecticut. It was a stressful week, one that I wasn't necessarily prepared for. My grandmother was a wacky lady, full of life at 81 and her death was very unexpected. I have a lot of great memories of her and her funeral was a true celebration of her life!

Although I did not really have the energy to blog or take photos, I was cooking up a storm. I found that when Andrew and I were in the kitchen, it distracted me. The kitchen is my happy place. We made brioche (post to come tomorrow), strawberry muffins (above and not worth mentioning further), a great one pot meal - Chicken with Tarragon and Leeks - from Real Simple. We had friends over for a semester's end bbq and grilled steak, peppers and rosemary potatoes. Martha Stewart Surprise Cookies were the dessert (yum!). These cookies were basically a devils food cookie with a marshmallow topper and covered in a fudge icing.

We grilled, we baked, we coped.

My mom is forever reminding me that I do not cook for them enough. Granted, this is tough as I live four hours away now, but in honor of Mother's Day and going to CT, I made a new version of the Orange Olive Oil Cake that I posted about in April. OMG - it was delicious!!!! I substituted lemon peel for the orange and poured the batter over about 2 cups of blueberries. Wow. I had to cook it a little longer (the berries were frozen), but it wound up being more of a pudding than a cake. It was moist and flavorful. I got compliments from everyone and will definitely make it again.

Anyway, the only picture unfortunately was of the blah strawberry muffins. These could have been called un-strawberry muffins. You win some, you lose some.

Blogging will be back on track this week!

Rest in peace Grandma, we all love and miss you.