I am watching Ella Enchanted for some reason

I was like "this is not even trying to be subtle" the first time I read it when I was in like, fourth grade, so I don't know why I bother thinking it's going to be even remotely watchable. (I also just realized the "edit html" tab means you can actually write this shit in html and you don't have to use the "ADD IMAGE!" tag, which I should have known anyway since I've done it before a million times. durf.)

ANYWAY

Before I get to the fun stuff I've set up for you folks:


My neighborhood was on fire for a while. I heard the first explosion and thought it was Alex falling in my bathroom. He thought it was me dropping something in the kitchen. Whoops!

SO!!! I made the most delicious lime tea cookies the other day. It's some martha stewart shit I picked up a while ago and figured you folks could benefit from the recipe, seeing as it's the best goddamn thing in the world. A VISUAL TUTORIAL FOR ALL Y'ALL. Only they are really bad pictures because my camera is broken, and I also did not actually follow the instructions. So you are getting college student instructions, meaning they are better targeted to this audience.

MAKE SOME GODDAMN COOKIES

HOW TO MAKE THE BEST GODDAMN COOKIES

SHIT YOU'LL NEED

• 1 1/2 sticks of butter (RECIPE SUGGESTS UNSALTED BUTTER. IT ALSO SUGGESTS SALT LATER. I'll write notes for either, but if you just use salted butter it's totally fine. IF, GOD FORBID, YOU NEED TO MAKE THIS FOR A VEGAN: replace with margarine. This is the only part of the recipe that uses animal products. It is not a problem.)


• 1/4 teaspoon salt (this is a very small amount of salt, so seriously, the difference between this and just using regular butter is pretty much nonexistent. Whatever you're more comfortable with.)


• 2 tablespoons of squeezed lime juice (you can get this from a lime if you're OK at this, but if you're not I will give you tips. also you can just use two limes. it is really not a big deal.


• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract


• 1 3/4 cups of flour (IF YOU ARE MAKING THIS GLUTEN FREE BECAUSE YOUR AUNT/CUTE EX-BOYFRIEND HAVE CELIAC DISEASE: this is the only part of the recipe you need to replace with a different ingredient. Use soy flour if you can. This will, naturally, make the batter disgusting to taste but rice flour doesn't hold as well, etc. OH, ALSO NOTE THAT THEY WILL NOT HOLD VERY WELL WITH SOY FLOUR EITHER. IN FACT THEY WILL EXPLODE INTO POWDER AT FIRST BITE. BE WARNED.)
  
• The zest of a lime!!! A couple limes will be fine for this, but if you want to use one, that's cool too. Keep the pieces small or else the cookies are gonna be a pretty chewy experience.


• 2 tablespoons cornstarch


• A cup of powdered sugar. Yum.


• A couple baking trays.


• A few cooling trays. You know. The wiry ones.


• Fridge space.


• A grater. (YES, WELL, I REALIZE I SHOULD BE USING A ZESTER. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT? SOME PEOPLE DON'T HAVE ZESTERS. JUST LIKE OTHER PEOPLE DON'T HAVE FRIENDS BECAUSE THEY ARE INSUFFERABLE KNOW-IT-ALL JERKS WHO FIND THEIR ONLY SOLACE IN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THEY KNOW THE CORRECT KITCHEN IMPLEMENTS.)


• An electric mixer. Otherwise you are going to hate your life.


• A BAG TO TOSS YOUR COOKIES IN (I have wanted to say this the entire post)


• OH RIGHT, AN OVEN


• Shit for measuring

That should cover it.

Here, I will show you what I used.


Flour gets its own solo shot and the first slot because I feel bad for it.


WOO


I used unsalted butter because my mom bought some by mistake and has no use for it. This is another reason you would use unsalted butter instead of normal butter. WE ARE CULINARY SCAVENGERS, MY FRIENDS


My best friend. He's saved me every time I go to make a buttermilk cake.


A CHEESE GRATER!


....WHICH I CANNOT REACH


(but, like most Stanford students, resourcefulness has not escaped me)


Yesss.

SO.
Your butter needs to be room temperature when you do this, otherwise you're going to have a serious problem when you go to mix it. Preferably over room temperature. If you've left your butter out, stellar, if you haven't, it's the summer and putting it in the sun is a great idea.


It's ready to go when it's all melty and gross. Until then, keep your stick and a half in the light. (Heh.)


In the meantime, get a 1/3 cup of sugar ready to mix with the butter. This sounds like it won't be enough for all the butter. I promise, it is, but if it's really a problem (which it sometimes can be) feel free to add a bit more sugar. It really won't kill you.

STUFF TO PREPARE WHILE YOU'RE WAITING FOR YOUR BUTTER TO MELT OR SOMETHING:


Mix the salt (if you're using it), the cornstarch, and the flour together with a whisk in another bowl. Careful not to spill anything, you'll look like a really stereotypical baker and probably piss off whoever else has to use your kitchen.


Zest your limes! The really-small setting can suck because sometimes it doesn't work. It's okay to use the small-medium side, most of the zest will be really small anyway and it works just fine.

TO GET THE MOST JUICE OUT OF YOUR LIMES:


Roll the lime between the palm of your hand and your counter a lot. You can feel it getting softer, yes?? This is because you are pretty much pre-juicing it and I seriously need to stop this line of thought because it's pretty obvious I'm sexually frustrated


Juice your limes! (god damn it)


Get yo vanilla.

NOW! Your butter really should be ready by now. If it's not, I DO NOT suggesting melting it in the microwave. This will make mixing it harder because of how the powdered sugar will stick to the sides and not blend in right. This is still going to be a problem but you'll be able to figure it out.

SO!

Mix your butter and 1/3 cup of powdered sugar together on a high speed until it's all combined. It should be a pale, soft and fluffy mixture. Mix in your vanilla, lime juice, and lime zest.


It'll look something like this.


Make sure to dig the lime out of your mixer and put it back in.. the sauce. It should smell pretty good right now.


Add the flour mixture on A SLOW SETTING and mix it until everything turns into a dough. Make sure it's all combined.


The dough should look like this. It will feel really oily and kind of gross. I do not suggest texting after handling, because you will have to clean your phone, and I promise that's not fun.

Roll your dough into logs, put them on a baking tray and shove it in the fridge for at least an hour.


I obviously don't have a lot of room to work with, but I try. The recipe suggests you roll them into like, an 1 1/4" diameter roll, but this is kind of useless since you're going to need to re-knead it anyway unless you having baking parchment.

IF YOUR KITCHEN IS WELL-STOCKED AND HAS BAKING PARCHMENT, ROLL THE LOGS LIKE MENTIONED AND PUT THEM IN PARCHMENT BEFORE PUTTING THEM IN THE FRIDGE. I AM NOT LUCKY LIKE YOU.

While you wait for the hour to pass, watch something on TV, or something. Here, have some youtube videos.

This is hilarious and unexpected. Suggested if you like the song "Such Great Heights." Also avoid it if you like the song "Such Great Heights." Once you get the idea, skip to 3:45 to hear the most hilarious take on the lyric "come down now..."

This is my favorite short film. It is made by the dudes who run the forums I chill out at a lot. If you think purposely bad things are funny, watch it.

For those who think not-purposely-bad things are funny.

I just think everyone would appreciate this, except Oliver, who appreciates nothing on youtube

OH WOW IT'S BEEN AN HOUR HOW CURIOUS

NOW!

You will take out the logs and you're going to notice that they feel really, really hard and you will probably feel like you fucked up and stand in the kitchen looking dejected until you realize you can just, um, knead the dough. I guess it doesn't apply if you're parchmenting this bitch, but since when does convenience build character, am I right???


When you reknead the dough, make small cookies about 1/4" thick. The batter is absolutely delicious (unless you're going gluten-free) so if you feel the urge to eat a tiny bit, go ahead (Zoe, I'm looking at you.) Place them on the baking tray an inch apart. A little more, a little less won't kill you.

While you're doing this, pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. This whole making cookies thing takes a long damn time, so it should be ready by the time you've got your cookies together.


Baking time!

Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes. They'll start to turn golden at the bottom and smell really, really good.


Then they're done baking!


BEING VERY GENTLE, put the cookies on some cooling trays for about 3 minutes. Don't burn yourself!

Here comes the fun part.


Put the rest of the powdered sugar I had you take and put it in a bag. Then, putting in a few cookies (like 7?), toss that shit until the cookies are coated in powdered sugar. Take those out, put 'em on a plate, and repeat till you got them all lookin' delicious. You gotta do this while they're still warm, so try and make this part fast-paced and exciting.


Awww HELL yeah.

FINAL STEP: eat that shit



SO this is already a long post, but the past week has been really fun. Alex decided one night on a whim that we should go to Vancouver for the night, so we did! We spent the night getting drunk off our asses in a few bars (and got into a club with a fifty dolla' cover charge for free on basis of being cute). I was also dressed in a skirt that did not even go to my mid-thigh (which was funny because I was wearing bright blue PANT-EEZ), and this really tight stripey shirt which looked absurdly cute. We pretty much just put the outfit together at Goodwill and bought it just so we could go to Vancouver.

It was awesome.

Then I woke up late the next day and it turned out that my other best friend Emilie had work off! We were going to catch lunch at a park near my friend Rikki's house, but it turned out A RECORD-ATTEMPTING ZOMBIE WALK was occurring in my favorite neighborhood in Seattle, so we tore up clothes (you can find pictures on facebook pretty easily) and headed on down. This drunk lady gave me and Emilie whiskey while rattling on about culinary school.

It did end up setting a Guinness world record for largest zombie flashmob. Neat!

Um, since then I've been helping Mom with parties since my cousins are visiting. Sam comes over to stay for a couple weeks tomorrow, so I am cleaning my room, which sucks. I am also oversleeping worse than ever.

ANYWAY I GUESS THAT'S IT. There are more stories within stories, but I think I just won a record for longest post so I will just stop now.

Edit: Noted that pictures break tables. Don't care.