Brunch

Brunch seems to be the thing to do in D.C. The perfect opportunity to eat breakfast at a more reasonable time. I'd recently discovered a couple of recipes but they aren't the kind of thing you make for yourself. I mean, do I really want 24 muffins or 8 scones just lying around? No, I don't. Because I would eat them. All of them. And that's probably not so great. So making them for other people is the PERFECT solution.

What did I make, you ask? Well, thanks to pinterest I discovered two recipes that looked beyond amazing. Honeyed Grapefruit Oat Scones and Earl Grey Poppy Seed Muffins.

The Earl Grey Poppy Seed Muffins were super easy and perfectly delicious. 

First, I heated up some milk, it was almost boiling, but not quite. You don't want it to curdle.  

For the tea, I used double bergamot earl grey. It has a stronger flavor, so I think it made the earl grey more pronounced. And since I like tea, that's a good thing. It's supposed to be better if you can use fancy loose leaf stuff, but this is what I had. 

So I just steeped the tea bags while the milk cooled.  

Then I mixed all my dry ingredients together. 

The result is now a large supply of poppy seeds on hand. So I have a feeling these muffins might be making another appearance rather soon. 

I cut up all the butter and put it in my cute little dish to heat it up. 

Got the eggs all ready. I love owning little clear dishes to put my ingredients in. It makes me feel like I'm on a cooking show. 

You can see the milk really changed color. I think I left the tea bags in about 10 minutes. Shorter would mean less of a earl grey flavor, but as we've discovered, I love tea. So 10 minutes it is. 

There is something disgusting about melted butter. And yet, it makes things taste SO GOOD. 

Then I poured the milk into the dry ingredients. Well, I also poured the butter and eggs in too. and mixed it all together. 

The result: DELICIOUS BATTER. Seriously, so good. I could have eaten just the batter. But I tried not to, raw eggs and all. 

I bought cute little blue cupcake wrappers. It matched the poppy seeds soo....

It only made 12 muffins. There was some batter left, so I think I could have made a couple mini ones too. I also used self rising flour, so I think If i had let it sit a little longer, I could have turned it into 18 cupcakes that were a little more airy. 

Then I put them in the oven. 

For 25 minutes. 

And waited. 

Then I took them out and let them cool for a bit on a wire rack. These babies really rose. I think I could have put less batter in each one. Next time that's probably what I'll do. I didn't realize how much they would rise. 

But seriously, how cute are they?

Then I melted down a little bit of orange marmalade and glazed the top. 

It added the perfect amount of sweetness. 

I couldn't help myself. 

So good!

Then I made the scones. I personally don't like warm fruit, so if I were making an entire batch just for me, I would probably leave the grapefruit out, maybe add some of the juice, but I'd rather eat a scone and a grapefruit separately.

Here's the dough pre-oven. 

And I totally forgot to take pictures of the scones after they came out. But they were tasty. So tasty that there is now nothing left of them. But I do have 2 new brunch staples. That I can confidently bring over to someone's house!

Mice!

So, after 5 and a half years of living in a city, it was bound to happen. I don't know how I got out of it for so long (especially since I lived on the second floor the majority of my college career). I finally saw a mouse in my apartment. It was terrible.

I was standing in the kitchen, cooking and talking to a friend, when there he was. In between the wall and the dryer, squeaking and looking for a way to get back through the kitchen to the window and his hole to the outside world. It was TERRIFYING.

So I did what any apartment tenant would do and put in a fix-it request with my rental company. They provided a lovely glue trap.

The only problem with setting traps for mice, you actually catch them.

So I came home from work on a Tuesday night and noticed that the glue trap had been moved from under the cupboard to the middle of the floor. And I highly doubted L had moved to. Then I heard it, a small squeak. And I realized, not only had I caught the mouse, but he was still alive. Sure enough, I got as close as I dared (I was still about 5 feet away in the living room) and saw him, lying on his side on that glue trap, still breathing slowly.

So I did what anyone else would do, I got changed and went for a run, hoping my roommate would come home and take care of it. But I came back, and he was still there. So I headed out and went to Bible Study, thinking, "SURELY, L will have to be back by the time I get home." Two hours later, I got home and he was STILL there, STILL alive, and STILL a mouse. By this point, I was hungry, but too afraid to go into the kitchen/anywhere near the rodent. So I gave in to my inner girl and texted one of my friends that lives down the street, asking him to help a poor girl dispose of a mouse (in exchange for baked goods of course).

Twenty minutes later two boys showed up and removed the mouse and I was finally able to eat dinner (after a thorough Cloroxing of all floors and counters in the kitchen).

So I thought I was safe. But while emptying the dishwasher (that same night, I might add) I saw ANOTHER mouse scurry across the floor to the SAME place between the wall and the dryer. This can't be happening, I thought. I'm OUTNUMBERED. By MICE. So I tried to scare him out. But instead of getting him to leave, he moved to the small closet/nook area we have that holds our coats and my crafting supplies - including my sewing machine and FABRIC. That's right, fabric. AKA the perfect nesting place for MICE. He (I'm not sure why I think all mice are males, but they are) needed to leave RIGHT THEN. So I grabbed a stool, a swiffer and a hanger and removed all of the bags/games/fabric/things from the nook until there was no where left for that little guy to go. Until he ran back behind the dryer....again. But at least he wasn't in my fabric.

A few days later the rental company sent an exterminator in to close up any holes and they set out another glue trap. But I'm happy to say we've been mice free for 2 weeks now. So whatever they did must have worked.
And this weekend I even managed to make cookies for the house of boys that rid my apartment of vermin. Did I mention they were mice cookies? Yes, they were. And they were by far my favorite thing that I have ever made.

I found a Homemade Oreo Recipe that I used, but instead of cutting them into boring old circles, I traced a mouselike shape on a file folder and used that as a template for my cookies. And they were SO CUTE.

Instead of using the plain old vanilla frosting, I made a peanut butter filling and piped that in between the 2 cookies.

Then I thinned it a bit more to draw a tail and face on one side of the cookies as well.

Not only did they look cute, they tasted great too. I managed to save some for my small group too (who probably appreciated the work that went into the adorability of the mice a lot more than a house full of guys).

Let me tell you, these mice are welcome in my kitchen any time. All other mice, keep out.