She was the third beer. Not the first one, which the throat receives with almost tearful gratitude; nor the second, that confirms and extends the pleasure of the first. But the third, the one you drink because it’s there, because it can’t hurt, and because what difference does it make?
Crust:
1 1/2 cups finely ground graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup white sugar
6 tablespoons butter, melted
Filling:
1 can (13.6 oz.) dulce de leche (you can find this at Target or most grocery stores next to the condensed milk in the baking aisle)
2 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Glaze:
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 teaspoons light corn syrup
1 tbsp chocolate liqueur or heavy cream
Directions:
Make the crust. Position an oven rack in the middle position and preheat oven to 325F. Line the bottom and sides of an 8-inch square pan with parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on all sides. Spray parchment paper with non-stick spray.
Mix the graham crackers, sugar and butter. Press mixture evenly onto bottom of baking pan. Bake 10 minutes, then place on a cooling rack to cool for 5 minutes.
Make the filling. Spread the dulce de leche evenly over the graham crust, then place pan in refrigerator while you prepare the cream cheese layer.
Beat the cream cheese on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the sugar and continue to beat on medium-high for another 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary. Beat in the vanilla extract.
Pour the cream cheese mixture over the dulce de leche layer and spread evenly, and bake for 45-55 minutes, or until the center only slightly jiggles. Remove from the oven and cool completely-about 2 hours.
Glaze the cake. Heat the chocolate, butter, liqueur and light corn syrup in a double boiler or in a microwave at 30-second intervals, stirring until smooth. Cool for about 10 minutes. Pour the glaze over the cheesecake, tilting the pan to ensure the top is coated evenly. Chill for several hours-or at least 30 minutes before serving.
Lift the cheesecake from the pan using the parchment handles and slice into squares using a sharp knife, wiping it clean after each cut. Let the pan sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes before you lift the bars out and cut them. The chocolate glaze will crack if you cut them while they are still very cold.
Happy hour followed by open bar at my company holiday party last night! Someone please bring me a breakfast burrito and gatorade. I’ll be in bed under the covers.
I kicked off my Thanksgiving vacay last week with the girls and JT in the OC!
It wouldn’t be a Justin Timberlake show without Christine almost getting into a fight! Ha. The image of Christine with half of her body hanging out the car window as we drove off will stay with me forever.
Thanks to Pammie for risking her life to take these awesome vids!
Queen Bey at Staples Center last night! She dedicated her final song to Paul Walker ♥
I may or may not be sobbing uncontrollably in the background. More videos here.
Our Thanksgiving dinner consisted of enough chinese food to feed a small village plus a turkey (which a chinese restaurant deep fried for us for $25). Ha. Is it weird that I’ve never had stuffing before?
Bingo, bitches! Now I know where I get my competitiveness and foul mouth from… I’ve never heard my grandma curse so much in my life!
The Debutante @ The Haven. Good beer and good pizza with good friends.
I haven’t been home in a while, and Rocky clearly misses me! I found this cuddle bug in my old bed every night I was in town.
When my sister woke me up from my food coma to break the news of Paul Walker‘s untimely death yesterday, I thought I was dreaming. But then it became Facebook official, and everyone started texting me to make sure I wasn’t hanging from my shower rod.
On a scale of 1 to Dawson, how ugly is my cry face right now???
We had more dessert than actual food on Thanksgiving, and this chocolate croissant bread pudding I made tasted like a slice of heaven! I’m pretty sure I saw the face of Jesus while eating it. This will probably happen again for Christmas.
Ingredients
3 extra-large whole eggs
8 extra-large egg yolks
5 cups half-and-half
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
10 chocolate croissants (I used a box of 10 from the Vons bakery)
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the whole eggs, egg yolks, half-and-half, sugar, and vanilla. Set the custard mixture aside.
Slice the croissants into 1-inch cubes. In a 10 by 15 by 2 1/2-inch oval baking dish, distribute the cubed croissants evenly. Pour the custard over the croissants and allow to soak for 10 minutes, pressing down gently.
Place the pan in a larger one filled with 1-inch of hot water. Cover the larger pan with aluminum foil, tenting the foil so it doesn’t touch the pudding. Cut a few holes in the foil to allow steam to escape. Bake for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake for 40 to 45 more minutes or until the pudding puffs up and the custard is set. Remove from the oven and cool slightly. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Homemade chicken sopas + Netflix. This pretty much sums up my entire weekend.
I had dinner plans on Friday and Sunday, but I was too sick to go to either. Now the inside of my car is clean for no reason! Ha. Just don’t look under the blanket in the trunk. Nothing to see there…
If people want to let you go, just let them do it. They may not understand who you are. So don’t play around with fire; don’t give them their cake and let them eat it, too. Here is your rule of thumb: they either commit to you or get none of you.
This was me winning second place at my work’s weight-loss challenge last Friday. It’s a good thing I didn’t win first, because you wouldn’t be able to handle those dance moves!
I lost to some corporate lawyer who donated his winnings to a children’s hospital. Way to make me feel like an asshole! Ha. I already spent my share on Young the Giant tickets!
Happy 55th birthday to one crazy broad! At her birthday dinner last weekend, our waiter thought that my mom was my sister. He also didn’t card me when I ordered my vodka. #1 How dare you? (I have the face of a goddamn minor!) #2 I hope I look as young as my mom does when I’m in my fifties!
Why’s everyone still singing about California?
Haven’t we heard enough about the Golden State?
I guess if you like sandy beaches and blue ocean water
There’s something about it, to which I cannot relate
I love that Anthony answers my butt dials while he’s out protecting our homeland, even though I don’t answer his intended calls while I’m having a netflix marathon working! Ha.
Partly to fund my Amazon addiction, but mostly because I hate myself, I picked up some freelance work designing eblasts for a cooking website during the holidays. I can feel my stomach eating itself looking at all this food porn right now…
Rocky’s doggy stairs have been out in the hall since he doesn’t need them to get on the bed anymore. I think he just uses them to stare at himself in the mirror now.
I followed this gluten-free banana bread recipe, but I cleaned it up by subbing coconut oil for canola oil and agave nectar for sugar. I don’t really have much of a sweet tooth (ignore my contradictory donut post below), but this was def worth writing home about.
My work is hosting its third weight loss challenge this year, and I’m joining for the third time! It ends the week before Thanksgiving… just in time to gain some holiday weight go shopping with my winnings 😉 I’ve also decided to go gluten-free during the contest! Yikes. Thank yeezus for gluten-free vodka! I’m gonna need it…
You should be watching Orange is the New Black, if only for sound advice from Yoga Jones. (She was the voice of Patti Mayonnaise if that helps sway your decision at all.)
When we were at Chike’s place in SF, I noticed a calendar in his kitchen with corgis on it. Please tell me every month of this calendar is corgis, I said… AND IT WAS.
Because of his love for weird socks and his shared obsession with corgis, we sent him these awesome socks as a thank you for being such a good host:
And today, he sent me this video:
Cuteness overload. I’m officially dead. Please invite this corgi to my funeral!
Thank you, Miley Cyrus, for reminding me why I canceled my cable. I regret nothing! Also, after binge-watching all five seasons of Breaking Bad on Netflix over the past two weeks, I can now get back to my regularly scheduled life, yo!
My Summer of Smoothies pinterest board won me a new Vitamix blender! I’m pretty sure that 90% of my meals will be served in liquid form now. The other 10% will still consist of pre-packaged food and takeout (you know I don’t cook). Time to get my omega swirl on!
After this weekend in SF, I should probably start with a detox smoothie…
I haven’t had a vacation in… what year is it now? Can’t wait to go back to San Francisco for Outside Lands next week! And okay, for Bi-Rite Creamery, too…
Indie rock music is more my bag, but I like to get turnt every once in a while! Ha. Fun times with Pammie, Christine and Cat! It was only the best concert I’ve ever been to IN MY LIFE.
(Ask me again after this weekend, though… I may or may not be reliving my youth at the Hoobastank show in West Hollywood this Friday.)
Jessie was chosen to compete at the Nike Training Club Summer Throwdown in my ‘hood this past weekend, so I had to come support! The girl who won MVP warmed up for that brutal 2-hour workout by running from Santa Monica to Hermosa Beach (14 miles!). My exercise for the day was parking three blocks away and walking to the event at the pier. And I warmed up with half a breakfast burrito, so… I think she has me beat there.
I’ve missed this girl as much as I’ve missed helping her carbo-load for her marathons! Ha. So proud of you, b ♥
The Blood Orange Sweet Tea at Coffee Bean will change your life, I swear.
This looks like a shelf at Trader Joe’s, but it’s the inside of my mom’s cupboard. After dog-sitting at my parents’ house last weekend, she sent me home with four jars of cookie butter and some leftover sangria from her wild night out with her friends. Best mom evs!
This was my view for THREE HOURS on the drive home from SD Sunday night. Too bad all the nerds couldn’t beam themselves home from Comic Con!
Eileen found a random garlic bulb in her tote bag when we went out for sushi! The weirdest thing I’ve ever found in my purse is an anvil—for a brief window in 2010, I used it for jewelry stamping (or when Wile E. Coyote would sneak up on me).
I’m not sure what concerns me more—is it that my check engine light just turned on, or that my gas light has been on for the past three days???
Apartment hunting in Manhattan Beach is the pits. This one place I looked at had an ocean view and was $300 cheaper than the studio I live in now. And when I stepped inside, I found out why: the entire apartment was literally 50 square feet! Multi-tasking is cool and everything, but I just can’t live in a place where I can wash my dishes, open the front door, and grab a beer from the fridge all while lying in bed.
While I was in SD this past weekend, my friend was telling me about the new Donut Bar that just opened a few months back, but I know better than to go anywhere downtown during the shit show that is Comic Con! Donut Bar is known for their ‘cro-bar’ – a croissant/donut hybrid recently made famous by a pastry chef in NYC. After googling pictures of it, I decided that I needed that sorcery inside of me ASAP, so I made it myself!
I love that my new Apple TV allows me to stream episodes of Modern Family from my iPad mini to my HDTV while freeing up my macbook pro for some light internet stalking.
I entered this pinterest contest to win a $500 blender after Anthony made me a smoothie with his Vitamix when I was sick (and shortly before he handcuffed me, and Pammie took pictures while he went to get the key, but that’s a story for another time).
I found a ton of popsicle recipes while making my Summer of Smoothies contest board. It’s been crazy hot lately, so I thought it would be the perfect time to bust out my popsicle tray, Vitamix blender or not.
One of the things I miss about San Diego is Teresita’s Fruiteria. I have to travel to a seedy part of LA to get a good chamango around here—the one place I found was next door to a barber who sells Herbalife in the back of his shop (don’t ask me how I know). Now I can have chamangos in the safety of my own home, and even better, on a stick!
Chamango Popsicles
12 oz mango chunks (1 frozen bag @ Target)
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
4 tbsp chamoy Popsicle mold tray
Popsicle sticks
Blend 12 oz mango chunks, water and sugar until smooth. If it’s too thick, add more water.
Add half a tbsp of chamoy to the bottom of each popsicle mold.
Pour the blended mixture into each popsicle mold and leave a quarter inch room on top. I filled up 8 molds and had some left over.
Take a popsicle stick and swirl the chamoy around.
Freeze overnight. Once it’s frozen, you can dip the popsicle tray in warm water and the popsicles should slide right out.
I somehow got swindled into going to this concert tonight.
Shi offered me her extra ticket, and I said I would go on the condition that 98 Degrees performs ‘Invisible Man’ and we embrace through the entire song.
While I was sick last week, I downed emergen-c cocktails and fireball whiskey and entered a bajillion pinterest contests. Today, my lazybones dream board won me a $50 gift card! I can’t wait to put it towards one of their $300 quilts haha. I already have one from Anthropologie (okay so I really bought it for my sister on her birthday and I’ve been ‘borrowing’ it ever since), and anyone who’s had the pleasure of sleeping in my bed knows that it’s well worth the price. And so is the quilt 😉 Ha.
I also got a notification today that my dairy max board won third place! While I didn’t win the grand prize of a kitchen aid stand mixer (yes, I already have one, and yes, I’m greedy like that), I did win a dairy prize pack. I have no idea what that entails, but I’m hoping it’s sticks of butter from different lands.
I told the bestie to tell my favorite third grader that it’s easy to get confused… sometimes I have a little bit of both in me 😉 Ha! Just kidding (I’ve never have Chinese in me).
Uncle Anthony says that you color like how Auntie Mayan drives (how dare he!), but keep coloring outside the lines, kid… Life’s more interesting that way ♥
Finally starting my weekend after working 17 hours of overtime! Super bummed I missed cicLAvia and Anthony being in town. If there’s a silver lining in this, it’s that I can drown my sorrows in the beer he left at my apartment…
When my mom texts me to call her ASAP, I expect there to be some kind of emergency. Like my grandma is back in the hospital. Or there’s a new episode of Scandal on that night and her DVR isn’t working again. Yes, she considers that an emergency. And yes, I inherited her flair for the dramatic, obviously.
She just wanted to make sure that I got her earlier text to stop by Porto’s and bring home a dozen potato balls when I visit SD this weekend. I meannn. She also thinks that since I live in LA, I’m close to everything in LA. It will probably take me an hour to get to Porto’s after work on a Friday night! She’s lucky I love potato balls her.
You’ll be sick or feeling troubled or deeply in love or quietly uncertain or even content for the first time in your life. It won’t matter. Out of the blue, beyond any cause you can trace, you’ll suddenly realize things are not how you perceived them to be at all. For some reason, you will no longer be the person you believed you once were. You’ll detect slow and subtle shifts going on all around you, more importantly shifts in you. Worse, you’ll realize it’s always been shifting, like a shimmer of sorts, a vast shimmer, only dark like a room. But you won’t understand why or how.
