top chef right here, foo!

after my oh-so-helpful therapy session yesterday (i.e., my random vent blog post), i did a little chatting with my buddies on the OC nest board while continuing my quest to empty my google reader. and when my good buddy ssinca gave me a link to a recipe that she highly recommended - for snickerdoodle blondies! - i decided that i had to have them.

plus, i found mushrooms on sale at the grocery store a couple of days ago and had two containers of them in the fridge, just waiting to be used. and whaddaya know - ThatGirl had a lovely 'shroom-filled post that was absolutely perfect for me. PERFECT!

it was all i needed to get my ass out to bed bath & beyond to finally buy the pink kitchenaid hand mixer i've been wanting. the hub's never gonna touch this thing, so i don't care what he says about the color. ha! anyway, i have a stack of 20% off coupons that i totally hoard in a drawer (much to the hub's dismay), so i took one and off we went.

wouldn't you know it - they only had ONE pink mixer left, and it was the display. there was no box, no instructions (although it is a hand mixer, so how complicated could it be?), and it was missing a beater. but i wanted it. i was determined to have it. so what did i do?

i looked around, found another kitchenaid mixer on display, plucked the beaters off, and walked my happy ass up to the cashier. yay!

when we got home, it was time to give the bean some lunch. her little faces were totally cracking me up.

a few days ago, she'd shared some top ramen with me. so bad, i know, but she loves noodles and it's fun to watch her eat them.

it's actually been a really good cooking week for me. look, homemade creamed spinach:

the most delicious bacon-wrapped brown sugar pork roast:

i made the snickerdoodle blondies, but they don't photograph that well. trust me, though, they're DELISH. try 'em.

and then i got to work on that mushroom and cream cheese tart. i tried dicing the mushrooms by hand, but quickly got tired of that and busted out my chopper to finish the job:

cooked 'em up according to the directions (looks gross, i know, but it's so yum):

at this point, i realized that the bean was being really, really quiet. and you know that always means she's up to no good! i peeked around and saw the little booger going through my purse. she'd found my wallet and pulled out every last piece of paper in it. haha!

i made the crust, and as the dough chilled in the fridge, i got to work on the chicken marsala (also recommended by a nestie). i managed to time it perfectly and plated up a couple of slices of tart (i didn't have tartlet pans and didn't have the patience to bust out cookie cutters anyway, so i just used a small round cake pan) alongside the chicken:

the hub was awed and amazed at my culinary skills. oh, yes. and i was quite proud of myself as i bit into that mushroom tart and savored the buttery flakiness of the crust.

"wow, where'd you get this crust?" he asked.
"i MADE that shit from scratch, foo!" i proudly retorted.

yes. i'm uber klassy. you would expect nothing less, yes?