makin' whoopie

...pies. hardy har har.

i was excited to be getting together with some fabulous OC bitches this weekend to see "legally blonde: the musical." and, of course, what's a GTG with me without party favors? and this time, i tackled the task of red velvet whoopie pies with cream cheese filling.

what i didn't share with the girls was that i totally cheated and used a cake mix vs. making the pie shells from scratch. and, since these girls are quite calorie-conscious, i did use applesauce instead of vegetable oil and lowfat cream cheese. that's good, right?

because i was being anal about presentation, i mixed up the batter and then poured it into a ziploc bag so i could pipe out nicely shaped circles. i wanted them to be perfectly round, shut up.

i think i did a pretty decent job. pretty, yes?

i mixed up the filling and put that, too, in a ziploc bag to make things easier. i matched up the pie shells to make sure each one would end up uniformly sized, and got to work.

i was pretty pleased with how they turned out.

i put them in the fridge to set, and was rather dismayed when i took them out - despite the fact that i'd lined my pan with wax paper to keep them from getting stuck, that's exactly what happened to a lot of them. damn. i was so bitter - there were chunks missing from the centers of a few pies! i never thought fresh cakes would work against me. i'd even picked up some perfectly sized plastic bags to put the finished product in, but i quickly realized they wouldn't work. the pies would totally stick to them. oh, well.

i cut out pieces of parchment paper, thinking the sticky factor would be solved. alas, the cakes were so fresh and wonderful that even the parchment stuck. fuck it. i wrapped them individually, put them in my little plastic bags that were so perfectly sized for them, and boxed them up.

in elle woods' honor, i used pink ribbons to tie them up and give them a little extra something, you know?

for 10yearstogether, who had invited me and made this whole thing possible, i boxed up some chocolate-covered bacon as an extra treat. i knew she'd dig it, having attended baconfest together, and i was stoked to have a reason to use a few sheets of my hot pink foil sheets. good lord, i am such a nerd.

we'd spent a good part of last week debating back and forth via e-mail on where to go for dinner. limiting our choices to walking distance (especially for FGD, who we fully expected to show up in 4" heels), we settled on magnolia. i was excited, having been to the downtown outlet before and knowing that the food was scrumptious.

note: i realized too late that my shitty point-and-shoot's battery was almost gone. D-E-D. damn. so again, these are iPhone pics. not that you can tell since my p&s shots are usually pretty shitty anyway. bah!

i was feeling saucy and wanted to make it a "real" girls' night out, so i splurged and ordered...a cocktail. whee! of course, i asked the server to recommend something that was fairly low on the alcohol totem pole, and i ended up with a "pimm's cup" - pimm's no. 1, lemon, cucumber, and a bit of ginger ale. it was actually really delicious and refreshing.

FGD went with the strawberry lemonade, which of course i can't find on the menu to describe, but she enjoyed it.

the other girls chose the pomegranate mojito and grape collins. aline cracked us up when she took a sip of hers and declared that the bartender was definitely "motivated." i took a sip to check it out, and turned into a fire breathing dragon. whew!

here's some really bad, blurry shots of our appetizers. we ended up sharing a bunch of them, plus a couple of other things, and everything was super yummy.

they had a special appetizer that day - risotto that was mixed with cheese and other good stuff, balled up, and deep fried. need i say more?

ahi tuna tartare, served with various housemade chips.

sweet potato fries. i'm not generally a fan of these, but i was hungry and kept popping them into my mouth. these came with ketchup and some other kind of sauce that was creamy and sweet, and i ended up finishing that yummy stuff up. ha!

baked macaroni & cheese. again, no further explanation necessary. i may start drooling at my desk.

10years decided that she just had to have a sandwich, so she went with a blt. served, of course, with more sweet potato fries.

this was a star, too - lobster ravioli. savory, chewy, creamy - everything a lobster ravioli should be.

we ordered dessert, too. as the server walked away to put the order in to the kitchen, i busted out my little boxes of sweet treats. it was so much fun to watch their reactions -i thought FGD was going to pull a "when harry met sally" moment right there at the table as she took a bite. while aline chose to save hers for later (we DID have dessert coming, after all), 10years opened hers right up and proceeded to savor every bite. i so love when i'm successful in the kitchen!

i started plowing through it as soon as it was brought to the table (you'd have thought i hadn't already been stuffing my face for the previous hour or so), so all you get is a picture of both dishes, damn near licked clean. oops. warm brownie with vanilla bean ice cream, served with sides of chocolate and caramel sauce, plus homemade mint chip ice cream sandwiches. delish.

i'd saved the bit of life i had left in the ol' point-and-shoot for the group shot, which our server happily took.

we struck off on the short walk to the pantages theater, and as we approached it, aline and i giggled like schoolgirls at the sign for the show. because if you look really closely, the way the streetlight is situated makes sweet elle look like she's got a 'stache. haha!

we picked up our tickets at will call and made our way into the packed theater. FGD and aline were seated in a different section, and although 10years had hoped that we'd find people to switch seats, we didn't bother to try.

fully knowing that photography was strictly prohibited in the theater, i dared to take only one shot - and it came out so badly that it was no big deal to skip other photo ops. oh, well.

the show was so. much. fun. i suppose it helped that all four of us were already huge fans of the original movie, but it was nice that the stage version of it didn't stick to the storyline 100%. if you liked the movie and are staying away from this show because you already know the story, don't! GO SEE IT - it was that much fun. the actress who played elle was super cute and very talented, although she had a really nasally singing voice which was a little irritating to me. but not enough to ruin the show. not nearly enough.

now i kind of feel bad that i didn't take the teen to see it. it's her dad's weekend anyway, and this show is on a rather short run at the pantages. but she would LOVE it. i hope it comes back.

cross your fingers.