It finally happened...

I've had this friendship that's been teetering on existence for close to a year now.  She used to be my best friend.  I won't go into specifics or opinions regarding the decline of our relationship out of respect for her privacy.  Well, it finally happened -- she blocked me from her blog.  In this day and age, and because I know her personality, that means our friendship is officially over.  *sigh*  We don't talk on the phone anymore, or e-mail, text, or facebook.  Her blog was my only knowledge of her current life happenings.  Not anymore.

Situations like these always remind me how interesting it is when a close friendship goes sour.  Immediately, we erase them wholly from our lives, taking it to the extreme (that's not to specify this particular situation); yet, we all keep a friend list of 500 people on our facebook whom only half we actually know, and maybe a fourth we have some sort of acquaintance with, allowing them access to our every emotion and detail of life...but not that one true close friendship you had that happened to dissolve for whatever reason.

Call me narcissistic, but it's a compliment, in a way, when someone has to reciprocate with such a strong emotion in reaction to the fall of a relationship.  It's safer to hate than to fear the possibility of still loving that person.  At least you know you weren't just a passer-by in their life; you made some sort of impression, whether positive or negative, leaving a fossil behind.  Oh, believe me, I've been that scared hater.  No denying, here!  I am everyone of these cliches.  It's human nature, and I don't have an answer to it...just an observation.

As much as I really want to explode with verbal diarrhea on this whole situation, I've had quite a while to expect, and desensitize to, this forthcoming day.  It still makes me sad, though.

Teach: Claire Cunningham

It's all becoming real.  I recently finished my online observation videos for my teacher certification, and applied for a real-deal spring '11 student teaching position.  Honestly, I'm SCARED TO DEATH.  The thought of my teaching certification path going from online hypotheticals to reality is starting to make me nervous.  My nerves are not all negative; it's definitely a mixture of excitement and fear. 

Teaching is so different from what I've been doing since graduating college.  I'm excited for the switch in gears.  I'm excited to have a focus in my job that's not always centered around achieving ultimate financial success.  I'm excited to be in an environment that will provide me opportunity to use my natural God-given strengths.  I'm excited to have a community of co-workers, and not just be alone at a desk.  I'm excited to be in an academic world again, and to have the opportunity to apply my creativity and put my education to use.  I'm excited to have a possible impact on another human being.

On the other hand, I'm nervous about that impact...will I provide a positive or negative impact to the kids?  Will I like working with kids and teenagers?  Do I have enough emotional strength to be a teacher?  Will my teaching career affect my relationship with my fellow teacher boyfriend?  What if I hate it?  What if I suck at teaching?  What if teaching makes me a miserable person to be around?  What will becoming a teacher do to ME?  What if I can't handle it?!?!

Everybody wanted me to be a teacher as soon as I became an English major my freshman year in college.  I, on the other hand, was not so easily sold on the idea.  I teetered in and out of the idea, but my fear of how I would respond to working with youth always finalized my decision to simply stay away from the idea...but I've never been able to.  Fear — was it fair for me to allow my every decision to be guided by fear?  I decided five months ago to not let fear totally rule my life.  Fear was no excuse to stay stagnate.  Yes, there's a possibility teaching won't be for me, but should I allow fear to make that decision before I even have a chance to answer on my own?  No.  Now, that's not to say fear won't be present in my life just because I verbally say I won't be ruled by it.  Hell yeah, it's still there...every day...but I'm going to dry my hardest to make "fear" an uncomfortable pallet on my floor.

I think a substantial amount of people in the world think of teaching as this low-paying, easy-peasy, cake-walk job.  Basically, "you get what you pay for" type mentality.  Often, you hear people say, "I'm so tired of being stressed and overworked at my job...maybe I should turn to teaching."  Ha!  I've never thought about teaching as this "low paying = low stress" job.  In fact, it's the complete opposite for me..."Can I handle this uber emotional, often stressful, but possibly highly rewarding job?!"  *Sigh*  I don't know, guys, but I'm going to give it a shot. 

Anyone been watching Teach: Tony Danza?  As a prospective first year teacher in the making, I've enjoyed watching the show...although I think it's made me even more paranoid about the possible teacher I may make, especially that first year.  I can totally see myself pulling a "Danza", nervous talking my way through every period.  Get ready, guys; Teach:Claire Cunningham will be airing soon...

Purpose

Most of you know this, but some of you don't...I play music.  I write music (well, not as of lately), sing, play guitar, yadi, yadi.  Well, the deal is that I haven't really done anything with music in quite some time.  People ask me "why," and I really don't have a good answer to give them.  Simply put, I just don't feel any desire to do it.  Maybe it's laziness, or boredom, or lack of inspiration, or old memories held on to tangible objects...hell, I really don't know.

At the rate I've been going on, I will never play guitar again.  I don't want that; I don't want music to disappear from my life all together.  I decided I needed an audience, a gig, a purpose to play again on a regular basis.  Well, maybe my blog will be that place, that deadline, that push I need to keep it going?  I'll give it a shot.  My idea on this, as of right now, is that I'm going to try to put up a video once a week, or so, either playing my own original songs, or covering another artist's song, in hopes of bringing some purpose back to my music.

Enjoy this cover...Laura Marling's "Blackberry Stone" (sans the intro verse) 

p.s.  I think my cookies made it ;-)

-CC

*crickets chirping*

Yep, I'm still alive!  Sorry for not posting any goodies lately, but that sure doesn't mean I haven't been making any.  Basically, for the past week and a half, I have been in the lab (aka: kitchen) creating the perfect vegan original chocolate chip cookie for the Beaver Creek, CO cookie competition.  Check it out HERE.  For all your bakers out there, you know how you really have to understand the science of baking in order to be truly original.  Also, it's hard now-a-days to be truly original in anything!  After batches, and batches of cookies, I think I finally created a close to perfect vegan chocolate chip cookie.  They're pretty sick-awesome.  After I see if I made the finals, or not, in the competition, I may post the recipe....or I may not.  Haven't decided if this is to be my signature secret cookie, yet, or not ;-)  Oh, they're so good!  Here's some pics...

Here they are all nakey...

All packed up, and ready to go!

Now for the poopy part of the story...I'm actually not sure they're going to make it to CO.  Here's the deal, when you send packages to the communities in the Vail valley, some mail carriers deliver only to PO Boxes and some mail carriers deliver to physical address...or something like that.  I still don't understand it, but it's totally ridonculous, if you ask me.  I've dealt with this some when trying to mail stuff to my sister up there, but I totally forgot about that in this case.

So here I've got these perfectly Martha Stewart'y packaged cookies all dressed in their Sunday best.  I pack 'em up super tight, and head off yesterday morning to overnight these bad boys.  In typical Claire fashion, I send a text to my mom and sister to brag about my accomplishment and how much I'm going to kick-ass and take names at this contest, and my sister lays the whole "I hope you sent them to the right address according to which carrier you chose..."  Doh!  AHHHH!  Let's just sum it up by saying I didn't follow directions accordingly, and spent the next hour running all over Denton like a crazed baker chasing down my package from one post office to the next hoping to stop my cookies in their tracks, only to discover they were already in another town on their way to CO. I must say, I have a new respect for the speediness of the postal service after this experience!  

Feeling defeated and in despair, I talk to the postmasters here in Denton, Vail, CO, and Avon, CO, and the cookie competition people trying to see what my options are.  At this point, I could care less about the cookie competition...all I care about is the $30+ I spent shipping these suckers overnight all for nothing!  The postmaster in Colorado told me since the cookie competition was going on, my package had a much better chance at making the delivery due to all the similar packages that would be arriving at the post office.  Soooooo, we'll see here pretty soon after I attempt to call the Avon post office and pull another "begging-crazy-lady" to see if my package could possibly find it's proper home.

OK, that's the last time I'm telling that story.  I'm so sick of it!  I'll keep ya posted on the status of my cookies' odyssey'esque journey.  FINGERS CROSSED!

Creamy Smoked Paprika Salad Dressing

I'm convinced a lot of people don't get excited about eating salad because they're used to eating crappy commercial salad dressings you buy at the grocery store.  Guys, those dressings suck.  Have you ever made you own salad dressing?  Did you know is ridiculously easy to make your own salad dressing?!  Whether it be a creamy or oil-based salad dressing, you can easily whip something up on demand with ingredients you probably keep stocked in your kitchen.  I eat salad EVERY day for lunch, but I probably wouldn't if I had to eat the nasty dressing sold in the grocery store.

Smoked Paprika is such a great spice, and totally under-utilized in the American kitchen.  Maybe that's because it can be a liiiiittle difficult to fine, and the average Joe probably doesn't know much about it.  Well, smoked or not, you need to start using this very versatile and mild spice.  I use it religiously in my savory cooking.  

Creamy Vegan Smoked Paprika Dressing

Ingredients:

-  1/2 cup raw cashews
-  1/2 cup water
-  1 clove garlic
-  1 pitted dried medjool date (or a squeeze of agave nectar)
-  1 Tbs balsamic vinegar
-  1 Tbs. kosher salt
-  1 tsp dijon mustard
-  1 Tbs nutritional yeast
-  1 tsp onion powder
-  1 tsp smoked paprika*


*I found smoked paprika at HEB, but if you can't find it, regular paprika will work just fine, but it won't have the slight smokey flavor.


Directions:
Blend cashews, water, garlic clove, date, and balsamic vinegar in blender until creamy consistency.  Scrape down sides of carafe.  Turn blender on low, and add the rest of the ingredients.  That's it!  Store in a jar, or tubberware container w/lid, in the fridge.

Spider Web Cupcakes

Being vegan doesn't always mean you're being more healthy.  It depends on your choices.  Therefore, I call all the PETA concerned vegans to embrace these cupcakes!  In regards to the "for health" vegans, well, you'll probably wanna pass on these.  Although, I will say there's nothing worse about these cupcakes than a traditional cupcake, and they taste like a million bucks....so don't be silly, and eat 'em!

Now, I'm not going to post the recipes for these since I don't think cookbook authors like it when you post their exact recipes, but I will tell you it's the chocolate cake recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking.  It's ridiculously simple, and the best from-scratch chocolate cake recipe I've ever made, vegan or not.  And, I don't have an exact recipe for the frosting, but it's based on this basic vegan buttercream recipe.

The point, here, is really about the spider webs, which can be found here and placed atop ANY kind of cupcake you want to make.  For fully vegan cupcakes, use non-dairy white chocolate chips.  I used regular white chocolate as I didn't really care, nor wanted to buy a whole bag of vegan chocolate chips when that little spider web could just be taken off by the overly anal vegan.  I couldn't find my icing tips in the mix of random boxes from the move, so I had to do the cut the tip off a plastic bag trick, but having the proper tip would have been better.

Go get your Halloween on!

Awesome Vegan Ranch Dressing

This recipe is spot on!  And how sweet is this photo?!  Click on the photo for the recipe's link.  Love it, love cashews, love salad, love "yummmm"...

P.S.  I used all cashews as that's what I had on hand, but macadamias would be super awesome if you have some raw ones around.  They're more expensive, too.  Worked great with all cashews, though.  Enjoy, and a big thanks to the ladies over at "Green Shakes and Giggles!"

Holiday Season Has Come..."BOO!"

NOT "boo" as in thumbs down, but "BOO!" as in ghosts and goblins and pumpkins!  When money's tight you have to find creative ways to cut pricey corners.  It's especially hard to justify spending money on "wants", instead of "needs", which is the category holiday decor falls in.  So, I went to searching the web for self-made alternatives.  I found two different Halloween DIY wreaths I like..this ribbon one (CLICK HERE), and this tulle one (CLICK HERE).  I actually like the ribbon wreath better than the tulle one, but the toulle one was less expensive to make...so that was the winner.

Now, I'm not going to type all all the instructions when you can just click on the link above, but I will share a few of my observations while making this thing.

- First, she says to cut the tulle in 18 inch long strips. I felt that was a little too long, and after knotting a row at 18 inches, I started cutting my tulle in 16 inch strips. I liked the results much better.

- Don't use the glittered tulle unless you're some kind of masochistic crafter who likes to deal with that $h!t. The glitter tulle, which was only the orange tulle for me, was such a pain! Glitter every where, and it was also stiffer, which made it more difficult to work with. As you can see, I got so sick of working with that glitter tulle, I pretty much just stopped, hahaha. Lazy crafter!

- The ten yards of ribbon will be just enough to wrap around the straw wreath, so don't waste it by it over-lapping your layers too much.

-  I used corsage/floral pins to secure my ribbon after wrapping.

If I were to do this again, I would complete the wreath all the way around (which I could do now; I just needed a break..hehe) and probably only use one color. All in all, it was fun (except for the glitter), cheap, and you could adapt this idea to any holiday or event by simply changing out the tulle color.  Honestly, my favorite part was right after I wrapped the ribbon around the straw wreath before adding the tulle.  Think I might adapt that idea with some real pretty ribbons, and different size wreaths, as a cool wall decor idea.  Hmmmm.  Anyway, the snow ball affect in my brain has started....

Creamy Dill Potato Salad

Last night, we went over to our friend's house for a birthday gathering.  It was a bar-be-que, and my friend Grace made a great traditional mustard potato salad.  It really got me jonesin' for MORE potato salad, so I decided to veganize a creamy potato salad so Steven and I could have some to much on this week.  Now I would've attempted to vegan-up a mustard potato salad, but I didn't have all the ingredients I wanted, so I went for my other favorite potato salad...the new potato dill kind.


I can not stress enough how important the use of raw cashews are to making real yummy, creamy, gourmet vegan foods.  With raw cashews, you can recreate almost any of your favorite omnivore foods...except animal proteins, of course.  Anyway, my dill potato salad came out wonderful, and we can't stop eating it.  Give it a try!

Creamy Dill Potato Salad

Ingredients:

-  About 18 small red skinned potatoes, give or take

-  Red onion thinly sliced (optional)

(Sauce ingredients)

-  1/2 cup raw cashews

-  1/2 cup water

-  2 tsp. balsamic vinegar

-  1 tsp. dijon mustard

-  1 tsp. extra virgin olive oil

-  2 tsp. kosher salt*

-  1/2 tsp. onion powder

-  1.5 tsp. dried dill

-  !/2 tsp. dried parsley

*This is quite a bit of salt, but if you use this amount, you will not need to add any salt after mixing the sauce and potatoes together.  Also remember, when you taste the sauce before you add it to the potatoes, it will taste too salty, but the sauce is responsible for salting and seasoning a whole bunch of bland potatoes, so it needs to be intense.  If you're nervous about it being too salty, back it off to 1.5 tsp kosher salt...I'm a salt fiend, so it was perfect for me, but may be too salty for others.

Directions:

Quarter the new potatoes, and boil them in a pot of water until thoroughly cooked, but still firm and hold together. Do not over cook your potatoes!  Drain, and leave to cool in a colander, etc.  Set aside.

In a blender, add the cashews and water.  Blend on high until until a creamy homogenous texture is achieved.  Next, add the balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard, olive oil, salt, and onion powder.  Blend until thoroughly combined.  Finally, add the dried parsley and dill to the creamy mixture, and only pulse to combine and distribute spices throughout mixture.  Finished sauce should be thick in consistency.  Remove from blender carafe and into a small tubberware container with a lid.  Set aside in the refrigerator.

Add the cooked new potatoes to a large bowl.  If you wish, thinly slice some red onion and toss to combine with the potatoes.  At this time, add the sauce to the potatoes and onions in hefty portions.  I say to do this because everyone's different on their preference of how wet or dry they want their potato salad.  Use your judgement; I used all the sauce.  If you don't use all the sauce, or wish to make a smaller amount of potato salad by cooking less potatoes, you can always use the excess sauce as a salad dressing on your leafy greens, or as an awesome veggie dip.  Whatev's.  Be creative.

And, that's it!  It's best to let this sit in the refrigerator for a few hours before serving so it can marinate the potatoes.

Sooooo tasty,

CC