VIPs, Cookies, and Misadventures in Gluten-Free Baking

My Last BYU Winter Semester AKA Things I Didn't Have Time to Blog About

Here are some fun things I did this semester that for some reason never made it to the blog in a timely manner (What was I doing with all my time? Oh yeah, studying like a crazy person):

This year at BYU I got to hear two interesting, VERY well-known people speak: Condoleezza Rice and Mark Zuckerburg.

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In January, Condoleezza Rice came. I really enjoyed her thoughts on education. You can read some of her remarks here.

Mark Zuckerburg, the creator of Facebook, came and spoke at my school. He did a question and answer session based on questions left on the BYU Facebook page. Senator Orrin Hatch came and asked the questions. It was great hearing Mark speak and hearing his perspective on things. Here's a link to BYU's news release about it. It has some of the questions he answered, as well as his responses.

Some other important people that came to visit? My family. Not only did my parents come this month to see me graduate, but my Aunt and Uncle also came to Provo to drop my cousin off at the MTC. We had lunch at Jdawgs before he left. Love you Jack!!!

I also made snickerdoodles earlier this semester. I bring this up not because it was particularly unusual, but because I always have the same problem when I make snickerdoodles. Really chewy, warm, and delicious when they come out of the oven. Rock hard an hour later. Seriously does anyone have a tip/recipe to help me out with this?

Even though they got a bit hard, they were still good tasting (providing you had some milk to soften them up).

Speaking of baking projects that don't go quite as planned...

Remember when I had the post called Conference: Sister Edition (Part 1)? Well Part 2 never made it up, but here's the short version. I attempted to make gluten free cinnamon rolls. Silly me, I thought I could simply substitute regular flour for gluten free flour (plus a little xantham gum). Well it's a lot more complicated than that. I looked up recipes later and I realize now that a combination of flour types would have worked better. Oh well! Thankfully I had regular gluten-full bread baking at the same time so we still had a yummy conference treat :)

Sad little gluten-free cinnamon rolls about to go into the oven.

This bread smelled (and tasted) so good! Plus it was pretty easy to make (You can see the recipe here). I didn't even use the bread machine.

Well that's it for now, but there's more to come!

Currently listening to: The Supremes (a favorite of mine)

Happy 4th of July

The last two weeks have been kind of crazy. There has been so much going on.
My mother decided to get new kitchen counters and paint some cupboards which means we had to clear everything out of the kitchen and family room. The office became a storage unit and you can hardly open the door to Gabby's room their are so many boxes. However this remodel did remind me of my love for the container store. It's ridiculous how much you want to buy from that store once you go in.

One of my old roommates moved to the Houston area, so I had to give her the Sugar Land tour. Which basically consists of town center and the movie theater lol. There were some great sales though. It seemed like every store was running some sort of deal. We also went to a drive in on the north side of town. It was so fun. I found out about it from some other FMC interns(We all went their one night after work). It is pretty cheap($5 for two movies). Lara and I saw Transformers 2 and Star Trek.

My friend Christie got married last night. Everything was so beautiful, I loved it. I know this sounds cliche but she and Derek are perfect for each other. The reception was alot of fun. They had it at George Ranch, and served BBQ with lemonade drinks in mason jars. It was semi casual, so people could wear jeans if they wanted. Her colors were all bright yellows, pinks, and oranges. She had all these cute centerpieces with cut oranges, grapefruits or lemons in the vases.

I finally made it to the movies. The Proposal was really cute;I love Sandra Bullock. There were a lot of sequels out this summer. I was really excited to see Transformers 2. I thought it was good, but not as good as the first one. I also saw Night at the Museum 2, which was cute. Amy Adams was a nice addition to the cast. Oh and I saw the latest Terminator movie. I thought it was an entertaining action-y film, but I haven't seen the original terminator movies, so I'm not a huge fan or anything. So far my favorite movie of the summer has been Star Trek. Which is weird, because I wasn't looking forward to it or anything. Still on my list: Up and the next Harry Potter movie.

Current SYTYCD favorite couple: Jeanette and Brandon

Currently obsessed with: Bones