A Waste of a Weekend

I literally did nothing this weekend. Well, not literally, but it felt that way considering how busy I've been the past few weekends.

On Saturday, Daniel dragged my butt out of bed at the ripe hour of 11 AM to hit the gym. I had asked him earlier in the week to show me how to lift weights like a man instead of a pansy. The amount of weight I could lift was dismal compared to him, but I still got some good ideas for my own weight lifting routine.

Yeah, I pretty much look like this now.

The rest of my day was a waste until Daniel and I hit up Crystal Fish, an amazing sushi restaurant in Monterey. There was a motorcycle race in town so we decided to walk down to Cannery Row to see if we could find some biker freaks/get giant cups of fro-yo.

Ahhh, the sweet aroma of gasoline and air pollution.

Way too many people are into this.

We hit up the bars on Saturday night out of sheer boredom. I was hit on by way too many bikers but sometimes you just gotta bite the bullet for those free beers.

I wouldn't bite the bullet this hard.

P.S. I found this picture at BikerDating.com. Wow, Internet. Just wow.

Apparently I spend way too much time with my boyfriend because we also ended up getting hangover brunch at First Awakenings in Pacific Grove. The wait (albeit well worth it) was 40 minutes, so we decided to play tourist and go hang out with the smelly seals.

It's amazing how many cuteness points they lose once they get on land.

One Spanish omelet, a heap of potatoes, and an English muffin later and I was ready for a 3 hour nap. What good is Sunday if you can't use it to catch up on sleep from the last 7 days?

Questions:

How was your weekend? Did you add anything to your workout routine?

What's your favorite brunch food?

I loveee omelets but sometimes I have to go for the WheatBerry Pancakes - pancakes made with wheat germ, topped with strawberries and whipped cream. Amazing!

Random Fact #17: I am obsessed with hummus - it seriously makes the BEST salad dressing.

Drool.

Rockin' Recipes: Daniel's CQ Cookies

Tonight Daniel has 16 hour duty so I decided to score extra girlfriend points by being Susie Homemaker for a day. I slyly asked him his favorite type of cookie so I could maximize said girlfriend points, and ended up making "Peanut Butter Chocolate Chippers," now known as Daniel's CQ Cookies. (Don't ask me what CQ actually stands for, all it means to me is a lonely Friday night eating cookie dough by the spoonful and curling up with my dog and my blog.)

I got the recipe out of the cookbook "Eat, Drink, and Be Chinaberry," which serves as a regular source of cookie recipes in our household.

Born in 1996 and still kickin'! (The cook book, not the peanut butter.)

The Ingredients:

1 c. sugar

1/2 c. brown sugar (I accidentally used the light kind instead of the dark - don't do that.)

1/2 c. butter or margarine (be sure to soften it beforehand)

1/2 c. chunky peanut butter

2 eggs

1 T water

2 c. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 c. chocolate chips (yeahhhh no...throw 'em in by the handful)

The KitchenAid/Cadillac of all mixers. Ignore the fingerprints - apparently I can't keep my grubby little paws off of anything in dough form.

My trusty Sous-chef never left my side. I like to think that she wanted to be there for emotional support, but I think she was hoping for some PB fallout.

Directions:

"Beat sugars, butter, and peanut butter." Beat? I'm thinking this cookbook may be a little too violent for me.

"Add eggs, water, and vanilla, mixing well." FYI - This is not an example of mixing well.

"Add dry ingredients." Alllll 2 of 'em.

And now, without further adieu, the best part of the whole process:

Chocolate effing chips! You can't tell, but I am cradling these as I would a newborn child. Except with more care and tenderness.

"Stir in chocolate chips." Don't worry, I added at least 3 more Julia-man-handfuls.

"Drop onto baking sheets"...after eating half the dough.

"Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes." In my oven, 12 minutes was the optimum time for maximum gooey deliciousness.

And ta-da! 3 dozen delicious cookies. The recipe says it's supposed to make 6 dozen but it didn't account for my man-sized cookies nor my manlier-sized appetite.

Don't touch, fatties! Unless you're the person that made the cookies, then you can touch all you want and not be considered a fatty. (My cookies, my rules.)

I also wrote a touching little note on the bottom of the plate making fun of Daniel for eating all of the cookies in a record amount of time. Sometimes I surprise myself with how sweet and caring I can be. Girlfriend of the Year Award? I think I'm a shoe-in.

Questions:

What's your favorite cookie recipe? Do you have a favorite baking cookbook?

Are you a normal person that actually bakes their cookie dough before they eat it?

If you are, I'm not sure we can be friends unless you can accept the fact that the yield will always be half than listed in the recipe.

Random Fact #11: I can make an incredible imitation of a pigeon call. Fortunately, no male pigeons have tried to mate with my hair. Yet.