Amy gets a tiara

The Big Bang Theory is one of my favorite shows.  It’s witty and entertaining and silly and just fun to watch.  In last week’s episode, Sheldon bought a forgive-me gift for his “girlfriend,” Amy, played perfectly by Mayim Bialik, who you might remember from her Blossom days.  This scene showing her accepting her tiara is priceless!

For those of you who don’t watch the show, Amy isn’t exactly a girly-girl so her reaction is hilarious.  The McHusband and I wondered how many times they had to film this scene because we just know they were cracking up the whole time.

Back to regularly scheduled blogging about birthday treats tomorrow.

Something new...

Anyone notice something new about McMania's address? Kinda like adding new house numbers to the front porch, the blog has something new and fancy to identify it.






















So now instead of having Blogger's B in an orange square, you get an M in a purple square.

I know, the difference almost blew me away, too.

I hope to change up the header as well. New year, updated look. The picture of the McHusband and me is from 2008. I'm blonder and he's buffer so it's time for the header on this blog about our lives to reflect current conditions.

Chelle’s Birthday Fiesta

A group of us got together for Chelle’s birthday a couple weekends ago.  We went out for Mexican then everyone came back to our house for dessert.  I decorated the kitchen with some of the paper lanterns from Vickie’s shower plus three new pink ones.

I made a sign using a frame that I already had, I just painted it with the same spray paint I used for the chandelier in the front bedroom.

But I’m getting ahead of myself because this was for dessert.  First, we had to eat dinner.  And wear a funny hat.

  And do a birthday shot (Birthday Girl only).

(Bruce got these pictures with his phone.  Thanks for sharing, Bruce!)

After dinner and drinks at La Cocina, our group of 11 headed back to our house. 

Where are all the guys?  They were huddled around the McHusband’s laptop looking at car videos or something equally manly.

Per Chelle’s request, I made a lemon cheesecake and then I threw in some chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting.  That’s Chelle’s favorite cake combo and it just didn’t feel like a birthday celebration without some frosting.

My cheesecake had a thick crust that didn’t give in easily.  Look at all that elbow grease Vickie’s using!

That was a fun night.  Now whose birthday is next so we can do it again?  And whoever you are, be thinking of what dessert you want.  I’m itching to try something new and have 496 saved recipes to choose from.

Birthday dessert post coming soon!

Recipe Recap: Sweet & Spicy Salmon

Salmon isn’t my favorite fish, but I know it’s really good for us so when I came across a simple recipe for doctoring the fish, I figured we could give it a try.

This recipe came from the most recent Taste of Home: Healthy Cooking magazine.  To go with the salmon, I made my go-to stovetop side dish: quinoa with black beans and corn (except with mushrooms instead of corn).

{I apologize for poor picture quality.}

Thanks to the salsa, these were quite spicy.  But since the salmon was fairly thick and you got a decent forkful of meat with each bite, the heat wasn’t overwhelming.

Would I make this again?  Yes.  Am I dying to do so?  Not really.  But it was easy and healthy and, well, I still have at least half a jar of that mango salsa left so…

Recipe:

Four 6-oz salmon fillets

1/2 t. garlic powder

1/2 t. cayenne pepper

3/4 c. mango salsa

1. Place salmon skin-side down on a 15” x 10” baking pan coated with cooking spray.  Sprinkle with spices.  Spoon salsa over top.
2. Bake at 375 degrees for 12 – 15 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

Because the McHusband and I like our fish blasphemously well done, I think I cooked ours for more like 30 minutes.

If you’re a bigger fan of salmon than we are, and you like your fish to kick back a little, give this a try.

A dilemma

Have you guys heard of Pinterest?  It’s apparently the best thing to happen to the internet since Facebook.  Here’s what the About page has to say about the site:

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and share their favorite recipes.

I’ve seen tons of references to it in the blogs I read, and of course the word “pinning” has a new meaning now.  My neighbor, Tawnya, sent me an email today and asked me if I’d drunk the Kool Aid yet so that I could join her in losing all my free time to the abyss known as Pinterest.  She’s only the second real live person (as opposed to those interweb peeps) I actually know who’s a member.

I knew you needed an invitation to join, and Tawnya was kind enough to extend one.  So I took a deep breath and decided to give over my mind, body, and email address.

But guess what?  Pinterest didn’t want me.  Apparently I don’t qualify because I don’t have a Facebook or Twitter account.  So now I have to decide how badly I want to be able to pin stuff.  Bad enough to finally cave and join Facebook?  I have to say, I’m leaning toward doing it…

What do you guys think?  Should I become a contributing member of society and put up a wall?  Or stand my ground and remain Facebook, and therefore Pinterest, free?

NYE Eve

We hung out at Chelle and Jeremy’s on New Year’s Eve Eve.  Scott was in town for the night on his way back home, and he’d brought the pelican with him.  Remember the pelican?

Scott is a park ranger so the pelican was stuffed by a taxidermist near his hometown and he was taking it back to his “office.”

The McHusband and Chelle were particularly fond of Mr. Pelican.

We munched on snacks and that cake I made, drank some drinks, talked, laughed, just hung out.  It doesn’t sound like much, but it was a great night.  I’ll just let some pictures show you how much fun we had.

Apparently I had a string.  And probably just exactly the right amount to drink.

Good friends, good times, good memories.

Recipe Recap: Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’m going to take a break from catching up on the holidays and the people to give you a quick food post.  I’ve just finished my popcorn {For those of you paying attention here at McMania – yes, I had my popcorn on the wrong night, but I went to spinning today instead of tomorrow so I earned it.} and I’m craving something sweet.  Like the leftover frosting in my fridge.  Or the Rolos that didn’t make it into the brownie bites.  Or both.

So instead of eating a treat, I’m chewing some Extra watermelon gum and keeping my fingers busy and using The Biggest Loser on TV to enforce my willpower.

I made these cookies the week before Christmas {Huh, look at that, this is a catch-up post after all}.  I chose to make them again because I remembered how good they were the first time I made them.  They didn’t disappoint the second time around, but I think my memory was a little skewed.  The dough was actually better than the baked cookie.

I used this recipe from Allrecipes.  Kahlua in a cookie?  Yes, please!

Two and a half cups of oatmeal?  These things are practically a health food!

Instead of M&M’s, I used semi-sweet chocolate chunks.  I thought they paired really well with the sweet cookie dough.  Plus they’re bigger than regular old chocolate chips and more chocolate is always better in my book.

Final verdict?  Not as awesome a cookie as I remembered, but still a really good one.  However, I’m thinking about using this dough, which really was awesome, minus the eggs (I don’t need salmonella poisoning, thankyouverymuch) for Cookie Dough Truffles like these from Tasty Kitchen.

Stack of cookies!

                                    {Recipe Here}