Smartie Pants

Who? You might ask.

This girl. Susannah Nellie Bea.

Why? You ask now.

Because she got into the best program in her field at STANFORD UNIVERSITY!

I'm so proud of her. She's such a smartie pants.

Congrats, Suze! Love ya like a fat kid loves cake. And that's a lot. This kid has also been deprived of cake, so he really loves it. And misses it dearly. Kinda how I miss you dearly. And how I miss Easter candy dearly. Oh, and your brown sweater. I miss that a lot.

One day without shoes

Will you go without shoes tomorrow?
As you know, I love the idea of Toms shoes.
(Kathryn, sorry in advance if my feet are stinky.)

I like this picture

The mysterious turtles at Green Lake.

I pass this log on my runs often.

And I like it.

That's all.

Happy Hump Day!
via

And for dessert.

As promised, my Easter dessert: Tiramisu. A dessert that I fell in love with when studying abroad in Italy. I've had bad tiramisu before so I hoped to pull this one off, especially since my sister had never tried the delicious dessert. (Italian translation of Tiramisu: Pick-me-up... and as our Italian professor told us, it's a aphrodisiac. Interesting.)

Verdict: Success!

The recipe I used isn't your traditional recipe, but super easy. I'd highly recommend giving it a shot.

Easy Tiramisu

Ingredients
3 tablespoons instant espresso powder
1 bar (8 ounces) reduced-fat cream cheese
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup sugar
2 packages (3 ounces each) soft ladyfingers
Unsweetened cocoa powder, for dusting

Erika's secret additions: cinnamon and pure vanilla extract (Straube, are you proud I didn't use imitation?)

Directions
In a medium bowl, mix espresso powder with 3 tablespoons boiling water until dissolved. Add 1 1/2 cups cold water; set aside.

With an electric mixer, beat cream cheese with heavy cream and sugar until light and fluffy.

Spread a few tablespoons of cream-cheese mixture in the bottom of a 2-quart serving dish. Separate ladyfingers. One by one, dip a third of ladyfingers in espresso, then arrange in bottom of dish. Spread with a third of cream-cheese mixture. Repeat twice with remaining ladyfingers, espresso, and cream-cheese mixture (can be refrigerated, covered, up to 1 day).

Dust with cocoa just before serving.

Task: Easter dinner

My mom tasked me with Easter dinner this year. I took a good 20 minutes of browsing through my favorite cookbook before I decided on Spring Risotto with peas and zucchini. (It was my first attempt at the challenging recipe. It's a slow and tedious process, that's for sure.)

The outcome? Well, it was met with requests for seconds and thirds! (Yay! Mission accomplished.) And while the risotto was the highlight, salmon and roasted asparagus completed the meal.

Spring Risotto

Ingredients
2 cans (14.5 ounces each) reduced-sodium chicken broth
3 tablespoons butter
1 to 2 large zucchini (1 pound), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup frozen peas, thawed

Directions
Heat broth and 2 1/2 cups water in a small saucepan over low heat; keep warm. Meanwhile, melt 2 tablespoons butter in a 3-quart saucepan over medium heat. Add zucchini; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring often, until zucchini is golden, 8 to 10 minutes. With a slotted spoon, transfer zucchini to a plate.

Reduce heat to medium-low. Add onion; cook until soft, 5 minutes. Season with 1 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Raise heat to medium. Add rice; cook, stirring, until translucent around edges, about 3 minutes. Add wine; cook until absorbed, about 2 minutes.

Cook, adding 1 cup hot broth at a time (stir until almost all liquid is absorbed before adding more), until rice is tender, 25 to 30 minutes total.

Add zucchini and peas; cook until peas are bright green, 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in remaining tablespoon butter and Parmesan. Serve, topped with more cheese.

TGIF

It's Shaggy Friday! What does that mean? Well, don't you think his music just screams Friday? It's upbeat, catchy and has that reggae-no-problem feel to it.

Shaggy made it on to the first 4 or so volumes of SB4P, but there are only so many Shaggy songs to go around. I used to queue my stereo to Shaggy before I left my car in the morning on Fridays, so when I came out and turned it on, the Friday vibes would fill my car (shooby dooby dooby doo boy, shooby doo). I've gotten out of the habit... until Tronics sent me this friendly reminder this morning. Enjoy!

Have a fabulous weekend and Happy Easter!

Nice one, 92.5.

I'm not gonna lie, I think practical jokes are funny. So you would think that I would be on super-skeptical mode come April 1, right? Not so much. I've been duped bad today.

The best one? So this morning I was listening to Brooke and Monti on 92.5 and heard this little story:

"Another icon in Seattle becomes off limits. The Seattle Space Needle has been bringing visitors to the top of it’s observation deck for the past forty eight years. Soon, it will all be over. Today, the Space Needle corporation has announced plans to close Sky city restaurant and build eight to ten luxury condominiums that will take it’s place."

NO WAY! I thought. They can't do that! Man, I better plan on getting a cocktail up top soon. This sucks. I guess I should have visited the top while I could. I don't think I've gone since I was like 4-years-old. Sad... When I get to work, I tell Kathryn about the news and express my frustration. Then logged onto the website they mentioned: http://www.spaceneedlecondos.com/.

Duped.