Yoga at Home

After a weekend of eating those five layer bars, Annie's mac & cheese, Chinese food*, and drinking red wine, I needed a little bit of yoga today.  I bought this adorable ($13) workout top from Target this week and love it!

Champion Ribbed Tank in Fuchsia and Gray - it reminds me of workout wear in the 80s.

My husband's and my yoga mats snuggled together in my bag.  Mine's the pink one ;-)

After 18 minutes of yoga focused on the abs (ow), I skipped to my two favorite poses: Child's Pose

And: Final Resting Pose.  I like to light a candle (vanilla is my favorite scent) to create a more relaxing ambiance when I do yoga at home.

I'm not sure that 20 minutes of yoga can undo a weekend of bag eating and drinking, but at least it's something.

*We ordered from a Szechuan Chinese place (I grew up on Cantonese Chinese food) near us.  My hubby got shredded garlic chicken and veggie lo mein. I got veggie fried rice and sweet and sour chicken.  We both got crispy spring rolls.  It was really tasty and appropriate considering today is the Chinese New Year!

Five Layer Bars

At my college cafeteria, Magic Cookie Bars were a dangerous discovery (I can blame them partially for my freshman 15).  Paula Deen has a recipe for Five Layer Bars that I made this weekend.  The only difference that I can see between the Five Layer Bars and Magic Cookie Bars is the butterscotch chips.  With Magic Cookie Bars you only use chocolate chips (so you would use 2 cups of chocolate chips instead of 1 cup and eliminate the butterscotch chips).  My husband loves the butterscotch aspect, but next time I think I'll have one side of the bars be only chocolate chips and the other half include butterscotch chips.  I would also grease the pan first.

Graham cracker crumbs and melted butter

Crumb layer

Semi-sweet chocolate and butterscotch chip layer

Coconut and pecan layer

Sweetened condensed milk layer

Fresh out of the oven

Up close

Five Layer Bar

Mmmmmm...

Paul Deen's Five Layer Bars
From Food Network Web site

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 stick salted butter, melted
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup butterscotch chips
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup shredded coconut
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350. Combine the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter in a bowl. Press into the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Sprinkle pecans, chips and coconut on top. Pour the sweetened condensed milk over the mixture and bake for 30 minutes. Cool completely and cut into bars.

Bachelor and Booze

My evening has been spent watching last night's episode of the Bachelor, eating homemade pizza, and drinking red wine.  I'm going running tomorrow and have a fun 5k on the horizon, weather permitting.  I also have an Oscar Party to plan that I will keep you updated on.  I really need to clean the heck out of our apartment before the party.

Sean and Desiree discuss her living in a tent in a teepee, meta.  Is the Bachelor just a giant travel brochure full of  beautiful people with Stockholm syndrome?  Lake Louise looked gorgeous in this episode.  You win Bachelor, I want to go there now.

What's left of our homemade pizza.  I ate mine with Frank's hot sauce and spinach.  Today was not a red letter day for  my eating habits... I started with a diner breakfast sandwich (egg and cheese on a roll), moved on to a grilled cheese with tomato sandwich and a wild cherry pepsi, and finished with two slices of this beaut.

Here's what's left of the bottle of red I split with my husband.  It clearly went down smooth.

P.S. No offense Gina Carano from Haywire, but Tierra looks like you hardcore.  Exhibit A:

Scheming Tierra

Gina Carano in Haywire

Single Serving Chocolate Chip Cookies

I saw this recipe for a single serving of chocolate chip cookies and wanted to try it.

Two blobs of cookie dough

Baked Cookies

Cookie and Milk

They tasted more like brownie; were really flaky and light.  

Making a Polynesian Pearl Diver

I finally made a Polynesian Pearl Diver tonight!

In this previous post and this previous post, I obsessed over how to make a Polynesian Pearl Diver.  Well, tonight it finally happened.  I was confused in one of the posts and thought the Pearl Diver Mix could be the whole drink, but the punch seems more like the real deal.

Here are the ingredients for the Pearl Diver Mix aspect (ignore the cocktail shaker - you use a blender):

Cinnamon Syrup, Vanilla Syrup, Castillo Gold Rum, St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram, Honey, Melted Butter.  Fresh cut pineapple and maraschino cherries for garnish.

Polynesian Pearl Diver Mix

In a blender I added the following (I eyeballed the measurements):

Three tablespoons melted butter (I think the butter should be optional in future)

Two tablespoons honey (I would add more honey next time)

Two teaspoons cinnamon syrup

One teaspoon vanilla syrup

One teaspoon Allspice (Pimento) Dram - it tastes like Christmas*

Half cup Castillo Gold Rum**

I realized that this was not the whole cocktail and that the missing ingredients were....

Orange juice, lime juice, and Falernum

So I added the following the the Pearl Diver Mix:

One cup of orange juice

Juice from one and a half limes

Dash of Falernum

Adding the lime juice with a citrus press (I love this tool)

Mixture before adding ice

Then I added a handful of ice, set the blender to crush ice and then after a few seconds set the blender to mix:

Polynesian Pearl Diver Mid-Blend

Once it was nicely blended, I poured the mixture into white wine glasses, filled the glasses with whole ice cubes, and garnished with adorable tropical cocktail umbrellas, straws, pineapple***, and cherries.

Tropical Cocktail Umbrellas - I've loved these since childhood.

Polynesian Pearl Diver

Polynesian Pearl Diver

Yet another photo of our Polynesian Pearl Divers

The Polynesian Pearl Diver is a unique cocktail that has a tropical fruity flavor with strong undertones of holiday spice.

*New Yorkers, I purchased the St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram (aka Pimento Dram) at Union Square Wines and Spirits.
**I mentioned in a previous post that I would use Bacardi, but ended up getting Castillo, because it is cheap and has a great flavor.
***I bought a whole pineapple, because it was so much cheaper than the already cut pineapple at Food Emporium.  Also, cutting up a whole pineapple is much sweeter than the already cut and packaged stuff.

Assembling Ingredients for Polynesian Pearl Diver Cocktail

My mission to make a Polynesian Pearl Diver (as mentioned in an earlier post) is a complex and increasingly expensive one.

This week I started assembling the ingredients by going on Amazon and purchasing cinnamon and vanilla syrup and Falernum.  I based these purchases off of this recipe that was posted by a reader (thanks so much!): http://wiki.webtender.com/wiki/Pearl_Diver%27s_Punch

I am still on the hunt for "pimento dram," which apparently was mostly used for Tiki drinks back in the day when Tiki culture was popular.  It seems the main providers of this entity are St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram and Bitter Truth Pimento Dram.  I think I may have found a liquor store within a 20 mile radius that sells St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram, but have to check it out sometime this week.

The above recipe says to use three!! types of rum.  I think I will opt for the more general recipe another poster shared (thank you!) that just said to use rum: http://www.chacha.com/question/what-is-in-a-polynesian-pearl-diver-cocktail

I'm leaning toward using Bacardi Gold, because it's cheap and decent.

Amoretti Cinnamon Syrup

Amoretti Vanilla Syrup - What's nice about this is that I can try using it to make a knock-off "Vanilla Latte."  We have a Nespresso Machine and a Nespresso Milk Frother; so it's in the stars.

Falernum

Bitter Truth Pimento Dram

St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram

Work Loot

Today at work I got to raid our events closet, which is full of liquor and gifts from treat bags at past events.  It was amazing.

My spoils: Tanqueray, Médoc, Diffuser, Georgia O'Keeffe-esque notecards,  Chanel flower pins, Whole Foods slotted spoon, Swiss Army Floral knife,  Cartier holiday cards, cocktail napkins, and two bottles of Sancerre.  Bobby Flay was talking about how much he likes Sancerre on a recent episode of Brunch at Bobby's, and I really wanted to buy a bottle.  Free is even better!

My wine rack is now pretty stocked thanks to leftover work wine and Fresh Direct order.

I'm very excited about this nearly full bottle of Tanqueray and see many a G & T's in my future. Note my Nick and Nora (from Target) Christmas pajama's in the mirror - I swear I'm not taking this bottle to bed with me. It's only Monday after all.