raspberry lemonade

i had a fun time baking today! we're having a potluck at work on sunday and that's just the excuse i needed to try out a new recipe. i decided i was going to try out a fun summery raspberry lemonade cupcake. i googled for a recipe but none were just what i was looking for so i mix and matched. here's the recipe i ended up with:

Raspberry Puree: 12 oz raspberries  • 1/4 c granulated white sugar  • 1/2 t fresh lemon juice
Cupcakes: 1 (18.25-ounce) white cake mix, plus any add'l ingredients called for on pkg 
• 3 T lemonade drink powder  • 1 t finely grated lemon zest
Frosting: 1/2 lb confectioners (powdered) sugar  • 1/4 c (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened 
• 2 T frozen lemonade concentrate  • 1/2 t vanilla  • 1/2 t finely grated lemon zest
Directions:
Raspberry Puree: Place raspberries in a large fine meshed strainer suspended over a large bowl and force the juice from the berries by gently pressing the berries with the back of a large spoon. All that should remain in the strainer is the raspberry seeds, compost these. To the strained juice, stir in the lemon juice and sugar (add more if needed). For extra flavor, add a little raspberry liqueur.
For the cake, in a large bowl, stir together the cake mix and lemonade powder. Prepare the cake batter according to the package directions, using any additional ingredients called for (eggs, milk, water, oil, etc…). Stir the lemon zest into the batter. Fill baking cups about 1/3 full, then add a teaspoon(ish) of puree (if there's some leftover at the end it can be used on top of the 
cupcake as a drizzle). Swirl puree into cake mix with a toothpick. Fill the rest of the cup (3/4 full) with cake batter. Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until cake is springy to the touch.
For the frosting, beat together the confectioners’ sugar and butter until fluffy. Beat in the remaining ingredients until combined.

that seems like a lot, it's not too bad though! i did work on this for a long time today but that's because i had a few hiccups. the first is that i don't have a zester. so i had used a veggie
peeler and knife. another (and the biggie) was as i was finishing my second set of cupcakes i ran out of batter and they were all tiny (see pic). since i'm bringing these to work i wanted them to be sort of impressive so i ended up going back to the store and getting another box of cake mix and making another set. finally i really needed an electric mixer for the frosting. i built up some muscles mixing that by hand!

niece

my niece justice was visiting this week from nebraska. she's going to be a senior in high school (starting today!) so we took some senior photos while she was here. i'm very proud of how some of them turned out. it all comes down to great locations, good photography and a cute model!

"just give me all the bacon and eggs you have...

I was inspired by this trader
joe's "recommendation"

wait wait, i worry what you just heard was 'give me a lot of bacon and eggs.' what i said was 'give me all the bacon and eggs you have.' " ron swanson is the best. parks and rec is a great show - but more than the plot or storyline, the best part is the characters. ron. leslie. tom. april. jerry. all wonderful, amusing characters. 

"What's a not gay way to ask him to go camping with me?"

the doctor

i've been streaming a lot of netflix stuff lately - i'm canceling that portion of my membership soon because the price is more than doubling. boo. anyway i'm trying to get through my queue and doctor who is a tv show i've been halfway interested in for a while and am just now getting around to watching.

i haven't watched any of the older versions, just the one starting in 2005 (i think). i'm currently in season 3, which is the doctor shown here. i actually liked the first (9th) incantation better - the actor wasn't very good looking but he was extremely charming. and i loved the smile that would just take over his whole face!

with this illustration i debated including rose tyler. i really like her (and her actress). but i left her out for one main reason: it's a quarter after 11, i'm tired and have to work tomorrow ;)

chrome

i just learned how to create my own "themes" for google chrome. it's amazing what a lack of options can push a person to figure out!

cowboy structures

some freelance work - this is a website i just worked on. it was good and also really awful to do web work (design & coding). good for the practice and experience and portfolio possibilities. bad for the complicatedness of html/css. bad for how my brain doesn't work that way. bad for how long it takes me to complete a page.

nachoooooooooooooo

jack black's character brother ignacio and his alter-ego nacho the luchador, from nacho libre.

Hug hug, keess keess, hug hug, big keess, leettle hug, keess keess, leettle keess.

"you lie down with the devil...

[long pause as glasses are either put on or taken off] ...you wake up in hell." horatio caine from csi: miami is an amusingly predictable character with some great one-liners. "so an accident... [sunglasses] ...is not an accident at all" YEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH

i'm in a glass case of emotion

the members of the channel 4 news team have very nice suits. they deserve to be remembered in vector for that fact. brian fantana, ron burgundy, champ kind and brick tamland from anchorman.

bigger than my body

i love this photo of john mayer. i've had it saved on my computer for a while not knowing what i wanted to do with it. illustrating it was fun. all the detail in his tattoo(s) was intense but it was good practice with the wacom tablet that i got recently.

tea garden

i went to the japanese tea garden this morning to see the cherry blossoms. san francisco is an amazing city, they have this tour group called city guides. they're awesome! they give free tours of sf sites and neighborhoods every day of the week. incredible.

why so serious

this guy was hard. it's amazing how much his face has to do with the character. i had to decide how much to include without adding too much and making it super different from the rest of the pieces in this series / experiment. anyway this is heath ledger's joker from the dark knight.

in the neighborhood

mr rogers is awesome. there's not much else to say about this amazing guy, besides trying to find some dvd's of the show that i can re-watch...

scuba squad

"you mean i can be in the schkooba schkwad?" julian / frankenstein from big daddy is so freaking adorable. this is scuba steve. well, it's actually scuba sam, scuba steve's father. okay technically it's adam sandler as the character sonny, dressed up as scuba sam, scuba steve's father.

smoochy

i've run out of types of suits. there's no plan from here. i watched death to smoochy last night and i couldn't get over rainbow randolph's fantastic sparkly suit so i decided that he would be my next v.i.p.