Tag Archives: Chicago

Key West- Part One

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Hello, hello, hello everyone! Reporting here from sunny[ish] Key West, Florida!!

Key West | Beautiful Disasters

My mom and I flew in here from blustery Chicago on Monday and are staying here till Friday. This is actually my third time in Key West, and I have to admit, I absolutely adore this quirky place.

Key West | Beautiful Disasters

It is full of a lot of crazy, usually drunk, strange people, but they make great entertainment for people-watching. Also, if you ever intend on going to Key West, you absolutely MUST go to Mallory Square one night. For one, Mallory Square has one the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen. Be sure you get there earlyish (like 10-15 minutes early) so you can get a nice viewing spot. Another fun thing with Mallory Square is that there is some quite unique entertainment there in the evenings. Street performers come and do their little stunts. They are a lot of talk trying to guilt you into giving them money and what not, but they’re certainly entertaining. My personal favorite one is the two guys in red pants who do a bunch of stunts, with juggling and gymnastics and end with a pretty cool finale on a ladder. Lastly, there is some fun art that vendors and local artists sell, like different types of jewelry, paintings, sculptures, and little tchotchkes. You really can’t go wrong with any of the food down here.

Bo's Fish Wagon Conch Fritters

Bo’s Fish Wagon Conch Fritters

Being from Chicago, where seafood is pretty darn expensive and good seafood is hard to come by, my mom and I certainly take advantage of all the seafood we can get our hands on.

Bo's Fish Wagon Grilled Mahi with Coleslaw

Bo’s Fish Wagon Grilled Mahi with Coleslaw

On Monday night, we went to Bo’s Fish Fish Wagon. My mom ordered what they’re famous for, a fried grouper sandwich. I ordered grilled mahi with coleslaw and key limeade (yum!!), and then we split they’re famous conch fritters. We loved everything! It was super casual, delicious, and a great welcome meal to Key West.

Bo's Fish Wagon Fried Grouper Sandwich

Bo’s Fish Wagon Fried Grouper Sandwich

Tuesday night we went to Alonzo’s Oyster Bar. I ordered the blackened grouper, which came with red potatoes and veggies. Dee-lish!! I love grouper, and it is what is local and known around here, so it was perfect for me. You can tell my  mom and I are related…she ordered the grilled grouper, same sides. Hers was delicious, as well! Sorry, didn’t get a chance to snap pictures, but I can assure you, it was fabulous!

More to come later :-)

Random Fact of the Day: Watermelons can cost up to $100 in Japan!

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Homemade Caramel Corn

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REMEMBER!! My Giveaway ends tomorrow, enter now by clicking on this link to the post and comment!!

My family is a huge fan of popcorn. We always get ours from Kernel Fabyan’s and have gone through phases where we have it pretty much on a weekly level! It’s been a while since that…but trust me, we have gone popcorn wild. The stuff is seriously AH-dicting! Capital AH!

We actually like it more than Chicago’s famous, Garrett’s. Garrett’s is great and all, but you have to have it fresh. If you don’t finish the whole bag in an hour, then you have icky popcorn.

Anyways whenever we get popcorn from Kernel Fabyan’s we always get the cheesy kind and caramel corn! I personally like the caramel corn much better. Cheesy makes my stomach all yuck, but I can not get enough of the caramel!! I could seriously eat 3 bags of the stuff.

I’ve thought about making caramel corn for a while now, it just always freaked me out a little. Caramel scares me a little and having to mix it with popcorn made it seem to me that too many things could go wrong.

No worries, though. In fact, the actual work took only about 10 minutes. Nothing went wrong. Only that I had the best caramel corn ever. My dad even said that it was the best caramel corn he has tasted in his whole life! And trust me…he is NOT someone who holds back when saying he likes something or not.

Homemade Caramel Corn

12 cups popped popcorn (air-popped works best!, microwave popped will work as well)

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1/3 cup butter

1 Tablespoon molasses

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

pinch of salt

  1. Prepare popcorn, preferably by air popper, then set aside in a very large bowl.
  2. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Spray a large jelly roll pan with cooking spray and set aside
  3. In a small saucepan, combine brown sugar, light corn syrup, butter, and molasses and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring once. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract, baking soda, and salt.
  4. Pour caramel mixture over popcorn and mix to coat. Be sure to get every piece coated! Spread popcorn mixture into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. When done, remove from oven and let cool for about 10 minutes, break up large pieces and enjoy! Store leftovers in airtight container for up to 1 week. Warning: this is addicting!

Random Fact of the Day: About 10% of U.S. households pay their bills in cash.

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Flourless Chocolate Mufcakes

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I can be fairly indecisive. I always kind of have been.

When I was younger and would go to my grandma’s for lunch with my mom, I remember she would always ask where I would want to get lunch from. It seemed like it was practically the biggest decision of my life. McDonalds? Culvers? Portillo’s? (<– Only Chicago people would probably know this one) Wendy’s? The possibilities were endless. It was all too much.

To continue with my indecisiveness I names these babies mufcakes. Their super chocolatey so I feel like they can not really be called a muffin. But then again…where’s the frosting?! Not here. Therefore it is not a cupcake. It is simply something baked in a muffin/cupcake tin. See? I can’t even decide what type of tin it is.

What I do know is that these mufcakes are super rich and chocolatey and will definitely hit the spot if you have a chocolate craving. Using high quality chocolate will get you far [as always].

Flourless Chocolate Mufcakes

2/3 cup (4 oz.) chocolate chips

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

3 eggs

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Dark cocoa powder)

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners.
  2. Cut the chocolate into small cubes. Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler, while whisking until the mixture becomes smooth.
  3. Once smooth, take chocolate mixture off heat and whisk in sugar until smooth. Add the eggs and whisk immediately until well combined. Sift the cocoa powder unto the chocolate mixture and stir until just combined with a rubber spatula.
  4. Place batter into prepared muffin tin and bake in preheated oven for 22-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean when inserted in middle. Let cool in baking tin for about 5 minutes then remove from muffin tin to complete cooling.

Random Fact of the Day: The foot is the most common body part bitten by insects.

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Happy Birthday Beautiful Disasters!

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It’s been a whole year! Seriously can’t believe it. One year ago from today I posted this. “y’all”…really? Who do I think I am? Woody from Toy Story? I’m from the Midwest. I live 30 minutes from Chicago. Y’all and I don’t mix. Anywhoooo..

There are a couple things that have gotten better (as an addition to my improved word choice-I’m no thesaurus, though!..yet). One of the things that have stuck out the most to me is the improvement of my photography. I’ve never taken a photo class. I do not pay for some fancy schmancy photo editing program (although, I am thinking about it for in the future!). But I do have a wonderful mother who allows me to borrow her big, nice Nikon camera.

With that Nikon camera, a few tips from other blogs, and a little bit of help from photobucket.com, my pictures have gone through a few changes. Let’s look at the progression…

oh yeah, and there of course have been several DISASTERS. Capital D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R-S! Somehow I managed to once totally mess up a boxed brownie mix…?

Dum Dum DUUUUUM.

And then there was a pretty nasty looking first attempt at making toffee.

trying to spread chocolate on the separated butter and sugar, can you say FAIL?

So clearly I have learned a lot along the way. I’ve learned that going to bed before midnight, is a real accomplishment, foodgawker will cause you to literally want to eat your computer screen, REAL sunlight is the best way to take a picture, eating too much cookie dough will make you not even want to think about eating a baked cookie, some bloggers are just unbelievably amazing and I have NO idea how they do it (like Jess or Jenny), and that commentors can truly make your day.

You readers are one of the biggest motivations EVER. I love you all, and I feel like I truly have gotten to know a few of you. It’s amazing to see what incredible people you can meet through blogging. It’s always fun to connect with a fellow baking nut. You can never have too many baking buddies!! Or cooking friends, I like cooked food…occasionally. Like mac and cheese. Yumm… anybody wanna comeover and fix me some? I got cake.

Funfetti cake, in fact. It’s adorable. It’s delicious. It’s sweet. It’s got sprinkles out of the wazoo. It’s food blogging on Beautiful Disasters at its finest.

So here you go, a mini funfetti cake to thank all my wonderful readers, family, friends, and supporters for making this first year of Beautiful Disasters possible. It’s been a fun first year and I’m ready for the journey to continue! Now let’s eat cake.

Mini Funfetti Layer Cake

1 box cake mix, prepared**

1/4 cup oblong sprinkles (“jimmies”)

  1. Prepare cake mix according to directions on box. Preheat oven to temperature suggested on box. This is usually 350 degrees F or 375 degrees F. (Maybe I make cake too much.. this isn’t normal information for an average person to know)
  2. Bake in small, greased cake pan. I used a 4 inch oven-safe ramekin. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until top springs back when lightly touched and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
  3. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack for an additional 20 minutes. Stick in fridge to make cutting in half for layers easier.
**NOTE: I poured the amount of prepared cake batter into my ramekin and then put the rest (which was a LOT ) into a plastic baggy and popped it in the fridge. This is perfectly safe. Whenever you want to bake a cake or cupcakes, you can just put the bag into the fridge and let it soften and get to room temperature, snip off a corner of the bag, then pipe into cupcake molds or into a cake pan! Bake as you would according to directions on back of box.

Funfetti Whipped Cream Frosting

1 cup heavy cream

2 Tablespoons powdered sugar

1 1/2 Tablespoons oblong sprinkles (“jimmies”)

additional sprinkles, if desired for decoration

  1. In mixer, whip heavy cream with powdered sugar for about 5 minutes, or until stiff peaks form. It should take on the look and consistency of regular whipped cream (go figure!).
  2. By hand, fold in sprinkles.
  3. Cut cake in half, to form two thinner circles or disks of cake. Spread whipped cream on bottom cake layer. Top with second cake layer. Spread remaining whipped cream on top and on the sides of the cake to frost. Sprinkle additional sprinkles, if desired.

that up there is just so you can see how tiny and adorable this little cake is!

Random Fact of the Day: The first cell phone call was placed in New York City in 1974 on a Motorola Phone that weighed over 4 lbs.

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Week in Review (4/2-4/6)

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Hey there April, welcome! This week on Beautiful Disasters…

Monday I showed you guys the High Protein Energy Balls. Super yummy and perfect for a quick bite. I loved having these around to just pop in my mouth before practice or have a couple before a big game. Great tasting, and pretty darn good for ya :)

Tuesday we had our first conference game of the soccer season and won 6-2. Awesome start to the season! Always fun to jump out with a big win to boost your confidence.

Wednesday I showed you guys the cheesy garlic drop biscuits I made. Super duper easy and pretty tasty. I love that you can totally change this basic recipe to whatever spices and ingredients you want in there. You can really spice these guys up by adding any herbs or spices you like, different cheeses, BACON, peppers, chocolate, you know…whatever works.

Thursday we had another soccer game…against the 3rd best team in the nation. We ended up losing 3-1, but hey, I think that’s an alright fight against 3rd in the country. It’s no win, but we did stop their shut-out streak!

Friday was a pretty great day! I had no school, I got to visit the wonderful kitchen of Red Hen and see where all the magic is made! My brother also came home for the weekend from LA!! Oh yeah, and I shared this yummy grilled honey chicken recipe with ya. Awesome for the grilling season, which is thankfully right about here! (hopefully I didn’t jinx myself there. You never quite know with this crazy Chicago weather)

Random Fact of the Day: A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

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