Pie and my brothers. Right there you can tell it’s going to be a great blog post.

I don’t like pie. I won’t restrain myself from eating an entire pie if it was placed in front of me, but I won’t go out of my way to make/eat one. Since we had a pie crust in the fridge that was best by Tuesday, I figured I had to make a pie. And make one I did.

I’m not sure about you, but I live in the Midwest. (Silently in your head) Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure we don’t grow any fruit here. Ok, I know we do, but we don’t have oranges like Florida or…uhhh… basically, I have no idea what I’m talking about here. The point of all of this is we had 2 bananas and 3 apples in our fruit basket and you can’t make a pie with those. Side note: I refuse to eat bananas because their edible shelf life is like 30 seconds. You get them and they’re like GREENGREENGREENGREENGREENyellowBROWNBROWNBROWN. They’re mean and therefore I boycott them. So I used canned peaches. I wrote an entire paragraph about I don’t even know what just to say that I used canned peaches to make a pie. And the best part is that I’m not going to rewrite it because I’m lazy.

This pie was hit and miss among my siblings. I ate two slices with Moose Tracks ice cream and it was quite delicious. There’s still half a pie left so I guess I’m going to have to eat that too. I know it would be much better with fresh peaches and not 3 cans of Costco peaches.

That’s really all I’ve got on the subject of pie. Because I have nothing else to say, here’s a story from the Italiana household.

My brothers were playing Monopoly earlier today and Future Chef Brother got a hotel. Evil Scientist Brother got really mad and said, “Fine. Now you have to go kiss a hobo.” Future Chef said, “But I don’t want to!” and Evil Scientist responded, “Oh, I see. You want to wait until AFTER you’re married to kiss him.”

There’s never a dull moment in this house. Also, I just hit 350 Pinterest followers. I love being loved by people I’ll never actually meet.

Peach pie

From I’mastinkingliar.com

1 8-inch pie plate

1 unbaked pie crust
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (Or not. Legumes don’t belong in pies, unless we’re talking about pecan pie, in which I approve.)
1/2 cup unbleached flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 white sugar plus 1 tsp. reserved
3 cans of sliced peaches in light syrup, drained
6 tsp. white sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
2 tbsp. organic butter, chilled (I left in the organic part from the original recipe because it made me laugh. We’re a family of 9. There’s no way we’re spending the extra money to buy organic butter.)

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Combine the chopped walnuts, brown and white sugars, and flour in a small bowl. Set aside for the topping.

3. Place the pie crust into your pie pan and crimp the edges as beautifully as I crimped mine. Oof. Sprinkle the bottom of the crust with 1 tsp. of reserved white sugar.

4. Pour the canned peaches into a colander, rinse with fresh water, drain and gently pat dry.

5. Combine the peaches, cinnamon, nutmeg and 6 tsp. of sugar in a medium-sized bowl. Mix gently with your hands or a wooden spoon to blend. I recommend a spoon because that just sounds nasty.

6. Put half of the sliced peaches into the pie crust. Sprinkle half of the walnut (I can’t be friends with you if you added walnuts), flour and sugar topping over the peaches and top with the remaining fruit.

7. Sprinkle the second half of the topping over the peaches and dot with pea-sized crumbles of the organic butter. Stir to combine because I had flour on top of mine that didn’t soak in while it was baking. Mmm, nothing like the taste of dry flour with your canned peaches.

8. Bake the pie on the middle rack of the oven for 15 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 325 Fahrenheit and bake for an additional 25 minutes.

9. Om nom nom.

And not ONCE did anyone ever say, “Socrates, muffins without sugar taste like poison.”

I’m a little awkward. And that’s an understatement.

I’m the kind of girl who doesn’t know how to take compliments like a normal person. For example:

You: Hey Picco, your blog post last night was cool.
Me: HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

You think I’m joking. The only reason I sound somewhat sane on my blog is because I can edit what I write. Sometimes (all the time?) when I look at my writing I think Well. I have no idea what my point is. I think my life needs a backspace button so I can erase all the dumb things I blurt out. I also need a theme song and someone who will tell me to go running in the morning instead of downing multiple bowls of Apple Jacks. Although I think that thing’s called a conscience.

I’m not exactly the coolest 17 year old in the world. Cool 17 year olds would probably go to cool concerts, like Ed Sheeran or Train. They’re actually both coming to St. Louis soon, but I’m not going to see them. Who am I going to see instead? Justin Bieber. Before you judge me and start throwing small inanimate objects at your computer screen (because isn’t that what we all do when we judge something?), let me explain. No, I’m not a “Belieber.” At all. I prefer to be fans of people like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Helena Bonham-Carter, and Robert Downey Jr. You have to have three names to win my admiration, obviously. The only reason I’m going is because my dad was able to get free tickets. A few weeks ago Sister Celiac and I were talking about how hilarious it would be if we could go to his concert as a joke. My dad was like well, I might be able to get free tickets… and he did. I think if I close my eyes really hard and drown out the music by singing a Demi Lovato song, I can pretend I’m at her concert. I’ll let you know how that goes. I’m predicting not well.

You know what else is awkward? Cupcakes. How do you eat those things? If you just bite into them you get frosting all over your face and up your nose. Gross, I know, but you can relate. Apparently the “hipster” way to eat a cupcake is to take off the top, turn that upside down, and make a cupcake sandwich. Like this. I tried that once and guess what? The stupid frosting spilled out over the sides and I had frosting all over my hands and a very depressing looking cupcake. Talk about a let down. Also I’m really awful at making frosting. So basically I’m not good at making or eating cupcakes at all. I prefer to stick with muffins.

Aside from being awkward, I also obviously suck at following recipes. Sometimes when a recipe calls for 6 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder and 3/4 cups of sugar, you should add the sugar. Guess what I didn’t do? Just to give you a general idea of how disgusting these muffins were, after eating one it made me want to go into the depths of our basement, pull out a U-Hall box, and start gnawing on it just to get the taste out of my mouth. I tried to make them better by drowning them in chocolate syrup, but no such luck. They were in the trash before they had even cooled down.

The good news is that Corrupted Brother helped me make these and it was a nice bonding experience for us. We sang If I Had You by Adam Lambert together. Halfway through I stopped and wondered how the heck he knew the words to it. I’m so sorry, mom. I gave him 5 chocolate chips and he managed to get chocolate ALL over his face. That’s talent right there. He also decided it would be a good idea to eat the cocoa that had spilled on the counter. He regretted that in about 1.7 seconds.

Even though we made a huge mess, I had to change the Pandora station from Peter Fox to One Direction to Fun. to the Inception film score in order to make Corrupted Brother happy, and we used stale marshmallows and…uhhh…no sugar, I had fun baking with my lovely brother. True story.

I’m 100% positive these are delicious, but just remember to add all the ingredients. If you end up making them, let me know how they turn out, ok? Ok. Lovely.

Chocolate Marshmallow Muffins

From What’s Gaby Cooking

1/3 cup butter, melted and cooled
2 cups flour (I used King Arthur’s all purpose gluten-free flour)
6 tbsp cocoa powder
3 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup marshmallows
1 egg, beaten
1 1/4 cup skim milk

Line a cupcake tray with cupcakes liners and preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a bowl combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, SUGAR, chocolate chips and marshmallows. In a large mixer whisk the egg, milk and melted butter. Slowly add the flour mixture until completely mixed. If you’ve forgotten the sugar, I’d recommend adding it right about now. The batter will be stiff and hopefully not sugar-less.

Divide the batter evenly into the 12 cupcake liners.

Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on a cooling rack.

10 things I hate about you, 12th grade

There’s no amusing introduction to this post. I’m getting straight to the point.

1. No naps. And I don’t mean I wish I could go back in time and take all the naps I refused to take when I was little. I mean more along the lines of why do little kids get naps and we don’t? It’s like “Golly gee am I tired from playing with all those blocks for 20 minutes straight. And don’t even get me started about how exhausted I am from all the hand-eye coordination I had to do when I was finger painting.” So toddlers get naps after doing absolutely nothing and we’re expected to go, “Well, I don’t know about you, but all that trigonometry and AP French and filling out college applications has sure rejuvenated me! Oh and luckily I love every single person in my class, so I get to have fun classes AND be around fun people! Who needs naps?” Um, seniors need naps. We also need to have a pass that allows us to punch one person in the face every day and not get in trouble. Figuratively punch? And maybe literally too. Oh and speaking of not taking naps, when I was in Kindergarden at “real school” (not homeschool), I didn’t take one nap. Ever. Why? Because I had convinced myself that if all the kids fell asleep, the teachers would set the building on fire and we’d all die. Yeah, those were the things 5 year old me thought about. Dear everyone in my Kindergarden class, I deprived myself from sleep just to save your life. You’re welcome.

2. Speaking of college applications, well, college applications. Especially the essay part. “Write about a topic of your choice.” Well, that’s not vague.

3. Senioritis. The worst part is I’ve only been doing school for a week. This is going to be a long year.

4. Being homeschooled as a senior. Because now the “Wait, are you gonna like homeschool for college and stuff?” questions are in full force. NO. NO ONE DOES. Now stop asking.

5. Having this be my daily schedule: Wake up, get ready, eat breakfast, do 1 1/2-2 hours of anatomy, 1 hour of history, eat lunch, 1 1/2 hours of advanced math, 1 hour of logic, 1 hour of an introduction to college writing course, 1 hour of Latin, 45 minutes of piano, dinner, take a breather, read, fall asleep/pass out. Rinse and repeat every day. I like to shake things up a bit sometimes, just to keep it interesting. For example, I volunteer at a daycare Monday nights and last week a 4 year old spit in my face. Then yesterday my little brother decided that potty doesn’t always need to go IN the potty, and I got to scrub the bathroom floor with Mr. Clean within an inch of its life. Ugh.

6. Having my best friends be either at college far away, or at college close by but super busy with work, or close by and doing an online college but being super busy with life and thinking about rum cake 24/7. You know who you are. Or they’re online friends that I’ve never actually met and they live in Florida or Arizona. So I’m just sitting here like, Crap. This is kinda lonely.

7. Realizing that since I’m homeschooled and I don’t have a “set” reading list, I really haven’t read most of the books other highschoolers have read. So I’m kind of frantically reading right now. I’m currently working on Cancer Ward, Woman in White, and Lord of the Flies. Only problem with reading so many books at the same time is sometimes I’m confusing the plots and characters. No really, yesterday I was replacing Pavel with Piggy when I was reading Cancer Ward. I need a nap. See #1.

8. Not having time to cook and blog. I know once I get in the swing of things with school my life will settle down and I’ll have more free time. At the moment I’m just too unorganized to think about cooking AND THEN writing a blog post that won’t bore people to tears. But tonight I forced myself to make snickerdoodles. Mainly because they’re my favorite cookie ever (next to white chocolate macadamia nut cookies) and I needed to unwind a bit. This recipe is so good too.

9. Having to decide on a major. I know I don’t need to pick one out right away, and I can always switch, but I’d like to commit to one. Do I go straight to nursing school, or do I major in Philosophy or Classics and then take a 1 year nursing course? Decisions, decisions. Yay?

10. Growing up. Don’t get me wrong, growing up is awesome. (I now don’t feel guilty about watching Y-7 tv shows like I did when I was little. I remember being 6 years old and watching Pokemon at my friend’s house and thinking I was such a rebel for watching it and not being 7 yet. I was the kind of kid your parents didn’t want you hanging around with. I can’t be tamed.) But growing up is not nearly as magical as it was when I was in 2nd grade and all highschool seniors seemed like gods. Really tall, gorgeous, popular gods. Funny how your perception of things as a kid is totally different than how things really are, huh? Now the “real world” is in the back of my mind. Where do I want to move after college? Where do I want to work? What about having kids? Why are all my celebrity future husbands so much older than me and and why are most of them are married? STUPID CHRISTIAN BALE. I hate you.

Aside from all the things I hate, I know this last year of highschool will be awesome. I really love all the classes I’m taking, I’m keeping in touch with all my friends, and I’m eating snickerdoodles. Um, delicious.

And yes, I kind of got bored while I was waiting for the last batch to be done. I got up to stacking 7 cookies on top of each other before the tower fell. You wish we were friends in real life.

Snickerdoodles

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt (leave out if you’re using salted butter)

2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Mix butter, 1 1/2 cups sugar, and eggs thoroughly in a large bowl.

Combine flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl.

Blend dry ingredients into butter mixture.

Chill dough and an ungreased cookie sheet for about 10-15 minutes in the fridge. Yes, stick a cookie sheet in the fridge. Cooking is so weird sometimes.

Meanwhile, mix 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon in a small bowl.

Form dough into 1-inch balls (about the size of a little bouncy ball. That’s the only thing I can think of…), place into the sugar/cinnamon mixture, and roll it around until it’s completely coated.

Place on chilled ungreased cookie sheet, and bake 10 minutes.

Remove from pan immediately.

Attempt to enjoy them while you cry over the fact Christian Bale is only 6 years younger than your dad…awkward.

Qui$ha. Like Ke$ha, but more quiche-like.

Corrupted Brother: What are you doing?
Me: Looking at scholarships (I assumed he knew what those are since he knows about Megan Fox…I mean what 4 year old DOESN’T know about scholarships?)
CB: What are scholarships? (ok, I guess I was wrong.)
Me: They are things that give me money for college.
CB: WAIT. STEVE FROM BLUE’S BLUES GOES TO COLLEGE.
Me: Oh really?
CB: Yeah, Steve can bring his pillow to college.
Me: So am I like Steve?
CB: *looks at me for a second*
Yup.

So apparently I’m like an old bald dude with really bad veneers. Thanks a lot.

Anyway…I’ve had two fun filled days. Yesterday I went shopping and today I got a necklace from my lovely blogger friend Kait Culbertson. Oh and I was sung to yesterday. Jealous? I’ve already told like 5 people this story, but I need to tell it again.

You are not allowed to judge, but I enjoy Hot Topic. I only buy normal stuff there, I swear. No gauges for me, only Dr. Who shirts and buttons that say “cool story, bro.” My aunt got me a bag with the Beatles’ Abbey Road picture on it for my birthday, and I used it yesterday when I went to the mall. I walked into Hot Topic with my friend and the guy who worked there (Bryan) said “Hey, I really like your bag.” I said thanks, figuring the conversation would be over. Nope. He then said “So, I guess you like the Beatles?” And I said “Yeah, I was kinda raised on them.” And it went downhill from there. He proceeded to tell me all about how he was too and then he asked if I had heard of a band called City of Colours. I stupidly said yes, and then he said “Ok, don’t tell anyone, but I’m going to turn off the heavy metal and put on some acoustic stuff by City of Colours.” So he started playing their music through the store speakers…and singing to me. Twice. He actually had a semi-decent voice, but it was odd hearing a heavily tattooed and pierced dude sing a pretty song to me…and it was also odd to be heavily hit on by the same guy. By the time I left, I was actually surprised he hadn’t proposed. Weirdest experience of my young life? I think yes.

Also, I spent the day with my friend Katie. After a long period of not talking, I think we actually get along much better than we did pre-awkward fight. And I didn’t even think it was weird when she accidentally pulled multiple items of clothing off the rack at Forever 21. I missed her.

Earlier today, my brother ran up to my room holding a letter and laughing. He’s like what is this?! It was a letter from Kait addressed to *real first name* Piccola Gordon-Levitt Italiana *real last name*. It would have been perfect if she had added Bale to it. What was inside the letter? Uh, only two friendship necklaces. One for Marie and one for me. Kait has the Union Jack one, Marie has the double decker bus, and I have the telephone booth. It’s pretty much one of the coolest things I’ve ever gotten. Also, Kait is one of those people who can say, “Heeeeeey, did you ever realize that seals are like mermaid dogs. That’s weird.” without thinking anything of it. Exhibit A why we get along so well.

Now that I’m done with all of that, let’s discuss quiche. Once upon a time, I had a friend whose parents’ favorite meal was spinach quiche. I bet you’re thinking hey, spinach quiche. Potentially good, right? WRONG. It was disgusting and they would make it All. The. Time. It was painful for 8-year-old me to simultaneously pretend to like it and try not to barf. It was about that time that I got very good at multi-tasking. Needless to say, I was scared of quiche for a while. Then I found out you didn’t have to make it with spinach. You could make it with other normal foods, like bacon and cheese and onions. Which is exactly what I do now.

I’m not sure if this is a good recipe or not, since the only other recipe I’ve tried that I can compare it to is the Disgusting Quiche From Heck That Probably Comes Alive At Night one, but I like it. It also doesn’t have a crust, so it’s gluten free. Could life get better? Actually yeah, my life would be much better if I hadn’t been traumatized by stupid spinach quiche. I swear that explains all my problems.

Crustless Quiche

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 pound bacon, thawed
6 eggs, beaten
2 1/2 cups shredded swiss cheese
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Lightly grease a 9 inch pie pan.

Place bacon on a foil-lined cookie sheet. Put bacon into a cold oven, set oven temperature to 400 F, and bake for 15-18 minutes, or until cooked. Finely chop bacon after it has cooled.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Saute onions, then stir in bacon so the delicious flavors of bacon and onion are melded together and make you start drooling. In a large bowl, combine eggs, cheese, salt and pepper. Add bacon/onion mixture and stir to blend. Scoop into prepared pie pan.

Bake in preheated oven until eggs have set, about 30 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving. Ha, just joking. Dig right in and burn your mouth. It’s so worth it.

Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

Close your eyes. Ok wait, don’t. Then you can’t read this…unless you’re Henry Sugar from that Roald Dahl story. Has anyone read that? No? Right then. Back to closing your eyes.

Imagine that you’re on a desert island with Ryan Gosling. Nevermind, I have dibs on him. You can have Michael Jackson or Amy Winehouse or Lindsay Lohan. Good old Lindsay. You realize that you’re going to kick the bucket soon from lack of food, water, and the fact that Lindsay is driving you over the edge. This story would have been much happier if you were with Ryan Gosling. Sorry? As you’re about to die, a magical genie appears and asks you what you want your last meal to be. I’m not sure why this genie can’t just help you off the island, but this is my story so whatever. With your last dying breath you mutter, “Picco’s blueberry muffins.” The end.

That might have been the weirdest story I’ve ever written, which is impressive since the other day I found a story that I wrote when I was 8 about a teddy bear that was walking through a forest, found a bag of money, was overjoyed, and then got his head bitten off by a butterfly. It really explains a lot about me. The moral of the story is that I’m pretty much in love with these muffins. Goodbye Christian Bale, I’m leaving you for these…WAIT NO COME BACK. I WAS JOKING.

I’ve been running a lot and trying to get in shape, but it’s not working since I’m drowning my sorrows in food. I actually don’t really have any sorrows, but I’m using that as an excuse to eat more. Well, maybe I do have some sorrows. A bunch of people I know are starting college, and two of them are people I’m really good friends with. Luckily one is staying in town, but the other one leaves in 4 days. Boo. And then my friend who lives close by that I spend a lot of time with starts school in 2 days. I’ve decided education is overrated. We should all just stay home and eat muffins while we watch a little House, MD.

It’s sad thinking that my close friends are all leaving. It hurts. *sniff* Ok, but it doesn’t hurt as badly as getting conditioner in your eyes like I did last night. Or getting a contact lodged behind your eye like I did last week. Or stepping on a lego like I do, ummm, every day. But the worst is running your hip into the corner of a counter. Whenever I do that, I pretty much just accept the fact that I’m going to die. Wait, what’s my point…? Oh yeah, I’ll miss you Emily and Marie. But I’m sorry, I really must go back to my muffin. I’m currently on my third and I’m pretending they’re healthy because they have blueberries in them.

My dad took one look at the muffins and said, “Where’d we get these?” I said, “I made them.” He responded, “Seriously? They look store-bought. You are the coolest person on the planet.” Ok, maybe I made up that last part. Just like my go-to cookie recipe is this one, this muffin recipe is now the only recipe I’m going to use for infinity and beyond. And there’s a strudel topping. Could life get better? Word of advice: don’t eat the uncooked topping. Just because something has butter and brown sugar in it, doesn’t mean that those ingredients will overpower the flour. At all. Seriously guys, don’t eat it.

My lovely friend Marie was nice enough to get me the coolest mug on the planet for my birthday. It’s a Harry Potter cup that changes color when you put hot water in it, and the words “mischief managed” appear. For those of you who are savvy with Harry Potter, you’ll know that this is one of the coolest presents ever.

It makes me feel super fancy if I eat my muffin whilst drinking my green tea. In case you were wondering…

Blueberry Muffins

Makes 12 delicious muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 cup fresh blueberries

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup room temperature butter, cubed
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease 12 muffin cups or line with muffin liners.

Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture. Again, don’t eat the mixture. It’s tempting, but don’t do it. Are you listening to me?!

To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking. Don’t eat it.

Bake for 18 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Enjoy.