Just what the doctor ordered

This has been the week from h-e-double-hockey-sticks. I mean I've had worse, but this one was a doozy. It was a little bit weird, a little bit sad, a little bit humbling, a little bit frustrating and now, like the cherry on top of this crap sundae, a little bit sick.

What did I do to deserve such a week?!

And more importantly, how could I be getting sick AGAIN? I've been sick more in the last three months than in the last three years. And for no good reason. I've been eating well (if you ignore that bag of Cinnamon Bears I devoured yesterday). I've been working out (this week anyway). I wash my hands like thirty hundred times (and purify them another forty hundred times). So how am I getting sick again? Seriously, can anyone explain this to me?

I think it's my hand weights. After a cold, I typically clean everything...except those weights. Perhaps I keep reinfecting myself every time I work out. How's that for irony? I finally get around to exercising and it ends up making me sick so I can't exercise. Okay, I can but I won't.

If in doubt, blame exercise. That's my motto.

I'm downing Cold-Eeze every hour per the package instructions in a preemptive strike. Here's hoping this sore throat fizzles quickly and the dragon doesn't take up residency.

Now that I'm done whining (for the moment anyway), here's a happy thought, er...picture.

Photos by Flour & Sun Bakery

Tomorrow I'm making these Chocolate Peppermint Patty Cupcakes to bring to a dinner party on Saturday.


Dark chocolate cupcake with peppermint buttercream and...there's a Peppermint Patty INSIDE! Are you drooling like I am?

The last time we had dinner with this group of friends, I threw together brownies from a box and fancied them up using my sister's trick of melting Jr. Mints on top. But something went horribly wrong and they never turned cakey. They were more like a pool of chocolate goo on top of an impossibly hard, sticky crust. (Not that it stopped me from scarfing down the edible parts. Aren't you proud Mom & Dad?) Regardless, I'm determined to redeem my culinary reputation with these cupcakes. They're the furthest thing from vegan, sugar-free or healthy. And they're the perfect cure to a rough week.

Note: 1) Sickness has settled in. Ugh. 2) The cupcakes got rave reviews. I used the America's Test Kitchen dark chocolate cupcake and easy peppermint buttercream recipes. Just fill papers 1/4 full, place a peppermint patty on top and cover with more batter. But don't fill the papers more than 1/2 full though - I learned this one the hard way. Also, the centers of the cupcakes didn't rise leaving a crater for more frosting. I'm not complaining as I think of cake as merely a conduit for frosting anyway.