2013 - Week 35

Hello from Week 35. As I mentioned last week, my task at the moment is house hunting, which is pretty much a 24/7 job, so I most definitely got my five hours in this week. We started going to open houses and showings, so we're getting a good idea of what it is we are looking for :) This is all very exciting, but kind of stressful too . . . we're just trying to remember that it's all in the Lord's hands and it will work out when it's supposed to.

So besides all of that, I've been keeping active using the Fit Sugar ten minute workouts. I really like them, because ten minutes seems doable, no matter what the workout is, plus, they actually work and are really encouraging (I've done this one a couple of times and liked it). There have been a few that I haven't really liked, but I would recommend them to anyone looking for something quick and effective to do at home. I also did some Wii Fit exercises because my second Wii-mote had some corrosion issues so I can't play the boxing game until it is fixed or replaced :( Oh well, it's good to switch things up every once and a while.

Now, just so you don't think it's been all work and no play, I have three tasty recipes to share with you. Instead of getting a CSA box this year, we've been visiting our local farmer's market every weekend and spending the amount of money that we would have spent on the CSA box. It's been a good method because we can get things that we know are fresh but that we are in the mood for eating too (last year we had an over abundance of beets). Patty pan squash has been a recent find that I had never used before. I've just been chopping it into small cubes, sauteing it in some butter and serving it with a little brown sugar on top . . . yum :) I did a similar treatment to some radishes except added garlic salt, fresh ground pepper, and some minced red onion while cooking (and omitted the brown sugar of course) and they were actually pretty good. They smelled a little funky the next day, but I think that was just the radish smell coming out, and they tasted fine.

I finally got around to taking care of that giant zucchini too. I made a double batch of zucchini pancakes and four loaves of zucchini bread, and I think I still have enough left to make a least another two loaves . . . that was one giant zucchini :)

For the zucchini pancakes, I found that I needed to keep adding flour as the mixture sat because it got more runny as the moisture in the zucchini came out into the batter. Also, adding that much butter and olive oil every time was just excessive . . . I ended up just adding a little bit of olive oil after the first few batches and then eliminating it altogether because I was using a non-stick pan. I highly recommend serving them when diced fresh tomatoes on top . . . I don't know where the inspiration came from to do that, but it was fantastic. Red onions and Parmesan cheese were pretty good toppings too, but just the tomatoes with a little bit of onion was my favorite.

Zucchini Pancakes

The zucchini bread recipe is definitely a keeper. I tried it with walnuts and another batch with chocolate chips instead. I think my next batch might have both in it. The bread got an almost strudel-like crust on top and it was so moist. I would like to substitute some applesauce for half of the cup of oil (because I don't like using that much oil at one time) but I didn't have any applesauce that the time. At any rate, go get some of those zucchini that are so abundant at this time of year and make some of this bread . . . you won't regret it :)

See you next week :)

2013 - Week 34

Peanut Butter Cheese Torte (was was left of it anyways ;))

Hello from Week 34 :) How are you all doing? This week has been pretty exciting for me. First of all, I'm almost done with my dream journal, so I'm looking forward to that. Secondly, although my exercise was done a little late, I still feel like I'm getting myself back into shape with Fit Sugar videos and some pilates. Also (and this is the actual exciting part), for my task this week, I got to work on real-life adult stuff . . . house hunting :) It's very overwhelming, but I'm very much looking forward to moving. Who knows when that will happen, but at least we've started the process . . . it means that life in our cozy (read "really tiny") apartment has an end in sight :)

Anniversary Goodness

Now if that wasn't exciting enough, I also made a yummy eggplant tomato pizza by adapting this recipe (My Favorite Pizza) from "The Pioneer Woman", I made a super tasty peanut butter cheese torte that seemed to only get better through the week (I'm storing it in the freezer, and it's just fantastic on hot summer nights) and it was our 4th wedding anniversary :) We went out for a nice dinner to celebrate, had a tasty lobster and crab feast, my husband got me a beautiful flower, and we treated ourselves to some new games :) Now if that isn't a good week, I don't know what is :) I hope you all have weeks just as good as that, and I'll see you back here next week :)

Even the game knew that it was a special day :) 

2013 - Week 33

Hello everyone :) I hope all things are going well for you. Things are busy in my world as usual. I attended another yoga class this week which went better than the last, but I was still very sore afterwards. I miss the heat of the hot yoga, I think that kept the muscle soreness down. But at any rate, it was still pretty good.

As promised last week, I made some tasty zucchini dishes. The first was a zucchini carrot tart (just page once to the right in the link to see the recipe). The crust my husband made from a Pampered Chef recipe was really yummy. Sorry I can't find the recipe online. I sliced the carrots and zucchini lengthwise on my mandolin slicer and then placed them in concentric circles in the springform pan. The recipe wasn't very good in that it calls for olive oil but doesn't say where to use it. I just drizzled about 3 Tbsp. over the whole thing and it turned out pretty well. It was an interesting tart, and pretty good :)

Before baking

And after . . . yum . . . the thyme really makes it

I also used some of my zucchini to make this chocolate zucchini ganache cake. Don't be fooled by the link, just scroll down a little bit and you'll see the recipe. I probably should have peeled the zucchini to hide it better, but the cake was really tasty and moist. Plus, it's covered in ganache . . . and that can never be bad :)

This week I have a top tip for you about ganache. Never put the chocolate on the heat . . . it's that simple. I know, how could something so delicious be that simple, but it really is, just heat the cream and pour it over the chocolate, let it sit for ~ 5 minutes and stir your way to creamy goodness. So if there is ever a recipe telling you to do it another way, run away. How many times was I frustrated during my cake month by ganache? I don't remember, but it was never a good experience, and this was all I had to learn how to do . . . amazing. Now don't be afraid, confidently go ahead and make lots of ganache goodness :) You can even make it with other liquids, even coffee, for you caffeine lovers.

Ganache goodness

I made a couple other tasty things too, buffalo chicken tenders which were just okay, and pecan tartlettes, which were amazing, and made with love with my friend the ganache queen. The recipe was from the Miette cookbook, a fancy bakery out in San Francisco. Awesome and pretty easy recipe . . . bake and enjoy :)

Until next week then :)

2013 - Week 32

Hi everyone after Week 32 :) I hope all had wonderful weeks.

I went to yoga again at the new studio. I did a "yin" yoga class which usually entails holding poses to get really deep stretches. My hips hurt for two days afterwards . . . I didn't know I even had some of those muscles and tendons there to stretch.

I'm  nearing the end of my dream journal . . . I don't think I'll start another one, but it is pretty impressive that I've had enough dreams so far this year to almost fill the whole thing up. Lots of crazy stuff for sure, but it's not really helpful for anything, so I don't think I'll continue once this journal is finished.

For my new recipes this week, I made roasted cauliflower and sweet and sour shrimp. I added a bit less salt to the cauliflower, and I think it could use a bit less lemon juice as well, but other than that, I really liked it. It doesn't look very beautiful, but it sure tasted good.

Roasted Cauliflower

In the sweet and sour shrimp dish, I added carrots and broccoli in pretty large quantities instead of the peppers, cherries, and green onions, but I thought it was pretty good. It was not as spicy as I thought it would be for how much crushed red pepper is in it, but it was an easy and tasty recipe. (Sorry, I didn't get a picture of it)

So, why don't you go try out those recipes and let me know how you like them. I went to the larger farmer's market this weekend and got a giant zucchini, so expect at least one zucchini recipe next week :)

It was only $1 :)

See you then :)

p.s. My lovely friend Kerry shared with me the new quote that is the updated header to my blog . . . I think it is fitting :)

2013 - Week 31

Hello everyone :)

Let's just start out by saying that I wasn't 100% successful with everything this week. For my exercise, for example, I simply went on a walk with my husband, and then went geocacheing with some friends. While that's all well and good, it doesn't exactly meet my strenuous exercise criteria, but I was so busy, so it's just going to have to do.

Also, I did not get nearly enough of my task of working on my pictures done, but I will make up for it next week (I hope). I have so many pictures from my trip I'm trying to get uploaded to Facebook, and I still have my scrapbook outline to flesh out with picture choices . . . let's just hope I don't get frustrated at the lack of quality pictures (because I was a dolt and deleted the good ones) and can get it accomplished this time. On the plus side, I won't run out of any project ideas for quite a while.

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

My new recipe this week was my one success story I think. My coworkers at my new job don't like cake very much, which often leaves me at a loss for what to bring in for treats. I recently discovered that one of them loves anything lemon flavored though, so I think that tidbit of information will help my treats be more well received in the future :)  She was the one who actually found the recipe for what I made, and I told her if she bought the cake mix, I would make these lemon crinkle cookies. The premise is very simple, but the recipe is not very well written. An 8 oz. container of Cool Whip is not 2 cups of Cool Whip, plain and simple. After reading the comments and not really being sure what to do, I just went with the 2 cups, and they turned out fine. The other issue I had was that she touted them as needed no oil or butter, but do you know what Cool Whip is made out of? That's right . . . oil. So apart from those issues, they weren't too bad. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you probably know that I am more of a fan of baking from scratch than using lots of processed ingredients, but this was a quick and easy recipe, and it was a request, which I can never turn down ;) They turned out pretty nice, only stuck a little bit to the pan, and tasted lemony. The texture was not my favorite . . . if you turned one of those gelatin lemon wedges (most commonly found in the "orange slice" variety) into a cookie, that's what these tasted like, but they were covered with powdered sugar instead of granulated . . . not bad, but not my favorite. They were a big hit at work though, so I'd say they were a success :)

Mmm . . . lemony

So that's all the news from here for this week . . . anyone else have any fun recipes to try?