2013 - Week 21

Whew, Week 21 was a crazy one. I had something going on every single night. From parties to meetings to music practice, I was kept running all week, but it was filled with tons of fun things to tell you about too :)

First of all, I was kept late at work one day due to a fire alarm going off, but as it turns out, this was a good thing because on my way home, I saw that the Budweiser Clydesdales were right by my house. I ran and got my husband and we got to see the whole team hitched up to the wagon and everything, it was really cool. Also, the day before, I saw the Oscar Mayer "wienermobile" . . . how fun. Then, I got to see both of those things again later in the week . . . it was crazy, but fun. Seriously, how many other people have gotten to pet the Budweiser Clydesdales?

Just a bit of silliness :)

Big Horsie

My husband is 6' 7", just to give you an idea of how HUGE that horse is

We also go to attend a fun A Capella group concert, meet the group, and get their autographs . . . so all in all, it was a very exciting week.

To top it all off, I made the yummiest Cinnamon Rolls ever. I found this recipe for Sweet Roll Dough in one of the latest Food Network Magazines, and since there were six variations to make with it, of course I decided I had to try them all. I didn't have any whole milk, so I used a 50/50 mixture of skim milk and heavy cream. Also, don't forget to add the water! The girls at my work really love coffee, so I wanted to make the "Cappuccino Knots" for them, but I wanted to practice with the cinnamon rolls first, just to make sure the dough worked out okay. And oh boy did it work out :)

Awesome dough

Ready to roll

Before rising

After rising

Behold the masterpiece

Om nom nom :) 

You know you want to go make those cinnamon rolls now, right? Enjoy!

2013 - Week 20

Hi, not too much to report from Week 20. For my working out, I did more of the Gold's Gym Wii boxing game . . . I'm still enjoying it quite a bit. I did made a few recipes, but nothing really spectacular. I tried Anadama Bread (a version of it as I've seen many) but it was not very good. I had to substitute milk for the nonfat dry milk + water, but that shouldn't have caused any issues. The amount of molasses made it a little bitter, in my opinion, and the texture was very strange, almost like a cross between bread and a molasses cookie. I didn't really enjoy it.

I also made two dinners, Pasta Primavera and Pizza Stuffed Chicken (the Pizza Stuffed Chicken link goes to another blogger who tried it, I couldn't find the original recipe online). I found that the Pasta Primavera was was a little bland and the sauce never thickened, so I think I would try a different recipe in the future. For the Pizza Stuffed Chicken, I used shredded mozzarella cheese, it was a bit messy, but tasty, and I also made my go to breadsticks (Quick Soft Breadsticks) and a salad, so it made for a decent meal. Both main dish recipes were good, but like I said, nothing spectacular. I think the best thing I did all week was to decorate more sugar cookies for a friend's retirement party. He loves beer and always insists people wear green shirts on Tuesday, so the Ganache Queen and I made beer mug cookies and green shirt cookies (she gets all the credit for making the cookies and royal icing, I just helped decorate). The shirts actually matched some of our friends' shirts perfectly, so that was really fun. I think he enjoyed the cookies and the retirement party was a success :)

Green Shirt and Beer Mug cookies

My friend on the left refuses to be on a blog, but I wanted to  show how close the cookies were :) Awesome. 

Hopefully I'll have more exciting things to tell you next week. Have a great week :) 

2013 - Week 19

Well, another week down already. Since I didn't get any feedback about lessening up my crazy challenge, I kind of did, and kind of didn't. I didn't really keep track of the time that I spent on my music planning, but I'm fairly certain it was still over five hours. I was a little behind on my exercising too, but I got it done eventually thanks to more PopSugar 10 minute workouts and the Gold's Gym Wii game. So not a whole lot to report this week, but I do have a couple of new recipes to tell you about.

First, I made some Cincinnati chili. Now, many of you have been introduced to Cincinnati chili at the famous Skyline Chili like I was. A special thanks to my brother and sister-in-law for taking me there, but even greater thanks for the Colonel De spices that I used while making my own version of Cincinnati chili. I used this recipe that I found in the Food Network magazine: Cincinnati Chili. In my humble opinion, it was better than Skylines :) Very tasty. I had to modify it a little bit because I didn't have fresh tomatoes and my jar of tomato sauce was too small, so I compensated by adding a 14.5 oz. can of diced tomatoes . . . it worked out fine. Also, I added the beans to the meat mixture halfway through the simmering time just so I could make sure they were fully cooked instead of just putting them on top when it was done. I was a little worried because I am not a huge fan of a few of the spices used in this recipe (and there are a lot) but it all came together really nicely . . . I would recommend this recipe.

Cincinnati Chili

The other recipe I tried was for an "Ocho de Mayo" party at work. We didn't have a Cinco de Mayo party because it was on a weekend, and for some reason, people decided they wanted the party on Wednesday. I wanted to make churros or these adorable piñata cookies, but churros aren't really good unless they are fresh, and the cookies didn't make enough for a pot luck, so I needed a better idea. I thought: Mexico . . . hmm . . . beaches . . . sand dollars :) I had seen the recipe for these cute sand dollar cookies on Pinterest that I had been wanting to try. The cookies didn't turn out quite like the tasty sugar cookies I was hoping for, they were a little dry, but they looked great. For a very easy substitute, just try the slice and bake sugar cookies, or your own go-to sugar cookie recipe (maybe add a bit of cinnamon to the dough to make them extra cinnamony :)).

Sand Dollar Cookies

So that's all for this week. Have you tried any good recipes lately? How about any fun workouts? Let me know :)

2013 - Week 18

Hi from Week 18. This year is sure flying by, and boy have I been busy lately.

For my task this week, now that my fun exercise challenge is done (although I did work out for about an hour this week, I literally ran to the grocery store, and then I spent the rest of the time "playing" a Jillian Michaels' Wii Fit game, I was not impressed, but my legs were sore the next day). I was planning on going back to scrapbooking. Unfortunately, things didn't work out quite as planned, and I spent all of my scrapbooking time working on my second job . . . planning the special music for my church. It seems to go in spurts when I have tons to do, and then it settles down for a while, but with school ending and all of our regularly meeting church music groups wrapping up for the summer, my job gets a lot busier. I have a feeling I might be doing this for my task next week too.

Speaking of, I've been thinking (this might be dangerous ;)), the whole point of these tasks was to get me working on things of value and not just wasting my time on Facebook, watching movies, or watching TV, and I think I've accomplished that. Now, it seems, the tasks are just making me really stressed out. So, I'm rethinking my commitment to it. Do you have any suggestions? Should I keep up with it, or just let the tasks come as they will? I can't decide. I still want to work on my scrapbook and knitting, etc., etc., etc., but it doesn't seem like I'm ever going to find the time.

Okay, so that was my musing for this week . . . now on to the fun stuff. This was a very long week for me at work that involved many new experiences (that I don't think I should share here . . . sorry). Because of that, I didn't feel like I really needed to make a new recipe, but of course I did anyways :) On Saturday I tried out two new recipes (and I must have really been in the mood for oatmeal): Oatmeal Cake and Oatmeal Bread. (Sorry, I couldn't find the original Penzey's recipe for the cake, but this blogger scaled the sugar back a little bit, which might be a good idea since it was so sweet). Both of these recipes came from the Penzey's Spice catalog . . . what other free catalog can you get that comes with such good recipes? Seriously, if you don't get it yet . . . sign up for it here :) The cake was a little too sweet, like I said, but not bad. Definitely not my favorite cake, but it was worth a try. As for the oatmeal bread, also a little too sweet, so I would scale back the honey a little bit, but it was leaps and bounds better than the whole wheat bread I made last week, that's for sure. It is soft and very tasty . . . I think it's a "make it again" recipe.

Oatmeal cake

Oatmeal bread

Okay, well I'm off to do some more music planning now. I hope you all have a great Week 19 :)