2013 - Week 37

This week was rather crazy and I may not have completely met all of my goals, but boy, did I sure do a lot of new things.

To start with, I was away from home for half of the week for work training. That was very new and it was a great training . . . I learned tons. So not only was that new, I also had to drive a work car there, so I learned to drive a new car (not that it's a great feat, but I learned I definitely like my car more). While I was staying at the hotel, I did half of workout by swimming in the pool . . . I haven't done that in a long time :) I also did some more Fit Sugar workout videos and then some Wii Fit when I got home.

Also at home, I remade Annie's Eats baked oatmeal with fruit from last week, but instead of apricots and cherries, I used blueberries and plums. Yum . . . so good. (Just FYI, I toasted the pecans at 350 for a little over five minutes.) I really recommend you go try this recipe if you  haven't yet. And since besides real maple syrup, there is no added sugar, I claim this is a healthy breakfast dish that is so tasty it feels very indulgent :)

We did more house searching too for my task (although I think that was overshadowed my all of my "new" things this week). I did have one other new thing though . . . I finally figured out how to play spider solitaire. Granted, I've never actually read the rules before, and it is rather easy, but there you go, another new thing I learned :)

Hope you have a great week :)

2013 - Week 36

Hello from Week 36 :)

This post will be pretty short because there's not a lot to tell this week. Our house hunting is progressing well, but we still haven't found "the one" yet. It's definitely keeping us busy though. For my exercise, we went on a nice bike ride because the weather was lovely this weekend. I was slightly worried that I wouldn't come up with a good new recipe to share this week, but inspiration struck on Saturday morning and I made this version of Annie's Eats Baked Oatmeal with Fruit. I had a bunch of nectarines and some frozen cherries and they actually went really nicely with the toasted pecans. I thawed the cherries and subbed cherries for blueberries, nectarines (about 2) for bananas. If I do say so myself, it was really good, and would be great with any number of fruit combinations. Give it a try :)

This looks like a good start

Mmm . . . fruit

Ready to bake

Yumminess in a bowl :)

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? 

2013 - Week 30

Hi :) It's time to get back into the swing of things after that nice long vacation. This has been another busy week trying to catch up with everything (including this blog and posting my vacation pictures to share with family and friends). I think we almost have everything put away at home now too, so that is a relief.

For my task this week, I did kind of a cheater hodge-podge of things including working on my Spanish by listening to Spanish songs and radio and trying really hard to figure out what they were saying, working on pictures and accumulating scrapbooking stuff, and even looking at some new knitting projects. Mostly just working on my pictures though, one of these days (I know I keep saying that, but eventually it's going to come true), I'll get to my scrapbooking.

I made a really yummy chocolate eclair dessert this week. It's something I've made before, but I've never divided it into one 13" x 9" and one 9" square pan, so it was sort of new (that experiment worked by the way . . . I just put ~3/4 Cup of the batter into the smaller pan and the rest into the bigger one and then eyeballed the other toppings). This dessert is pretty forgiving in terms of skill required to make it :) I didn't get any good pictures of it unfortunately, but you'll just have to trust me . . . it's really good, and very easy. Here is the recipe that I used:

1 Cup water
1/2 Cup butter
1 Cup flour
4 eggs
1 large pkg. (or 2 small) instant vanilla pudding mix
2 1/2 Cups milk
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 large container Cook Whip
Chocolate syrup

Bring water and butter to a boil; remove from heat. Stir in flour. Add eggs, beating well after each one. Spread into greased jelly roll pan. Bake at 400 F for 20 - 25 minutes. Cool.
Mix vanilla pudding with milk and cream cheese until smooth. Spread over crust. Top with Cool Whip. Drizzle with chocolate syrup. Keep refrigerated.

It's just that easy . . . you should really try it right now :)

Another new thing I did that also counted as my exercise this week was to try a new yoga studio. It wasn't hot yoga, but the location was convenient and I got a great deal with Groupon, so I figured it was worth a try. That class kicked my butt. I didn't realize how out of  yoga shape I was. My muscles were shaking a lot and I even fell over at one point . . . oh well, I guess that means I was trying hard, right? I guess I shouldn't have started out after this long absence with "Power Yoga", but it was a good experience. I'm sure I'll go to more classes in the coming weeks (especially to make up for all of that chocolate eclair dessert I ate ;))

So that was Week 30. I hope you all had wonderful weeks, talk to you again next week :)

2013 - Weeks 28 and 29

Vacation was awesome. We saw and did so many new things, it was wonderful. We started out in Portland, like I said in my last blog post (sorry for the little overlap in my trip saga), with my family for my brother's wedding. While we were there, we went to the famous Powell's Books, visited the Vista House overlook, went to a small lavender farm, and did all the fun things associated with the wedding (eating lots of food, getting hair and makeup done, lovely ceremony, etc.)

Welcome to beautiful Portland

Then we headed to McMinnville to see the Spruce Goose airplane (which I thought would look like it was made out of wood . . . I was a bit disappointed that it was painted . . . silly me). Then out to the coast for whale watching and then down the beautiful Oregon coast to visit my husband's family. And all of this in four days :)

The ginormous Spruce Goose (that doesn't look like wood)

While we were there we relaxed a bit, tried to help around the house and garden (I even made a cake), did a lot of family visiting, and we took a drive out to Crater Lake for the day. I was very brave and even jumped in the really cold water. What a great place to visit.

At Crater Lake

Beautiful

After that, we drove up to Mt. St. Helen's and spent the day learning about that and going on a slightly scary hike. Thankfully, I didn't fall down the side of the very steep hill, and it didn't re-erupt while we were there, so we made it out alive :)

Me on the trail in front of Mt. St. Helens

We had a slight hiccup with trying to find a hotel that night because of a Seattle to Portland bicycle race, but eventually we found a room in Tacoma and visited the church there in the morning . . . lovely people. Then we headed northwest and drove up to the top of Washington. We stopped in the lavender capital of the U.S.A. and saw a lovely large lavender farm . . . it smelled so good.

Amongst the lovely purple lavender

We drove to Port Angeles and then up into the Olympic National Park to Hurricane Ridge. It reminded me so much of the Alps. We had just gorgeous photo opportunities the whole trip, so I hope you don't mind all the pictures I'm posting :)

If that doesn't say "Alpine" to you, I don't know what would :)

From there, we drove to Forks (and yes, we did visit some of the "Twilight" spots, but since none of the movie was actually filmed there, there wasn't much to see). First Beach was really beautiful though, so we stayed to watch the sunset.

Sunset at First Beach

The next morning we drove back into Olympic National Park, from the western side this time, into the Hoh Rain Forest. What a difference from Hurricane Ridge the day before. I expected it to be raining in the rain forest (especially because it was in Washington), but we got a dry day. It was a really cool place to visit.

Hoh Rain Forest

We made our way back to Portland and spent one night with another of my husband's cousins. We spent our final day with my brother, rock climbing out near Mt. Hood. It was my first time rock climbing outside, but both my brother and his new wife we impressed with the skills I'd gained from my month of indoor rock climbing.

Going up :)

So that was our trip. It could have been twice as long and there still would have been more things we'd have liked to see and do out there, but I think for the time we had, we crammed plenty of awesome stuff into it. I dare say that I got a full dose of exercise and new things for the week. I did read on the plane home, so I got my reading in too. What a full two weeks :) Have any of you visited or done any of these things? I'd love to hear about it :)

2013 - Week 27

Hello from Week 27. I am not writing this exactly after it happened, so I'm sorry if this isn't the most complete summary of what happened. Most of this week was spent in preparing for our vacation that occurred during Weeks 28 and 29. There was a lot of planning and packing and preparing to do, so we were very busy.

For my task, I'm still reading, and travelling made for a great time to read. It seems airplane travel is not what it used to be (a fun luxury) and now each little thing that used to be included, even a glass of water while in flight, is now extra :( That fact, combined with the children who were directly behind us and not even reprimanded by their parents once for continually kicking our seats (and even at one point hitting my husband on the head) during the duration of our flight, made for a very exhausting travel day. But that being said, I did get a lot of reading done, and once we reached our destination (Portland, Oregon), we felt much better.

Aww . . . look how cute we are (me and my brothers) :) All grown up. 

The happy couple

We got to spend a lot of time this week with my family and I had the pleasure of being a part of my brother's wedding ceremony. We also stayed in a very comfy hotel (they served soup and warm cookies at 5 pm, how awesome is that?) and I took advantage of their exercise equipment to complete my workout requirement for the week. Add in all of the walking we did too, and I think I more than covered my hour, but alas, we ate so much good food that my exercise couldn't keep up. Oh well . . . it's vacation, right?
And as for my new thing this week, well, there were just too many to count. But I would have to say going whale watching on the Pacific Ocean was definitely a highlight :)

Our first mate :) 

We saw whales, but I didn't get any pictures of them. We did see (and get pictures) of other sea life though :) 

Stay tuned for a more thorough tale of the rest of our vacation and more pictures next week :)

2013 - Week 26

Hi :) Week 26 was not too eventful blog-wise, but somehow it was still really busy. I didn't have a whole lot of time to do things, but I still got my exercise in with my Wii boxing game, and mowing part of a friend's lawn. He was joking about me mowing, but I thought it might be fun, because they have one of those old manual mowers. It was a work out, but the lawn looked pretty decent when I was done :) I still worked on my reading "task" but have fallen a bit behind. Have no fear, with the holiday this week, I will have plenty of time to finish this week's reading and do next week's too :)

The only fun thing I have to share this week is a recipe for these Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites that I made. It made quite a lot, and I kept them in the freezer because they were very tasty cold (and I didn't want to risk getting the pretzels soggy). I would just rate them as "good", not "great" . . . they were full of peanut butter chocolate sweet salty goodness, but not a knock out in my book. I did enjoy them though, and if you're looking for something small to snack on, these might be a good option :)

Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites

Enjoy . . . see you next week :)

2013 - Week 25

Hello everyone. How was your Week 25? Things outside of the blogosphere weren't terribly great for me this week, but I did manage to make a couple of tasty dishes to share with you.

For exercise, I'm still boxing . . . I'm determined to "beat" this game, but it doesn't like to register my movements sometimes and that makes me frustrated. Oh well, it's still fun, and it's keeping me in shape so I can keep eating all these desserts I make. My task is still reading. I finished the Hunger Games series and watched the first movie. I have to say, I was rather disappointed in the movie. I liked the first two books, and the third was okay. Not as happy of an ending as I was hoping for, but still okay. It just seems like they changed things in the movie that didn't really need to be changed, or omitted things that could have easily been included, and it was for those reasons that I wasn't really a fan. I liked most of the casting, but not the announcers or President Snow. Donald Sutherland will always be the nice father in the most recent "Pride and Prejudice" for me, so he just didn't seem as mean or snake-like as I pictured Snow. I suppose if I hadn't read the books, the movie might have been better, but as usual, the books were much better than the movie.

Now to my tasty dishes :) I have never tried to make a molten lava cake before, so that was my task this week. It was my husband's birthday, and we had a lot of desserts in the house, but I didn't think it would be right to let his birthday pass by without making him a special cake. He didn't really have any ideas about what he wanted (to be honest, I think he likes fruit better than cake . . . when I asked him what he wanted for his birthday, he told me "a pineapple" and he was pleased as punch when he got it :)). So I wanted to make something easy and relatively small, and these little cakes definitely fit the bill. They were very easy, didn't take much time, and turned out just great. This is the recipe that I used (Molten Chocolate Cakes), and it turned out so well, I would use it again in the future for sure. I used 4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of the baking chocolate, and it still turned out perfect. I would recommend serving them with vanilla ice cream to get the contrasting hot and cold aspects, but they did not need the caramel sauce I added, they were sweet enough on their own.

Cute little cakes

Yum :) 

Speaking of cake, be sure you check out last weeks post (Week 24) to see the pictures of my completed Guacamole Cake that I finally got posted :) 

My other creation this week was a Creamy Chipotle Chicken Salad. I can't give you an exact recipe, because I just sort of make it up, but I started with a base of fresh lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and cilantro. Then I sauteed some chicken with drained and rinsed black beans, seasoned with southwestern seasoning. The sauce is really the crowning achievement though. I think it was about 3/4 cup sour cream with a finely diced chipotle pepper and some of the sauce and onions from the can. I also added green onions and fresh garlic, plus enough whole milk to make it into a nice sauce. I cooked it all together until I thought the green onions were soft enough, and then I blended it with my immersion blender. Then I thickened it with a little corn starch dissolved in water, and voila . . . creamy chipotle sauce. I also topped the salad with some shredded cheddar cheese and crushed tortilla chips to give it a nice crunch. So good :)

Creamy Chipotle Chicken Salad

That's all for now folks. See you next week :)

2013 - Week 24

Wow, so much to tell this week :)

First of all, I've been keeping up with my Wii boxing game for exercise, and for task, yes, I'm still reading. I started the Hunger Games series and I'm on the final book, "Mockingjay" right now . . . we'll see how it ends (DON'T tell me) :)

The surprise that I alluded to last week shall now be revealed: I made a cake (no surprise there), but it was modeled after a Mexican molcajete bowl filled with guacamole. I found the recipe here: Guacamole Cake. I couldn't find candied cherries, and my attempt at making my own ended in hard, charred ones (ick), so I went without. The cake was a bit messy to make (Oreo bits all over my kitchen) and time consuming, but I think it turned out tasty and really fun. The taste wasn't quite up to my standards because so much of it was just store-bought and processed, but it was still a neat experiment. Will I make it again? Probably not, but it was fun to try once.

Molcajete base pre-coating

"Guacamole" ice cream with cinnamon sugar pita chips

The finished cake

The next dish I made was a creamy portobello mushroom pasta with caprese salad (which I later chopped up and put on top of the dish, which was also tasty). I adapted this recipe: Chicken in Creamy Pan Sauce that I also tried this week (it turned out really yummy with some green onions and fresh garlic added to the sauce.

Chicken in Creamy Pan Sauce served over spinach with tomatoes and basil

Anyways, for the portobello dish, I adapted this recipe for Roasted Portobello Mushrooms by using mozzarella cheese instead of blue cheese and I added some plain bread crumbs as well. They turned out really well, and I would recommend this recipe with those changes, I can't say how it would be with blue cheese. Once I had that made, I made the sauce from the pan sauce base: 1 cup beef broth this time (instead of chicken) with 4 oz. cream cheese cooked with green onions and fresh garlic. I sliced the mushrooms, put them on top of linguine and covered with with sauce. I put a small caprese salad to go on the side too . . . all in all, it was a really tasty dish, both variations were very good and I would order it in a restaurant :)

 Creamy Portobello Pasta with Caprese Salad

My final creation was probably my best one: mini turtle cupcakes with caramel German buttercream. Did you even know there was such a thing as German buttercream? I didn't. I knew of the super sweet American version, the rich French version, and even the light and buttery Swiss version, but I never knew about the German one, and honestly, I don't know how that is even possible considering it's made with a custardy pastry cream base, which is one of my favorite foods ever :). My husband doesn't have the same affection for the Swiss version that I do because he thinks it tastes too much like pure butter, so since these cupcakes were for a party for him, I looked for a new variation to try. I discovered the recipe here: Bravetart German Buttercream, but thought that two pounds of butter was a little excessive. Luckily, I found this recipe: Food-ology German Buttercream and it only used one pound, plus vanilla extract instead of vanilla beans, and it worked out perfectly. It was great by itself, but I wanted caramel frosting, so I added about 10 oz. of store-bought caramel dip (the kind that is usually paired with apples), and it incorporated seamlessly into my frosting and it was so good. It might have bumped Swiss buttercream off of to the top of my list of favorite frostings :)

For the mini cupcakes, I used my go-to chocolate cake recipe: Sandy's Chocolate Cake. I didn't know how many it would make, but since the cake recipe is for three 9" round cakes, I figured it would be a lot (it was . . . I didn't even try to count them all, but I'm guessing about 150 mini cupcakes). I tried with cupcake liners but it was sticking, so I greased the pans instead, still sticking, then finally I really greased and floured the pans and although they didn't have perfectly round tops, they did come out of the pan better. I also experimented with piping in the caramel filling (I just used the straight caramel dip) before and after baking and decided that after worked better. My husband helped me by ladling the batter into a funnel that I used as a dispenser . . . kind of a fun trick that worked pretty well :) So needless to say, with all of the sticking going on, I was a tad bit frustrated with the cakes, but the frosting saved the day. I piped the frosting on and topped half of them with pecan halves and they were beautiful and little mouthfuls of goodness. I highly recommend trying German buttercream for your next cake.

Pastry Cream base

Before and After Frosting

YUM Turtle Goodness

Hungry yet? I hope you all had a good week . . . come back next week to hear about more adventures in my Life's Lab Notebook :)

2013 - Week 23

Well, here is my update on Week 23:

For exercise I'm still working on that Wii boxing game. I think I hurt my shoulder, but it's feeling a bit better now. My task has still been reading . . . it seems like kind of a cheater task, but I can't stop until I've finished these Hunger Games books :)

I made a couple of really tasty recipes this week too. First, Velvety Carrot Soup from the Penzey's spice catalog. I just blended the whole thing in the pot using my immersion blender, and I didn't add the half-and-half because it was creamy enough without it. We ate it with a side of garlic herb goat cheese on triscuits . . . mmm, now that's a meal :)

I also tried another variation on the Sweet Roll Dough from the Food Network Magazine. This time, I made the Poppy Seed - Lemon Twists. I must say, I'm not that big of a fan of lemon poppy seed things, but these gave the cinnamon rolls a run for their money. They were a bit time-consuming, but turned out really tasty, and if I do say so myself, prettier than the Food Network version :)

Ready to rise

Risen

Baked

Glazed in luscious lemony goodness :) 

So that's all that I have for this week, just wait until you see the fun I have in store for next week :) Talk to you then :)

2013 - Week 22

Hi :) How was your Week 22? Can you believe this year is almost half over already? My Week 22 was pretty good, I tried a few recipes that I would love to share with you. I also did more of that Wii boxing game (Gold's Gym Cardio Workout) which is surprisingly still fun, and for my "task" played cello, guitar, and sat down and read a book. I know it's not accomplishing any of the projects that I need to get finished, but it's been so long since I read a book (I think it was last year during my book reading month), it is still enriching my mind, and as an added bonus, my library's summer reading program just started, so I get fun prizes for reading . . . so it is definitely worthwhile, plus I love it. I got a few new books so that's was got me back into reading. Don't worry, my scrapbooking is still out and on the forefront of my mind, so I will try and work on that too, but for now, I have a few books calling my name :)

But first, before I go read, I have to share my yummy creations from this week. The first was something I alluded to in my post last week . . . cappuccino knots. They are made with the same sweet roll dough as the cinnamon rolls I made last week, but instead of the cinnamon sugar mixture, an espresso sugar mixture is made, the dough is rolled into logs, dipped in butter and then the espresso sugar, tied into a knot, and baked in a muffin tin. The finished rolls then get a espresso glaze and a plain glaze . . . the result was very pretty :) I think the sugar caramelized on the top a little too much so they were a bit harder than the cinnamon rolls, but they were still pretty good, and I don't even like coffee. But if you are a coffee lover, this might be a good recipe for you to try. (I found this espresso powder at my local Whole Foods in case you have trouble locating it.)

Pre-rising

Post-rising

Ta da

Next, I still have a ton of pumpkin in my freezer, so I made some pumpkin bars. They turned out pretty well, and I just winged a cream cheese frosting to put on top (cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, vanilla . . . I think I added a little too much vanilla because it was a little dark, but still tasty). I substituted applesauce for the oil and they were super moist :) Also, I followed some reviewers comments and baked it in a 10 x 15 inch pan for 25 minutes. I was a little worried it would run over the edges, but it was perfect.

Aside from sweets, I also made two tasty savory dishes. First was these bacon hasselback potatoes. My husband (who was home for the day) actually gets the credit for making these look so pretty. He did the initial steps and got them in the oven . . . I just did the last step of adding the onion, parsley, garlic, butter mixture. I'd never seen potatoes like that before and certainly had never tried them, but they turned out fantastic. We left the skins on, and they got nice and crispy while the potato was really soft and creamy (that might have to do with the large quantity of butter in the recipe) . . . overall, I think it's a really good way to make potatoes if you have the time.

Bacon Hasselback Potatoes

Finally, I made a repeat recipe. I may have lauded this seasoned chicken previously on my blog, but it's just so tasty I had to put it in again. I don't know when I found this recipe, but it's so easy and turns out so good . . . definitely a keeper. I know I have at least one blog reader (Hi Helen :)) who was looking for something easy to try, and I know has lots of soy sauce at home :) The oyster sauce is not something I usually have lying around, but I did find it at Wal-Mart. It really stinks, but trust me, it gives the chicken an amazing flavor. I always add extra garlic too, because I love garlic. I've made it with the Cornish hens before, but this time I tried it with chicken leg quarters . . . worked perfectly. The chicken is super moist and you can use the sauce from the pan to put on the rice . . . very succulent. So simple, and so good . . . give it a try :)

Okay . . . that's it for this week. Leave me a comment and let me know if you try any of these recipes and how they work for you. I'd love to hear suggestions too. Talk to you next week . . . time to go read now :)