2013 - Week 43

Hello from Week 43 :)

Fall has finally arrived and we had a great time with some friends on a fall colors road trip and having fun at a farm market (complete with awesome petting zoo). We had so much fun :)

For my exercising, I did more Wii boxing and it went much better this week.

Looks good to me :) 

I didn't have any new recipes because I'd made a huge batch of chili that fed us for most of the week, but then I had a big summer squash that needed something done with it. When I cut into it I realized it was very hard on the outside, more like a winter squash. So, since I couldn't saute it like I was planning, I looked up other things to do with it and found these recipes: stuffed roasted squash template and quinoa stuffed squash. Using these for inspiration, I cooked some quinoa in chicken broth while the squash baked in the oven. I sauteed tomatoes with garlic, a jalapeno pepper, a chipotle pepper, some roasted red peppers, a little bit of applesauce and lots of spices. (As you can guess, I was trying to use up a variety of ingredients in my fridge and freezer) I called it chipotle Scarborough stuffed squash because there was parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme in it :) I also made a three cheese blend (mozzarella, cheddar and Parmesan) that was mixed with the filling and melted over the top. It was a different type of meal than I usually make, but I thought it actually turned out pretty well.

If that wasn't enough . . . considering we are planning on moving very shortly, I wanted to get some crock pot meals prepped and put in the freezer so once we move all we have to do is pop them in the crock pot, go to work, then come home to a ready made dinner so we can work on our new house :) I had a few hurdles trying to get all of my ingredients, but finally, in four hours, we prepped twelve crock pot meals (my awesome husband took care of all of the meat for me). Of course I can't tell you how any of them taste yet, but I'll fill you in as we try them. It was kind of a crazy day, but I think the hard work will pay off in the end. These are the two websites I used: Six Sisters Stuff and Loving My Nest and this is the list of what I made:
1 - Black Bean Taco Soup

1 - Chicken Broccoli Alfredo

1 - Hearty Beef Stew

1 - Cilantro Lime Chicken w/ Corn and Black Beans (although I forgot the limes so I used lemon juice)

2 - Bean Stew

2 - Pork and Veggies

2 - Chicken Tortilla Soup

2 - Chicken Taco Soup

And the grand total of almost all of my ingredients (I didn't have to buy too many new spices) was only $76.27 . . . and considering each of those meals should feed us for 2 meals, that's 24 hearty, tasty meals for only ~$76 (or about $1.60/person/meal . . . not too bad if you ask me :) I even had some carrots, potatoes, and hamburger left over :) I'm very much looking forward to trying all of these creations.

Food Part 1

Food Part 2

Food Part 3

Our Well-Stocked Freezer :)

Have any of you ever tried anything like this before . . . any good recipe suggestions? 

Okay, I guess that's all for now . . . see you all next week then :) 

2013 - Week 42

Hello from Week 42 :)

Not too much to report this week because our major task was the inspection of our prospective home. It took about three hours and I learned a lot of things. Everything went pretty well and we are hopeful that we will be able to move into this home in the very near future . . . how exciting :)

Other than that, I did more Wii boxing and a bit of knitting. I'm making myself a new scarf and I really love it so far. The pattern looks really professional and my husband got me the beautiful yard I'd been wanting as a birthday present :) I'll make sure to post pictures as soon as it's finished :)

Alas, no new recipes to share this week . . . sorry. Since it was my birthday last week and I love free things, I'm signed up for just about every restaurant "free birthday meal" program out there so we ate out a lot last week. Plus, we were really busy, so it work out well to not have to cook. Hopefully I'll have some recipes for you next week.

Until then :)

2013 - Week 41

Hello everyone from Week 41 :) Thankfully, my husband fixed the corrosion issue on our second Wiimote so I could get back into my Wii boxing this week. It kind of kicked my butt, but it was fun to get back into it.

As for my new thing this week, I tried purple cauliflower for the first time. I really love cauliflower (especially covered in cheddar cheese), but purple cauliflower is even better :) Moms of the world, have your little ones caught on that "snowballs" really aren't snow balls? How about trying some purple cauliflower, or as I like to call it, "fairy puffs" :) I was worried that once it was cooked, the cauliflower would lose its lovely purple color like some other vegetables (I'm talking to you purple beans), but hooray, it stayed purple the whole time. What a wonderful vegetable :)

See, isn't it cool? 

It's even purple on the inside :) 

I also found some awesome recipes this week that I think you will all love. First of all, this super easy crock pot BBQ chicken recipe. I only had five or six chicken thighs, so there was quite a bit of sauce left over, but it was really good and went surprisingly well with the super easy cornbread that I made and the green beans :) I didn't have any creole mustard, so I just used regular yellow mustard and as my hot sauce was less hot than the Tabasco they were probably calling for, I put in closer to one teaspoon instead of the one quarter tsp that was listed. I put the partially thawed thighs in my slow cooker with the temperature probe set to 170 F on low heat while I was at work and when I got home, voila, dinner :) That cornbread recipe was one of the easiest I've ever made and it turned out great. Definitely a keeper :)

YUM

Now if you thought that recipe was good, just wait until you hear about the copycat truffle mac & cheese that I made. I was so bummed when I recently went to Noodle's & Company to get my free birthday bowl of noodles. Their truffle mac & cheese has quickly become one of my favorite dishes so when I saw the sign that it was being discontinued I was a little heartbroken. Since it was its last day, I figured I had better order it, but disappointment again . . . they were out of truffle sauce . . . oh no! So, I had to settle for something else, but I went home with the determination to figure out how to make it myself because it was just so good. Luckily, the blog Pretty Kitten's Kitchen made it super easy because she'd already figured it out for me. I didn't have any panko breadcrumbs, so that wasn't quite right, but the rest of the recipe was easy, and pretty spot on in my opinion. It's also not as unhealthy as I would have imagined. I even substituted skim milk for the cream and it still tasted good. Also, I used baby portobello mushrooms which I think is closer to what they served at Noodles & Co., but any mushroom you like would be fine I'm sure.

So, my task to you is to go try at least one of these fantastic recipes and let me know what you think. Unless you are a bit of a foodie, you probably haven't invested in any truffle oil, but you can always try one of the other recipes. And then go buy some truffle oil and make the mac & cheese . . . it's worth it :)

See you next week :)

2013 - Week 40

Hello from Week 40 :) This week, I tried out my hour long Pilates work out. It wasn't as difficult as I remember it being from doing it in high school, but it was still pretty challenging. Also, our house hunting is going very well :) I'm happy to report we have an accepted offer!!!!!!!!! We still have the inspection and all of that to do, but if all goes well, our days in our apartment are numbered :) Anyone want to help us move? ;)

As for recipes, I was quite busy this week. First of all, with the help of my lovely husband (who did the nasty head chopping off part), I made some baked trout. One of my coworkers really enjoys fly fishing but doesn't like to eat the fish that he catches, so he shared some with me. I'd never had trout before, but this method of cooking them was excellent, and if you don't mind picking out all of the bones, the trout was very good :) I combined a few different recipes and finally came up with my method: After cleaning and removing the heads, rinse the trout in cold water and pat dry with a paper towel. Rub olive oil inside and out and season with some salt and freshly ground pepper. Stuff a few lemon slices and some fresh parsley inside the fish, place fish on a piece of aluminum foil with a few more lemon slices, and seal up in a packet shape. Bake at 400 F for ~25 minutes or until the thickest portion is at 140 F. Enjoy. Hooray for almost free, healthy dinners :)

I also wanted bake something special for a dear friend who lives far away. Since I had to ship it in the mail, I did a little research on what sort of foods last a really long time, and the best dessert I could come up with was biscotti. Last year, she had been missing pumpkin pie, so this year I decided on gingerbread biscotti . . . hopefully the flavors remind her of home :) I've never actually had biscotti before, and gingerbread isn't my favorite flavor, so these weren't my favorite cookies. But I think biscotti is typically dipped in coffee, so that might improve them. They are pretty good, if you like crunchy biscotti :)

Shaping biscotti

Finished product

I signed up to make treats for our church's Sunday morning Bible study this week too and instead of the usual ~30 people, this session there has been close to 100 every week. This is wonderful, but it meant that I was going to have to make LOTS of treats. I made the following recipes: cinnamon coffee cake II, a double batch of mini cheese danishes, a double recipe (in a 13" x 9" pan) orange cornmeal cake (covered with orange glaze (1 cup powdered sugar + 3 Tbsp. orange juice, omit sugar topping)), and 24 chocolate peanut butter cupcakes (I used an apple corer to remove the centers before adding filling, the bag piping did not work). I must say, they were all tasty and well received :)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Mini Cheese Danishes

In Progress

Mmm

I hope you enjoyed all of the recipes this week. Let me know if you try any of them :)

2013 - Week 39

Hello from Week 39 :) Two small things to share this week before I get to the fun stuff: 1. For my exercise I did more pilates and Fit Sugar workouts . . . I really do love the 10 minute workouts . . . it doesn't seem so bad because 10 minutes goes by really quickly and the instructors are very encouraging. 2. I finished my whole dream journal. Since it really isn't enhancing my life in any way, I decided not to start another one, but I thought it was pretty crazy that I had so many dreams that I filled a whole journal with them already. It will be interesting to go back and read through it some time and remember all of the crazy things my mind created while I was asleep :)

Okay, for my recipe to share this week, I made a faux alfredo sauce using cauliflower (creamy cauliflower sauce). I know, it sounds weird, but it was actually really good, didn't taste like cauliflower hardly at all, and it made me feel much less guilty covering my chicken fettuccine with a creamy white sauce :) I added some fresh black pepper and garlic salt to it for extra flavor. Also, I just drained out the water, added the recommended amount back in, and blended it with my immersion blender . . . I thought that was much easier than trying to transfer the hot cauliflower to a blender or food processor. Try it out, I think you'll like it.

For my task this week, since I was still not up to scrapbooking and our house stuff was kind of in a lull, I decided it would be okay if I got back into knitting. I'm so glad I did . . . it was so much fun and I really enjoy making presents for people :) (Family, consider yourself warned about Christmas ;)) I really love knitting because I think the finished products look so professional, and one of my favorite things about knitting is cables. I don't know how many cable knit sweaters I own, but I just love the look of them, so I decided to be brave and give it a try. After watching this video: Knit Mug Holder and reading over this pattern: "Pumpkin Spice" I was pretty certain that even with my basic knitting skills I could complete my first cable knitting project . . . and I did. I would say it only took me a little over two hours and the whole project was complete :)

I wanted it to fit a little higher on the mug, so I put the button closer to the end.
Thank you to my awesome friend Karmen for the button :)

Ta da

If you are afraid to try cables, this is a great project that whips us easily and doesn't require a big time commitment . . . definitely a good place to start.

Now, once I had finished this, I took it with me to show a friend who had recently had a birthday. She seemed to like it a lot, and since it was still near her birthday, I decided to try out another pattern and give it to her as a present (along with the Mr. Coffee mug).The pattern I got from "Purl Avenue" . . . she has some neat stuff on her site. This one was a bit more complicated since it had three cables instead of just one and it was wider, but I still managed to finish it. Because the cables were bigger, my stitches got much tighter at the crossovers, which worried me quite a bit, but I guess that is normal. So, I just focused on keeping them loose and not stressing about it too much, and I think I came up with a pretty good product. I ended up repeating the 12 row pattern six times to get the ~ 9 inch long sleeve.

Finished mug warmer (sewn together . . . no button on this one)

Two finished products . . . sorry, the pictures don't really do them justice

So there you go . . . that's what I've been up to this week. Let's see what we can create next week :)

2013 - Week 38

Hello from Week 38. For my exercise this week, I went to another power yoga class and thankfully, I wasn't as sore this time. My neck was a bit stiff the next day, but that may have been from just sleeping funny too, I'm not sure. But, no one really wants to hear about that . . . let's get to the fun stuff :) I have a few new recipes and tips to share with you this week, so I'll get right to it. First of all, my top tips:

1. This is something that seemed like a revelation to me a few years ago and most people probably already do it, but just in case someone out there isn't doing it, I thought I'd write it down: Whisks are NOT just for wet ingredients. My mindset was always that whisks were for wet ingredients only, but then some recipe somewhere directed me to whisk together my dry ingredients before mixing with my wet ingredients, and of course I always follow the recipe to a "T" ;) (okay . . . most of the time), so I tried it and it was magic. The ingredients were very quickly and easily incorporated, and I didn't toss dry ingredients all over the kitchen like I usually do when using a spoon or spatula. Magic :)

2. This is how you should cook corn on the cob: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-never-shuck-corn-again/?ALLSTEPS Okay, so I can't get 100% behind this method, because I don't like having to chop off the end of my corn like that (it seems wasteful), but it really did work. There were a few strands of silk left, but they came off very easily. No more boiled, overcooked corn, no more taking forever to pick off every little bit of husk and silk, and no more microwaving in plastic wrap that could potentially give off harmful chemicals . . . hooray. Corn cooked perfectly in the wrap God gave it to us in, no mess and tasty corn :) I just peeled off the few outer layers of husk and popped them in the microwave (five minutes for two ears). Once they were cooked I carefully removed the rest of the husk and the silk came off very easily too, even without trying to slide it out of the husk like the method I mentioned above. Sorry this tip is coming a little too late and corn season is pretty much over, but just save this tip for next summer and I'm pretty sure you'll thank me :)

Now for the recipes I made, apple kuchen with custard, armadillo eggs, and petite pumpkin spice doughnuts.

I had gotten a bunch of apples from my mom and this cake looked like the perfect way to use some of them up. It was simple and tasted really good with some Bird's custard that I whipped up in place of the hot cream because I didn't have any cream. I also got to serve it to my friends in these really cute little dishes I got recently . . . a great find at an estate sale :) I felt really fancy with my "professional" plating ;)

Prepared

Baked

Coated

Plated

My adorable little apple kuchen armada ;)

The armadillo eggs were a Pinterest find, and I must say, they didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. That could also have been because I didn't read the recipe carefully enough before making it . . . oops :( I just kind of made it up, so in my haste I forgot the egg and breadcrumbs and of course, my armadillo eggs fell apart (hence, no picture . . . sorry). I also missed the bit about baking them in the oven and put them in my cast iron skillet . . . that probably didn't help either. So they were pretty tasty, but not very pretty . . . I'm going to have to give them another try sometime, although next time, I'm definitely wearing gloves when I cut up my peppers, either that, or use something a little milder than a jalapeno. My hand was burning for hours . . . ouch. Oh and p.s. soaking in milk, olive oil or cold water didn't make it go away any faster I don't think . . . it just takes time (about 24 hours to fully go away I would say).

The final recipe was these adorable little baked doughnuts. Now before you go thinking that they must be a "healthy" doughnut because they are baked and not fried . . . check the end of the recipe where you are instructed to dip them in butter and roll them in sugar . . . yup, there went your "healthy" idea ;) However, I found that a little too overpowering, so just a really light coating of butter (like when I ran out of butter and just swirled the doughnuts in the buttery bowl . . . those were perfect) and then some cinnamon sugar was really good, and they were even good plain. They weren't super sweet without the cinnamon sugar coating, but they still tasted good and I thought they were fun because, in my mind, if you set them in a large bowl with milk in it, they would look like giant Cheerios . . . fun :)

Thanks for the new pan Mom :) 

Adorable

Mmm . . . sugary

They look so little in my husband's huge hands :) 

So, I hope you enjoyed those, now go and try some of those recipes at home, and let me know what you think . . . see you next week :)

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 :)