Summer!!

These are in the freezer, hardening as we wait!!



I'll let you know how the recipe turns out and will post it if they are good. It's from Everyday Food and sounds yummmmmy! :) Happy Summer!

I am BUSY

Really really really busy!!!

So sorry for my lack of posting, and for the fact that this post will not be cool. Work is crazy right now and at times it is overwhelming working for two different people who both have May as their busiest month of the year. Trying to keep perspective and remember how thankful I am not to have to begin a summer of being the Ambassador of Fun in a few weeks. It's already too hot outside for that!! Thank goodness I work inside this summer. :)

Biggest Loser is on tonight and we are getting closer and closer to the finale and I'm just so excited!! Can't wait until 30 more minutes pass and I can watch! The plan is to clean during commercials as our apt is MORE than a wreck. Busyness will do that to an apartment, but even moreso since I'm not great at keeping it clean in the first place. Eek! (some of you may have seen the kitchen picture on facebook after baking my mom an Italian Cream Cake for Mother's Day...the kitchen has improved SLIGHTLY since then, but not much)

If anyone watched the Undercover Boss episode with 7-11, come see Igor at the NEW 7-11 store in our little shopping center by our apartment! We are so excited!! Igor is so cool. He was a delivery driver who was just so thankful for the "American Dream" and being able to get a job. He and his wife worked different shifts and barely saw each other, but he still had so much joy just because he was thankful for what he had. Joe DePinto (the undercover CEO of 7-11) gave him his own 7-11 store at the end of the show - and little did we know it would be in our backyard! Hooray! I love 7-11. Got coffee there this morning and it was splendid!!

We are having VERY annoying internet problems that cause me to have to disconnect the wireless network and reconnect it all the time. The process takes a couple minutes and its really annoying. Hence I haven't wanted to use the internet much as it puts me in a bad mood!

Here is the recipe for the Italian Cream Cake I made. It turned out wonderfully despite a couple of mishaps and redos! (turning on the blender and sending buttermilk everywhere, overbeating the egg whites, realizing I only greased, didn't flour the pans AFTER I put them in the oven and taking them back out, washing the pans, regreasing AND flouring...but it still worked!!)

http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/desserts/decadent-italian-cream-cake/

* CAKE BATTER:
* ½ cups Butter, Room Temperature, No Substitutes
* ½ cups Good Shortening
* 2 cups Sugar
* 5 Large Eggs, Separated
* 1 cup Buttermilk
* 1 teaspoon Good Vanilla
* 2 cups All-purpose Flour
* 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
* 1 teaspoon Salt
* 1 cup Shredded Or Flaked Sweetened Coconut
* 1 cup Chopped Pecans

* FOR FROSTING:
* 1 stick Butter, Softened
* 1 package Cream Cheese (8 0z.), Softened
* 1 teaspoon Good Vanilla
* 1 pound Powdered Sugar
* Chopped Pecans For Garnish

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cream butter, shortening and sugar in a large mixing bowl with electric mixer. Add egg yolks, one at a time, mixing well after each. Add buttermilk and mix well; add vanilla.

Sift flour, baking soda and salt together in a medium bowl; add coconut and pecans and toss together well, then stir into wet ingredients. Mix well by hand.

In another bowl, beat egg whites until stiff. Fold gently into cake batter, then divide batter into 3 greased and floured round cake pans.

Bake 20-25 minutes at 325 degrees, or until lightly browned and cake tests done when a toothpick is inserted near the center. Cool thoroughly on wire racks in pans.

While layers are cooling, prepare frosting. Cream butter and cream cheese together in a medium bowl; add vanilla, and gradually add powdered sugar, beating until smooth.

Carefully remove cakes from pans and brush off crumbs. Place bottom layer on serving plate, top with frosting. Place second layer over first, top with frosting, then place the last layer. Frost the cake, then sprinkle with chopped pecans as desired. You can cheat and make this with a white cake mix, but it’s just not the same.

Keep cake refrigerated.

ENJOY!!!!! (I just stole a piece of my mom's at her house...Mmmmmm!)

Quick, exciting (and sad) updates

Update #1: I'm still on the bandwagon with the Bodybugg. As of TODAY I have lost exactly 15 pounds since starting my attempt to lost weight using the Bodybugg. It has gotten easier and easier as I have gotten used to eating around 1650 calories a day and now it is just routine. I love it! I didn't really realize how much weight I had lost til I hit this milestone - 15 pounds! Wow. Weights that weigh 15 pounds are pretty heavy. So glad to have that OFF of me!! WAHOOOOO. I'm excited to keep going and hope to lose another 10 and then maybe gain some back in muscle....whenever I decide to start working out. :) Haha. So, there is the update. For some reason, this plan has been one I have been able to stay on, and I'm SO happy about that!

Update #2: Clint and I have officially been married 2 wonderful years! Our "day" was last Sunday and we went to Trulucks to celebrate, but it was a wedding filled weekend with Ashley's wedding and Caroline's wedding shower (and me being sick) so we waited til this weekend to really celebrate. We are off to a beautiful cabin near Beaver's Bend tomorrow at around 4pm!! We are so excited to have a relaxing, do-nothing weekend. It looks like it'll be rainy Saturday, but Sunday we might get in the canoe (the cabin is on a river) or build a fire or even go horseback riding! The cabin has a grill on the deck so we are bringing filet mignon and shrimp (got them at central market today - splurged - can't WAIT to feast on them!!) to make a nice dinner Saturday night. I can't wait to celebrate with my honey. He is so wonderful and I am SO lucky to be married to him. He is sick with what I had last weekend right now, so pray that he starts feeling better quick!!

Update #3: Tux, my childhood dog (a fiesty pomeranian) died today. My grandparents have been his real owners for the past several years and he became so sweet in his old age (if you knew him - he used to be quite the tiny terrorist to visitors in our home, but he grew out of it!). They really really loved him and are sad to see him go. He only weighed 5 pounds and his kidneys were failing. Poor thing. All of us girlfriends got dogs at around the same time in our childhood, and Tux was the last of the group to go. I believe he lived to be between 105 and 112 in dog years. He had a good little life. Goodbye Tuxy - we love you!

Update #4: We are still also on the Dave Ramsey bandwagon. Paid off our taxes we were paying payments on from 2008 this month. One more credit card to go and then all we have is my student loan. Feels good!

Tomorrow is FRIDAY! Happy almost weekend. :)

my new way to cook

... www.supercook.com !!!



this website is AWESOME!! i'm sure there are others like it, but i have not come across one, or at least not one this useful. you go to the site and start typing in some things you currently have in your kitchen. i have used it by first entering the ingredient i'm really wanting to use, like chicken breast or ground beef or strawberries or whatever i'm needing a recipe for. then it will have a list of ingredients it asks you if you have, and you just keep clicking yes and it keeps giving different ones that will help you make more recipes. you can emphasize certain ingredients (i tested it and tried strawberries AND tomatoes emphasized, and it found things with both!) and/or add keywords (side dish, etc). it then lists on the right of the page links to all the recipes online that you can make with the ingredients you already have, or what ingredients you need still to make them if you don't have them all. but generally there are hundreds you can already make which is quite wonderful bc i do not want to go to the store right now, thank you. i have LOVED it!! you know how sometimes you have an ingredient and you just don't feel like those few things you usually make with that ingredient? well this solves and AND helps you be adventurous in cooking!

So far i have used it to:

- find something to make with ground beef when i didn't really even have everything for spaghetti - it gave me a meatball recipe (actually i had several to choose from) and it turned out REALLY yummy. i had never made meatballs before so that was fun. just cooked some pasta and added some sauce and viola! a yummy new dinner.

- find something to use my yummy large shrimp from sprouts. mmmmm i let myself have butter smothered cilantro grilled shrimp and it was amazing! didn't actually even mess up my calories for the day either!

- wanted to try a new zucchini recipe and almost made some "zucchini cakes"... never had anything like them, but i do want to try them sometime!

- wanted something then our other chicken breast regular recipes, found a balsamic herb grilled chicken that was YUM! Clint is becoming an expert griller.

- and now i'm browsing supercook for something to do with my strawberries i need to eat. i don't feel like just chopping them up and adding a bit of splenda like i usually do. i also need to make some tea and am looking for a more exciting drink to make. my options i have narrowed it down to are(and i really haven't been to the store in quite awhile, so my ingredient list is not too large at all!):

for the strawberries:

-strawberry gelato (or balsamic strawberry sorbet, or strawberry foam, or...)
-"puffy dessert omelet" with strawberries
- oatmeal chewy squares
-Bretton butter cake with strawberry topping
-sweet wine fritters
-frosty strawberry dessert

for the drink:

-strawberry lemonade
-rico's passionate pink honey lemonade
-chunky strawberry lemonade

and then i also played around and found tons of apple crumbles, bundt cakes, cookies, etc that i could make right now. so cool. i think im just really excited bc whenever i think of making a recipe i think i have to go to the store to get the ingredients first bc what are the chance that i'll have all the things for whatever i decide to make. and this changes that. so i love it. hopefully i'll update you with new things i cook that supercook helped me find. i did do a play by play with photos of the meatball making, which i will post eventually. mmm i want to make those again!

happy cooking and recipe searching....warning - it can be addictive! :)

Bodybugg update

I realized I haven't talked much about my bodybugg lately and thought some (or most) of you probably were thinking I had fallen off the bandwagon - and with good reason! (Remember the Zone, P90X, etc?) BUT, I am happy to announce that I have NOT! I have been wearing my bodybugg and entering my food religiously now since Christmas. That's 9 weeks! And, what's even more exciting - I've lost about 9 pounds! My goal is to have lost 12 pounds by March 12 (not for any real reason, just bc when you set up the bodybugg program, it creates a 3 month goal for you with a certain amount lost each week). After that, I will create another 3 month program and keep on going! :)

On another note, I "sold" a coworker on getting a bodybugg and I'm helping her set it up this weekend. So excited! I'll keep you updated on how I'm doing with it more often now that I've realized it would be a good idea! Good accountability. :)

I'm even toying with the idea of promising to post my "before" pictures with some "after" pics once I meet my goal. But I would have to be quite a brave woman to promise that!! Clint and I took some intentionally unflatteringly lit before photos in swimming suits before we started P90X awhile back. I can assure you that NO ONE will EVER see them if there is not a pretty dang good after photo to put next to it. Even if there is, I'm not sure I could bear it. Who wants to look at a pic of themselves in a swimsuit at a time of life when they've decided they need to lose 20 pounds?! But we shall see! :)

Clint ordered me a pink strap to accessorize with for v-day, they had not come out with colors when I got my bodybugg. :) I'm loving it!



I also thought I would start adding a little structure to my blog with some tips/helpful ideas/takeaways from the Brock's life posts. So here are a couple tips/ways I've been keeping my calories down! (my goal each day is to eat 1650 cals or less and to burn 2250 or more. Most days I eat about right but some days if I sat around all day I do not burn as many as I'm supposed to).

-SOUP. Soup is awesome. I mostly eat Campbell's, but it's almost a guarantee that anywhere you go, soup is a good choice. I do not even really go for the "healthy request" Campbells bc I don't like them that much and the calories in the reeeeally yummy ones - think Chicken Corn Chowder - are not all that bad. Most are under 400 for the whole can. So that is what I do a lot of days for main course for lunch at work.

-Lean Pockets. 290 calories, and I think they are yummy. Amy's burritos are also good but cost twice as much. Another good lunchtime main course staple.

-I can't just eat those things at lunchtime though. I always want more/something else. So I bring things that are low in calories to go with it so I don't feel deprived. Individual diced fruit cups (80 cals), Chewy granola bars (90-100 cals), sugar free jello pudding (60 cals), an apple (100 cals or so), cutie oranges (35 cals), oatmeal sometimes for breakfast or a snack (160 cals), great value yogurt - GOOD and only 38 cents! (80 cals), or even a piece of candy (50-100 cals). I'll just bring one or two of these and I feel quite happy all day.

-At Starbucks I order it skinny and/or with no whip sometimes, but I really like my drinks there with whip, so a lot of times I will just go all out and make sure not to snack as much in the evening. It works out.:)

-For dinner/evening I try to have around 1000 calories left. Usually I'll eat 500-800 of them at dinner and then I like to have snack room left. But with 800 calories, you can really eat almost anything. Most meals at Olive Garden, notoriously bad for you, top out at about 2000 calories. So, if you split the meal (and they are giant!) you end up about right. At home, unless you are frying food or making something that is mostly cheese or cream (or eating too much food in general - I was before!), its pretty easy to stay under 800 as well. But, I will say we have a food scale and I do alot of weighing on it to make sure I'm entering the right amount of food into the program.

-I eat a LOT of sugar free 15 calorie popsicles. They are awesome. Dreyer's also has some real fruit ones that are 25 cals each but they are a splurge pricewise. We almost always have popsicles in the house.

-I still eat cereal occasionally, but I measure out a serving (usually 1 cup, sometimes 3/4) so I know what I'm eating.

-I enter my food I've eaten before eating something else. Otherwise I will enter my food and end up seeing that I ate too many calories and I underestimated. I can enter food on any computer so that isn't too hard to do multiple times a day.

-Deli turkey meat. So low in calories and so fulfilling and GOOD! We usually have cajun style and honey roasted. Mmmm I had 3 slices today as a snack when I got home from work. :)

-Hot tea with splenda and a bit of milk. Constant Comment Green or regular. YUM.


Wow, this is a long post! Sorry about that. I hope you skimmed through if you don't care about food tips! I'm planning on updating more regularly about what I'm eating and maybe working out (which I don't do that much but am starting to more now). Maybe that will help me not have bad weeks where I kinda give up (Valentine's weekend made that week a no-pounds-lost week...oops!).

Thanks for listening! I'm so enjoying STAYING on the bandwagon this time. It's a much better feeling! I'm also staying on the blogging bandwagon better this time too! Hooray!

Happy Tuesday! Have a great week! :)

solving the mystery...

..of poached eggs. Never had one, never made one, never really understood them.

The inspiration:



Everyday Food magazine. They insisted that poached eggs were easy and that you could put them on/with anything. We bought an 18 pack of eggs on our last grocery run and had lots left, so I decided it would be fun to try.

I made a little english muffin-mozzarella-tomato-spinach-toast thing to try eggs with. Turned out looking YUMMY!




I asked hubby if he wanted to try my first attempt and he asked if I was making another one. When I said I was, he said he would like to try the second attempt. Ha! But he isn't too fond of things that are mushy and runny and seem like they might be undercooked, (even moreso when his wife is telling him she doesn't know what these are supposed to look like when they are done) so it was still sweet of him to give it a try on round two.

First try:



I thought it was pretty darn good and ate the whole thing. :) I had to leave it in the water longer than it said because I don't think I let it get hot enough before I put the egg in. But all in all, it seemed good to me!

Egg #2: Hubby did try this one and thought it was pretty good. The english muffin combo was dang good with it! (Lucky for me, he only wanted the one bite, so I got to eat the rest!) Looks like I almost broke the yolk, but it held, yay!



And egg #3...perfection!





I happily finished off this one as well. :)



So, poached eggs are quite wonderful, and I think I might try some other recipes with them another time. Still not sure I did it exactly right, but they were good enough in my opinion. Maybe I'll have to order eggs benedict next time I go out for breakfast. :)

Since hubby wasn't too fond of the eggs, he opted for this:



Which he insisted on eating out of the saucepan, as he always does. Very manly. To each his own!



Happy Sunday evening! Have a great week!