Fall Back

Well hello Monday, I mean goodbye Monday.

I meant to post this last night, but couldn't because Time Warner Cable is seriously the worst cable/Internet provider on this earth and can't seem to get ours working correctly or consistently. Will U-Verse please just come to our area? Puh-puh-puh-pleaaaasssseee?

And now, I sit here at work trying to crank out this post because I have been that MIA from this blog (thanks to my friend Mark for reminding me). Did I mention that it's already insanely dark outside?

Makes me moody. And somewhat depressed.

While I appreciated the extra hour of sleep this Sunday AM (but not really because I woke up at the same time), I really dislike how early it gets dark now.

In case you were wondering, Baby K is still nestled all cozy inside my belly and is making no apparent signs of coming early or on time for that matter. I'm hoping to hear some results of progression this week, but mainly I'm just trying to stay positive.

He will come when he is ready. I'm just convinced he's as stubborn as his daddy and will procrastinate as long as he can. Two traits I definitely do not possess:)

So, I don't like "falling back" this time of year, but I definitely enjoy having the fall season back. There is something about this time of year that just makes me smile.

The weather and fashion attire play a part (although my attire* options are slim pickens these days), and most certainly the holidays, but one of my favorite parts is all the flavors and aromas that come with fall cooking, baking and eating.

Here's a few of the things I've been munching or sipping on the last few weeks:

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M&M's White Chocolate Candy Corn

It's no secret how much I love sweets, I have blogged about it way too many times. These are G-double-O-D-GOOD. White chocolate AND candy corn combined? How could they not be?

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Coffee-mate Pumpkin Spice Creamer
It's not quite comparable to Starbuck's pumpkin spice latte, but it makes for a tasty, festive cup of Joe when you don't feel like spending $4+ on a latte.

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Penne with Sweet Pepper Cayenne Sauce
This recipe is a keeper, definitely enjoyed the slightly healthier version of sauce (sour cream vs. something like a heavy cream) and red bell peppers
I modified it a bit. Used penne pasta instead of Fettuccine, added chicken (cubed, then sauteed in a pan with some cajun spice), fat free sour cream and added a zucchini because I had one in the fridge.

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Pumpkin Spice Muffins
I got this recipe from Vanessa's blog and these are EXTREMELY tasty. I was skeptical of only two ingredients, but I will definitely be making them again.

I took her advice and cooked them 25 minutes compared to 12 minutes and they turned out great. I also used some of the excess batter in a mini-muffin pan and they turned out great at 20 minutes baking time.

FYI, I highly recommend them with the cream cheese frosting! Although they are pretty freakin' good without:). Thanks for the recipe Vanessa!

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Lobster Bisque at Capital Grille
We had dinner with the in laws on Saturday night, and the lobster bisque at Capital Grille was AMAZING. Although my step mom, Lori, tells me she thinks her recipe is better. I'll be sure to get it from her and report back:). Don't you just love soup this time of year?

Ok, now that I have made all of you hungry including myself, it's time I get outta here.

I leave you with this hysterical video. I'm sure many of you have already seen it since it was posted all over facebook last week. But by chance someone missed it, it's worth watching. Hilarious. The last kids in the video are my fav.

  Halloween Challenge: I Told My Kids I Ate all Their Halloween Candy

*My feet are starting to swell a bit. I couldn't fit my foot into my favorite pair of riding boots last week with socks on. Boo.

Winding Down

It's Friday night and I'm winding down from the week. Not that I had a long week or anything, because I had not one, but two snow days where I spent nearly 48 hours in the same pajamas.

Oh well, I can't remember the last time that happened. Probably college.

Just because I had an easy week doesn't mean I can't spend my Friday night as we typically do.

Completely lazy and with things that make me happy.

Say hello to my little friends.

**Vino**

I can never have just one glass.

Want to see how to make your own wine charms? See this post.

**Homemade Pizza**

One of my many comfort foods.

 mmm...feta

Want this recipe? Check it out here. You won't regret it.

**Sweets**

Straight to my ass, but I love it. You just can't go wrong with Girl Scout cookies.

My Fav: Thin Mints, frozen

 The hubs fave: Caramel Delites

**Movie**

Man, I love Netflix. We're watching Salt. I hear Angelina is a bad ass.

 It's Friday. Time to wind down. Fun weekend ahead.

How do you wind down for the weekend?

Lemon Cake Balls

Last week, I gave you all a sneak peek to the decadent-looking lemon cake balls I made for a work luncheon.

Well, the time has come to add this recipe to my In the Kitchen category, and it comes with high recommendation.

What I forgot to mention in my post last week was that I really made these for a competition, not because I'm a talented baker or anything. Although, these balls are good enough just to make for the hell of it.

So, there were three categories of dishes you could choose to bring: chili/soup, sides or desserts. Well, since I first tried this recipe at a dear friend's Halloween party, I snagged the recipe and called it my own for the competition. Thanks Ado!

And guess what!?

The lemon cake balls won the dessert category!

Can you believe it!? Well, I knew they were good, but just figured someone else's dessert would trump mine. Who knew balls could be that good.

The funny thing is...I'm not even much of a lemon dessert lover. But, these are just different. I can't explain it, but make them! I promise you won't regret it.

Lemon Cake Balls

1 Lemon cake mix (plus the ingredients required to make the cake)
1 container of lemon frosting
2 packages of white almond bark or white chocolate
Cooking Spray
Something to decorate the balls with: Sprinkles, chocolate

1.  Prepare the lemon cake mix and bake according to directions, cool.

2.  Transfer from pan to a large bowl and mix it up to potting soil consistency.

3.  Add one container of lemon frosting and stir until well mixed

4.  Form 1 inch balls and place on wax paper-lined cookie sheets (helps to spray cooking oil on your hands before making balls.)

Use it. It's your friend.

5.  Freeze overnight.

6.  The next day, dip the balls into white chocolate almond bark. If using sprinkles to decorate, apply immediately after dipping each ball.

If you use a regular pan (and not a double boiler), make sure you stir frequently! I used a toothpick to easily dip the balls into the chocolate, then transferred back to the wax paper using a butter knife to remove the toothpick. One package of chocolate covered half the balls, with some chocolate going to waste. It gets a little tricky if the chocolate gets clumpy or starts to harden.

I didn't get any pics of the dipping process because my hands were busy and full!

7.  Freeze again for 2 hours

Voila! Enjoy. If you're like me, you'll eat 5 balls in one sitting.

Cookie Jar Holiday Gift Idea

It's no secret how much I love cookies. And not just around Christmas time. Year round baby.

I love them so much that I decided to turn my addiction into my annual holiday gift for our neighbors.

In year's past, I've taken a day off from work, and spent the full day baking numerous kinds of cookies and treats. Well, it just wasn't going to happen this year. Too much work. Not enough time.

So I did some research and brainstorming. I needed something easy. Quick.

I settled on cookie mix in a jar and I couldn't be more pleased with how they turned out. I just love them!

After researching recipes online and finding the mason jars, the project was easy-as-can-be! Especially when Santa sent me an elf to help fill all 12 jars.

Here's what I did in case any of you get a crafty itch and want to do these for your neighbors, family or friends. I already have a friend that loved the idea so I helped her do them too!

Purchase Ingredients & Supplies:
This will entirely depend on how many jars you are making, but I needed the following for 12 jars:

• 3 bags of butterscotch chips
• 3 bags semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 bag of flour + a little more
• 1 bag of sugar + a little more
• 2 & 1/2 bags of light brown sugar
• 1 large canister of Old Fashioned Oats
• Baking Soda
• Baking Powder
• Mason Jars
• Paper/tags for recipe card
• Ribbon

Spray Paint Jar Lids:

I found my mason jars at Wal-Mart. Come in a case of 12. They had several brands to choose from and were very reasonably priced. We laid them out on plastic in the garage and painted them on a night that actually wasn't zero degrees outside.

Make Festive Recipe Cards:

I'm sure there are several recipes that will work for this idea, but I used a Cowboy Cookie recipe from allrecipes.com. I simply modified it a bit to add butterscotch chips and reflect a different title, read reviews to see what others add to say, modified it again based on their suggestions, tried it out for myself and then finalized it.

Designed in InDesign, printed double-sided on 100 lb. cardstock and trimmed. 

Wowza, I can't say enough about how delicious these cookies are.

Fill the jars:

The key to perfectly layered jars is getting everything to fit and packing your ingredients tight. To get everything into the jars easily, I made myself a paper funnel with a wide-mouth at the bottom. For packing, I used a skinny bud vase that I had around the house.

Now get to layering! From the bottom up, packing each layer as you go:

1. Flour Mixture (Mix the flour, baking soda and baking powder)

2. Old Fashioned Oats

3. Brown Sugar

4. White Sugar

5. Butterscotch Chips

6. Chocolate Chips

7. Pecans

Tie Recipe Cards to Jars:

Now give those beautiful jars away and be proud of yourself!

Out with the Yellow, In with the Blue

Whew. What a wonderful Thanksgiving break! I just love long weekends.

I will post about our hosting experience soon, but I had to get in a quickie about my newest obsession.

As if my sweets addiction wasn't already bad enough, I had to finish off a bag of these in midst of my turkey coma. Well, Brian helped a little, but it was mainly me.

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Meet M&M's newest member: Pretzel M&M's

Oh. My. I never thought M&M's could come up with anything more delicious than their Peanut member. And I've never been a big fan of the regular or peanut butter, but when there was a yellow bag in my site, half of it was going for sure.

Well, the blue bag now trumps the yellow. These round little guys are oh so tasty.

Pretty sure this obsession will not be helping out with the "Maintain, Not Gain Challenge" at work. All I have to do is not gain any weight over the holidays and I get a gift card!

Fat chance of that happening (pun intended).

Dig Deeper

My motivation to workout has been extremely nonexistent lately. To be candid, I haven't had a true workout since I finished my triathlon back in August. Sad I know.

And I'm not really counting biking because other than the BikeMS ride and a few long training rides, I didn't overdo myself or anything.

I would love to say that taking Jake for walks/runs counts, but it really doesn't when both you and your lazy, out of shape dog can't handle anything more than a mile of running.

So, since I've been feeling soft around the edges, I had this bright idea to workout tonight.

Due to the depressing, way-too-early sunsets, I decided to just mosey down to the gym at my work. Trying to decide what to do -- elliptical, run, weights, -- I stumbled across Insanity.

I'm sure you have heard of this program. It's quite popular. I have heard about it, talked to several people about it, but have never been crazy enough to try it out.

For some reason, I thought I would give it a whirl. I thought to myself...

What do I have to lose?
I might as well start it off with a bang.
I mean, c'mon, the CEO and President of my company do this everyday (not kidding). And I'm way younger than them, I can totally handle this.

Let me just go ahead and say that I have no intentions of strictly adhering to this program. I'm not much of an every day worker-outer, and P90x only lasted about 2.5 weeks for me. I like programs such as these simply for the good workouts.

So, I popped in the DVD, and hoped the next 45 minutes wouldn't be hell.

Boy, was I wrong. I was so very wrong.

Dig Deeper. That's what Shaun T was asking me to do.

The only answer I had for him was, "This is absolutely insane. Screw this."

And that was only the first DVD of the program. The people in the video couldn't even keep up without looking like they were going to die.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I did it, and might consider trying another one, but it is INSANE!

In my opinion, at least 10 times harder than P90x.

Well, Shaun T, thanks for pushing me to dig deeper tonight. I was sweaty. I was exhausted. And I hated you.

But, for now, I will enjoy digging deeper into my carton of Haagen-Dazs Fat Free Raspberry Sorbet. Yes, please.

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Mind Boggeling

I recently received an email that sort of shocked me.

I'm not an addict of bottled/canned beverages such as energy drinks, juices, sodas, teas, etc., but I do occasionally drink them. Normally when traveling. Some would think I would drink more of them with my sweets addiction, but I'm more into candy, ice cream and desserts.

Anyways, the email was the 20 Worst Drinks in America 2010.

Here's the couple that surprised me. I included a link to the entire list, so check it out. Very interesting.

Number 18: Worst Energy Drink

Rockstar

Sugar Equivalent: 6 Krispy Kreme Original Glazed Doughnuts

None of the energy provided by these full-sugar drinks could ever justify the caloric load, but Rockstar’s take is especially frightening. One can provides nearly as much sugar as half a box of Nilla Wafers. In fact, it has 60 more calories than the same amount of Red Bull and 80 more than a can of Monster. If you’re going to guzzle, better choose one of the low-cal options. We like Monster; it offers all the caffeine and B vitamins with just enough sugar to cut through the funky extracts.

This one irked me a bit because it is in several alcoholic shots/bombs. Guess you should request Red Bull from now on:).

Number 17: Worst Bottled Coffee

Starbucks Vanilla Frappuccino

Sugar Equivalent: 32 Nilla Wafers

With an unreasonable number of calorie landmines peppered across Starbucks’ in-store menu, you’d think the company would want to use its grocery line to restore faith in its ability to provide caffeine without testing the limits of your belt buckle. Guess not. This drink has been on our radar for years, and we still haven’t managed to find a bottled coffee with more sugar. Consider this—along with Starbucks’ miniature Espresso and Cream Doubleshot—your worst option for a morning pickup.

I used to drink this A LOT in college. I never knew it was that bad for you!

Number 16: Worst Soda

Sunkist

Sugar Equivalent: 6 Breyers Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches

Wait . . . but aren’t all sodas equally terrible? It’s true they all earn 100 percent of their calories from sugar, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still varying levels of atrocity. Despite the perception of healthfulness, fruity sodas tend to carry more sugar than their cola counterparts, and none make that more apparent than the tooth-achingly sweet Sunkist. But what seals the orange soda’s fate on our list of worsts is its reliance on the artificial colors yellow 6 and red 40—two chemicals that may be linked to behavioral and concentration problems in children.

Loved this when I was a kid.

Number 15: Worst Beer

Sierra Nevada Bigfoot

Carbohydrate Equivalent: 12-pack of Michelob Ultra

Most beers carry fewer than 175 calories, but even your average extra-heady brew rarely eclipses 250. That makes Sierra’s Bigfoot the undisputed beast of the beer jungle. Granted, the alcohol itself provides most of the calories, but it’s the extra heft of carbohydrates that helps stuff nearly 2,000 calories into each six-pack. For comparison, Budweiser has 10.6 grams of carbs, Blue Moon has 13, and Guinness Draught has 10. Let’s hope the appearance of this gutinducing guzzler in your fridge is as rare as encounters with the fabled beast himself.

I don't drink this beer, but I was shocked to see that one beer has the same carb intake as 12 Mich Ultras! Maybe some of my adventurous beer drinking friends drink this?

Number 3: Worst Drive-Thru Shake

McDonald's Triple Thick Chocolate Shake

Sugar Equivalent: 13 McDonald's Baked Hot Apple Pies

There are very few milk shakes in America worthy of your hard-earned calories, but few will punish you as thoroughly as this Mickey D’s drive-thru disaster. Not only does it have more than half your day’s caloric and saturated fat allotment and more sugar than you’d find in Willy Wonka’s candy lab, but Ronald even finds a way to sneak in a full day of cholesterolspiking trans fat. The scariest part about this drink is that it’s most likely America’s most popular milk shake.

This makes me sad because they are mighty tasty. I don't get them often, but the 13 apple pies makes me sick.

See full list of 20 Worst Drinks in America 2010

Uh-Oh

Oh crap. I have a big problem.

Tonight, I tried Nutella for very the first time.

I think I might have just died and gone to heaven.

I have always heard this stuff is great to spread on toast, pancakes, graham crackers or pair with a banana. I have just never tried it.

Brian helped me out by going to the store tonight and Nutella was on the list for the Protein Pancakes I plan to make Saturday morning before the Triathlon. It's a recipe I got from another Tri participant.

Apparently, these healthy pancakes are really yummy and her kids even crave them. I know Nutella isn't all that healthy, but it's all about the good fats, right?

Anyways, I opened it up to try it on a piece of toasted bread. OMG. It is to die for. It's like a chocolate, nutty surprise in your mouth.

I proceeded to eat two spoon fulls after my slice of bread. Oops.

It is so tasty! Such a yummy goodness that it is taking everything out of me to not march up to my kitchen right now and devour the entire jar.

Here's the fine print:
Nutella: 2 tbsp., 11 g fat, 200 calories
JIF Peanut Butter: 2 tbsp., 16 g fat, 190 calories

The good news is that both are good fats. The bad news is the "in moderation" part.

Uh-oh, I think I'm in BIG trouble...

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Who doesn't like red velvet cake? It's probably the next best thing to chocolate.

I made these decadent beauties for my friend's birthday party get-together last night. Happy Birthday to Heather!

It was my first time making these, and I must say, they are pretty delish! When I first read the recipe, I almost ran away screaming when it didn't call for a boxed cake mix.

Yes people, I made these from scratch. I can't believe it myself so you're entitled to have reservations.

Putting the cute apron my mom made for me to good use.

She's so handy.

Here's the recipe:

Cakes:
4 ounces 62% bittersweet chocolate baking bar (I couldn't find 62% exactly, so I got 60% in the Ghirardelli brand)
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup milk
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon red food coloring

Frosting: (I just used store bought cream cheese frosting to make it easy)
1 pkg (3-ounce) cream cheese, room temperature
2 tablespoons butter, softened
2 tablespoons milk
½ teaspoon vanilla
3 cups powdered sugar
Assorted sprinkles (optional)
Preheat oven to 350° Paper-line 18 muffin cups.

Microwave chocolate in small, uncovered bowl on high (100%) power for 45 seconds; stir. If pieces retain some of their original shape, microwave an additional 10-15 second intervals, stirring just until melted. Cool to room temperature.

Combine, flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. Combine milk and vinegar in a small glass measure. Beat sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla in large bowl on high for 2 minutes. Carefully beat in melted chocolate and red food coloring. Gradually beat in flour mixture alternately with milk mixture. Spoon the mixture into prepared muffin cups, filling 2/3 full.
Bake for 22-27 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely. Frost with cream cheese frosting. Top with sprinkles, if desired.

Frosting: Beat cream cheese, butter, milk, and vanilla in medium mixing bowl until light and fluffy, scraping bowl occasionally. Gradually beat in powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Makes about 1¾ cups.
Tips: Store bought cream cheese frosting may be used. Frosting can be piped on for a professional look.

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We also met to watch the much-anticipated 2010 Chi-O Reunion video directed and produced by our one and only Bakian. It was freakin' awesome! What a fun way to display our trip back to the little apple.

The Little Apple=The greatest place in the world

Pre-movie

During Movie, cracking up

Post Movie