Hello Kitty Cake

Sunday was a baking kind of day. My niece's first birthday is coming up and we wanted to test trial baking a cake of one of her favorite faces.

I'm not going to lie. Piping this cake took a really long time...a really long time but it turned out cute as heck. So if you have a couple of hours it is worth the time. Otherwise, you can frost it and it will be equally tasty.

Tan Kitty :)

So the best part about baking a cake is eating it! Sorry Hello Kitty.

Of Zucchini Bread Baking

I was catching up on some blog reading the other night when I saw a beautiful loaf of Zucchini Bread that Lauren over at Healthy Food For Living had made using a modified version of this Avocado Zucchini Bread recipe. I drooled over it a little bit and decided that I had to have some. So badly that I actually went out to buy the ingredients to make it. I'm really lazy so this was a big deal.

I've been a regular follower of Healthy Food For Living for a while now but have never made any of Lauren's recipes until now. Again, because I'm lazy. I love all the beautiful drool-worthy food photos on her site and the best part is that all the recipes are healthier versions of their former selves. So you can have your cake zucchini bread and eat it too!

Lauren subbed whole wheat pastry flour for regular all-purpose, added some chocolate chips and made it in a 9x5 pan. Sounds good to me, where do I sign up? 

I'm not going to go into too much details on the step since I followed the recipe almost to a T except for making those minor modifications mentioned above. I forgot to add the chocolate chips though. :(

Here's what it looked like out of the oven.

It was moist! I have to give it that. That's about all I'm giving it though. There was a strong olive oil taste that did not sit quite right with me. Plus, and I realize that I had made modifications to make it healthier but it was noticeable. Not in a good way. For one, it needs a whole lot more sugar and this is coming from someone who always orders things half sweet or quarter sweet. Secondly, it needed butter...that's all that needs to be said about that. In conclusion, I realized that I would rather eat one slice of regular zucchini bread than a whole loaf of healthy zucchini bread. Although my sister made a vegan one once and it was pretty tasty.

Holiday Biscottis and a Cup of Cheer!

Every December for the past three years, I've subscribed to Food Network's 12 Days of Cookies email newsletter. For twelve continuous days in December, I would get a different cookie recipe; and for the past three years, I've wanted to at least make one of those recipes but because I go crazy when the holidays hit, I've yet to make any of those cookies.

I pretty much thought that it wasn't going to happen again this year because once again the holidays are driving me nuts and I was caught up in getting ready for Christmas. Then one day last week, I get an email from Sister K asking when we should all get together to do some baking. This was just the reminder and inspiration that I needed to go and dig up a recipe that I had socked away. So which cookie did I select for the grand honor of being my first 12 Days of Cookie experiment?

I selected Giada's Holiday Biscotti because aside from the fact that I adore biscottis, these were made with pistachios, dried cranberries AND dipped in white chocolate and covered in more pistachios! I've been carrying this recipe in my purse for the last 3 weeks and can you blame me. This cookie recipe was from Day 6 from the series this year.

Form into a long flat log and bake for forty minutes at 350.

After it comes out of the oven, let it cool for 30 minutes before slicing the log on a diagonal and baking again until golden brown.

They are good just like this enjoyed with a cup of hot tea or coffee...

...with a pup warming your lap...

...or you can dip them into some melted white chocolate and cover in some crushed pistachios! I enjoyed some on this Christmas morning and they are pretty fabulous.  

Dinner At My Sister's

A couple of weeks ago, I was visiting my sister and she cooked me dinner. What's special about this dinner was that this was the first meal she was able to cook having just bounced back from having a baby.

She made some stir-fry vegetables and her modified 3-cup chicken. She got the original recipe online somewhere but have since changed it to suit her taste. It is called 3-cup chicken because you use 1 cup each of Sesame Oil, Rice Cooking Wine and Black Soy Sauce. So that makes a whole lotta sauce. So what you can do is modify it like my sister did and combine these three items in equal parts to make just 1 cup of sauce. That is plenty of sauce by the way. It is salty so you don't need a lot unless you are cooking for an entire army.

Just chop up some chicken into bite size chunks. You can use breast or thigh meat. This here is some chicken thigh meat. Heat up some cooking oil and throw the chicken in first. When the chicken is half way cooked, throw in some chopped garlic and a couple of pieces of sliced ginger (make sure you don't finely chop the ginger so that you can take it out after the cooking, unless you really like eating ginger, not me) and saute until brown. Continue to brown the chicken and when done, pour in the 1 cup of sauce.

Let it simmer for about 15 minutes and add some chopped basil at the last five minutes of cooking. It should look like this.

Vegetable stir-fry to go with the chicken dish. 

Heat up some oil, throw in some chopped garlic and saute until slightly brown and throw in all the vegetables and saute until soft. Add some oyster sauce to taste.

This is what it looks like. I am writing up the direction for this based on observation as my sister was cooking. If I missed anything, I apologize.

My sister is old "skool" so it's always white rice at her house. When I bring the brown stuff around, she kicks me out of her house. :D 

Christmas Party Two of Four

Hello! Sorry for the lack of posting this week but work was crazy. I think the worse is over so maybe I will be able to write more often.  Last night after work, I went to holiday party number two. Holiday party number two was at a friend's house. A very large house! So large they had two Christmas trees. This was one of them. I forgot to take a photo of the other one.

It was a catered event!

They even had a bartender and a holiday drink menu! This green concoction is The Grinch. I had three of them. It was a good night!

I think this one was 2 of 3. ^_^

When I walked outside later in the evening, the moon had a halo around it. I took a photo because I wasn't sure if I had one too many or maybe I took a photo because I did have one too many.

This morning, I slept in for the first time in many weeks and had waffles with PB and maple syrup. 

I made myself some fried brown rice with orange chicken for lunch. I know what you're thinking. Where's the veggie? No? You weren't thinking that? Me neither!

And for dinner...spaghetti with artichoke heart tomato sauce and some leftover un-sauced orange chicken. Carbo-loading...

...for the Holiday Half Marathon tomorrow morning! It may very well be my last race of 2011. Maybe. I probably won't get a chance to post about the race until Monday as I have another holiday party to go to tomorrow. I can't wait for you to see my outfit for the party. I'm dressing up as a flapper girl. More details to come. :) If you are running this race tomorrow, see you out there!

From Biking to Cupcake

Well I didn't go running this morning. Believe it or not my legs have been sore since Wednesday from doing wall-balls. I did about 150 reps using a 4-pound ball and I had a hard time walking down the stairs for the next two days. I haven't ran since Monday. So today, I took my bike out of the garage for the first time in a very long time. It had cobwebs all over it and I think it needs to be oiled. It was really windy and cold today but I managed to get in 17 miles.

Biking always makes me really hungry, so when I got home I ate some leftover chicken salad that I made the other night with some chopped apples, celery, chicken, walnut and light mayo. I had not blogged about this meal because I did not have time, plus this dish is pretty self explanatory. I made this dish as a challenge from Sister K. She challenged me to turn our Thanksgiving leftover chicken breast meat into a totally different meal. Challenge accepted! I got raves from the Mister for this salad. Now it it all gone!

A couple of hours later, we went out for a proper lunch at Side Street Cafe. I ordered the Lunch Special, which is soup and half of a sandwich. The soup of the day was Split Pea. This is my first split pea soup...ever! And I loved it! Nice chunks of carrots and ham but it would have been good all on it's own. The sandwich was just okay. I went with the Club which had turkey, ham and bacon. The bacon was good but I took out the ham and turkey because the ham was cold and the shredded turkey was really dry.

And since we were in the area we stopped by Susie Cakes where their bakers were busy bringing the holidays to life. Yummy edible life!

I did something unheard of, I got a mini instead of a regular size cupcake. I'm trying to be good. This was heavenly. It is just perfection!

Fast Food at Home!

I've been doing a lot of time at work lately and coming home late doesn't allow for much time to cook. I know I make a lot of jokes about my cooking but for the most part it has all been edible and some were even delicious. Recall when I made this frozen meal a couple of weeks ago? No? Well I don't blame you, it was pretty forgettable. On the same day that I picked up the other frozen dinner, I also picked up this P.F. Chang's Meal for 2. I was not very hopeful after my experience with that other package but it was sitting in my freezer one day when I had no idea what to make for dinner.

This is the content of the package. There are frozen little squares of sauce mixed in with the frozen broccoli and beef. I chopped up some baby bok choy to "beef" up the veggie content of this meal.

I served it over brown rice and it was actually pretty good. Dinner is served!

Dinner was so quick to make that I had time to make dessert. I got this box of Duncan Hines Triple Chocolate Cake in my Foodbuzz swag bag.

This cake was also really simple to throw together. I just added some eggs and oil to the mix in the box.

Dollops of fudge makes this cake interesting!

And by interesting...I mean bowl lickin' good!

Fresh out of the oven.

Care for a slice?

The cake was really moist and the fudge center layer was really rich and full of chocolate flavor. I have to admit that this is not my favorite out-of-the box cake mix but it was fun to make and if you like chocolate you might like this cake.

Thankful!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! I have so much to be thankful for! I am truly blessed and grateful! Hope everyone had a nice meal today. I know I did!

I made the annual Double Layer Pumpkin Pie for dessert.

My parents made the rest! They made ribs this year and Sister J made a vegan green bean casserole, new additions to the holiday menu. It was all so good!

I ate way more than what is shown here. My hands got dirty from eating ribs so I was not able to take any more photos after that. 

Happy 1st Thanksgiving to my little niece! She is growing so fast. I guess it has been a couple of days since I last held her because she surprised me today when she started to wiggle her legs. I guess she recently started wiggling, cooing, turning her head and smiling. It is going to be a year full of many wonderful firsts for her.