Why I hate Pinterest

I thought that my break between taking my last (yes last! 🙂 ) finals and starting my next clinical rotation was going to be just that… a break.  Nope! Pinterest and my little sister ruined my relaxing break. Let me rewind a couple months to when my sister called and reminded me that our parents would both be turning 60 this year.  She suggested that we throw them a joint birthday party.  Fast forward to two weeks ago when I landed back in Missouri.  From Tuesday until the party Saturday night all I did was what I call, pleasantly of course, arts and crafts time.  I was surrounded by pictures, pumpkins, gourds, and cupcakes.

My sister graduated with an art degree which means that while I was in charge of organizing the logistics and the guest list, she was in charge of decorations and cupcakes.  Enter Pinterest.  This girl went nuts.  In just four days we needed to make centerpieces for six tables and each of them different.  Since my sister was working everyday guess who had instructions and arts and crafts homework to complete every day.  You guessed it!

I had to re-print each of these pictures in black and white and then puzzle them back the way the boss wanted them.

My nemesis pumpkin. That huge pumpkin took me three days to cover in “Happy Birthday” And then she put in on the table in the corner. UGH!

Ok, So I’ll admit.  The place looked great, my parents were happy, and everyone had nothing but compliments.  But I swear if I had to hear my perfectionist sister critique my work one more time I might have hurt her! 😉

The birthday kids!

We also made over 175 mini cupcakes.  I was not allowed to do the piping, but I found out that I can indeed bake.  Check these out!

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting.

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes
Makes approximately 24 Cupcakes (depending on size)

Ingredients:

Chocolate Cake:

½ Cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
2 Cups All Purpose Flour
1½ Teaspoons Baking Soda
¾ Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Cups Granulated Sugar
5 Ounces Dark Chocolate, finely chopped
1 Cup Buttermilk
1 Cup Strong Brewed Hot Coffee
½ Cup Vegetable Oil
2 Large Eggs
2 Teaspoons Raspberry Extract

Chocolate Ganache:
12 Ounces Quality Dark Chocolate, finely chopped
1 Cup Heavy Cream
1 Tablespoon Framboise Liqueur

Raspberry Filling:
2 Cups Frozen Raspberries
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1 Tablespoon Framboise Liqueur
1 Teaspoon Fresh Lemon Zest

Prepare Cakes: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place paper cup liners in cupcake pans. Place finely chopped chocolate in a bowl and pour hot coffee over it. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow to sit for a few minutes. Remove plastic and stir until smooth. Sift together cocoa powder, flour, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, and salt into a large bowl. In a mixing stand, beat eggs for a few minutes until they become a pale yellow. Beat in oil, buttermilk, and raspberry extract .  Scrape down the sides of the bowl and slowly add the chocolate. Slowly add dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Pour batter into the lined cups–about 3/4 way. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow cupcakes to cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cooling racks.

Prepare Raspberry Filling: Place all raspberry sauce ingredients in a medium sized, heavy saucepan. Simmer on medium-low until berries have broken down and the sauce has thickened. Approximately 10-15 minutes. Let cool to room temperature. *If you don’t want seeds in your filling, puree the raspberries in a blender and strain before cooking. (Biggest pain in my butt!) 

Prepare Chocolate Ganache: Place chocolate pieces in a large bowl. Heat heavy cream on medium high until it comes to a boil.  Remove from heat and immediately pour cream over chocolate. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow to sit for a few minutes. Remove plastic and add framboise—stir until smooth and glossy. Allow ganache to cool completely before frosting. *If you wish a fluffier “whipped” frosting, allow ganache to cool completely before transferring to a stand mixer. On medium-high speed, whip until you reach the desired consistency. This is what we did.

Assemble Cupcakes: Once all items have been prepared, fill a piping bag with a small round tip with the raspberry filling. Fill another piping bag with the ganache. Taking one cupcake, place the tip of the raspberry filled bag into the cake and squeeze in a few teaspoons of the filling. Be careful not to “inject” too much or your cupcakes will implode  Finally with the piping bag filled with ganache, pipe/decorate swirls on top of the cupcake. Garnish with fresh raspberries.

I was fired from making the ganache.  There is a way that you are supposed to mix hot and cold and this recipe doesn’t tell you how.  I would suggest looking it up somewhere else.  I would tell you how my sister ended up making it right, but I don’t know.  I told you, she fired me.

Someone else really liked the cupcakes!

For the other recipes look them up or comment and I’ll send you a link!

Happy New Year!

Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012!

I finally started feeling better just in time to ring in the new year.  I had to teach two classes yesterday, a weight lifting class and a core class.  Because I did not pass out while working out I decided I deserved a treat.

Iced coffee with skim milk. And it was FREE!

I got tires for Christmas this year and had to go get them put on.  Wow, aren’t presents so exciting when you get older?! I wondered around Costco while they were getting installed and picked up some essentials: a huge bottle of vitamins and a bottle of vino for the celebration.

We spent NYE with some of our closest friends. First we went to an Arabian horse farm for a presentation and then had a quiet evening at a friend’s house.  We woke up this morning and realized that even though this was the first year in four years that Chad and I actually spent New Year’s in the same city, we didn’t get a picture together. Fail. But here are my girls and some horses in the background. 

I wish everyone a happy and healthy new year! My challenge to my class yesterday was to make a NEW New Year’s resolution.  We tend to make the same one year after year: “I’m going to go to the gym more  often.”, “I’m going to eat healthier.”, or “I’m going to get to a healthy weight.”  Great goals, but shouldn’t we do that anyway? What is something different that you could do this year to make your life, or someone else’s life, better?

Meltdown Makeover:

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.” – Abraham Lincoln

The Travel Diaries

This is how our day started:

Mom snapped this when they dropped us off at the airport. She was so sad to see Auntie Eri leave!

And it is pretty much what I looked like by the time I got home last night today. Oh the joys of traveling over the holidays AND flying standby.  I miraculously got on the last flight out of Springfield to Atlanta only to sit on the runway for an hour before taking off.  This was just enough time to miss my connecting flight to Phoenix.  That’s ok.  I will enjoy some hummus and a glass of wine at the airport bar.  I need to finish a book for class Monday anyway.

Good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Othello, II. iii. (315)

My hummus is way better. Not to brag.  But it is.  I got back to the gate and Armageddon must have been rumored because chaos had broken loose.  I was now one of 22 standbys trying to get on the flight and they were asking for 7(!) volunteers because they oversold the flight.  How that happens within an hour I will never know.  I was now stranded in Atlanta for the night. My bag, however, got to go home.  I joked with the lady and asked if I could just ride underneath with my bag. She didn’t think I was funny. So, I called the local airport hotel to get a couple hours of sleep before trying all over again.

Pretty isn’t it? It served it’s purpose.  I got back to the airport at 5 am to find the flight was delayed. I finished that book for class. The airport is phenominal for people watching.  I had a little kid puke all over the floor two feet in front of me.  The lady seated next to me on the flight decided that once on the plane she should change the pee pad out of her cat’s kennel.  Nice.  But I finally got a flight home and landed before noon.  I had to go to a different terminal to retrieve my bag and then try to find where Chad parked my car at the off-airport lot.  Two and a half hours later I am home and cuddling with my pups. 

I had a revelation on this little adventure.  People who travel are angry.  I witnessed so many fights: spouses, parent and child, people and the poor souls that work at the airport. People were projecting their stress on anyone that was remotely near. Ugh! It was so disheartening to see that the “Christmas spirit” was totally lost. Therefore, I have decided what my New Year’s Resolution will be for 2012: (drumroll)

I resolve to take the positive spin on things. Instead of projecting any negativity on others I will take a deep breath. Instead of getting mad at someone for something that is not their fault (or even if it is) I will make a joke to lighten the mood. I think I need to up my yoga practice because this might be a tough challenge to take on! Meltdown Makeover:

“Practice makes perfect, so be careful what you are practicing.” -church sign on I-17

The aftermath

Whew! I survived another holiday at home! It’s always such a whirlwind. People to see, places to go, food to eat. I travel via standby flying (which I do not suggest) so it’s always an adventure as to if I will end up where I want to go when I want to go.  To get home I took a flight from Phoenix at 1am to Atlanta with a four hour layover to a flight home. I got in at 10:30 am the next day.  And that was a good experience.  I have some stories! When I landed we were off right away to go to my favorite person’s Christmas party.

Merry Grinchmas!

This is my 16 month old niece.  She had a blast with all the food but was not so excited about “Tanta” (Santa).  I think we all had more fun watching her open presents than looking at what we got this year.

Every year I am home I have a little reunion with the girls that I danced with growing up.  We started dance when we were very little and ended up touring Europe together as teenagers.  This year I decided to show off my food processor skills and take hummus.  This time I spiced it up with a dash of cumin and topped it with smoked paprika.  I highly suggest these additions (thanks, Dad) because it was delicious!

I also had a wedding to go this week.  It was a beautiful wedding for one of my oldest, closest friends.  She actually reconnected with a guy we went to high school with and that’s who she married.  Everyone at the reception joked that there were more people at that wedding than at our high school reunion.  Here is the beautiful bride and my best girls.  We have all been close since our sophomore year in high school.  I love that I have friends like that!

My Girls!

I got to workout a total of two times the past six days.  Gross.  I did what I could given the equipment that was available. 

My parent’s home gym actually has more than some hotel gyms.  Here is the mini-circuit I came up with:

• 5 minutes warm-up on treadmill
• 15 pushups x2
• 1 minute jog, 30 sec sprint (x3)
• 1 minute plank, 20 bicycle crunches (x2)
• Repeated the sprint sequence
• 30 sec side plank on each side, 20 shoulder press (x2)
• Repeated sprints
• 20 tricep dips, 20 dumbbell squats (x2)
• 5 minute cooldown

Ok, now that the holidays are over I have NO MORE EXCUSES! Next week is Operation: Get back to Operation Meltdown! 😉

 

The festival of lights and bruises

Now that I’m finally on Christmas vacation and not feeling sick I can catch up on some posts. Last week I told Chad that I would go mountain biking with him.  When I say mountain biking I mean more hiking, falling, and crying than anything else.  It is really kinda embarrassing. I must have been a sailor in my past life because the words that naturally spill from my mouth as I am flying down a hill to what I can only assume is my death would make my mother blush.  I fell twice.  Once hard enough to sprain my thumb. After that Chad said that I was so angry that I actually started riding well.  I just wanted to get back to the car! I saved you from a picture of my legs.  But I’ll just say that I had to wear black tights with my dress because even my mom thought I had gotten into a brawl.

Post-ride and I still look happy

After I got the biggest beat down of my life I felt I could indulge a bit. I may not have gotten any broken bones but my ego was another story.  So BBQ, okra, and mac and cheese eased my pain.  Notice how I’m not in the picture.  That means it never happened 🙂

Southern Comfort Food

For dinner that night I decided to make Chad some Hanukkah food to celebrate the first night.  He grew up celebrating so I thought it would be nice to try out some recipes. Everything turned out pretty good even though I took some liberties with the traditional meal.  Apricot glazed chicken and sweet potato latkes with 5-spiced apples.

Apricot Chicken

Hanukkah Dinner

Cookies With A Side Of Brown Rice

Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!

Santa's Best Helper

Ok, so that’s not Paddington.  But it looks like her and it’s adorable.

Yesterday someone in my class had the bright idea of having a cookie exchange.  Have you ever gone to one of these evil events? You take three dozen cookies and come home with a whole new variety.  It’s like this event was invented to destroy me.  I have an out of control sweet tooth.

Help! Cookie Monster got sick on my counter!

This was after I took some to a Christmas Party AND sent some with Chad on his trip! I’m helping out with a bake sale tomorrow so I am going to package up some of these  and sell them along with the ones I made.  It brings a whole new meaning to re-gifting:)

After a long day of cookies and gift shopping I ran out of time to cook dinner.  We decided to go to one of my favorite restaurants.  Chad and I split the Lavosh Chicken Sandwich and the Grilled Chicken Tikka Masala with brown rice.  Both were pretty decent in the nutrition department.  Their website gives all the nutritional information which is great for those of us with no will power.

Pita Jungle

We also had another Christmas party last night.  I behaved (for the most part) and woke up feeling less guilty than I would have if I didn’t have to confess my sins on here today 😉

Me and my girls!

How to Survive the Christmas Potluck

I forced myself out of my nice, warm bed yesterday morning and headed to the gym.  I jumped on the treadmill for a little interval training.  I was running late (weird) so I only got in 35 minutes.  But, I was happy with the end result.

Getting Physical

Last night was the first annual Christmas Potluck with the girls from my class.  I volunteered to make a sweet potato dish.  I found this recipe and decided to make it a little healthier by using half the amount of sugar (and I used brown sugar) and I substitued agave nectar for the other half.  Agave nectar is supposed to be better for you in a couple of ways, but mostly because it has less of a glycemic spike (sugar rush) than regular sugar. Check out All About Agave for info about it and how to use it as a substitute.

We started digging in before I got a good picture

I was doing fairly good job about just taking small portions of food. Then they brought out my weakness…the homemade rolls.  I broke down and had two. But, they were amazing so I don’t even feel that bad about it.  Instead of dessert I had hot chocolate. We made our hot chocolate adult-style by adding marshmallow flavored vodka.  Yup.  It is every bit as delicious as it sounds.  Again, I don’t even feel guilty.  I’ll work out tomorrow 🙂

Hot Chocolate "adult-style"

Meltdown Makeover:

“Every day do something that will inch you closer to a better tomorrow.” Doug Firebaugh