Happy Halloween!
Diposting oleh good reading on Senin, 31 Oktober 2011
More about → Happy Halloween!
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Happy Halloween!
Diposting oleh good reading
I hope you all have a Happy, Sugar-Filled Halloween.
I know we will. After all, we've gotten all of these treats in the last few weeks:
(These could easily be made more spooky by using some chocolate candy melts in a bottle or bag to pipe on some jack-o-lantern faces.)
And don't forget, if you shop at Amazon.com through my link
, you support this blog and its contents. Thank you!
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CANDY CORN HALLOWEEN CUPCAKES: FINAL POST BEFORE MY KITCHEN RENO!
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White Velvet Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Classic Buttercream and Candy Corn!
These are the last cupcakes I’ll ever make in my old kitchen! Whee!
I have been so busy lately with work, school and just life. I won’t be baking anything for a while until Christmas at least since we’re undergoing renovations to the kitchen.
I will be taking pictures of the renovation along the way and will post them in my blog instead.
My old kitchen is dark and full of granite. It doesn’t look all that bad, but many of the appliances have kicked the bucket and I have had to replace my oven, dishwasher, microwave and hood fan since moving in over 8 years ago. So I’ll be keeping those relatively new stainless steel appliances and just replacing the rest.
My plan for the new kitchen: ALL WHITE!
- island counter will be honed white Carrara marble or Statuario marble (sealed of course)
- perimeter counter will be quartz
- white cabinets; brushed silver handpulls/knobs
- industrial looking faucet in brushed silver
- stainless appliances
- 16 x 16 porcelain tile floors (white/gray)
- rectangular glass mosaic backsplash (whites/grays)
Since my kitchen won’t be usable and we’ll be living in the house still, it’ll be chaos. We plan to eat out and eat simply. We have a little old microwave and a bunch of plug-in appliances. We’ll adapt. We live within walking distance of many restaurants, a Safeway, a bunch of bakeries and we have tons of edible things in the pantry…we won’t starve.
However, I won’t be baking for a while. Well, it’s kind of been like that anyway around here hasn’t it been? So sorry if you came looking for cake and just found a bunch of posts of my restaurant reviews. I have lately felt like I’ve lost my baking mojo since being diagnosed with Hashimoto’s.
I think a new kitchen might help alleviate the doldrums and may ignite me into a new baking direction. Yes, I am still gluten free. My GP says if I feel better restricting gluten, I should continue. Besides, it’s healthier. However, having said that, I do not fear gluten (I'm not Celiac) and my kids still eat it. I indulge once in a while with a little bit of gluten; especially if it's cake.
My grad studies? that’s going along okay. I am still only getting 5-6 hours of sleep a night because of the marking from regular work and having to sporadically hand in concept papers to my professors too, but that’s kind of what I knew I’d be getting into.
I’m excited about all the changes going on in my life and I’ll document the DEMO of my old kitchen on the blog through pictures. It’ll be cool I think. It’s almost everything I’ve wanted in a kitchen. Plus, I am at ease with my choices in the design since I’ve been thinking about it for over 8 years. Everything in the kitchen is what I think I’ll be happy with for a long time. It’s all classical colours and the look won’t wane. I am a little worried about the quartz, but for sure I know I want to go away from the granite look. It’s so yesterday. I am tired of how dark it makes my kitchen. I can’t see the crumbs the kids leave on the counters, or the sticky spills they trail until it’s too late.
All you smarty-pants who think you know how marble is porous and it’ll etch... I already know that. Europeans have been using marble for counters for decades. I think I’ll manage. I want it for my island because I do my pastry/baking there. I also will be doing some sealing sporadically (really, it’s just a spray and wipe…how easy is that? I already spray and wipe my current granite counters anyway)
Besides, if you compromise on the look now, you’ll never be truly happy with your kitchen. The white marble will stay. It’ll look great. It’ll be classic.
Don’t many people change kitchens every 20 years anyways? By that time, maybe I might want to change the marble. Or maybe I might still like it. I have a feeling I will still like it. In fact, I’m thinking of using it in the bathrooms too. Maybe Carrara again. Or limestone. Anyway. I’ll have to save up for that all over again.
I’ve been saving up for 8 years for this current kitchen renovation. By next year, we might be working on changing the dining area and the hardwood floors (they’re all banged up engineered hardwood floors). I also want to redo the bathrooms in a few years. Our house is just falling apart! oh, and I hate the curtains. They came with the house. They’re so 90’s.
These Halloween cupcakes were made for my daughter’s Halloween Party at school. They are White Velvet Butter Cupcakes from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Rose’s Heavenly Cakes and the frosting is Classic Buttercream with Vanilla Bean from Beranbaum’s The Cake Bible.
The cupcakes tasted amazing! The buttercream was silky smooth and the flecks of vanilla were nice. The candy corn was something my daughter said everyone in the class should like. I don’t know…I picked mine off. Give me simple cake and buttercream anyday with no sprinkles or candy. Today I popped a mini bite-sized one from the batch (I made 3 sizes of cupcakes) and thought they were so yummy! Tender, moist white crumb made with 3 egg whites made it light…I doubled the recipe and the 6 egg yolks that remained were employed in the Classic Buttercream. I like it when a cupcake is efficient and delicious at the same time!
This is a winner and I’ll make ‘em again for sure when there’s call to make a white cupcake. I would have gone chocolate all the way, but one of the kids in her class doesn’t like chocolate. I think that if you feel so strongly about not liking a food, hey…I’ll accommodate. And I happen to really like this kid because he’s so darn nice! He’s such a neat kid. So this whole batch was made vanilla because of him. I don’t think he knows that but that’s okay. It would be weird if he knew that anyways. Though they’re only 8, I’ve told my daughter that if she ever wants to date a guy, he’ll have to be like this chocolate-hating friend of hers. Not the chocolate-hating part, but the nice part. I think I’m safe for now because she thinks boys are icky and she’s way too cool to be thinking about liking boys anyway.
Stay tuned for some demolition pictures of my kitchen!
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Low Fat Moist Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Glaze
Diposting oleh good reading on Minggu, 30 Oktober 2011
Recipe is from Skinnytaste.com
Here are the ingredients you'll need for the cupcakes:
18.25 oz Chocolate fudge cake mix
1 cup canned pumpkin
1.4 oz box of instant Chocolate pudding (sugar free, fat free)
1 1/3 cups water
And for the chocolate glaze:
1 tbsp cocoa
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2-1 tbsp fat free milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
For cupcakes:
Mix water and pumpkin until blended. Add pudding mix. Combine. Add cake mix and blend for 2 minutes. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full and bake at 350 for about 25 minutes.
For glaze:
Combine dry ingredients, then add vanilla and milk. Blend until mixed thoroughly. Place in baggie with corner cut to pipe onto cupcakes. Top with sprinkles, if desired.
(3 WW pts + with glaze, 2 WW pts + without glaze)
You guys, they are absolutely delicious! They taste so chocolately and rich! You'll love them!
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get the {COLOR} BUG
Diposting oleh good reading
PASTEL DIP-DYED HAIR IS HOT RIGHT NOW, BUT NOT EVERYONE WANTS THE LOOK TO BE PERMANENT...
Just rub the color-bug compact against the strands of hair you want to turn Technicolor, and it will instantly coat them in its vibrant powder. When you're done, simply wash the color out with water. Streak multiple colors through your mane for a My Little Pony effect, or cover your strands from root to tip to mimic the powdered 'dos from some of the spring '12 shows.
You can also keep it (relatively) simple and just dip your tips to create a punky-pastel effect. There are only three colors available as of right now — pink, purple, and coral — but we're hoping Kevin will introduce more soon.
One word of warning: The powder doesn't have great staying power (hence temporary), so it will rub off on everything. Refrain from touching your hair and definitely don't wear it with your whites, unless you want them to turn into a pastel mess by the end of the night.
CLICK HERE for more info on color.bug & visit Mana to get the {color} bug!
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I'm OK to go!
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So, on Friday I headed over to San Francisco for my radiation simulation. They put my mask on, locked me in, the techs left the room and shut the crazy heavy door that protects them from what I'm getting (?!?), and they took a CT scan of my head. All this is to make extra sure they laid everything out just right and nothing is going to get radiated that shouldn't get radiated. After the CT, my radiation oncologist took a look and says everything looks excellent. Now I'm good to go ahead. I will be starting my radiation treatments on Monday at 3:30. So everyday for 2 weeks I'll head over to UCSF for a quick dose of cancer killing radiation.
In the midst of all this I went to see my medical oncologist on Tuesday and it looks like the cancer in my breast is growing back. She suggested I go back on Herceptin for now and see if it does any good. Normally they don't want you taking anything while you're on radiation, but Herceptin is so benign I got the go ahead. The great thing about my doctor is that she has a plan- We'll keep an eye on things after radiation and if Herceptin isn't keeping things in check, we'll add Tykerb back (at the normal dose so I won't be so sick). If those two aren't doing what we want she has a clinical trial she'd suggest I try. I love having a plan (although we all know the plan is subject to change at any moment).
For a second here I'm just going to complain: Sometimes dealing with cancer itself is easier than dealing with all the stupid crap surrounding treatment of said cancer. I went to work on Friday, ran out of my last class and jumped into a waiting car (driven by Keith) to head for my radiation simulation. I didn't have any options for my appointment time (urgh!!) so I had to be there on Friday at 1:30. The nice part is that traffic was favorable on the trip over and I was out of there by 2:00pm or so, not bad! I had my appointment for Herceptin across town at 3:30, so we headed over there to see if they could get me in earlier but no dice! No problem, we grabbed a bite to eat and headed back around 3:00. At 3:30 I got pulled in for my infusion only to be told that they don't have an order for the infusion, ugh! So, they call and try to get this sorted out, and Keith and I spend (are you ready...) 3.5 hours in the infusion room. Now, 90 minutes of that is the actual infusion part, but still!?!? Ugh. I hate shit like that. Oh, and to make matters worse, while I'm sitting there waiting I got a call from the woman who helped me schedule an ultrasound (to get a baseline of what is going on in my breast). She says I can't just get an ultrasound; I need a mammogram too. Mammograms are unpleasant to say the least and I've had 3 in the last year, why do I need another when I can point to the problem area!?!? Oh, and this process takes for fucking ever! I never get in and out of the mammogram/ultrasound office in under 2 hours (tests only take 30-40 minutes). So now that I need two tests, I can't get it done before my radiation appointment unless I take time off from work (which I am loath to do with my sick day count dwindling away). Needless to say I was one cranky person, I don't know how Keith put up with me!
Just in case all this wasn't interesting enough, Red has been keeping things interesting... Last week Red had to have a tooth pulled (after an accident during a game of fetch). While he is recuperating he can't play with tennis balls (a big deal for a ball obsessed dog) so Keith was playing with him with a balled up bandana. Seems safe enough, but Red ate the bandana...So another trip to the vet and Red was sent home with orders to monitor him closely. Everyone is hoping the bandana will come out the other end, but there is a chance it will block things up and then he'll need surgery!!! Ugh. We're watching him carefully and so far there's no sign of the bandana, but he isn't showing any signs of sickness either, so no surgery yet.
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Weird Park - Broken Tune Collectors Edition
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Game Size 646 MB
OR
OR
Screenshots:
Have fun and feel free to leave your comments!
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Bistro Boulevard
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Turn one modest diner into a promenade of five-star restaurants! Hire staff, pick the menu, and decorate your restaurant to impress your customers. Experiment with ingredients to discover new recipes, then serve up a storm!Bistro Boulevard lets you upgrade your kitchen with high-end equipment to cook fancy recipes and speed up your service, and personalize your dining room with hundreds of decorations. Have it your way in this exciting restaurant time management game!
Updated: November 19, 2012
Updated: November 19, 2012
Game Size 100 MB
OR
OR
OR
Screenshots:
Have fun and feel free to leave your comments!
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Resurrection New Mexico Collectors Edition
Diposting oleh good reading on Sabtu, 29 Oktober 2011
Game Size 430 MB
OR
OR
Screenshots:
Have fun and feel free to leave your comments!
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Witches Legacy – The Charleston Curse BETA
Diposting oleh good reading
New Hidden Object - Adventure Game from BFG.Have Fun!
Thanks To Jasmine!
Game Size 253 MB
Beta Closed!Thanks For Playing!
Have fun and feel free to leave your comments!
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