Oh My Yummy!!! (and tarter sauce)

I went to my parent’s house on Saturday. I was awake early and since I had been away so long I just decided to go. It was a fun surprise for my Mom and Dad. After hanging out for a bit we went out to lunch. Dad and I got a great fish and chips. (My chips were sweet potato) We both ate half of our lunch and brought the rest home to save for dinner. This is where the trouble began. They had no tartar sauce.

Heather and her family had left to go to a Birthday party at a friends and we were watching the first Harry Potter movie on Disney Channel (they were so tiny) Toward the end of the movie was when I began having a terrible craving for something cakey. I happened to mention this aloud so my Mom (being a bad influence) suggested we go to La Cupcake. We didn’t want my dad to feel bad that we were going without him so we used the need for tartar sauce as our excuse to go out.

At La Cupcake we tried their signature cheesecake brownie cupcake and the pumpkin cupcake with cream cheese frosting. By getting one of each we were able to cut them in half and then we each got to taste both. The cheese cake one was ok but really didn’t fulfill the cakey craving. The Pumpkin one however was exactly what I was after. It tasted great and the whole time I was eating it I kept thinking “I have got to find a way to make this legal.”

That was my mission for today. Well, that and laundry. I spent most of my day on the internet. I knew there had to be a good pumpkin cupcake that was low sugar, low fat and lactose free. I also needed a cream cheese frosting that met the same requirements.

By altering a couple of recipes I came up with something that in my opinion was way better than the one I had on Saturday.

Sugar-Free Pumpkin cupcakes

• 4 eggs
• 1 ¼ cups Splenda
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• ½ cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• In a medium bowl, mix the eggs, Splenda, oil, apple sauce and pumpkin with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Stir into the pumpkin mixture until thoroughly combined.
• Spray cupcake pan with non-stick cooking spray or use paper cup liners. Fill the cups a little more that ¾ full. Bake for 15-20 min.

Healthy Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

1 (8oz) package Tofutti milk free better than cream cheese
1 (8oz) tub Cool Whip Free Whipped Topping
1/2 cup Splenda
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

In a medium mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until soft. Add Cool Whip, Splenda, and vanilla extract. Mix until smooth. Makes 12 servings

In order to keep it lactose free I went with the Cool Whip. Unfortunately that meant some corn syrup. Considering the amount of protein in the recipe vs. sugar I decided the little bit of corn syrup was probably ok. This way my Dad can eat it too.

With the major success on creating such a wonderful tasting cupcake. (I could hardly keep the kids out of them long enough to take pictures.) I will definitely be making them for Thanksgiving.

And to think it all started with tartar sauce.

Round Table at the not so round table

We had a family meeting and decided that “round table at the not so round table” was the perfect name for it. Just crazy enough to fit our crazy family. We discussed our new plan for eating healthy and how and where to look for recipes. We will be putting together a family cook book with the recipes that we like. Chicken feta salad will be our first entry.

Melaina thought this should be called “OMG! Mom can prepare food!” It is a variation on the recipe that I posted in my last entry.

Chicken Feta Salad

• Organics spring mix
• Del Monte no sugar added Mandarin oranges (snack pack. one was just the right amount)
• half can pitted black olives (I cut the olives in half because I hate when my food rolls away from my fork)
• crumbled feta cheese (I think i used about a cup of this)
• dry roasted pistachio kernels with sea salt (I used about a cup)
• canned chicken (one can)
• red wine and olive oil vinaigrette dressing

Obviously I didn’t use any measuring cups so amounts are just a guess. It tasted amazing and Jeremy was happy to find that salad actually filled him.

The kids are now in on the other computers looking for recipes for their nights to cook. Melaina gets to find some fish recipes because Jeremy has requested fish Fridays. They all seem pretty excited about the idea of eating better. Well except Ashton but at least he won’t be standing in the kitchen saying he can’t think of anything to cook because I am now making them plan ahead so we can make sure we have the proper ingredients.

Homecoming/Work/Whatnot

Melaina looked great for her homecoming dance last week. I thought I would share the picture of her. I love the red shoes with that dress. I am still learning that things do not need to match they need to go. Plus Stacy and Clinton talk about wearing a great shoe that really makes a statement. Melaina comes by that kind of thinking naturally. Cracks me up that she calls those her whore heals. I never even told her that when I used to wear them I called them my hoochy shoes.

Work is still going great. I had my first review a couple of weeks ago and scored very well. I have been getting full time hours since then and am still loving working there. having a week off from doing mark downs has been fun. I got to help move every rack in the center of the store. aka "the infield" I moved the clearance hand bags, stocked a lot of 60/80 (the home décor stuff), kids, toys and clothing for the infield. After the move I realized that one of the racks was backwards so there were active tops then active shorts and then the rest of the active tops. It was making me crazy so I fixed it. I got to help Holly for part of one day doing some office type work. Yesterday was a great day for my OCD tendencies. My project was to remove all the sheet sets, duvet covers, pillow cases and shams. Then after resetting the shelf heights with Anthony for the entire isle I got to put them all back. When I was done they were in order of size and grouped by brand in each size. same with the duvet covers and I even sized the pillow cases and pillow shams. It looked beautiful. I spent most of the rest of the day putting everything on the correct racks in misses clothing. It was a fun day.

My Nephew Kayle came up from Arizona and hung with us for a couple of days. It was great to see him and spend a little time getting to know him. I haven't ever really had the opportunity to spend more than a couple of hours with him and that has always been at a family gathering so really no one on one time. We got a picture of him at his best. You might almost think he is a sweet kid when he is asleep. Ha ha ha jk Kayle. =)

Got a lot of chores done around the house last night and today. My Mom and Dad are coming up to visit with their friends and are stopping by here for a bit first. Today is my Mom's birthday so I am glad we get to see her. We are going to sew some buttons on Melaina's shorts and go to T.J. Maxx so she can return a shirt that she got last time and get something else. This is a great weekend to do it because we are giving an additional 25% off on all clearance items so she may get more for her money. Of coarse I am kind of hoping I can convince her that she really wants to buy me a new pair of pants that I can wear to work. hehe

Anyway hope all is well with everyone else. Happy birthday also to Niki and Sherry hope you both have a good one.

Pinky's Farm

Today we spent the day out at Jeremy's Aunt Pinky's. It was a going away party for his brother Charlie. He is moving to their sister's in Arizona and is leaving on Tuesday. We will miss him but I think going there will be very good for him. A new experience and a chance to go to school. Julian had fun when he was able to ride a horse for the first time. Over all I would say it was a good day.