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Little changes making a big difference.


Archives for January 2012

Boston Day 3: New Years Eve

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Okay, I caved. I bought more space. I really wanted to finish blogging about vacation. Also I have an entire week of meals planned out that I can’t wait to write about and the day you’ve all been waiting for I’ve been going on and on and on about AKA my first half marathon is 9 days away. Too many important things happening to wait around figuring things out. Okay, back to the vay cay recap!

We decided to go out and do First Night in Boston. Basically, you buy a pin and it gets you into all of these different events. But before we could really get things started, we had a very important stop to make!

Okay, but seriously, we don't have Pinkberry in Phoenix, so it really is a very important stop. We have a million and one fro yo places, why oh why no Pinkberry?!

Also, Nacho had to do some family tradition including ziploc bags, beans, rice, and things we want in the new year. I still don’t really understand it, but I played along 😉

You should have seen his intent and focus putting this thing together!

Yup, that's it folks.

Come to think of it, the only thing we actually ended up using our pins for was the next stop. Whoops. We went to see an improv troupe. They were decent. The people watching was probably funnier 😉

Weird people know they're weird, so when you ask them to take their picture, they actually don't get too offended. Trust me, it happens to my dad all the time. 🙂

After the improv, Steve took this picture of me and I really like it, so I’m posting it even though it’s kind totally not necessary to my story

He was convinced the cold weather made my eyes look "cool and marbley". I don't know what that means, but there's no double chin, so good job babe!

We explored a little more of downtown Boston while finding our way to some dinner.

We ended up at this Asian noodley place that had no wait and ended up being really delicious! Lisa especially loved it.

She really did love her meal, just not the saki 😉

I ended up with a really yummy brown rice bowl thing. I know, I’m so descriptive.

Brown rice, chicken, veggies, yummmm.

After dinner, we had some drinks and then went to watch the fireworks! I really really really love fireworks! I missed out on them for a lot of 4th of July celebrations (Confession: I couldn’t figure out how to make July plural so I reworded my sentence. I swear I passed 1st grade.) while away at theatre camp (and now I’m not only not smart, I’m also a huge nerd, but I don’t care I love theatre camp!), so seeing fireworks is extra special to me. In an attempt to show me how much he listens, Steve took about a million firework pictures. Don’t worry, I’ll only show you the best 999,999 😉

Ooooohhhh

Aaaaahhhhh

I asked Steve for an alternative to ooohh and ahh and he said "That's pretty badass"

He also suggested "Spectacular"

He definitely does not have a way with words, but he can take pretty Ooohh Aahhh Badass Spectacular pictures 😉

A very belated Happy New Year everyone!

PS: A big thank you to Lisa and David for being such amazing hosts! I wish I could have spent an other month hanging with them in Boston and grossing David out by eating pureed pumpkin every morning for breakfast 🙂 I love you guys!!!

Technical Difficulties

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Offffff course. Right in the middle of all of my vacation postings, I run into a big, fat blog error. I had read a post on Tina’s blog about resizing images so you don’t run out of space, and I remember telling Steve that we needed to make sure we were doing it. He was convinced that it wasn’t going to be a problem, but from then on started making them smaller. Well, unfortunately I guess the old ones were enormous and the new smaller ones apparently aren’t small enough, so I’ve run out of space. I know I can just buy some more, but I’m kind of in the middle of figuring out what I want to do as far as going self hosted anyway, so I’m going to try to figure that out before putting more money into the wordpress account. Anyone have any amazing suggestions? Or know someone that might be able to assist in the whole self hosted process?

Boston Day 2/3: Cooking and Frog Pond

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On Friday, after a fabulous day in Salem, we all headed back to Lisa and David’s to make a delicious dinner. There were more drinks

David did most of the cooking (he is like an actual cook), but I made the most simple and easy beer bread that ended up being super delicious also!

Self rising flour, beer and brown sugar. So easy.

I also whipped up a little cheese spread to go on top with some fat free cream cheese, cheddar, gouda, salt, pepper, garlic powder and cayenne powder. It was one of those happy moments when I just put things together and they come out delicious 🙂

While we waited on dinner to be ready, we hung out with my favorite dog niece Daisy!

When Lisa spent a month in Switzerland, I got to live with Daisy and it was so wonderful! I love her!!

Jason and I also baked some cookies.

They came out realllllly yummy, but we didn’t end up with any good pictures of them. Boooo. We spent the remainder of the night in eating, drinking and watching Crazy Stupid Love. I love that movie.

The next morning Jason was supposed to go for a run for me, but stayed in bed, so I ventured out into the pouring rain all alone. I hope you’re feeling this guilt trip from your zoom, Jason. Actually, the rain wasn’t too bad, and I kind of got used to it. We don’t really have weather in Phoenix so it was a nice change. You know what else we don’t have? HILLS! Good lord. Hills are hard. I ended up doing 5K at a 9:13 average pace. By the time I got back I was soaking wet and I couldn’t even tell what was rain and what was sweat. I know, I’m gross. Sorry.

Finally everyone else was awake, we had some breakfast and headed into downtown Boston. We parked at some sort of park and ride and then took the subway. Steve takes awesome subway photos!

When we got out we walked around for a little bit, seeing some of the New Years Eve happenings that had already begun, like ice sculptures–cool! Def something you don’t see in AZ!

The next stop on our plan (we seriously planned out stops on a map because we’re awesome like that) was ice skating at Frog Pond! I hadn’t been ice skating since I was like 7 and even then it was at an empty indoor rink in Arizona. I had never even seen an outdoor rink before! I have to admit, I was super nervous about it and when I realized we only had 2 hours before they closed, I was almost relieved because I didn’t know how long I would actually make it. I am super clumsy, and the idea of slipping and falling on some hard cold ice 2 weeks before PF Chang’s did not seem too appealing, so I started out very cautious…

"Ummm, it's cold and this is scary. One trip around the rink is enough, right?"

But I actually got the hang of it much faster than I anticipated!

"Okay, so I'm not dead yet...."

And before I knew it, I was having a blast! Turns out I really really enjoy ice skating!

"Wooohoooo!! This is awesome!"

We all did pretty well and had a really great time!

Jason was so speedy! I decided he was Nancy Kerrigan and I was Tanya harding because I totally wanted to take him out so that I could be the best!Nacho did really well too!

And Lisa can even look pretty while ice skating 🙂

 

I was so surprised at how much fun it was, and I even started to feel a little sweaty like I was getting a work out! Sweet!!! It ended up being probably my favorite thing we did while in Boston!

 

Skinnified Sunday: Salted Caramel Toffee Crunch Cupcakes

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Happy New Year! Let’s celebrate and make cupcakes! 😉

If there is one thing I really love in a baked good, it’s probably toffee bits. Before the days of the skinnified baking, I would bake the most amazing cookies that had chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and toffee bits. If you ever feel like baking something delicious and not healthy, just follow the Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe, add butterscotch chips and toffee bits. So delicious. But you know what’s also delicious and has toffee???? These cupcakes! And they are so much healthier and come with a salted caramel frosting that is more delicious than my beloved salted caramel hot chocolate. I sent some home with my mom and got a text from Hank an hour later asking “Where are the rest of the cupcakes?” I also loved when Jacob announced how great they were with a line of chocolate smearing his teeth. He’s classy. So in case you’re not already in the Christmas sugar coma, here you go 😉

Inspired by Toffee Crunch Cupcakes from Annie’s Eats

Original Recipe:

For the cupcakes:
2 cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tbsp. espresso powder
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup brewed coffee
1 cup toffee bits

For the ganache and toffee layer:
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup heavy cream
3 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½-2 cups toffee bits

For the frosting:
5 large egg whites
1½ cups sugar
4 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ tsp. coarse salt
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup caramel sauce

My Swaps:

  • 1/2 recipe
  • Less sugar/some Splenda (-sugar, -calories)
  • Applesauce for butter (-fat, -saturated fat, -calories, -cholesterol)
  • Egg substitute for eggs (-fat, -calories, -cholesterol)
  • Less quantity of ganache and toffee layer (-fat, -sugar, -calories)
  • Grain sweetened chocolate chips  for bittersweet chocolate (-sugar, -calories)
  • 2% milk for heavy cream (-fat, -saturated fat, -calories)
  • Light whipped butter for regular (-fat, -calories)
  • Original salted caramel cream cheese frosting (-fat, -calories)

Skinnified Toffee Crunch Cupcakes

yield 15 cupcakes

For the cupcakes:

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup + 2 tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 packet Starbucks via
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • dash salt
  • 1/2 cup raw cane sugar
  • 1/3 cup Splenda
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1/2 cup egg substitute
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup strong brewed coffee
  • 1/2 cup toffee bits

For the chocolate toffee layer:

  • 1/4 cup grain sweetened chocolate chips
  • 1/2 tbs light whipped butter
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1-3 tbs 2 % milk
  • 1/4 cup toffee bits

For the Salted Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting:

  • 4 oz red fat cream cheese
  • 1 tbs light whipped butter
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 tbs Fleur de Sel caramel
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • Fleur de Sel or sea salt for sprinkling

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tins with paper liners and spray with nonstick cooking spray.
  2. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, via, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, beat together applesauce, sugar and Splenda. Add in vanilla and egg substitute.
  4. Slowly alternate beating in dry ingredients with coffee, starting and ending with dry ingredients.
  5. Fold in toffee bits.
  6. Fill liners 2/3-3/4 full and bake for 16-20 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
  7. Let stand for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.
  8. Melt chocolate, vanilla and butter for next layer in a microwave safe bowl stirring every 30 seconds until melted. Slowly add in milk until it reaches a smooth and creamy consistency.
  9. Using a butter knife, spread a small amount of chocolate on each cupcake. Sprinkle with a pinch of toffee bits.
  10. Begin frosting by using a hand mixer, beat together cream cheese, butter and vanilla.
  11. Beat in caramel.
  12. Slowly add in powdered sugar (use more or less depending on desired sweetness).
  13. Frost cupcakes. Sprinkle with Fleur de Sel or sea salt.


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