Birthday Cake Fun

I wanted to do something different for Adam’s birthday cake this year but was really struggling to come up with some ideas.  Last year he asked for a white cake with buttercream frosting which is easy enough but it just seemed too boring.

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I remembered some bright colored cakes in a jar that I saw on Pinterest and thought … hmmm… I wonder if I could do that with a regular cake so I searched for some inspiration online.   I found a few recipes and then got started!

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This was super easy cake to make.  Just a few steps…

1.) Identify the birthday boy’s (or, girl’s) favorite colors.

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2.) Make your standard white cake batter (use a box or make from scratch… your choice).

3.) Separate the cake mix into bowls (one bowl for each color).  I wanted 6 colors so I used six bowls.  Try to put an equal amount of cake batter into each bowl.

4.) Add your food coloring.  Using gel coloring will make the cake colors more vibrant.  You might also check your colors to see if they’ll produce the desired results.  I wish that my red had been more of a fire engine red instead of a pale red.  Oh well!

 

5.) Pour one color at a time into a greased cake pan.   Make sure that the bottom / base color is spread throughout the entire pan.  The next color should go in a circle on the top and will actually push your bottom color out a bit.

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After pouring three colors into the pan, your batter should looking something like this.

 

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I decided to put three colors in each pan.  012

6.) Bake the cake as you normally would.  I baked mine at 350 degrees for just about 300 minutes.

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I really loved how bright the colors were when it came out of the oven…

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7.) Let it cool and then frost in whatever manner you would like.  Because this is actually a white/vanilla cake you could use any frosting that you think would taste great with that flavor.

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This cake was so much fun to make and I just wish that I had pictures of Adam’s face as he cut into it and realized that it wasn’t just another plain old cake.

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The colors actually were much brighter than they appear in these pictures … this is the perfect cake to have fun with!

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And, it tasted pretty good too! It didn’t take too long to get to a point where there was only this much left!

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A Birthday Dinner

We had a small birthday celebration over here in our house this weekend.  The birthday boy requested grilled chicken, grilled veggies and noodles.  Very similar to my birthday meal last year! 

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I love that Adam’s favorite meal is mine as well!  While we didn’t eat all of the chicken on the platter above (and, below) we did manage to eat all of the veggies.

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Adam and I seem to be having a mild disagreement on how much to cook the veggies… he likes them to be crisp whereas I like them to be soft.  Next time I think I’ll cook them!

For dessert, I decided to try something a bit different.

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I know… I know… it looks like a normal cake, doesn’t it?  Well, it does until you get to this.

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And, here is a picture of a piece that is cut out.

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Adam was so shocked when he cut into the cake.  He just started laughing and asking how I managed to do this.  I had told him earlier in the day that he had to stay out of the kitchen while I was baking his cake as I hadn’t wanted him to see what I was doing.  I’ll do a separate blog post later today on how to make this colorful cake.  It was lots of fun to make but even more fun to watch Adam cut into it!

Weekend Recap

This weekend was full of spring chores over here!  Friday night started out with a super relaxed and easy dinner. 

 

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A few weeks ago, Shoprite had these “steam meals” on sale for $1.49 each.  I was able to find some coupons for $1 off bringing the final price to $0.49 per “meal” so we bought a few and put them in the freezer for future use.  Neither of us felt like cooking but we were both pretty hungry after work so into the microwave these went… 4 minutes later and we had a meal.

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They were really quite tasty.  My only complaint is that they were WAY too small.  We were both still starving after we finished eating them…  We still have 2 more in the freezer and I think I’ll have to either add more to them or incorporate them into a larger meal and not try to eat them as a standalone. 

Saturday and Sunday were both spent cleaning the gutters.  I know – really a fun chore but we have a lot of trees that overhang our house and every spring this is one of those chores that just has to be done.  I’d say that this is our least favorite chore.  It is a long climb up to the roof and the ladder needs to be moved a lot.  While I don’t climb on the ladder I do try to be outside to help move the ladder when Adam needs to move it.  So, on Saturday I mowed the lawn while Adam was doing the gutters and on Sunday I weeded our flower beds a bit and then just sat in the sun. 

What did you do over the weekend?

Leftovers & Catching Up With Old Friends

It has been a couple of days since I last posted so I’ll catch you up on what has been happening over here in my little world.  On Wednesday night, I took a slightly later train home and Adam took an even later train home so I was super happy that we had leftover jambalaya for dinner.

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I don’t think this was your typical jambalaya recipe as it was very rice heavy but regardless… it was really good.  You can’t see from the picture but it had both sausage and shrimp.  When I make this dish again, I think I’ll add more veggies in.  It definitely could have used more red pepper, onion and tomatoes.  I am loving this experimentation with recipes.

I ended up working from home yesterday because we had to get a salt delivery for our water softener.  One of the great things about having Culligan deliver the salt is that they’ll check over the softener while they are there to make sure there are no problems.  Plus we bought from a local family owned business that has the absolute best customer service.

Things are kind of winding down for me at work (more about that later) so it ended up being a pretty low key day which was nice.  And, because I was working from home I got to sleep in an extra 1.5 hours!  What a treat. :)  The best part of the day, though, was catching up with an old friend from college.  We spent about an hour on the phone just chatting about things that happened in college and our lives now.  I don’t know why I am so bad at keeping in touch with friends… I really need to make more of an effort!

Last night’s dinner was a repeat of Tuesday.  Adam was quite happy when he got home.

Chicken Squash Casserole

But, for some reason, it didn’t sit well with me last night.  I don’t know if it was something that I ate earlier in the day or what it was but I didn’t feel great after I ate it and I woke up not feeling great this am too. Boo!  Oh well…

This mornings workout was 90 minutes on the Arc Trainer followed by 30 minutes of weights.  I really wasn’t into it this morning.  I wasn’t feeling well and it ended up being just plain torture.  As I was going – I was trying to do a trade off analysis in my head… would I feel worse if I continued or if I got off.  I decided to stay on which I am definitely glad I did but it sure felt like torture!

When was the last time that you caught up with an old friend?

Chicken Rice Casserole

I was able to leave work a few minutes early again yesterday which was so nice.  I spent a few minutes relaxing on the couch with a book before I got started on dinner.  Got started on dinner – who am I kidding?  I feel like it has been such a luxury this week… because we cooked on our rainy Sunday dinners have literally been reheating!  I love it – more time for reading.

Last night’s dinner was a chicken, squash, and rice casserole.  It wasn’t really my favorite but Adam loved it.  He asked a couple of times if there was more.

Chicken Squash Casserole

For me, the dish was somewhat cheesy and the texture just wasn’t really my favorite.  I’ve never been a fan of that texture and I really shouldn’t have been surprised… But, I had wanted to try it again as this was a very “skinny” version of a traditional casserole.

Chicken Squash Casserole Single Serving

Adam was definitely very surprised and happy to see me making it on Sunday!   I ended up having some whole wheat bread with dinner and then I snacked on some frozen berries and oranges after dinner.  All in all not a bad dinner … not my favorite but not bad.  If you are interested in the recipe, it can be found on CookingLight.  I made a few minor substitutions based upon ingredients that I on hand but nothing too noticeable.

This mornings workout was 90 minutes on the arc trainer followed by 30 minutes with weights.  I’ve been slowly building up my weights … increasing the weights with some of the exercises and increasing reps with others.  It is starting to feel really good.

With a good workout behind me … I am really ready to kick of the day!  Nothing major in store for me but the weather is looks nice and there is a farmer’s market outside of my office that I may hit up during lunch.  What about you?  Anything fun on your calendar for today?

Revisiting a Healthy Step: Nighttime Snacking

One Healthy Step At A Time

Okay, so I definitely fell off the bandwagon with nighttime snacking over the weekend.  While I did make progress and was not snacking as much as I normally do on weekends I still wasn’t where I really wanted to be.  Why are weekends so challenging?  There is something about the unstructured time that I just find very difficult.

This week I am back on the bandwagon and I am committing to not eating after 8:30 pm.  What’s your healthy step?

 

 

 

Walking Zombie

I stayed up way too late on Sunday night and was a walking zombie all day yesterday.  Towards the end of the day I could actually feel my eyes starting to close and my head start to droop as I was sitting at my desk.  So, around 4:30 I got up and decided to take the earlier train home.

I got home and literally ended up crashed on the couch until Adam got home a couple of hours later.  I didn’t have to do anything except use the microwave to get dinner ready and I don’t think I was ever more happy than I was last night!  We ended up having jambalaya and some steamed veggies on the side.  Unfortunately, my camera is at home and I forgot to take the pictures off so no pictures.  You’ll just have to trust me when I say it was really good.

I managed to get myself to bed a full 2 hours earlier than I did on Sunday night which helped me get a good workout in this morning.  I did my 120 minutes on the Arc Trainer this morning.  I mostly just went and didn’t really create a workout for myself.  My heart rate was actually pretty consistent throughout.

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Unfortunately, it appears that I left one of my snacks for today at home so hopefully I won’t starve too much… I may have to wander out and see what else I can find as a snack.

What’s on tap for you today?

Don’t Think Too Much

I don’t know about you but I am definitely someone who “stews” and “brews” and I am very guilty of creating problems in my mind that don’t exist.  So, when I saw this quote on Pinterest it definitely called out to me.  Are you guilty of this as well?

 

The Week Ahead

With all of the rain this weekend, I was able to do a bit of preplanning for the week. On Friday evening, I cut up veggies for two recipes that I wanted to try. I intended to cook on Saturday but we ended up doing yard work almost all day so I spent Sunday cooking. The precutting of veggies was GREAT! I was so happy that I had everything all cut up and ready to go it made the whole process go so much more quickly.

Workouts:

- Monday: 90 minutes cardio & 30 minutes strength

- Tuesday: 120 minutes cardio

- Wednesday: 90 minutes cardio & 30 minutes strength

- Thursday: 120 minutes cardio

- Friday: 90 minutes cardio & 30 minutes strength

Snacks:

- Oranges, Berries, Cheese, Veggies, Gnu Bars, Fiber Gourmet Crackers, Pretzels

Dinners:

- Monday: Jambalaya and Veggies

- Tuesday: Chicken, Squash, and Rice casserole

- Wednesday: Jambalaya and Veggies

- Thursday: Chicken, Squash, and Rice casserole

- Friday: Blackened Cumin-Cayenne Tilapia

 

What does your week ahead look like?

Healthy Step: Reducing Sugar Consumption

One Healthy Step At A Time

Monday’s healthy step was to take a day off from candy.  As I mentioned, my sugar consumption was starting to creep in the wrong direction.  Although, creep is probably a bit of an understatement.  With our left over Easter candy in an undisclosed location, when I wanted something sweet last night I grabbed a bowl full of strawberries and an apple.

I am not sure about you, but I find that when I am trying to cut back on candy the first few days are the hardest … so my healthy step for today, Tuesday, is to not eat candy again.

Who’s going to join me? Do you have a healthy step to take today?  

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