Showing posts with label cake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cake. Show all posts
Sunday, October 21, 2012

Another birthday and FYM challenge week 8

Seriously too much birthday cake, I have literally exploded! As much as I tried to make them supportive....I didn't really succeed this year! I figure we eat clean 80-90% of the time, we really need to enjoy these special moments even though I am determined to bake a choc zucchini/carrot cake next time! With no sugar of course. 

Yes, Adrian's birthday was another success in the cake department. I went with a lemon butter cake heart theme this time with his favourite lemon icing.




Adrian really loves lemon tasting desserts especially lemon meringues!!! Me not so much but I must admit I do enjoy putting lemon in most of the dishes I cook these days. It just adds zest and such a good flavour! My Mum puts it in almost everything!!! So I simply mixed some lemon rind in the butter cake mixture (didn't use as much sugar! and made my own self raising flour with baking powder and plain wholemeal flour) and did the lemon icing as well. There were 2 pieces left over, that's how delish it was!!



Here we all are, trying to squeeze into the picture.




For dinner, I made something quick and easy. We had left over steak rump which I shredded and added all the ingredients I had left in the fridge and pantry that would make a kinda Mexicana beef taco style dish. So here it is....

Dinner
Mexican beef taco's in cos salad shells



Ingredients
Olive oil
Shredded cooked beef steak
1 finely diced onion
2 sliced/chopped carrots
1 cup of sliced mushrooms
1 can corn
1 can peas
1 jar of Mexican salsa
handful of olives
cos salad




Method
Gently fry onions, carrots and mushrooms until soft in olive oil. Add beef, salsa sauce and corn, cook for a further 5 minutes. Just before serving add cooked peas and sprinkle olives in the mix. It's done, super quick as most things are cooked except for the onions, carrots and mushrooms.

Instead of the greasy taco shells (even though I do love them dearly) it was so fresh and crisp tasting serving them in the cos salad shells/cups!

I didn't buy these specific ingredients to make this dish. I simply go through my left over fridge/pantry ingredients when we have a low budget food week (and I promise I will share my meal planning ideas with you REALLY soon) and I google for ideas, inspiration or through the years I have learnt what flavours work together. This meal would have been under $15 for the 6 of us and with left overs the next day.






Today I managed to fit in a run with my gorgeous life saving friend Celeste (who I borrowed the love heart shape tin to make within the hour!) and ran 3kms with a slight stitch but not that severe! Perhaps it's more in the mornings that I get the stitch and my body not warming up? Who knows? I am still working it out. Keep you posted!!! I am really determined to complete a marathon now, even though the back of my mind I'm still thinking why am I doing this? Because I love it! There is something about running that is kinda cool (still could be doing other cool stuff within that time, mind you) but you know what I mean. Once I set my mind on something, there is no stopping me!

FYM Workouts

My FYM challenge ends in a couple of weeks (on Oscar's birthday in fact 11/11) so I have been quite good with my nutrition however limited with my workouts as my neck hasn't been quite the same. Also with my lower back after the 6km run on Sunday, something with the stitch and lower back muscle isn't gelling. Having said that, it's only my body not used to this type of fitness.

I am taking things easy and only doing what my body can do, at this stage. Still happy following the program and linking with my beautiful FYM girls!!! Love them dearly!

Sending you all my love and hope all is well with you and your families. I look forward to touching base with you real soon and love reading your comments. IT MAKES MY DAY!!!

Xx Dani
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Saturday, August 11, 2012

1st birthday party celebrations

Happy birthday to my 2 gorgeous kids this week. Of course Noah's 7th bday on Wednesday and our beautiful Zali's 1st bday yesterday....

"WHO ME?????"

Zali Mirjana Stevens born 11/08/11


"ONE already???? I've had a ball this year, thanks for welcoming me into this world" said Zali

Well not really, I'm her narrator at this point in time....

Yes it has flown. This entire week has been a blur as there has been soooo much happening. Mind you I have been one man down as the LOMF (love of my life) has been extremely unwell with the flu but is slowly on the mend. I am so thankful for all the lovely people that helped me this week and pulled off one kick a double s party celebration!!!

Where do I begin??? Oh yes, grab yourself a coffee or get comfy as this is going to be one lengthy post. I'll be more visual, as I'm time poor with my writing..... besides a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll take a short cut!

Decorations

My lovely girlfriend came for a coffee on Thursday and was such a great help when I started party prepping for Zali's bday. We folded, we snipped, we zig zagged, we hung, we stuck etc.... and came up with the final design of Zali's fringe garland.

garland idea

The letters for ZALI's name was just a font printed which I cut out on love heart shape card stock which I then stuck on plain white card stock paper, from a scrap book paper shop.

Then I had plans to start baking this 4 level tiered cake which I saw on this site  .... fingers crossed that my first attempt worked out as it had to beat the epic rainbow cake I did for Mietta's 2nd birthday last year.....



Back to Zali's cake.....I decided to make a vanilla base butter cake (20" pans x4) but decided to make a double batch so I could have them for these cupcakes....


So here is my 4 tiered cake attempt. I'd love to share with you the butter cake recipe however I promised my beautiful friend Julie who runs her own business Sugar and Spice Custom Cakes in Canada that I would not divulge her secret recipe.

I simply had red dye and added different strengths for the dusty pink, baby pink and bright pink

I left the first layer as the natural butter cake colour and then started icing with the famous Swiss Meringue which is such a beautiful tasting icing.


I wanted to swirl a light baby pink top layer into the actual cream coloured icing followed by lilac but I need more practise. Not bad for my first attempt.


Okay.... now to dress the table with all the pretty pink, white and lilac sweet things....

1. thank you macaroon bags 2. pink roses 3. sugar free pink milk 4. pink crackle & marshmallows 


All in all a wonderful day with the help of my sister in law, mother in law and step mother for bringing platters of food and fruit and we can't thank Celeste enough for taking the beautiful photos x



The birthday table......



All I did was the cake and cup cakes, whoop-di-doo-da!!!!

It did look pretty though......



Zali had the first taste test!!!!



And it did taste and look amazing when we cut her first BIG slice....



She was into it!!!!!



Yummy pink milk (sugar free of course!)





Time to blow out the candles.....or rather candle!



Here's our family picture with Mietta's famous wink!!! What a classic!


There you have it!!! A pretty amazing first birthday for Zali, which I thought I would do with a BIG BANG!!!! It's the LAST 1st bday party bash I'll be hosting!

Now back to food and other stuff, real quick. As it may be information overload!!

Breakfast
Traditional crepes (sandwich) with yogurt, raspberries and walnuts



How I make them.......



1. ingredients 2. blitz it all together 3. pan fry 4. serve

Although this time with a twist, I mashed a banana in the mix. Blitz wholemeal flour, 2 eggs, milk and banana and serve away!!!

Morning snack
Fruit salad with yogurt



Lunch
Coconut veg & chick pea curry


Method
I sautéed onions, zuchinni and carrots with some curry. Added a can of chickpeas, cooked them for a couple of minutes, added coconut milk, low simmer and allowed to evaporate until I got a nice creamy consistency.

Afternoon snack
Fruit smoothie



Dinner
Grilled flat head with roasted potatoes, cucumbers and asparagus







****Ab challenge & exercising 
starts back this week****

I haven't forgotten about our ab challenge peeps. So for those interested, let's touch base here as I would like to lock in our ab exercise regime, start date, pictures so we have before and after shots. Happy for you to just take a mid section picture (no head shots required) eg: above your pants and under your bra top/pectoral region :-) let me know if you are happy to share otherwise keep them as a before and after shot for your own personal journal.

For my FYM's Mary, Michelle and Sheri we have our TT12 system. Celeste you have your own personal ab program from Fitting In Fitness, others can do a Ms Skinny 30 day challenge. For any of my male readers and my bro, I will look into one for you and Adrian to do. We have plenty of options and anyone else wanting to participate please add your ab program and send me an email, which I will add in our comments below.

Over and out until we meet again xxDani

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, but  must be felt with the heart" - Helen Keller
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