playing with my food

i like to do silly stuff to my food.  sure, i can try to use the excuse of making it more interesting for the bean, but in fact i'm just a dork.  shocking, yes?

like when i was making patties for my salisbury steak and decided it would be fun to really put some love in that night's dinner.

whenever i'm making pancakes for breakfast, it always starts with "what color should we make them today?"

sandwiches are always more fun when they're something other than bread-shaped.

and leftover cookie dough makes for happy faces.

there are lots of other examples too, but i can't find the evidence.  oh, well.  you get the picture, right?

sugar coma

so even as i bellyache about that stupid scale and what a liar it is, i've been busting out some amazingly delicious junk from my kitchen.  heh.

if you're on pinterest, you've most likely run into this at least once - cinnamon roll pancakes with warm cream cheese glaze.  except that i was super lazy and didn't make the pancake part from scratch.  i don't think it mattered, because hot damn, these were delish.

going back to my friend jessica of the how sweet it is blog, i got a bug up my butt to try her triple layer cookies & cream crunch bars.  i timed this well, though - i made them on a day that we invited my cousin seven to have dinner with us.  these are homemade brownies with whole oreos sunk into the batter:

and then topped with more crushed oreos and chocolate chips:

because my sweet tooth was raging (and i've been looking for a good excuse to use them), i tossed these on top too:

the last layer is supposed to be melted chocolate and peanut butter mixed together and smushed on top to glue the crumbs and chips to the baked brownie.  but i was feeling saucy and used nutella instead.  after a couple of hours in the fridge, this is what we had:

i gave half the pan to seven to take home to brother seven before i even tried them.  and it's a damn good thing i did.  these are SO. EFFING. GOOD.  i would've eaten the whole pan, completely cancelling out the workouts i've done (and will do for the next gazillion years).

by the way, dinner was fantastic too.  i did a roast beef with mushroom gravy, some rice pilaf, and a spinach salad with more mushrooms and bacon bits.  total win.

oh, and the last thing wasn't for me - my friend kirkette hit me up to do some cake balls for her hubby on father's day.  she asked me to do a dozen in chocolate and another dozen in any other flavor, but to use some star wars-inspired colors for the coating.  after a little thought, i settled on white with blue drizzle - i love me some r2d2.  heh.

i was happy to hear later that they went over well.  i always like to know that other people actually find the stuff i make as yummy as i think they are.  ha!

oh - and one more father's day order i did for a friend:

i was so worried about these, but they turned out okay and they loved them.

yup.  team fatass for life.

canvassing

okay, so a disclaimer - today's post includes a review of a product that i got to try out for free.  and we all know how much i love me some freebies.  heh.

anyway, i'd decided a while ago that our father's day present to the hub would be something super simple - a canvas print from the photo shoot i won from my friend courtney.  of course, in my procrastinating way, i didn't get around to actually choosing a shot until just a couple of weeks before father's day.  heh.

and then i got an unexpected bonus, like a present from heaven:  i was contacted by a rep from easy canvas prints to see if i was interested in a free canvas in exchange for a product review.  um, sah-weet!  i uploaded my file and picked out all of the details - size, orientation, wraparound option - and sent it in.  i got an order confirmation within a day, and even better - the estimated delivery date was less than a week away.

i was really pleased with the finished product, which i ended up having to stash away somewhere for about a week and a half.  but hey - better early than late, right?  so not my style.





and so even though i got mine for free, if you find yourself in need of a canvas print, you should totally use easy canvas prints.  they've got a special going on right now, too - 25% off and free shipping.  i checked out other places online and found that they were pretty comparable, and because one canvas isn't enough, i'll likely be ordering more soon.  i kind of want to make a cool collage on one of our walls, and this is a good start.

i'd seen a link to a super cute father's day in a post by my friend nanette, and i knew right away that it was the perfect one for the hub.  it would actually have been more appropriate on his birthday, but this would do.

but i knew i was off to a rocky start when i finally got everything printed and ready to assemble and ended up with this:




and sure enough, i was right.  i started cutting out the flaps, and on the third one my hand slipped and cut out a noticeable chunk of cardstock.  damn.




not to mention, the hub came home unexpectedly as i was in the middle of this process and i had to scramble to get everything put away without him seeing any of it.  geez.  i ended up having to reprint and cut the images out again and started from scratch.  luckily, i managed to get through the second take without any mishaps, and i was pleased with my results.




see the little silver "button" at the bottom?  i had to dig through mounds of scrapbooking supplies to find that stinking metallic pen.  and i wanted my circle to be perfect, so i busted out my cookie cutters and found the perfect one to use as a template.  yay for me!

not wanting to make the trek out to pasadena for paper source and their fabulous envelopes, i made my own.




final touches - i added the date to the back of the card and printed out a label with "iDad" in the perfect apple-y font.  and voila - we were all ready for father's day.




the bean was excited to give her daddy his present (and help him open it).

she had a little trouble coming to terms with the fact that it wasn't a real iPad.




and for dinner that night, i made a second attempt at that braised short rib ragu with pappardelle.  it's a super duper long process, even though i decided not to heat up the house for 3 hours and threw it into the slow cooker instead.  but it was worth it - the house smelled fantastic all day long, and it was rich and delicious.




a lovely end to a nice, relaxing father's day.

so discouraging

okay, granted - it's only my third week of gym-ing it up.  i know better than to expect any kind of results after such a short period of time, especially since i haven't really changed my eating habits much.  i'm still shoveling as much bacon into my mouth as i can, although because the hub has cut his sugar intake down drastically, i haven't done much baking.  gotta be supportive and all, you know.

i took my measurements again, just to see, and they really haven't changed from the last time i did it.  that's cool.  but the part that really annoys the crap out of me is this:

aside from when i was pregnant, i'm now less than a pound away from the heaviest i've ever been.  and that pisses me off.

this happens every time i get off my ass and try to get active - and when i try to get all healthy and cut out all the bad stuff from my diet, it's even worse.  the number on the scale just goes up.  yeah, yeah, yeah, i know all about the whole "muscle is heavier than fat" bullshit.  i realize that.  but still - it's super discouraging to be putting ON pounds when you start exercising.

and i'd had such a great workout right before that weigh-in, too - i managed to run for a solid 20 minutes straight!  that's huge for me, folks.

blech.  this sucks.

like, totally awesome dude

a couple of months ago, i did some pink & purple macarons for a friend's daughter's first birthday party.  she'd mentioned that she was putting together a big bash for her husband's 40th, and enlisted me to do some 80s-themed sugar cookies for the dessert table.

after trading a bunch of e-mails, we settled on several different shapes for the assortment.  one of her special requests was for a lightning bolt, and although i didn't have a cutter for it, i figured i could wing it and printed out a template to use.  thanks to photoshop, i was able to manipulate it into the width i needed it to be.

i busted out a paring knife and went to work.  thank goodness i only had to do a dozen of each shape - this was...challenging.

i really need to get myself a rectangle-shaped cutter.  so basic, and yet because of my lack of straight cutting skills, it's a total pain in the ass.  i took a square cutter, trimmed some off of the cutouts, and hoped for the best.

the others were blessedly simple to cut out, and then i got to work on the part of cookie decorating i don't love at all - making, mixing, tinting, and thinning out the frosting.  these were the party colors:

any guesses as to what these are supposed to be?

you know what this one is, i'm sure.

and finally - my 80s party collection!

i saw some pictures of the party afterwards, and was pleased to see that they fit right in with the craziness of the event.  looked like fun - i sure loved me some 80s.

and then it reminded me that my own 40th is looming near.  gag me with a spoon.

getting ready for summer

the weather has been quite lovely lately - that awesome june gloom that i love so much clears up in the afternoon and it's just perfect.  so much so that we've been spending a good bit of time in the back yard.

last weekend, brother wan found treasure up in the attic, and i was excited to see him put it up.  i love me some hammock.  i predict many an afternoon nap in here:

i remembered the gallon o'bubble solution we'd bought at toys r'us a few weeks ago, and poured some out to let the bean have at it.

she's such a ham, that child o'mine.  wonder where she gets it from?  oh, that's right - her sister.  hee!

even mollydog loves to get in on the backyard frolicking action.  i swear she's smiling at me here.  of course, this is just after she's snacked on some grass and right before she hacks it all up.

as i was taking these pictures, i noted how long the bean's hair has gotten.  since i'd just gone for my own summer shearing just last week (pics eventually.  i'm still getting used to the bangs i talked myself into), i figured it was her turn.  we went to the same place we always do, and she zeroed right in on the toy vacuum.  this child loves to pretend clean.  hopefully that'll translate into real cleaning one day.

when it was her turn, she was excited to pick a chair to sit on.  we'd been talking about it all morning.

the "before."  look at how long her hair had gotten!

 

i took note of this for the teen, who's been wanting one of those feather extensions.  i think they're silly, but she's the right age for it.

the bean got to watch "toy story" on the tv in front of her and read a disney book when the stylist needed her to look down.  they sure know what they're doing - it works like a charm.

we chopped off several inches.

she doesn't love the blow dryer, so the "after" shot is a little messy, but no less happy.

and of course, she had to take a picture of me too. 

she sure is her mama's daughter.