So today I picked up a Tofurky from Bunn's Natural Food's store. I've been wanting to try one. I'm not vegetarian, but when I'm cooking for myself, I usually don't make too many meat based dinners. I love tofu & I love trying health foods. I'm just not a big turkey eater. I like turkey lunch meat, but I'm not big on regular turkey so we'll see how the Tofurky tastes. I also picked up some ground flax seed to add into my smoothies for fiber & protein. And I got this amazing rosemary & mint soap!

I'm also going to be making The Pioneer Woman's 'Potatoes au Gratin' for Thanksgiving. They look amazing!

Credit: Pioneer Woman

Oooh I just made an amazing smoothie today for lunch! I got the recipe from the blog EatMoveWrite.

What I put in my smoothie: (I added a few extra things)

1/2 cup of vanilla almond milk
1 tablespoon plain yogurt
2 tablespoons ground Flax seed
2 spoonfuls of Peanut Butter
1 half Banana
Big handful of fresh Spinach
Little handful of Kale.
4 ice cubes.
Sweetener (to taste).

It was sooo yummy! All you could taste was the banana and peanut butter. So good!

I have Wednesday & Thursday off and the following Monday. They denied me the day after Thanksgiving off on my vacation schedule... oh well at least I have a few days off from work!

I made my very first smoothie today! I've always wanted to try making them at home. But I was always too lazy, lol! I've been looking at different recipes the past few weeks online so I decided I was finally going to try making a smoothie.

I got a bunch of frozen berries from Aldi. (I love Aldi they are so cheap!) Blueberries, Raspberries, Strawberries, Mixed Berries. Also shopped at Walmart for my other ingredients.

(Ignore the rat book & Philippine postcards, hehe.)

Here is what I put in my very first smoothie:

1/2 cup of water.
1/2 cup of Almond Milk. (You could use non fat milk too.)
4 ice cubes.
1 tablespoon of Vanilla Yogurt.
1 tablespoon of Kretschmer's Wheat Germ
1 half of a medium sized Banana.
3 large frozen Strawberries.
Handful of frozen Blueberries.
Handful of fresh Spinach leaves. (Or frozen.)
2-3 packets of sweetener (to your taste).

(You can add or decrease any of these ingredients to your liking.)

Blend everything together in a blender until smooth. I used the frappe setting on our old blender. It turned out AMAZING! You CANNOT taste the spinach at all, so don't be freaked out. I made my brother try it and at first he looked at it and made a face, but when he tasted it he wanted a glass for himself. All you could taste was the banana and the sweetness of the berries. The smoothie turned out blue in color because of the blueberries. The recipe makes a very large glass. It definitely fills you up.

I'm so glad I tried this! I'm gonna be on a smoothie kick for awhile. With not working and not getting out as much I'm going to substitute it for one of my meals (probably lunch). Excited to just try making a plain raspberry or strawberry smoothie also with the same ingredients. This way you get your fruits and veggies, protein, fiber, vitamins, etc. 

Here is a website with other fruit smoothie recipes:

Healthy Fruit & Green Smoothie Recipes!

Here is a great blog with smoothie recipes too:

Coffee & Sunshine

We had leftover spaghetti noodles but no red sauce ( I'm not so fond of red sauce anyway.) I decided to throw together a single serving of white sauce to go with my pasta noodles and wanted to share the recipe.

Single Serving of homemade White Pasta Sauce

Ingredients:

2-3 Tablespoons of flour (Not heaping.)

1/3 cup of Milk

1 Tablespoon of Sour Cream

1-2 pats of Butter or Margarine

1 Teaspoon of Parmesan cheese (I used the kind in the shaky jar.)

Spices: I used; Oregano, Goya Adobe All Purpose Seasoning, Garlic Salt. You can use whatever Italian spices you would like. Give a few shakes of each.

(You can add or decrease any of these ingredients to your liking.)

Directions:

Use a whisk to mix everything together really well. (It's important to keep whisking while you heat the sauce or else the flour will thicken up into a dough and you don't want that!)

You can heat on the stove on low-medium heat while whisking until thick. Or the shortcut I used was to put the bowl in the microwave for 10-15 seconds, take out- whisk really well and place back in the microwave. (I repeated this about 4 x's). Then I heated my pasta noodles and poured the sauce on top. Perfect single serving!

Made homemade biscuits tonight. They are very easy to make! I got the recipe from the blog: Window on the Prairie. My brothers tried them with some butter and a piece of ham in the middle. And I had mine with Apple Butter. Mmmm. :) Bet they would be amazing with gravy or as a breakfast sandwich with egg & cheese, etc.

Oh! And for a laugh- check out these Vintage Ad's! Some of them are hysterical!

Photo Credit

I found this recipe online and wanted to share it. This is so easy to make!

(I edited the recipe).

Ingredients

-3 tablespoons flour
-3 tablespoons sugar
-3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
-1 egg
-3 tablespoons milk
-3 tablespoons oil
-Small splash of vanilla extract
-1 large mug.

3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)

Cooking Time: 3 minutes in microwave.

(Cake will rise over the top of the mug, don't be alarmed.)

I added powdered sugar on top of mine when it was done. So yummy & quick!!!

Also, here is a low fat version of chocolate mug cake. I haven't tried this out, but if you do let me know in my comments how it turned out!

For non chocolate lovers: Yellow cake in a mug recipe.

(I tried the vanilla version and it is just as good!)

Every time I've made iced coffee at home, it's pretty much sucked, lol. Then I became obsessed with the cold liquid creamers from the supermarket like Coffee-Mate and International Delight. So many different flavors! (Trying to cut back on Starbucks, lol!) I decided to give another go at making iced coffee and finally came up with something that is close to coffee house iced coffee!

What you will need:

1. 16-20oz glass.

2. 8oz cup of hot instant coffee (I prefer Maxwell House.)

3. 3-4 packets of sweetener (I use Sweet & Low.)

4. Flavored Liquid Creamer. (Whichever flavor you prefer.) I usually use Coffee-Mate Hazelnut, Peppermint Mocha, or in this picture International Delight Hershey's Chocolate Caramel.

5. Ice (Obviously, lol!)














I fill my 16-20 Oz. cup with ice just a little under halfway. (See picture above). Then I add my liquid creamer to the top of the ice. I usually use 3-4 packets of sweetener. Double what I put in a normal cup of coffee.

You need more creamer and more sweetener for iced coffee, because the ice will dilute everything. That's the trick I discovered to good homemade iced coffee! (I don't prefer regular sugar because it is not as sweet as the sweetener.) Toss the sweetener in with the ice & creamer.

Make a 8oz cup of instant coffee. You will be pouring the hot coffee over the ice, creamer and sweetener. It will melt most of the ice, but once you stir your coffee it will be cold! Enjoy!

For the holiday weekend I decided to do a white cake with strawberries! I again used the best frosting ever recipe. (Which is a rich delicious butter cream!) And for the cake, Duncan Hines moist deluxe white cake mix. For the strawberry filling in the cake I took from this Strawberry Shortcake recipe. It's amazing what sliced up strawberries & sugar do when you leave them alone for a little while in the fridge. Then I mashed the strawberries a little with a mashed potato masher, hehe. Laid my first cake and iced it a little, then put the yummy gooey strawberry filling in the middle and the other cake on top and iced the whole cake. For the topping I used fresh cut up strawberries. Yum! (Make sure to refrigerate before serving or else the icing will start melting!)

The yummy messy inside of the cake:

I was craving stir fry chicken this evening, so I decided to make some. I always use my own recipe when it comes to making the sauce. The sauce was just something I threw together when I was younger and I've called it 'Ginger Stir Fry' ever since. I can't wait until my husband is able to taste this someday once our immigration is finished! :)

Now, I don't really measure when I cook... I just guess a lot of the time, lol! But, I thought I'd take a stab at it and write down my recipe to share with you guys! And since I usually guess when measuring you can add/decrease to your taste any of the ingredients below.

Sarah Lynn's Ginger Stir Fry Chicken

Stir Fry

2 Packages: Perdue Short Cuts Chicken (Grilled or Original Roasted)

1 can- Water Chestnuts

1 can- Bean Sprouts

1 can- Mushrooms

1 bag- Oriental Frozen Veggies (Broccoli, Carrots, Snow Peas, Etc)

*You can mix or match any vegetables you want in this stir fry*

Sauce

Soy Sauce- 1/4 Cup (More if needed)

Olive Oil- (or other cooking oil) 1/4 Cup

Worcestershire Sauce- 2 Tablespoons

Brown Sugar- 1/2 Cup

Crushed Dried Red Peppers- (Give it a few shakes).

Ginger- (Powdered kind) 1/4 Teaspoon

Goya All Purpose Adobe Seasoning- 1/4 Teaspoon or give it a few shakes. (I get the red bottle)

Cooking Instructions

1. Mix Sauce Together

2. Cut up Chicken throw into a wok or frying pan on medium heat.

3. Pour a little of the sauce over the chicken- stir while cooking.

4. Add veggies and pour rest of sauce over everything.

5. Mix and cook on high until chicken & vegetables are heated thoroughly.

6. Don't forget to make some white or brown rice to go with your stir fry!

(You can always add in a little extra soy sauce while cooking if it looks like it needs it. You want enough of the oil & soy sauce to coat everything.)

Makes enough for a family of 4, with a little left over.

Enjoy!

Easter Cupcakes with the best homemade vanilla frosting you ever tasted! Seriously with two sticks of butter & a cup of sugar no wonder! This frosting is amazing!!! I used Duncan Hines moist deluxe white cake mix for the cupcakes. And the cute Easter sprinkles are from Safeway/Genuardi's.

Less than 2 weeks until I leave for the Philippines. So crazy! I have to start packing next week & then I will just have last minute stuff to throw in my suitcase the night before I leave. I already have some stuff that I'm taking already in my suitcases, it's just not organized & I don't have any of my clothes packed yet.

The 20th, I believe I'm going to have my "Thanksgiving/Christmas" with my family. I think we may go out to eat for dinner and then exchange gifts before I go away. This will be the 2nd year I won't be home for Thanksgiving. Last year since I arrived home a week after Thanksgiving, my Mom froze me a plate of Thanksgiving dinner. This year I won't be home until the end of January. (This will also be my 2nd Christmas & New Years in the Philippines.)

I think F.B. & I are going to do what we did last year for my Thanksgiving. (Since it's an American holiday.) We'll have dinner at Gerry's Grill, go to Trinoma Mall, pick out some Martinelli's Sparkling Apple Cider, get some mashed potatoes from KFC & watch a movie at his house. Hehe.

I think we're also going to get our I.D. Photos taken at the mall when we go out, we will need them when we apply for our marriage license. We'll have to wait until probably November 30th to go to the USA Embassy to get my 'Certificate of Legal Capacity to Contract Marriage' because the US Embassy in Manila will be closed on Thanksgiving. Unless we go on November 27th. I'm not sure yet. I know the week of the 30th we will be applying for the marriage licence, because there's a 10 day waiting period & we may or may not have to take premarital classes.

NOTE: If you are getting married in the Philippines and you are a US citizen these requirements from the US Embassy in Manila Philippines, will be helpful: Getting Married in The Philippines.

Today I did some baking. I love baking Pumpkin Bread, etc around Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year I tried baking Iced Pumpkin Cookies! I found the original recipe here, but I altered it a bit. I left out the chocolate chips (didn't have any!) and the walnuts (I don't like them.) And since I didn't have Pumpkin Pie spice handy, I put in a 1 tsp of cinnamon & a 1/2 tsp of nutmeg.

Here is the altered recipe that I used:

Iced Pumpkin Cookies

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1tsp. baking powder
1/2tsp.baking soda
1/2tsp. salt
2 sticks butter or margarine, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 can (15 oz.) LIBBY'S 100% pure pumpkin
2 large eggs
1tsp. vanilla extract
Vanilla Glaze (recipe follows)

Directions: Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease baking sheets.

Mix wet ingredients together and dry ingredients together in separate bowls, before combining & mixing well. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely. Spread or drizzle with vanilla glaze.

Vanilla Glaze:

Combine 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons milk and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract in small bowl; mix well.

Yum! They turned out well! I put the icing in the fridge to firm up a little while the cookies were still baking.

For Mother's Day I made my mom chocolate covered strawberries. White chocolate and milk chocolate with different colored sprinkles. Yummy!



I also made her chocolate covered cherries with maraschino sundae cherries. They taste soooo good, but they don't look as nice because the cherries were bigger than my candy molds, so no pictures of those!

Tomorrow for lunch I'm taking both of my parents out to Red Lobster. We're doing a Mother's Day early Father's Day lunch. Then we'll stop at the mall to go to Bath & Bodyworks so my Mom can pick out her favorite anti bacterial products.

I upgraded to Internet Explorer 8 from Internet Explorer 6. Once I upgraded, I had to edit my blog layout a bit because it was not appearing correctly for me. If you are having any issues with the pictures on my blog not being aligned correctly you may need to upgrade to IE8. The resolution on my computer is also 1280 x 800, so if any of you reading are having issues with the alignment of my pictures please let me know & I'll try to see what I can adjust.

I really love Bakerella's Blog! She is so creative! I think her creations are stunning; I'm always so impressed with what she comes up with. I've been wanting to try making her cake pops for awhile and I thought it would be easiest to start with her recipe for cupcake bites!

I used a store bought chocolate cake mix & chocolate fudge icing for my cake balls. I made the cake last night and let it cool, then after I mixed the cake & icing together I rolled them into mini balls and put them on cookie trays to freeze overnight- (only because I didn't have enough time to do everything last night!) The cake mix made nearly 70 of these!

When I came home from work today I got the cake balls out of the freezer and got my dark chocolate melts ready. I dipped the chocolate into candy molds and placed the cake balls into the chocolate to make the base of the "cupcake". I used white chocolate melts for the tops and I dyed them pink & purple with food coloring, and I used cinnamon drops to make the "cherry" on top.

I found it very tricky to coat the top of the "cupcake". It was hard to get the chocolate very smooth and even around the base. I am no where even near the quality of Bakerella's gorgeous cupcake bites! I did take a few pictures of the "cupcakes" I thought turned out best. There's quite a few "rejects" though, haha!

It also takes a heck of alot of time to prepare all of these. I would say I spent 2 hours each night making them. 4 hours total. They look cute though and they taste so unbelievably good! You have the crunchy dark & white chocolate coating on the outside and inside is moist chocolate cake & icing. Mmmmm! Heavenly!

I'm taking a bunch to work tomorrow to give out to my co-workers. And I'm taking some up to my cousins house for our "movie" night tomorrow. I won't be making these all the time, but they are fun for special occasions & holidays! :-)

Yesterday I went out to do all of my Christmas shopping. I was out from 9am-2pm. I guess I should have done my Christmas shopping early before I went to the Philippines for 2 months, then I wouldn't have had to rush around like I did to get it all done at once! Whew! But I'm all finished now.

F.B. sent me Christmas Cards and a 7 page letter. He also sent me our trip journal. Whenever we are together he keeps a journal that summarizes what we did each day. Then he makes a copy to keep for himself and gives me the original. He also sent me a Watson's Lemon Lip Balm! Yay! I lost mine on the plane coming back to the USA. I love Watson's drugstore in the Philippines. I have Christmas gifts to mail him too, though they will be a little late this year. His Christmas gifts to me were a hoodie & t-shirt and sandals that he got me in the Philippines when I was there.

I love the one card he sent me, he said it reminded him of my ratties! Hehe! So Cute!





















After Christmas shopping I had a bake fest. I made Pumpkin Bread, Chocolate Chip Muffins and Pumpkin Muffins! The Pumpkin Muffins were super simple to make. Only 4 ingredients!



Spending Christmas at home with the family. We usually put the tree up on Christmas eve and exchange some gifts. On Christmas we always have a breakfast buffet. I also ordered this yummy chocolate torte from Figi's for dessert this year.

I received a letter from wonk today saying to report to work on January 5th. Just a few more weeks of furlough "vacation" time left!

Spice had her recheck visit at the Vet this evening. She was able to get her stitches out finally! She is also doing much better since the Vet gave her fluids. I've also been giving her pedilyte in an oral syringe whenever I give her the antibiotic. She's not dizzy anymore and she can walk properly again. The antibiotic is still giving her terrible diarrhea, but tonight is her last night to be on it. She also gets to go back with her sisters tonight in the cage! I'm sure she's happy about that! Here's a picture of her from yesterday when she still had the stitches: