Lesson Learned

Today I made Chocolate Molten Lava Cakes from the Cook Yourself Thin Cookbook.  The picture of them looked like something any chocolate lover would enjoy. I was surprised when the recipe called for 6oz of bittersweet chocolate and only 1/3 of a cup of sugar, but I went with it in the spirit of eating desert and losing weight. When they were done cooking, I arranged them nicely on a plate, topped with powdered sugar and homemade whipped cream. They were ... gross. Even 2 dark chocolate lovers like me and Garrett could only swallow one bite.  No amount of whipped cream was able to salvage the bitter taste of the cake. I guess the small amount of sugar is how the cake is in a healthy eating cook book.  Luckily I was able to clean out the bitter taste in my mouth with a couple bite sized Dark Chocolate Milky Way left over from Valentine's Day. :)

I am reluctant to try the other dessert recipes in this cookbook, but I probably will.  I do want to cook through the whole thing, but I HATE wasting ingredients. I guess we'll just see when the time comes.

Valentine's Day Crack

Here is a quick and easy idea for a Valentine's Day snack.

You will need:
pretezels (the ones that look like square grids)
Hersey's hugs
M&M's (preferably Valentine's Day colored)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
Lay out a piece of parchment paper on a rectangle cookie sheet. Line the pretzels up on top of the paper.  Place one hug on top of each pretzel.

Bake for 4-6 minutes.  The hugs should maintain their shape. Put one M&M on top of each hug and press down so that you are smashing the chocolate to cover up the entire pretzel.  When you are done they should look like this:

They are the perfect combination of a sweet and salty treat!  Try not to eat them all in one sitting.u

Update

I promise I'm still here and hard at work on my 25 before 25 list.

So far I have made 5 recipes out of the Cook Yourself Thin Cookbook. All were well received by best friend except for the ricotta cheese pizza.  He kept saying he was disappointed there wasn't any red sauce on it.  He really liked the fish and chips.  Instead of being fried, you dip them in an egg mixture, flour, and then roll them in crushed Corn Flakes cereal.  Yummy!

I am sloooooowly working on my wedding scrapbook. I have a few pages done that I really like. Lately we have been spending weekends at a hospital in Tulsa visiting my grandpa so I haven't had much time to work on it.

I am also working on losing weight, although it seems to be fairly ineffective. I've been doing pilates and yoga for weight loss for about a week and a half, along with trying to eat healthier in general. I make some type of smoothie every morning for breakfast and haven't gone to Starbucks yet.  I did crack and have a milkshake last night, but that was only because my throat hurt so badly I could barely swallow and it was the only thing that would help.
Haven't lost any weight yet, but I know it takes longer when you aren't doing hardly any cardio stuff.

Today marks the start of not buying clothes for 6 months, which was another thing on my list.  What's the point in spending money on clothes that I'm hoping won't fit next year?

Besides that, the only thing going on is my car exploding. We were in Tulsa last weekend and the car overheated.  We pulled over and nothing was smoking, so we drove the mile left to my grandparent's house.  The second Garrett turned the car off, orange fluid and smoke started spewing out of the cracks in the hood. I mean SPEWING. The driveway was covered within seconds.  We took it to the closest place we could find, and Garrett's dad came to get us and bring us back to Edmond. On Tuesday I went to go and get it, and they had replaced the radiator which apparently had a hole. (Hence the spewing of orange goo.)  I drove to the hospital to see my mom and grandparents and on the way there, the heat gauge was going nutso and said 3 different times that the car was over heating. So, I took the car in to another branch of the same place that had "fixed" it before. Apparently this place was more like a Jiffy Lube place than an actual car repair shop.  They looked at it and temporarily fixed it (for free!) but said that one of the gaskets had blown.  The man was really nice and said that I could probably drive it back to Edmond and only have to refill the antifreeze a couple times.  I just laughed. (Well actually I cried because I knew Garrett was going to have to come get me from Edmond and that we weren't going to get home until super late, and I had to work really early the next morning.) While Garrett was driving down to bring me back, my mom and I took it to a different place.  They fixed some stuff and we are going to get it sometime today. Hopefully it will be all the way fixed. :P

Re-purposed shirt

The other day I was browsing Pinterest and found a tutorial for how to turn a long-sleeved shirt into a cute short-sleeved shirt. I have several shirts that have sleeves that are too short for my long arms, so I decided to give the tutorial a try.  

Start with a long-sleeved t-shirt.

Cut off the sleeves!

Cut the cuff off of the sleeve and cut the sleeve down the seam.

Starting at the "shoulder," scrunch up the sleeve.

When you are done making the bow, wrap the cuff around the middle to keep it together.

Sew the bow onto the top of the shirt!  I just did several random stitches until I felt like it was well attached!

That's it!  I also put some anti-fray stuff on the arm holes just in case.

Working on My 25 List

I am slowly starting to accomplish things on my 25 before 25 list, and also slowly starting to realize that some of the things on there are pretty unrealistic. If money were no object, maybe I would see New York City and the Atlantic Ocean in the next 13 months, but it is. My wonderful friend Kirsten is getting married in August and I would love to go to her wedding, which is in Portland. A trip to the East Coast might have to wait a little bit longer.

But onto the things I have already accomplished ...

I made a skirt. With a sewing machine. I amaze myself sometimes.  I used the easiest tutorial I could find, but I was still skeptical that the piece of fabric would look like a skirt when I was done.  A few tears were shed, but it is finished, it is cute, it fits, and it HAS POCKETS. I wore it on our date last night and I love it! I can't post any pictures because I'm currently using a netbook - so there's no photo storage, but I will try to get one on the blog soon.

I am slowly starting to make a wedding scrapbook.  I have all the supplies purchased.  I have done one page. (Hey, slow and steady wins the race, right?)

I am also slowly starting to get back to pre-wedding weight. I bought a "skinny" cookbook and so far I love the recipes in it. The hardest part is exercising. I have time to exercise, but I tend to get migraines really easily. Today Garrett and I went on a 30 minute/1 mile walk, and I had a migraine 1/2 way through it. Not sure how I'm going to lose weight burning 90 calories a day. I kind of feel like I'm out of ideas. I have tried the "Couch to 5k" program, but shooting pain going through my knees is not my idea of a fun time. Has anyone tried Yoga for Weight Loss? I have seen a couple videos, but can you really lose weight doing some weird stretches?

One last thing. Apparently people read this blog! AAHH. I found the "stats" page on blogger.  I have 12 followers and 30 posts, so I figured that when I looked under the "pageviews" stats that I would have around 350. HOW ABOUT 1,099?!!!  Who the heck is reading this thing?  Whoever you are, thank you!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Cook Yourself Thin Faster

Look at me go!  3 posts in 3 days.

If you read my "25 Before 25" list, you might have noticed that one of the things that I want to do is to cook through a cookbook.  Yes, I got this idea from the movie Julie and Julia.  I checked out Juila Child's cookbook and all the French food honestly scared me. I had no idea what most of it even was, not to mention where I would buy it.  I was also worried that if I was able to find the food, that it would be too expensive for our grocery budget.

So, last night I scoured the cookbook section at Half Price Books and found a cookbook called "Cook Yourself Thin Faster."  This brings me to the assumption that there is a "Cook Yourself Thin" cookbook out there somewhere, and that this one is the sequel.  Another one of the things on my 25 list is to get back to pre-wedding weight, so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone by cooking through a healthy eating cookbook.

Starting this weekend I will start cooking through the "Cook Yourself Thin Faster" cookbook. I will be cheating slightly by not cooking every recipe in this cookbook.  I'm not going to spend money on ingredients for a meal that I know neither of us will like.  On the menu for the first week is Fish and Chips, White Pizza with Roasted Mushrooms, Pork with Apples, Fettuccine con Funghi, mini blueberry muffins for breakfast Saturday morning, and blueberry/pomegranate smoothies for breakfast throughout the week.

Wish us luck!

Homemade Laundry Detergent

This past weekend, we made our own laundry detergent.  I found the recipe online, and it claimed that it makes enough for over a year of laundry for only 12 dollars.  That's a deal I couldn't pass up!  The detergent smells good and cleans well. I miss the fruity scent of our old detergent, but that's something I'm willing to live without!

If you want to make a batch of detergent for yourself, here is the recipe:

1 4lb box of Borax
1 4lb box of  Arm & Hammer Baking Soda
1 4lb box of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
1 30oz top of OxyClean or Sun Oxygen cleaner
3 5oz bars of Fels Naptha soap
(All these ingredients are right next to each other in the laundry aisle at Wal-Mart.)

You will also need a large container to put it in.  I think it needs to be at least 3 gallons.  We ended up buying a 15 quart storage box because it was the cheapest thing we could find.

First you will need to grate the soap into your storage container. I just used a regular old cheese grater.
Dump all the other ingredients into the storage container. Pour slowly or else you will inhale baking soda - just a tip. Once all the ingredients are in the container, mix it up with your hands until it is well mixed.

You will need 1 Tablespoon of detergent for a regular sized load and 2 for a large load. The Sun Oxygen soap came with a Tablespoon sized scooper, so I just threw that in the box with the detergent.

And, since we are on the topic of being thrifty, I'll go ahead and post these pictures of how I made a magazine holder out of an empty Cheerios box.