Lots o' Cake weekend

I never got to do any of the cool stuff I had planned...but I did have my fam over for a joint b-day party with my sis.

B-day=lots o' cake

Uh-ohhh...too much desserts around. First came the mocha mudslide ice cream, then we bought a tres leches cake w/ strawberry filling for the party, and the treat for the birthday girls was a delectable cake from Coldstone. Shiny ganache coating with Reese's on top and vanilla/choco ice cream combo inside.

And the leftovers weren't helping. For lunch/dinner, we've been having brisket with bbq and all the fixings (potato salad, baked beans, etc.) I eat jalepenos with mine, so the ice cream cake really refreshes my mouth.

The cake's almost gone...

I want these beans!

Bean Animals

These little animals were hiding here! There's other stuff I want too, like stickers and useless, but cool, stuff. My favs are the dog bean on the bottom left and the tiger on the bottom right.

Love to read!!

I happened to see this list of books that I love to/really want to read!! I need to get back to reading! It always calms me and makes me feel better. My medicine. ;)

Many of these titles were required reading. Let's see how close I am to being master bookworm...

(I'll bold what I've read)

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
5. To Kill A Mockingbirg by Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
11. Little Women by Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch by George Elliot
21. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – NOT HAPPENING!
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
34. Emma by Jane Austen
35. Persuasion by Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hossein
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis De Berneires
39. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
41. Animal Farm by George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving
45. The Woman in While by Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
47. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
50. Atonement by Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
52. Dune by Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night by Mark Haddon (want to read!!)
60. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
62. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
66. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
72. Dracula by Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses by James Joyce
76. The Inferno by Dante
77. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal by Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery
80. Possession by AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (I think so)
82. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishigurox
85. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web by EB White
88. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (at least one of them)
90. The Faraway Tree Collection by Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince by Antone De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
94. Watership Down by Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

I must admit, I read more cookbooks right now! The photos are the best. I wonder how many cookbooks I could list if I tried? Maybe I need a "to read" cookbook list...that'll be a future project.

Milkshake Cupcakes

Milkshake Cupcakes!! :D (posted by kunoichi)

There's a recipe for these cupcakes, hooray! I just have to try this!! The only thing is, what makes it a milkshake? The straw? I like it even if I can't slurp the cupcake up the straw. I can imagine myself completely surrounded by little pink cupcakes...hehe. They look innocent, but then they attack when no one's watching!

So many possibilites!

There's lots going on this weekend!

*In Houston, Whole Foods Kirby Store:

-Saturday, August 15th Healthy Summer Saturday Happy Hour 6:00pm-8:00pm Free

-Saturday, August 22nd BTS: Back to School Saturday Happy Hour 6:00pm-8:00pm Free

-Sunday, August 23rd Gluten Free Mediterranean Cooking Class 6:00pm-9:00pm $35 per person

*Austin:
Ice Cream Festival

*San Antonio
San Japan - Japanese Culture & Anime Convention (Aug. 14-16)
http://www.san-japan.org/

Back in the Kitchen

I've been out of sort these last couple of days...tired, stuffy nose, ugly cough, etc. I felt sick, but it was probably allergies.
I couldn't cook anything because I'd contaminate the kitchen with my sickly germs! :(

Today was the first day back, making my bfast with egg sub. and lots of veggies. The scallions I pulled out of the fridge were a bit old...so I threw out the saggy ones and used all the good ones I could before they went bad.

Pics in progress...

For lunch/dinner, my mom made mole and I served myself a good portion of it---it was reallyyy good! After lunch, I was upstairs working on my proposal, like I was supposed to be doing. Yay, I was on task today!! :D And later I went out to RC's Pizza in Kingwood. The guy up front let me rent out an (old) slice of pizza, some pizza rolls, a big salad, and chicken wings. No, I didn't get to try any of it this time, but I've tried the pasta and gourmet pizza at work. My fav was the artichoke pizza (and probably the shrimp pizza if I ever got to try it).

PIP...

Let me praise my mom's mole once again (the dish not the sauce, which came from the store)!! I never liked this meal much, but for some reason, it tasted really good this time. I think the peas and carrots in the rice made the whole dish more colorful and, in effect, more welcoming. The sauce was not too, too spicy, but just right. Yum! I wonder if I can make this for myself when I cook for mysef once college starts. Note to self: write down the recipe!

Happy Birthday!!

JJJJJ :D

Review: Weight Watcher Mint Ice Cream Sandwich

If this ice cream sandwich wasn't in the white wrapper with the WW logo on it, I wouldn't have guessed it was healthier for me. It's huge compared to the regular thin ice cream sandwiches. And I've seen think ice cream sandwiches like this one--with calories upwards of 300! And it looks all fanciful with the little waves on the ice cream--very inviting!

My first bite packed a powerful mint flavor. As I chewed, the strong flavor remained and was a little odd. The chocolate wafer tasted normal, and still got my fingers all sticky with chocolate skins. The mint ice cream had no chocolate pieces or crumbs in it, like Blue Bell's, but that was the good part (the chocolate pieces tend to be too hard when eating a soft, creamy ice cream). As for portion size, I feel like it could be smaller. :) But a great treat when I'm eating it outside in the sun. It leaves my mouth cool and minty for hours after...along with an aftertaste. Overall, the WW Mint Ice Cream Sandwich was a satisfying treat without much of the guilt of regular sandwiches...but the mint isn't quite perfect.

My little sis agrees that the mint with no choco was good, but her overall impression was "stay away from the imitation mint ice cream."

What keeps me coming? This version is more sturdy than the regular ice cream sandwiches. The chocolate wafers don't slip and slide everywhere when trying to bite into this thick creamwich. And, you know it, it's low-fat ice cream!

I look forward to a Cookies and Cream version of the sandwich. Not much can go wrong there, can it? On the web site, I see there are all vanilla or all chocolate flavors, but hopefully we'll see more soon! I'd get these again...my sis might not eat it, but I certainly will. My mom also liked this icy sandwich treat, but then again, she likes almost anything with Ice cream & chocolate!

Each sandwich has 140 calories, 1.5 grams of fat and 4 grams of fiber.
Points Value: 2 (don't know the point system, just put the pt. info anyway)

Pic in progress.

Last week's recipe

I didn't forget about my weekly meal last week...but it wasn't exactly a meal. It was a drink! I made Joe Cool Java Freeze, from HG's 200 under 200.

My mom planned a big dinner for Friday and it lasted until...was it Monday?? Anyway, I made a little time on Saturday to whip up some iced coffee. The recipe was simple, but I put my ingredients out of order (if that makes any difference). It still came out tasty.

The foamy bubbles from the milk after the drink came out of the blender was bleh!

Sweet coffee--sister-approved. I usually drink my coffee strong, but this was a nice taste. Like I ordered one from the coffee shop instead of home brewing it.

I made 2 servings in a glass, but my mom & sisters finished it before I could take a pic! I'll make it again real soon, though.

Only 68 calories per serving and 1g of sugar!

Noon = growling stomach

Had a morning walk with Churri before my simple breakfast.

Pics in progress...lunch break!!!


Here is my bfast, made of 1 honey graham cracker sheet, spoonfuls of cottage cheese, and a blueberry garnish.

Heehee...they kinda look like Pop-Tarts!! :D

I'm (or should I say, my belly is) settling down now. I had some of yesterday's food.

Saturday
The family was celebrating Peru's Independence day early (bc you guessed it...we're Peruvian :D). My parents cooked up some bistec ranchero outside on the grill. We had to keep Churri's visits outside short because he was getting into the ashes that fell from the grill. The smell must've been really tempting!

Main spotlight: Bistec Ranchero
Supporting sidekicks: orange rice, pico de gallo, potato salad and salad greens.