Artificial Sweetners

Oh how badly I'd like to try this. But then I realize it has aspartame. Our addiction to artificial sweeteners is scary because we think we can get away with no calories and no side effects. It's even scarier when young girls try to starve themselves by drinking diet coke to suppress their appetites. 

Instead, I found this nommy alternative that is from the stevia plant and taste so refreshing. 

Wake up world, know what you're putting in your body! Moderation is not bad (I try to give up my Crystal Light, but I'll treat myself to it for a great low calorie chaser), but just be aware!

I don't care what anyone says...

Ice cream, candy, frozen Snickers bars, a glass of ice cold beer or soda...all tasty choices for a hot day.

But NOTHING tastes better on a hot summer day than...

A wedge of juicy watermelon.

Screw Starbucks

I'm not a coffee drinker, but I do love my Tazo teas. If you've never tried a Passion iced tea lemonade (unsweetened or sweetened), you haven't lived. But I also find that when buying anything from Starbucks, you're paying more for the cup and logo rather than the drink itself. 

So I recommend making this popular drink at home to save some money!

Go to Whole Foods or Fairway, or any store that sells Tazo teas. I love getting the assorted pack because while I do love my green tea, having plenty of yummy flavors to choose from is always nice. 

Instructions:

1. Put 1 packet of Splenda, sugar, or Truvia into a long glass. 

2. fill with 5-7 ice cubes.

3. Place the Passion tea bag into the glass.

4. Fill with chilled and distilled water (such a great rhymer).

5. Mix with a straw to get the sweetness up from the bottom and the tea flavors down from the top. 

6. While I didn't do this step, you can add in a very small amount of lemonade to add another sweet flavor to the tea. Not a necessary step. 

I love it so much that I just keep putting water in it so I never reach the bottom of the glass. 

Woke up and something weird happened to my breakfast...

Whatttt???

My favorite greek yogurt "Chobani" was frozen in my boyfriend's refrigerator.

Incredibly bizzare. Still tasted good though...

4th of July Cupcakes

I've always wanted to make these types of cupcakes, the kind where you use food coloring to make an array of layers in the cake. What better than on 4th of July to shake up a boring vanilla cake recipe into something red, white, and blue.

This recipe is really easy because you can basically use a box mix, an old family recipe, or the first one you can find on Google and it will come out great. When you mix up your cake recipe, you're going to want to separate the batter into 3 bowls where you will mix in red food coloring to one, blue food coloring to another and nothing to the third. You have the freedom to add as much food coloring as you'd like to reach any desired shade. 

Once you've colored your batter, you'll want to put cupcake liners into the muffin pans. Then take a tablespoon and put an equal amount of blue batter into the bottom of each liner. Next, you'll do the same step for the "white" batter, and then the red batter. Bake recipe according to the directions. 

When done baking, let them cool. I used a pink frosting and blue icing pen to write on the cupcakes with cute little sayings related to the holiday. 

See? Extremely easy! And taste nommy.

Hope you had a good 4th of July!

Spaghetti Faux Bolognese

I've been taking a couple hours each week to clean sections of my room. I'm not a hoarder, but I'm definitely on the boarder. I don't like to throw out objects with sentiment or anything "I might use in the next year or two". So I just took time to de-clutter and toss everything I haven't used since I was in grade school.

Where as it used to be so traumatizing to throw everything away, it now feels cleansing.

I'm starting to love the concept of minimalism and I hope that by the end of the summer, I'll have enough space in my bedroom to do a cartwheel..or something of that nature.

Anyway, this recipe is for those vegetarians who miss their signature meat dishes. When I was around 10-15 years of age, every time we'd go out, I'd order pasta bolognese. Oh man, that stuff was crack. So this recipe substitutes the meat for a soy burger (Boca) and it brought back so many wonderful memories. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• whole wheat spaghetti
• 1 boca burger
• a handful of cut carrots, bell peppers, onions, and any other vegetable of your choice (my family makes a giant salad for appetizer every night so I just threw in the veggies from that).
• delish tomato sauce

Preparation:

1. Boil the pasta by the directions on the box.
2. Take out a frying pan and put a tbsp. of olive oil and heat on medium.
3. When hot, drop on the boca burger and cook for a few minutes on each side. Don't worry about defrosting the burger.
4. Add in the veggies and with stirring utensil, chop up the burger into bite sizes.
5. Add in the tomato sauce, heat until hot.
6. Put your warm pasta in a eating bowl and pile on the yummy "bolognese". Add parmesan cheese if that really gets you off. Serve.

Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day everyone!

I made my dad an individual size Battenburg cake. It's an almond flavored cake with 4 cubic pieces of dyed cake, covered in a jam (strawberry), then surrounded by a layer of marzipan and finally a fondant and decorated in pearls. It was one of the harder cakes I've made since there were so many components to it, especially since I decided to make the fondant from scratch...oy. But my dad loved it and it came out really yummy!

I got the recipe from Sprinkle Bakes who decorates GORGEOUSLY and I will continue to use her website to inspire my ventures in baking.

Enjoy father's day!