Weekend Highlights

 

Saturday was a rainy day, but I’m not complaining about that – at least it is still warm enough to rain instead of snow. The Fabulous Felines and I spent some quality time on the couch.

 

Yes, I am underneath all that fur.

Normally I try to get out and get my weekend shopping done earlier rather than later, but yesterday I was in the mood to poke around the house.

As soon as I got home and we put the groceries away, we started making dinner. Thai Shrimp Soup from Eat Shrink & Be Merry, and Shrimp Wontons from Superstore.

 

Sunday the weather was cooler, but the sun was shining which was nice.

While making the soup on Saturday, I noticed my ginger was sprouting. Of course, I want to try planting it to see if I can grow a ginger plant.

I just can’t help myself – that would be why I have a lemon tree and a key lime tree growing in pots in my kitchen; I wanted to know if I could grow them from seeds.

First thing this morning, I got Curried Cauliflower Soup going in the slow cooker.

I found a new low sodium vegetable broth at the store yesterday which was nice. I try to watch the sodium because of Husband’s blood pressure, but most of the ‘low sodium’ broths are not really all that low; I was pretty impressed with this one.

The kitties each got a short walk – despite the sun it was a little chilly out.

I spent the afternoon doing my usual rushing around the house, trying to get things done. Among other things, I baked another Pound Cake (recipe here) and polished my kitchen table…

We never eat at the table except when we have company, so it tends to serve as a collecting spot where we drip things (mail, etc) when we walk through the kitchen. Eventually it gets on my nerves enough that I have to clean it off and give it a good polish.

At the end of the table you can see Husband’s bag of Rockets from Halloween, he’s still working away at eating them.

I did laundry, and cleaned the bathroom and swept. I was going to vacuum, but it needed to be emptied and the filter needed to be cleaned (which husband did for me). It’s a bag-less vacuum, so Husband rinsed the filter and canister and the filter needs 24 hours to dry.

It was nice to have dinner ready and waiting in the slow cooker. We made sandwiches to go along with our soup – I had grilled cheese, Husband had Roast Beef & Ham. And of course Pound Cake for dessert.

Pound Cake

Preheat oven to 325.

Grease a 9x5 loaf pan and dust lightly with flour.

Cream thoroughly

1 cup butter

Gradually beat in

1 cup fruit sugar (superfine sugar)

Beat until very light and fluffy.

One at a time, beat in

4 eggs

Beat for 2 minutes after each egg.

Blend in

1 tsp vanilla

Blend or sift together

1 1/2 cups All-Purpose flour

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1/4 tsp salt

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture, folding in well. Then beat for 2 minutes (at low speed with electric mixer).

 

Turn into prepared pan.

Bake in preheated 325 degree oven for 60 to 70 minutes.

Pound Cake Success!

Sunday - Had a hard time figuring out what to eat for breakfast; wanted an English Muffin again, but we finished them off on Saturday. I finally settled on finishing off the last of the Optimum Slim (about 3/4 cup left in the box), with a couple dollops of jam (making up for the lack of English Muffin). With coffee x 2.

Husband was out late playing computer games with his friends, and was still sleeping, so I ate my breakfast while watching The Vampire Diaries.

I was feeling kind of funky yesterday - really tired out and headache-y. After I finished my breakfast, I got up and started puttering around the kitchen. Finished cleaning up from Saturday's cooking extravaganza and cooked some brown rice. While I was doing this Husband woke, wandered out to get some breakfast and juice (he ate Triscuits & cheese for breakfast, with a Bolthouse fruit juice), then went and sat down in the living room. Since he usually would go off to his computer room, I took this as a sign that he was ready to watch this week's Stargate Universe. I got my self some water to drink and went back to the couch.

After Stargate, there was lunch and more puttering. On Saturday I froze my leftover beanballs in individual portions. I got 4 containers with 5 beanballs each, and had 2 leftover. Yesterday I added a half cup of brown rice to each of my single serving containers, then ate the last two with half a cup of rice for lunch.

A while back, The Bag Lady asked if anyone had requests (things they’d like to hear/learn about from her) and I mentioned in the comments that I was thinking of making a pound cake to take home to my parents at Christmas time and I was looking for a recipe. She told me to go find one myself. Just kidding. Well, sort of. She did kinda say that, but in a much friendlier way because she didn’t have  a recipe to share. I was just going for dramatic effect. Sorry Bag Lady! You're awesome! I'm just being mischievous.  :)

Anyway, my Dad has mentioned a couple of times that he likes Pound Cake, so I thought I might try making one. I looked around at recipes and finally settled on one from my old reliable Purity Cookbook. My sisters & I pretty much learned to bake from this cookbook; the chocolate chip cookie recipe is still my favorite.

So a trial run of this Pound Cake recipe has been on my to-do list for a while and yesterday I finally went for it…The result being:

I also had every intention of doing a workout yesterday, but the day was getting away from me and I was still not feeling great so I decided to give myself the day off. Yeah, there’s a recipe for success – skip your workout and bake Pound Cake. Better yet; skip your workout and eat Pound Cake. Which I did. More on that later.

What I did do, while the Pound Cake was in the oven, was move the car out of the garage and proceed to sort through some stuff, move things around, etc, to make space to finally bring in my big planters. They’ve been sitting outside the garage waiting for me to put away and I wanted it done in case it decides to do something nasty like snow.

I had to get Husband to help me finish up, but it got done. So there’s another thing crossed off my list.

Then we made supper – Chicken Fajitas. Or what I call Chicken Fajitas. Into our biggest frying pan went chicken breasts, red onion, bell peppers and garlic. For flavoring: red pepper flakes, cumin, a little oregano, a lot of chili powder and a couple tablespoons each of brown sugar and apple cider vinegar. I also threw in the dregs of two bottles of salsa that were sitting in the fridge waiting to be used.

While that was cooking, and Refried Black Beans (from a can, Herdez) were heating up I frosted the pound cake with the rest of a container of  icing that had been sitting in the fridge since Halloween. I sliced the top off the cake to make it easier to frost and Husband and I ate the trimmings. That’s darn good stuff.

I threw together a couple of lazy salads – bagged salad mix & strawberry tomatoes.

And here is my plate of Fajitas:

The Tortillas are PC Blue Menu Corn & Jalapeno; topped with cheddar and homemade salsa. There’s refried black beans on the bottom.

I also gave in to the weekend long craving for The Real Thing:

And of course we had to have dessert:

Not to toot my own horn, but this was the best slice of pound cake I’ve ever had. My only complaint is that the sides and the bottom are a teeny bit overdone; the cake is perfect though, and it’s a pretty thin crust that is overdone. Not sure if it was the size of the pan, or my oven. May have to do some more experimenting.

I confess, I went back for another slice. It was so fresh and so good.

Monday – Breakfast is my hardest meal of the day. It is so hard to think of things that appeal to me. I’m just not a morning person. I never even used to be able to eat breakfast – I would always feel nauseous if I tried to eat first thing in the morning. Over time I trained myself, but lately I’m just tired of trying to find things I want to eat. So you may be seeing a lot of this for the next little while:

That I can handle. And it’s not a coffee shop muffin.

I drank my smoothie and contemplated what to pack for lunch. I should have taken a picture of the freezer – I actually have choices. Usually I just have one thing on the go, which I’m okay with, but today I stood there looking at 3 containers of Moroccan Stew and 4 containers of Bean Balls & Brown Rice. I decided to go for the Bean Balls. Might as well alternate and keep things interesting.

As usual, coffee at work.

I started to get hungry around 11:30, but I drank some water and had no problem making it until noon, when I had my Beanballs & Rice.

Enjoyed every bite. I kinda think this is so good because I love the Marinara Sauce (Thank you Giada De Laurentiis).

I ate the apple around 3:00 in the afternoon.

Husband was ready to go almost on the dot of 5:00 today. It was downright chilly out, and dark. Winter is coming, whether we like it or not.

Today was a Circuit Workout, took about 30 minutes in the chilly basement (at least I’m not feeling steam rising off my face like I was in the summer). I had the window open for the cats, but they are going to have to get used to much less outdoors time because it is too cold to leave the window open for long.

Supper was a rerun – more lazy salad (better than no salad):

And Fajitas:

I have two different types of salsa because we reached the end of the jar we started with supper last night – Poblano & Serrano Salsa:

I set Husband to the basement for another bottle and he came back with Lime & Chipotle Salsa:

Both good, but I could definitely taste the difference. I love this meal because it’s really easy to throw together, it doesn’t make a huge mess in the kitchen, and we always get two meals out of it. And tastes really good.

I had a piece of Pound Cake for dessert (just one) but I don’t have a picture; Husband brought it to me because I was on the couch with a Fabulous Feline snoozing on my lap; couldn’t disturb his Highness.

Now I am tired; time to hit the hay.