I know I wrote about this before. But Matt is away for Valentine's Day and I was talking with a couple of girls about having a Lonely Hearts Club dinner that evening. I saw this on the internet. I wish I had ordered some in the US and brought them back. I really want to make the cookie version of these and decorate them myself. Hilarious.
Last night we had the "No Boys Allowed" superbowl party. A lot more comments were made about the commercials than the football. We had some great food. Melinda had a broth fondue where we made chicken and vegetables. Carmen brought some good hummus. We had a lot of vegetables and Megs made some lovely chili. Definitely not your usual types of complete junk food. I was stuffed but didn't feel entirely guilty about it. Considering a lot of it was healthy. The one down fall.... muddy buddies. The chocolate and powered sugar covered chex. Totally addictive and so delicious. And unfortunately for the waistline, not to difficult to make.
Sure, I have many. Especially when it comes to food. I was watching Oprah last week and she had a guy on talking about how North Americans eat too much processed food. I agree. We probably do. For the most part, I am pretty good about not eating processed food. But I do have some weaknesses. One of the biggest...
I love this stuff. I usually add hot sauce and stir it around. I dip popcorn in it. I put it on my makeshift burritos. I just love it. I think I want to cut out all processed foods out of my diet, or as many as possible. I am just not sure I am able to. I love this cheesy processed goodness. LOVE.
I know. Kind of gross...
I saw this little bird on my walk the other day. Perched on the corner of the house and enjoying the last hour of sunshine before the sun sets.
I am sure I've posted about them before, but they are really delicious. I don't know if it is psychological or if just more sugar gets packed into those little things, but they are great. When Melinda and I were in Ecuador in September, they had similar bananas and the people we were traveling with were amazed. People- they are bananas, they are just not genetically modified to be extra long like the ones from Chiquita.
Maddie loves drinking from the tap. However, as someone who tries to conserve water, it is not ideal to leave a tap on all day just for a cat to get some water. A couple of years ago, my parents bought Maddie a waterer. She really likes it. She still prefers to get in the sink when you are in the bathroom so you will turn on the tap for her. But in the absence of water wasters, she will use her fountain. I realized I had run out of filters a couple of weeks ago and I ordered some more through Drs. Foster & Smith. When I was ordering I noticed an additional accessory. The aqua garden. It sits on the edge of the fountain and grows grass for the cat to eat. Considering Maddie's love of green plants I think it is a great idea. If she gets a chance to sneak outside, the first things this cat does is run over to the edge of the concrete and start nibbling on grass. Therefore, I have purchased an aqua garden and will be picking it up when I am in NYC next week. I am excited to see if the cat likes it. I'll keep you updated.
Saturday I attempted my first rum cake and it was good. It is an easy recipe I adapted from a Bacardi recipe book. Recipe calls for a cup of rum, so testing the batter before the cake is baked is a dangerous feat.
Recipe Ingredients:
CAKE:
1 c. chopped walnuts or pecans (I omitted these because I don't like nuts in my cake)
1 pkg. yellow cake mix
1 (3 3/4 oz.) pkg. instant vanilla pudding
4 eggs (or cup of egg beaters)
1/2 c. cold water
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1/2 c. Gosling's dark rum
GLAZE:
1/4 lb. butter
1/4 c. water
1 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. Gosling's dark rum
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour 10" tube or 12 cup bundt pan. Sprinkle nuts over bottom of pan.
Mix the cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, 1/2 cup cold water, oil and 1/2 cup dark rum together.
Pour batter over nuts and bake the cake for 1 hour.
Cool. Invert on serving plate.
To make the glaze, melt butter in saucepan, stir in water and sugar. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat. Stir in rum.
Prick top of the cake with a fork and drizzle with glaze. Allow cake to absorb glaze. Repeat until the glaze is used up. This makes a lot of glaze.
It is a fight to get it all absorbed. I think next time I might keep the cake in the bundt pan and pour some of the glaze and let it sit in the bundt pan. Then, invert the cake and brush the glaze on the top of the cake. I am just not sure if the glaze in the bundt pan would make the cake stick. It will be my experiment for the next time.
