Vega Sport Preformance Protein #FuelYourBetter

Since I am a SweatPink Ambassador I occasionally get the opportunity to review products.  I love product reviewing!  Honestly I haven't recieved a product to test and review that I haven't loved.

The review opportunity this time came from Vega Sport.  I could pick from the many Vega Sport products.  I chose the Recovery Protein.  Have you ever felt this way?

I know I do from time to time.  The theme of this campaign was #FuelYourBetter.  I drank it after each of my workouts.  {I normally have a snack at 10 after the gym} 

I definitely noticed that I wasn't as sore for the 12 days that I drank it.  It honestly helped me so I could hit the gym the next day, and the next day, and the next day.....

What is Vega Sport Performance Protein?  Well, it's a plant-based {vegan} protein powder.  It has 5,500 mg of BCAAs {Branched-chain amino acids} and 5,000 mg of glutamine {another amino acid} per serving. 

Vega Sport Performance was created to:

• Improve strength and exercise performance
• Repair and build muscles
• Reduce recovery time between training

Vega Sport Performance Protein is great because it only has 0.2 grams of fat per serving.  Perfect for people like me with fat issues.  

For more information on Vega Sport Recovery Protein and all the other Vega Sport products click HERE

Birthday Pie....Oh My!

Yesterday was Kaylee's birthday.  My oldest baby is now 11.  It's crazy how the time flies.  This little girl has been with me through so much.  I realized something Saturday though.  Many people get depressed because their kids are growing up, or that they are getting old.  That's not what upsets me.  It upsets me that as each year passes that means that I'm another year closer to her leaving for college.  Another year closer to her leaving me.

And I'm going to stop right there.  I'm starting to tear up just thinking about it and trying to type while crying isn't exactly easy.  But, in this house, we don't do normal birthdays.  When it comes to birthdays we kinda march to a different drum.  My kids know that birthday desserts aren't just limited to cake.  They know that anything that can have a candle stuck on it is acceptable.  For past birthdays I've made ice cream cakes, brownies, watermelon cakes, and trifles.  This year Kaylee decided on a birthday pie.  A chocolate mousse birthday pie to be specific.  I used a fat free cookie crust, did a layer of chocolate ganache on the bottom and filled it with chocolate Dream Whip mousse.

For the cookie crust
2.75 cups flour
.75 cups cocoa powder
1 t baking powder (optional)
.5 cup applesauce
.5 cup plain fat free Greek yogurt
egg substitute equivalent to 2 eggs
1 - 1.75 cups sugar
2 t vanilla

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Place flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and sugar in a mixing bowl.  Stir to combine.  {You'll know it's well combined when it's all one color}
3. In a separate bowl whisk together applesauce, greek yogurt, egg substitute and vanilla.
4. Pour applesauce mixture into flour mixture.  It should form a doughy ball.
5.  Grease a pie pan or large baking dish
6. Using cocoa powder, "flour" a cutting board and roll out the dough into about a 1/4" thick piece that will cover your pie pan. {If dough is too sticky knead a little more cocoa powder into it before rolling it out}
7. Lay dough in pan and cut to fit.
8. Using a fork prick holes in the pie dough {this is so it doesn't rise as much as it bakes}
9. Bake for 16-20 minutes until done.

Chocolate Ganache Layer

1 cup chocolate chips

.25 cup skim milk

Directions

1. Bring milk to a boil
2. Pour on top of chocolate chips
3. Stir until melted and combined
4. Pour in pie shell and refrigerate until hardened

For the filling

2 envelopes Dream Whip

2 (4 serving) packages of any flavor Jello pudding mix

2.75 cup skim milk
.5 t vanilla

Directions

1. Mix Dream Whip with 1 cup of milk and vanilla in bowl of mixer
2. Beat on high speed for 6 minutes until peaks form
3. Add milk and pudding mix
4. Mix on medium, then beat on high for 2 minutes
5. Fill pie shell

If you leave off the ganache this pie is fat free.  So, are the people in your house traditional birthday cake people or nontraditional birthday dessert people?  What are your favorite birthday desserts?

An Ode To My Mother....Kinda

Growing up I remember my mother used to make a lemonade cake.  It was amazing.  Kind of sweet, super lemony, just great.  I'm a sucker for anything lemon.  So, when I thought about the Recipe Redux theme {Treasured Cookware}, this recipe came to mind.

There isn't a piece of cookware in my kitchen that WAS my mother's but, she has stocked about half of my bakeware throughout the years.  Every Christmas I get a new piece.  One of the things she bought me was my angel food cake pan.  

Honestly I used to hate angel food cake, until it was the ONLY cake I could eat.  Now I love it and love playing around with flavors and different ways of using it.  For this recipe I used sugar free lemonade mix since there is SO MUCH sugar in the cake and then the glaze has added sugar.  I prefer to not have a complete sugar bomb. Pink Lemonade would make this rather pretty too.

Angel Food Lemonade Cake

Ingredients
1 angel food cake (I normally use a box mix and make it myself but, you can use a store bought one)
.25-.5 cup sugar free powdered lemonade mix (depending on how lemony you want it)
1 cup powdered sugar
2-4 T water


Directions

1. Poke holes in the top of the cake with a fork
2. In a small bowl mix together lemonade mix and powdered sugar
3. Whisk in water and continue whisking until you have a nice smooth glaze
4. Pour glaze over the top of the cake making sure some of the glaze gets into all the holes.
5. Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

An InLinkz Link-up

Easter Recipes

From:  Wide Wallpapers

2014 is a year of change.  Everything is changing.  I have gotten my certifications, Sunny starts school this year, I'm doing a fitness competition.  So many big changes!  After making the same holiday dinners for the past 3 years I've decided that since this is a year of change I'm also changing all my holiday dinners.  Easter is the first holiday that has food associated with it so, it starts here!

So, with that being said, here is the 2014 Easter menu.  Recipes follow the menu.

Main Dish
Simple baked Cobia

Grain
Herbed brown rice 

Vegetables
Roasted carrots
Asparagus (if the price isn't too high)
Salad

Bread
Yeast rolls

Dessert
Meringue nests with whipped cream and berries

_________________________________________________________________________________

Foil Wrapped Cobia

Ingredients
2 lb Cobia Fillet
Seasonings of your choice

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400
2. Spray a large piece of aluminum foil with pan spray and lay fish down.
3. Spray again with pan spray and season then tightly wrap foil around fish.
4. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes until the fish is done.
5. Rest for 5-10 minutes before serving

Roasted Carrots

adapted from:  Ina Garten's Roasted Carrots

Ingredients
1 lb carrots, peeled
seasonings of your choice

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400
2. Cut carrots into 1 1/2 inch chunks
3. Spray baking sheet with pan spray, lay out carrots in a single layer and spray them.
4. Season to taste
5. Roast for 20 minutes until brown and tender

Herbed Brown Rice Pilaf

Adapted from:  Herbed Brown Rice Pilaf
8 servings
Calories:  84.5
Fat: 0.5 g
Sodium:  592 mg
Potassium:  65.8 g
Carbs:  18 g
Protein:  1.6 g

Ingredients
1 small onion, diced
2 cups brown rice
5 cups vegetable broth or water, warm
2 T minced garlic
2 t thyme
2 t parsley
6 green onions, sliced

Directions

1. Saute onion in a medium saucepan until translucent.
2. Spray pan again with cooking spray, dump in rice, and coat with pan spray.  
3. Pour in broth, thyme, garlic, and parsley
4. Cover pot, turn stove to medium, and cook for 40 minutes. 
5. Turn off heat and let stand 10 minutes.
6. Fluff with a fork and stir in green onions

Meringue Nests

Ingredients
4 large egg whites
.5 cup sugar
.25 t cream of tartar
food coloring
8 oz tub of Cool Whip {you won't use all of it}
6 cups of your favorite berries, fresh or frozen {thaw if using frozen}


Directions

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees
2. Spray 2 baking sheets with pan spray and line with parchment
3. With an electric mixer beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until the whites reach soft peaks
4. Add in sugar and continue whisking until stiff and glossy.
5. Drop 4 mounds of meringue on each baking sheet and use the back of a spoon to make an indentation in it and spread them out to about 4 inches {you can also use a piping bag and pipe your nests}
6. Bake meringues about 1.5 hours, until they are dry, rotating halfway through.
7.  Cool completely then fill with Cool Whip and top with fresh berries.

Mushroom Quesadillas

Kaylee is so happy!  Today was her first day back to the swim team {they switched pools for the winter and it was too far away to take her and still take Mantha to practice also.}  I have a feeling I'm going to have one very sore 10 year old tomorrow.  As a fitness enthusiast and personal trainer I'd love to know how many calories she burns during one practice.  But no matter what, she burns a bunch.  And every athlete needs a nutritious meal after they exercise.  What's a better nutritious meal than QUESADILLAS???  

The kids and I have been craving Mexican for a few days and Vegetarian Times Magazine did a piece with various quesadilla recipes.  

One of the things I love about quesadillas is that they are so versatile.  There are over handful of different tortillas to choose from, dozens of different cheeses, hundreds of different filling options and thousands of different combinations you can put it all together with.  

But, in the fashion that my recipes for this blog have been going recently, something went wrong when I made this.   I opened up my bag of tortillas and they were moldy.  I had bought them the same day!  I was so annoyed.  But, today I wasn't going to let that get me.  I took one of the tortillas I bought for Ken and the kids and made this quesadilla into a quesadilla salad.  I baked the tortilla into a shell in my tortilla shell bowl that my mother gave me for Christmas.  If you don't have one you can always bake the shell flat.

Creamy Mushroom Quesadilla Salad
adapted from Vegetarian Times

• .5 small onion, chopped 
• 8 oz. white mushrooms, sliced 
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 1 oz. fat-free cream cheese, softened
• .25 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese
• 1 8-inch fat free tortilla
• Fresh spinach
• Your favorite salsa 
• Fat free sour cream

1. Preheat oven to 450, spray tortilla bowl mold and fit tortilla inside
2. Bake for 10-15 minutes until lightly browned
3. While the tortilla is baking, saute mushrooms and onions.
4. Turn off heat and stir in cumin, cream cheese and cheddar until the cream cheese coats the mushrooms mixture and the cheddar cheese is melty. 
5. Take tortilla out of the mold and fill 3/4 of the way full with spinach
6. Top with mushroom mixture and garnish with salsa and sour cream.

What's one of your family's favorite after workout meals?

A Shot of Frosting....and Protein

First off, look what came!!!

Now I feel official!!

If you follow me on Facebook you know that I started with a prep coach.  As part of my competition prep I'm expected to eat 150 grams of protein.  I was finding this a tad bit difficult.  The first few days I came up so short!

I came up with this way of adding additional protein into my diet AND treating myself to dessert every nite.  Add a scoop of protein powder into my yogurt.  You can use either the flavored yogurt or plain.  I use the Danon Light n Fit 80 calorie yogurts.  Plain yogurt will work just as well and if you use the right protein powder it will flavor the yogurt for you.  But I have to warn you.  I've tried this with my other protein powder and it wouldn't thicken.  It still tastes good but, it's thin.  

I calculated the calories using Danon Light n Fit Greek yogurt and Spiru-tein Cookies and Cream protein powder.  

Fat Free Frosting Shots
Calories:  200
Fat: 1 gram
Carbs: 24 grams
Protein: 26 grams

Ingredients
1 5.3 oz container fat free Greek yogurt
1 serving protein powder

Directions

1. Stir together until evenly combined
2. Enjoy!

You could honestly use this to frost a cake.  It would probably be delicious.  And the flavor combinations are endless.  Tell me, what flavor combinations do you think would taste good together?

First Day of Spring, A Few Days Late

If I could change one thing about myself it would be the fact that I could stop giving the girls dessert.    5 years ago, before I started trying to lose weight and get healthy, my girls RARELY ate dessert.  It was a special treat.  They were fine with that.  Fast forward 5 years and they are really disturbed if they don't get dessert after dinner.

How could someone adapt a healthy lifestyle THEN start giving their kids dessert every night?  Easy.  My kids eat healthy nutritious food 99% of the day.  There are not many days that they eat crap food.  So, dessert is allowed.  {Please remember, these are my opinions on the subject.}  Plus, my new rule is that there's a calorie limit.  200 calories is the max for dessert.

I made a festive spring dessert that comes in at half of their dessert limit for a HUGE piece.  I originally planned on making these to celebrate the first day of spring but, our house was overrun with Girl Scout Cookies so, they had to wait a few days.  

I love cereal treats.  They are so versitile.  You can use the traditional Rice Krispies or, you can mix it up and use a different cereal.  My mom used to mix Rice Krispies and Fruity Pebbles.  They were almost as pretty as these and just as tasty.  You can also add stuff to them.  Chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruit.  Cereal treats are a blank slate that you can totally go wild with.  Let the kids design their own treats!  

Super Spring Cereal Treats
12 squares/16 squares
Calories:  106/ 80
Fat:  .6 g / .4 g
Carbs:  25.4 g / 19.1 g
Sugar:  16.3g / 12.2 g


6 cups Froot Loops (You can use Fruity Cheerios, or Trix instead if you want)
4 cups mini marshmallows
.25 cup light corn syrup


Directions

1. Line an 8x10 cake pan with plastic wrap and spray with pan spray.
2. In a microwave safe bowl combine marshmallows and Karo.  Microwave on high for 1 minute, stir, then microwave another minute and stir again.
3. Put the cereal in a separate bowl.  When the marshmallows are done pour them into the bowl with the cereal and mix carefully until all the cereal is coated with marshmallow.
4. Press into pan and leave until completely cool.
5. Cut into squares.

What combinations do you think would taste good?  Do you allow your kids to have dessert?

Greek Yogurt FroYo

It was close to 80 today!  Spring is finally back!  I'm so excited.  The next week is supposed to be gorgeous and I plan on spending as much time enjoying it as possible.  

Monday was crazy.  So many exciting things happened.  My study materials came, I met with my trainer, my body fat measurer also arrived.  Tuesday was insane due to running errands and Mantha had her opening nite for the yearly musical that the school does.  Today my coach sent my first workout and meal plan.  My nutrition is super tight.  Did you know that March is National Nutrition Month, a month designated to focus on making healthier food choices for better overall health and wellness?  This year the theme for Nutrition Month is “Enjoy the Taste of Eating Right,” which is easy when you include California dairy products. 

The California Milk Advisory Board, which represents more than 1500 dairy families, is celebrating “dairy good” nutrition by asking Recipe ReDux members to “lighten up” some of their favorite recipes with California dairy.

In addition to calcium benefits, dairy in any form – whether it’s low-fat milk with cereal, a yogurt parfait, a smoothie, or egg and cheese sandwich – packs protein – which helps keep you full until your next meal. The California Milk Advisory Board and their nutrition partner, The Dairy Council of California, understand that dairy plays a vital role in contributing to an overall healthy diet and in support of National Nutrition Month wants to encourage everyone to adopt healthy food habits with dairy.

Recipe ReDux members are being challenged to lighten up their favorite recipes using at least one California dairy product as an ingredient in recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, side dish, snack, appetizer or dessert. 

Real California Milk and dairy products are sold nationwide and can be identified with the Real California Milk or Real California Cheese seals on packaging. California is the number one dairy state in the U.S., producing more butter, milk and ice cream than any other state. California is number two in cheese and yogurt production. 

I decided to lighten up one of my favorite desserts, frozen yogurt.  I love this recipe.  Sweet, creamy frozen yogurt that is actually healthy.  Yes, you heard right!  HEALTHY!
  The girls asked me to turn it into milkshakes for them.  

Fat Free Mixed Berry Frozen Yogurt
Makes approximately 2 quarts (8 - 1/2 cup servings) 
Calories:  99
Fat:  0.2
Carbs:  15.5
Sugar:  13.3
Protein:   8.5

Ingredients
.5 cup skim milk
.25 cup fat-free dry milk
2 T sugar
2 t plain gelatin
1.33 cup skim milk
2 cups mixed berries {I used a mixture of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries}
.66 cup sugar
1 t vanilla
2 cups California fat free plain Greek yogurt


Directions

1. In mixing bowl combine .5 cup skim milk and dry milk
2. Put bowl and beaters in the freezer for 30-45 minutes.
3. While the bowl is in the freezer puree strawberries with the sugar. {you can leave some out and dice them if you'd like some chunks}  Set aside
4. Bring the bowl out of the freezer and beat on high until it reaches soft peak.  Add sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.  Refrigerate until ready to use
5. In a saucepan combine gelatin and 1.33 cups of milk.  Let it sit for 1 minute then cook over low heat until gelatin dissolves.  Set aside
6. Combine strawberries, gelatin, vanilla and yogurt.  
7. Fold in whipped dry milk.
8. Freeze in an ice cream maker and place in freezer for at least 1 hour

What's your favorite warm weather dessert?  

I received a gift card to offset the expense of my ingredients. By posting this recipe I am entering a recipe contest sponsored by the California Milk Advisory Board and am eligible to win prizes associated with the contest. I was not compensated for my time.

An InLinkz Link-up

Hello Spring? Is That You?

The last week has been crazy!  Gorgeous one day, rainy and gross the next.  I love being outside and so does Sunny.  On every nice day we've either had errands to run, stuff to do, or I haven't been feeling well so I've promised her to goto the park the following day.  The following day it has rained each time!  Today was one of those rainy days.  

Despite the rain it's been warm the past week also.  This means {atleast to me} that winter is finally over!  And no more winter means that I can start planting my seeds.  I started my seeds today.  I'm growing peas, watermelon, dill, sunflowers, spaghetti squash, spinach and a few other things.  I'm not trying to go completely wild and I'm only planting stuff that I will eat.  I still need to pick up carrots, corn and a few different varieties of berries.  My goal is to actually eat the things I grow.  Last year I didn't use many of the vegetables that came out of my garden.

As a celebration for my new set of vegetables and the warm weather coming I made a loaf of carrot raisin bread.  It was so good!  I had to tear myself away from it.  {I'm seriously a carbo-holic}  This bread would be awesome for breakfast.  

I think you need to go run to the store and pick up the ingredients for it and make it.   

Carrot Raisin Bread
Adapted From:  Clean Eating Magazine  (/)
Serves: 8
Nutritional information follows

Ingredients
.75 cup whole wheat flour
.75 cup all pourpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
.5 T ground cinnamon
.66 cup grated apple
1 cup grated carrot
egg substitute equivilent to 1 egg
1 single serve Greek Yogurt (I used toasted coconut vanilla)
.5 cup sugar free maple syrup


Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 and spray a loaf pan
2. Whisk together dry ingredients
3. In a separate bowl stir together wet ingredients, carrots and apple
4. Mix wet into dry
5. Spoon into baking dish and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean (mine took about an hour)

I've got big news, and A LOT of new recipes coming for you in the near future.  I'm really excited to share all of it with you.  Share something with me.  Are you planting anything this year?  Do you prefer to be indoors or outdoors?  

Soft and Squishy!

Every Thursday Sunny and I make a different type of treat for Ken's work.  Normally it's cupcakes or cookies but, occasionally we switch it up and make something totally different.  I had been wanting to try making marshmallows for a while now.  So we made some for Baking Thursday.

They were alot simpler than I expected.  Sunny did everything that didn't include the stove.  She added all the ingredients to the pot before it went on the stove, she added the geletin and the water to the mixer, turned it on, and cut out the shapes.

I couldn't find my heart cookie cutter so we decided on stars.  

Strawberry Marshmallows
Reposted from:  Martha Stewart's Strawberry Marshmallows

Ingredients
4 envelopes (1 box) unflavored geletin
2.5 cups sugar
.66 cups strawberry jelly (I actually used sugar free raspberry preserves any flavor will do)
.66 cup corn syrup

Directions

Do you bake or cook with your kids?  Do they like it?  What do you guys make together? 

Mushroom-A-Polooza

I love a reason to make a themed dinner.  Some examples are last Super Bowl, Or more recently our unbirthday tea party.

This time I'm don't a themed themed dinner.  It is found to be a mushroom themed Super Bowl dinner.   What is a Super Bowl dinner you ask?  Is honestly just a bunch of appetizers. 

Kaylee and I have a sick addiction to mushrooms.  We could probably eat a couple pounds each in one sitting.   In order to feed this addiction every dish tonite has mushrooms in it.

When I do a themed dinner I have a tendency to overwhelm myself.   So, for this dinner I stick to fairly simple recipes and I brought in my best sous chefs.  These recipes will be great for your next party {and I'll let you have my sous chefs for a small fee} 

Smokehouse Flatbread

My favorite burger at Ruby Tuesday's was always the smokehouse burger.  There is a layer of melty cheddar cheese over caramelized barbecue sauce. Pure heaven!  I recreate this burger in vegetarian form quite often.  I decided that doing it on a flatbread would be great. 

Ingredients
1 recipe pizza dough
2-4 T barbecue sauce
8 oz mushrooms, sliced and sautéed
1 onion, sliced
2 T minced garlic
.5 cup cheddar cheese

Directions
1.  Preheat oven to 450°
2.  Roll out dough and bake on a greased cookie sheet for 10-15 minutes until almost done
3.  Spread garlic on crust then drizzle on barbecue sauce. Place the flatbread back in the oven until the barbecue sauce gets slightly caramelized (2-3 minutes)
4.  Add mushrooms and onions and sprinkle cheese on top.
5.  Place back in the oven until cheese melts

Sautéed Mushrooms

Ingredients
1 lb mushrooms, whole
.5 cup vegetable broth
1 T minced garlic

Directions
1.  Heat a skillet on med-high and spray with pan spray
2.  Add mushrooms, cover and sauté until they release their juices about 5-6 minutes
3.  Remove top,  add broth and garlic. Boil until almost dry.

Stuffed Mushrooms

Ingredients

1 lb mushrooms

1 medium onion, diced

.5 c fat free ricotta

.5 c breadcrumbs made from reduced calorie bread

2 t parsley

4 oz vegan sausage

.5 c fat free mozzarella

Directions

1. Take stems off mushrooms, diced and saute with onions.
2. In food processor blend ricotta, half the breadcrumbs, half the mozzarella, the parsley and the sausage
3. Preheat oven to 425.
4. Mix mushroom stem mixture into ricotta mixture
5. Place a spoonful of ricotta mixture into mushroom caps.
6. Sprinkle mushrooms with remaining cheese and breadcrumbs
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

I think next year my Super Bowl dinner will be at regional menu.  Either famous dishes from each of the teams cities or what the state/area is known for.  Mario Batali always does an interesting menu every year.  Check it out on his blog

Chinese New Year

Every year I tell Ken that I'm going to make a Chinese dinner in honor of the Chinese New Year he replies with the same 4 words, "but we're not Chinese."  Yes Ken, I know, we're Korean.  Yes, he's half Korean.  He is the reason I love Korean food.

This year I told him that we were having Korean in order to celebrate Seollal, the Korean lunar new year.  Seollal is the first day of the Korean Lunar Calendar.  It falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice.  This day is about family and ancestors.  It's one of the most important Korean holidays.

2014 is the year of the Horse.  According to the Official Korea Tourism Organization,

"Every year is represented by one of the 12 zodiac signs, which take the form of animals known as Sibijisin. These signs change with every new year and rotate over a 12 year cycle. For a fun activity at the beginning of each year, people, especially elders, analyze the relationship between their birth year zodiac sign and the new year's sign to find out their fortune. 

The year 2014 is referred to as "Gaponyeon" or "The Year of the Horse." The horse is the seventh in the group of twelve guardian animal deities collectively known as the Sibijisin, which literally means "twelve (sibi) gods of the earth (jisin)." People born in the year of the horse are said to be open-minded and have a cheerful disposition with a good sense of humor. They are likely to achieve success in any activities they undertake. However, they can be somewhat self-centered and must beware of trifling away money on pleasures."

For more information on the Sibijisin check out the links at the bottom of the post.


So onto dinner.  I pulled out my tried and true Korean cookbook.  The Complete Book of Korean Cooking by Young Jin Song.  I love this book.  I have used it too many times to count to make myself many Korean meals.  {Buy it HERE}  I decided that I wanted my favorite noodle dish, Japchae,  and fried zucchini (hobakjeon.)  Unfortunately Japchae was the 1 recipe that is NOT included in the book.  So, I turned to the internet and found a recipe on Korean Bapsang.  Get the recipe HERE for the Japchae and the recipe for the fried zucchini HERE.

Japchae

HobakJeon

The most time consuming part of all of these dishes was the chopping.  I was in the kitchen for nearly an hour chopping, slicing and dicing.  After all that is done the meal comes together quickly

Everything turned out delicious.  Yet, it all paled in comparison to my mother-in-law's cooking.  Me making Korean dishes is alot like when I make a recipe of my mother's.  It doesn't have exactly the same flavor as my mother's or my mother-in-laws.  Maybe I'm lacking the same love that they made it with?  Ken raved about it to his mom, who was very impressed.

Below are some links about the Lunar New Year celebration in Korea.  Did you make anything interesting for the Lunar New Year?

KoreanTourism.org: Seollal (Lunar New Year) Celebrations in Korea

KoreanTourism.org: Sibijisin Story

Samantha Birthday Cake Recipes and Birthday Recap

The initial plan for today was a trip to the zoo {hello calorie burner!} but, due to yucky weather we had to change our plans.  I am the Queen of Plan B.  I always have a plan B especially for activities that are going to be outdoors.

Buddie had an appointment to be neutered today so our day started early because his drop-off was scheduled for 8:15. Breakfast was a special raspberry coffee cake. After we dropped off Buddie I surprised Mo by picking up Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 so we could have lunch and a movie.  The movie was really cute.  I'm thinking there will be a movie themed dinner in the future.

After the movie we headed over to the Allure European Day Spa.  They were awesome with the girls.  Each of the girls got a manicure, pedicure, hair cut and the stylist even did a really cute braid for each one.  

When we got home I started on dinner.  Mo decided that she wanted tacos for her birthday dinner.  I used Boca soy crumbles for the "meat" and seasoned it using Mrs. Dash Taco Seasoning.  I also made taco shrimp using baby shrimp.  I seasoned it with chili powder, paprika, onion powder, minced garlic and cumin.  It worked really well.  After dinner was cake a presents.  Mo is obsessed with One Direction and panda bears {do you know how hard it is to find things with pandas on them?}  Her cake was a panda bear cupcake cake with I love 1D written on it.  She asked for half of her cupcakes to be chocolate and the other half to be strawberry.  I was really amazed at how well BOTH of these recipes worked.  The chocolate cake was just as moist as a tradional full fat cake and the strawberry cake tasted like strawberry ice cream.  I did the standard Cool Whip frosting.  The recipe for all 3 are below.  

Mo had a great day.  Here are all the pictures from the day:

Chocolate Cake
adapted from Hershey's "Especially Dark" Chocolate Cake Recipe

1.5 cups sugar
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
.25 cup cornstarch
.75 cup HERSHEY'S SPECIAL DARK Cocoa
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1.5 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
egg substitute/egg whites equivilent to2 eggs
1 cup skim milk
.5 cup pureed zucchini
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Directions

1. Heat oven to 325.  Grease muffin tins.  (The recipe says it makes between 28 and 30 cupcakes)
2. Mix together dry ingredients.
3. In a separate bowl mix egg substite/egg whites, milk, zucchini and vanilla
4. Stir wet ingredients into dry
5. Pour in water and blend well
6. Put batter into muffin tins and bake for 30-35 minutes
7. Cool  in pan for 10 minutes then finish cooling on a rack. 

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Strawberry Cake

Adapted From Paula Deen's 1-2-3-4 Cake Recipe

1.5 cup sugar
2.5 cup flour
.5 cup cornstarch
1.5 T baking powder 
1 cup strawberry puree
egg substitute/ egg whites equivilent to 4 eggs
1 cup skim milk
1 t strawberry extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees and grease 24-30 muffin tins
2. Mix together dry ingredients
3. In a separate bowl mix your wet ingredients
4. Stir your wet into your dry
5. Fill muffin tin 3/4 full and bake for 30-35 minutes.
6. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes then place on a rack to finish cooling

Frosting

8 oz Cool Whip

1 package Pudding

1 cup milk

Directions

1. Whisk together milk and pudding mix
2. Fold in Cool Whip
3. Place in fridge for atleast 30 minutes before using.

How do you celebrate your kids' birthdays?