Cupcake Crazy

I admit it, I'm jumping on the cupcake bandwagon. I caught the baking bug in September when I decided to whip up some Lemon Cupcakes with matching Lemon Buttercream icing for a friend's birthday (which I think were pretty good since they were devoured at the party) and since then I've had the urge to do some serious baking and decorating; so I went out today and bought some supplies. The closest place to my house that sells specialty baking supplies is Bulk Barn... do not go in there with an empty stomach!

There are a few birthdays and occasions in the next while for some bursts of baking and it will be a perfect way to occupy myself through the cold winter months. Despite today being the second day of November, it is gorgeous outside... definitely beginning of fall weather, rather than end of it. On that note, I want to try a recipe that is reminiscent of the summer months, their fun, warmth and general laid back style. Hopefully it turns out as delicious as it sounds! I found this recipe at Cast Sugar Cupcake Blog, as well as many other recipes I hope to try soon.

PINK LEMONADE CUPCAKES

Ingredients:

1 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

Pinch salt

1/2 c. granulated sugar

1/4 c. vegetable oil

2 egg whites

1/3 c. thawed frozen Pink Lemonade Concentrate

1/4 c. buttermilk

2 or more drops red food coloring

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line muffin pan with liners.

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, egg whites and lemonade concentrate. Alternately whisk in flour mixture and buttermilk, making three additions of flour mixture and two of buttermilk, beating until just smooth. Add just enough food coloring to turn the batter a light shade of pink.

Scoop batter into liners (fill about three-fourths full). Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until tops of cupcakes spring back when lightly touched. Let cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely on rack. Top cooled cupcakes with frosting (see below).

Lemonade Buttercream:

3 c. + 3 Tbsp. confectioner’s sugar

1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature

1/8 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp. pink lemonade concentrate

Red food coloring

Add the butter, confectioner’s sugar, salt, lemon juice, and a few drops of food coloring to the stand mixer and mix on low using the paddle attachment until combined. Turn the speed to med-high until the buttercream is fluffy and uniformly pink. Pipe or spread onto cooled cupcakes.

*cupcake update (Nov 9, 2011)
I haven't actually been able to make this recipe (*gasp*) though I did whip up some delicious banana-lime cupcakes with key lime icing. However, a friend did make them last night and gave me some tips that are essential to follow if you want this recipe to turn out. In terms of baking time, Julie said that the baking time should be kept closer to 20 minutes, rather than 25. Actually, when it is nearing the 18 minute mark, check on your cupcakes because they may not take as long as you think. Julie said that (direct quote): "I think the sugar in the lemonade mix makes the edges extra burny." So be careful unless you want burnt cupcakes... but if you do, no judgment here.

Thai It, You'll Like It

Ok, that entry title might be a blatant rip-off of another absolutely delicious recipe from the Looney Spoons cookbook, but it also describes the dinner I made last night.

Its from the Inspired Magazine you can pick up from a number of local grocery stores and is tasty, low in fat and sodium, quick to make and comes out about $3.25 per person per portion. Let's get to it.

Peanut Shrimp With Bok Choy & Rice Noodles

Prep time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Serves: 4

1 lime, zested and cut in half

1/3 cup low sodium chicken broth

1/4 cup low fat peanut butter

1 tbsp low sodium soya sauce

1 tbsp minced fresh ginger

1 tbsp toasted sesame oil, divided

2 tsp vegetable oil

2 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced diagonally

3 cups coarsely chopped bok choy

1/2 package Uncooked Pacific White Shrimp, thawed (*I used the whole package because I love shrimp!)

1/2 cup lightly packed fresh cilantro

1/2 lb rice noodles, medium width (approx. half a package)

1. Juice half of the lime and slice the other half into 4 wedges and reserve. Blend the broth, peanut butter, 1 tsp lime zest and juice, soya sauce, ginger and 2 tsp sesame oil  until smooth. Set aside.

2. Heat the oil in a large, non-stick skillet set over medium-high heat. Add the carrots; stir fry for 3-4 minutes. Add the bok choy and shrimp (make sure to peel the shrimp before this step); stir fry for 2 minutes or until shrimp are opaque and vegetables are tender-crisp. Stir in the peanut butter mixture and cilantro. Toss until heated through.

3. Meanwhile, cook the rice noodles according to package directions; toss with remaining sesame oil. Serve the stir-fry over the rice noodles. Garnish with reserved lime wedges, if desired. 

Per serving (1/4 of the recipe): 350 calories. 

This recipe is delicious but very light at the same time. I served it with a sprinkle of zest over the stir fry and I squeeze my lime wedge on it as well. I would recommend this a million times over. 

Hopefully soon I will also post my other favourite peanut shrimp recipe (aka the one I mentioned above.)

Hope you all enjoy it. 

xo Lisa

My name is Lisa and I am addicted to reading

There, it's out! I've said it! I love to read more than almost everything else in the world and have for as long as I can remember. I've dedicated most of my education and a fair amount of my free time to devouring the written word so I was a little put out when I tallied just how many of the world's classic stories I hadn't read. Now of course what makes a list of 'classic stories' is subjective and changes with the list writer but I am came across this one on a Facebook note and wanted to see how well I've done... so let's go!

According to the note, I'm to bold the books I've read and italicize the ones I have started but haven't gotten through.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (absolute all time fave!)

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Goldins

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville 

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery 

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams 

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Wow, I've only read 39 out of these 100... but at the same time, there are tons of books that I would have put on here instead. 

What about you? What's your book nerd score?

Comfort in the Everyday

I'm not sure what it is about this semester but I find I am way less stressed and way more open to letting things come as they may. This may be because I don't have a whole lot due right now (it mostly all starts after Reading Week) but whatever is causing it, I am all for it.

That being said, I've found a lot more free time. I've tried to devote it to two of my favourite things: cooking and sleeping. I've dedicated the lion's share to sleeping but today I made dinner. My go-to easy, nutritious, quick and delicious meal is my version of Chicken Parm. It's mostly the same as ones you will find anywhere but I don't bread/fry the chicken and I use couscous instead of spaghetti. Om nom nom. The recipe is below and I highly recommend you try it out. 5 ingredients, less than an hour to make. Delicious.

Preheat oven to 350 F. In saucepan, heat up 2 tsp vegetable oil. Place 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts in the oil and cook for 2-3 minutes each side until the chicken is lightly browned. Place chicken in a greased glass 11 x 4 inch pan. Using another 2 tsp of oil, saute 1 cup sliced zucchini and 3/4 cup sliced onion for a few minutes until they are lightly browned and then place them on the chicken. Spread 1.5 cups of tomato sauce on top of the chicken and cover the sauce in 1 cup grated mozzerella. Sprinkle a few tablespoons of parmesan cheese on top of the mozzerella. Cook in oven for 25-30 minutes or until chicken juice is clear when pierced with a fork.

For all those veggies out there, I hear this recipe works very well if you substitute slabs of eggplant for the chicken. You will most likely have to play around with the cooking time though.

On that note, the oven is dinging and the food is calling my name.

Tis the Season... or was the season.

I sit here in bed, still buzzing off the unadvised amount of diet coke I had right before bed time and it struck me that I have widely neglected this blog... something I was so gungho about when I started. Now, it may be different if I had one of those blogs that was read by thousands of people a day but I really just started this for myself as a way of getting my thoughts out there while avoiding having a diary and feeling like I was ten years old again.

Now I can't promise to faithfully update the blog but I will try my hardest to get back on track. Last time I was on here, I talked about the blog assignment I had to do for my social media class. I structured it around eating fresh and avoiding all processed foods. The blog turned out pretty well and I got a fantastic mark but I feel like it will just be a one-off... a blog that served its purpose at the time. If you are curious to check it out, the URL is A Batch From Scratch. Just a disclaimer: this was done for a school assignment and not meant to be released out for everyone to see so I did take a few liberties with stories I posted. For instance, I do not know Chef Susur Lee (wish I did!), have never been to Madeline's (it has since closed down), and did not get in touch with the restaurant for the recipe I posted. However, it was on site for public access so I felt it was ok to borrow for the purposes of the assignment. I'm actually pretty proud of the assignment and maybe in the future will actually do something with the blog.

Back to the present. Today (or yesterday since it is now 1 am) was Valentines Day. A holiday that has risen to prominence on a mountain of roses, chocolate and sappily sweet greeting cards. Now I've never had a special someone on Valentines Day but don't let that fool you into thinking I don't love the holiday. I do! I'm not one of those down with Valentines Day people, though sometimes I do feel the PDA gets a little nauseating. If you feel that way about someone, why can't you express it at anytime? Why do you have to save it all for February 14th?

Anyways, one of my favourite things about Valentines Day is the emergence of the Red Velvet Cupcake. While I am not usually one for chocolate cupcakes, something about this special twist on the classic has me saying "OM NOM NOM" everytime. Only downside: the amount of food colouring used in each batch. It's a little horrendous... but as my friends Sam, Brooke and I found out at Robbie Burns Day this year, it takes way more red food colouring than you think to make your icing red. In fact, it will never actually be red but just very pink instead. But such is life.

Hopefully this means I am back for good. But know this, Valentines Day is very special... so whether you spent it with a loved one or spent the day with Crisis Communication homework and whipped cream whippets, I hope you enjoyed yourself.

XOXO Lisa