Tag Archives: cupcake

Coo Coo for Cupcakes.

Posted on January 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Today was a very exciting day, but it all started with yesterday’s cupcake trivia. Every Friday Celebrations Sweet Boutique throws a trivia question up on the ‘ol fb. Yesterday the owner was stumped for a question, so the first 50 people who responded with their favorite cupcake flavor won happy hour prices all day long ($1 per cupcake – no limit!). I was number 46 -score!

We purchased a few (ahem, 9) and will be storing nearly all of them in the freezer for some tasty treats later on. But later tonight I will probably give into temptation and dive into this little banana/chocolate/bacon number.

Prior to cupcake purchasing I attempted to re-create my 3-day oats by assembling my oatmeal and allowing it to sit for an hour and a half before I cooked it. The oats turned out quite well if I must say, (and no explosion in my microwave!).

Don’t oats look so much prettier prior to adding liquid?

Today’s mix included oats, almond milk/water, cherry craisins and chia seeds. Nothing crazy, but I am loving these cherry craisins. I really should have titled this post coo coo for craisins.

I ate ‘em while I watched a little Jersey Shore. I’d never seen Jersey Shore and decided it would be like an indulgent Saturday morning cartoon for adults. Which, by the way, cartoon characters are really sending the wrong message to kids these days.

Umm Garfield’s dad, what the fudge have you been doing?

Lunch was spread throughout the day and included a Kashi Crunchy! bar and a few Costco samples, (umm yes, we go to Costco A LOT). While at Costco we picked up this beauty.

So excited to play with it!

This afternoon I had a little girl date with my buddy Crissy. We stopped by Fringe & Frey to check out their one-year anniversary sale.

I didn’t find anything, as I was in just one week ago, but I did enter into their drawing. Crissy scored some cute 7 jeans and some fun tops.

But they did have cupcakes! Double the cupcakes, double the fun.

While waiting for her to pay I snuck over to The Rocket for a little afternoon pick me up.

I love that their fixin’s bar is an old dresser, so homey. I used to live in a super cute apartment across the street and would spend hours sipping away and utilizing their free wireless internet.

Then on over to Vintage Carousel, where Crissy again scored and I walked away with nothing.

Sigh. I did see some very cute Betty Drapperesque dresses, however, and I may be picking one come wedding season this summer. Oh wait, I don’t know anyone getting married. Ok, maybe I will just get one to wear around the house to cook’n’mix cocktails in.

I was totally in love with this (not my size) dress.

And I tried on another in the ever so cute dressing room.

Then I had to meet my mentor Marla because we switched debit cards last night! We have the same credit union and didn’t think twice when our waitress brought our tabs at Left Bank last night. She discovered this accidental swap when she tried to pay for something this morning and her card was declined. Woops!

Since I was already out and about I decided to swing over to Sun People Dry Goods, a new organic store in a less-than-savory area of downtown. Spokane has really been trying to transform its downtown over the past few years. When I moved here nine (wow, nine!) years ago I hated Spokane. I was here for one reason only: school. But over the years I have come to love Spokane and am thrilled people are supporting all of these new local businesses that seem to be springing up every day.

I am also a sucker for free parking.

And for bike racks made from recycled bike frames.

Inside I found some fun (but overpriced) items.

I know these prints are for a kids room..but I really want them in mine.

Free coffee while I shop? Yes, please.

I also accidentally stumbled into a staging area for next week’s First Friday, and was allowed a sneak peek at the art. I’m really loving this Oh, I have a blog response when people ask me why I am photographing random things.

After arriving home I assembled this kick-arse salad of mixed greens/spinach, goat cheese, avocado, tomato and cherry craisins. YUM!

I only recently discovered that goat cheese is lactose-free. I’ve been missing out for years!

Tonight the hubs and I have some fun plans with our friends John and Kim. We’re having a late sushi date at sushi.com, which ironically does not have its own website. After some cheap (but definitely delicious) sushi we’re heading over to Nectar for Last Sip. I had so much fun last weekend I wanted to go back as soon as possible. Sadly we will miss their Coeur d’Alene Olive Oil tasting (it ends at 6), but I’m sure our taste buds will still be tempted with other treats.

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Tagged Coffee, cupcake, Spokane

Happy Birthday Libb!

Posted on January 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

Today Libb, (Live-in-basement-brother), aka Jake* turned the big two-three.

*I would like to point out the normalness of my brothers name: Jacob, and the abnormalness of my name: Leila.

Jake moved in with us in June so he could attend college in Spokane. One perk for him living with his foodie sister is that he gets an extra-special birthday dinner.

When I asked Libb what he wanted for his birthday dinner his immediate response was Potstickers! One family tradition is that everyone chooses what they want to eat for dinner on their birthday. Every year my brother and I would ask for potstickers. Just potstickers. My mom always tried to talk us into also choosing a vegetable side dish, but no, we really just wanted the potstickers.

My response, ummm yes! The hubs response? Ick! Libb thought about it for a while and changed his mind. He wanted steak burgers. Then the hubs saw a commercial for Burger King for their new jalepeno steakhouse burgers. He decided he had to make Libb that for his birthday. My suggestion was to just take him to Burger King, but that was a no-go.

(source)

Not my style, but the boys were sure excited about this prospect.

We didn’t make it to a specialty meat market, so the boys had to settle for regular ground beef. I’m sure they will survive. I decided against eating this monstrosity and instead opted for a gardenburger.

And what did I eat before my gardenburger consumption?

Brekkie: some of the tastiest oatmeal I’ve had in ages: oats, almond milk/water, chia seeds, brown sugga, pecans and dried apricots.

Lunch: hard boiled egg sammie with a laughing cow wedge, dijon ‘tard on a whole wheat english muffin.

Snackie: a tart’n’sweet pink lady apple and a babybell cheese

plus lots of H20 out of my super cute new water bottle.

I am a firm believer that cute water bottles help you to consume more water.

Some homemade toasted sesame hummus with baby carrots,

which needs a tad more salt and something else that I can’t quite put my finger on yet.

And a little afternoon pick me up.

Numi Vanilla Black Decaf is very tasty, tasty.

But back to that gardenburger. I put bacon on it. Yes, this goes against everything the gardenburger stands for. But when the boys were making their bacon I couldn’t resist the waffs coming from the kitchen.

I expected to say Holy yummoly! But instead it was sodium overload! I ripped that bacon slice right off of that gardenburger, dignity intact.

The hubs made some bomb(dot)com onion rings too.

The boys burgers looked like this prior to grilling.

And after, Libb topped his burger with jalepeno, cheese, pineapple and bacon.

He declared himself full after 4 bites.

But we had to save room for dessert!

I picked up these babies at Celebrations.

Peppermint mocha, red velvet and 2 lemon vanilla’s.

Plus an extra large chocolate one for the birthday boy.

I think we are actually going to save these until a later date though. Too.much.food.so.full.

What did Libb get for his birthday?

Food of course.

My parents got him some Mexican snuff*, which can also be used for cooking.

*Growing up in Yakima we got spoiled by real Mexican food and products. Spokane does not have these fun items, and it is a crying shame.

And my parents and I obviously know Libb’s taste in dessert well…

fruit snacks from mom and dad.

and generic from me.

My grandma sent us gummy frogs every year, so when I found these I had to purchase them.

As well as some really, really, cheap beer. Which Libb got very excited about and opened immediately…it was warm.

My parents dogs Bachelor and Zoey sent Libb a card, complete with a paw print signature.

And in honor of my friend Lindsay, who is participating in the no-pants week challenge, I am wearing a skirt today.

I think I can manage rockin’ no pants during the work week, but no way I can take on the week long challenge. Major props to those girls who are taking on this challenge in January. If it were July I could totally do this

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Tagged burger, cupcake, fruit snacks, hummus, Libb

Sassy Sunday.

Posted on January 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

Today’s excursion to Schweitzer Mountain did not happen. When we checked the weather for today it said: 50 degrees and raining. Not exactly great weather to learn how to snowboard in.

Yet what did we find today? 50 degrees and BLUE SKY!

Meh, no worries. This just means I had more time to do what I love…clean out the freezer and get ready for a week of cooking. We had some questionable beef that needed to be tossed. And I also discovered 3 loafs of Dave’s Killer Bread, 4 La Brea demi-baguettes, 1 1/2 La Brea Rosemary Olive Oil loafs, 1 1/2 La Brea multi-grain loafs and some Oroweat sandwich thins. Hi, I’m Leila, and I’m a carboholic.

With all this newly acquired space in the freezer I’ve decided to actually do a freezer-meal month. I’ve been scoping out Once a Month Mom for a while now, but I’ve never actually made any of her dishes. My friend Kelly did a month of freezer meals and saved a ton of moola at the grocery store. After hearing about her awesome savings (and she uses all organic too), I decided I needed to get on the wagon. ‘

Today, however, was freshtastic, in the moment cooking.

Brekkie consisted of too many cups of coffee w/raw sugar and ff half&half (I actually prefer the ff stuff to the regular stuff…odd? Yes. But I think the chemicals cancel out the lactose because it doesn’t bother my stummy at all). I also had a “fried” egg (I totally suck at frying eggs), 2 slices of thick cut bacon and 2 spinach pancakes. YUM!

Have you ever had Dr. Praeger’s spinach pancakes? I love them! And I am fairly positive I can recreate them with ease. And yes, that would be a Christmas paper plate.

After brekkie the hubs and I took Rilo on a walk. It was so nice out I decided to jog a bit, (as the hubs’ walking stride is pretty much the same as my jogging stride). We wound up doing a 2.89 mile loop according to geodistance.com. Not too shabby considering my recent treadmill experiences.

After returning home the hubs decided to break into our garage. Remember how I said it was broken? Well after researching our options the hubs decided to cut a hole a tad bit smaller than the size of a window (which he plans to install in the spring). Thankfully my father-in-law had the necessary tools and he came by to help out.

Rilo looks concerned.

The boys wanted me to crawl in through the hole to investigate what the issue was. Luckily Libb wanted to take my place.

I was much happier photographing the event and sipping on a lunchtime green monster.

The mix: 1 frozen nanner (cut up), 2 handfuls fresh spinach, 1 cup Almond Breeze unsweetened vanilla and 1 scoop unflavored GNC whey protein powder. If you are lactose intolerant and cannot stand soy, like me, give Almond Breeze a try. It is tasty, tasty.

After the kitchen was clean and the garage door was fixed I set to work determining what dessert to bring to E’s for our Golden Globe viewing dinner. I was pretty excited about our menu as E made some black bean burgers and was planning to test out my kale chips. I said I would bring salad and a dessert I could cobble together out of my pantry.

Enter Lemon Sassycakes. OMG, how I’ve missed these in my life. I lost the recipe and couldn’t access my old gmail account, where I knew I had emailed them to someone at some point. But I finally found the recipe and have now bookmarked it in three separate locations (including this post), so have no fear, I will never go sassycakeless again.

The key to cute frosted sassycakes? Throw your frosting in a ziplock baggie and cut a tiny hole in the corner.

Squeeze from there and you’ve got a perfectly dressed sassycake, (or any cake/cookie of your choice).

And eat that overdressed one in the back corner first, clearly he doesn’t make a good first impression on your friends and needs to be disposed of right away.

But before we ate the sassycakes (ok maybe we had one or two first), we ate a little kale chip goodness…