My Precious Peach

So, I told you I was going to try a modified version of Peach Pleasure and tonight I did just that.

It was SUPER Great!

Sorry the picture isn't that great though...it's a smoothie.

I call it My Precious Peach.

My Precious Peach

12 ounces Jumex Peach Nectar

1 1/2 cups Frozen Peaches

1/2 cup Frozen Strawberries

1 small scoop Orange Sherbet

Combine my precious and blend.

We wants it. We needs it. Must have the precious.

You better keep a close eye on this dessert!

Sneaky little hobbitses.

Peach Pleasure by Jamba Juice

Today, we had Jamba Juice's Peach Pleasure for a snack.

It was tasty but I think it can be improved upon (for my tastes).

I love a true peach flavor and this had too many other flavors going on, especially banana.

Peach Pleasure

12 ounces Kern's Peach Nectar

1 cup Frozen Peaches

1/2 ripe Banana

2 scoops Orange Sherbet

1 cup Ice

Combine in a blender and blend in, blend in. :)

I will post my revised recipe when I make it. Mmmmm....

Jamba Juice Caribbean Passion Smoothie

I have been out of commission for a while but now I am back for a few weeks.

Ben has been wanting smoothies lately so we will be experimenting with new recipes.

First recipe was not actually an experiment. I have made it before and it is delicious. It is the recipe from Jamba Juice (or totally close enough) for Caribbean Passion, Ben's favorite flavor there.

Caribbean Passion Smoothie

1-1.5 cup Passion Mango Juice (comes in frozen concentrate)

1 cup frozen strawberries

1/2 cup frozen peaches

1/2 cup orange sherbet

1/2 cup ice

Throw it all in an awesome blender like a Vitamix  and enjoy. Depending on how generous your "cup" of strawberries is, you may need to add a little more juice. 

Super tasty. Super easy.

Nicholas' First Communion

Yeasterday was Nicholas' First Communion! It was a beautiful day and everything went well! I did the Dessert Bar for the after-party. Check it out!     

Butterfly Dessert Bar

CupCakes Anyone?!

Nicholas had a MEGAMIND Birthday Party last week! His party was hosted inside the Jordan Commons IMAX Theater. We had some chaotic fun and good treats and then everyone headed into the theater to see Megamind 3D. (Megamind is a new animated film that I definitely recommend to all kids and adults! 4 stars! I loved it. )

Besides having some great entertainment, we had some good eats! I made the cupcakes for Nicholas' birthday (as is tradition now) and had a ton of fun doing it. The party theme was obviously Megamind, who is a blue space villian, so the color blue and stars was a major theme!

I was a baking fool (I baked 100 cupcakes!). I'm not sure how many actually ended up at the party because Ben had to keep taste testing them for me. He's so sweet like that.....actually I really did make him taste test these because they were from scratch and I ended up having to change quite a few of the original recipes. See below what ya missed out on!

Cupcakes for Nicholas' Birthday Party!



Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Icing



Pumpkin Spice Cake with Honey Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing

  

Blue Velvet Cake with Sweet Cream Cheese Icing

 I may just start sending out a mass text message to come get some cupcakes because I only eat like 2 total out of a whole batch.....and 1 batch makes a lot of cupcakes! I just love to bake but I can't eat that many! (Thank Goodness!)

4th of July or BUST!!

....ok it was a bust. I had a fun filled weekend planned only to have my back go out again and have to miss out on all the fun. :(
I made these awesome cupcakes for MJ's famous 3rd of July BBQ and Fireworks Celebration! I was all ready to go and then my back went out so I was very disappointed. I made Red Velvet Cupcakes with cream cheese frosting with blueberries and strawberries to accent the season!

They did end up being quite tasty at least. I shared them with the local fam.
On Saturday I was going to do the Centerville and Sandy parades with my band. I was actually looking forward to doing the Centerville one since it is my home town and I have never done it before so I was really disappointed for that too. Well, anyway. Hopefully next year I will have a bit better luck. I hope everyone had a great 4th of July!

My Cake

The other day I felt the urge to make a cake...so I did. Below is the damage.

Tsk...Tsk...look at that mess.

Mmmm....Cake.

Banbury Cross Donuts

Did I ever mention, Banbury Cross donuts are the best EVER?

St. Patrick's Day!

Tuesday I worked and of course I had to host the St. Patrick's Day Feast at the Pharmacy that was oh-so popular last year.
The Menu?.... Well I thought you'd never ask!

Irish Bangers (Irish Sausage)
Dublin Coddle (Sausage, bacon, potato and onion stew)
Irish Pasta with Cheese [...or as I call it O' mac-n-cheese] (3 types of irish cheeses in pasta)
Corned Beef
Irish Soda Bread (my first ever bread-making experience)
Potato Rolls
Irish Handshakes (1 part Lime Sherbert: 2 parts Ginger Ale)
Shirley Temples
Scones and honey-butter
Mint Cake

Mmmm.....it was delicious. There were no leftovers thank goodness. Being the master chef that I am... the worst insult is to have lots of leftovers!

FYI: Do not try to use crescent dough to make scones....you get fried flakes instead.
(Steve is not a scone master apparently)

I unfortunately forgot my camera so no pictures this year...sorry. Last year's pictures will be in The Vault.

Hope you all had a jolly St. Patrick's Day!

Churros are the bomb

Sorry, I haven't posted lately.... someone didn't pay the Qwest bill and hasn't had internet for a few days....woopsies!

Anyway, churros are delicious.

Churrio

The Beauty of Adulthood

I couldn't help but contemplate the beauty of adulthood as I grabbed a bag of Oreos and a glass of milk for breakfast at 11:15 this morning, having awoken for the day 15 minutes earlier. You would never get away with this as a child! Parents try in vain to steer their kids clear of bad habits, junk food and late nights just to find out that when they are older, they will do it anyway. So I ask myself...what is the point of doing this to your children?

I want to take a little poll just because I am curious. I want to know if you were forced to eat healthy or a certain way as a child and if you still do it or if you eat worse now because of it. Vice versa....if you were not forced to eat healthy, I want to know if you pig out on oreos for breakfast or if you wait to have a so-called "real" breakfast. Check it out on the right.

Please leave a comment with insight. Whether you have kids or not, I would actually really love to hear your perspective.

...and this does not just apply to food, going to bed early or waking up at a decent hour. I expand this question to all things you make your children do that you don't do yourself. Bathe everyday! Come on!

...and, no, I didn't eat a whole sleeve of oreos as might be mistaken from the picture above. That's just gross.

**Disclaimer: My oreos for breakfast is not a reflection on my mother's child rearing... she gave me ice cream. :) Thanks Mamman!

Sweeeet!!!

Sheesh. Sorry it took so long to post something new!
So..... some of my friends at worked asked what I wanted to do for my birthday and naturally I said I wanted to go to a candy factory.... so off we went. It was great. Their normal clientelle is approximately 5 years old so it is a great place to take kids and it's free!! (I wouldn't try to leave without buying them something from the candy store though!) Here are some fun pictures.

In front of Sweet's Candy Factory

My pile of taffy

Courtney, Laura, Diane, Me, Brandi

Did you know it takes a whole week to make a single jelly bean!? We got to taste unfinished/polished jelly beans right off the line and they are actually better than the finished ones! We also got to taste fresh chocolate covered cinnamon bears, and egg nog & caramel taffy straight off the line! It was still warm!
They have pipes that are filled with corn syrup, sugar, chocolate, etc that gets pumped to the different rooms of the factory. They are the only candy factory that stirs their chocolate by waterfall...and you can take that to the bank! :)

Cooking Shower for Charlotte

Yesterday, I co-threw a bridal shower for Dane's (my brother's) fiance, Charlotte. It was a cooking themed shower and was a ton of fun. We had everyone bring their favorite recipe to give to Charlotte and a cooking themed gift. We had a Sushi Rolling demonstration by my uncle Ron, sushi chef extraordinaire! We got to taste different types of sushi and sashimi. It was so delicious! I got stuffed on sushi! We also had a hands on spring rolling station where they could stuff and roll their own spring rolls! For the main course we had a build your own asian chicken salad where we provided the goods such as lettuce, chicken, water chestnuts, snap peas, chow mein noodles, bamboo shoots and more with a choice of different asian sesame dressings. For the party favors I dipped fortune cookies in vanilla and chocolate and put them in "To Go" chinese food boxes. My friend, Sonia, and I also made a bookmark for them to use in a cookbook. It turned out really cute. I had Sonia draw and emboss the name of each guest in chinese characters on the bookmark and then she wrote their English name on chopsticks. I have a picture below as an example. It was way cool. I had fun making them. The party turned out great!

Doh-nuts!

Hey everyone!

Most current post:
The polls have spoken....it is split right down the middle. Half of you don't like anything in your fried dough...the other half of you make me sick...if I knew how to write out a vomit sound...I would do that right now...

Previous Post:

Look to the right....do you see the poll? I am curious to see how many people really like jelly or cream in their doughnuts. I'll give you some background....

At work a while ago, I started a pharmacy tradition called "Noveltuesday". This stemmed from my constant desire to curl up in front of a fire with a big blanket, watch a movie and eat novelty ice cream. So every Tuesday, the crew who was working would switch off bringing a novelty ice cream to share with everyone. Why Tuesday you ask?..Because it was the same people scheduled to work every tuesday. Soon enough everyone was asking to work on tuesdays and everyone knew about Noveltuesday. It became a pharmacy wide celebration and gave us all something to look forward to. Some people just brought novelty ice cream to share even when they weren't scheduled to bring it!
And so it began..."Noveltuesday" spread into "Wheatie Wednesday" in the summer, where we would bring a sugar overdosed childhood cereal that we would never actually buy for ourselves. This was also an excellent success and today was actually the last official "Wheatie Wednesday". I'll post a picture asap. Can I get a Woot Woot Wheatie Wednesday?!.....(woot woot).
So now that school is starting again, our schedules have changed and now most of the original crew works on friday. The first official "Fritter Friday" will commence next friday. "What will you be eating on Fritter Friday," you ask?
DOUGHNUTS!...Of Course!
So...we were discussing the rules of this event and I made a comment that we should probably avoid jellies and creams inside the doughnuts. I got strange looks from all the guys in the room and one said "That's like getting a hamburger without the burger....what's the point?!"

So....I want to hear your opinion! Jellies/Creams....Yay or Nay?
...And is this jelly phenomenon gender specific?
~Sara

P.S. Poll ends Friday August 24th at 9:00 pm...So vote today!