semi-homemade.

no, i am not talking about sandra lee.  i am talking about me.. janetha b!  before i elaborate on the title.. how about a little business?

• if you have not yet entered my æbleskiver giveaway please do so now~ it will be ending on wednesday at the stroke of midnight. hum, so i guess that actually means it ends thursday if you want to get technical about it. but whatevs, enter the giveaway and try to win a rad pan. end of story.
• oh wait! not end of story. the awesome people at aunt else’s want me to let you in on a little holiday discountage!  so if you were thinking of purchasing an æbleskiver pan for you or for someone you love.. you can now get 10% off any order!  get the discount by ordering directly on their site, www.auntelse.com or through their Foodzie store, www.auntelse.foodzie.com! here is how: when checking out, in the ” Add special instructions to the seller” section~simply type “10% off from meals & moves promo”
• my girl holly is still trying to raise $$$ to help build a well in cambodia~she wants to raise $1000 by christmas. PLEASE take a jaunt over there and donate.. every penny helps.
• make sure you vote for averie in the best of raw awards!
• christmas is just over ten days away. feel free to freak out if you are a procrastination station like me.

alrighty then!

i woke up feeling discombobulated because i only got four hours of sleep.  if you could see me now you would witness me shaking my fist at the season finale of dexter.  yes, we simply had to wait for the finale to make it’s way onto channel 131 last night and yes, we simply had to stay up until 1:30 AM watching it.  and yes, it was worth it.  any other dexter fans out there? sad ending.. sigh.

anyway~i was still sick and stuffy this morning.  i didn’t have much of an appetite but i had to go to my monday morning sales meeting breakfast because.. well.. it’s all a part of the job i suppose.

egg whites scrambled with chicken, feta, mushrooms & spinach.. water.. coffee..

yeah. sometimes i drink my coffee from a straw. gotta keep those pearly whites pearly and white, ja know?

i doused this with cholula (favorite hot sauce ever) in hopes it would clear out my sinuses.  and then i ate maybe a third of it.

well, the cholula didn’t do the trick so i made my boss stop at walgreens on the way back to the office so i could stock up on some sudafed.

while there, my boss picked up the charlie brown christmas tree.  behold:

we went to walgreens specifically because someone had told him he could snag the tree there.  to my boss’ disappointment, there were no more charlie brown trees left in stock.  but there WAS the display tree.  the base was broken, but they offered to let him purchase the display. i am pretty sure he paid around fifteen washingtons for this sad, pathetic little tree. you should have seen him jump for joy and his face fill with glee when they told him he could buy the display. it’s the small things in life, isn’t it? i will have to take a photo of the tree in his office tomorrow.

today was spent at a different desk:

i am getting a new computer at work (holler!) and so for the past few days i have been sitting at the extra desk and my feng shui is all sorts of messed up.  hopefully i am back at my comfy own desk manana.

that you see there in the giant mug AKA bowl is lunch.

1 cup oikos+1 cup shredded spoonfuls+good amount of PB2

inhaled this around 1 PM.  i didn’t eat again until about 7 o’clock.  my appetite is skeewampus when i am sick.  yep.. skeewampus. not even a word~yet it describes my appetite to a T.

after work instead of hitting the gym i hit the mall.. and almost killed myself.. but barely made it out alive AND with all marshall’s christmas gifts!  thank goodness that task is complete.  i still have to get a few odds and ends for some family members and coworkers but other than that i am basically done with the shopping christmas prep.  hallelujah.  i hate the crowds.  i have hours upon hours of at home christmas prep though.. oy vey, i will save that for another day.

when i got home from hell the mall i was pretty dang starving actually.  i munched on some oh! nuts dried pears to tide me over until dinner was ready.

enter: semi-homemade.

all this girl wanted was soup and a grilled cheese for dinner.  like i said, i want carbs when i am sick.  protein (other than greek yogurt) just doesn’t sound appealing at all.

SO~ i went with what i was craving and went against my 40% carb-40% protein-20% fat ratio method (which is the way i usually eat)..  know. a rebel without a cause.

i didn’t want just any old grilled cheese so i decided to fancy it up a bit.

earlier today i saw my girl k eating some muenster cheese and have not been able to stop thinking about it since.  what can i say, i love my cheeses.

i picked some up at the store and decided to make a grilled cheese sandwich using the muenster and.. wait for it..

sun butter.

my roommate drew basically thought i was ridiculous for pairing cheese with the sun butter~but, unlike ménage à trois,  it is one of those things you shouldn’t knock until you try it!

i put some smart balance on the outsides of two slices of multi-grain organic bread..

slathered a nice amount of sun butter on the insides of the slices and then sandwiched about two ounces of muenster in between and i was ready to grill!

meanwhile, i took the easy way out with my soup:

but i did fancy it up (hence the semi-homemadeness) with drew’s leftover broccoli~

see~ look’s like i made it from scratch ;)

once the grilled cheese was all melty and perfect i cut it (diagonally, of course) and admired the oozing combo of cheese and sun butter~

my semi-homemade dinner was served!

italian vegetable soup + broccoli & grilled muenster+sunbutter sandwich

of course i dunked the sandwich in the soup. this combo was fantastic.  it just may be my new favorite variety of grilled cheese!  move over goat cheese and tomato.  this was cheesetastic.

oh and for the record: chunky sun butter is WAY better than creamy. those are sunflower seed bits you see in my home run stretch of cheese there.

now i am so full :)

semi-homemade adventures in baking!

tomorrow is national cupcake day so i decided to whip up a batch for the office.  i didn’t want to make them from scratch but i still wanted them to be different and creative.  i decided to make some white chocolate & cream cheese filled spice cupcakes with coconut pecan frosting. that’s a mouthful! TWSS.

step 1: mix the spice cake according to the box, subbing olive oil in for vegetable oil

step 2: fill cupcake liners 1/4 the way full with batter

step 3: mix 8 oz cream cheese+1 egg+1/2 cup sugar

step 4: add 6 oz white chocolate chips to the mix

step 5: spoon some of the cream cheese mixture into the cupcake liners

about this much:

step 6: top the liners with more batter so the cups are about 3/4 the way full overall

like this:

step 7: bake at 350 degrees [f] for 18 minutes.. or until a toothpick comes out clean as a whistle. p.s.~i don’t really think whistles are that clean. i mean, they have to have all sorts of saliva stuck inside of them from all that blowing, right?

step 8: let cool

step 9: while you wait for them to cool, hang out with your roommate’s dog because your dogs are at your boyfriend’s house. good thing mister yulek is a sweetie!

step 10: frost those bad boys with some pre-packaged coconut pecan frosting and wish you had thought to pick up some whole pecans and some shaved coconut for garnish.  oh well, the co-workers won’t mind.

step 11: don’t eat them. they are for national cupcake day, which is tomorrow. but go ahead and admire them and your semi-homemade handiwork :)

check out the cream cheese and white chocolate hiding on the inside!

there you have it. my how-to-tips on being a homemaker.. the easy way.

i gotta go to bed guys. it’s 11 PM and i am a sick bird.  oh yeah, you saw that i didn’t work out again.  i just wasn’t feeling it. and guess what? i don’t feel bad. not one bit.

Qs~

1. any good semi-homemade tips you would like to share with the class? don’t be shy.

2. what is your favorite kind of cupcake? i hope you eat one for national cupcake day :)
xo. janetha b.