A very late MSC: Chocolate Salted-Caramel Cupcakes

I was supposed to blog about these great mini-cupcakes on the 15th of August, but somehow life got in the way: I was worried about my dog, going from one vet-appointment to another, swamped at work and the last couple of days battling a cold an fatigue.

But, finally here they are: Chocolate Salted-Caramel Cupcakes for MS: Cupcake Club. As I had just started my diet I didn't try the whole finished product, I sampled a tiny bit of the cake, the frosting and the salted caramel. Everything tasted great on its own and my coworkers assured me that the complete cupcake was amazing too!

I only made half the recipe, which resulted into 32 mini-cupcakes. It's probably time to start saving up money for a candy thermometer, as I keep making recipes where I need one. This time I decided to wing it and try to make the caramel using a very simple tool: my eyes....

Check out here what everyone else thought of these cupcakes!

Taste & Create XXII: Penne in a Creamy Pesto Sauce with Fresh Mozzarella, Grape Tomatoes & Chicken

For this months Taste & Create I was paired with the lovely Poornima of Tasty Treats.
With lots of yummy dishes to choose from I picked another great pastadish: Penne in a Creamy Pesto Sauce with Fresh Mozzarella, Grape Tomatoes and Chicken. I made this when I had a friend over for dinner and we absolutely loved it: this is easy to make and tastes absolutely delicious!!

Go check out what else was made for this months Taste & Create here!!

CEiMB: Grilled Thai Beef Salad

This weeks recipe for CEiMB was picked by Jen of Jen B's Cooking Carveout, she picked the Grilled Thai Beef Salad.

Made it, loved it! Forgot to photograph it...So picture and more info will follow later tonight when I come back from the gym!

The recipe can be found at Jen's blog and here at Foodnetwork. Check out what my fellow Elie-istas thought of this recipe here!

Update: here's the pictures!!

TWD: No Applesauce Spice Bars

Sorry for those who came over here to look at some delicious Applesauce Spice Bars, they are not here nor will they be here by the end of the day. Last week I decided it was time for a change, you can read all about it here. Since I had already made two out of four recipes for August I won't be making the other two.

But be sure to go here to check out the yummy-looking Applesauce Spice Bars my fellow TWD-ers made!

V.I.P. wanted: Winner of my Blogoversary Giveaway, a.k.a. My Favorite Things

Finally the time has come to find out who wins my Blogoversary Giveaway and gets to recieve a parcel with some of my favorite things!
To make sure that the choosing was impartial I used the Random Integer Generator, so here's the result...

The first random number that came up was 1. The first comment was made by Shelby (HoneyB):

Ok Marthe, I am not entering because I just won the cookbook and you also sent me some awesome chocolate too! I want to wish you a happy blogoversary though and I look forward to you guesting on my blog while I am on vacation! :-)

Since Shelby didn't enter the giveaway I made the generator pick another number....

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:21

Timestamp: 2009-08-16 22:03:14 UTC

This means my winner is.... Natalia, who said:

Ciao Marthe ! Happy blogiversary !!I totally forgot about mine !! What beautiful mix of presents ! For us it is very strange how you decorate the (san carlo) toast !

Congratulations Natalia!

Missing Cupcakes and update on Scott

Yes, I know it's the 15th of August. I had joined another baking group before I came up with my resolution to lose weight: MS Cupcake Club (or MSC). Betty of Eat My Cupcake had bought the book Cupcakes by Martha Stewart and started up a monthly group to try all the recipes.

This is our first month and I already feel like a loser: Betty picked Chocolate Salted-Caramel Cupcakes as our challenge and I haven't made them yet, here's what happened:

Wednesday was my day off and I had planned on baking the cupcakes that day. However my cat decided differently: right after breakfast Senna came and sat on my lap, while I was petting here I discovered a crawly creeper on her.... a flea!!! Eeeeekkkkkk......

Further inspection revealed that Scott seemed to have the same problem, so the rest of my day was spent running to the shop to get anti-flea medicine for both Senna and Scoot, but also Joey (my parents dog that had spent the weekend at my house while my parent were out of town), changing all the bedding, putting all the pets sof toys in a plastic bag and vacuuming the entire house.

On Thursday I called the vet because they were supposed to have the results for Scotts liver biopsy. Things were not good: it seems like Scott produces too much corticosteroids which means that he probably has Cushings disease. To determine for sure if he has Cushings we now have to do a urine test. So for the next three days (today is day 1) I have to collect some urine at 8 am and on day 2 he has to take medicine: 4 tablets at 12, 4 at 18 and 4 at 24 o'clock.....

I'm sorry to dissapoint those of you who came here for the Chocolate Salted-Caramel Cupcakes, they're not here... yet!!! I will definetly try to fit this in the next week and blog about them!!

Mango Banana Daiquiris for Barefoot Blogger

Tex-Mex Lasagne

A while ago I saw this Tex-Mex Lasagna over at Cookies with Boys, today I decided to make this. It was absolutely delicious!! Go check out the recipe here at Cooking Light.
11 WW Points per serving.

Don't forget to enter my Giveaway and/or the Gift Exchange:
the deadline for the Blogoversary Giveaway is August 14th,
the deadline for the Gift Exchange is August 30th.

TWD: Brownie Buttons

Don't forget to enter my Giveaway and/or the Gift Exchange:
the deadline for the Blogoversary Giveaway is August 14th,
the deadline for the Gift Exchange is August 30th.


Easy to make, delicious to eat and the perfect size: Brownie Buttons for TWD.
These Brownie Buttons were picked by Jayma of Two Scientists Experimenting in the Kitchen.
They only take 15 minutes in the oven!

Almost forgot to take a picture of the Brownie Buttons before taking them to work, this is the best I could do for now, they're all gone! Next time I´ll have to double the recipe!!!

This made 12 Brownie Buttons for me, so that´s 3 WW Points per Button.
Correction: 3,5 WW Points per Button......

Check out what my fellow TWD-ers thought of the Brownie Buttons here.

Time for a change and another update on Scott

Don't forget to enter my Giveaway and/or the Gift Exchange:
the deadline for the Blogoversary Giveaway is August 14th,
the deadline for the Gift Exchange is August 30th.

This morning I stepped on the scales and it shocked me: I weighed 104,0 kilos. Not good..... It's time for a change and another blog. I will use Minimizing Myself to write down everything I eat: the good, the bad and the ugly. I will still be posting the recipes here.

I will not quit all my online cooking/baking groups, as they provide me with relaxation: I enjoy baking too much and am not willing to give up this hobby. However I will limit myself to two recipes for Tuesdays with Dorie per month. MS: Cupcake Club is only monthly so that should be fine. I will try to 'ligthen up' the Barefoot Bloggers recipes as much as possible and pick healthy options for my Taste & Create. Craving Ellie in My Belly should be okay as we only make healthy recipes there.

Now for the update on Scott: during the stomach echo the vet discovered that Scott had no tumors! However his galblatter was enlarged as were the arteries around his liver. The vet took two biopsies from the liver, now I have to phone them Thursday for the results.

My first time guest blogging....

Don't forget to enter my Giveaway and/or the Gift Exchange:
the deadline for the Blogoversary Giveaway is August 14th,
the deadline for the Gift Exchange is August 30th.

A totally new experience for me today: I have a guest post going up today over at The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch. Yay!

I decided to make a typically Dutch treat called Boterkoek. I've heared people compare it to shortbread, but in my opinion Boterkoek is less dry than shortbread.

Go check out my post over at HoneyB's blog!!

My brothers dog Pien is celebrating her first birthday today, so happy Birthday Pien!!

May there be many more years to come! (In this pic she's only 2 months old)

CEiMB: Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Lemony Cream Cheese Frosting

Don't forget to enter my Giveaway and/or the Gift Exchange:
the deadline for the Blogoversary Giveaway is August 14th,
the deadline for the Gift Exchange is August 30th.

Leanne of Enjoying my Favorite Things got to pick this weeks recipe for Craving Ellie in My Belly, she picked Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Lemony Cream Cheese Frosting.
You can find the recipe here at Leanne's blog.

I made miniature cupcakes so that I could use my new mini-cupcake stand, isn't it cute? I got it using the gift certificate I got from my colleagues for my 30th birthday.

I was a bit dissappointed by the cupcakes, but then again maybe I'm just not a carrotcake-girl. I've never had carrotcake in my life. I had to improvise on the frosting 'cause I seemed to be out of lemons: I used lemon juice instead of zest, I needed 4 teaspoons of lemon juice to get a lemony taste to the frosting. Delicious!! The cupcakes were not my favorite Ellie-recipe so far, I loved the frosting though. Go figures: I like the least healthy part of the recipe!!

Check out what my fellow Elie-istas thought of the cupcakes here.

Next weeks recipe is Stuffed Turkey Burgers picked by one of my favourite bloggers Peggy of Pantry Revisited.

Results of Scotts Blood Test

Today I woke up at 6 am although I had taken the day off and could sleep in if I wanted to. The minutes seemed to creep by so slowely until it was finally time to call the vet: she told me to call between 1.30 and 2.00 pm.

Unfortunately all is not well with Scott..... The blood test revealed that his liver values are way too high, this can be because of lots of things: bacteria, infection, virus or perhaps a tumor. The next step is an abdominal echo and maybe a biopsy if they do find some sort of mass.

So it's back to the vet tomorrow morning at 10.15 am. Poor Scott has to be sober then, so no food or drink and he is not allowed to poop or pee.

I'm assuming whatever he has will be treatable and cureable very easily. I hope that everything is going to be okay as I am not ready to live without Scott yet and neither is Senna or the rest of my family!

Update on my Giveaway, the Classic Banana Bundt Cake for TWD and Scott

Don't forget to enter my Giveaway or the Gift Exchange:
the deadline for the Blogoversary Giveaway is August 14th,
the deadline for the Gift Exchange is August 30th.

I decided to add one more favorite of mine to the giveaway... My favorite beer: Rose beer, this is a belgian white beer with raspberries that is actually coloured pink: a real girlygirl beer!

I managed to save 3 of the 6 miniature bundt cakes: I sliced of the burned bottom and coated them with the lemon glaze: delicious!! The bundt cake was still nice and moist, I will be making this one again!

At the vet's office we weighed Scott: he actually weighed about 250 grams more than at our last visit in May. However the vet agreed with us that he felt skinny and his fur was not good. Fortunately she couldn't find anything wrong during the physical examination: the heart sounded good, belly felt okay and his teeth looked great for his age. (Scott will turn 8 this December).

The vet took some blood and sent it of to be tested, I can phone them Thursday for the results. So now I just have to be patient and wait for Thursday to arrive....

TWD: Banana Bundt Cake - Fail!!

Yes, my first TWD-recipe that failed.... But I can't blame the recipe : I fell asleep on the couch while my mini bundt cakes were in the oven and woke up to a smelly kitchen..... :(
This weeks recipe was picked by Mary of The Food Librarian, I can't wait to see what she came up with for her version!!

I'm going to try and see if I can fit in making a new batch tomorrow, but I don't know if I'll be in the mood. I have to take Scott, my Border Collie to the vet. Since June he has lost some weight, he's really skinny now, he's losing lots of hair his fur is thin and and dull. I just wnat to have the vet check him just to be safe....

Go check out if my fellow TWD-bakers tried harder at not burning their cakes here!

P.S. Don't forget to enter my Giveaway or the Gift Exchange:
the deadline for the Blogoversary Giveaway is August 14th,
the deadline for the Gift Exchange is August 30th.

I've got Mail!!

Thursday was a beautiful day, as I saw this gorgeous rainbow on my way to work. I love rainbows and simply couldn't resist to take a picture.

Most of you know how much I love receiving postcards and parcels.
Look at what came in the mail last Thursday:

Remember me telling you about how my cat had found a new toy in the brand new PalmZester I had brought over from Canada?

Well, that same day I receive an email from Shannon, who works at Chef'n. She had read that post and generously offered to send me a new PalmZester. I even got to pick the colour: Lime, Lemon or Orange.

And that's what came in the mail last Thursday: just in time for the lemons that I have to grate for this weeks TWD (Banana Bundt Cake with Lemon Glaze) and CEiMB (Carrot Cupcakes with Lemony Cream Cheese Frosting)!


Shannon even wrote me a nice note!

The folks at Chef'n even have their own blog, it features lovely recipes in which they use their products.

P.S. Don't forget to enter my Giveaway or the Gift Exchange:

the deadline for the Blogoversary Giveaway is August 14th,
the deadline for the Gift Exchange is August 30th.