Steve's birthday dinner

This is a meal I've been making a very long time for Steve's birthday.  Lasagna and cheesecake.  It has changed ever so slightly...I now make the lasagna with whole wheat pasta and use extra lean ground beef.   That's it!  no other changes which I will admit has been a challenge.   Today I was very tempted to use ground turkey in the  lasagna, low fat mozzarella and nonfat cottage cheese but I decided to leave it as authentic as possible and I'm glad I did because it's the way he likes it.     I also stuck to my original pumpkin cheesecake which I make only once a year.     You wouldn't guess it but lasagna and cheesecake on the same day = a long day in the kitchen.  These are two relatively easy dishes to prepare but both have many steps including. shopping, chopping, cleaning, baking and serving.   I find that I spend a ton of time washing dishes and clearing the kitchen for the next step (especially with out new tiny space).    I'm really having to practice my organizational skills coming from my old kitchen to this new 'compact' space.

This is a 2nd one I made in a 9X9 tinfoil pan and froze without cooking for a day I don't feel like cooking (I do have those sometimes;)

I had some cracking on top from being too impatient and opening the oven door  :(

 Happy 44th Steve!

I was hoping to finish the garden after this but it will have to wait another couple of days because of the cold, they've been in the shed in an attempt to protect them from 'freezing' temperatures....May 23rd!!     Crazy stuff, but I hear that this is normal for Alberta.  :)    Patience I'm told.     So instead of gardening this weekend we did a lot of relaxing and trying to avoid the rain, I did a lot of shopping and cooking which is all good!  I gathered a bunch of greens which I then chopped and washed for a week of green smoothies and even made some YOPS for the girls and used the left overs for frozen yogurt popsicles.       I'm so happy and feel like I should whisper that Alex had a shake today with tons of fruit in it!.      She even knows this and I didn't have to be 'deceptive' about it.      I'll never forget the time that I bought the book "Deceptively delicious' by Jerry Seinfeld's wife in my desperate attempt to get veggies and fruit into Alex without her knowing.   Apparently she saw the book right away and kept a close eye on it's every move because the 1st day that I made a recipe from it she noted that it had changed position on my recipe book shelf.     Really!   I made brownies with spinach hidden in it and she would not touch it!     When I tried to get her to take a piece, she told me that I was very 'deceptive'.   I had to leave the room so I could laugh without her seeing  :)   she is a smart kid.         I'm loving my shakes and can't wait to try celery and cucumbers in it with a lime tomorrow.  

 I picked up some beets to make a 'beet and goat cheese salad" and washed the beet tops to add to my shake.

This is all of the veggie cuttings that I don't use.  I add some water and pulverize it before adding to the compost - it just decomposes a lot quicker in liquid form.    Now I just need some warm weather and get my garden done!

Alex's birthday

My little girl is 14 and.....not so little anymore. I won't go into the bizarreness of having a 14 year old all of a sudden but I will go into the horror of making birthday cakes. I made my first cake when Alex was 1 year old and it was very ridiculous and took me approx 5 hrs. I still have the cake pan and I am going to scan a pic on here as soon as I get organized. It was one of those pans from the bulk barn with Happy Birthday engraved bubble style on the bottom of the pan. I made the batter from scratch and then for the first time learned how to pipe a cake on that very cake. I did about 4-5 different colors which also means 4-5 different piping bags. I invited my best friend and her 6 month old over for the occasion and even let Alex dive right in while sitting in her highchair (this wasn't easy since I wanted to frame the cake and save forever). The cake was actually really impressive - meaning I was impressed with myself. This was the beginning of a bad habit and I still to this day insist on making both my kids a cake on their day. I always curse myself halfway through and can't believe I'm doing this again but they are always somehow impressed and foolishly think that I'm kinda talented at this. I'm not but still I can't help it.

This was a 3 layer chocolate cake I made for Jo's 8th birthday....tasted great but looked like a big pile of elephant poop!

Because Josee' bday is Oct 14th, I often make her something to take to school with a Halloween theme. The cookies were for her 10th and the muffins were for her 11th with 'lollies' on top in Australia.

These were for her class this year - her 12th

Not impressive looking but sinful pumpkin cheesecake that the boy always requests

A half chocolate and half vanilla cake for Alexs 9th

This cake was a 3 layered chocolate cake with each section decorated in colored chocolate candies usually used for moulds for Alex' 10th. The kids loved it because it was crunchy on top.

Alex 13th balloon cake

Since Alex' birthday fell on the weekend before she was to have her friend over I made her 2 cakes. The first one was a layer of oreo cookie crumbs, chocolate icecream, vanilla cake and candy icing, it was so good. The 2nd was the guitar cake she asked for which I simply cut out from a large sheet cake baked on a cookie sheet. The strings are licorice and the tuners are large fishies and rolos crackers. The cake looked cool but.....it was yucky. I ended up throwing most of it out. It's ok though, Alex was happy.