Catch up

I know I am not very good at blogging but I would like to be better...honestly! I just have so much going on that sometimes I mean to write but then I go into a relaxation coma and forget all about all this blogging stuff.

I have had a lot of things happen in the last month or so, so I'll catch you up:

1. I finished my Real Estate license education requirements

2. Studied and passed that dang exam....WITH a 90 and an 80!!! WOO HOO!

3. We put one of our businesses on hold because it just felt right. We realized it wasn't working so we decided to take a step back, get ourselves together, and approach it again in September.

4.Signed on with a broker so I can hopefully start making some $$. I am going through training right now so pray and wish me luck!

5. Joined a beautiful gym that is really close to our house. Jason has been 3 times this week and I have been 4 times....but who's counting!? :-P We feel great and I know it's going to make us better people and parents.

6. In January we found a church that we love! We felt welcomed at the doors and have been a big part of the church since that day. We have made great friends and felt spiritually full since we started. It truly has been a huge impact on our lives.

7. My Catering website has started to form. My Bro-in-law started working on it and so far it looks great and I am so excited to see the finished product. Just seeing my food on-line is tear-worthy and I actually did cry! Also, he has someone working on a logo for me, can you believe it?!?!

8. Brayden turned 22 months on March 26 which means he will be 23 months on the 26th of this month and then 24 months on May 26th. In case you didn't pick up on that, HE WILL BE TWO NEXT MONTH!!! Where has the time gone? Time definitely flies while you are having fun. :)

9. And....we purchased our plane tickets to California for my oldest friends wedding and to spend almost 2 weeks with my parents! We are so excited!!

This weekend, we have friends coming to stay with us and we just love them so we are so excited to spend time with them and their little guy. Then next weekend my parent's are coming to stay with us for a whole week! They haven't been here since Brayden was 3 weeks old so we are so glad to have them here and show them more of Austin. We are going to eat a ton of BBQ, go to a baseball game, and then we are taking a mini-trip to SA to visit the Alamo, the Riverwalk, and Sea World. Jason and I need this vacation so bad and can't wait for it to finally be here!

So as you can see our lives have been a little crazy but we absolutley love it! Hopefully I will have more food and recipes up soon so until then stay tuned for craziness and updates!

Have a great weekend!

Cecilia

Found it!

I thought it was gone forever!! I thought I had lost it and it had waved bye bye to me while wearing a tiny red polka-dot bag hanging on a stick. My creativity that is....but I was pleased to see it reappear for a short time tonight. :)

I signed up for E-Mealz last week and while I feel relieved that the last thing I have to worry about in our hectic lives is dinner and my ever shrinking pocket book, I feel less and less creative. At this time, I don't have time to be creative though. With the helping of Jason's new company, Real Estate school, Brayden, and being a wife, I just don't have time! Really you should see my house!! So this new menu plan is saving me time, brain power, and dollars, which I love.

Tonight I looked at Jason and said, "what are we having for dinner?", since our new menu plan won't come out until tomorrow. He looked at me with nothing...no ideas...no want to cook...so I knew it was either eat out or I had to get creative. I poured myself a glass of wine and pulled out what I had. Thin, boneless pork chops, chopped tomatoes, grilled and marinated artichokes, and my...gasp! White wine! Wonderful...something was about to happen.


Here is how to make it:

4-5 thin, boneless pork chops
Grilled, marinated artichokes (rough chopped), drained
1/2 can of chopped fire roasted tomatoes with garlic, drained
1/4 cup white wine
few tabs of butter
Salt & Pepper
Parsley for garnish
Parmesan cheese

Get a nice large Saute pan and turn it to medium high. While the pan heats up pat dry your chops and season with salt and pepper. Put a tab of butter (tab...did I make that up?) and coat the pan. Carefully put 2-3 chops depending on the size of your pan and brown on  both sides. Be careful not to overcrowd because that can change the temprature of the pan and not allow your chops to get nice and brown. Also, it's ok if they don't cook all the way through at first...set aside and proceed with next batch until you are finished. Add another tab of butter to pan and then pour in wine (often called deglazing the pan). Add chopped artichokes and tomatoes and stir. Then, nestle your little pork chops into the mixture and allow the flavor to mingle. When internal temprature of the meat reaches 160 degrees, about 5-7 minutes, place the meat on a platter and spoon sauce over the pork chops. Done!

Serve and Enjoy!!

Cecilia

Cake Ball Catastrophe

I kept hearing Cake Ball this and Cake ball that and then one of my friends brought one in to the office and I realized what everyone had been talking about. They were such an amazing treat. Sweet, gooey, moist cake dipped in chocolate...wow! Then about a month ago a Resident of mine brought in some Bon Bons and I almost died so I decided it was my time to give it a go.

I started off in the baking isle trying to decide what combination I was going to try. There was red velvet cake and of course chocolate cake but since my birthday is coming up, I decided to make what I love. CARROT CAKE! I just love carrot cake and every year for my birthday, Jason's Grandma makes me one of the best carrot cakes without scabs (raisins) known to man. I literally wait all year to eat her sinfully good carrot cake. I am drooling and day dreaming about it at this very moment.

So here is how the Cake Ball Catastrophe started.....

Lookin' good and ready to make Carrot Cake Balls. As you can see my first mistake was the white chocolate chips. Did you know the best type of chocolate to use is Almond Bark? And did you know Almond Bark does not have almonds in it?? Who knew?! :)

Next, you cook the cake according to the directions and allow to cool. Once cooled, crumble the cake into a large bowl and add one can of cream cheese frosting. Get your hands nice and clean because you are going to need to get in there and combine...combine away! Once the icing and cake are combined you will need to scoop balls out of the mixture lay them on a parchment lined baking pan. I used a small ice cream scoop so they would be equal in size. Next, roll your cake balls between your palms until they are smooth.

Please do not do what I did and melt your chocolate and then add your room temperature balls into the hot melted chocolate. You will end up with crumbs in your chocolate and you will feel like a terrible failure. Place your rolled, naked cake balls into the freezer or into the fridge until nice and cool. Please make sure they are really, really COLD. I didn't have space in the freezer so I kept them in the fridge.

This is where it all went wrong....

DO NOT USE WHITE CHOCOLATE CHIPS. Please! It was all wrong! It never got thin enough to coat and the temperature was so temperamental. They ended up in big gooey globs. Now, I am a firm believer that you can never have too much chocolate but this was just too much. My precious cake balls were too sweet and they were not pretty. This is exactly why you will not see a picture of my ugly balls...did I say that? Errr...I mean my not so pretty balls!

I have a friend who vowed to teach me the ins and outs on making cake balls and I so appreciate it. Thanks Ally! I so needed a baking buddy and I can't wait to see and eat what we dream up.

Now go and make Cake Balls! But beware and don't be sad if your first batch doesn't come out perfect. It's just a good excuse to make them again and eat! :)

Cecilia  xoxo

The Best Banana Bread

I hate seeing bananas go bad. I just really, really dislike it. We have really been trying to watch our expenses and stay on a budget so I feel so guilty and twitchy when I see food go bad. And while there are days Brayden will eat a whole banana by himself there are those days that he won't touch them. I just see them on the counter getting all brown and pathetic and I feel like a total failure. So as they say when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, the same can be said about bananas. When your son refuses to eat bananas and they go bad...make banana bread!!!

I looked for a recipe online and decided to add my spin to it.

Here is the original recipe:

1 cup granulated sugar



8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature


2 large eggs


3 ripe bananas


1 tablespoon milk


1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


2 cups all-purpose flour


1 teaspoon baking powder


1 teaspoon baking soda


1 teaspoon salt


 
This seemed like a good recipe but it just needed a little pizzaz!
 
My Best Banana Bread Recipe:
 
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 stick unsalted butter- room temperature
2 room temperature eggs
3 really good and ripe bananas
1 tablespoon whole milk
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon good vanilla extract (you just need it!)
2 cups all-purpose flour (you can even do 1 cup WW flour and 1 cup AP flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup of chopped pecans
 
 
Directions



Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.


Cream the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla last.


In a small bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. Mix in the milk, cinnamon and nutmeg. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.


Add the banana mixture to the creamed mixture and stir until combined. Add dry ingredients, mixing just until flour disappears. Once all ingredients are mixed then add chopped pecans.


Pour batter into buttered and floured pan (lining top with 5 pecans for presentation) and bake 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set aside to cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Remove bread from pan, invert onto rack and cool completely before slicing.


We loved it, our friends loved it, and you will too!


~Cecilia

Operation Get Fit

It has been 14 months since Brayden was born and I am still holding on to these last 8 pounds that NEED to go away. Not only do I work in the land of the beautiful but I have a 5K terror race in exactly 4 months. I, along with the Hubs and our friends, have decided to run this 3.2 mile race known as the Warrior Dash. I am excited but terrified. I mean, who does this sort of thing? Me I guess because we are about to sign up in the next few weeks. Also, I only agreed to do this because of the free beer and Warrior helmet at the end. Ok, I am also doing it because it looks fun and I always said I would do something like this after I had Brayden. One of those silly little goal things.

Now to get to excersizin'! Saturday morning I decided I was ready to get back to running and I began with a jog around our block with Brayden in his sweet little jogging stroller. By the way, has anyone out there ran with a jogging stroller lately? It's NOT easy contrary to what the ads and extremely fit people may tell you but it is a great work out. After approximately 15 minutes my legs were burning, I was itchy and I'm absolutely sure this was my punishment for taking the last 2 months off from excercising. We made it 30 minutes and I was happy with that. This is just the beginning after all.
I kept with the pace by dragging the whole family out yesterday morning to get some excercise . I made a good protein rich breakfast and we set out to run/walk Pflugerville Lake. Pflugerville Lake has a 3 mile track around it and is usually pretty quiet so you can feel free to run your tiny little heart out and not feel like you're being laughed at. We set the pace to a nice brisk walk and then eventually ran here and there. Go M family!! We are on our way to fitness....until.......THE FREAKIN' STROLLER BROKE!! Did you hear that?? The stroller broke in the 200 degree heat with a crying baby who ran out of Mum Mums and a Mom and Dad who might die of heat stroke. So after we decided that we could not set up camp and we forgot our road flares in the truck, we decided we had to make it to the end. So Jason had to balance the stroller on it's back wheels while I ran with the dog. Can you imagine my poor husband running with a giant stroller balanced on it's back wheels.? We were a sight to see that's for sure. Poor Brayden, he definitely hit the family jackpot.

Well, we made it and I am alive to send this out into the Internet universe. I am really hoping to get some recipes posted soon and have really slacked because my camera broke and it's just not any fun without pictures, right?

Recipes to come:

Pear and Pineapple Crumble
Pasta with Chicken, Artichokes, and Mushrooms
Eezy Peezy Pesto Chicken
My Take on Pioneer Woman's Pasta with Pancetta and Leeks
and last but not least...My Famous Amous Breakfast Tacos.

~Cecilia :0)

Best part of my day....

Every weekday morning I wake up and do the same things...punch the snooze button at least 4-6 times, stumble to the shower, turn on GMA, sip hot coffee and put on my makeup, all while waiting for Brayden to signal me to get him out of bed. This is the best part of my day.

When he does wake up and yell for me to get him out of bed, I usually peek my head in his room and say "GOOD MORNING BOOGER BEAR!". Yes, I am that Mom and I could careless what anyone thinks of me. I love this part because he usually squeals and then calls for his favorite dog, "Aleh". Ali is our 3 year old boxer who could care less about him unless he has something edible in his hand, preferably eggs or bacon. Then and only then, are they best friends. There is no shouting out, "Mama", or, " Dadda".. or anything of the sort, all he wants is his "Aleh". What ev man!!!! I gave birth to him and not an easy, he flew out type of birth. I mean, 36 LONG, arduous hours then a C-section type of birth. I deserve a Momma, right? Oh well, he is cute so I'll forgive him.

This is my favorite part of the day because I get to spend quality morning time with him while he is at his happiest and most cuddly. I love when his hair is messy and with sleepy eyes he watches The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse while sipping his milk. He makes me happy and yearn to hold him all day long and never let him go. The pain of a mother.

This also makes my day....

Boys and their balls! Do they ever get tired of them? This was taken at a friend of mine son's birthday party at The Little Gym. He was such a big boy and could care less about me. Every now and then, he would scan the room, locate me and then he was off. Of course, he was particularly fond of the balls but what boy isn't. It is his favorite word after all. Jason also told me that no, they never do get tired of them. Nice.....

This too.....

This is probably the best part of daycare for a Mom. Besides, the social interaction and curriculum/learning thing...blah..blah..blah. It's the tiny artwork! It's the best and I have to say I have started a little gallery at my work to show off all my little Picasso's masterpieces. I mean, who wouldn't want to look at that??? 

Lots of  love,

Cecilia

Babies....

I love it! I love that everywhere I turn babies are making there way out into the world. I love seeing the joy and love through the parents eyes and I love seeing the fear. Oh the glorious fear that every parent goes through the moment they see that little pink line on that dreadful stick. I myself felt it and the fear hasn't entirely gone away still. I had that fear when I told Jason that we were expecting, when Brayden took his first step, and I have that fear leaving him at school. I constantly check the car when I get to work every morning for fear that I might leave him in the car. I mean it's literally debilitating. Maybe I should stay home?

Lately, the conversations have turned to us and when will we add to the family. We know we want to add to our family and we know that we don't want to wait until Brayden is 18 to pop out another but then there is another type of fear.Will we be ready? Will we be able to afford it? Will my body go back to it's natural state after another? It changes from day-to-day but I think I just don't know. I'm not sure I am ready for God to decide yet but I don't think you can ever plan for these things either.

Any who, I am so happy for all the lovely friends and family I have out there procreating and I just love all the new babies!

On another note, I bought a ton of food at Sprouts this weekend and I plan to try some new recipes. I can't wait to share!

Love,

Cecilia