Heather Bakes

Okay, okay, it’s not exactly first thing in the morning. Thanks for the reminder, Susan and Katherine- and have I mentioned how much I love and miss my former coworkers?? But I’ve been up for hours- running, cleaning out my closet, reorganizing the refrigerator. Or NOT. For some reason (I’m looking at you, baby) it’s taking me forever to fall asleep at night, no matter how tired I am- very atypical- and then the four bathroom trips in the middle of the night are no help either. So needless to say, mornings are not pretty around here. Not at all.

Sometimes you just crave peanut butter & jelly, right? Well maybe that’s just me. So breakfast yesterday was an Ezekiel english muffin (love these) topped with crunchy pb and cherry jelly, along with an orange:

After breakfast I straightened up a little around here, dragged the pug out of bed, then headed out for a run. Does anyone else have a Garmin 305 Forerunner? The one that looks like this? A friend gave me hers a while back and I’ve been using the GPS for months but just recently acquired the heart rate monitor. For some reason I can’t the Garmin to register my heart rate. I’ve changed the battery in the monitor, so that shouldn’t be the problem. Any suggestions??

After the run I stopped by Albertson’s for dinner stuff, but came home with a giant tub of baby spinach and butter lettuce. So lunch was a giant kitchen sink salad of the lettuces, chopped cucumber, tomato, hearts of palm, ww rotini, a can of salmon (I miss tuna) and the dregs of the three bean salad, all topped with red wine vinegar and Annie’s Woodstock Dressing.

I got the new issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray this weekend. How can I say this? It’s not her best effort to date… for more details, see Lisa’s hilarious post on DallasEats. But there was one recipe that sounded good: Grilled Summer Corn-and-Chipotle Chowder. Actually, she calls it “chowdah”- but let’s not go there. I altered the recipe a little, using turkey bacon instead of smoked bacon, light coconut milk instead of heavy cream, and cilantro instead of parsley for the garnish.

The verdict? Good, but super spicy. If I make this again, I’ll probably just stick with one chipotle chile. It’s less chowder and more soup, in my opinion- but that might be because I omitted the heavy cream. Coconut milk doesn’t thicken up as much.

In class last night we covered flowers. I am not good at flowers. It was a frustrating evening. I can pretty much manage a rose, but for some reason the stupid flat 5-petal flower was just way too much for me. I wanted to throw the piping bag across the room. Anyway, I worked on this cake for the entire class period (4 HOURS) but I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out:

Tonight is the basketweave cake, with- you guessed it!- more flowers. Oy. Maybe it can be a basket of something else?

-SURVEY-

What are you craving right now?

That’s pretty much my life at this point, one craving after another. Right now I really want some sushi. And chocolate milk, though not at the same time.