Busy!

The last few days have been busy ones.  I've got two cakes due in the next 3 days and while they aren't difficult cakes, they both involve some thought process and a little bit of research.  Just an example:  I probably bought $10 in different kinds/brands of fruit leather, looking for the perfect color/texture, etc.  Found out there is quite a racket on this stuff.  Why in the world is it so expensive??  After buying a bunch, I found a recipe online to make your own.  And it only involves two ingredients and an oven.  Here's how you do it:

Homemade Fruit Leather

4 - 1lb baskets of Fresh Strawberries
1/2 Cup Agave Nectar
(tiny bit of butter for greasing)

Preheat oven to 150 degrees.  (Any higher and they will burn)  Cut parchment paper to fit a jelly pan or cookie sheet(s), then grease with butter.  Wash and hull strawberries.  Place in blender with Agave nectar until well blended.  Pour mixture in pans and spread evenly with a rubber spatula.  Place in oven with door slightly cracked open.  Fruit is dry when it is no longer sticky to the touch.  (Convection oven 6-7 hours/Conventional 10-12 hours)  Cut into 2" strips and store in air tight container.
You can do these right before bed and place them in the oven and they will be ready when you wake up.  With such a low oven temperature, there shouldn't be any danger of fire.  This also work great with other berries.


What could be simpler than this?  Evidently, running to the store and buying fruit roll up #1, running to the store and buying #2 and, again, running to the store and buying #3.  By now, I am an expert on Fruit roll ups, fruit leather, fruit sticks, etc.  But it's all in the name of cake, so I won't complain........anymore.  :-)
Last night we watched the movie Lincoln Lawyer.  Since I'm a HUGE Michael Connelly fan, I was really looking forward to seeing this.  The book is always better, but the movie was good too.  I never sit thru movies, but actually managed to sit and watch the whole thing.  Liked the movie, but felt that it lacked the intensity that "Mickey Haller" should have had.  I think Matthew Mcconaughey plays a good lawyer, as he did in A Time to Kill and it's a very similar character in The Lincoln Lawyer.
Got up early this morning to get our Co-Op Basket from Bountiful Baskets.  It's all fruits and veggies and something I was really looking forward to.  Check out the Bountiful Baskets in your area:  http://www.bountifulbaskets.org/
Here's a look at what we got this morning, for $15.

Aside from the fact that you have to get your order at 7:30am on a Saturday morning, it's a great way to get your fruits and veggies each week.  They also offer great whole grain breads!
Since we were up and at it so early this morning, I feel like we got a lot accomplished.  We went to the grocery store, cake supply store in downtown Phoenix, Sprouts, and finally a couple of mattress stores and still made it home before noon.
Speaking of mattresses....we are in the market for one.  Not sure what we want to go with.  It's amazing how many choices there are and how expen$$$$ive they have become.  Who pays $8K for a mattress??  I want something a little firm, as I have really bad back problems.  Anyone have any suggestions?  We've looked at Temprupedic and sort of like the feel of them, but am a little hesitant because they hold heat.  While I freeze for the first 3 hours I'm in bed, the remainder of my 5 hour sleep is spent like I'm on fire!  I have always constantly run a high body temp.  Every time I go to the doctor, they ask me if I know I have a temperature.  YES!  I know!!!  That brings me back to the problem.  Evidently, memory foam mattresses hold in the heat.  It would be my luck that I somehow start the thing on fire at 3am, due to me rubbing my feet together and causing friction.  If anyone has any experience with these types of beds, let me know.
Finished one cake and now it's back to work to get another one out.  The trash is building up and dogs and cats are waiting patiently.......

The Final Day w/the Fam.

After a late night (I don't think I fell asleep until 2:45am), most everyone got up early to watch the Women's Soccer World Cup.  Personally, I couldn't wait for it to be over!  Nothing worse than watching soccer!  I made myself busy in the kitchen, making breakfast burritos for everyone.  Took some great pictures of them, but proceeded to erase everything off my camera and forgot to download the latest pictures.  Oh well.  There's always another meal to photograph somewhere.
Burritos were eaten, showers were taken and now Shane wanted to take pictures near a fountain of some sort and he wanted dolphins in it.  Hmmmm.........Does he know where he is?  Did Shane fall and hit his head last night and I somehow missed it?  We live in Arizona!  There are no dolphins in any fountains here, unless it's a dolphin made of tile, on the bottom of someone's pool.  Heading out, we drove over to a nearby little park with a little lake.  Hope this was enough for my little Bro.  No dolphins, but there were fish in the lake/pond.  I had fun taking some more pictures.

A different one in color:

Trying an artistic shot:

Cute Father/Daughter picture:

I'm really glad that I have a nice tri-pod.  This worked wonderfully, for these great group shots.  So happy that they came out!

I can't decide which one I like better....the black and white version of the one above or the color version of the one below...

With all of that done, someone was getting cranky because they were hungry.  And, it wasn't my wonderful niece!  Shane needed lunch and he needed it now.  Gordon Biersch here we come.

All too soon, it was time for my family to pack up and leave for the airport.  So great to spend time with everyone and especially great to enjoy Savannah for a few days.

Come back and visit us again.  And for all of our other family that is reading this....we have open guest rooms any time!  We'd love to have you.
It's back to the daily grind for me.  This week I'm working on a special birthday cake for a special little girl......Can't wait for you to see it, Lauren!

Family Time

It's been such a busy past few days, that I haven't had a moment to stop and think, let alone write a blog entry.  It's been so much fun having my niece, Savannah, here with us.  My Brother Shane and his girlfriend, Elena, flew in from Cali, Friday night.  I haven't seen them since October of last year and have really missed everyone.  Such a special treat to have them come out for a couple of days.
On Friday, Savannah and I busily prepared for her Dad to arrive.  Okay, that might be a bit of a stretch.  I should say, I busily prepared for my Brother to arrive and Savannah......well, this is what she did all day.

The Wii is a kid's best friend:

Aren't video games the greatest invention??  I guess they can be both a blessing and a curse, depending on the day.  Since I had so much to do, it was great that Savannah was so easily entertained.  She never complained once about just relaxing.  Great kid!!
I cooked, cleaned and decorated a cake for Shane.  By the time we left for the airport, I was almost wiped out!  I had been up since 7:30am and didn't sit down once until we got in the car, to drive to the airport, around 8pm.  Shane and Elena's plane was delayed a few minutes and we didn't make it home until well after 10:30pm.  Time to eat some dinner, if you can imagine that.  Don't recall the last time I ate at 11:15pm, but there's nothing like Pizza at that hour.  Yummy!
Saturday morning, everyone slept in.  I guess my Brother thought he'd really take advantage of this mini vacation.  We didn't see him until almost noon!  We all headed out to the Queen Creek Olive Mill for a little look around.

Of course, we had to sample our purchases and we certainly didn't want to wait for that long drive home.  I mean 1.5 miles.........that's a long trip.  :-)

Since we'd had a satisfying snack, it was off to take a few family pictures.  Wanted something different than just the back yard, so we drove out near the train tracks to an old building.  Got some great shots of everyone.

Although Shane complained that he was a little hot (okay, he really more or less freaked out because he had beads of sweat on his pretty little head and had to run back into the running vehicle for the air conditioning.  These California peope....a little wimpy!  Lol), we took a couple more.

Chris and I don't take many pictures at all.  But this one turned out pretty good.  Good enough that I'll even share it here.
Now it was time to get Shane home before he melted and do a little swimming.  We arrived home to this lovely "thing" in our driveway.

One look at this and I screamed like a little girl and ran for the house!  I am deathly afraid of spiders, bugs, etc.  If it has more than 2 legs and is not human......I'm running.  I should tell you here, I did NOT take this picture.  It was my Husband that you can thank for the lovely camera work.  I can't even stand looking at this picture.  It just gives me the creeps!  If I see another one, we're leaving Arizona for good!!
After almost having a heart attack, it was time for me to relax.  Swimming was definitely on the agenda.

Thanks, Elaine, for coming down and swimming with Savannah again.  It was fun to have you for a couple of hours.

Elena and Savannah are just soaking up that AZ sun!  Looking good, Girls!

Nice to see Chris and Shane enjoying some refreshing pool time too.

Another great family photo in the water.
Now Shane wanted pictures of his cake...........This is what you call a Blue Moon Summer Day.

He couldn't be more excited.

And just to prove that it's real and 100% edible (including the 3 bottles).....

Time for some bb-q ribs from the Pork Shop, corn, beans, blue cheese potato salad and, of course, cake.  Somewhere in the whole slew of happenings, I seem to have missed taking pictures of the grill and all of the grub!  Not sure how that happened, but trust me...it was really good!
For some reason, my Brother decided he needed his hair cut off.  Not later tomorrow or even when they got home, but right then.  So out came the clippers and scissors.  I looked at the clippers and asked exactly how these things work.  At this point, Shane should have realized that I've never cut anyone's hair before and he was in trouble.  But for some unknown reason, he still wanted his hair cut off.  Plugged in the clippers and started in.  Before I had even cut anything, he was telling me that I was pulling and tugging and that it hurt, etc.  SHEESH!  The clippers didn't seem to be working all that well, so we moved on to scissors.

I had a lovely assistant, Elena, who couldn't believe my Brother was allowing me to actually cut his hair off.  

Of course, Chris had to get in on the action too.  Can't leave anyone left out, can we?

Savannah participated, but didn't much care for her "pieces" in the unscheduled event.

We spent the remainder of our evening sitting on the back patio and watching the monsoon roll in and indulging in a few of my latest experiments from the 

This is the Chocolate Martini Jello Shot

It has two layers, which make it look pretty cool.  Nothing like Godiva Liquor and Vanilla Vodka mixed in this.

Here's another one I did.  This is a Mudslide Jello Shot.

I think this tasted wonderful.  Oh, and by the way, I did NOT serve them like this.  This was for pictures only.  You want a jello shot, you get them out of little plastic cups just like everyone else.  Lol!