Monthly Archives: June 2010

After the power went out I realized I’m thankful for… my glassy babies

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cream, sour apple, and burnt sugar

Last night was not a great night for me and I will not go into too much detail but as I sat on the sofa in our apartment with no air conditioning and no electricity I realized I am so thankful for a recent gift I received from my parents. Justin and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary on April 22. A couple days before our anniversary we received a package from my parents. In it were three large votive candle holders in my favorite colors ( cream, sour apple, and burnt sugar).  Now I know these aren’t true colors but these are the three colors that  that I liked the best. In case you didn’t know my favorite color has always been green just like my daddy! I had not used my glass babies yet and found last night to be the perfect time to use them as I sat in our dark apartment. Justin and I had not been prepared to lose power and were only able to find one flashlight. The glass babies gave us plenty of light and they let off a nice glow. I can’t wait to get a couple more of these.

Check out the awesome website: http://www.glassybaby.com

Mamma Mia… That’s Italian!

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I have not blogged in 10 days! I’m sorry for my recent hiatus but I’m back and bringing you one of my new favorite recipes: Homemade Pomodro Sauce (i.e. spaghetti sauce). A few months ago I took a cooking class with two of my friends, Alli and Amy. This is one of the recipes we got and I have been making it quite often. The ingredients are simple and fresh and I’m sure you will love it! Serve it on pasta or with chicken.

Ravioli with Pomodoro Sauce that we learned how to make at cooking class.

Pomodoro Sauce

Ingredients

1/3 cup olive oil

1 cup finely diced onion

2 cans (total 28 ounces) petite diced tomatoes- we used Dei Fratelli canned tomatoes

¼ cup tomato paste                            

2 cloves minced garlic

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes (I sometimes don’t add this)

½ tablespoon fresh rosemary (do not use the jarred stuff)

½ tablespoon fresh oregano

Heat a pot over medium heat. Add olive oil and onions and cook until translucent. Then add tomatoes and cook for about 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste, Add the garlic, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, rosemary and oregano. Let simmer for at least ten minutes. Toss sauce with cooked pasta or chicken.  Garnish with parsley.

Makes 6 servings

Cupcake Crawl

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These two words put together may cause a bit of confusion so I will explain. A cupcake crawl is similar to a bar crawl in that you hop from one cupcake bakery to another one. I researched a variety of Cupcake bakeries in the Twin Cities and decided on three places: Sweet Retreat Cupcake Boutique, Cake Eater Bakery, and Sweets Bakeshop. Now I must admit this is not healthy and I will be exercising a lot this week but you only live once and a little indulgence is not a bad thing! My friend, Alli developed the cutest score card sheets that we used at each bakery to rate the cupcakes we tried. Here is more info on the Cupcake Bakeries and my opinion on the cupcakes I will and will not be purchasing in the future.       

Thanks Alli for making these super cute score cards!

The Cupcake Crawl Group

Cupcakes displayed are: Cookies-N-Cream, S’mores, Choczilla, Kevin’s Vanilla Princess, Vanilla with ChocolateThe Cupcake Crawl Group

1. Sweet Retreat Cupcake Boutique (http://www.thesweetretreatmn.com)- I love this place! I have been here one time before and have blogged about it. We did try a couple different cupcakes here and they were equally delicious in my opinion.      

We had not split these up yet between the groups. The best one was the Mexican Hot Chocolate. It had a red hot candy on top.

  2. Cake Eater Bakery (http://cakeeaterbakery.com/)- This was not my favorite cupcake place. I thought the icing was a bit too sweet. They offer vegan and gluten free cupcakes. I think we might have tried a vegan one but I am not sure. I need to talk to my fellow cupcake crawlers.  The Mexican Hot Chocolate was my favorite at this place. It had a little bit of heat and the icing was not too sweet.     

  

Cupcake Crawl at our last location Sweets Bakeshop.

   

  

Cupcakes displayed are Peanut Butter Cup, Tiramisu, Triple Chocolate, Snowball. Somehow the Kettle Corn did not make the picture.

3. Sweets Bakeshop (http://www.sweetsbakeshop.com/)- My second favorite place! I love that they offer a mini version of each cupcake. The store is  absolutely gorgeous and the people that worked there were super friendly. I loved how they had a great variety of cupcakes. My favorites were the Tiramisu, Peanut Butter, and Kettle Corn.   

  

      

    

         

 

Crave Minneapolis… The Urban Gals Manifesto

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Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while… I did not want to blog unless it was something that I felt was worth sharing. I have found though a great book ( I don’t know if I really should even call it that) more a necessary item that any girl should have depending on the city they live in. The Minneapolis/ St Paul version was just released on May 25. I’m 90% sure that our book club will be reading about/scoping out all the cool places that are in it this month.

Check out the website and see if your city has one. http://thecravecompany.com/