Super Bowl Tampa

(The Super Bowl XLIII was in Tampa this year. Last nights game was awesome, well played. Sadly, the Cardinals lost to the Steelers. 23-27.)

I figured I'll make some dessert bites. I'm going to try the football cake balls I saw one time on the Bakerella blog. I actually tasted my first cake ball at Ashley's house/baby shower. They were delicious and I have since stocked up my pantry on the ingredients should the opportunity presents itself. So what better time to make them!

Super Bowl Football cake bites.
(I did 2 batches for 2 different parties, but the ingredients below is only for 1 batch.)

1 Red Velvet Cake mix
1 can of cheesecake frosting
1 bag of candy mold in chocolate - (turns out I didnt have any so I settled for Hershey candy bar)
1 tube of white cake gel.

The first step is to make the cake per the mix and let it cool aside. After it is cool, crumble the cake into a big bowl and mix the cake crumble with the can of frosting (mix thoroughly with your hand or a big wooden spoon). Cover bowl and chill in refrigerator..

After the cake crumble has cooled down, take about 1 tablespoon of the mix and roll and shape into little footballs. (I made some small circle balls too). Use up all the mix.

Then dip the "football" in the melted chocolate. Let sit and harden. With the white gel, decorate the football so it looks like one. (Wow, I had a hard time describing this...oh well, hopefully the pictures will help.)

:D Enjoy! These are ultra easy, it just takes a little time, but so delish! When you bite into the football, the red velvet cake is very moist.

The only problem was that I had a hard time transporting the football without the cake gel rubbing up against everything. Next time, I'll make that extra effort to decorate it using white chocolate.

My BB is on Crack....

I had the strangest and yet scariest moment last week. I was in Boston checking out the new facilities for Offense Defense Nike Sports Camps that I manage during the summer. And well, it must have been the freezing temperature, but my Blackberry decided to crash, freeze and then delete ALL of my emails (all accounts), all of my texts, call logs, and my BlackBerry Messenger conversations. In essence, I lost everything! EVERYTHING!

Yes I did panic. My whole life and work was in that little sucker, but I figured, those I didn't respond to would eventually call or connect with me again, and I can apologize. But the funny thing is: I FELT LIBERATED! I was free......

So, I have decided to simplify life a little more and get rid of tons of things. That being said, I am going through my countless email accounts and forever Deleting MANY MANY emails. I think I just might cry....this is a crazy step for me.

Well, that being said...I should clean up my contacts too. I think I have too many "old" contacts, the emails don't even exist anymore.

Off to clean up my life a bit. Liberate myself and all.....here's to "DELETE".

Sugar and Spice ...BABY SHOWER

I hosted my FIRST (surprise) baby shower for Ashley @ work. We had it in the conference room of an office near my office so it would "remain" a surprise.

Everyone was very good about keeping it hush, hush. Ashley had not the slightest clue.

The theme was "Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice, that's what girls are made of". I made a banner from cardstock spelling out the baby-to-be's name "Amelia".

Food: I had simple finger foods. An assortment of crackers, a brie cheese platter with strawberry, grapes, a crudite platter, bruschetta, Sabra hummus with roasted pine nuts, and rolled deli wraps.

For dessert, I made marble cupcakes with "pink" cheesecake frosting topped with pink sprinkles. (I tucked Hershey kisses in the center (before baking) for a sweet surprise.) It was delish!

We played three games, for the chance at three different "prizes". The prizes were Sugar (cake mix wrapped in a pink onesie), Spice (my favorite El Yucateco Habenero hot sauce also wrapped in a onesie), and "All things Nice" (a candle and votive set wrapped with a bottle cleaning brush).

Games played: 1. Fill in the nursery rhyme. 2. Match the mommy animal to its baby name. 3. a riddle.

The riddle was ....Old Mother Hubbard, went to the cupboard, to fetch her dog a bone. But when she got there, the cupboard was bare, and she said, "icurmt".

Who ever translated it correctly won.
(Answer: "I see you are empty")

Everyone walked away with the cutest Hershey candy wrapped in a homemade "sleeping baby wrapper". Aren't they adorable??

It's surprisingly easily to make. I printed out labels with the event date on Avery 8160 labels. Hershey's were wrapped in cardstock and I tucked a picture of a babyface I had found on the web. I printed it on ivory paper to give it a natural baby face look and dusted the cheeks with face blush. I thought the ribbon was a great detail to add. THEY ARE SO ADORABLE!!! And when lined up on the gift table, it looked like a large bed of sleeping babies.

It was such a hit, my friend Silvia immediately said that I can plan her baby shower....(no, she is not expecting....) :D

All things Baby

I have two baby showers this weekend, and I am hosting another baby shower next week. So I've been in a little "sweet baby" mode. I LOVE BABIES!!! :D

I thought it would be a great idea to make a Diaper Cake for Ashley. Ashley is expecting a baby girl so I decided the cake theme would be "Sugar 'n Spice and all things Nice". I wanted to make a very pretty girlie diaper cake.

So here it is. Steps to my Diaper Cake.

I went to Babys r'us to start with the shopping. I wanted a practical gift, so I picked up only items that were on the registry. I picked up a lot of small items. For the diapers, I picked up a 92 count Huggies Newborn Gentle Care (also on the registry).

I'm a bit of a germaphobic, so I rolled some diapers and protected it with plastic wrap. It also helped hold the shape.

I placed a Johnson's baby wash in the center of a disposable catering platter I had on hand and loosely tied a gold elastic rope (you can use an elastic rubber band) around the bottle. (I was going to put a bottle of wine (to celebrate the birth of Amelia Claire!) I slipped the rolled up diaper around the baby wash bottle. The elastic ribbon (or band) will help keep the diaper in place.

After the first layer, I began on my second layer, surrounding the first layer of diapers with more diapers, held securely by the elastic ribbon. I am making a small cake so I only did 2 rounds.

I then arranged unrolled diapers around the base and held it securely in place with a decorative (I chose Hot Pink) ribbon.
I wrapped a Genie II Diaper refill with a decorative cardstock. I chose one that matched a ribbon I happen to have on hand. (Yes, I am a dork! I love collecting ribbons. It's all about the details.) I had the fantastic idea of using the wrapped Genie refill as one of my cake tiers, so I poked a whole in it and set it on top of the Baby Wash.

I was going to stop the cake here, (a 2 tier cake), and began decorating it with some pink silk flowers. However, I decided to add more tiers and top the Diaper Cake with a "frog bathtub thermometer" that was on the registry. It looked like a great "cake topper" so I had to make it work!! So I rolled up some wash cloths and onesies around the baby wash (secured by more ribbon). I had the onesies stick out a bit so I can easily place the frog thermometer on top. The topper was a little heavy and lopsided my cake a little bit, but oh well.


I then tied a ribbon around every tier. For some of the tiers, I layered the ribbons. (Notice my polka-dot ribbon and almost matching polka dot cardstock.)


The last touch was to decorate the cake. I slipped in items from the registry (cooling packs, brush, bottle cleaner, nail clippers, etc) and other embellishments (wooden ornaments, sticker tags, etc) all over the cake. If you look closely, you can see that the platter is finished with outlet protectors. Unique way to use up ugly looking items :D

Well, I hope Ashley & Josh like their cake. And hopefully, they will not be too frustrated trying to unroll the individually-wrapped diapers.

Ring in the New Year (2009)

Happy New Years!!!

My New Years was quite mellow. I actually did not have anything planned out. I only knew that my cousin, Monak, would be in town and that perhaps, we would make dinner.

And so we did. It was a small gathering at Nick's, just Sophan, Monak, Dan, Nick, and I. We had lamb roast with Moroccan spice, lemon & parsley orzo and a refreshing summer salad. It turned out great! Sophan loved it so much, she helped herself to a second plate. And after New Year's, when we got back home, she was craving for more. Unfortunately, we cleaned it all up. I'm so happy she loved it that much.

So about the lamb roast, well we were pressed for time so I did not marinate it as long as I would have (in fact I did not marinate it at all). But it turned out great. I tweaked (yes, I tweak nearly every recipe I find) the recipe a little bit. It was supposed to be a rack of lamb, but the selection was not great so we settled with making a lamb roast.

First the marinade. I combined the following in a bowl then rubbed it all over the lamb, which I had sitting in a roasting pan so it would reach room temperature: about 1/4 cups extra virgin olive oil, about 1/3 cups finely chopped mint leaves, bit of sea salt & fresh peppercorn, 1 tsp cumin, (the recipe called for 2tbs coriander as well, however, while picking up the cumin & coriander, I accidentally picked up 2 cumin. Oh well.)

Then I poured in some chicken stock and dry red wine (I absolutely love cooking with wine!) into the roasting pan. I also tossed in some chopped onions and baby carrots. (Random I know, but it was lying around in the refrigerator looking a little lonely.)

I cooked it for about 15 minutes at 425degrees, then lowered the temperature to 350 degrees and cooked it for about another 40 minutes, until the temperature read 140 degrees. I took it out then tented it with foil for about 10 minutes.

The orzo. I made plain orzo first, basically 2 quarts boiling water, 1 cup orzo and a little salt and pepper. Cooked it for about 8 minutes until done. Then I drained the orzo. I then combined the cooked orzo with: zest of 1 lemon, the juice of 1 lemon, about 1/4 cups olive oil, a little cayenne pepper for a bit of a kick, and about 1/4 cups finely chopped parsley.

A simple salad was served: mixed spring greens, sliced strawberries, mandarin oranges, sunflower seeds, and a pomegranate vinaigrette dressing.


That was basically it. Everyone looked hungry, huh?

Dinner was topped off by a James Bond marathon, Amish electric fireplace info commercial, and the "clothesline" commercial, and the horrendous commentary of Kelly Pickle on one of the NYE special.

We did catch the fireworks. Walked right down to Bayshore and saw a beautiful 360 panorama of the Tampa Bay scenery with fireworks shooting from every angle.

We did not make it to Channelside, but I cannot imagine a better vantage than where we stood on Bayshore.
(Oh, before I forget, I just wanted to update my previous post about the Coke ribs. When Nick made it back at home in New York, his dad and friend, Brian, both loved it so much they planned on making it tonight, NYE. When we talked to Brian, he was about one hour into the ribs, and had a lot more to go. Dr. P, Nick's dad, decided to fore go it and make it tomorrow so he would have plenty of time to make 2 batches. I was so happy to hear the ribs was such a great hit!)

Below is a picture of Nick's Dad prepping his Coke Ribs. Notice the happy smile :D, the upside down Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce (the best!), sea salt & fresh peppercorn, and the CrockPot. PERFECT ingredients (minus the Coke) for the perfect COKE ribs. Who says you cannot have THE perfect BBQ ribs when there's snow outside? Anyways, the COKE ribs recipe is in an earlier post. ENJOY! :D