First Acutal week to report on Goals and Recipe

I hope this past week has been good to you. Mine has been interesting.  Some days were good some days were bad, like most weeks are. This past week was hard because I was constantly tired. I would sleep 7 to 8 hours still wake up tired not wanting to get out of bed while hitting the snooze button a million times. Let’s see how I did on my goals.

Weekly Goal – How am I doing?

Goal 1 – Work out and lose weight. I was semi successful with this goal I went to the gym four times this week. Three days out of the week I worked out for 60 minutes, I was so proud of myself and one day I workout for 30 min. My diet totally bombed. I ate a whole chocolate cake by myself. Good news was when I made the cake I cut it in half and only made half of what the recipe called for. It was finger licking good. Recipe is down below.

Goal 2 - Write on my first book. Last Saturday I brought up that I wanted to cut up the chapter and pick one blindly then start writing that chapter, which is what I did. I picked chapter 8. I started writing but the more ideas I have gotten the longer the chapter will be so I have only finished half of the chapter. I will have the rest of Chapter 8 done by next Saturday and it will be awesome. 

What problems do you think I will run into by doing different chapters instead of writing full from beginning to end?

Goal 3 – Let my outside shine. On the hair front I am doing better and people love my new hair cut. On the make up front I have failed badly only wore makeup one day this week.

Recipe of the Week

This week I tried out a chocolate cake recipe.

http://viveleveganrecipes.blogspot.com/#!/2007/08/blog-post.html

 In the recipe on the cake side the only change I made was instead of all purpose flour I used cake flour. I did not try out her frosting recipe that goes with the cake recipe because I did not have tofu but I do want to try it out one day.

This cake was so amazing good. I was licking the bowl when I poured in pan to be backed, I am not kidding when I say I licked the bowl and spatula clean. When it was done baking I was having such a chocolate craving I couldn’t wait for it to cool down I just gobbled it up, it was beyond words good.  I also made a frosting glaze with cocoa powder, confection sugar, almond milk, and a little bit of butter (not much).

This cake was so good that I dropped a piece on the floor and I had to stop myself from picking it up off the floor and eating it, that good.  Yes I did throw it away.

Here are some pictures of my cake:

The middle looks sunken in because apparently I didn’t bake it the right amount of time but still so amazing good.

Those whit egg looking things are just powder sugar lumps that got past the fork when I I was whisking the glaze together. This was the very first piece. Was too chocolate crazed to wait for cool down to cut me a piece.

I am not a professional picture taker, so my pictures are very amateurish. These pictures were taken with my I Phone.

Jennifer

First Day of my 2012 Resultions

The last time I wrote I let you know what my goals were. Today is officially my first day on my goals. 1, 2, 2.5, 2.7, oh okay 3 here I come ready or not on my goals for the year.

Goal 1 – lose weight. I went to the gym today and did one hour on the elliptical machine; really got into it. The music in my ear and my legs pumping away all the while trying not to look at the people behind me on the treadmill with either horror knowing they can probably see my huge behinney or with envy wishing I could be like them while they are huffing and puffing away the miles but due to a bad knee, doc says no.

Goal 2 – Well considering today is the beginning of the week I have yet to actually write but I have been finishing up the chapter list and explanation of each chapter, getting all my stuff organized and coming up with ideas on the treadmill today. I was thinking of printing the chapters and cutting them apart and folding them and each week pulling one out blindly and writing about that chapter, what do you think? I hope to have either half a chapter or a full chapter done by next Saturday.

Goal 3 – Well that one is going not so good, I was too lazy this week, no make up for me and well with my new hair style just putting a headband with flowers in it makes me look good, so that is what I did.

Besides my goals I worked on a few recipes. The first recipe is mushroom (supposed to be like meat balls) balls.  I originally got the recipe from http://www.vegangela.com/2010/10/05/vegan-meat-balls/

Her recipe calls for Arborio (risotto) rice but I didn’t have that in my pantry. I had some brown rice and jasmine rice so I made some jasmine rice instead. However the whole point of her rice was to make the balls stick together. I added in a flax egg instead. Instead of bread crumbs I used whole wheat panko bread crumbs. I think I grounded way more almond than she did and when I tried to form into balls it wouldn’t stick together. Hmmm oh yeah that was where her rice was supposed to help, what is a girl supposed to do? So I grinded up oatmeal into flour like substance and added that with the other ingredients. I then added one more flax egg with all those extras: they did the trick so well.  I baked the balls and added them into spaghetti pasta and sauce. Oh so good. When eating alone the smell and taste has a very mushroom flavor. Good if you love mushrooms not so well if you don’t like mushrooms that much.

Until next Saturday with my updates and the recipe I worked on. I hope that your week is fun, happy and all you wish for it.

The New Year Goals

The New Year has begun. 2012 is my new year to a happier and accomplished writer. How do I plan to achieve this well I will have goals. The last week of December I wrote down like 11 to 15 goals for the new year but then I read an article to pare down to the most 2 -3 important goals for the new year and you will be able to achieve success. After reading the article I pared down to the most important goals for the New Year.

Goal 1 – Exercise and lose weight. I weighed 125 pounds when I met my husband. What is it about meeting your soul mate that has you packing on the pounds? I gained a lot of weight before we married and spending 3 months with a trainer I was able to get down to 135 pounds on our wedding day in India. Now that was 2 years ago and my weight is a whopping 160 pounds. OUCH. So I need to get back to 125 pounds to be healthy and happy.

Goal 2 - Write, write and more writing. I want to write and finish my first book before the end of 2012.  I hope to finish at least one chapter a week and have my first rough draft of my book down by June and then be able to work on updates and publish it electronically by the end of 2012.

Goal 3 - Work on making my outward appearance shine. I am one lazy person when it comes to hair, makeup and clothes. I always want to do more on my outward appearance but never do and then feel unhappy with my look. My plan of action already took place on Dec 31, 2011. I got my hair cut that day and it looks awesome. Since I am a lazy person the hair stylist picked a simple and beautiful cut that even when I don’t do a thing to it, it still looks awesome. Lucky for her she just got a new customer for life.

I will still have small goals on the side but these 3 goals is what I strive to achieve. With that said each week I will let you know how I am doing on these three goals and also let you know if I have tried any new recipes and give you my take on them.

Hear me roar I am ready for the New Year.