Back from my break.. I think..

Well well Mr. Blog.. how are you?!  hehe.. It's been entirely too long since I've posted anything, been kinda busy with my gym time.  Lots of research has gone into supplements, workout routines, and nutrition.  Its amazing how much there is to learn in that field!  I've totally been neglecting my guitars, but it did open up more of a drive to continue cooking awesomely-tasty and healthy meals that are loaded with muscle building stuffs.

Also I'm almost completely weened off of Facebook (booooooo) and migrated my attention to the wonderful world of Google+!  Of course Twitter still floats somewhere in between there but I don't really see that as a means of keeping up with friends, more of a place for me to toss random stuff around and pretend someone cares to read it (wait.. how is that different from here?).. I just need more friends on Google+ so that I have some more feeds to read!  Soooooooo there ya go.. a quick update..

I hope to figure out a great Gingerbread man recipe to cook up this weekend, if I come up with something awesome then I'll most defiantly post about it!

Pumpkin Bread!

So I've made pumpkin bread before (using this recipe) and totally can't remember how awesome it was.  I'm told it was pretty epic last time so its pumpkin season and time to resample the wares of my recipe books pumpkin section.

Heres the recipe:

Ingredients

• 3 Cups Sugar
• 1 Cup Vegetable Oil
• 3 Large Eggs
• 1 can solid pack pumpkin (16oz.)
• 3 Cups all purpose flour
• 1 Teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 Teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 Teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 Teaspoon baking soda
• ½ Teaspoon Salt
• ½ Teaspoon baking powder
• 1 Cup coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350° and butter yourslef up two 9x5x3 (inch) loaf pans. Beat the sugar and oil in a large bowl to blend it up really good and mix in the eggs and pumpkin. Sift the flour, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, salt, and baking powder into another large bowl. Stir into the pumpkin mixture in 2'ish additions. If you want nuts now's the time to do it.

Divide your batter equally between the two prepared pans (if more in one than the other you'll have odd baking times).  Bake until your tester toothpick thingie comes out clean.  That'll be aprox 1 hour 10 minutes. Transfer to some racks and cool for like 10-15 minutes.  Use a knife to slide around the loaf in the pan and turn it out onto a rack to cool completely before tearing into (if you can resist for that long!).

So I'm going to give these another go tonight and I'll append to this whole blog post with pictures and such of my awesome efforts of tasty-bready-pumpkiny-goodness!

MX-LS7 Fat Burner

Oh My GAWD!  I am seriously tweaking balls right now!  So... from tons of research I've found that this is supposedly the best, strongest, fastest, most effective fat burner for those of you that want to "cheat" and boost your metabolic ability to drop some fat.   MX-LS7 is INSANE.. I took my first dose today and I'm RAGING with energy feel like I slammed at least 60oz of coffee (my limit I've found is 140oz of coffee before a near death experience)!

So with this stuff spanned over a few weeks paired with my insane workouts I think I could drop some body fat percentage.  Just in time for fall!  If anything it should counteract my sweet tooth(teeth), and my insane desire to bake delicious treats!  I'm craving brownies or some mini pies or something, but first I need to get some little cute Tart Pans.  Till those posts, enjoy these - Gourmet Jello Shots

I can't wait until my afternoon dose!!!!!!!!

My first Smart Phone!!

First I feel the need to start with a short rant about this new Blogger interface... Pretty Nice!  I like it and think it makes me less insane when trying to deal with this.  Also, I'm assuming that the interface on my Motorola ATRIX (which I'm gonna get to here in a minute) is the new interface.  So I would actually be scared to see what the old smart phone interface was like!

SO!  To the task at hand!  For the longest time I've been operating on a lame flip phone, Nokia 6350 I think it was, then I felt cool to upgrade to another shitty Nokia slider phone that had a flip out full QWERTY keyboard.  Everyone happened to have a Smart Phone but ME over time, so I started to get the itch.. and it quickly progressed from a little innocent "something tickled me skin" itch to a full on crabs rampage!

I took a sort trip to the AT&T store to physically touch the 3 4G phones they had available (yes, AT&T is totally behind the smart phone curve).  Once I got a hold of this Motorola ATRIX, I HAD TO HAVE IT!  I picked this puppy up and haven't put it down since!  Android is an amazing OS, this one is loaded with the Gingerbread release for optimum Dual-Core utilization.  I already have a shit ton of apps on it too!  So now I'll be free to roam and possibly make new blog entries on the go.  So be ready for this....

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

Rhodiola?

So after watching an entire episode of Dr. Oz that was ENTIRELY about Vagina's...  I learned about a nifty little herbal supplement called Rhodiola Rosea.  So this stuff is supposed to be the miracle pill handed to us by the Siberian shaman's themselfs. It has all of these promises:

• Increased energy
• Increased mental focus
• Weight reduction (when paired with exercise)
• Lowers blood pressure
• Protects the liver and helps it recover from exposure to certain poisons
• A powerful antioxidant

So the whole point of this pill in a nut-shell is it has anti-aging effects, helps with fatigue, and mental performance.  Its very popular in Russia, primarily in Siberia, to help them cope with the terrible climate and living conditions.  So that makes me wonder what it could do for me!!

Its supposed to give you the jitters at a high enough dosage, so I'll see where my line is with that.  Cause I still plan on consuming Espresso and Oolong Tea throughout the day.  Just not today as I'm getting a baseline of how I feel without those other stimulants. 

Results:

I only took a 250mg capsule before breakfast.  Feeling a little peppy by 10'ish. Its a nice relaxing feeling, but still energetic and focused.  Its not a Night/Day type experience but I do think its worth it so far.. I'll have to append to this after I give it a full blown regular day with the tea/coffee combination!  LETS DO THIS!!!!!

Cookies and Coffee

So... Last night I had the foresight to prepare myself for a morning treat!  After some requests from Kairi for some more of these Almond Macaroon's I felt that we needed these cookies, and Caramel Latte`s too!  But you can't have all that espresso that late at night, so I baked away and put them aside for a breakfast treat!  Totally something quick and easy that should be attempted..

Almond Macaroon Cookies

• 3 cups blanched slivered almonds
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 3 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon almond extract

First I open up the food processor, toss in all 3 cups of them almonds then let it rip till it looks like a good mealy mess.  Toss in all the sugar and let it go another 15 seconds to blend well (kinda toss it around with your spoon if need be).  Then toss in your egg whites and almond extract and let it rip!  You'll see the dough form in front of your very eyes!  Once it looks like cookie dough throw about a tablespoon of it like 1-1.5 inches apart on parchment paper then throw it a 300 degree oven for 20-30 minutes or till it looks nutty brown around the edges.

I like to slip a few of the almond slivers on the top of the cookies to make them look fancy :)

Add one large mug of Caramel Latte` with whipped cream and you're in business!!!  They were nice and crisp on the edges and chewy in the middle.  Very tasty with coffee...

Watch as I Brulee this Creme!

Well, this is my first attempt at making my very own Creme` Brulee.  I had once done this with my brother back in Louisiana and now get my chance to wield the flame!

So I gathered the supplies, grabbed a recipe from one of my all-time favorite's Alton Brown and departed on this one-way journey to tasty town.  Because its 4 6oz. ramekins I had to reduce the recipe by half (shown below for 24oz. of Creme Brulee batter).

• 2 cups Heavy Cream
• 1/2 Vanilla bean, split and scraped
• 1/2 cup vanilla sugar, divided
• 3 large egg yolks

I preheated the oven to 325 degrees F and tossed the Heavy Cream in a sauce pan on a medium-high fire.  I cut the vanilla bean in half, then split the half down the middle by starting a cut then leaving the knife planted into the wooden cutting board and pulling the bean. Then using the spine of the knife (the back dull part for you laymen) then tossed all the scraped out innards and bean casing into the heavy cream.  Once the heavy cream came to a boil I removed the pan from the fire and let it cool for 15 min.  While that was happening I leisurely de-yoked the eggs and put 3 large egg yokes into a bowl then fed the whites to the dog.  Then adding 1/4 cup of sugar to the yokes I whisked furiously until it became a pale color.  by this time the new vanilla creme is ready for action so I took the vanilla bean casings out and patted them dry with a paper towel so they could be tossed into a jar with some sugar (the other 1/4 cup or more) and let it sit.  After tempering the egg yokes with the creme by slowly introducing it and whisking it eventually got all mixed in.  I then poured it into the ramekins and tossed it into the water bath before introducing it to the oven for 45 minutes.

I wish I would have taken more pictures but I was too distracted with other things going on.. it was a crazy day!  I was getting all this ready early cause they have to sit in the fridge for at least 2 hours after baking for 45 min.

They came out AMAZING!

I grabbed some of this yummy vanilla sugar and sprinkled about a half a tablespoon on top of each evenly

With a torch and small circular motions it Brulee'ed quite nicely to a hard sugary crust!

YUM!!  Make sure you let it rest for a few minutes before serving!

I can't wait to try some chocolate creme brulee now! I'm going to come up with some other fun uses for this torch, cause that was just too fun.. hehe..

Taste the Magnums!

Holy crap in a pita!  These frozen treats are crazy tasty!  I have to admit, I was first annoyed that the box had 3 bars and this had to be for myself and Kairi to share... so I guess I have to sneak the 3rd one when she's not looking!  Then when I went to checkout at HEB with this delightful box of goodies the guy behind the counter picked the box up to scan it and one of the other cashiers had to snatch the box from him and go "OMG!! WHO'S BUYING THESE?!".. my blank stare must have told it all, because she instantly realized she was being retarded and went away.  I got home, reveled my conquest to the dog and tossed it in the freezer so the anticipation could build before my teeth could sink into that magnum (I love how it sounds like I plan on chewing on a condom..they come in golden wrappers too!).

After eating a great dinner as usual, Breaded chicken breasts with roasted asparagus and Cheesy rice & broccoli, I had a seat on the couch then turned on the gayest show I could muster.  So after getting The Voice on (stop laughing..) I sunk my teeth into this AMAZING treat.  I totally forgot to tell you which ones I got!  I went for the double caramel flavor, since they didn't carry the dark chocolate variety.  The chocolate was great, the caramel was frozen but smooth and tasty, and WHAT IS THIS?! YES!! Another layer of chocolate!!!  then some smooooooooth and yummy vanilla ice cream inside!  I loved it!  It was like a joyful ride of frozen tasty awesomeness that made me completely forget about  what was going on with the The Voice.

I would say, its a must try.  Not a shopping list staple (mostly because of the cost) but totally worth having as a fatteningly awesome treat!

Magnums

Magnum Ice Cream bars, I know you've seen them... Those dirty commercials that when you watch them and you hear "Magnum" you think to yourself "is this a condom commercial or a tasty frozen treat?".  I can't explain to you how badly I want to sink my teeth into one of these, but the few times I thought to check they were sold out!

Have you had one?   So I will snatch some of these up and get my Magnum on, then describe in vivid detail my adventure down the frozen rabbit hole of pleasure and decadence.

Kairi

Just playing around with some of the features that tie Picasa to Blogger. :)

My Sister, the book maker

So... I've been hearing things about this book from my sister, Alicia, about some sweet little Louisiana swamp critters that are affected by the oil spill (relevant to the BP spill as of recently).  I just found out it was released!  I can't endorse it or give any kind of feedback/review because I personally never saw it, so I have no idea whats in it.  However, here is the link to check it out if you're interested or want to read your kids a night time story about animals fighting oil or something along those lines...

http://www.amazon.com/Courage-Swamp-Skip

I'm impressed they actually went through with it and have a product of their labor for the masses.  Yet I have one question...  Wheres MY free copy!?!?

OMG!! A new outlet for my retarded rants!

So this is my very first blog, and of course it will have absolutely nothing important or anything anybody will care about.  I'm simply  testing it out and thinking about what the hell I'm gonna do with this thing.

Maybe some posts about food, my family, and weird pets... Maybe some posts about reviews on random things that I pickup (since I like to handle several random projects)... WHO KNOWS!!

More to come.....  my twitter feed @CaffeineCajun is there too if I some how left your mouth watering for more.