Bakestravaganza

...which is what my bakery will be called once I am independently wealthy enough to do what I love for a job, and I'm hereby trademarking the name so watch out!

So Jim and I just got back from a weekend in Richmond VA visiting our friends Emily and Andy and our wedding photographer Brooke. We got our engagement pictures taken, which was much more fun than expected and Jim even cooperated the entire time.


As I am want to do, I baked chocolate chip pecan cookies and cake pops for everyone. I just don't like to show up empty handed. Anyway, the chocolate chips are my new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, and the cake pops were AMAZING.


Basically, I made a butter yellow cake from the box and bought a can of buttercream frosting. I mixed a couple teaspoons of almond extract in with the frosting and when the cake was done baking I cooled it and crumbled it into a bowl and then mixed in about half the can of frosting. I formed them into balls and stuck a pretzel in each one and froze them. Then I melted some chocolate chips and dipped each pop into the melted chocolate and put sprinkles on the outside. Yay!

And my project for tonight was making even more cookies for a colleague who commissioned my baking services. I chose one of the highest rated and most popular cookie recipes from allrecipes website, peanut butter cup cookies. I just tried one and they are delicious, but beyond that I can't get over how cute they looked!

In other news, I took an off day from the diet on Saturday. I'm totally ok with that. There is nothing more annoying than hanging out with friends and trying to have a good time but stressing the whole time about how many calories are in everything. I tried to cut loose within reason. When I got home I ball-parked how many calories it all added up to and I'm pretty sure I was close to my "maintenance" amount of around 1800. So that was good. But I definitely had a chai ice cream cone, jambalaya, a brownie, a mojito and a shot of jameson among other things, so I'm no angel. =P

So I was prepared this morning to face the music when I checked the scale, but it said I was lighter than ever! Hurray! That makes the total since March 30 up to 13 pounds lost. I have two theories here, or rather, I've heard two theories. The first, it takes a few days for what you've eaten to show an effect on your weight. So I may have been light today but I could gain another couple in a few days as a reflection of my "off" weekend. The second theory, and the one I prefer of the two, is that it's okay to sometimes eat more than you're allotted for your diet to prevent a plateau. Theoretically, by me eating about 600-700 more calories on Saturday than I have for each day for the past month or so, I trick my body into believing it doesn't have to hold onto the fat because it's going to have other days where I eat more than usual. So here's hoping for that one.

For dinner tonight I made a delicious parmesan crusted tilapia, mango curried quinoa, and a tomato cucumber salad. All of which was delicious, but I need to work a little on presentation before I put a picture up.

Since I've been making a new meal every night for awhile, we've been spending more than usual on groceries. Granted, we eat like kings and we almost NEVER eat out anymore, plus I've lost weight, so it's worth it, but I may have to let go of a few luxuries to keep it up. Anyway, that's all I've got right now so ta ta!