Beach Video

I finally attempted to piece together a video! I don't have fancy software, so it's pretty simple, but I like it. Considering it's my first video, it's not too bad. And, it's a video of the beach so that will always make me happy. Just another glimpse of what we did last weekend!

And even though we went last weekend, I'm including this on TidyMom's series "I'm Lovin' It Fridays". Because I really love a weekend at the beach (even if it's not this weekend). And I also love TidyMom!

Weekend

This is what we did last weekend...

Ubi enjoyed the water

and we enjoyed the porch

so relaxing...

Exercise Bike

A few weeks ago, we bought an exercise bike! I love it...and it's a great way to exercise. As part of my list of goals for this year, my birthday year, I included buying an exercise bike. I knew it would be a form of exercise I could handle...and I was right. Riding the exercise bike is fun and it doesn't feel like work. I'm told, by the lovely display screen, that I'm burning calories, so I hope I can see some results soon. I'm trying to use the bike once a day...I'm not there yet, but I'm working on it. It's nice because I can watch TV while I exercise or I can even read a book, and I can do it all from the comfort of my own home! As long as I keep using the bike, I can cross off #10 on my list of goals. That means I've crossed off a total of 6 goals from my list. 6 out of 30, that's not very good....especially considering I'm almost half way thru the year. (But, a few of the items on the list are ongoing, so I can't cross them off until the end.) I guess I better get started on the rest of them. Until then, I'll just keep pedaling.

so much fun

look how fast I can go!

Spaghetti & Meatballs

I'm trying to make at least 2 recipes each week from the cookbook, that's the only way I'll get thru all the recipes in time. So, the dinner for this week was Spaghetti & Meatballs. It was ok. The meatballs were good, but had way too many onions (they barely held together until I took some onions out). The spaghetti part was a little disappointing because it had practically NO sauce. It was too dry and I missed the tomatoey, saucy goodness that I was hoping it would be. But, the overall taste was ok. We gobbled it up with garlic bread and Bill even had the leftovers tonight. It wasn't as bad as the last recipe I made - which I will admit we didn't even finish!

I was a little rushed making dinner last night so I wasn't able to take as many pictures. Sorry!

the recipe

dinner

Chocolate Banana Loaf

Last night I had the house to myself for the evening so I decided to make the most of it and bake something delicious. I picked another recipe from the cookbook that I'm working thru. It sounded interesting and had potential. I love banana bread and chocolate so I thought the Chocolate Banana Loaf could be good. I whipped it up in no time and it looked good. After a long time in the oven, even longer than the recipe called for, I pulled it out and let it cool. I tasted it when it was cool enough to eat and it was...not good. The texture and taste were off. It was too mushy, even though I baked it a LONG time. Also, it had a weird taste. I let it cool some more hoping it would help and then tasted it again...it wasn't any better. Bill even tasted it this morning and he didn't like it (that means a lot because he likes almost everything). So, my final verdict for this one is NOT GOOD. It's really too bad because I had such high hopes!

the recipe

the ingredients and my mixer!
ooey, gooey smashed bananas

long bake time

the finished product looked better than it tasted

Flavor of the Month - Chocolate

It's that time again...Flavor of the Month time. Bill finally got my computer back up and running so I'm trying to catch up on my blog posts. I thought this was a good one to start with since it was "due" yesterday. Again, I wanted to find something that would fit with the theme of FOTM and also be a recipe from my cookbook, so I decided on this one: Deep Chocolate Cheesecake. It was a little different than normal cheesecake because it used marscapone cheese instead of cream cheese. I have never used marscapone cheese so it was an adventure! Bill didn't like the taste of it plain, but once I added the sugar and chocolate and orange, he liked it quite a bit. I also used my microplane zester for the first time to zest an orange and it worked great! It was so much fun and smelled orangey! Because of all that zest, the cheesecake had a fairly strong orange flavor. My only complaint with this cheesecake is that it didn't look very pretty. It didn't come out of the springform pan very well and it was really loose. I think next time I would serve it in individual ramekins to help with presentation. Overall, the taste was ok, if you like cheesecake (which I don't, so I didn't eat much). Bill and our guests seemed to enjoy it, though, so I guess that means it was a success.

the recipe

the ingredients
zesting!
graham cracker crust...with cocoa

chocolate - my favorite part!

not very pretty, but pretty tasty

This is the last month for Flavor of the Month. It's no longer going to be a regular part of Bake at 350. Instead, there will be periodic themes and reasons to post. I will try to keep up...

I guess this completes #22 on my list of Goals. Yay me!