I decided to make a chocolate beet cake. I used my chocolate beet muffin recipe and made it into cake form. I picked this recipe since the forum has a dark red background I thought it would complement the cake well.

I iced the cake with a pre made cream cheese icing, by Duncan Hines. For decorations I used mini semi-sweet chocolate chips for the forums name, and one giant bittersweet chocolate chip for the dot in .com.

Here is my cake decorated. (My dad loves this cake and had a piece before it was decorated).

The cooking forums cake contest runs until December 10/09 so there is still time if your interested in participating.

While I was out east I had the opportunity to try lobster for the first time ever!! I was pretty nervous about trying it because I usually either LOVE seafood or HATE it. Thankfully I ended up loving it. My uncle who is a fabulous chef made a lobster dinner feast for the whole family (all 15 of us). It was fabulous.

I was totally unaware about how to go about cracking the lobster open but my relatives gave me a few instructions, and some special tools, so that made things a bit easier, however it was still a struggle to open up certain parts of the lobster.

My uncle serve the lobster with garlic butter, green salad and mashed potatoes. It was a marvelous dinner enjoyed by all.

Here are a couple photos from my first lobster eating experience.

I also had a second opportunity to try lobster while I was on Prince Edward Island at a nice restaurant. I ordered stuffed lobster in sherry sauce with PEI potatoes and baby carrots and asparagus. It was absolutely amazing, ever better then my first lobster dinner.

Here is a of my stuffed lobster dinner.

My mom and I shared a PEI potato margarita which was to die for.

Have you had lobster before? What do you think of it? Have you cooked lobster before?

]]> http://www.lisaopolis.com/my-first-time-eating-lobster/feed/ 3 http://www.lisaopolis.com/a-healthy-lunch-on-a-hot-day/ http://www.lisaopolis.com/a-healthy-lunch-on-a-hot-day/#comments Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:07:32 +0000 Lisa http://www.lisaopolis.com/?p=410 Today it’s 30 degrees Celsius! I am sure not use to weather this hot. On Vancouver Island where I live we only have a few days that are this hot per year.

Since it is so hot out today, I didn’t want to do anything to heat up the house, when it comes to cooking. I decided to have a small salad to start things off. I made my favorite simple salad with some romaine lettuce, and my favorite home made salad dressing. Here is the recipe:

Lisa’s Simple Vinaigrette Dressing

Balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
Salt
Black pepper

Add all the vegetables to a bowl and add your desired amounts of the above ingredients. Toss and enjoy.

I topped my salad with some light grated mozzarella cheese and a small amount of low fat feta cheese. It was a simple, fresh and tasty starter. I had one of my favorite juices with it.

Next I had a left over egg roll from a few nights ago.

Finally I had some expired no fat raspberry yogurt. It was 5 days past the expiry date. I am careful when I eat foods that are expired. It smelled okay, looked okay and tasted okay so I think it was safe to eat. I really don’t like wasting food, so unless there is something suspicious looking or smelling about an expired food, I take a chance and eat it.

What are your thoughts on expired foods? Do you automatically toss foods once they are past their best before date? Or do you eat them anyways using caution?

I treasured every last crumb of my cookie. I’m not normally a fan of white chocolate, but in the Subway white chocolate macadamia nut cookies I love it! It is divine.

My Subway cookie experience inspired me to try to make the marvelous white chocolate macadamia nut cookies myself. I found a recipe online that seemed like it would be really good and made it.

The cookie dough turned out very good and flavorful. I was sure the cookies would be the same. However when I tried them I was disappointed. The cookies were good, but much more bland then the cookie dough had been. Consequently I am now on a quest for a recipe for white chocolate macadamia nut cookies that taste like the ones at Subway.

If you have a recipe that fit’s the bill please post it on your blog!

Thanks

Lisa

Here is a photo of the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies that I made.

In the first photo we have vanilla wafers, assorted cake mixes, baking soda, rainbow sprinkles, rum extract and ginger among other items.

A more detailed look of what is (was) in the cupboard.

Below we have (in the cookie tins) white sugar, whole wheat flour, and all purpose flour. There is also a bag of brown sugar, a bag of icing sugar, and some rolled oats.

In the cupboard beside this one the oil has it’s own special place.

Now we shall check out the baking staples from the fridge. This is where the chocolate chips are found J We always have dark chocolate chips on hand, right now we have some mint ones too. We keep all the baking nuts in the fridge since it seems to prevent them from going rancid too fast. For nuts we have almonds, walnuts, and coconut. We also keep a big bag of raisons on hand.

To complete the list we have skim milk, brown eggs, and olive oil margerine (the best kind around!).

That is your sneak peak into the lisaopolis baking staples. J

Breakfast

a slightly sour grapefruit

A mixed bowl of cereal with skim milk

Many glasses of water through out the day

Lunch

Salad

chocolate covered biscuit for dessert

Snack

banana (between lunch and dinner snack)

Dinner