10 of 10 & Cupcakes

Yesterday was the first mailing for the 10 of 10 Project (10 bloggers, 10 sketchbooks, 10 art pages...to be completed in the 10th month of 2010).

The project was initiated by Ily . She managed to get 10 artistic bloggers together to buy/draw/and send out a sketchbook to another artistic blogger in line. Each blogger will add their art to the sketchbook and send it on to the next blogger until each blogger receives their own sketchbook back filled with all the art work from the other 9 bloggers.

I have to send my sketchbook as well as all the other sketchbooks to Paul and I receive all the sketchbook from Annie. I would hate to ruin the surprise for Paul of what art my page and the packaging looks like.

I’ll give you guys a sneak peak of the cover.

I will post the pictures after I know Paul got my book, and I will post pictures as I receive the other sketchbooks.

Lunch with "The Cupcake Diva" & Stephanie

Danielle aka “The Cupcake Diva” invited me and Stephanie out to lunch to the Bistro inside Nordstroms.

We had a great time!

The way I met Danielle: Stephanie was always bragging about her friend “The Cupcake Diva” that makes delicious cupcakes, I didn’t believe her up until she bought me a batch and gave it to me after competing at Nationals (in which I was cupcake deprived for months). The only words that came out of my mouth when I bit into one of her cupcakes were “WOW these are soo GOOD”.

I LOOOVE CUPCAKES!

Eating my first Cupcake Diva cupcake

Yesterday’s lunch was the first time I actually got to hangout and got to know Danielle better. She is awesome, crazy, funny, creative and loud just like me. (LOVE IT) Of coarse Danielle brought a little treat for us, they weren’t cupcakes they were “Mini Divas”. All I have to say is that they were sooo YUMMY; she put together a little box with 3 different flavors.

My special box filled with Mini Divas

To DIE for: Chocolate Peanut Butter cookie cup!

The first one was a cookie cup with chocolate peanut butter. Taste Test: AMAZING, out of control (she also gets brownie points because I LOVE peanut butter) The second one was a little a lemon coconut cup cookie cup. Taste Test: yummy, because I’m a lemon freak I would make the lemon part a little stronger. The third was a turtle chocolate caramel pecan cookie cup. Taste Test: smooth, nice taste like a chocolate treat.

I could eat them all

Steph's present for the DIVA

That's right people she is officially now "The DIVALICIOUS"

We had a great time and are planning our next lunch date!

Thanks for dropping by!
 xoxo,

Food + Conversation + Coffee + Cupcakes + Great Friends = LOVE

I invited my friend Ann to lunch yesterday. I took her to my new little hole in the wall restaurant called “Off the Grille Bistro” many thanks to Stephanie & Maria for the recommendation. I go there about 3 to 4 times a week. The food is good and clean. I ordered my usual grilled chicken with mixed vegetables and sweet mashed potatoes and Ann got the parmesan chicken sandwich with a salad. We enjoy each others company a lot, we can talk for hours. We talked about our current and future endeavors. I’m soo proud of Ann her business is growing and growing. I love checking out her latest work on her blog.

We both talked about wanting to check out the new cupcake shop that opened in the South Miami area called Sweetness Bake Shop & Café. Ann treated me to mini cupcakes and coffee. We ordered 5 mini cupcakes in order to do the sample tasting.

The Taste Test

We sampled first The Guayabera: which was a guava cake with guava filling topped with a cream cheese buttercream. Taste Test Results: It tasted just like a Cuban pastry.

Second we tasted the Red Velvet: which was a light cocoa cake topped with a cream cheese frosting. Taste Test Results: the cake part was a little dry, but the frosting was very good.

Third we tasted the Oreo Overload: which was an oreo cake topped with an oreo buttercream. Taste Test Results: We both absolutely loved it. We both like chocolate but not too much and this cupcake was delicious!

Fourth we tasted the Mango/Pineapple: I’m not sure the exact description but it was a yellow cake with mango filling and a pineapple Swiss meringue frosting. Sounds delicious! Taste Test Results: Too fruity, too sweet.

The last one we tasted was the Thrill in Vanilla: which was a madagascar bourbon vanilla cake topped with a vanilla bean buttercream Taste Test Results: YUMMY it was amazing and the best part about it is that Sweetness Bake Shop is featuring purple cupcakes in an effort to promote awareness of Epilepsy, a condition that affects over 3 million Americans 10% of the sales will be donated to the Anita Kaufmann Foundation. AWESOME!

The bake shop was cute and cozy and my coffee was delicious, I was the first customer that asked for half dark and half medium roast coffee. Lol Ann couldn’t help but to take some cupcakes back with her. I’m going to start calling her “Addicted to Sweetness” What I also like about Sweetness bake shop is that it’s a family run business and everyone that works there is so nice and caring. They really go the extra mile for their clients. Congrats to them and trust me Ann and I will be back for more!

Later on that night I had dinner with Javier, Omar and Christiane we ate at Miss Saigon a Vietnamese restaurant. It’s one of my favorites. (Gosh now that I think about it, I have a lot of favorites) When my office was bigger I used to take parties of 8 to 12 people all the time. They loved us and they would hook us up all the time. They serve the Best Vietnamese coffee!

Vietnamese Coffee is as much fun to make as it is to watch. It’s a real treat, especially for those of you who enjoy their coffee strong and sweet. It has A Vietnamese filter which is a small coffee pot. It looks like a hat and sits upon the top of a coffee cup. Inside is a chamber for coffee and room for hot water. It is very basic and simple, and works! The typical way to serve the coffee is with condensed milk (not evaporated milk). This adds a wonderful sweetness and mouth feel to the coffee. When the dripping stops (all the water has passed through the filter), carefully remove the device, set aside, and start to enjoy. Personally, I stir up all the condensed milk; others leave it for the end!

Today I met up with Javier, Omar and Christine for lunch at Jaguar. Gosh you guys must think we are piglets (Well we are…LOL). We only go out to eat whenever we have guest staying at our house (which is basically all the time).

I love Jaguar they serve fresh ceviche! It’s Delicious they have great lunch specials. Go check them out.

Every afternoon around 2:30pm my guy best friend at work Andres stops by my desk to see if I would like to join him for coffee or yogurt. LOL We either go downstairs to our buildings little French Restaurant called “L’Express sandwicherie” for coffee or we walk to "My Yogurt Bliss" for yogurt.

So today it was coffee. I had a shot of espresso and a little mini mini red velvet cupcake from Buttercream Cupcakes...

Thanks for dropping by!

 xoxo,

Mexicans in Miami

My husband’s friend Omar, is in town with his girlfriend from Mexico. He came to Miami not only to see his friend but to also compete. He races remote control cars. You might laugh, just like I did but the truth is this sport is serious and expensive. I went on Sunday to the Homestead Speedway Track to see Omar compete in the World Championship Finals. People from all over the world came to Homestead to compete. Omar came with 18 other people from Mexico in order to compete. It seemed like miniature Nascar, the final race was 45 minutes, each car has to refuel roughly every 5 to 7 minutes depending on the engine. I got to see cars flip, cars crash, some engines giving up, oil changes, etc. It was hilarious to watch and super entertaining, I never pictured myself in that type of environment.

His car!

Omar Horta

Pimp my ride

Representing Mexico

The Drivers balcony

The Pit Stop

                 

                         

Zoom Zoom

Victory Hug!

2nd & 3rd Place were from Mexico

Final results: Omar got second place making him number one in Mexico that competes internationally. He also got a special trophy for having the best looking car. Later on that night I got to hangout with the whole Mexican gang, I took them to Sports Grill to eat burgers and wings!

Thanks for dropping by!
 
 xoxo,

Sick of being average Joe's

My cousin Alejandra and I are fed up of just being average Joe's. You see, last year we both did a complete body transformation. I was transform into a Figure competitor and she was transform into a Bikini competitor. We didn’t take a magic pill or go under the knife instead we put in the 120% hard word, the discipline, and dedication in order to both achieve our goals. We both competed in the NPC and we both won in our categories.

Alejandra 35 years old mother of 3 (Bikini category)

Me (Figure category)

The process takes an average of 3 months (it really depends on your body). To the average person 3 months seems easy and attainable. But the reality is that it’s not as easy as everyone thinks. If not everyone would be doing it. We see it as a day by day challenge and sacrifice.

Alejandra’s last competition was in October and mine was in November, we are not sure if we will ever compete again. “Never say Never” But what we are sure of is that we are done being average Joe's, we want to be fit and maintain a fit look all year round. Our transformations started on Monday, March 15, 2010. I promise to keep you posted on our journey to reaching our goal.

After yesterday's intense workout! (March 16)

Happy St. Patricks Day

Thanks for the support and stopping by!

 xoxo,

Breakfast for Dinner

Do you ever crave breakfast instead of dinner? I do. When I was a teen, we would go out till 4: am and always stop by Denny’s before the night was over. We would either go there because we were trying to sober up before getting home, or we didn’t want the night to end, or we were starving after a long night of partying. I remember I always ordered breakfast no matter what time of the day it was.
Last week my husband was out of town on a business trip, he was arriving on Friday night. I wanted to surprise him with a candle light dinner, but my taste buds were really craving breakfast. I had a feeling that I should ask him if he wanted to eat pancakes for dinner before I make them.

So, I called him…

Me: “Babe, I have a great idea for dinner. I’m going to make you White Chocolate Coconut Pancakes for dinner. Would you like that?

Javier: What! Are you crazy, pancakes for dinner? No, I want to eat real food.

Me: oooook, I’ll make turkey burgers instead.

Javier: I know you’ve wanted to make those pancakes for a while, why don’t you make them for breakfast in the weekend.

Me: Yey, ok I will.
(I posted a picture of the pancakes in yesterday’s post)

I know you might think I’m silly if I told you that I still haven’t adjusted to the hour change. The thing is that I wake up at 4:10am Monday-Friday so I can go to the gym before work. Yesterday I woke up at 4:10am in which it really felt like 3:10am. By 1:00pm I was literally dying at work, I had to use tape so I can keep my eyes open. LOL But once I got home my energy switched turned on and I felt that I had all the energy in the world. The Bigstew came to pick me up and we headed out to the gym to do abs and cardio. I was starving by the time I got home and too lazy to marinate chicken, chop vegetables, etc. So I made myself Breakfast for Dinner…FINALLY!

Turkey & Tomato Scrambled Eggs a la Valeria
with a side of Soy Toast spread with peanut butter

Ingredients:
5 egg whites
1 egg
3 slices of low sodium turkey (chopped)
2 slices of tomatoes (diced)
A dash of black pepper
1 tsp of Olive Oil

Directions:
Preheat a nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Add extra-virgin olive oil. Add the turkey and the dash of black pepper. Cook for 1 minute and then add all the eggs. Scramble until the eggs are fully cook and then toss in the diced tomatoes.

Thanks for dropping by!
 xoxo,