"Oh, Just Do it Connor!"

So, the other morning while waiting for the school bus in the car, Madeline was trying to get Connor to do something and he plaintively wailed "Why do I ALWAYS have to do what you want?!" Madeline's response to her baby brothers complaining......"Oh, just do it Connor!" What made this funny to me and Matt was the fact that Connor actually caved in and did what Madeline wanted. There will come a day when Connor is bigger than Madeline, but right now she rules over him like the queen sister that she is.

Chocolate Coffee Cup Cake

So, a friend here at work knows how much I love chocolate and she sent me a recipe for how to make a chocolate cake in 5 minutes in a coffee cup in the microwave. Okay, there's so many things about this whole process that makes me giddy with joy. You mean I can have chocolate cake in just a few minutes, and I have all of the ingredients in my pantry? This is a win win situation as far as I am concerned. Here's the recipe:

DANGEROUS CHOCOLATE CAKE-IN-A-MUG

1 coffee mug

4 Tbsp. cake flour (plain, not self-rising)

4 Tbsp. sugar

2 Tbsp. cocoa

1 egg

3 Tbsp. milk

3 Tbsp. oil

Small splash of vanilla

3 Tbsp. chocolate chips, optional

Add dry ingredients to mug, mix well with a fork.

Add egg, mix thoroughly.

Pour in milk and oil and vanilla, mix well.

Add chips, if using.

Put mug in microwave, and cook for three minutes on 1000 watts.

Cake will rise over top of mug--do not be alarmed!

Allow to cool a little; tip onto a plate if desired.

Eat!

(This can serve two if you want to feel slightly more virtuous.)

***And WHY is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world?

Because now we are all only five minutes away from chocolate cake any time of the day or night!!!***

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"Get thee hence" to the microwave!!! This is GREAT!!! Got the recipe from a friend, and tried it out immediately. It works! I see multiple applications for this gem: With kids; grand kids; 4-H cooking classes; college dorm room when there's only a microwave; late-night cravings; just enough for one or two servings instead of an entire cake...........ha, ha! My kids added some drizzles of chocolate syrup and some Cool Whip (we didn't put in the chocolate chips). You could add canned frosting, too.

The batter does rise up 'way over the top of the mug, but doesn't run down the side. Fun to watch!

Be careful not to overcook--our microwave is higher than 1000 watts, and three minutes was a dab too long--dried the cakes out a little bit. Anyway, give it a try! And be sure to watch it the whole time it's baking in the microwave!!!


Okay the line "Cake will rise over top of mug--do not be alarmed!" got my kids going. Madeline was watching the cake, and Connor was watching it too, as the cake started to rise over the edge of the coffee cup Madeline started getting alarmed, and was telling me "oh no it's going over the edge!" I told her not to be alarmed just like the recipe said, and what does Connor start doing? He gets down and starts running around the kitchen going "I'M ALARMED! I'M ALARMED!" Goofy little kids, so on that note, be aware that my normal coffee cup wasn't quite big enough to keep it from going over the edge and pooling like a chocolate lake in the bottom of my microwave.

Teppen Yaki

I had a great evening put on by my company. We were taken to dinner at a new Japanese Teppen Yaki restaurant. There were 93 of us total, and we took over the entire restaurant. I had scallops and steak, and of course the ubiquitous fried rice. I think the evening was so enjoyable for me because it was dinner out with my friends from work. We work together all day, but to get together at a social level was fun. I am not a social person, I am a hermit by nature. If given a choice between dinner out, or home and a book, I would choose home and a book every time, but being forced to go out and be social was fun. I don't think I will ever choose being social over home and a book, but it was good for me to break out of my shell. Plus I have awesome left-overs for lunch today, woohoo!

Irritations

So, my morning started off well, I got the kids up with little to no whinning, (okay that's a lie, but it wasn't as bad as it could be). I got to drive today so I have my book on tape that I am listening to, and it is good, and the drive wasn't too bad, I got to work early, had my breakfast. And then 8:30am hits, we have a departmental staff meeting, wham. There goes my good morning. We were reprimanded as a group for celebrating a co-workers birthday. We had decorated her cubicle with mini Twix bars (her favorite) and birthday streamers. It wasn't too obsene, it was fun and festive. Now I work for a religious nonprofit organization and I would have never in a million years guessed that celebrating a co-workers birthday was going to be frowned on, ever. So, morale in the department took a nose dive this morning. Anyone who knows me knows that I am like the biggest Pollyanna in the world, and I want everyone to get along, and have fun while we are doing it. I want to come up with a solution to the morale problem here at work, and am going to be brainstorming ideas for the next week so I can have something to give to my mananger on my next monthly meeting with her. Wish me luck.

These are the days.....

This is how I feel today, nice and relaxed and sleeping with my stuffed bunny. I love how Cinko looks like she's smiling.

Nice long weekend

I love having three day's off to just lay around and do absolutly nothing. I haven't even gotten out of my pj's today. I get to lay around watch football (Fresno State's winning so far) and relax. My kids are playing outside in their ghetto swimming pool, (aka a blow-up pool on the patio). Life is good.