Easter Treats!

Hey hey! Today was an awesome day!!! I woke up around 11 (didn't get to sleep til 3:30 am...stupid nights) and got a text to go for a lunch date. Mat made me pick where to go! I hate picking restaurants! I'm the worst at it and always feel like what I pick will be horrible. Well this time it was true! We went to Applebees. I ordered the Asian Crunch salad from the under 550 calorie menu. I think it was 340 calories.

                                          

Asian Crunch Salad (picture taken from http://www.applebees.com/)

I was very dissapointed with this salad . It was a grilled chicken breast served over greens, roasted red peppers and cucumbers with an Asian vinagrette dressing. Well the menu also said it would have sugar snap peas and sliced almonds which mine didn't have. The dressing was super salty and waaaaayyyy too much of it. I think it also had a lot of cilantro in it which was not very good. I basically ate the chicken breast and a few pieces of lettuce and called it a day. Mat got the Asiago Peppercorn Steak also from the Under 550 menu. He said his steak was really salty too. His veggies looked good though. We thought that ya, the meals are low calories, but the sodium content is out of this world!! Anyways, prob won't be eating there again! After lunch we headed over to Chapters and Starbucks. I got a Chai Tea Latte (although I just asked for a Chai tea...no latte... oh well I guess God wanted me to have it haha) and Mat got the Dark Cherry Mocha. His looked delicious but I bet mine was better : )! We browsed around Chapters for a bit and then Mat had to go back to work so we parted ways. This was our 3rd date by the way : )!

I headed over to Michaels to pick up some supplies to make some Easter cupcakes. I just got the cupcake liners. Then I headed to Home Outfitters just to browse around and picked up 2 cute little dipping dishes. They're going to be perfect for my ketchup addiction (which by the way, I forgot to mention I found Heinz Organic ketchup)!!!! After that I headed to London drugs. These places are all side by side just to let you know... you may think I drove all around the city!! I found some brown rice crisps (sea salt flavour) and the Clif bars were 3 for $3.00! I picked up 6. One of every flavour. Since I was still hungry from lunch I had the Cool Mint Chocolate flavour! Sooooo good! I also made one last stop to Bulk Barn to get some mini eggs (when actually there were some other kind of chocolate eggs that fooled me) and some agave nectar. Headed home to get on the baking!

I made vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting. This may be the most unhealthy thing ever! But the people I work with keep complaining that I haven't made cupcakes in a while. I made Saskatchewan Roughrider ones for our Grey Cup party. I made some for halloween and some for a co-workers birthday. Now everytime a holiday passes I get in trouble that I didn't make any haha! So I figured Easter couldn't be missed!

Vanilla cupcake batter (in new mixer I got from my parents and a birthday gift)!

Cupcake liners in regular and mini! Fun easter colours!

Chillin' in the oven for 15 minutes!

All done and ready for some decorating!! I made 12 mini cupcakes and 18 regular ones!

Here's the recipe for the vanilla cupcakes:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk (I used skim)

1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used canola oil)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 stick (8 tbsp) butter, softened (I used margarine)

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin cups with liners.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl. Combine milk, oil, and vanilla in a small bowl.

3. With an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the butter and sugar until light and flufft, about 3 minutes.

4. Add eggs, one at a time. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture alternately with the milk mixture in batches.

5. Spoon batter into ziploc bag. Snip a 1/4 inch corner from the bag and fill liners 2/3 full. Bake until golen and a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 15-20 minutes.

Next up comes the buttercream icing! This is the best icing ever hands down!!!

Buttercream icing mixed with Kelly Green icing colour (Wilton brand)

Buttercream icing recipe:

2 sticks butter (I used margarine again)

3 1/2 cups icing sugar

1 tbsp boiled, hot water

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Beat butter until soft and fluffy.

2. Add remaining ingredients and beat until pale and creamy.

3. Add desired coloring.

Now for the fun part... decorating!!!! I made grass using Wilton's tip #233. You can find instructions on http://www.wilton.com/ for various decorating ideas and instructions on how to make grass. I topped each regular sized cupcake with 3 chocolate eggs and a few easter sprinkles. I put 1 egg on the mini cupcakes along with some sprinkles.

And the finished product....

My camera is horrible and doesn't really do these any justice!!

I brought 6 regulars and 2 minis over to my parents. They love my cupcakes too!! I think the best ones I've ever made are these cookie monster ones! My mom saved one just to show people! It's rock hard but she just thinks it's too cute to throw away (crazy moms haha)!!

Cookie monster cupcake : )

Regretfully the rest of the days eats were not as exciting as cupcakes. I had a buffalo chicken pita from Extreme Pita. It was a whole-wheat pita filled with, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, carrots, broccoli, light mayo and the buffalo chicken. I was really craving a pita for the last couple weeks and wanted something fast so I could get on decorating the cupcakes. I also had a mini cupcake for myself. I'll probably have a snack in a bit before I go to bed... just not sure what though.

When I dropped the cupcakes off at my parents my mom and I spent the rest of the evening searching the MLS for houses. We found a really nice one. It's in a nice neighbourhood and the upstairs has been nicely renovated. The downstairs has a kitchenette, bathroom and bedroom which is perfect for renting it out. That will cover a lot of the mortgage so it'd be a great house. I think we might schedule a viewing of the home for next week so I'll let you know how that goes. Anyways, I'm going to do a bit of homework before heading to bed. Goodnight!