Genesis Today Skinny Coffee Vanilla Latte

I think what caught my attention to try this was seeing the word "skinny". I like trying all sort of new things(even if it scares me lol) and i like seeing what healthy items actually taste good. It being a coffee drink also caught my attention. I sometimes get a little picky on coffee drinks because i don't like it too strong.

Looking at the package, just look at all that stuff that makes it look so healthy. "50% fewer calories", "skinny", "supports: energy, Healthy weight" "green coffee beverage".
Here's a page about green coffee if you aren't sure on what it is. [Link]

For taste, i find that this taste very close to this drink

Probably not exactly, but it's been awhile since i've had a java monster. But i always liked Mean Bean the best, so since it tastes close to that, i really like this skinny coffee drink. There was another flavor that i'll have to try.

here's the section of the container that gives info on it. sorry if a little hard to read in the picture.


I plan on buying more of these for my coffee for the summer. It's refreshing and does seem to give me a perk, unlike normal coffee, so will be good for hot mornings.

JELL-O LiveActive Milk Chocolate Pudding Snacks

I decided to try this after i saw it because i do have a bit of digestive problems. I've tried the Activia yogurts, but i'm not a big yogurt fan. So i figured if this actually works and taste alright, then it'd be easier for me to eat.

I don't remember the price, and the site doesn't tell you, but i got this at walmart. Here's the link to it on the walmart website [Link]

For it being sugar free, it is sweetened with Splenda. This does taste like normal chocolate pudding to me, but i do think it has a bit of a Splenda after taste to it. I don't mind that since the pudding is tastier than the yogurts i've tried.

I've only ate one so far, but i'll probably try to test this better when i can go buy some more of it. To get the real feel on how well it works, would need to eat one a day for a few weeks. In the description on the walmart's website, it says "Research suggests eating as little as eight grams of this prebiotic fiber per day can help promote the growth of the good bacteria already in your body." With that, that means you could eat the whole pack a day....that's kinda a lot of pudding. As long as you also have other fiber in your diet, that should help also so that you don't need to eat all the pudding in one day. I'm not a doctor though, so that's just my opinion that is based on what my doctor sorta told me when i've talked to her about my problem. She mostly just said "more fiber"

Over all. I think this is a good product taste wise. As for if it works, i'm not sure yet.

Pinkie Pie from Build a Bear

I made the tradition of getting my daughter a build a bear for her birthday. This year her theme was My Little Pony, so i wanted to get her a pony that i knew was at build a bear. Well, i wanted to get Rainbow Dash, but they were out, so we got Pinkie Pie.

Quality of the body is good, like other bears you can buy. I haven't been disappointed in their items, did have one messed up after washing it, the stitching on the back broke in the wash....fluff everywhere lol. But the store will fix, even restuff, them for free if that happens, just took us a few months to get around to it lol. Anyways, as for the Pinkie Pie, and probably the same for Rainbow Dash, the mane and tails on them get messed up very fast. Though what can you expect? they are synthetic. It's like other toys with hair like that, even Barbies. If you want the hair to stay perfect, don't play with them or brush it like after every time you move it lol. With Pinkie Pie, it kinda works for her to have it all messy, she has messy curly hair on the show.

When we got this one, we added extras to it. In one of the front feet, we added a sound box that plays the theme song to the show. In the chest, we added one of the scent things you can get, we did cotton candy. Cupcake would of been good for her too, some sort of sweet scent works for Pinkie Pie's personality lol. I like cotton candy, so i wanted that one for it.

My daughter loves it. Still like other toys, play, play, play for the first day and then not so much the others, but i know she'd miss it if we took it away.

Here's a few pictures of her with it.

giving her a "bath"

Being all excited with her Pinkie Pie.


Note: She is 3 in these pictures

French Toast Cream Cheese Sandwich with Eggs

I've seen pictures on pinterest of this breakfast sandwich with cream cheese and blueberries. It looked good but probably wouldn't be able to make it the same way they did, not sure what machine they used in the pictures. Either way, i made my own version, using actual french toast.

I ended up trying the sandwich 2 ways to see what was easier/better to make it.
The first way i tried to put the cream cheese on right after i got both pieces of french toast done. It warmed up the cream cheese and made it harder to spread on to get it thicker than i got it.
The second way, i waited until the french toast was cool before i put the cream cheese on and then i put it back on the stove to heat up the sandwich. Made it easier because then i got to make it thicker, maybe a little too thick though lol. Here's a picture of what i mean,

I was so cream cheesed out after this lol.

For the eggs, they were just basic eggs and cheddar cheese. Tasted like how eggs are suppose to taste like lol. This is reference to my other post about the scrambled eggs i made that had cottage cheese in it. Found here [Link]

For the cream cheese i used on this, it was a cream cheese made with greek yogurt. For weight watcher points, it's good on points. I will probably make another post about the cream cheese.

Fun with Pancakes

My daughter had her 3rd birthday on May 27th, I like to try and make pancakes for her birthday, even if she doesn't eat them lol. The pancakes are....
Top: Normal
Left: Nerds
Right: Bacon Bits
Bottom: Crumbled Oreo.

For this batch, i used a product that i bought from Kohl's that was on sale. I already used it for waffles, haven't written about that yet, so i'll just write a short bit of what i was going to write on here.

This is the mix that i used. I thought it was interesting when i was making it because it called to add melted butter into the mix, i don't think i've ever seen a recipe call for that. I bet it's just for taste though. Waffles came out decent and so i wanted to use it for pancakes to try it out for both things.

When making the fun pancakes, i had to make sure i made normal ones to try it that way since this was the first time i was making pancakes for the first time with this brand. Wasn't much different than the waffles in taste since it's the same mix.
The nerds one, that one was what made me want to do the pancakes, I wanted to see how pancakes with nerds would turn out. Kinda like how you can add sprinkles and sorta make it a "birthday cake" type pancake. Eating the first one was odd. Because of cooking the nerds in it, it sorta melted the coating on it and just gave chucks of it really tart and tangy. The sugar crunch was kinda nice and fun. So i think it turned out well enough, only thing i'd change is to make sure the nerds don't get clustered together too much.
The bacon bits one came from the pinterest picture i've been seeing of you cook some bacon and then pour pancake batter over it and in a way make a bacon stuffed pancake. I didn't have normal bacon so i just used bacon bits, the real kind, not the fake red ones. I loved this one. I'm a pancake and bacon fan so putting the two together was just awesome for me lol.
The oreo one was pretty good too. It was like a cookies and cream pancake...well really that's exactly what it was because that's like all cookies and cream is, oreos.


As a "special" pancake for my daughter, that she hardly ate... I made this

i always fail at making mickey pancakes lol

Banana "Ice Cream"

My daughter loves ice cream and she likes bananas, i thought maybe if i tried this that it would get her to eat a little healthier....well, i'm not sure if i'll try this again.

This is "ice cream" made from only bananas. I've seen the machines that process it for you and i've read that you can just use a blender or food processor. I got one of the cheaper Ninja processors, so i wanted to try this to use it more. I also loved the idea because it could save some money on ice cream if my daughter liked it....she wouldn't even try it(picky eater..she is only 3 though).

I find this to be a bust for me. Might of been because i used fairly fresh bananas instead of the more ripened ones some recipes call for. It gave a weird after taste, probably from them being fresh. and then also from being fresh, might of been why i had problems processing it.

Some pictures of my progress with it:

Put the frozen bananas into the processor.

After running it...It made banana crumble lol. I ran it a bunch of times and this was all i was getting. I had to let them thaw a little before it finally started to get creamier. But at least if i want banana crumble, i know what to do now lol.

Then after getting to thaw some first, i managed to get this. it is sorta ice cream looking. Texture wasn't very soft serve either like the posts i've seen said, but could of been because of the bananas i used. It was more like a thick paste.

Since i didn't exactly like the taste, i tried to make it chocolate by putting chocolate syrup in it. I think that just made it worse. I could't even eat this myself. Also, trying this out scared me that i already broke my processor. It started to run hot from all the running just to try and get a good texture. So it stopped working while i was trying to make it into chocolate. Luckily once it cooled down, it still works. Yay i didn't kill it!


I've seen a good bit of different blogs saying that this works for them and they love it and their kids love it....but i don't think i'll try this again, even with more ripened bananas. I'll try banana "ice cream" again if someone else makes it for me, either through blender/processor or that ice cream maker that uses bananas and other fruits. I do have a blender that probably would handle this, it's the vita-mix brand, but i still don't think i'll make this again. Or maybe in a few years when i actually think my daughter will try it. If that, then i'll at least have this blog post to tell me what NOT to do lol.

Apple Pie Dip & Cinnamon-Sugar Tortilla Chips

For the last few days i've been wanting to make something sweet. Couldn't think of anything i could make. It wasn't until i realized that i had tortillas that i figured out i could make this. this is the recipe i tried to follow http://www.thepeachkitchen.com/2011/09/apple-pie-party-dip-cinnamon-sugar-tortilla-chips/

Apple dip:
The apples were a lot easier to make than i thought it would be. These are the apples i used, was the only ones we had.

They actually worked really well for this. Eating wise, i find them a little hard to just bite into, but made for good texture in the dip.
Only thing i did different for the dip was that we don't have cornstarch. I did some reading before making and it pretty much said i could use flour in replace. So i did 3 teaspoons of flour instead. Well i guess i didn't use FRESH lemon juice either, but had the lemon juice from those lemon shaped containers. Still ended up tasting like apple pie filling. Now that i know it's not that hard to make, maybe i'll make a pie sometime lol. I did find the cutting the apples into pieces to be annoying, but that was partly because the apples i used were so small. I think i used about 4 of these apples to get 2 cups worth...maybe 3, don't remember.

The chips:
I've tried making chips before, haven't really found yet a perfect way of making them. For this batch, realizing now that i read it wrong lol. Just noticed that the Celsius is before the Fahrenheit  i'm use to seeing it the other way around so i just didn't read close enough. Anyways, i tried to cook it at 210 Fahrenheit and 5 minutes was not enough lol. i had them in for like maybe half an hour before i finally bumped up the temp to 300 and then it was just another 10 or so minutes, maybe 15...i really don't remember, this was a late night make and i'm going off little sleep while writing this. Anyways, i finally got them done and they turned out decent enough. Realizing that the temp was wrong from the start, i don't feel too bad about what i thought was the problem. Might of still added too much butter and topping...but i wanted to make sure i could taste it lol. So i didn't follow the measurements for the sugar and cinnamon, i also didn't mix them together for sprinkling, so they aren't very evenly spread.
They still came out good. crispy enough to use in the dip.

Over all taste:
everything was good together...didn't exactly fill that sweet taste i was looking for, but was still good. I like apple pie, so even if i just made the dip without the chips would of been good lol.

Cottage Cheese Scrambled Eggs

I've been getting into just trying new things. See something (usually on pinterest) and then i want to make it. As long as i feel i'm capable to make it though lol. This is the recipe i followed http://dietrecipesblog.com/2008/07/22/cottage-cheese-scrambled-eggs-recipe-137-calories/

This was one of those things that i came across. It didn't really sound bad to me, but it did sound unusual. Never would of thought "Hey lets put cottage cheese in with my eggs", though that could go for a lot of things for me...If i hadn't already learned when a kid that you could put peanut butter on bread to make a sandwich, it probably would sound really odd to me lol. What also made me want to try this was it let me use my ninja processor that i am just wanting to find all these things to make with. Only thing...i think i probably processed this a tiny bit too much.

Taste wise, it was okay for me. I'm someone that likes melted cheese in my eggs (usually cheddar), so i really felt like that was missing when i was eating this. There was a sorta clear taste of cottage cheese in it. Like the left over taste in your mouth was of cottage cheese. I was like, "I ate eggs, why is my mouth tasting like cottage cheese". There did seem to be a bit of wateriness to it. After it was on the plate it was starting to get liquid just sitting under it, not extremely appetizing to see. Back to the processing part, I feel i might of over done it because the texture wasn't the usual scrambled egg texture. Though was a little lighter.

I might try this again later on but just not process it as much....And cheese..i need cheese in it lol. But as my brother said "But there is cheese in it."

My biggest thing about this experience.....MY DAUGHTER ATE SOME!!! Been having trouble getting her to eat. So whether it was because of the recipe or just because she was hungry, she ate some. Not really going to get into her eating habits though, not what the post is about lol.

Little part i find humorous. Reading the comments on the recipe post, people who are in weight watchers are getting all huffy over the point value, not realizing the recipe makes 2 servings.


Additional info:

My mom is in weight watchers right now, so i used her recipe builder on what i used to get the points per serving and same as the recipe said, it's 3 points per serving. I used the 3 eggs it said and i used 2% cottage cheese. When i found this on pinterest, someone had put that they do 2 egg whites and 1 whole egg. Putting that into the recipe builder on weight watchers, also putting fat free cottage cheese, then it would 2 points per serving.


Here's my pictures of cooking this

Tomato Soup Mac and Cheese with Garlic Bread

Originally i was trying to figure out something to make that was sweet, but found a picture i had pinned on pinterest of a mac and tomato soup. I figured it would be simple enough to make that i didn't check if i had the stuff for the actual recipe so i just did it myself.

First i cooked the mac, then i added the tomato soup to the noodles after draining them and returning them to the pot. Instead of using a full can of milk, i only used about half's worth. Did that to help keep it a little thicker and to give more of a tomato taste to it. I also added some shredded cheddar cheese to it(saved a little to add to the top for the picture). There was a tiny bit of oregano added to try and give a little extra flavor to it. The garlic bread is just buttermilk bread with butter and garlic salt then toasted/grilled(whatever it's called lol) in a pan on the stove.

Taste wise, it was really good. Will make again when i want tomato soup but not so much just soup. It's simple to make too.


On a slightly different topic....i really like this picture i took for it lol. i'm trying to work on taking better pictures with my canon t2i, so i got this when just snapping a few pictures.

Strawberry slicer

During one of my shopping trips to Safeway, I noticed the strawberry cutters. I've seen them before and mostly just thought of them as one of those novelty items that are used for just one thing and then hardly get used and just sit off to the side and take up space. Well, even if this does only get used for strawberries, i'm definitely going to be keep using this item.

Because of it having actual blades on it it made the cutting so easy. it even did pretty well on ones that were slightly more squishy. Here's some extra pictures i took of while using it.

Portabella Mushroom Pizza "Bites"

This was one of those things i've seen on Pinterest and finally decided to try. Didn't follow exactly what it said, measurements and such though. Here's the link to the recipe i used for the basic info on making these, Portabella Pizza Bites

First off i'll start with that i call these "bites" because i didn't use the mini sized ones, they were more like just mini pizzas.

I've never had portabella mushrooms before, or at least not that i remember/know. Wasn't sure on how big of a taste difference they'd have. It tasted just like a normal cooked mushroom taste, so that was good. Trying new foods always give me that kind of feeling "will it be gross?" I get that feeling on some things i know i like that i just haven't had for some time lol.

Back to the "bites". Like i said at the start, i didn't follow the recipe completely. I still used marinara and i did use mozzarella cheese, but just regular though so i didn't use the egg mix. Also used regular pepperoni instead of the turkey. Some had olives and some didn't. I made 5 of them all together.

I completely forgot to take pictures from the very start, so i remember when i was half way done with putting the sauce on. so here's the pictures of that and just before melting the cheese. Also instead of the oven, cooked them in the BBQ, it was too hot to turn the oven on.

Taste wise, best i can really say it tasted like was if you had a pizza with pepperoni and a LOT of mushrooms and only ate the toppings. It tasted like a pizza without the crust, just with a lot of mushroom taste to it. I like mushrooms so that wasn't a problem. My parents both tried it said it was good. I'll probably try this again at some point, maybe follow the recipe exact to try that or try different versions like use a white sauce instead.

If you like pizza and mushrooms, i'd recommend this for you. And if you follow the recipe and making it the healthier version then makes a good snack for a dieter (next time when i follow the exact recipe i will post about it again with the weight watchers point plus).

I did look up the nutrition  of the mushrooms and was a bit surprised that it has 5 grams of protein for a cups for. Points wise for weight watchers, white mushrooms and the portabella mushrooms are both 0 points, but nice to learn that the portabella has better protein and fiber.

Summary
Pros:
- tasted like pizza
- nice for a snack or little meal
Cons:
- some of the mushrooms were still really juicy and made it a bit messy to eat with hands
- i love mushrooms, but if you are craving the crust of pizza more than the over all pizza taste, then this won't satisfy the pizza craving all that much.

As long as i'm not too lazy, i will make this again. Like i said, i'll try different ways for fun to see how to work and to try the real recipe. It's not hard to make, i'm just lazy at times lol.

Cainsphotography

https://www.facebook.com/cainsphotos


So this experience is just from how i feel he shows himself online and what i think of his work. I have never worked with him because we don't live near each other, but also i would never hire him based on his work.

I'm not going to post any of his pictures on here to avoid any type of copyright laws or anything.


I will start off on the vibe i get from him from what i've seen him post. I get the feeling that he's cocky, that he thinks he's better than others because he can afford better things for his "photography". He's said a few things that don't really go along with those, but it's still the vibe i get. I get that vibe from a lot of people who think or actually are photographers. Something that i hope i don't come off as if i ever do anything bigger with my own photography.

My biggest problem i have with him is his work. People saying it's so amazing and great, but i don't think it's matches any of that or the amount of cockiness i feel he gives off. Though if people like his work, then i guess that's them but i don't like them. Again not posting his pictures, but i did link above his page with his work for who wants to see it.

He says he's an HDR photographer, which nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't look good on EVERY picture. Looking through his, i find a lot either aren't the best angle or the lighting isn't great or are way over edited. Too bright or too dark, colors being off......i just don't think i see any picture in there that i like how he has it posted. Some have this odd blur to them that is either edited in or was a smudge on the lens.

To his editing, he's got a folder for pictures of other people's that he's edited. I saw him post before that editing is fine as long as they don't come out like an alien....umm....that's how his edits look. a lot of them look very orange, weird blurring to them. One of the pictures has long half the girl's face so white that you can't see like any details besides an eye that looks like it's floating in a white space. Out of his edits, there's only one that i actually like.


I am a photo editor and photographer by hobby, i'm not perfect but i do feel like my work is better than his. It's fine if he happens to just still be learning, but based on how he has his like page, it looks like he charges people. I wouldn't pay for him to take or edit my pictures.

Lastly, i don't mean this to be a bashing post, just my experience on what i've seen him post and seeing his work.