Workin? Hard For The Money

Hi guys!

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Thursday. I had another busy one, as Adam and I started wedding cake production for the wedding on Saturday. It?s going to be crazy—I can?t wait til its all done and I can take pictures and share it with yall.

Anyways, back to my food recap! This morning I started my day with the last drop of my almond butter (SO sad!). I had it smeared on a toasted Ezekiel English muffin with preserves and had a yogurt and a banana as well. I?m super sad about no more almond butter?.there?s no Whole Foods anywhere near here so I?m kinda out of luck. Oh well, at least Publix sells their amazing freshly ground peanut butter! A fine substitute, I?ll say.

For lunch, I switched it up a little and had salmon salad instead of my usual hummus on protein bread. I used a can of skinless, boneless salmon that I mixed with sweet relish and a few globs of miracle whip. I also packed cottage cheese, almonds and an apple (and this morning I threw carrots in as well but didn?t have time for a picture, sorry!).

I had the cottage cheese (1/2 cup whipped) and the almonds mid-morning and saved the rest for lunch. I actually like canned salmon a lot more than I like tuna. It fills me up more and I like the taste better, even though it?s not a ton more different. I got my protein in for sure with this lunch though between the salmon and the protein bread! I was ready to rock this afternoon!

After I got off work I came home to make a filling pre-run snack. Actually it was a little too filling though because I felt stuffed after I ate it and wasn?t even hungry for dinner tonight! I made one of Sammie?s ?messes? (which I love by the way, Sammie!) with a fage, 1/2 cup of H2H and a spoonful of peanut butter. Love it.

I relaxed and did some stuff online for about an hour before hitting the road for a 40 minute run. I took two ibprofen before I left work today in hopes it would help out my sore shin and it did! I was on fire for some reason during my run today—my total mileage was about 4.25 miles. Like seriously, I was hauling butt. I have had a lot on my mind today and for some reason, that always fuels me to run faster and harder. After my run I iced my shin (I need to be better about this, I know!) and Betty prepared me a deliciously fresh salad for dinner since it was about that time.

My dinner salad included a HUGE pile of romaine and baby spinach with dried cherries, goat cheese, chicken breast, tomato and red onion (drizzled with some of Betty?s homemade dressing?.the best!). On the side, I had a couple small slices of sourdough bread (I actually had another piece not shown in the picture), some raspberries and a piece of smoked salmon.

I still wasn?t all that hungry due to my earlier snack, but it was still refreshing and I ate it all anyways. No wine for me tonight though—-I needed to rehydrate with water instead!

And for a light dessert I had one of my lovely rice krispie bars.

And now for my daily work recap!

Yep—-that?s yours truly folding in egg whites the wedding cake batter! There was too much batter to use a spoon so I had to literally roll up my sleeves and get in there. And that was only half the batter! The cake is going to be back & white so we are doing half yellow chiffon and half chocolate chiffon. This was the yellow chiffon and right after I finished doing this, I had to repeat the entire process for the chocolate chiffon! It took all morning long!

I worked on these cakes, which we baked in sheet pans and are cutting the tiers out of it, from 7:00-9:30. I broke for a snack and then started on a huge vat of Italian buttercream. When I say HUGE, I mean it involved 16 lbs of butter. This will be the icing for the wedding cake and it tasted amazing! I LOVE me some icing!

Then I started on some pies. I baked another key lime:

Followed by a pumpkin:

And another apple oat tart (my fav because I can?t stop eating the streusel!):

I also made another batch of pastry cream for a fruit tart. For the fruit tart, I parbaked a pie shell, smeared a thin layer of raspberry preserves on it, placed a layer of lemon olive oil cake on the bottom (for a little somethin? extra) and then filled it with thick, creamy vanilla pastry cream. I let that sit for about 20 minutes in the fridge before covering it with thinly sliced plums and berries and brushing hot apricot jam on for shine.

Adam had to go to a meeting this afternoon and told me I could finish the tart for tonight and decorate it however I wanted but (and I quote), ?it has to be really good?. Yeah, I felt a little pressure!!! I was pleased with it and went home before Adam saw it, so hopefully he liked it as well!

After I finished the fruit tart, I finished off my day by test baking another batch of cookies. Now, I played with this recipe a little and, let me warn you, these are NOT for the faint of heart. They are incredibly chocolatey with a capital C. They are ooey, gooey and nutty and don?t contain much flour so they are more like a rich, flourless chocolate cake instead of a cookie.

I tried a bite of one at work and was pleased with the result and brought a couple home to my ?parents? and they got the stamp of approval. Here?s the recipe:

Chocolate Melties

Makes about a dozen

6 oz semisweet chocolate chips??the best quality you can find! I like 60% or more.

6 oz unsalted butter

1/4 cup dutch process cocoa powder

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tbsp instant coffee or espresso powder

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup sugar

2 cups chopped walnuts

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (separate from the previous amount of chocolate chips)

1. Preheat the oven to 325. In a medium sized bowl, SIFT together the cocoa powder, flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

2. On a double boiler, melt the 6 oz of chocolate. Add the butter and stir until the butter has melted completely. Set aside.

3. Beat together the eggs and coffee powder until very thick (about 5 minutes). Add the sugar and beat until the mixture has reached the ?ribbon stage?—-about 5 more minutes, until it is very very thick and fluffy and when you pull the beater out of the bowl, the mixture falls in ?ribbons?.

4. With the mixer on low, drizzle in the chocolate and butter mixture. Beat until just combined.

5. Fold in gently the flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder. Then, fold in the nuts and additional cup of chocolate chips.

6. Scoop out onto parchment paper lined sheet trays and bake for about 10 minutes. They will look slightly underdone but still pull them out anyway when the tops begin to look ?crackly?. Let cool COMPLETELY (about 20-30 minutes) before digging in. They will be very soft but will firm up as they cool.

So, that was work today! Tomorrow we will work more on the wedding cakes AND do the horrendous weekly deep clean, since Saturday will be crazy as we finish up the cake and deliver it to the site.

I hope yall have a great night and I?ll see you tomorrow!