Tuesday, April 27, 2010

BRING IT!



P90X fever has hit the Touchstone house! We were going to the gym but just needed a bit more of a push to get back into shape so we threw out the idea to a couple of our friends and...they joined in!

So with ONE WEEK down we decided to start the Meal Plan (Seriously I think they call this a DIET plan, but there is NO WAY Jenny Craig would approve THIS MUCH FOOD!)

We did take BEFORE pictures, but um... unless we look like we belong on the cover of Fitness Magazine in 90 days you will probably never see those! I will consider it though if there is a HUGE change in us!

Ok so our P90X studio is now fully equipped and workout starts at 5:30am SHARP (or Shazaam Sarah will make you drop and do extra Chataranga Push Ups!) The buff guys Richard the Ripper, Cut Up Craig, and TNT Ty all workout in their own seperate "garage" studio (yes fully equipped with 2 flat screen monitors in order to better see Tony Horton's bulging biceps) and the fit chicks Shazaam Sarah and Dynamite Danielle workout in the plush "lounge" studio with a Plasma screen to better see Dreya the Robot's moves! Yoga day is by far the most fun since we spent a better part of it splat on our colorful yoga mats!

This week though a few of us have decided to attempt the P90X meal plan as well. I will warn you...the amounts of food you are about to see are real and have in no way been photoshopped or exaggerated.

First of all, Ty and I are headed out of town this week so we decided to do Day 1 at least to get an idea of what it will be like (keep in mind we had NOTHING in our fridge so we had to buy EVERYTHING even salt and pepper!)

Ty made a spreadsheet that creates a shopping list for you based on the servings and recipes for the day, we printed it out, split it in half and raced around the supermarket trying to locate our half of the list! We probably asked every Ralph's employee for help at least once so by the time we checked out the lady at the register loudly announced "Oh so YOU GUYS are the ones on that Meal plan" ha!!! We are FAMOUS at Ralphs now!

Do you want to see the groceries we bought for DAY 1?


Yes seriously that is all for ONE DAY!




We got up, worked out and then made our first meal OMELETS! They were delicious and had mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese and green onions. The only CRAZY part was the 6 egg whites for me and the 10 egg whites for Ty. I had to use our largest skillets and still they ended up falling apart and looking like scrambled eggs. We are not omelet pros yet.


That's NOT all we had for breakfast. NO! We also had strawberries, cottage cheese and a recovery drink (Ty and I drank gaterade because we haven't bought anything else yet - I think we will though - we could really use the glutamin that they have and much less sodium than the gaterade offers - yes Marlene I'm going to take my glutamin & glucosomine in my morning drink rather than a dog-biscuit -ha!) Anyway, here is today's breakfast. It took me 6 hours to finish it and Ty also packed it up and took it to work with him to eat when he got hungry.

Here is PROOF that I finished eating it ALL! (ok not ALL of my omelet but at least all of the strawberries and cottage cheese!)


I started this post last week and now a week later I can comment on how the day ended. We did manage to make the salad.


It was very tasty! I actually nearly finished all of it and Ty LOVED every bite! We also didn't eat until 3pm because we were so full from our breakfast and Clif Builder Protein Bar (which by the way is my FAVORITE part of the day! I love these bars!)



For dinner though...we had a Proten Shake and called it a day! We WERE supposed to have this (courtesy of Shazaam Sarah)


ALONG WITH a Red Pepper Soup. Which I HAVE to blog about because it was an adventure in and of itself.

So Ty's amazing Spreadsheet had a little kink in it. One that caused us to buy 10 peppers instead of 5, and since we were leaving town we didn't want them to go bad so we decided to make the soup and freeze it. Well Ty left town before I did so I was stuck with the task of soup making. JOY! I love to bake NOT cook! Anyway, I figured I could throw it together, finish 14 dozen cakeballs, pack, do 2 homework assignments, take a quiz and get to bed at a decent hour. WRONG!

I got to Step 1 and realized I had to go to COSTCO to buy CONTAINERS.

I got to Step 2 and realized I needed more tomatoes.

I got to Step 3 and realized I had to ROAST THE PEPPERS! I've never roasted a pepper. I spent about 20min on YOU TUBE learning how and another 20min whining about it.

Here are my Roasted Peppers (all 10 of them)


Little did I know that THAT was the easy part! I then had to take the skin off each one. Again...all TEN!

I'll spare you all the details. I eventually made the 24 servings of soup and measured out the exact amount into each of the serving cups, set them out to cool and around 2am put them in the freezer. Needless to say that was NOT a quick task! We do however have enough soup to cover each Monday for the next month and a half!



P90X - BRING IT! 2 weeks down...

Monday, April 12, 2010

So what's Ty up to?

I've written a lot about cakeballs lately, but what has Mr. T been up to while I slice my fingers and pray for cakeballs to ship safely?

Well he studies...

he drinks tea...

and he gets very hyper when the caffeine mixes with his pent-up energy


That's basically it. Here's a few postcards that the CFA company sent him with his study materials and I think they are exactly how he feels right now.


Although he isn't a golfer - this one says what he feels too...


I put these up on our fridge to remind him that he isn't the only one that feels this way! His brother Trey is taking the 3rd exam the same day that Ty takes the 1st one and he has been studying like this for 3 years!! So prayers for Ty & Trey are very much appreciated! They take their tests on June 5th. I know they will both do GREAT! (but lots of prayers won't hurt!!)

Baking Blunders

I woke up early to make cakeballs on Saturday and all was going well until I decided to cut a piece of chocolate in half.

Yes mystery solved...it was Danielle in the Kitchen with the Knife cutting the Chocolate.

Finger on our way to Urgent Care


I lucked out and avoided needing stitches. A few steri-strips, a tetanus shot and another round of antibiotics and I was good to go home and finish my cakeballs. (No there was NO blood anywhere NEAR the cakeballs!)

Here's my finger after the doctor steri-stripped it and shot my arm! (No I don't have a picture of Ty studying in the waiting room or laughing his head off as they shot me in the arm - sorry!)


Ok, but after all that do you want to know how the cakeballs turned out?



Click here to see.




Tuesday, April 6, 2010

want to win a dozen cakeballs?

Well here is your chance! Victory never smelled (OR TASTED) so SWEET!

Here's the deal, we've been playing around with the idea of changing the company name. We are currently working on the Trademark, Incorporation etc. and there is a chance that The Sweet Touch is already taken. Although, we may be able to form our Corporation as The Sweet Touch our actual company name may need to be different. (Or maybe not, but just in case we want to have a backup!)

For a few weeks now the idea of changing the name to Biscoche (pronounced Biz-coach) sounded very chic and everyone I shared this with LOVED it. Everyone, but Ty. He kept saying he wasn't sure about the new name. He said he didn't know what it was about the name that bothered him, but he preferred The Sweet Touch.

So last night I turned to a very trusty source...GOOGLE (you'd think I was earning a commission for each time I used their name since I use it so much...hmmm...not a bad idea...)

Anyway, I turned to google and typed in Biscoche and well on your own time and under adult supervision I'll let you all do it individually. The Urban Dictionary definition has COMPLETELY ruined that word for me and I can assure you it will NOT be the name of our new company! (Ty has that "I told you so" look on his face)

Where do the free cakeballs come in you ask? Well... I'm looking for new name ideas and I'm turning to friends and family to help me out! All you have to do is come up with the PERFECT name for our new cakeball company and post it as a comment to this blog or email it to me dk_touchstone@yahoo.com I'll pick my top choices and put them up on the blog for a vote. If your name wins...you get a dozen cakeballs for freeeee!

Monday, April 5, 2010

voyage through desert RESULTS

Well the results are in.

I have an answer to how the Baby Blue J's did on their desert voyage via Fedex.

I received an email from the customer yesterday and have made everyone wait for me to publish this post before revealing what happened when she opened the boxes.

Remember this is what they looked like BEFORE I shipped them:



Ok Ok I'll stop torturing everyone. Here is the email I received from the customer:

"Box opened. All was fine (a few J’s fell off, but nothing major). They looked divine and tasted the same. The restaurant put them on trays and squirted chocolate swirls around the tray to match. I’ll email photos and send the check. I will order from you again! Take care. Thx again!"


PRAISE GOD!! Thanks for all the prayers! If anyone comes across a packaging company that specializes in personalized boxing please send the info my way! I would still like to perfect this process before the next "cakeball voyage" takes place!

UPDATED PICTURES! Here's a picture of the Baby Blue J's in Las Vegas!

Saturday, April 3, 2010

behind the scenes

Let's save all the dramatic introductions and jump right into the first blog!

I titled this "behind the scenes" because some of you may be following Kruffles (formarly The Sweet Touch) and see all the cakeballs that pass inspection, but what no one sees on THAT blog is what goes on behind the scenes in our lives and in my kitchen!

So I'll start with a cakeball blog - SURPRISE!

At least I promise to make it interesting!! Actually, I think you'll find it pretty entertaining. I don't have as many pictures of this fiasco, but I'm sure the ones I do have will suffice.

Last weekend I had an order for a Baby Shower. That wasn't the challenging part though. I'm now pretty good at mixing baby blue and baby pink icing colors. No the challenge for this particular event was twofold. 1. The customer wanted them shipped to LAS VEGAS (side note: I have not yet perfected my shipping methods and I have decided not to offer this service UNTIL I know it works.) Well she asked for them to be sent overnight to the desert and me the people pleaser, complied. 2. I used fondant for the FIRST time! Yes ok I'm sharing ALL my dirty little secrets on this blog. I have NO formal training. (yet)

Ok well lets skip #1 for a moment and jump to challenge #2: The Fondant.

Right, well, I bought the fondant (already made; gasp!) AND already baby blue (some of you may have closed this blog by now - for those of you that can stand to read on -thank you for not judging me! Or at least thanks for wanting to see what happened!)

Ok all I had to do was make the initial "J". Lots of little baby blue "J's". Simple enough. I rolled out the fondant. Used my "J" fondant cutter. Carefully peeled them off the surface (my counter top- again gasp! I have no fondant mat. YET!)

Here they are. My cute little Baby Blue J's



I then read in my new Wilton's icing book that you should set them out overnight to harden. I had 8 hours before they had to be finished and dropped off at Fedex.

Ok so I panicked. Then I turned to GOOGLE! I found a comment that said "Place them in the oven at LESS than 150 degrees for a few minutes and they will dry out." PERFECT! I have a little toaster oven - it starts at 80 degrees. Perfect.

I went back into the kitchen. Put my J's in the tray. Put the tray in the oven. Turned the oven to 80 degrees. Turned around to take my cakeballs out of the fridge. Turned back around to check on my J's ONE minute later and this is what I saw....



Yes. They MELTED! They melted AND burned!

I started over. Now with 6 hours to go.

Here is the final product!



Those were all taken with my iPhone. Here's a picture of them from "Flashy" (yes most everything in our house has a name!)



Ok so you're still wondering how I got them to harden...Well...I...didn't. They hardened as the hours ticked by. :-)

Ok what about (Challenge #1: Voyage through the Desert via Fedex) you ask. Well... I don't know. She received them on Thursday morning and sent me the message:

"Got the Fedex package! Thanks! Will let you know when I open them!"

Then another email came Friday:

"Took them out of the Fedex boxes. Your boxes are cute! Haven't opened them yet! The boxes look great though! Will keep you posted."

Friday night:

"Have decided to open them at the Restaurant on Saturday morning right before the shower. Will let you know how they look."

That's the last I've heard. I have been on my hands and knees praying since Wednesday! This is a VERY important customer! WHY DID I SAY YES?!?!

Ok breathe... I'll announce what happened when I hear from her. A prayer from everyone that reads this wouldn't hurt! :-)

Now you know what REALLY happens in the Touchstone house that doesn't and will NEVER appear on The Sweet Touch blog!