13 April, 2012

A cake.... with a secret






I made a cake.

It was really tasty.

It has a secret.

We had some friends over for dinner the other night, which gave me a great excuse to try something new for dessert.



I'd seen this recipe on Joy the Baker recently and gave it a try, with a few adjustments to accommodate my husband's dairy intolerance. Plus, I don't have a bundt pan so I just did normal boring cake.

The secret?

It's got cannelini beans in it! What? Crazy.

The addition of the beans makes up for some of the butter.... and you totally can't tell.

We ate it all up, then once I was sure everyone enjoyed it, I told them the secret ingredient.


Tasty!
Just the right amount of underdone in the middle.


The icing I used was from the Joy the Baker Cookbook: Vegan chocolate buttercream. I don't usually like icing that much, but this one is amazing, I love it.

So there you go, dairy-free cake with beans and vegan icing.... and so good!

PS. I found this website helpful in figuring out non-dairy substitutes. I used olive oil-based Nuttelex instead of butter, which is less chemical-y than other Margerines.








25 February, 2012

Blah

Today is a bit of a depressed day.

38 C (100F)

Kitchen a mess even though I've spent the last 3 days cleaning it.

No energy to clean said mess.

Then I got grumpy at my poor husband

At least I did Yoga today, that was good.

I did Yoga 5 hours ago and am still in my yoga pants and haven't showered. Never mind though, I did yoga.

here's a picture that is a bit happier than me:


that's a Shrek doll one of the ladies I work with dresses up like a baby and puts in the shopping trolley. Makes me so happy every time.

20 February, 2012

Oops

Well, seems like I haven't posted for a while. Maybe I'll give this another try.

I want to take this in a new direction: I want to talk about how I'm redefining my view of what life is supposed to look like. I'm learning to love my roots but not be defined by them, to figure out exactly who I am. It's taken a long time and I've felt really beaten down a lot, but I feel ready to start again, I guess.

A lot of that will be just daily stuff - I want to share how I'm getting into gardening, chicken-rearing, cooking, knitting and all sorts of things. And I might share how I'm figuring out how to be real with myself, other people, and my spirituality. We'll see where it goes.

11 March, 2011

New

Hi there.

I've recently started reading a few blogs and they've made me happy and inspired to add a bit to my blog here. A few years back, I started blogging to keep people at home in Minnesota and others around the world up to date with what I was doing with YWAM (that's a link to my old blog). Then I assumed no one cared and got lazy and stopped. Every time I visited my family, though, people said they liked reading what I was up to.

Anyway, I have this blog and I want it to be... something... but I suppose it's still becoming (like me!). Here are some snippets of my journey lately.

I've been inspired to be more creative lately, and though not too much has come of that, I've got lots of ideas in my head and some good ideas from blogs etc. This is the first new thing I've hung on our walls and I love it! More to come as my creativity keeps flowing! (from this website)





I saw this little garden on a blog and I loved the idea - I'm going to be on the lookout for a similar cupboard at the Salvos to do something like this in our backyard! (originally posted here, I saw the photo on "Hello, Friend")





And another attempt at creativity - our friend, Liam, helped me with this one. It's a cork board that we'll put in the office eventually and try to organise our life on.

Here's a pretty average pic of us on our 1-year anniversary, unfortunately it's the best we got. We had a great time going away and hanging out with each other and being happy that we are now into our second year of marriage. The first one was hard - our marriage has been good, but the rest of life was hard - and we're happy that it's now a bit of a fresh start. I'll talk more about that on another post.



That's a bit of a disjointed update, but more to come soon! Thanks for reading!

Cait

05 August, 2010

Life

In my next post, I'll give some more details about what I've been up to for, oh, the last 12 months or so - since I fell off the face of blogger.... but today thought I'd post some pics of what life's looking like for Dan and I these days and write a little bit about that. Wow, so many changes have been happening! In some ways I've been coping well, in others, I've been a mess.... but we're surviving and life's been really good lately.

I'm back at the job I had last year, working with people with disabilities, and I love it! I really do love going to work and find that I'm feeling more confident all the time with my work. Also, I'm studying disability one day a week, and that's been really good so far! Working with these kinds of people makes me so happy, it's such a big part of who I am - it's great!

Dan's studying Mental Health and also planning on doing support work - he has been in the disability field as well, and is now looking for other avenues. It's been really cool, and a bit of a pleasant surprise, that we're both in the same field and can bounce ideas and experiences off of each other. He's great. :)

So.... here's what we've been up to, other than that....



Fixing up the house



New bed


Rock climbing for Dan's bday


Riding our tandem bike!



There's a better view of the bike - and Oma checking it out :)




So, that's the latest - life's good!

30 July, 2010

Back to blogging!

Well hello there, it's been quite a while since I blogged. I used to keep people up to date with what I was up to when I was involved with Missions and YWAM, but hadn't been updating much in probably the last year or so.... plus once I wasn't in YWAM anymore I thought I didn't have much to blog about. BUT, I've talked to quite a few people who said they'd been following my blog over the months (surprise!) and I figured since I have friends and family all over the place I'd try to get back into it so people could see what I'm up to. So, I'll keep you up to date, posting about being married, work, living in Adelaide, life.... hope you enjoy!

Well, since I've been in touch with different people to different degrees (and not in touch with others!), here are a few photo highlights of the last 12 months or so.....




July 2009 - Fell in love!















Oct 2009 - took a team of YWAMers to rural Victoria to speak at churches and schools, one of my last big YWAM things






















Nov 2009 - Engaged!


















Jan 2010 - Took a great trip to MN to get married, spent lots of time with my family and Dan got to know them














February 2009 - Took a trip to Chicago to see Kristina and Audrey (from my DTS). It was great to catch up with them and see Chicago!



































March 6, 2010 - Got married to my love, Daniel Anear, in Minnesota with lots of amazing people who came from all over the place. We were very blessed and had an amazing day!




March 2010 - Returned to Adelaide and started setting up our life here.


That's an overview, I'll do some more posts more in-depth about a few of our adventures, and definitely post some more wedding photos!

Thanks for reading!