Business cards:
And the beginnings of a website:
I am so excited about this new venture! I am already quite busy with one wonderful client and there are rumblings of another – and that’s before I’ve done any publicity or marketing whatsoever!
They say that when it’s right, you know. This is soooo right!
…a microscopic and quite dangerous little bugger, it seems -- right in poor Danny’s intestinal tract!
This post was going to consist of photos of some of the beautiful places Elisabeth and Danny visited on their trip, but thanks to some unwelcome drama, it’s now so much more interesting!
Let’s work backwards and just slightly out of order, shall we?
So last Saturday evening, Elisabeth called us from Queens, New York – which was not on the original itinerary. It seems that she and Danny had missed their flight back to Seattle and had been diverted through New York, requiring a night there. But after being cornered and detained (licenses confiscated!) earlier that day by a bunch of corrupt cops in Managua as they attempted to turn around on a dead-end street, they were just happy to be back in the states, so a little diversion was not a big deal.
(Yes, my maternal heart was pounding a mile a minute when I was listening to the story… just grateful that they were back and safe!)
Elisabeth and Danny came over for dinner on Sunday night, and we all enjoyed their stories, their photos, and their company. When the rest of us travel, we tend to go to “predictable” places, like Germany and Hawaii, but Danny is an adventurer and he travels to places like Vietnam (where he went last November, alone, traveling via motorcycle). For their first trip together, Danny suggested going to Central America, and Elisabeth (quite the adventurer herself) loved the idea. Tom and I were a bit nervous, but she’s almost 27, fergoodnessake; she will go and do what she pleases!
So anyway, we were treated to some wonderful photos of their trip. Photos like these…
After photos and dinner, Elisabeth and Danny left. Danny had mentioned that his stomach was bothering him “just a bit,” but no one thought much of it. Fast-forward a few hours and Danny had been admitted to the hospital with a severe intestinal infection. It’s been two days and he’s finally feeling a little better, but doctors are still mystified about what he has – and why Elisabeth doesn’t have the same thing.
Elisabeth thinks that Tom and I should go to South America for our next vacation. It all sounded pretty good, but I must admit, visiting Danny in the hospital today did give me pause. Maybe the Big Island or Lichtenstein should be our next vacation destination?!
It is a well-known fact in the blogosphere -- and in just about every kitchen known to humankind -- that Pioneer Woman’s bread pudding is beyond heavenly; it is positively sinful! Kat has been known to make PDub’s bread pudding for Christmas Morning breakfast. It is simply that good.
But. But, but, but.
It contains approximately seventy-four billion, two hundred and sixteen calories – every single one of them deeply glorious, and almost religious.
I haven’t mentioned it here yet, but I have once again embarked on a Weight Watcher’s journey. Somehow the fact that fresh fruits and vegetables are completely free (as in ZERO points!) has made it doable for me this time and, knock-on-wood-and-I-hope-I’m-not-speaking-too-soon, I have actually lost about 11 pounds in four weeks. (Of course, being really, really sick for two of those weeks helped.)
So last night when we had leftover bread from a delicious raclette dinner (yes again, this time to celebrate Elisabeth and Danny’s homecoming from Costa Rica and Nicaragua – blog post on that to come), I decided that I simply couldn’t waste it and I had to make bread pudding.
But what about the seventy-four billion, two hundred and sixteen calories? That’s about seventy-four billion, one hundred and eight-seven calories more than my daily Weight Watchers allowance!
So I made a relatively (heavy emphasis on rel-a-tive-ly) low calorie bread pudding recipe today, and you know what? It was actually pretty good!
Unfortunately I didn’t think to photograph my whole adventure until I had put the whole thing together, but basically here’s what I did:
I cut all the day-old bread into cubes and put them in a bowl. There must have been about 8 cups of cubed bread. Then I cut up two apples and tossed that in with the bread, and on top of that, I dumped about 1/2 cup of raisins.
Over all that I poured a mixture of about 1/2 cup of Splenda, mixed with maybe 1/4 cup of brown sugar, and about 3 cups of nonfat milk (and a few teaspoons of crème brulee coffee creamer that we happened to have in the fridge), which I heated and into which I melted 1/2 cube of butter. (OK, that’s the dangerous part!) Then I mixed the bread, apple, raisins and liquid gently and poured the whole mess into a casserole dish.
In a separate bowl I combined about 1/2 cup of Eggbeaters, about a teaspoon on cinnamon, some fresh grated nutmeg, and some vanilla extract, and I poured all that over the moistened bread mixture.
Then, just because I felt like it, I added some low-sugar apricot/peach/mango fruit topping – just a few teaspoons – right to the top of the whole mess. And this was the first time that it occurred to me to take a picture!
I baked the bread pudding at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, giving it about a minute under broil right at the end. Yummy!
THEN TOM CAME HOME.
And he did this:
He made a topping to pour over the (er, I mean his!) bread pudding! I’m sure it was delicious, but I didn’t have any topping. Remember, this is only low-calorie in comparison to Pioneer Woman’s bread pudding with whiskey sauce! But I must say, it is well worth the slight “cheat” and only sinful enough to make me feel guilty for, like, 22 seconds. I’m already over it.
