Are you familiar with Kenny Rogers Healthy Meals? As I remember they have 4 kinds of healthy meals and one of the meals is the High Protein Meal which I have below:

Kenny Roger's High Protein Meal

This was taken a week ago when the husband and I had a dinner at Kenny Rogers. And because we both like to have a healthy diet (trying to be one haha), we chose to have one of their healthy meals plus the salad. This high protein meal consists of ¼ roast chicken, tuna vegetable salad, steamed rice and Kenny’s Lite Iced tea. Well except for the salad, which the husband didn’t enjoy at all everything else is good… And I think a good meal for those who want to lose weight. Next time I’d like to try their other healthy meals. I just hope I can keep up with this “diet” thing in me… hmmmm…

Summer is just around the corner and I’m sure a lot of people are planning their summer outing and vacation. In my household, we’re thinking of going out of town but since it will also be the birthday of my son, a small swimming party at home will be a good idea. I did a quick check on small above ground pools and also the kind of pool covers at AquaSuperCenter.com and I got a nice idea on how to set it up.

And while I was thinking of that swimming party, the cool refreshing lemonade just hit me… LOL! I thought quickly that it will be a good summer drink for the party and that I’m sure a great hit for the kids… Soooo it didn’t stop me then, I looked for a recipe and staple it here and I can have something to look back. Here you go…

Refreshing Summer Lemonade

Ingredients:

12 lemons, thinly sliced
3 cups white sugar
4 trays ice cubes
8 cups cold water

Directions:

Thinly slice lemons crosswise. Try to remove as many seeds as possible. Put lemon slices into a large punch bowl. Pour sugar over the top of the lemons. Using a potato masher or wooden spoon, pound lemons and sugar mixture until sugar is dissolved and lemon slices are broken.
Add ice cubes and stir in cold water. Serve in tall glasses.

(Recipe adapted from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/party-lemonade/detail.aspx)

Though I’m busy with my office work, I still find time to surf and check different cake and cupcake design. (I usually do that during my office break, LOL!) And since I cannot try to bake it for now, I save it for future reference.

One that I’d like to share with you is the horse birthday cake…

Unless you will take a look closely of this cake, you will not know that these are all cupcakes… great and I love the idea… Now top it with some beautiful equestrian riding apparel and that will turn to be really attractive horse cake…

For other way of decorating a horse birthday cake, you may watch this video:

Enjoy baking!

Yesterday, I browsed this blog of mine to check the recipe I made before. That made me realized how useful it is as I can recall my old recipes without looking and going through my recipe book and other references… And that motivates me to continue and post recipes and other foodies here….

I’ve got a lot of food photos to show, recipes to share, kitchen stuff to present and more, more story to tell….

Sooo after 6 months of not coming out, kitchen deelite is back!

Hope to see you here more often….

Last week I had a great dinner with my friends at Contis. I’m actually excited when they told me we’re going to that place because it will be my first time to try their famous ‘mango bravo’ cake. It’s been a year already since we came back here in Manila but yes this is my first time on that restaurant. We ordered different meals including pasta and of course our dessert no other than the Mango bravo plus we tried other cake, the mocha Torte.

I know these are not fat burners food but I have to try and taste it… No wonder a lot of my friends wanted to come back at Contis because it was indeed a super nice cake. I love it! Aside from mango, it has bits of peanuts inside. I was thinking to take out a small size but since I have to commute a long way I’m afraid it will melt down before I reach home. But anyway, there’s a nearby Contis branch from our home where I could buy. Looking forward to pick up this yummy cake soon…

Last month I was able to do some tripping to a new developed subdivision and it was nice looking at dressed up house model. Very inspiring and the more I wanted to have our own house soon. One thing that always catches my attention is the way they organize and set up the kitchen area. (Yes that’s one of my favorite part of the house… hehe). Most of the houses have small space only but then they were able to show to clients on how it can be converted to a nice and useful area.

What’s more inspiring are the materials and stuff they use. Looks like they got it from a store where restaurant supplies being sold considering how elegant it is. Well, I got curious actually and I asked one of the care takers where they got some of the furnitures and stuff inside… unfortunately she didn’t know hahaha…

I hope soon I will be organizing and sorting my own kitchen stuff and working on my own house…

Having a small kitchen is such a challenge especially if you love to cook and bake. Most of the time you want to have a bigger space where you can move around freely and get stuff easily. However, having a limited space in the kitchen shouldn’t be a big hindrance to have a decorative and stylish kitchen and still can have more room for you while cooking.

For the past years, we’re staying in a small house where I have only a small kitchen too. But that doesn’t stop me to think of better idea on how to make it more effective and useful. Usually the counter top is not that long to accommodate all stuff, so make use of a single sink like for any one of these stainless steel undermount sinks. Aside from that, there are three major techniques I considered to make it effective and yet stylish kitchen even on small space. These are the storage, lighting and appliances. Take for instance the photo below:

For storage, shelves are the best way to put all stuff together and that could be located easily. Having a counter lighting or halogen lights make your small kitchen appear larger and comfortable.. And since you only have small space, compact kitchen appliances should be considered to make it more effective. Not to mention it saves a lot of space.

So regardless if you have a small kitchen space, you can still make it more stylish in elegant way.

The pronexin review that I just read this morning lead me to look for the foods that we should avoid to get rid of acne… In my search on the Internet, I found out that dairy products such as milk, cheese, and cream are hard for us to digest and are acid-forming in the body. They also contain hormones, which can increase our levels and may result in more acne. If we really want to get rid of acne, we need to eat more of alkaline-forming foods such as fresh vegetables and fruit, nuts (sparingly) and seeds. And from these foods we can create simple and nutritious juice or smoothies at home just like this tropical smoothie below…

If you noticed these are all a mix of different fruits… yum!

I haven’t tried this one yet. Hopefully soon I can prepare one as it looks a great smoothie drink…

{photo above via diekatrin.}

This week since I’ve been staying home almost all the time (got a lot of work plus it’s too hot to go outside), I’m back busy at the kitchen cooking just like before. We’re not staying with my parents anymore, so no choice but I’ll do the cooking for us.

The other day since I know I will spend time doing some work looking for a nice Banner stand, I decided to thaw early the meat that I will use for my vegetable recipe. What I’m going to prepare? We called this Guisadong Kalabasa (Sauteed squash)…

Squash is one of my favorite vegetables and also the one that my son likes to eat. And besides being a healthy dish, this one is easy to prepare and cook. Below are the ingredients and the way I cooked it:

Ingredients:
sliced pork (I use Kasim)
squash, peeled and cubed
1 tbsp oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 med sized onion, sliced
1 med sized tomato, sliced
2 tbsp fish sauce (patis)
salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:
In a skillet over medium heat, saute garlic in oil until lightly brown. Add onion and tomato slices and cook for 2 minutes. Add pork and fish sauce. Simmer for about 15 minutes or until pork is tender. Add squash and let cook for another 10-15 minutes until squash is tender. Correct seasonings to taste. Transfer to a serving container and serve immediately.

I’m supposed to look for a cheap epson projectors that I was asked to do however this Rubik’s Cube Cake caught my attention and before I knew it I was already reading how it was done, LOL!

Because the baker was a big fan of rubik cube and has passion on cake making, this prompted him to bake Rubik’s Cube Cake and made his entry to a local pub competition. He actually shared how he made this step by step. You may read it all at this link: http://www.pimpthatsnack.com/project/343/2

I’m now inspired with all these creative and unique cakes I’m seeing on the Internet. They’re indeed a beautiful creations.