Tomorrow is going to be a really busy day. Besides tidying the various remnants in the house that need tidying, I also need to do a big shop and a bunch of prep work for Dashiell's birthday/our housewarming party.

Because I'm a complete masochist, I'm going to bake and decorate Dash's cake myself. Complete with coloured fondant and all kinds of decorations. That said, I'm not so masochistic that I'm following the cake decorating magazine's descriptions to the letter and making it a 2 tier cake. I'll stick with a single tier. We're also not expecting that many people, so a 12" and 8" cake would be kind of ridiculous. So a single 9" cake it will be.

I'm also going to bake and decorate cupcakes.

And make fruit salad.

And... and...

On an episode of Queer Eye For The Straight Guy earlier they were doing a weight loss challenge for a newly wed couple, because apparently newlyweds tend to chub up quite a bit once they hit the "comfortable" married zone.

When asked why they thought they were getting fatter, they pretty much answered with "I'm not sure". Mind you, they ate ice-cream nearly every night, and the guy was saying that usually he'd polish off half a Breyers tub in a single sitting. I think Breyers comes in 1/2 gallon tubs... and I think one tub was 14 servings, or so Carson was saying. Their dinners consisted of massive servings, and the woman ate her cereal not with 1% or 2% milk, or even whole... she had Half and Half* on it.

Who even eats cereal with Half and Half on it? The idea alone is enough to make me gag. The only time I've heard of something similarly ridiculous it was reading a post ages ago by someone who decided (F)Atkins was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard of after her brother had started eating his cereal with full cream, because cream had less carbs than milk, and he didn't seem to realise how completely ludicrous that was.

I guess I'm just baffled by the fact that these people seemed to be clueless as to where the faults in their diet lay. My diet is by no means perfect, but at least I know where my trouble spots are.


*"Half and Half" being half cream and half whole milk, for those of you for whom the term is new.

So yesterday I made Hungarian goulash for dinner, per this recipe that was posted by alasharia_la in her LJ a few weeks ago. Can't get more authentic than a recipe that actually comes from someone who is Hungarian.

Super easy, and tasty. We had ours with mashed potato. And there was enough that I could freeze two batches for dinner another time, always a bonus.

Tonight we'll have "Chickpeas Cooked in Tea" with "Delicious Chicken Bits" per my Madhur Jaffrey cookbook. The second recipe will be a new one for me to try, the first is already a favourite of mine.

And depending on how much other stuff I get done this afternoon, and if I have time, I might bake some pumpkin cookies. Mmmm...

The microwave just dinged to let me know that the milk is warm for our café au lait with the chicory coffee from Café du Monde in New Orleans. Delish!