Running out of me: What's been cooking?

Happy weekend, everyone! Boy am I glad its here! It has been a long week to say the least. Last night I got started on Matt's Valentine's Day surprise while he was out getting a beer with a friend, but unfortunately, he came home and caught me in the act! It still accomplished its purpose of making him feel special though so it doesn't really matter, and he got to enjoy some of the dough. What was I making?? Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake Truffles! Yes, a whole cake is an ingredient in these bad boys.

Aren't they cute?

I should preface this with- I AM NOT A BAKER. I never have been motivated by sugary food, probably because if I eat a whole candy bar or glass of juice, I am not well at either end for several hours and air fresheners aren't my thing...so baking and I not so much. But, every once and a while (read that Christmas, or meeting new people I try to impress) I'll take on a culinary adventure only to regret it hours later, covered in flour with a collapsed cake and a stomach ache from the 2 lbs of dough consumed. Seriously, I have 4 recipes I can bake and that.is.all. I have honed my ability to make them over years of practice and attempting new recipes has only lead to disaster- sugarless sugar cookies for example- they taste like communion crackers.

Well, I wanted to show Matt he was special and so I took on these cute little truffles as an after work endeavor. BAD.IDEA. Mrs. How Sweet- you should put a warning label on this recipe: NOT FOR BEGINNERS...OR PEOPLE WITH SHORT ATTENTION SPANS...OR FULL FREEZERS.

The recipe says it makes 40 truffles...so far I have successfully made 6 keepers...

2pts 100 calories.

...and I may have eaten the rejects for breakfast this morning. If this was wrong, then I don't want to be right. Someone had to do it.

How to ghetto stack your freezing balls: tupperware

I think my biggest failure was melting the chocolate. I first tried the microwave and burnt it. Fortunately, I bought double the chocolate needed in the recipe- although now my dreams of chocolate chip pancakes are over.

My second try was in a make shift double boiler on the stove. It went something like this: Take strawberry balls out of freezer. Burn 1st batch of chocolate. Open doors and windows while Bear hides under couch. Construct ghetto double boiler. Melt 2nd batch chocolate while cake balls warm up too much for use. Put balls back in freezer while chocolate cools too much for use. Remelt chocolate and bring the balls back. uh oh- chocolate is chunky and starting to burn again. I hate baking. Screw it, I'm using this anyway. Dip, drop in chocolate bowl, dig out with fingers, lick fingers, sprinkle deformed dough ball, hide in shame under couch with Bear and newly formed stomach ache. This unfortunate endeavor ended in me painting the chocolate onto enough balls to fill a small tupperware container and present to hubby before giving up. There are still 30+ cake balls in the freezer I am trying to forget about so I can throw them away...otherwise, I need more chocolate.

Make shift double boiler for try #2 on melting the chocolate

Some of the non rejects (I stink at dipping things in chocolate)

Reject # 5,498

In short, I am now sufficiently scarred and going into exile from baking once again. Maybe you'll see another baking post next year. (*Note* Mrs. How Sweet has some spectacular recipes on her blog you should deff check out. love.her.blog.)

For my real breakfast, I had 3 slices of sour dough bread with laughing cow cheese for 4pts and 180 calories (5pts+).

For lunch, I had a black bean burger 230 calories 4pts with fries 240 calories 4pts. I wasn't really hungry by lunch time, but I ate anyway before heading in to LearningRx.

Both of my student were late to their sessions today which was really stressful because I had places to be afterward and their parents wanted to stay and chat. I managed to get out just in time to drop by mellow mushroom, kiss hubby, grab my salad and pizza and head over to my boss's for baby sitting all night. His sitter canceled last minute, so I volunteered to fill in.