And the beet goes on

Had some beets in the fridge and didn't want to bother cooking them so confirmed that raw beets aren't very different than cooked and decided to throw together a beet slaw. Ingredients kept going in the bowl -
grated beets
lemon juice (my lime had seen better days)
fresh, frozen dill
crushed garlic
greek yogurt
diced cucumbers
salt & pepper

Mixed it all together and it tasted like garlic dill pickles. I couldn't taste the beets at all and that was just fine with the rest of the family, who don't like beets but love pickles!
And you certainly can't beat the color:

Birthday Dinner

 Last week Alan and Shara planned and cooked a dinner for me so I could relax on my birthday. Since my birthday is often hectic, we decided to wait until after July 4th and had it on July 5th instead. The menu was as follows:
Rainbow Rolls w/ peanut dipping sauce
Teriyaki Salmon
Cheesy Cauliflower Rice
Wine provided by Shara
Small Cake

It was delicious, though the red cabbage in the rolls ended up being radiccio and was a bit bitter. The cake wasn't a cake but a pie - chocolate cream from the Pie Guys. A pie we could all love, since I'm the only fruit pie fan in the house.

Speaking of fruit pie, I'm always looking for lower calorie fruit pie options and played around with making a lower calorie "shrub". I feel like I succeeded. This one has:
whole wheat pastry flour
almond milk
almond extract
sugar
wheat bran
Mix that together & top a bunch of fruit. In this case, it was cherries, rhubarb and blueberries. It was very yummy topped with frozen yogurt for a dessert or plain greek yogurt for breakfast.

Cupcake Camp Photos

Had a fun time again at cupcake camp! We had so many samples to enjoy between the three of us. Alan's favorite was the vanilla cupcakes with peanut butter frosting from the Holiday Inn? It was very good but I thought the cake was a little dense. My favorite was a chocolate peanut butter with a cookie crust? In not sure but it reminded me of a tagalong girl scout cookie. Next favorite was the Plain Jane with a twist from Tiffanie's Bitter Sweet. At the show I had a lovely Cabernet chocolate mini from our booth mates, cardinal kitchen, an amazing dulce de leche from Casa B tapas restaurant, and what I think was a lemon, Guinness? Whatever it was, it was delicious.
From the Boston Globe.

A few photos - not edited yet, but this will give you an idea of what was available - yum!