Staying Healthy During the Holidays (and Year Round)

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Staying Healthy During the Holidays (and Year Round)

'Tis the season of so much food! So much amazingly good food that we only seem to have this time of year (pumpkin IS available year round. We COULD eat pumpkin all year round.)  And I love to eat, especially sweets.  But I also love to feel good, to feel good about myself and to feel good physically: healthy and energized (plus I need it, to keep up with a two-year-old.) So while I do indulge during the holidays (come on, YOLO, right?) I balance it out with (mostly) healthy eating on a daily basis.  

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Links I Love

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Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

  1. I did my own, Kate did too.  Beauty guru Bobbi Brown shares her tips for doing your own wedding make-up. (yahoo.beauty.com)
  2. Turn your own handwriting into a font for your computer, for free. (myscriptfont.com)
  3. Bloggers always need good photos, and sometimes you can't take your own.  Here are the top 10 websites for free, non-cheesy stock photos. (creative boom.co.uk)
  4. He may have left us in person in 1991, but he lives on in his works. Dr. Seuss' new release will need to be added to our library. (amazon.com)
  5. 6 super-weird beauty tricks that work wonders: I'm trying the first one tomorrow. (thebeautygypsy.com)
  6. Check out this guy's Instagram: he brings beauty to doodles. (instagram.com)
  7. You had me at "chocolate".  They've compiled the best chocolate recipes in the universe. (purewow.com)
  8. For you frequent travelers, find out the quality of your hotel's wifi before you book. (hotelwifitest.com)
  9. I'm always looking for new recipes, I might get addicted to this Tender app. Downloading now. (yahoo.com)

Summer Cake

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Probably should have posted this before the holiday weekend, because I think it goes so well as dessert with barbeques, but since we still have a couple months of summer, and therefore (hopefully) more barbeques, here's a very yummy (and easy-from-scratch) cake.

I should have used more strawberries than I did, but it was still super yummy.  It's sure to be a hit.  I mean, who doesn't like strawberries?

Fresh Strawberry Yogurt Cake

Ingredients

·         1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
·         2 cups granulated sugar
·         3 large eggs
·         Zest of one lemon
·         3 tablespoons lemon juice, divided (1 and 2)
·         2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, divided (2 1/4 and 1/4)
·         1/2 teaspoon baking soda
·         1/2 teaspoon salt
·         8 oz plain or vanilla Greek yogurt
·         12 oz fresh strawberries, diced
·         1 cup powdered sugar

Directions

1.        Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease and flour a 10 inch Bundt cake pan.
2.        Sift together the 2 1/4 cups of flour, baking soda, and salt.  Mix in the lemon zest and set aside.
3.        With an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in one tablespoon of lemon juice.

 
 


4.        Alternate beating in the flour mixture and the yogurt, mixing just until incorporated.
5.        Toss the strawberries with the remaining 1/4 of flour.  Gently mix them into the batter.

 
 


6.        Pour the batter into the Bundt pan.  Place in the oven and reduce the temperature to 325 degrees.  Bake for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
7.        Allow to cool at least 20 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
8.       Whisk together the remaining 2 tablespoons lemon juice and the powdered sugar.  Drizzle over the top of the cake.

 
 

9. Enjoy!  Click HERE for a printable version of the recipe.

 
 

Note: the thickness of the batter will vary based on your greek yogurt.  Thicker yogurt yields thicker batter, which means the berries won't sink to the bottom of the pan (top of the cake) as much.  Thinner/runnier yogurt will yield thinner batter, and berries may all end up at the bottom of the pan (top of the cake.) Still just as good, just looks a little different than mine here.