Tokyo Dining

Two posts in 1 day... crazy right?! Have you checked out my Christmas at Epcot post?

I thought I'd discuss our dinner at Epcot in a seperate post, especially since there are plenty of pics from it.

We opted to go the route of buying a special dinner pass so that we would get priority seating for the candlelight processional.

Basically all those that purchased the dinner pass, got into the arena before the non-paying people, which also means if you don't have a pass, there is a possibility that you don't get into the concert.

Dinner Companions

We chose Tokyo Dining since we are all sushi lovers and this place didn't disappoint. For those of you familiar with Benihana, it totally reminded me of that. A modern interior with great quality fish.

The menu was pre-fixed with our choice of appetizer, entree, and dessert. For it being Disney dining, the prices were actually very decent. Comparable to a Benihana. Funny since a German pretzel was $4.50, and an ice cream was nearly $9!

Pork Shanks and Salmon Salad

Spicy Salmon Tempura Roll - because we always fear leaving hungry!

Sushi Sampler

It was delicous and more than enough...I actually had to force down the last few rolls because I didn't want to send them back or carry them around with us.

I'd totally go back but probably won't since there are so many other delicious restaurants we saw at Epcot.

Have you eaten at Tokyo Dining?
What is your favorite Disney Restaurant?

Trader Joe's Peppermint Hot Chocolate

I thought I'd talk about a recent Trader Joe's find instead of rambling on about our vacation, although I will admit...we haven't done as much the last few days as we did the beginning of our vacation and honestly, that is fine by me!

I'm sort of new to the whole peppermint drink thing, and experienced my first spiked peppermint hot cocoa a few weeks back, and let me tell you, I've been bitten. Needless to say, when I saw this at Trader Joe's I had to give it a try...

It's really quite decadent, and I'll admit I can't remember the last time I drank non sugar free hot cocoa!

Real Chocolate Shavings!!

Per the instructions it says to use 3 tbsps, per 6 oz. We only use 2 tbsps per 8 oz. It's really that minty which I guess if you like that is fine but I don't. I like a nice little complement to the hot chocolate.

2 tbsp = 1 oz.

I've also found that using a whisk to whisk in the hot milk makes the hot cocoa super frothy.

Do you like pepper minty drinks?
Have you tried Trader Joe's peppermint hot cocoa, love it? hate it?

Btw.. my Trader Joe's already ran out of the peppermint green tea! so bummed...

Christmas at Epcot

We wanted to do something unique while down in Orlando for Christmas and seeing that Epcot has a Candlelight Processional in December, we thought it would be fun to spend Christmas Day there.

entrance at Epcot

Los Tres Amigos

Joyful Band

I'll admit I had no clue what Epcot was about and from what I remembered I thought it was more science/technically based. Boy was I wrong. The whole back-end of the park is broken into countries so you walk from Mexico, into Norway, into China, into Germany, then Italy, then you come to Independence Hall, to Japan to Morocco, France England and Canada.

 

Our linner reservations were for 4:15 so that we could make the 6:45 viewing of the Candlelight Processional..by buying tickets we were guaranteed seats for the viewing.

pre-show

entire ensemble

Blair Underwood narrating

This candlelight processional was exactly what I needed to get into the spirit..I sort of wish we had been able to see the 4:15 show instead. I would highly recommend participating in this if you are in ePCOT. It was lovely!

My only gripe with Disney is that everything is so damn expensive if they could charge you for the air to breathe they would, but it was a fun day. We didn't make it past Morocco which was a bummer, and Nate didn't get to the Race Track but overall, it was one hell of a Christmas!

What is your favorite park at Disney?
Read my Animal Kingdom recap here!

Birthday Celebration - in pictures

Christmas Eve started off with a bang as we celebrated my mom's 50th birthday!

Birthday Girl

European Breakfast Spread

From my moms bestie - can you spot the gnome?

Snow White Torte

We continued the celebration at La Luce at the Hilton Hotel on Disney property. It was amazing. It had awesome reviews on Yelp, which I believe is how we found it. 

Please excuse the poor quality of photos, I was too embarrassed to use flash and I hadn't figured out to use the indoor lighting on our dslr.

How did you celebrate you Christmas Eve?
Ever been to a Donna Scala restaurant?

Christmas Firsts

Happy Monday everyone!!!

Getting a late start over here... hard not to when your on vacation, although I have my fair share to prepare for a phone conference tomorrow...hopefully I'll have more deets to share here soon!

I still can't believe we are in Florida for Christmas. If you live in the South where the temps are warm and there is no snow, how do you get into the spirit? I didn't think I'd be that dependent on cold and snowiness but alas...I am!

We turned my mom's 50th and Christmas into 1 big extravaganza, and opted to celebrate in Fl.

I've  been bitten by the house rental bug... I absolutely love having a private pool and jacuzzi..

Plus it's pretty affordable if you go with a large group.. We use homeaway.com for all of our rentals. I'm thrilled with the house we are staying at. We had a very eye-opening experience in February and I did a lot more research and question asking this time around.

Nate's parents rent a home on Lake Michigan every Summer and we expected to have the same amenities as we do there but that wasn't the case. This time we lucked out, so if anyone wants to contact info/website, I'll gladly pass it along!

Christmas Firsts..

Miniature Tree

sitting poolside

Epcot 2011

How was your Christmas?

Merry Christmas

From me to you...may all be Merry and Bright!

Happy Birthday Mutti!!!

Today and forever, I wish the most amazing, strong, charismatic and beautiful woman I know a very Happy Birthday!!

May the next 50 years be even better than the first.

YSFE for the Kinect - week 2

Happy Friday everyone!! How is everyone?

We just made it to Orlando and oh em gee… the last 24-48 hours were a tad intense. Nothing like sticking the entire family into a Cube mini-van and driving South. But it's 85* and I couldn't be happier!

What are some rules you guys follow when road-tripping?

Our number 1 rule is that the driver gets say what we listen to. A tad frustrating for my mom since she couldn't drive..

Thank you to Ubisoft for providing me with a copy of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 and sponsoring this fitness diary series. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.

Anyways.... since last Friday I’ve worked out 3 times? I can’t remember but I know it wasn’t more than 4 times and I made a conscious effort to eat better. Not perfect but I’m not waiting till the New Year.

Determined to use YSFE like it was intended for, I set up a program for myself.. 

I became my own worst client and instead of being honest with myself and listing myself as a Couch Potato (I’ve done no strength training in over 8 weeks! And been quite inconsistent cardio wise until 2 weeks ago when I started running again) I put down Sporty…oy vey… I paid for it later!

Basically you fill out a little questionnaire and then it kicks out a schedule for you.. for me 3x’s a week, 60 minutes per session, for 4 weeks!  Oooppsss…

It even flags the exercises for you that should be doing.

I hula hooped last week as my warm-up’s and figured it was good to try something new this week.

I broke bricks..

Can you spy me?

 Super fun! And very much like boxing.. Then I went to jump roping.. 

one of my favorite cardio exercises since it’s such an efficient calorie burner but I couldn’t really get into it, since the Christmas tree began shaking with all my jumping…oooppsss….

Do you see those foot prints in the water, matching those determines your efficiency with the game. I wasn’t very good at it. =(

If there is one thing I wish they could better is to enhance the scan of yourself, you can see how my legs are chopped off and my face is never recognizable. Honestly, at that point I’d rather they just create a cartoon of me, or a hologram like they use in the Zumba game I’ve reviewed.

Anyways… after my warm-up I went into my strength routine. 

Now this feature, in my opinion, makes the game awesome… You choose how long you can/want to be doing a routine for

Which means if you are just starting out, start off by only doing 2 minute exercises, strapped for time and only have a half hour, do 4 or 5 minute sessions.  Remember, NO EXCUSES!

On the downside, if you are new, and not quite sure what exercises you should be doing, it could be overwhelming because you pick what areas you want to focus on.

There are typically two ways you can break down your strength training, either a full body workout or you focus on specific areas. In my opinion, and especially for beginners, full body workouts are the way to go!

Upper body workout:

Lower body workout:

Ab work:

 And then it was over... so simple and yet so awesome. I'll admit I was hurting and that was lame considering I should have been able to do all that without breaking much of a sweat but that's whatcha get...

Don't forget to comment because I'll be giving one game away in January!!!

Wave Torte

It's been a while since I've talked about my Nikolaus celebration but I wanted to share the recipe since it was such a smashing success.

Since my theme for Nikolaus this year was Winter Wonderland, I wanted to add a white torte to the buffet and although my inclination was to make a Cloud torte, but I thought that was somewhat boring since I had already made it once before. I don't bake often so I need to make it count, right? Right!

I'm beginning to realize I am much too confident in my cooking skills and should probably lay off trying new things for company. Unfortunately my schachlik sauce was a major fail Nikolaus!

Anyways.. this sounds really time intensive but it wasn't. I was actually surprised how fast it all came together! Click on the print button in the footer of the post if you want to recreate it!

Wave Torte - Recipe by GU (a German recipe book)

clearly the torte got it's name because of it's wavy top!

The Ingredients - for the batter:

125 gr. soft butter

325 gr. sugar

4 eggs

150 gr. flour

20 gr. almond slices

2 tsp baking powder

The Ingredients - for the filling:

1/2 cup sugar + 1 packet of Vanilla Sugar from Dr. Oetker

3 lemons (I only used 2 since they were big!)

3TBSP pudding powder

2 cartons whipping cream

2 packets Whip-It from Dr. Oetker

Directions - for the batter:
Note: You make the entire batter first, but you will be baking half of it because the tort is comprised of 2 halves. The top and the bottom.

Pre-heat the oven to 350.
Whip the butter and 125 gr of the sugar.
Seperate the egg yolk and whites, and put the white's aside.
Add 3 TBSP of water to the egg yolks and add to the butter/sugar mixture.
Sift the flour and baking powder to the mixture (this prevents clumps! trust me, I KNOW!)

My suggestion, because if I would have to do it again, I would do it this way:
Split the egg whites, so that you're only whipping half of them and so that they form nice stiff peaks.
Whip 2 egg whites with 100 gr. sugar.
Add in 10 gr of the almond slices, but don't stir them in, fold them in.

cake batter with egg white mixture

Pour half of the batter into a spring form (where the bottom drops out).
Add the egg white mixture on top.
Bake for 25 minutes.

Whip the last 2 egg whites with 100 gr. sugar.
Add in 10 gr of the almond slices, but don't stir them in, fold them in.

Skip to Directions - for the filling.

By now the 1st cake should be done.
Pour the last half of the batter into a spring for.
Add the egg white mixture on top.
Bake for 25 minutes.


 Directions - for the filling:
Cook up a half a cup of water with 1/2 cup of sugar.
Mix 3 tbsp of the pudding with the juice of the lemons.
Add the pudding mixture to the water, cook it until it forms the pudding consistency.
Let cool.

cake bottom with pudding mixture

Whip whipping cream with 1 packet of Vanille sugar
As it begins to get stiff add the packets of Whip-It.
Mix whipping cream with the pudding mixture.
Put the pudding mixture onto the less prettier cake.
Place the other cake on top.
Refrigerate at least 2-3 hours.


Enjoy!!

Let me know if you plan on making this! 

I would love to hear how it turns out!