cupcake a rooney dooney

Last weekend, my supervisor (hereafter called MotherHen, because as of next week she will have quite the little brood of young chicks / lawyers to look after) came over to my house and we made cupcakes for the G-town office, who have all been so lovely at helping us poor shlubs in legal get organised. Generally I prefer more uniformity in my cupcake decorating; these are much more random than I would usually decorate because I am a boring, organised person and I like to have a theme, but MotherHen insisted that we 'go all out'. My favourites are the ones with little butterflies...

I am thinking about making something called 'blondies' tomorrow. I've only ever heard of brownies; I know from living in Vancouver that brownies (and I guess also blondies) are much more popular in North America than they are in Oz, so maybe it isn't surprising that I haven't come across them before. Anyway, I scored a recipe for them from Simply Recipes, however if anyone has any tips or alternate recipes please let me know!

In other news, I made a kick-ass lasagna on Friday night. I'd pre-made the mince / bolognese during the week in my usual 'cooking enough to feed myself spag bol for a week' phase. For a change I put the bechamel sauce in the bottom of the dish before the pasta, as this was something I'd read in another food blog (I'm becoming a bit addicted to them lately) and it did make a difference in terms of the pasta sticking to the bottom. I also diverted from my usual recipe when it came to the bechamel sauce and the cheesy top. Normally I only use a straight white sauce, but this time I mixed in half a handful of low fat cheddar and a bit of salt. This was great because the cheese and salt was only just enough to flavour the bechamel sauce, but it was so much better than putting salt on top of the lasagna when you serve it I got a yummy level of saltyness throughout the dish, not just on top.

The top crust was the best ever! Normally I only use low fat cheddar, but this time I combined low fat cheddar, mozzarella and parmesan, and it was soooo good. Undoubtedly that upped the fat content of the meal, but the satisfaction level was sooo worth it. Lately I have been trying to focus on eating food that makes me feel good - that is, healthy but also happy, not just one or the other. I tend to swing between eating healthy and then comfort eating when I get stressed or PMS-y, so I want to bring my focus back to cooking and enjoying rather than just eating to fill a need. I need to stick to a low GI diet wherever possible, but I'm sure that within that I can add some interest!