IMPORTANT!!!! Good Grace has moved blog homes!

Hey everyone….thank you so much for hanging around my little corner of the blogosphere and for encouraging me.

I have moved to my own website: www.craftzy.com

YAY 🙂 Actually I mpved to a new site more than a year back but being my lazy self , I completely forgot to let you all know….Please do pop over to my new site….

Note: I have moved my posts over to http://www.craftzy.com. I have stopped posting and replying to comments on this blog. Please visit  www.craftzy.com for answers to your craftzy questions 🙂 Thanks for your patience!!!!
P.S: I will be listing the craft supply shops there too

Chocolate Strawberry Oatmeal Smoothie – Recipe

I eat breakfast usually at 7 am on working days and then have a long commute to work – I reach around 8.45 am. By 10.30 am, my tummy is growling and grumbling sulkily with hunger and my acidity sears my throat 😦 [I have GERD ]

My main mission this weekend was to find food that is:

• low cal
• tasty
• filling/high protein – milk helps with the acidity
• fruit based

So where else do you need to look- you’re answer is in the smoothie- a meal in a glass! Here it comes…

Chocolate Strawberry Oatmeal Smoothieeeee

Ingredients:

Low Fat yogurt                         – 1/2 cup
(I used Nestle Slim Dahi)

Fresh Strawberries                 -100 grams

Milk                                               – 1/4 cup
(I used toned milk)

Hershey’s Chocolate syrup  – 30 grams or 2 tbsp
(You can add more syrup if you want it to be more chocolatey…I found 2 tbsps to be just right for me)

Oats                                               -20 grams

Honey to taste ( You don’t need this if the strawberries are sweet. The Hershey’s syrup has added sugar anyway. If you really want it sweet then add a spoon and see if you like it- I didn’t add honey in mine.)

Method:

1. Powder the oats in the blender till fine. Remove and keep separately in a small bowl.
2. Wash the strawberries and remove the leaves. Cut into small cubes for easier blending. Run it in the blender till it becomes a pulpy liquid- I like mine with little berry chunks so I didn’t make it too fine.
3. Add the yogurt, chocolate syrup, milk and oatmeal. Add the honey if you want. (I had kept the ingredients in the fridge the previous night, so the smoothie was mildly cold when I made it. If you want it more cold and more liquidy, then now’s the right time to add some ice cubes into the blender!)
4. Blend till smooth.
5. Pour into tall glass, garnish with a cut strawberry on the side of the glass. And you’re done!! Enjoy the shake for breakfast or take it with you as a snack 🙂

Calorie breakdown:

(without the honey)

Ingredient	Quantity	Calories	Total Carbohydrates	Fat	Protein
Slim Dahi	.5 cup	53	6	1.5	4.1
Milk	0.25 cup	30.5	2.85	1.2	2.025
Hershey’s chocolate syrup	30 g/2 tbsp	87.6	20.7	0.3	0.51
Strawberry	100 grams	30	7	0.4	0.6
Oatmeal	20 g	25	4.7	0.6	0.8
TOTAL		226.1	41.3	4	8.035

Family Chocolate Cake- Recipe

Okies…the final recipe for the week 🙂 Here’s a new recipe I tried out last weekend. It’s a chocolate cake with chocolate icing!! Double yummy!

Want to make one (or more) for yourself…here you go!

Family Chocolate Cake

Note: I am really sorry but I forgot to take a pic of the finished cake…I remembered only after all of us at home had eaten our share so it’s a half eaten cake pic *sheepish grin*

FAMILY CHOCOLATE CAKE

Ingredients for the Cake

Softened Butter               125 grams

Sugar                                    2/3 cup

Icing Sugar                         1/2 cup

Self-raising flour               1 and 1/4 cups

Cocoa                                    1/2 cup

Soda Bicarbonate             1 teaspoon

Salt                                          a pinch

Eggs                                        2

Milk                                         1 cup

Vanilla extract                    1 teaspoon

How to Make the Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Lightly grease and flour a 23-cm cake tin.
3. Cream butter with sugar and icing sugar.
4. Sift flour, cocoa, soda bicarbonate and salt into a separate bowl.
5. Add the flour mixture, spoon-by-spoon to the creamed butter and sugar mix. Add the remaining ingredients and beat well.( I used an electric blender at low speed.)
6. Spoon into the prepared cake tin and bake for 40 to 55 minutes or until cooked.
7. Ice with Chocolate icing when cold.

Plain Chocolate Cake

Ingredients for the Chocolate Icing

Icing Sugar                       150 grams

Cocoa                                  2 tablespoons

Melted butter                  1 teaspoon

Warm water                     1 to 2 teaspoons (I actually used 4)

How to make the Icing

1. Sift icing sugar and cocoa together.
2. Add melted butter to warm water
3. Gradually mix into the sugar and cocoa mix until a smooth paste is formed(It should be spreadable not watery)
4. Spoon it over the cool chocolate cake you made and even it out with the back of the spoon.DONE!!!

Note: This recipe was taken from the Cake Bible from Penguin Books 🙂 You can see the book in the plain cake pic!