Namaste Foods: Chocolate Cake and Frosting

Before last night, the last time I had cake was in October. I remember because I had just finished my month of food challenge testing after my allergy testing revealed several food allergies. Someone had brought some leftover cake into work and I took a piece. I took all of about five minutes for me to feel terrible. I remember that I was so upset that I wasn’t going to be able to go back to my normal diet again. It just wasn’t worth it to feel so bad for so long just for a couple mouthfuls of yummy-ness.

I’ve had my eye on the Namaste chocolate cake and chocolate fudge frosting for quite a while now. I had seen it on their website, but never in any stores and I couldn’t bring myself to pay more for shipping than the cost of the product. Then last week it was on the shelf at my Nutrition S’Mart!

Namaste mixes

I was more than pleased with the cake mix. It tasted very chocolate-y and came out very moist. I even cut out one of the three eggs the recipe on the package suggested (since too much egg bothers my stomach) and it still turned out fluffy enough. The cake was great!

The frosting… not so much. I’m sad to say there is now a Namaste product that I am not head over heels about. It was very difficult to make. It just would not mix! I found myself beating it with my electric mixer forever and it kept getting stuck as a big clump in the beaters. By the end I had added way more water than the package called for to make it come out at all, I almost gave up on it. Since I’ve loved every other Namaste product I’ve bought, I didn’t think to check any reviews on it. After having problems with it I went online and found that I was not the only one. I didn’t really care for the taste too much either… can you believe I didn’t even lick the beaters clean?! It was really hard to spread it on the cake too because it was drying out faster than I could use it. Such a shame since this is the ONLY frosting I’ve seen that is corn free.

Leftover frosting

My cake still did turn out great though. I added some Enjoy Life chocolate chips to disguise my bad frosting job. Luckily, it didn’t scare anyone away from trying it.

Finished cake

Oh… the cake was great! The frosting tasted much better on the cake than it did plain. My chocolate-loving family even approved. I like to get others’ opinions because sometimes I think I can’t have as honest of a review anymore now that I really don’t have many options to compare it with. They agreed that it was as yummy as I thought it was. I can’t wait to finish off the rest of the cake!

Cake!

In the end, I guess I would still buy it again when I really “need” cake again. However, the Namaste brownies are just as good and a LOT easier to make.

Jesse Is Published

We are so excited that we finally got to see Jesse’s expert opinion quote published in the new book Mom Blogging for Dummies, by Wendy Piersall. Jesse met blogger Wendy at a conference several years ago. We knew that she was going to publish the quote, but we weren’t paying very close attention to when the book was coming out. The other night, we all of a sudden realized the book was out in stores. We decided to head down the street to the bookstore right away.

It took us a while to find the book because we were looking in the computer and blogging sections. Jesse finally went to look up the book in the kiosk to see if it could tell him more specifically where it was. As he did, I wandered into the next isle where we found it under business. I grabbed a copy and we headed to the comfy chairs to check it out.

BookshelfMom Blogging for Dummies

I flipped straight to the index where we found his name and page number printed. Both names are even spelled correctly too!

Index

We went to page 22 where we found the quote from “WordPress Champion Jesse Petersen!” It also has our company name and website listed. Jesse’s quote debated the importance of using WordPress as a blogging platform while the opposite viewpoint argues for Blogger. Wendy says she chose the two most extreme opposing viewpoints to print. It’s really no surprise that Jesse has the most extreme quote in favor of WordPress. It’s just too bad we don’t get some kind of royalties or something for how much he promotes it all the time.

Page 22

We spent quite a bit of time reading and re-reading his quote and taking pictures with the book. We are ordering a copy from Amazon, but we needed pictures until it gets here. Anyone watching us may have thought we wrote the book by how enthusiastic we were about it. It was just even more cool than we anticipated getting to see Jesse’s name printed in a book for forever!

Jesse readingJesse on page 22

Be sure to check out the book the next time you’re at the bookstore. You could even read more than just page 22, if you want to. Awesome!!

The Best Rays Baseball Game

It had been a couple of years since my last Tampa Bay Rays game. We sure picked a fantastic one to go to. It was by far the most exciting baseball game I’ve been to… ever!!

Our friends from the Czech Republic are still in town and they were very much looking forward to attending their first baseball game. They were impressed by how big the stadium is and we had some pretty great seats.

The boys

Andrew explaining the game to Milan during warm ups

We had a whole group from church who were excited to enjoy a fun evening at the game.

Neuzil family

Andrew and Jose with the Neuzil family

Us

Ashley, Jesse, and Me

Dad and Mom

Dad and Mom (with Ron, Ardell, and Kenna phone-ing in the background)

Rays game

The Rays game

We had a field-runner near the end of the game. He was pretty fast, he was so close to jumping the back wall before they caught him. It was extra funny because we were joking with the Czechs earlier that they should try running across the field because that’s what Americans do. We didn’t think it would actually happen. I don’t think I’ve seen that in person before. It’s hard to see, he is right in the middle of the picture climbing over the white sign on the back wall.

Runner

The runner made it half way over the back wall

It was the best game ending we could have wished for. The Rays were down 7-3 at the bottom of the 9th inning and the stands had pretty much emptied by that point in the game. They had a couple of exciting hits to make for a close game. Then a big hit sent a guy home to tie the game, but the third base man missed the catch sending the guy to run home. It was a close call at home plate… we won! We were all jumping up and down cheering while the team rushed on to the field to pile on the guy who scored. How’s my game reporting skills, think I could get a job as a radio announcer?

Exciting finish

The team rushed the field after the game winning score!

Cheering crowd

The whole crowd was on their feet

Fun game

Ron and Ardell cheering next to my parents

Needless to say, our guests enjoyed the game as much as the rest of us. I think we may have created a few new baseball fans.