I know I haven’t been around for a while, but the holidays are such a busy time.  I honestly have been so busy with work, holiday shopping, spending time with family and wedding stuff, I’ve been neglecting the blog!  2010 is only days away and honestly, I cannot believe how fast this year has gone by!

Next year is filled with excitement, as I am getting married at the end of February, and who knows what life will bring?  All I know is that this blog is here to stay, and I hope to post A LOT more next year.  I am also planning to get a new camera so I can also experiment with food photography!

Before I go, I just wanted to let you all know that I recently found this great tea that I think everyone should try.  It’s a holiday tea by Celestial Seasonings called Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride.  It smells like a sugar cookie and is quite tasty!  I found it at Super Target, but you can also buy it online at Amazon.com.

Have a Happy (and Safe!) New Years!!  See you all on the other side!

Part of the name of my blog is “be happy” and I guess I don’t really focus on the happy part as much as I’d like to.  I have found a great love with baking and cooking, and it does make me happy.  I do think about the goals I have in life, and of course, it’s not easy to attain.  Things take time, and I really do hope and believe in time, things will fall into place, as it has in different aspects of my life.  In a few months, I’ll be married and hopefully soon after that, a family.  But there are other things I strive for.  Something that I’ll be happy doing, and look forward to doing at the end of each closing day.

I know this isn’t a food post, but sometimes you just need to reflect on other things, right?

I love blue tortilla chips, and I found out they’re actually healthier than the normal tortilla chips.  Blue corn is about 30 percent higher than regular corn in lysine, an essential amino acid that helps our bodies build protein.  The tortilla chips I bought are made of organic blue corn, no preservatives and artificial flavor.  It’s great with either guacamole or salsa.  It’s a great snack to eat while watching the many football games going on during Sunday football day. 

You can find Blue Tortilla chips pretty much at any grocery store.  Brands include Garden of Eatin’, Tostitos and even store brands like Publix Greenwise.

It’s been a while since my last post, but I had to take a little break to enjoy my birthday, which was last Friday.  Getting older is not the funnest thing, but I’ll take it.  There is definitely a lot to look forward to in the days ahead and I’m thankful to have been able to spend my birthday with my loved ones.

Yesterday, I decided to drink a cup of coffee, and this is kind of rare since I kind of quit, and switched to tea, but I needed the caffeine to spend the day working on wedding invitations.  So to add a little kick to our normal blend, I added some cinnamon powder and it definitely made the coffee taste lovely and a bit sophisticated!  All I really did was add some cinnamon powder to the coffee in the filter and pressed ‘brew.’  This is definitely a different spin on coffee for me and I’ll probably do this when I feel like I need coffee, like on this Monday morning.

Have a good day everyone!

I’ll admit, sometimes I just don’t have time to make or cook something from scratch.  I try as much as possible not to go the prepared/frozen food route but when you’re short on time, sometimes it just helps!  This morning, I woke up and had a gigantic headache.  Guess it was the lack of food, water and the heat from standing/sitting at the Blink-182 concert (which was absolutely awesome).  Concert venues usually make their food prices pretty pricey, and you don’t get the best tasting food, so I had to settle with a $4 bottle water and a $6 cup of french fries until the show was over.

Anyway, this morning I really wanted to make banana pancakes but unfortunately I settled with the frozen Aunt Jemima pancakes in the freezer and quickly toasted them and within 5 minutes, I had my breakfast, accompanied with Chai Vanilla Tea.  Of course, frozen food is known to have unnecessary preservatives and such, which we all know we can do without.  My mom always told me to stay away from these foods, but in my opinion, it helps when you really just need something to eat quickly.  I really need this headache to go away, so I can make something yummy for lunch and dinner!

So what are your thoughts on frozen prepared foods?  Do you stay away completely, or do you have some specific foods on hand?

So I decided to make Make, Bake, Be Happy! a dot com.  Now you can just type www.makebakebehappy.com instead of all that other stuff that was required when I was on Blogspot.  At this point, not many people are reading the blog anyway, so it’s probably better to make the change now. 

No food updates today, but because it’s the weekend, making or baking food is bound to happen!  Stay tuned.

I’ve never had tuna casserole before, until I met Glen (my fiance). I was at his house and his mom had made tuna noodle casserole and I thought the idea was kind of weird. One, because I’ve never had any type of casserole in my life (thank my mom for not making mostly Filipino dinners) and I’ve only had tuna in a sandwich. Yes, I probably sound pretty sheltered huh? Anyway, once I had my first bite of tuna casserole I absolutely loved it. The flavors of the cream of mushroom soup and tuna together was excellent and I knew I had to find out how she made it.

I didn’t have to go crazy finding out how to make it because, it’s a Campbells Soup recipe! It’s pretty easy too but requires ingredients you probably have to go to the grocery and buy, unless you have a lot of cans of tuna, curly egg pasta, cream of mushroom soup, milk and breadcrumbs.

There are several recipes and variations of making tuna noodle casserole, even using cream of celery soup, which I don’t know if the flavors are much different or not.

I used this recipe, except I only put 1 cup of peas (2 looked like way too much) and made more breadcrumb topping because it’s a really yummy touch to it! (I added about 6 tablespoons of breadcrumbs and 3 tablespoons for butter)

Here is the result, I was kind of anxious (and hungry) so you’ll see I already got started eating it.

Glen said it tasted the same way his mom makes it (except it was creamier). As the casserole sits though (out of the oven), the creaminess gets thicker, which is good. Tuna noodle casserole is also good the next day, and we definitely had enough to bring to work for lunch tomorrow!

I’ve never really cooked, or baked. At all. Living at home with a mom who did all the cooking and baking, I never stood a chance since she owned her own take out restaurant and catered. You’d think I’d rub off her a little bit growing up? Not really. Now that I live on my own, I’ve been forced to learn how to cook my own meals for myself and my fiance. I don’t mind it though, because one day, I’ll have to cook for more than just myself and my fiance, but a family. We’re getting married in a few months and planning a wedding is bananas! Balancing work, wedding planning, and life is sure a task.

I also realized how much I like to cook and bake, and take pictures. With my iPhone, I tend to take pictures (and video) of the food I eat and I figured that I should share it with the world. I love finding recipes and of course, eating! I’m pretty excited to try out a new baking challenge (for me, that is) this weekend. Stay tuned!