Tabbyliciousness

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cupcakes

2011-06-19T15:02:00.007-04:00

I made these cupcakes a while back but haven't had time to post them until now! There are only 2 days of school left then no more work until next school year! Expect some more posts of delicious baked goods over the summer!

I had been dreaming about peanut butter cupcakes and finally got around to making them! I love peanut butter and chocolate but I do not like chocolate cake. Almost every peanut butter cup cupcake that I have ever seen has chocolate cake and peanut butter icing. So I decided to take matters into my own hands!

Unfortunately I didn't make up my own recipe for the cupcakes. I used this recipe from All Recipes only I think I added a little more peanut butter and I used evaporated milk because I never have milk on hand. Keep an eye out though because I am making a peanut butter cake later this week and plan on changing it up a little so maybe you will see an original Peanut Butter Cake Recipe soon!

So after baking the cupcakes I cored the middle and filled with chocolate ganache. Honestly I can't remember what I did for it some proportion of good quality chocolate and milk or cream and maybe butter depending on the mood I was in when I made them. This is why I should update my blog right after I make something instead of months later. The important part is that I filled a condiment squirt bottle with the ganache and filled the cored out centers with ganache.

Then came the hard decision. Chocolate icing would make the most sense but I couldn't deny the fabulousness of peanut butter icing. So I decided I didn't need to pick and would swirl them together.

I essentially used this recipe from All Recipes for the peanut butter icing but I do remember adding more sugar and PB until I got a good consistency. But I didn't measure it so I have no idea how much! And for the chocolate I used the chocolate buttercream on the back of the Hershey Coco powder box.Then I used a spatula and put the chocolate on one side of the bag and the peanut butter on the other. I thoroughly researched this on lots of other blogs and websites to figure out how best to do the swirl. Basically just scrape one of the icings along one side of the bag and the other icing along the other side. Then make sure you squeeze evenly on both sides so that you get equal amounts of both icings.

They turned out so cute! Almost too cute to eat but not quite!

Back from the Dead!

2011-02-27T00:10:00.005-05:00

So I know it has been a long long time!! I got a job, moved into an awesome apartment, got a cat, and have been crazy busy! And although I know I won't be able to blog all the time like I was doing before I am going to try and post when I make something super awesome. Like today,

Say hello to the awesomeness of Vanilla Chai Cupcakes with a Honey Chai Buttercream. I needed to make cupcakes for our staff meeting on Monday but really didn't feel like going to the store. I came across a couple chai cupcake recipes and came up with my own version. I think a cream cheese icing would be really good on these too- kind of like a kicked up spice cake! I just didn't have any cream cheese and was really not going to the store! I made mini cupcakes because I needed more and didn't have enough butter to double the recipe! These are really moist and yummy and taste just like chai. Don't skip infusing the chai with the milk because that is really what kicks them up a notch.

Vanilla Chai Cupcakes

1/2 cup milk
2 vanilla chai tea bags
1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups flour (I used a mix of cake flour and all purpose just because I had both)
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

1. Put the milk and tea bags in a saucepan and bring to a boil. (Note: If you have a gas stove don't dangle the string with the tag over the side of the pan. That is a great way to catch the tag on fire. After one teeny tiny fire and a new pot of milk and tea bags I decided to take the string and tag off!)
2. After it comes to a boil turn off the stove and let the tea seep for a bit in the milk while you start on the cupcakes.
3. Cream the butter until its nice and fluffy.
4. Add in the sugar and mix it for a bit until its fluffy
5. Add the vanilla and then the eggs one at a time.
6. Sift together the flour, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg into a separate bowl. (Note: You could also add in some cardamon but I just didn't have any to put in)
7. Alternately add a bit of the flour mixture and the chai infused milk to the creamed sugar and butter mix
8. Taste and adjust the spices if you want!
9. Combine the vinegar and baking soda in a separate bowl and once its all done fizzing add it into the mix
10. Bake at 325 for 15 minutes (This is for mini cupcakes- if you want normal sized cupcakes they might need to bake a little longer)

Honey Chai Buttercream

3 tbls butter
1/3 cup shortening (You could use 1 stick of butter but I only had 3 tbls of butter left so I improvised)
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 tbls milk
3 tbls honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp ginger

1. Cream the butter and shortening together
2. Add in everything else and mix for a while until it gets really smooth and fluffy

If I had thought enough ahead I would probably have done 3/4 cup of milk with 3 tea bags when I did the cupcakes and saved the rest to add into the icing. But I didn't think ahead and I didn't feel like taking the extra work for only a few tablespoons of milk. But I am sure that it would have been even better if I had done that.

I'm Alive!!!

2009-10-04T10:18:00.003-04:00

I am super sorry that I haven't updated in the last month or so. I am alive and I have every intention of keeping this blog going, its just been on a little unplanned hiatus while I'm student teaching. I am at the elementary school and commuting to or from the school for 10-12 hours a day depending on traffic. When I get home I have to grade papers, write lesson plans, and write reflections on my lessons even though all I want to do is crash and sleep! This is my last week fully teaching first grade and then the next week is my phase out week before I move up to fifth grade. So if you bear with me through this week I will try so hard to do a real update next weekend because I won't have so much stuff to do!!

Strawberry Oikos Review

2009-08-29T15:24:00.001-04:00

Well I have been trying to thoroughly enjoy the last few days of summer without stressing out too much about starting student teaching on Monday. It is really not working, I wanted to spend the last couple days soaking up the sun by the pool but its been cloudy and rainy! Luckily Thursday wasn’t rainy so we were able to grill some shrimp and asparagus. I marinated the shrimp in a Basil Shrimp recipe from AllRecipes. The only thing I did different was use dijon mustard instead of brown and I marinated them for close to 4 hours instead of just one.

My dad is the grill master

My dog of course spends her time out on the deck near the food.

The cat was down by the pool- this is the closest to the pool I have ever seen her!

While the shrimp were cooking we went down and picked some tomatoes

These really aren’t the best tomatoes but we have a bunch right now so we will probably eat them! Of course being distracted by the tomatoes caused the shrimp to get a tad over cooked- but they were still delicious! I would definitely use this recipe again.

Dessert was suppose to be a triple berry pie from Wegman’s but somehow I picked up a blueberry pie instead. Oh well it was still good!

Breakfast yesterday was of course some Oikos courtesy of the awesome people at Stonyfield. I busted out the strawberry one to try first.

I like that it is the fruit on the bottom kind of yogurt.

My opinion? I love it! The yogurt itself has a great taste to it, and I think I could even eat the plain kind actually plain without adding honey or fruit preserves to it. But the strawberries are good too! The thickness is kind of in between Chobini and Fage and I kind of wonder if the plain or vanilla would be thicker because it doesn’t have the fruit on the bottom. I think I will bust out the plain one next so I can see. The downside to the Oikos- they don’t carry it at Gaint which is the closest grocery store to my house. I love Wegmans but I find myself at Giant most of the time just because it is super close and that is where we go to grab something real quick- which seems to be most of our grocery shopping. Giant does have Chobini and Fage so I will probably still buy those most of the time unless Giant starts carrying Oikos. Also in grocery store related news- my school that I am student teaching at is super close to Whole Foods so I might end up stopping by there on the way home to pick up some groceries so I suppose I might get some Oikos from there too!

On to lunch! It was just some leftover pasta from the other night that I ate while frantically trying to finish the Time Travelers Wife.

Then I continued my lazy day with a cup of spiced tea (it is a blend of instant tea, lemonaid mix, tang, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves that my mom makes) which I drank while taking a fabulous bubble bath.

Dinner was another Rachael Ray recipe- Butternut Bowties. I saw her making this on her talk show the other day and knew I had to try it. It turned out pretty amazingly! I love butternut squash ravioli and this was kind of like that but much easier than making your own ravioli!

For dessert we headed over to Chilis. I ordered a white chocolate lava cake that I had high expectations for, it was suppose to be a white chocolate molten cake covered with a berry sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. What I got was a mini bundt cake filled with white chocolate sauce topped with vanilla ice cream so it looked like a molten cake with the tiniest drizzle of strawberry sauce around the side. I was highly dissapointed. (I also forgot my camera so this is a crappy cell phone picture)

I slept in today and skipped breakfast- I am going to die next week having to get up between 6 and 7 every day. For lunch I had some leftover butternut bowties with some added goat cheese. Basically whenever I have leftover pasta that gets dried out I just add some goat cheese because it melts in and makes the pasta creamy again!

Tonight I am babysitting- I wish I hadn’t said I would babysit on my last Saturday night before student teaching because I really wanted to go out and see the Time Travelers Wife since I finally finished the book- but I need the money and maybe I can convince my mom to go tomorrow afternoon to see it with me! Also you might have noticed that the entries are formatted a little differently- that is because I am now using Windows Live Writer. I’ve played with a couple different ways to try to do tags and I was just about to give up but I think I figured out how to do them! If anyone else uses Windows Live and has any other suggestions for me let me know- I especially want to know if there is a way to center all the pictures.

Stonyfield Fairy

2009-08-27T16:18:00.002-04:00

The Stonyfield fairy paid me a visit yesterday! So some of you may know that a couple weeks ago was the Healthy Living Summit in Boston. I wasn’t able to go and during that weekend I tweeted (follow me on twitter!) about how I was sad that I wasn’t in Boston at the Summit. Well lo and behold Kristina at Stonyfield, who sponsored the Summit, saw my tweet and sent me coupons for free Oikos- which is their greek yogurt, a way cool reusable bag, a magnet with nutrition facts for their products, a Food Inc flier, coupons for other Stonyfield products, and a really sweet handwritten note- I love that Kristina took the time to actually write something to me instead of just printing out a generic typed up letter! Anyways I am super excited because this is the first product I have been sent to review on my blog (or sent free coupons for because it is hard to ship yogurt!). So of course when I finished babysitting I went to Wegmans to get some Oikos!

But before we get to today lets back up to yesterday.

I dug into the freezer and found some Amy’s cheese pizza snacks to heat up for lunch. I’m trying to use up all my oven heated things because starting next week lunch will have to be heated up in the microwave in the teachers lounge.

While I waited for them to heat up I had some Sargento string cheese because I was starving.

I ate them with a little Buitoni pesto. Buitoni is probably my favorite premade pesto. These were delicious! They are like bagle bites only better! I love these, especially with the pesto. The best part is this was only half the box, there is still another serving in the freezer!

Dinner was a recipe courtesy Rachael Ray- Veggie Not-sanga. I pretty much followed her recipe except I left out the roasted red peppers because they are not my most favorite thing. It is basically lots of veggies, ricotta, and pasta! It is delicious!

On to today! Today was my last day babysitting, well for these kids I am babysitting on Saturday for someone else. I had an Apple Pie larabar on the way to babysitting.

They live right by Wegman’s so I stopped there on the way back to use my Stonyfield coupons! I also picked up some sushi for lunch- BBQ Philly Roll- it was pretty much amazing.

And I got an Honest Tea that I busted out as soon as I got back in my car- it was pearfect. No I’m not being corny it was named Pearfect White Tea and it was pearfect hahaha

And look at all the Stonyfield stuff I got- free Oikos, a plain, vanilla, strawberry, blueberry, and honey. I also had coupons for some money off other Stonyfield products so I picked up some of their normal yogurt and yogurt smoothies. I’m pretty stoked about the smoothies because they will be perfect to take in the car with me on the commute in to student teaching.

I haven’t tried any of them yet but I will do a full review on everything as I try them! Hope everyone has a great day!

Technorati Tags: oikos,stonyfield,greek yogurt,amys,buitoni,pesto,sargento,string cheese,rachael ray,pasta,honest tea,sushi

Lemon Raspberry Pineapple Sorbet

2009-08-26T12:57:00.002-04:00

This is my last week of summer before I start student teaching next week, so I am enjoying every minute of this last week and relaxing as much as I can! I finally have not only a school but also grades and teachers. I am going to be in first and fifth grade. I am excited about first but I am dreading fifth! I want to teach kindergarten, first, or second grade- I like the little kids not older ones. I’m glad that I have first grade first so I can get myself adjusted to student teaching and get my unit plan out of the way. Hopefully that will make my fifth grade placement a little less overwhelming.

Anyways onto the food! Sunday night when I got back from Richmond I went with my parents to Mimis Cafe. We started out with some bread to share.

And for dinner I had some delicious citrus broiled shrimpies! They had a delicious creamy pesto sauce on top that was so amazing! It came with some asparagus and a small salad. It was the perfect size meal and came with lots of yummy veggies. I love Mimis for exactly this reason- they don’t overload you on food and their sides are actually veggies that I want to eat.

Of course the perfectly sized meal leaves you room for one of their petite desserts! I got a raspberry moose which I’ve had before and is delicious. It is such a hard decision choosing between the raspberry, lemon, or chocolate moose.

I’ve been attempting to fight off the beginnings of a cold, so I dosed up on Nyquil and slept forever! I woke up just in time for lunch. I made a sandwich that looks delicious but wasn’t quite as good as it looks because most of the veggies were at that almost gone bad but not quiet so I used them anyway and they just didn’t taste that great.

For dinner I met up with my friend Janelle at Del Rio, a Mexican restaurant in Leesburg before we went to bible study! I got a combo that came with 2 beef tacos, a cheese enchilada, and a pork tamale. It was all delicious but way too much food and I probably ate a little over half of it.

Janelle got a spinach enchilada with a sour cream sauce! It looked delicious as well and I think that if I go again I might try that!

After dinner we met up with the other girls for small group at Panera! I am so excited that I have finally found a good small group to get involved in up here. There are two of my friends from Intervarsity at VCU and Janelle who I have known forever from church growing up, Young Life, and she was involved with Intervarsity at CNU so I ran into her at conferences and camp over the past 5 years. There are also several girls that I don’t know and I can’t wait to get to know all of them better and spend some quality God studying time!

Tuesday morning I willingly drug myself out of bed at 7:30 in the morning so I could attempt to figure out how long it would take me to get to my school during rush hour and the best way to get there. It only took me about 40 minutes, which isn’t bad at all! I drove one way there and one way back and definitely saw way more traffic going the opposite direction on the way back (the way I would be going to the school). While I was driving I ate a Chocolate Macaroon Larabar- this is probably the best flavor larabar ever. I need to buy a whole box of just this kind.

When I got home I made some very disappointing juice. We were out of apples and I found one lone peach in the fruit basket. I juiced the peach along with carrots, a beet, and ginger. The peach was not really good and that made the juice not very good but I drank it anyways.

Then I headed over to my mom’s classroom to help her set it up. We quickly realized that it was almost lunch time so we ordered from Z Pizza aka my favorite place to order pizza from up here. Not only do they have the best pizzas ever, they now have their rustica pizza’s back which they use to have and then got rid of them but now they are back! The pear and gorgonzola one is so delicious and just the perfect size for one person.

We had to make a $20 minumum delivery fee so we added in chocolate chip cookies! These were so delicious, thin and gooey and amazing!

After doing some work in her classroom, we went to the grocery store and bought lots of yummy stuff to make the rest of the week, so be excited I will try to update my blog lots this week. While at the store I bought some sparkling water so I could make my own sparkling tea, since I’m getting kind of tired of the same flavor and the new berry flavor isn’t at the stores up here yet. So I came home and brewed some peach tea.

Then added some sparkling water. It was okay, I should have added honey to it before I added the sparkling water because it was hard to stir it into the class. I usually like my tea unsweetened or only with a little sweetness in it but I think the sparkling tea needs more sweetness so it can be more like soda.

For dinner I was going to make some pasta but then I realized that we are having pasta tonight (it was tomorrow yesterday haha) and later in the week, so I just threw what I was going to put on my pasta in a bowl. I tossed some diced tomatoes from our garden with some pesto sauce, zapped it in the microwave for about 30 seconds and then tossed in some goat cheese. It was pretty delicious.

Then for dessert I made something that I’ve been wanting to make for a while- lemon, raspberry, pineapple sorbet! It turned out deliciously!

Lemon Raspberry Pineapple Sorbet

1/2 cup sugar

zest of two lemons

juice of two lemons

2 cups pureed raspberries (I bought frozen raspberries in syrup and pureed those if you use fresh ones or ones that aren’t in syrup I would let them soak in some sugar before you puree them)

20 oz crushed pineapple

1. Make a simple syrup by cooking the sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice over medium heat until the sugar is completly dissolved.

2. Add the pureed raspberries and half the pineapple to the simple syrup.

3. Puree the other half of the pineapple and add it to the mixture.

4. Throw it all in the ice cream maker and let it whirl around until its frozen and delicious!

Anyways it was a delicious way to end a long day yesterday. This morning I woke up and made some juice- I got a big bag off apples at the grocery store yesterday so back to my apple, beet, ginger, carrot juice! And I had some 0% Fage yogurt with pineapple preserves and granola! It was delicious!

Now for most of today I plan on being lazy and catching up on my DVR- I have about a bazillion Top Chef episodes that are begging to be watched! I also want to give a big shout out to my friend Rachel- today is her birthday! She is one of my most loyal readers and is forever getting on my case when I do not update daily. I have known Rachel for forever and our birthday’s are exactly one week apart, she gets to be older than me for one week exactly! She is on a cruise so I don’t know if she will get on the internet to see this today but I’m sure she will see it when she gets back so HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHEL!!!!!!!!!!

End of Wedding Season

2009-08-23T13:11:00.001-04:00

Well as you have noticed all summer I’ve been running back and forth between Haymarket and Richmond for various things, including lots of weddings! I’m about to head home from the last wedding of the summer and this is my last trip to Richmond in the immediate future (not counting having to come down for a student teaching orientation because thats just for a couple hours). Its sad that I don’t have any immediate plans to see my friends down here, they will just have to come up and visit me!

Anyways- Thursday night I headed over to Sara’s for dinner and Project Runway!

Sara made a hummus kind of dip made from edamame

And a spinach dip in endive leaves

And the most amazing tarts ever- puff pastry, parmesan, onions, goat cheese, tomatoes, basil, and more parmesan! They were so delicious!

And of course it isn’t dinner at Sara’s without a cocktail! Limoncello, sparkling water, blueberries, and mint leaves! Yummy!

Everything together!

And a roasted artichoke salad!

Sara with all her delicious food!

After dinner we started watching 3 hours of Project Runway! It was pretty fierce- I loved the All Star one and I’m glad that Daniel V won- he was always one of my favorites! And I love all the new people on this new season, I was way impressed by all their first designs!

Friday there was mass thunderstorms, so besides a quick run back to campus to pick up a copy of my graduation application that my undergrad advisor had messed up and had to fix I mostly lounged around Maggie’s house with Corbin while she was roadtripping it down to Charlotte to see the Jonas Brothers.

For lunch I had a new Bunny Butts item! Annie’s Cheesy Ravioli, I was pretty impressed with this and would buy it again! Its like Chef Boyardee meets Spaghettios. Its a cheese ravioli with a spaghettio like tomato sauce. Yes I am a kid at heart- thats why I am going to teach elementary school.

I also snacked on some Haagen Dazs Brown Sugar ice cream- aka the most addicting ice cream ever. The best thing about this ice cream is that it has only 5 ingredients and they are all straight forward things you would expect in ice cream- nothing sketchy about it.

Dinner was an Annie Chun’s Noodle Bowl- I didn’t bother taking a picture because I’m sure everyone knows what they look like by now. I pretty much live off them when I come down to Richmond because the only way to cook things here at Maggie’s is in the microwave!

Saturday was Amy and Nathan’s wedding! Amy is one of my friends from VCU and Nathan is one of my best friend- Ashley’s- brother. In the five years I’ve known Ashley she has been forever trying to marry off her brother to one of her friends and it finally happened! yay!

Of course I took pictures of the food- here are the hors d'oeuvres we had while the bridal party was taking pictures in between the ceremony and the reception. The marinated mushrooms were probably my favorite!

Here was the food at the reception- my favorite thing was they had a make your own pasta thing set up. In front of the pasta they had set up basil, mushrooms, and various other things that I can’t remember, that you could add into your pasta! It was super cute! Also they had chicken which looked like it would probably have been pretty good if you liked chicken.

And there was lots of catching up to do with old roomies and friends!

Me and Kylin!

Ashley, Me, and Courtney! (Ashley is the groom’s sister who succeeded in marrying him off to one of her friends!)

I already miss these ladies!

And what would the wedding be without the cake-

We started off with a tiny piece of chocolate cake

Then noticed that they were cutting another layer that was strawberry so we may have sent Carlos (Courtney’s boyfriend) up to get us some strawberry to try. The strawberry was definitely my favorite, I always forget how much I love strawberry cake!

After the wedding Maggie and I went to hang out with Sara because she was pet sitting!

I want a puggle! This was probably one of the cutest dogs I have ever seen. After hanging out with Sara and the dogs (there were 2 others) for a while Maggie and I headed to the mall to get some food. Maggie wanted the cheap chinese mall food but they were closing so there wasn’t anything left. I wanted a parmesan pretzel because I really wasn’t that hungry from all the food I ate at the wedding but I felt like I needed something. However they were closing too and they couldn’t make me a parmesan pretzel so I had to settle on an already make cinnamon sugar one.

Then Maggie and I proceeded to have a Zac Efron night watching 17 Again and then High School Musical 3. It was pretty fantastic. Now I’m about to go have another Annie Chun’s noodle bowl and then head back to Haymarket. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Baked Tortellini

2009-08-20T16:15:00.002-04:00

Well I am in Richmond at Maggie's for the last time of the summer. :( This week has been crazy trying to get my sister all organized and packed up! On Monday her and her friends did a scavenger hunt around Haymarket and Gainesville that I prepared for them! While they were gone I had a delicious breakfast of a Kashi waffle topped with 0% Fage and pineapple preserves. And of course some apple, beet, carrot, and ginger juice to go along side.

After they came back I tallied up their scores, declared the winner then ate the most delicious sandwich ever- tomato, basil, mozzarella, sprouts, and feta! YUM!!!!
And now that I am writing this blog I am realizing that I never actually ate dinner Monday night! I headed over to Leesburg to a bible study with a friend from VCU who has just moved back up to the area. We met at a Starbucks so I had an Apple Chai but no food food. Anyways the bible study was great and I'm so glad that I found an awesome group of girls nearby to have a bible study with! Also I found out the school that I will be student teaching at, but still no teachers or grade levels. The exciting thing is that in Fairfax they get early release Monday's so Monday's won't be as stressful trying to get from Fairfax to home then to Leesburg!

Tuesday I woke up nice and late and had some bunny butts for lunch. I don't have a picture but they were the Annie's White Cheddar mac and cheese with some tomatoes thrown in from the farmers market! Dinner was my baked tortellini- as requested by my sister for her last meal at home before college!
Baked Tortellini

1 lb tortellini- cooked
1 jar pasta sauce- whatever kind you like the best, this one was Newmans Own Fire Roasted Tomato and Garlic and it worked great!
1 tub mascrapone cheese (an 8-9 oz tub)
1/2 chopped parsley
2 cups feta
fresh mozzarella

1. Stir together the pasta sauce and the mascrapone until the mascrapone is fully incorporated into the pasta sauce
2. Add the parsley and half the feta and stir together
3. Add the cooked tortellini and stir until all the tortellini is coated with sauce
4. Dump everything into a 9x13 pan
5. Top with mozzarella and feta (I also usually add more parsley on top but totally forgot this time!)
6. Bake at 350 for about half an hour until the cheese is all gooey and bubbly!

Wednesday was move in day for Alicia! We stopped on the road and I got Arby's for lunch (the rest of my family got Hardees- so gross!) We also made a brief stop in Richmond to drop my car off at Maggie's since we were only allowed to bring 2 cars for move in day (one was my sister's that is staying down there with her). We helped her set up all her stuff, get her parking pass, and then left! By the time we got back to Richmond it was dinner so I took my parents to Palani Drive! I got another amazing quesadilla- Smoked Gouda and Veggies! I also subbed the rice for some more of that yummy tabouli!

Then I headed over to Maggie's! Today we both got up early and headed to campus. Today is the first day of class and neither one of us are taking classes this semester- I am student teaching and she has to do an internship- yet we both had to go to campus to get all that administrative stuff squared away! I met with both my advisors so I can graduate in December with my bachelors and masters. So now I've turned in my graduate and undergrad graduation applications and I'm all set to graduate! Yay! We met up with Monica for lunch and she swiped us into Shafer for some free food since she is a freshman! There were long lines everywhere so we all just got pizza because it was the shortest line. It was dining hall pizza, nothing to even warrant taking a picture of! However after lunch and my second advising appointment we went to the TT Lounge!
Oh bubble tea I miss you so much! I don't know why there is no boba tea place in Haymarket/Gainesville/ Manassas but there needs to be! I got a coconut milk tea and it was delicious and extra bobay! Now I'm back at Maggie's chillin for a little until I head over to Sara's for the Project Runway season premiere! And she is also making me a fabulous dinner, because as you should all know by now Sara is pretty amazing and always cooks awesome things (look a couple posts back at all the little cakes and everything she made for her birthday party)

6 Month Blogiversary!

2009-08-16T22:04:00.017-04:00

Today is my 6 Month Blogiversary!!! I can't believe I've been blogging for 6 months!
This week has been and will continue to be insanely busy because my sister leaves for her freshman year of college on Wednesday! She is stressing out about all she has to get done before she leaves!She has been putting off doing lots of stuff and has tons of things to get done before that. I've spent all day today helping her finish up scrapbooks that were suppose to be her graduation presents to some of her friends. She also still has to write thank you cards for graduation presents and not to mention laundry and packing. Also tomorrow her and her friends are doing a city wide scavenger hunt before they all leave each other! My brother is also going back to school, but not until Saturday. They actually will be at the same college but freshmen move in is during the week and returning students are on Saturday. And boys don't have near as much stuff to do and pack as girls do- I doubt he has even thought about packing things yet!

Anyways we got some of our first tomatoes this week! They are mortgage lifters? Last year we grew a bunch of different tomatoes but they all got blight, so we were going to not grow any this year because the blight can stay in the soil, but my grandpa brought these back from Ohio when we went up for Memorial Day. So we are growing them in big pots instead of actually in the soil to try and avoid the blight. They are looking pretty good and are pretty delicious too!

I made a yummy capreseish salad with the tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, spinach, basil, topped with a balsamic vinaigrette.
And some Amy's chunky tomato bisque alongside!
I was really needing something sweet that night so I dug around in the freezer and found some Vita Brownies that I heated up and topped with some vanilla ice cream and some butterscotch!
The next morning for breakfast I used my neglected for too long juicer to make some juice! We have been out of one or the other ingredient to make juice for a long time and I finally got some apple, carrots, and ginger juice (we didn't have beets). And I finished off the end of the vanilla chobini with the end of the mango granola!

That was kind of my brunch because it was 11:30! After brunch my mom and I headed to Target with my sister to get some last minute college shopping done. We were in there for hours and by the time we were leaving I was starving. So I headed over to the grocery side (we have a Super Target which is the most amazing thing ever) and picked up some Vermont White Cheddar Artisan Wheat Things aka crack crackers. They are so addicting.
My mom decided she didn't really like them- she is crazy! So we drove through chick-fil-a so she could get some fries instead and of course we got peach milkshakes as well.
My mom and I did some more shopping, including grocery shopping at Wegmans! By the time we got home it was dinner time! My mom made chicken so for myself I made some Cous Cous! I found a box of Cous Cous at Wegmans that sounded similar to the Moroccan Cous Cous I made a couple months ago. I added some raisins and topped it with feta! I had some of my mom's mandarin orange salad on the side! It was a delicious dinner!

And I finally found Starbucks Ice Cream at Wegmans. I had a coupon for a free pint but they do not have it at Giant, I should have known my beloved Wegmans would have it!

It was pure bliss in an ice cream carton!

The next morning for breakfast I had some 0% Fage with pineapple preserves and apple granola. The one thing they did not have at Wegmans that they have at Giant is the mango granola!!!
Lunch was a delicious tomato, basil, mozzarella sandwich. These are probably my all time favorite sandwiches. We picked up some heirloom tomatoes at the local farm and they are the most amazing tomatoes ever!
I spent the rest of the day working on graduation applications! When I graduate in December I get both my bachelors and my masters because of the way the teaching program I'm in works. So I have to fill out two different forms, meet with two different advisors, etc etc. When we move my sister down to CNU on Wednesday I'm going to go to Richmond afterwards instead of back home. I am going to a wedding on Saturday and didn't feel like driving home and then back down there again (Richmond is in between our house and CNU). So I figured while I was down there I needed to go meet with my advisors to get all my graduation stuff squared away since I won't be able to once I start student teaching. All the paperwork was giving me a headache so I made some tea. I got some peach tea at Wegmans so of course I tried combining the two teas together. It worked out wonderfully and was delicious! Exactly what I was expecting the original one to taste like.

That evening my sister and her friends came over for a bonfire. We had hot dogs with watermelon on the side!
And then of course late we had smores! We have a fire pit in our backyard and usually make smores throughout the whole summer but this was actually the first time- and probably the last too!
This morning I ate a cherry pie larabar on the way to church. This was the last week in church with the whole family :( When I got home I made the best sandwich ever for lunch!
Tomato, basil, mozzarella, feta, and sprouts!! Holy yum!!!!!!!!

And for dinner we had BLTs. We have definitely been eating a lot of these over the summer! Its just the perfect way to eat all these delicious tomatoes!
And then for dessert was a brownie mousse cake!

Brownie Mousse Cakes are infamous in my group of friends in Richmond. It is like my signature dessert and I can't believe in my 6 months of blogging that I haven't made one yet! It is super easy, I could see this being on Semi Homemade with Sandra Lee because you use box brownie mix, can of frosting, and cool whip. All things that I would frown upon when baking many things because I am definitely a made from scratch is always better kind of girl. However this recipe was my absolute favorite dessert that my mom used to make when I was little and although I suppose you could make this more homemade with making your own brownies, icing, and using real whipped cream I never have because it is pretty amazing just the way it is! Also be sure to get the bigger size box of brownies- you know the ones that are made to be cooked in a 9x13 pan not a square pan. I had a coupon for free brownie mix at Wegmans and didn't realize until I went to mix them up that it was the smaller size so the "crust" part is a little thinner in my pictures.

Brownie Mousse Cake

15 oz brownie mix
1 can vanilla or cream cheese frosting
8 oz pkg cream cheese (softened)
12 oz Cool Whip
1 pkg mini chocolate chips

1.Preheat oven according to directions on brownie mix.
2.Grease the bottom of a spring form pan.
3.Follow the directions to make the brownie mix and cook it in the spring form pan
4.After cooking, let completely cool
5.Combine the frosting and cream cheese until smooth
6.Fold in the Cool Whip and about ¾ of the bag of the mini chocolate chips
7.Spread on top of the completely cooled brownie in the spring form pan
8.Top with the rest of the chocolate chips.
9.Refrigerate 3 hours before eating.

Well the rest of this week will be pretty busy helping my sister pack up then heading down to Newport News to move her in on Wedneday, then running around Richmond until Sunday! I'll try to blog in between all the craziness! Hope you guys have a great week and thanks for helping me get to the 6th month point in blogging!

Organized Mess

2009-08-13T18:11:00.002-04:00

Well in my last update I just briefly touched on the weekend so we are going to pick up normal food blogingness on Tuesday night! So there is this BBQ place in Manassas called Hogs on the Hill which my dad and brother are absolutely obsessed with. They closed a couple years ago for remodeling or something that was suppose to be a temporary closing but they never reopened. Every time we go by them we would look to see if they were opened yet, but they never were. We had just about given up on them when my dad and brother drove by this weekend and they had a huge Grand Reopening sign out. So of course they brought home tons of barbecue and we've had several meals with it. Also it is run by an adorable Asian man (yes I know super random but they do make pretty amazing barbecue) and this guy actually recognized my dad, even after being closed for 2 years. They give you the plain pulled pork and both regular and hot bbq sauce for you to mix in to your own meat. So I made a delicious open faced sandwich on 7 Grain bread with a little of both of the sauces! Delicious! I don't know if i I would go far as my dad and brother to say this is the best barbecue ever but it is pretty delicious!
Yesterday was a wonderful day of sleeping in, which was much needed after the little amount of sleep I got in Richmond and babysitting the next morning I came back. So of course I skipped breakfast and went straight to lunch. My mom and I went to the farmers market on the local farm by our house and got some awesome tomatoes so of course my lunch revolved around those. Tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil from my basil plant!! (its still not huge but big enough to take a couple leaves off occasionally for sandwiches like this!), and a little drizzle of balsamic vinegar all on 7 grain bread. It was delicious! The only thing that would have made it better would have been some pesto, but I certainly don't have enough basil on my plant to make any pesto yet and I didn't think to buy any at the store!
For dinner my mom made lasagna. My mom was a stay at home mom and we use to get homemade lasagna and other meals all the time. I always took it for granted until she started working and stopped cooking all these awesome things. She started going back to school when we were all school age and actually graduated from college the same year I graduated high school and started teaching the same year I started college. Since she is a teacher she basically doesn't cook during the school year, which is why when I would come home I would always be able to cook and go to the store. Now that it is summer she has been able to cook more, which I think is one of the biggest reasons I'm not as motivated to update my blog as much. I'm really not getting to cook many meals because my mom is home cooking.

Anyways I can't remember the last time my mom made a lasagna, but it has been so long that I really associate lasagna taste with the frozen Stoffers ones that she would pull out of the freezer when she didn't have time to cook anything else. Needless to say this is 500 times better! I was starving so I got myself a ginormous piece before it cooled enough- thus the lasagna mess all over my plate hahaha. Of course we also had some garlic bread to go with it! It was delicious!
For 'dessert' after dinner I had bought some new tea to try! It was ginger peach green tea and I was super excited to try it.

The verdict? Not that impressed with it, it definitely has a strong ginger flavor but I could not taste any peach in it at all. I will drink the rest of the ones in the packet but I would probably never buy it again. Actually I might buy some normal peach tea and brew them together to get an actual ginger peach flavor, hahaha. If I do that I'll let you know how it turns out.

This morning I ate an Apple Pie larabar in the car on the way to babysitting. When I got home I busted out some more of that lasagna for lunch, I didn't take a picture of it because my camera was upstairs and microwaved lasagna might be delicious but is certainly not pretty because it oozes out everywhere! Much of the rest of the day has been spent organizing the bathroom that I share with my brother and sister who are both leaving next week for college. It was stressing me out and now that I know they will not be here to mess it up I designated all the shelves and drawers for specific things and put post it notes on them so that until they leave they can know what goes where! I'm definitely an organized mess kind of person, things don't have to be spotless, they just have to be where they belong. The best example of this I can give you is that there are random small piles of clothes all over my room. I've got my pjs next to my bed, work out clothes on the floor underneath my laundry bags, and tank tops that I have worn once and might need to wear again before washing hanging on the closet door knob. It might look messy to you but it is where things belong!

So everyone who reads this blog regularly knows how much I am in love with all forms of goat cheese. So head over to Mara's blog for a chance to win some free goat cheese! Yummmmm!

Awesome Friends

2009-08-11T17:47:00.006-04:00

I just want to say that I have the most amazing friends ever. Too bad they are all in Richmond and I'm up in NOVA now! I had a fabulous weekend that ended up being way more busy than I thought. That combined with my camera battery dying left me not being able to update everyone on the excitingness! I won't go into much detail, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. However other unpictured funness included my first ever drag show where one of Maggie's Radio Disney co-workers was performing, the much anticipated Shadow Games Premier at the Byrd (one of my friends has been working on this movie for years and it also stars many of my friends!), and a trip to the James River with the puppies!.

(Maggie cuddling Charlotte who accompanied me to Richmond!)

First up is a newly discovered restaurant called Palani Drive. It is over in the Libbie and Grove area. Maggie and I got a quesadilla which were amazing, however Sara's wrap was really not that great! So I highly recommend going and getting a quesadilla they have a bazillion options, mine was an italian one filled with "gorgonzola cheese, artichoke hearts, tomatoes, mushrooms, and pesto sauce on a wheat tortilla served with hummus and tabouli"
And of course what trip to Richmond would be complete without some Joes! I met up with Grace there for brunch before the Shadow Games premiere. I got a yummy omelet with feta, mushrooms, and tomatoes!
And then Kylin, my old roomie showed up!
After the movie I met up for dinner with Ashley (another old roomie from a different year), Courtney, and Maggie at Casa Grande (another staple throughout my years at VCU). However I deviated from the normal things I get and got nachos which I was highly disappointed in. Just a pile of beef and cheese on top of chips :(

And Sunday of course was Sara's birthday party! She made tons of little cupcakes and petite fours along with candy apples and rum punch. It was Mary Poppins inspired and everything was not only adorable but also delicious! She even made boxes (yes made them) so we could take home goodies with us!

Anyways I had an awesome weekend and am glad that I'm going back in a week and a half for another friend's wedding!

Peach Cobbler

2009-08-07T11:02:00.006-04:00

Well its been an uneventful past couple of days but I am back in Richmond again! After posting on Tuesday I made some yummy pasta for dinner! It was basically a white wine sauce with some gorgonzola, garlic, and diced tomatoes. Then I topped it with goat cheese and basil- a mixture of some basil I had from the store and some from my basil plant! Yay it is big enough to use a little for sprinkling on top of pasta but not quite big enough for much else yet. I would post a picture but I'm in Richmond! My parsley plant on the other hand isn't looking quite as good, hopefully it will perk up soon!
For dessert my mom made one of my all time favorite's- peach cobbler! Holy yum peach cobbler is one of my most favorite desserts ever!
Peach Cobbler
2 cups chopped peaches
2 cups sugar
1 stick butter
3/4 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
3/4 cup milk

1. Preheat the oven to 350
2. Add 1 cup of sugar to the peaches, stir, and set aside
3. Put the butter in an 8 by 8 square baking dish and set in the oven while it is preheating to melt.
4. In a separate bowl combine the other cup of sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, and milk.
5. When the butter is melted pour the mixture over the butter but do not stir.
6. Put the peaches on top and again do not stir
7. Bake for 1 hour- the batter rises up over the peaches and will be brown and crisp when it is done!

Also if you plan on doubling the recipe (which of course we do for a family of 5) then make sure you still use two small square pans and don't just throw it all in a 9 by 13 because it doesn't bake the same and your edges will get burned while the middle is still underdone!

So Wednesday we woke up early to go to the eye doctor to get our eyes checked and me and my sister needed to get some new glasses! I had a Larabar on the way over!
So my eyes are actually getting better! My glasses were way to strong which is why I couldn't see out of them anymore and I was getting a headache when wearing them! Yeah its not really normal for your eyes to get better until you are like 50, but the doctor said it is definitely unusual for someone in their 20s. I don't care if it's normal or not but hopefully this will keep up!

We had an hour to kill while they put the lenses in our glasses so we went to IHOP for lunch because my sister was dying to go. I'm not that big of a fan of IHOP because I go in and they have these ridiculous sugared breakfasts that I can't not try. How can you say no to pineapple upside down pancakes. They were delicious with warm chunks of pineapple in the pancake and a brown sugar rum drizzle over the top.
And they came with hashbrowns, eggs, and bacon.
It was all deliciously unhealthy.

For dinner my mom grilled some ribs. They were okay- not a big fan of food that makes a mess when you eat it, I'm much more a fan of bbq sandwiches. But we saved all the bones for Charlotte, and I brought them down to Richmond with me so Charlotte could share with Corbin! (yes Charlotte came down to Richmond too!)
And yesterday did not start out so great. I thought I had food poising but my mom said she had a similar stomach bug a couple days before so it might just be something that was going around. I spent half the day in bed and I had to cancel my babysitting job. Eventually after sleeping most of it off I was able to get up, eat some soup, then shower and I felt tons better. So I was able to come down to Richmond after all. Today Maggie and I are going to take the puppies to the river. Hope you all have a great start to the weekend!

Muddy Buddys!

2009-08-04T14:58:00.008-04:00

I hope everyone's week has started well! I spent most of yesterday and some of today laying out by the pool in the hot hot weather!

Sunday started off with a bowl of vanilla chobini with some mango granola while I blogged to you about my staycation!
Then for lunch was a slice of leftover Mellow Mushroom pizza (there was only one slice because my dad ate some of it at the restaurant once I was finished) and a slice of a frozen Kashi pizza. I added some goat cheese onto both of them to make them even tastier!
My dad grilled steaks for dinner and we had some squash from a local farm to go along with it.
For dinner we picked up this cake from costco- a sponge cake with a raspberry filling and lemon topping. It was pretty good but I think it needed more raspberry in it, because the filling wasn't very strong and didn't have a lot of flavor.
Yesterday I started the day off with some juice (the usual combo of apple, carrot, beet, and ginger) and a slice of Apple Strudel bread with PB&CO Mighty Maple Peanut Butter. This was probably the most amazing pb toast ever. Yum!!!!!!
For lunch my mom popped in some quesadilla rolls into the oven. I was too busy helping her set up a facebook account to think about taking a picture! Does anyone else's parents have facebook? When my friends parents first started getting facebook I thought it was the weirdest thing ever. I am one of the original facebook users with the mindset that facebook is a college thing, when I signed up you had to have a college e-mail account to get a facebook account. I remember waiting for VCU to be on the approved list of colleges and then once I had a facebook waiting for my friends at smaller schools to have their schools approved by facebook so they could get one! Anyways I've slowly accepted that facebook isn't like that anymore and have started to warm to the idea of others getting it (both older adults and younger high school and middle school kids). Several of my aunts and other friends of the family have facebook, including many old friends of my parents, now have facebook so I've been telling my mom that she should get one so she can catch up and keep in touch with these people. Well she finally gave in and I helped her set it up. I think its great for her and it was really fun going through to find people she knows and add them as friends!

Anyways for dinner, we've had tons of catfish sitting in the freezer that my brother and grandpa have brought back from fishing trips. We finally got around to cooking some of it. My dad insists that the only way to eat it is fried, but my mom and I have been trying to find other things to do with it instead of that. She decided to compromise with him and oven fry it, but we have tons more to try other things with. I was really not a fan, I would much rather try it another way to see if I might actually like catfish cooked differently.

After dinner my sister made some Muddy Buddy's! Muddy Buddys aka puppy chow or garbage are a staple from our childhood. My grandma use to always make them and every now and then we think to make them now. I've made them on many occasions for my friends in Richmond and I think everyone agrees that they are amazing and addicting.
Muddy Buddies

9 cups of your favorite Chex cereal (Corn, Rice and/or Wheat)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup peanut butter
¼ cup (½ stick) butter
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
about 1 ½ cups powdered sugar

1. Add the chocolate chips, peanut butter, and butter in a microwavable bowl
2. Microwave for one minute and stir until smooth (if its not melted enough put it in for 30 seconds at a time until its smooth)
3. Stir in the vanilla
4. Add the chex and stir until they are all evenly coated.
5. Add a small layer of powdered sugar to the bottom of a large tupperwear container (or two medium sized ones)
6. Add the chex mixture and then cover with more powdered sugar.
7. Shake the container until all the chex are covered with powdered sugar.
8. Enjoy!!!

We took our muddy buddy's down to the basement and watched Coraline. I hadn't seen it but I had been wanting too. I really don't know what to say about it, it was very strange and kind of creepy but really good and I would probably watch it again!

I stayed up pretty late finishing the book I was reading (The Little Lady Agency- it was really good, I suggest it if you like chicklit!) so I slept in pretty late today! I skipped breakfast and went straight to lunch- a Portabella gardenburger with provolone, hummus, and tomatoes on a 7 grain bread. It was delicious!
Then I laid out by the pool for a while, but decided it was too hot and came inside to do some yoga instead. Now I'm going to hit the shower and see what my sister is up to, since she doesn't have to work tonight! Hope everyone has a great evening!

No More Staycation

2009-08-02T10:53:00.005-04:00

Well our staycation was fun! We did some hiking, dinner theater, saw some caverns and the natural bridge, and I spent some awesome alone time laying out by the pool while my family went down to the beach ( I am really not a beach person, I love me some Outer Banks but not so much Virginia Beach where they were going).
Staycation started with a fruit pizza that my mom made! I love some fruit pizza, and for some reason this was the first one she had made all summer!

Sunday after church we kicked off staycation with lunch at Desiderio- a new italian restaurant in Gainesville that makes their own mozzarella and pasta! It was delicious! We started out with the bruschetta duo- one was topped with a cheese mixture and one topped with tomatoes marinated in a balsamic mixture. I had half of each and they were both delicious!
For my dinner I got a Seafood Fra’Diavolo which had "Shrimp, mussels, and calamari, tossed in our spicy Fra’Diavolo sauce and served over linguine" It was pretty much amazing! Also the portion sizes weren't as massive as you sometimes get, it was still a little big but not huge which was good!
Of course I sampled everyone elses meals as well. My brother and sister got the ravioli, which was their handmade pasta stuffed with their homemade mozzarella and some parmesan and ricotta. I had high expectations for this and it definitely lived up to that!
My dad got lasagna which was pretty good too, but the sauce needed a little more tomato base to it. However the huge globs of the mozzarella totally made up for it.
My mom got their daily special which was penne in a spicy marinara with fresh local sausage. I'm not a big sausage person but this was really good!
And for dessert we couldn't resist the cannolis . We got mini cannolis- you could pick chocolate or normal shell with chocolate or normal cream inside. Of course I got chocolate chocolate- and it was amazing!
Thursday night we went to the Lazy Susan dinner theater to see their production of Little Shop of Horrors. I started out with their signature cocktail- sans alcohol since my parents don't drink. It was still pineappley and delicious!
For dinner they had a buffet. You couldn't walk around and see what was on the buffet, so not knowing what was at the end I got stuff at the beginning that I wished I had not because they had better stuff at the end. Its safe to say that I definitely did not eat all of this, I just kept finding better things to get! My favorite was probably the mac and cheese, it had a thick layer of just cooked cheese and a little bread crumbs- yumm! When my sister makes stouffers mac and cheese (which is a lot) I usually eat the burnt part around the edges because it is my absolute favorite and she does not like it!
I wasn't going to get any bread until I saw the apple butter, and I can't say no to apple butter!
Yesterday we went hiking at Crabtree falls and on the way back stopped in Charlottesville for dinner. We went to Mellow Mushroom, which I guess is a chain but I've never heard of it. It was really cute and they had tons of stuff on the menu that I would want to eat. I couldn't resist a pizza, but they also had lots of sandwiches, including tons of vegetarian options. My pizza had tomato sauce and pesto, tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, mozzarella, and feta. The whole thing was amazing, but the crust was especially delicious!
Now it is raining so I don't think we will be doing much of anything today, just relaxing and enjoying the last day of our staycation!

Staycation!

2009-07-25T19:42:00.004-04:00

The pool has been calling my name all week and I've been listing to that instead of listing to my computer telling me to blog! Instead of updating you on everything I will tell you a few exciting things from the week and then blog about today!

Most importantly- Tropical Smoothie is now open! That is right Gainesville, VA now has a Tropical Smoothie- it is about time! I saw the Now Open sign on my way to babysitting Thursday morning and of course stopped there to get lunch on the way home. I got my go-to favorite smoothie- a Blimey Limey and a Hummus Veggie sandwich. It was even more amazing than normal because I hadn't had Tropical Smoothie in such a long time. My only complaint is that this one doesn't have the combos. I really wanted the half sandwich and smoothie combo but it all worked out because I just ate the other half of my sandwich for dinner that

Another exciting thing was a find at Giant. PINEAPPLE CHOBINI!?!?! If you know me at all you know I love all things pineapple. I saw this and literally was like Oh My God! Of course I bought some!
Dinner last night was this ginormous salmon. My mom bought it at Costco, thus the ginormousness of it. It didn't look this big in the package but when I pulled it out almost a quarter of it had been folded underneath because it was so big it didn't fit in the package. I saw someone else make Martha Stewarts Salmon with an Herbed Yogurt on their blog last week and so of course I tried it with my salmon. It was delicious. It was also super easy, I highly recommend this, especially if you are trying to impress people and have no time! It is literally greek yogurt, dijon mustard, dill, and parsley smeared on top of the salmon before you pop it in the oven. I loved the yogurt mixture with or without the salmon and found myself picking little pieces that flaked off when I put the leftovers away. Try this immediately!
On the side I had some eggplant that I marinated in balsamic vinegar and herbs. It was delicious too!
For breakfast this morning I busted out the pineapple chobini! It exceeded my expectations and I was very satisfied with it. My only complaint is they don't sell it in the big tubs and only in the single serving containers!
I mixed it with some Bear Naked Mango Almond Agave granola. It was pretty amazing, too bad I showed it to my dad and he sat down and ate half the bag. He loves mango and I knew he would love this granola too. The big chunks of dried mango were perfect with the pineapple yogurt!
Then for lunch I made the most delicious sandwich out of the leftover marinated eggplant, some tomatoes marinated in the leftover balsamic marinade for the eggplant, some fresh basil, vermont cheddar cheese, and a "mayo" that I made of greek yogurt, dijon mustard, and dill (essentially the same as the topping on the salmon only I was out of parsley). It was delicious!
Dinner was not as exciting as lunch was. My parents decided to grill hot dogs and I decided to try a veggie dog. I'm not going to lie I was a little disappointed. I love veggie burgers so I thought I might love veggie dogs, but that was not the case. It wasn't horrible it just wasn't that great. I wouldn't buy them again but I suppose I'll eat the rest of the ones I have in the pack. I much prefer my veggie burgers! To go with that I had some Annie's Mac and Cheese and some cherries.
My family is staycationing this week! We are going to go hiking at a couple places nearby, go to a dinner theater, and do other fun things! I was going to tell you I might not be blogging as usual, but I haven't been blogging as usual so it won't be much of a change! I think once summer is over I'll probably get back into a more regular schedule but right now I choose laying out by the pool and reading over sitting inside in blogging! Until next time I will leave you a picture of Charlotte looking ridiculous. I came in from being out by the pool and found her like this.

VA Beach and Richmond

2009-07-22T00:45:00.006-04:00

Alright so as promised here is my post about the beach and Richmond! We left for the beach around 8 Monday morning and after many pit stops (I drank coffee and have the world's smallest bladder), a lunch stop (a quick chicken salad sandwich from 7-11), and getting lost from our google directions we finally made it there around 1ish! It had been raining off and on during the drive down but had been bright and sunny when we started getting closer to the beach. Of course as soon as we changed into our bathing suites, got sunscreen on, and went out to the beach the clouds rolled in. We were out for maybe an hour and half in the cloudy weather before it started raining. It started drizzling and we endured it but then it started raining harder so my mom and I went up and sat under the covered part of the deck. Eventually it stopped raining but it got cold! I sat outside longer debating about going back down to the beach or changing out of my bathing suite. Eventually I gave into the coldness and went in and changed. I was so glad I had packed a pair of jeans to take to Richmond with me because I definitely did not want to put the shorts and a tank top on that I had been wearing earlier. I went out to my car and dug around in my vera until I found jeans and a non tanktop shirt! Then I wrapped my towel around me and went back out onto the deck so I could at least still see the ocean while I was reading!

Once Emily got off work I headed over to her house and then we went out to get Mexican Food at a Mexican restaurant that I can't remember the name of. I ordered Seafood Chimichangas which were absolutely delicious!
We spent a long time talking over dinner, then went back to her house and hung out more, we even ended up talking in the driveway for a while as I was about to leave. Even though we had seen each other a couple weekends ago at Stephen and Mandy's wedding we really didn't get a chance to catch up as much as we needed to, so we had a lot of stuff to talk about! I hate living so far away from my friends and I feel like I never get to talk to them or see them anymore!

Anyways as soon as I got to Richmond I went with Maggie and some of her friends to Sonic where I got an unpictured limeaid chiller. Other than that it was a pretty laid back night!

This morning we hung out around the house for a while and then took Corbin to the River. We decided to have a picnic lunch there so we stopped at Noodle and Company for food to take to the river with us.

It was pretty good. My noodles had pesto, mushrooms, tomatoes, basil, and parmesan. My only thing was this was something I could have so easily made at home and made it better. So even though it was good I'm not sure how I feel about paying for something that I could make better (but I guess I really couldn't have made it at Maggie's because she doesn't have a working stove). They have three different sections of their menu- Asian, Mediterranean, and American. I think if I were to go back again I would definitely try some of their Asian noodles instead because even though all the Mediterranean ones sound good I think they would all be similar to this and would be something I would rather make at home. Oh and the American noodles really didn't sound very good, except for maybe the macaroni and cheese.

After eating we played with Corbin in the river.
Then we stopped at Baskin Robbins on the way home for ice cream. I got a lemon custard with pineapple toppings- yum!!!!! It has inspired me to make lemon pineapple raspberry ice cream sometime soon (the raspberry because Maggie had ice cream that had raspberry and we both thought it would be good with mine.)
Corbin was so exhausted from all the excitement he immediately slept when we got home.
Later we met up with Sara for sushi at Mai Sushi (they don't have a website). This is probably the best sushi place in Richmond (it is in the Village shopping center by Ukrops for any Richmonders). We use to always go to Akida (which is also really good if you want sushi closer to VCU its on Robinson between Grace and Broad) but one time decided to try Mai because it was so close to Maggie's house and we have been hooked ever since. I started out with some miso soup.
Then I tried something new, a tiger roll.

It had shrimp, cream cheese, and asparagus inside and salmon and avocado on top. It was delicious. Shrimp tempura and philly rolls are usually my go to sushi but this kind of combines both of them together and its healthier because it doesn't have the fried shrimp in it!

After dinner Maggie and I played High School Musical Sing It for quite a while and now I am about to head off to bed! Goodnight everyone!

Sunbutter Review and Aldie Mill

2009-07-21T16:01:00.006-04:00

I've had a very busy last couple of days! We drove down to Virginia Beach yesterday to spend the day at the beach with my cousins who have rented a house for the week. I got to hang out with one of my best friends from VCU who lives down there and then I drove up to Richmond where I currently am at Maggie's house. However I also did fun things on Sunday so I think I'm going to just update on that for now and maybe later tonight I'll do a today and yesterday post!

Sunday started off with some apple, beet, carrot, and ginger juice on the way to church.
I also tried a new product, Sunbutter! I got a free sample in the mail and have been meaning to try it but I always think of it after I've slathered almond butter on something. So I put it on a kashi waffle that I ate in the car on the way to church. My feelings on it? Its not my favorite. It definitely has a sunflower seed taste to it, which I like sunflower seeds and all but I just don't think its a great alternative to peanut/ almond butter. It is a little too salty for my tastes, but its not awful. I think I'll stick to my almond butter and PB&Co Mighty Maple Peanut Butter. What can I say, I like to eat my nut butter on waffles, fruit, and other sweeter things.
For lunch I warmed up some leftover Mac and Cheese. Of course it was dried out because thats what happens to leftover pasta, but I sprinkled some goat cheese on top, zapped it in the microwave, and stirred it up so the goat cheese made it all creamy again. It was pretty delicious!
And I couldn't resist a couple cookies for dessert.
After lunch my family headed over to the Aldie Mill, which is a working old historical mill. They still grind up corn and make cornmeal to feed the animals!

I could have told you what all those things were and exactly what they did if I had updated on Sunday but I can't remember now! After the mill we drove a couple miles up to Middleburg and walked around some of the shops up there. I can't believe we live so close to Middleburg and have never been there before. It is adorable. They have lots of cute little restaurants and shops, it reminds me of Carytown in Richmond. We got ice cream cones at an ice cream shop that was owned by the Middleburg Humane Society and the proceeds go to help all the homeless animals. I love it- whats better than ice cream and helping animals!

We got home and I ran off all that ice cream on the treadmill! Dinner somehow escaped my camera because I ate fast in the middle of packing for the beach/ Richmond. I believe I had a tiny half of a pork chop, half a baked potato, and maybe some zucchini? I'm not entirely sure about that!

For dessert later I made something that has been all over the food blog world. Gena's Raw Banana Soft Serve. Let me tell you right now that you should go ahead and put a couple bananas in your freezer because you are going to want to make this. Are you ready for this secret recipe?
Okay go put 2 bananas in your freezer.
Let them freeze.
Take them out and peel them
Put them in the food processor until they get smoothy and creamy and look like soft serve ice cream
Yes it really is that easy. I had about half, which is one banana. Who wouldn't rather eat banana ice cream instead of just a plain old banana. Throw in some chocolate chips and walnuts and you have your own healthy Chunky Monkey ice cream! Okay so go try that and later I'll update about the beach and Richmond!

Mac and Cheese and Cranberry Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies!

2009-07-18T20:58:00.006-04:00

Look 2 posts in one day! Well don't expect this every day but I had things to update about tonight!

First lunch was pretty awesome! I made a pizza on a rosemary and olive oil wrap. I popped the wrap into the oven to get it toasty and then loaded it up with garlic, tomatoes, leftover veggies from the veggie melts last night, mozzarella, and cheddar cheese! I popped it in the oven then went to do something else and took it out a couple minutes too late. It was a little extra crispy around the edges but other than that it was still good!
After lunch my dad and I went to The Farm at Broad Run- this nearby organic farm that has a farmers market to sell all their produce. It was definitely picked over, you could tell they had lots more this morning, including chicken eggs. I definitely want to go back and get some of their eggs. But for today we got some donut peaches, yellow and red little plum tomatoes, beets, squash, and an eggplant! The peaches were so good, we had never had donut peaches before and the people working at the farm told us to go ahead and try one and they were delicious so of course we got some!

For dinner everyone in my family was doing different things. I was in kind of a bad mood so I decided to make some ultimate comfort food- mac and cheese!
yummm it had cheddar and gorgonzola cheese, tomatoes, and mushrooms of course!
Cheddar Gorgonzola Mac and Cheese
2 teaspoons evoo
2 cups mushrooms sliced
2 bunches green onions
1 cup diced tomatoes (whatever kind you have on hand)
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2/3 cup pinot grigio
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 cup cheddar
1 to 1 1/2 cups gorgonzola
2 1/2 cups macaroni cooked and drained
1/2 cup bread crumbs

1. Preheat the oven to 375
2. Sautee the mushrooms in the olive oil until they are tender
3. Add the green onions, tomatoes, garlic and wine and cook about 5 minutes until the wine reduces some
4. Combine the milk and cornstarch and slowly add it to the sauce stirring so its completely incorporated
5. Bring the mixture to a boil and then add the cheese and stir until all the cheese is melted and smooth
6. Add the macaroni to the sauce mix well and pour into a casserole dish.
7. Sprinkle the bread crumbs on top and cook for about 30 minutes until its warm and bubbly!

After eating dinner I made some cookies, because baking always puts me in a better mood! I've been wanting to make cookies with chocolate covered cranberries ever since my dad got some chocolate covered cranberries at the chocolate store up near my grandparents house. However I've been looking for chocolate covered cranberries and haven't been able to find any around here (well I'm pretty sure they have them at Wegmans I just haven't made it to Wegmans recently). So I decided to make some oatmeal cookies with dried cranberries and chocolate chips instead!
Cranberry Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon orange extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3 cups oats
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350
2. Combine the butter and sugars until fluffy
3. Add the eggs, vanilla, and orange extract and beat until well incorporated
4. Slowly add in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt until everything is well mixed.
5. Stir in the oats, cranberries and chocolate chips
6. Drop onto the cookie sheet and cook for about 10 minutes

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Veggie Melts

2009-07-18T10:49:00.002-04:00

Happy Saturday everyone! I hope everyone is gearing up for an exciting weekend. Yesterday was pretty much a waste of a day, as I did absolutely nothing. The one and only thing I did yesterday was drag my mom out of the house (yes I literally had to drag her) to DSW to get some running shoes. My mom said I exhaust her because I suggested we go to a nearby farmers market on our way back from DSW (like I said I had to drag her out of the house in the first place). Oh well, hopefully today I convince someone to go with me and if not I might just go by myself.

Anyways Thursday night my mom made probably one of the only vegetarian meals she has or will ever willingly make- veggie melts! These are super easy to make and so delicious- even my family who scoff at any meal without meat in it eat them (well my parents do, my brother added chicken to his and my sister doesn't eat veggies).
Veggie Melts
(I'm not putting any amounts down because you can use more of veggies you like, less of things you don't like as much, or just switch the veggies up completely.
onion
bean sprouts
mushrooms (whatever kind you like the best)
green peppers
butter or evoo (whatever you like to sautee in
some kind of bun or hoagie to build the sandwich on
monzerella cheese
parmasean, romano, and/or asiago cheese
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
2. Sautee the onion, sprouts, mushrooms, and green pepper with your butter or evoo until all the veggies are slightly tender.
3. Sprinkle the desired amount of cheese on your bun then top with however many veggies you want.
4. Pop in the oven for about 5 minutes or until your bread is toasted and the cheese is melty.

Anyways, yesterday for breakfast I made a Kashi waffle topped with almond butter and bananas. Yummmm it was delicious! I'm all out of greek yogurt so I see more almond butter centered breakfasts until I get some more yogurt!
Then for lunch my mom heated up some taquitos and miny chimichangas in the oven. I don't know what brand they were or where they came from but they were not that great. It was like a paste inside with meat and cheese all blended together. I prefer the Friday's quesadilla rolls because you can actually see each separate ingredient and they taste so much better!
In between lunch and dinner was when I dragged my mom out to DSW and of course when we got home I had to test out my new running shoes. As you may know our treadmill was broken and my dad recently kind of fixed it. It works but after like 20 minutes it starts to smell like its burning. Oh well I kept going, hopefully I won't kill it. I think once I get my security deposit back for my house in Richmond (which should be any day now) that I'm going to make my dad use that to buy a new treadmill.

Dinner was taco salad and I made a little taco to go alongside. My taco salad had taco meat, an assortment of greens, tomatoes, green onions, cucumber, a few crushed up tortilla chips, and a little ranch dressing. Taco salad is the only salad I like ranch dressing on because it is creamy like sour cream which I can't live without on my mexican food.
This morning I woke up and made juice for breakfast! It was an apple, ginger, 3 carrots, and a beet. It was pretty delicious!
I just finished drinking that while I was writing this and now I have no idea what I'm going to do for the rest of the day but I'm hoping it is more productive then yesterday was!

The Beautiful South Restaurant- Hamilton, VA

2009-07-16T14:46:00.005-04:00

Wow its been a busy and fun last couple of days! We drove out to Harpers Ferry on Tuesday morning and spent the day tubing down the Potomac River. Some of it was flat water that involved lots of paddling with your arms, which was very difficult to do in the tubes we were in, there was no comfortable way to sit and paddle at the same time. When you hit the rapids there was no paddling just hanging on and trying to sit up high enough in the tube that you didn't hit the rocks underneath! All in all it was really fun and if you have any river near you that you can go tubing in I highly recommend it. Its also a great workout because I can feel the burn in my abs (and my neck) and some of my family that came also said their arms were sore from all the paddling.

Anyways on our way back we decided to stop at a restaurant that we saw on the way up called The Beautiful South in Hamilton, VA. I'm not going to lie I did not have high expectations for this restaurant, I was expecting fried chicken and grits. What none of us knew was that they weren't talking about the US South but Southern Europe, their website says "Whether it is the southern region of Italy, France, Germany, or Greece, from where our family originates, the flavor and beauty of those places are captured in our food and atmosphere." Well I was happily surprised by that and their menu that had lots of yummy looking food. I started out with a salad that had their own house made Greek dressing that was really good!
And we ordered some calamari as an appetizer. It was also really good, even though I will forever compare it to 3 Monkey's in Richmond and I don't think I'll ever get any calamari as awesome as theirs!
My main meal was crabcakes. They were delicious, filled with lots of chunks of crab and not a lot of other fillers. They also came with their awesome homemade tarter sauce that was amazing! I ate one of my crab cakes and used the entire thing of tarter sauce with it and then stole my sister's tarter sauce that she didn't eat with her fish and chips to bring home with me to use on the other one!
I also had some of my dad's dish which was a pasta in a seafood cream sauce. It had scallops, shrimp, lobster, and crab. It was really good, and I almost got that for my meal too but I really wasn't feeling the pasta in it. But I'm glad my dad got it so I could steal a few bites!
When we got home I showered and took a quick nap before Harry Potter! Maggie and I got there around 10 and they were already letting us into the theater, which was awesome because we didn't have to sit on the floor in a line outside. Harry Potter was pretty good, there wasn't a lot that really happened in this movie- just a lot of build up for the next one. I haven't read the books but I love the movies, so maybe I should read the book because apparently they left a ton out of this movie. Also I was way more disappointed in the fact that they didn't show a New Moon preview before hand. Maggie and I kept hoping for the next preview to be for New Moon and then the movie started. During Twilight they showed a Harry Potter preview so I think it would only have made sense to show a New Moon one during Harry Potter!

Anyways I got in after 3 am from Harry Potter and passed out until 12:30 Wednesday. For lunch I had my leftover crab cake and then spent most of the day laying out by the pool with my cousins. For dinner my mom made chicken so I made an Amy's bowl! This was my first Amy's bowl and it was really good! I usually am not a big fan of rice but I figured I would try this anyways. I added some green onions and ginger and it was pretty amazing!
Oh and on the side I had some zucchini and squash. It was a very filling meal.
After dinner we waited for my sister to get off work then headed to Manassas to get ice cream at Milwaukee Frozen Custard. Milwaukee is the best ice cream place ever (even though its frozen custard not ice cream). It has become a tradition to go when Stephanie visits. I'm not sure when the first time we took her was but every time since then when she has come down she has asked to go, so of course we always do! They have vanilla, chocolate, and a flavor of the day. Over the years they've gotten other things like italian ice and such but nothing compares to their vanilla frozen custard. The chocolate is good too, but the vanilla has such a unique flavor you just can't resist it. The flavor of the day was cookie and cream so it was just the vanilla and oreo which I got in a chocolate dipped waffle cone. Delicious!!!
After that we wandered around McKay's Used Bookstore which is in the same shopping center. Then we came home and me Alicia, and Stephanie watched the Twilight commentary, I know I've said it before but it is hilarious and every Twilight fan should watch it!

This morning I said goodbye to all the relatives as they headed down to Williamsburg and VA Beach. After they left I made some orange, carrot, cucumber, and ginger juice which was delicious.
And some Vanilla Chobini with cranberry coconut granola.
Then I laid out by the pool for a while before lunch time! For lunch I ate my dad's pasta leftovers (he told me I could eat them I did not steal them!!) I added some garlic and asiago cheese which made them even better!
Then I read for a while before taking a blog break! I think later this evening there will be a grocery store trip and hopefully a DSW trip with my mom! Hope everyone has a great evening!

Sette Pizza Richmond

2009-07-13T23:09:00.003-04:00

I am back at home after my awesome weekend spent in Richmond. This weekend was just what I needed to lift my spirits because I've been kind of down lately living back at home 2 hours away from all my friends that are still in Richmond. I'm going to be at home for the next couple weeks but I'm going to be down in Richmond 3 weekends in August for various events, so at least I have something to look forward too!

Anyways before leaving Richmond Maggie and I went to Sette for lunch. Sette is a fire roasted pizza place downtown at 23rd Street right off Main. I had been dying to try it but never got a chance before moving back home so I dragged Maggie downtown from her West End house to go get pizza. I ordered a Wild Mushroom pizza which had pesto sauce, monzerella, goat cheese, sundried tomatoes, and of course mushrooms. It was delicious and I ate half and brought the other half home! The crust was awesome and there was plenty of goat cheese which in my opinion makes or breaks the pizza. The only thing I would change about the pizza is I wish there was a little more pesto and I think I would like fresh tomatoes instead of sun dried tomatoes. Don't get me wrong I love me some sun dried tomatoes but on a pizza without tomato sauce I need some juicy tomatoes on the top instead of the dried ones!
Maggie got the 4 cheese, which was essentially the same as mine only with red sauce instead of pesto and no mushrooms. Of course we traded pieces so we could try each others. Their sauce was really good and I think I would like my Wild Mushroom pizza with red sauce on one half and pesto on the other and it would be perfect. Maggie liked the red sauce and said she would probably just add mushrooms on hers (she also loved the sundried tomatoes on her pizza and I agree with the tomato sauce the sundried tomatoes are the way to go!)

All in all I loved Sette. I think I would pick it over Bottoms Up because they have really similar kinds of pizzas and personally I thought this pizza was better and cheaper. Its a much smaller place which might make it difficult for large groups, I know that every time I've been to Bottoms Up its been a huge group for someone's birthday or other occasion. But Sette is lesser known so its less crowded and probably has less of a wait time. On a Sunday afternoon there was only one other group of people besides us there so we pretty much had awesome service. If you are in Richmond I think you should probably stop reading this and head over to Sette right now!

After lunch I headed home. There was so much traffic and what is usually a 2 hour trip took me 3 hours. Since I had such a late lunch I really didn't have dinner but instead made some apple, cucumber, and ginger juice (no carrots or beets because we were out but this was pretty good too!) and then later had a piece of toast with PB&Co's Mighty Maple Peanut Butter.

This morning I was scheduled to babysit but when I got to their house the mom told me they had swim lessons she forgot about. So instead of the usual 2 1/2 hours I was only there for 1. I immediately went to Starbucks afterwards for an Iced Apple Chai.
I had to stand in a ridiculously long line for my apple chai, I had no idea so many people were at starbucks at 11 am! While I was waiting in line the mini vanilla scone was calling my name and for only 75 cents I couldn't resist it. It was good but no scone will ever compare to a cranberry orange one!
I got home and finished reading The Tenth Circle by Jodi Piccoult! It was pretty good, not my favorite Jodi Piccoult book but also not quite as sad/ depressing as some of the other ones. For lunch I ate the leftovers of my pizza from Sette, which I didn't take a picture of because I knew it would be posted with the original pizza picture!

After lunch I helped my sister clean her room so my cousin could sleep there when they all came in town later! After they got here we laid out by the pool for a while. It was funny because my cousin is reading the Twilight series for her first time around and is on Eclipse and my sister and I had both kind of started rereading the whole series but had gotten distracted by other books. Since I just finished my Jodi Piccout book I decided that I would pick up Twilight again and my sister did the same thing. So we were all 3 out my the pool reading Twilight books while my mom, uncle, and brother rolled their eyes at us!

For dinner my mom made a roast and baked potatoes. I had a tiny piece of roast and made a baked potato loaded with chives, sour cream, and cheddar as my main meal. With watermelon and green beans on the side.
Tomorrow we are going to Harpers Ferry to go tubing down either the Shenandoah or Potomac river. Its an or because we haven't decided if we are going to go flat water tubing or white water tubing. I think we want to go white water tubing, which is down the Potomac, but we aren't sure how big the rapids are and if my little cousin could do that. So if we think its going to be too intense for him we are going to do the calm or "flat water" as they call it in the Shenandoah. I guess Harpers Ferry is where the two rivers intersect so we can go up there and talk to the people and then decide which one we are going to do.

And after tubing it is the midnight premier of Harry Potter! yay!

Stephen and Mandy's Wedding!!!

2009-07-12T11:42:00.021-04:00

Well I guess I lied when I said I would blog this weekend. I haven't had time to blog until now! I came down Friday afternoon but Maggie was still at work so I sat outside of her house in the gorgeous weather and got on my computer.
Then we hung out and had dinner (Annie Chuns) eventually headed down to the Byrd to see Land of the Lost. It was funny, not my favorite Will Ferral movie but not my least favorite in between. One of those movies that your glad you saw, maybe would watch again if someone else rented it, but wouldn't buy.

Saturday I woke up and headed over to Grace's to get ready for the wedding. She made me some spaghetti which she said I was not allowed to share the recipe for her homemade sauce on the blog.
Then after we were all ready we headed to the church which was like a few blocks away. All my pictures were super blurry from the ceremony because with the flash they were too dark because we weren't close enough but without the flash they were too blurry! Anyways the reception was out in the West End and it was so pretty and so much fun!

Of course I got a picture of the cake- which was delicious!And also a pictures of the groomscake
And all the food!

My plate! I had some of the tortellini and ravioli, caprese salad and of course some lamb!
And wine of course to go with it
Me and the gorgeous bride!
I'm sad that these turned out so blurry, but by this time my camera battery was dying. They say Stephen and Mandy on the M&M's, it was so cute!
And they had a Just Married golf cart to leave in! It was so cute!
After the wedding I headed to Buffalo Wild Wings with a bunch of old friends but managed not to get any pictures because my camera battery was pretty dead at that point. I took more than enough pictures of the wedding to make up for that.

I don't know what the plan for today is but probably hanging around with Maggie for a little before heading back home. I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!

Bad Food Blogger

2009-07-09T11:38:00.005-04:00

I have been a very bad food blogger the last couple of days! I only have one picture from Tuesday, and it is my lunch. I had a Cedarlane Eggplant moussaka. It was pretty good for a frozen dish but not as good as other moussaka I've had before. I think it needed some feta cheese on top to make it better!After lunch I babysat for the rest of the day. When I got home it was just my mom, me, and no food in the house so we went to Qudoba where I got a steak quesadilla. It was pretty delicious and I ate half, and will probably eat the other half for lunch today. After dinner I went with Maggie and Rachel to see My Sister's Keeper. I have to say that I was very very disappointed in this movie! It started out so good, but they cut out the entire character of the guardian ad litem, didn't concentrate hardly at all on the trial, the brother didn't set any fires, and the worst part was they changed the ending- a lot!!! ahhhh it is so frustrating how much they change books when they make them into movies!

Anyways yesterday I tried to make up for the lack of pictures from Tuesday. My day started with a delicious juice of pineapple, peach and cucumber.
Then we waited and waited and waited for my sister to get ready before heading out to lunch at Lion and Bull, the restaurant she works at. I got the Portabella Sandwich which was really good!
And on the side I got the best onion rings ever! They were black and tan onion rings and you could really taste the beer in the background, unlike many other beer battered onion rings. They were so good!
After lunch we headed to Leesburg to shop at the outlets. We had a Cinnabon break when we were about halfway though shopping. There are no Cinnabon's at any of the malls we normally shop at, so when we find Cinnabon we don't turn it down. It was delicious- it reminds me of my childhood, back when Manassas mall was not so ghetto!
After we finished shopping our bags took up quite a bit of space in the back of the car. You can't even see half of the bags that are behind these ones.
And before heading home we stopped at Panera for dinner. I got the strawberry poppyseed salad, which was massive and I only ate about half of it. But it was soooo good!
Now I'm off to do some laundry and find some food. I'm heading to Richmond tomorrow for a wedding this weekend. I'm staying at Maggie's so I'll prob be blogging per usual (which has not been so usual over the summer but maybe once I get back in Richmond I'll be back in my groove!)

Puppy Play Date!

2009-07-06T22:30:00.009-04:00

I hope everyone is having a great day! Charlotte had a very fun and exhausting day playing around with Corbin!

Last night for dinner my mom made a chicken casserole. This is like one of the only ways I eat chicken.
Wild Rice Chicken Casserole

6 ¼ ounce package quick-cooking, long grain and wild rice
1 cup cooked, chopped chicken
1 cup finely chopped celery
1 ¼ cups finely chopped onion
1 cup light mayonnaise
10 ¾ ounce can condensed cream of mushroom soup
paprika

1. Preheat oven to 325°
2. Cook rice according to package directions
3. Combine rice with chopped chicken, celery and onion
4. Place in a 8 by 8 baking pan
5. Stir mayonnaise and cream of mushroom soup together and spread over chicken mixture.
6. Bake covered for 1 hour, uncover for last 5-10 min of baking and top with paprika if desired

Last night after dinner we watched the movie Seven Pounds. I have been wanting to watch this movie for a while, there has just always been other movies I wanted to see more. If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it, it was so good but so sad!

This morning I had a lovely breakfast of Vanilla Chobini with coconut cranberry granola.
Then I lounged around and wasted time online. I was about to go out to the pool when Maggie texted me that she was up in Manassas. So I quickly showered and made lunch so we could take our puppies to the dog park! Lunch was some bunny butts with tomatoes!
And I made some juice to take with me- apple, orange, carrots, beet, and ginger! It was delicious
Charlotte spent her time at the dog park sniffing everything, sitting in the shade, and not playing.Corbin on the other hand spent his time playing with me and Maggie, sniffing everything, and sitting in the little kiddie pools. hahaha our dogs are so social!
After the dog park we brought the dogs back to my house to let them play in the pool. They were like totally different dogs, they started chasing each other around and we ended up putting them both on a float in the pool where they both ended up in the water totally wet. All this excitement has really worn out Charlotte though, she is now fast asleep on the couch!

For dinner my mom made spaghetti and I was able to convince her to leave some sauce out sans the hamburger that she puts in. I had some spaghetti along with a roll and green beans.
After dinner my sister and I went to starbucks where I got an iced Apple Chai! yummmm!
And we left some Operation Beautiful notes around Gainesville! If you haven't heard of Operation Beautiful check it out!
Now we are watching some Clive Own movie and I have no idea what is going on because I haven't really been paying attention so I guess I better go figure out what I've missed!

Happy 4th of July!

2009-07-05T15:24:00.012-04:00

I hope everyone had a fabulous 4th of July! My family and I ended up spending the day in DC for the first time ever! I've lived in Northern VA my entire life and have never gone to see the national fireworks.

Anyways backing up to Friday! I started off with Kashi waffle topped with some vanilla chobini
And of course some juice! Apple, Beet, Carrot, and Ginger!
Then later for lunch, a wrap with eggplant, spinach, tomatoes, hummus, cheddar and swiss cheese.
After lunch I finally fixed my blog layout! It took forever but I finally got my 3 columns! To celebrate I snacked on some strawberry banana fruit crisps!
And some cinnamon raisin wheat bread with maple PB& Co peanut butter.
For dinner my mom made a quiche!

And then for dessert a triple berry pie with a streusel topping.
And of course I topped mine with some vanilla ice cream! It was delicious!
For 4th of July I started my day with another juice! Orange, carrot, and ginger. Yummmm!
Then I made myself a wrap for dinner and we started packing up food to bring with us! We quickly ate lunch before heading out! I had an Annie Chun's Peanut Sesame bowl
Once we got into DC we immediately set ourselves up on the mall and then went to explore the folk festival that was set up. We bought some spiced almonds and pecans and then later got some fried plantains that escaped the camera.
Then my sister and I played several rounds of hangman- you have to love our word choices.And we took tons of pictures! Here is my sister, me, and my dad! My mom and brother spent most of the day reading and not paying attention to us!Eventually we busted out dinner, the rest of my family had fried chicken but I stuck to a wrap with a veggie burger, spinach, tomatoes, cheddar, and hummus!
Then it was fireworks time!After the fireworks we walked up 2 metro stations so that we could get on before everyone else and not have to wait in the mass crowds of people for the metro. It worked out pretty amazingly and we had no problem getting back home!

Today I wasn't feeling that great so when I woke up I had some Wolfgang Puck Butternut Squash soup for lunch. It was delicious!

I really haven't done much today except lounging around because I'm not feeling great, and that is probably what I will continue to do for the rest of the day!

Oh and I almost forgot! Check out Danica's blog for a change to win some Amazing Grass!

Breville Juice Fountain Plus!

2009-07-02T20:01:00.006-04:00

Well from the title of this blog I bet you can guess what finally came in the mail for me today!
My juicer yay! This morning my mom, sister, and I went out and about shopping around Manassas. We were mostly picking up a part for my sister's car and browsing for dorm stuff for my sister. They ended up getting nothing except the car part and I ended up with presents for a friend's wedding in a couple weeks and more picture frames! We then stopped for lunch at Taco Bell, which I haven't been to in forever. It was good, but not great, probably not worth all the grease and fat that I'm sure were in there. When we came home I spotted the big box on the front steps and immediately tore it open! Of course at the grocery store yesterday I stalked up on some apples and beets in anticipation of my juicer coming. My first juice was made of an apple, a beet, and a bunch of little baby carrots- which I discovered are dangerous in the juicer because they fly back out!
Ahhhhh this is so amazing I don't know how I lived without this! This juicer was supposedly used but I think it was probably used one time. It works amazingly, came with the original box and instruction manual and even the little product registration form. The price sticker on the box was from Bed Bath and Beyond for $150 and I got it on e-bay for $27 plus about $20 for shipping- what a deal!!!!!!!!! Anyways the Breville Juice Fountain Plus has an 850 Watt Motor and two speed settings. Softer things, like watermelon or blueberries, use the low setting while harder fruits, like apples and carrots, use the high setting. And if you are in doubt about the setting there is a little guide in the book that lists a bunch of fruit and veggies and the settings that you should use! The juicer boasts that it can fit a whole apple in its feeding shoot and of course I tested that claim. My apple fit, but it was a very tight fit and it was a pretty normal sized apple. I think any slightly larger apple wouldn't fit, but cutting an apple in half is not that difficult to do. The best part of this juicer is how fast it is. I put that apple in and almost immediately the entire thing was juiced. There is no waiting around for all the juice to drip out, it is instantaneous. It also comes with the juice container which comes with a froth separator, so when you pour your juice you have just juice! And cleaning it is pretty easy too, you can put everything straight into the dishwasher but I knew I would be using it again later today so I just hand washed everything. Everything rinses off really easily except the actual blade/ strainer part, but it comes with a little brush that cleans it off pretty easily. All in all I was super impressed and highly recommend a Breville if you are looking for a juicer.

Anyways after my juicing excitement I took my dog to the dog park for her to play! This was her second time there and she still isn't really use to it. She is much more interested in sniffing the ground and smelling everything than playing with the other dogs. When I came back I had a snack of a banana with the most awesome peanut butter ever aka PB&Co's Mighty Maple!
Then for dinner my mom made BLT's and we had watermelon on the side- a perfect summer meal!
While chopping up the watermelon I decided I absolutely had to try juicing it because watermelon is so juicy! So once we put dinner away I demonstrated my new juicer to my parents. We juiced the watermelon and tried some of it. Then we decided to add some carrots to it and my dad and I thought it was much better, my mom did not. Then we decided to throw in a random orange that we had hanging around the house. It ended up being a pretty delicious combo- watermelon, carrot, orange juice!
Anyways I'm sure tonight will end much like last night,
Homemade ice cream sandwich with homemade cookies- yumm! I'm not really sure what our plans are for tomorrow and 4th of July, but everyone is off work so we are maybe going to DC for the fireworks!

HTML is killing me!

2009-07-01T21:06:00.004-04:00

It has been a whirlwind past couple of days. Filled with lots of green monsters to go on the way to babysitting.
And snacks before/ during/ or after. Freeze dried apples
And real apples, with cheddar!
On Monday I worked just in the morning so I roasted up some egg plant for lunch when I came home and made a wrap with the eggplant, tomatoes, parsley, cheddar and swiss and microwaved it until the cheese was gooey.
For dinner I had my first raw pasta experience!!!!!!! I don't have a spiralizer so I used my box grater on the side closest to a "pasta" to grate half a zucchini.

Then I mixed up a sauce based very loosely on this Raw Tahini Pad Thai Recipe. I really have no idea what I put in it, it was things that I had and I kept adding spices and tasting it until it tasted good. I then dumped it all onto my "pasta" but too late realized that it was entirely too much sauce. I would have grated up more zucchini except I only managed to steal half of one before my mom cooked them all. So all in all I think I like the raw pasta but this sauce wasn't my favorite thing and I'm excited to try it again with other sauces (I am dying to put some pesto on it!).
Oh I also had some potato salad and watermelon (with a very few blueberries on the side because they got dropped all over the floor and the dog promptly ate them all.)Yesterday was excited because I found my Mighty Maple Peanut Butter & Co peanut butter at Giant!!!!!!! When I got home I immediately had a spoonful. I also stalked up on apples and beats because my juicer should be here tomorrow! yay!
My sister and brother went to lunch at Lion & Bull- a new restaurant that just opened in Haymarket and where my sister works. I had been craving calamari so my sister brought some home for me. For dinner I topped a salad with the calamari and had some crab dip. We had extra crab leftover from the weekend so of course we made some crab dip (the recipe was posted when I made it for my sister's graduation party). The calamari was pretty good, it is hard to tell exactly how it is at the restaurant because it had been in the fridge and warmed up in the oven. However nothing compares to the awesomeness that is the calamari at 3 Monkeys in Richmond. I am really missing my Richmond restaurants.
Today I didn't have to work until 3 so I got to sleep in, which was wonderful! For breakfast I had some vanilla Chobini with cranberry coconut granola. It was delicious!
Then I mostly lounged around until lunch. I made an open faced crab sandwich inspired by my favorite dish at Strawberry Street Cafe in Richmond. (seriously this post is making me miss Richmond like crazy!) It was basically toasted bread smeared with crab dip and topped with campari tomatoes.
Then I babysat and came home for a new Annie Chun's to try for dinner! The Korean Sweet Chili bowl. It was amazing, slightly spicy but not too much. This is my new favorite Annie Chun's! I also noticed on the box it has a spice o'meter lol. I don't know if this is a new thing or if I just noticed it lol, but I think its a great idea! I think the medium spicyness like this dish is perfect, less spicy is a little too bland but more spicy is a little too much for me.
After dinner I made cookies. We had a bag of peanut butter chips and my mom has been bugging me to make cookies for a while. They were so good, super chocolaty because I added extra cocoa powder!
Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies
1 1/4 cups butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
1 bag peanut butter chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350
2. Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy
3. Add the eggs and sugar and mix until well combined
4. Add the cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt and mix together
5. Slowly add the flour and then stir in the peanut butter chips.
6. Drop by rounded tablespoons on a cookie sheet and bake for 8 minutes.
7. Cool on wire rack or parchment paper.

So as I said a couple of days ago I've been trying to update the layout of my blog. I've been working and working and cannot get it. Does anyone know anything about html because it is driving me crazy? The things I've been trying to do are make a 3 column layout and tabs at the top that can go to a recipe and about me section. I even downloaded a thing that helped me make the tabs I wanted and gave me an html code but when I put it into my blog it did nothing. And I followed directions on a couple websites for the 3 column layout and I can get my blog to 3 columns but the far right column is at the bottom of the page instead of the top and I have no idea why or what to do to fix it. I don't want to change to a new template because I love the one I have, and most of the 3 column templates that I've tried do weird things to my header. So if you have any advice then please let me know!

Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Fudge Frosting and Strawberry Ice Cream Recipes

2009-06-28T18:21:00.009-04:00

I've been in the process of going through my blog posts and rounding up all my recipes so I can make a recipe section for the blog. I've realized that I really haven't posted a lot of recipes! This is for several reasons, 1) A lot of the things I make don't actually have recipes- it is me throwing a bunch of stuff into a pan and calling it dinner (this is especially true with pasta) 2) I use lots of recipes from other blogs or allrecipes 3) now that I'm living at home again and my mom is off school for the summer she has retaken over her kitchen and is doing more of the cooking than I am and 3) by the time I get around to blogging about it I'm too lazy to look up my recipe or in more recent cases my mom's recipe. Well I'm going to try to change that and I have 3 recipes for you today! My mom's birthday was last week and my grandma's birthday is next week so we had a combined celebration for them today so I have a cake, icing, and ice cream recipe (a birthday is not a birthday in my family without home made ice cream!).

But before we get to that let's back up some! As I mentioned before we brought home an apple pie from Costco. I was very disappointed in it! The slices of apples were way too big and not even close to being cooked enough, even after we cooked the pie even longer in our oven. I think my dad is right in the idea that there will never be a store bought apple pie that comes even close to my mom's homemade apple pie.
Another fun thing that we got at Costco that I didn't write about in my last post was Larabars! I was so excited because I have never seen a huge box of Larabars at Costco before, especially with 3 awesome flavors in it.
Saturday I really wanted a Green Monster for breakfast but everyone else in my house was sleeping, so I didn't want to turn on the blender and wake everyone else up. So instead I settled for a piece of Cinnamon Raisin Toast with PB&Co Cinnamon Raisin Bread.
Then a little later I snacked on some Strawberry Banana Brothers All Natural Fruit Crisps (also from Costco). The Fruit Crisps are essentially freeze dried fruit and I love love love the freeze dried pears and apples, and was so excited to try the new strawberry banana ones. The bananas were really really good, but the strawberries were not at all. They were really tart and just overall not very appetizing. I also saw on the box that they have freeze dried pineapples? I have never seen these things anywhere except Costco in mass bags of apples and pears (and now strawberry banana), but I am going to have to find these pineapples ones because I love all things pineapple.I don't know why this picture is so blurry but this is what the freeze dried strawberries and bananas look like.
Then a disaster happened- our cable and internet went out! Ahhhhh! My dad got on 2 phones calling the Comcast internet people on one line and the cable on the other. The cable people answered first and said they didn't know what was going on and then the internet people came on and said it was "scheduled maintenance that would last for 3 hours." Who schedules maintenance that leaves everyone without cable and internet on a Saturday afternoon?

Anyways the lack of tv and internet certainly helped motivate all of us to get showered and ready unlike we usually do on a Saturday morning/ afternoon! I then went in search of a quick lunch so my dad and I could go shopping for my mom and grandma's birthday presents. I decided on an Amy's Spinach and Feta Pockt
Amy's never fails me!
I actually got called for a last minute babysitting job for parents that ended up getting free Rascall Flatts concert tickets for that night. So after shopping I ended up eating a quick dinner at 5 so I could head over to babysit. I made an egg sandwich with cheddar cheese on oatmeal bread.
I ended up babysitting until midnight and then came straight home and crashed so I could wake up early for church today. I ate an Odwalla Berries GoMega bar on the way to church.
Then after church my grandparents came over for crab legs! Charlotte patiently waited under the table for us to come eat, and hopefully drop some for her.
We like to fill ourselves up with crab so we only had a small salad to go with them.
My first of several bunches of crab!
You should notice that we eat crabs enough to change into 'crab shirts' after ruining many shirts by butter dripping on them.
And for dessert I made a chocolate cake, but ran out of time before babysitting last night to frost it. So my mom frosted it, she said the ice cream was for her and the cake was for grandma. She made my grandma's chocolate fudge frosting, which essentially tastes and is thick like chocolate fudge. It works really well on one layer 9x13 cakes, and we used it on the layered cake but you have to put it on at the right time because it comes out of the pan melty and really spreadable, so it can slide off the cake, but as it sits it starts to 'harden' and gets to be a more fudge like texture.

Chocolate Cake

3/4 cup butter, softened
1 2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/4 cups water

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and grease and flour 2 9 inch pans.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until fully combined.
4. Add the cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, and baking powder and mix well.
5. Add the flour and water a little at a time, alternating between the two until everything is combined well together.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for about 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Chocolate Fudge Frosting

3/4 cup or butter
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup milk
1 1/2 pounds powdered sugar (most boxes are 1 pound)
1 tablespoon vanilla

1. In a saucepan combine the butter, cocoa powder, and milk and bring to a boil.
2. Boil for about a minute (it might look separated but that's okay)
3. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla.
4. If you are frosting a 9x13 cake in the pan just pour it on and spread it out and you are done! It will cool and 'harden.' If you are doing a layered cake you might let it sit a little before you start trying to do the middle and sides of the cake so it doesn't just ooze off as soon as you put it on.

Of course what is a birthday cake with out ice cream to go along side! My dad made the strawberry ice cream last night! We make ice cream for every birthday, my grandpa has the best vanilla ice cream recipe that is delicious all by itself but also is a great base for any kind of ice cream! I'll go ahead and give you guys the vanilla recipe and then you can make just about anything from that!
Papa's Country Vanilla Ice Cream
4 eggs beaten
2 ¼ cups sugar
3 cups whipping cream
6 cups half and half
4 ½ tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt

1.Gradually add and beat sugar to the eggs
2.Beat until mixture is very stiff
3.Add remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly
4.Pour into gallon freezer and freeze as directed

For Fresh Fruit Ice Cream
-Substitute 4 cups puree sweetened fresh fruit or 3-12 oz packages frozen fruit, thawed and mashed for 4 cups of half and half in recipe. Reduce sugar in the recipe to 1 ¾ cups and use only one tsp vanilla.

I am babysitting tomorrow, Tuesday, and Wednesday so it will be a kind of busy next couple of days, I hope everyone has had a great weekend and has a great upcoming week!

Lots of Pork!

2009-06-26T19:46:00.005-04:00

I hope everyone is having a good start to their weekend! Instead of blogging I've been looking at updating my blog format. I was thinking about changing my blog over to WordPress but then I realized you have to have a paid account to edit the html and everything, so back to blogspot I am! With the help of my dad I hope to have a new and improved blog soon, including an about me and recipe section! yay!

So Wednesday night dinner was pork tenderloin in another one of those awesome Kona Coast Marinades, this time it was Sweet and Sour Plum! It was just as delicious as the Island Teryaki! Along with the tenderloin was some watermelon and corn.
Thursday I woke up nice and late and skipped breakfast and went straight to lunch. I made the most delicious salad ever with an assortment of greens, campari tomatoes, green onions, the most delicious salmon ever left over from tuesday, goat cheese, and a little raspberry vinaigrette dressing. This was the best possible way to use this leftover salmon- it was so delicious!!!
After lunch I laid out by the pool for a little with a book. Then I showered and scarfed down a Green Monster before heading out to babysit. I made this Green Monster with watermelon instead of banana. It was pretty delicious but I think would have been good if maybe I did half a banana with the watermelon.
I got home from babysitting just in time for dinner. My mom pulled out some leftover meatballs and made her awesome mashed potato salad, and watermelon.
Mashed Potato Salad
About 6 baking potatoes
1 tbl Butter
1/3 cup Milk
salt and pepper to taste
4 Hard Boiled Eggs
1/3 Mayo or Miracle Whip (add more if needed)
1/2 Small Onion-chopped or 2 bunches of green onions
1 tsp Mustard

Alright these are very generalized measurements. My mom said the real recipe from her mom called for leftover mashed potatoes and she just based everything else on how many mashed potatoes she had. So that being said peel the potatoes and boil them until they are soft. Then mash them with the butter, milk, and add salt and pepper to taste. Then mash in the hardboiled eggs, mayo, onion, and mustard! You can garnish it with slices of hardboiled eggs if you want!

For breakfast this morning I had some cranberry coconut granola with the very last of my 0% Fage. I'm all out of greek yogurt- ahhhh!
In between breakfast and lunch I mostly messed around trying to figure out things for my blog! Then for lunch I made a pizza! I loaded up garlic, green onions, campari tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, goat cheese, and a little asiago, romano, parmesan mix! Yummm it was so delicious!
Then my mom and I went and shopped around Manassas for most of the day! We decided to stop and pick up some bbq on the way home from Old Carolina. We got both the Texas and Carolina style. I ate some of the Carolina kind with a little of the extra Texas sauce on top.

And for dessert later we have an apple pie from Costco that looks delicious!

Also in other news I just won an auction for a Breville Juice Fountain Plus on ebay!!!!! I'm so excited! The auction just ended like a minute ago so I'm going to go pay for it so they can ship it out soon! Feel free to leave your fav fruit/veggie juice combos for me to try out with my new juicer!

Kona Coast Marinade

2009-06-24T18:31:00.008-04:00

I've had a rollercoaster past couple of days, I've been back and forth between being happy and then something happens to put me in an awful mood! My parents decided to grill hot dogs Monday night so I pulled out a Lean Cuisine from the freezer.
I was pleasantly surprised to find way more veggies then the picture on the box showed, usually it is the opposite! However they were pretty tasteless and not exciting. The butternut squash raviolis were amazing but the sauce they were drowning in was not very good. All in all I was not really impressed but it has given me inspiration! Maybe I can find some butternut squash ravioli and make my own sauce and throw in some snow peas and maybe some asparagus. Yumm!
Breakfast yesterday was the last Kashi waffle, the second to last bit of the Fage, and the last of the raspberry sauce from my mom's chocolate birthday tart. It was delicious, that raspberry sauce could make anything taste delicious!
The night before I printed out a bunch of pictures so after breakfast I spent some time taking old pictures out of frames and putting some new ones in. I need a few more frames because I have a couple other pictures I want to put up. I'm glad I've finally gotten my picture frames out and some pictures up in my room because it makes it a little more happy, but it also makes me really miss all my friends in Richmond :(

Lunch was a delicious wrap! It had a Morningstar Mushroom Lovers burger, goat cheese, fresh mozzarella, spinach, and campari tomatoes. Yummmmm!
Then my mom and I went to the grocery store because we were almost out of everything (as you can tell from my breakfast where I used the last of everything!) I've been looking at all the grocery stores up here trying to find the Peanut Butter & Co maple peanut butter but with no luck. I'm going to have to pick up some next time I'm in Richmond. So I finally broke down today to try the Cinnamon Raisin Swirl which is at every store up here and I've heard is good as well. When I got home I put it on some Pepperidge Farm Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread. It was delicious, but I like the maple one better! However this is a good substitute until someone up in the Gainesville/ Haymarket area starts selling it!
To go with my snack I made some delicious iced tea! I made some Celestial Seasonings Raspberry Zinger tea and then mixed it with some Minute Maid pomegranate juice blend. It was delicious!
The other day FoodBuzz's featured ingredient was lavender. Well we have an overabundance of lavender in our garden by our pool so I looked through a bunch of recipes. I decided to try out the Lavender Lemon Soda. It was okay, it wasn't awesome but it wasn't awful and I probably wouldn't make it again.
For dinner my dad grilled some salmon and my mom made her awesome Mandarin Orange Salad. The salad has an assortment of greens, mandarin oranges, sugared almonds, celery, green onions and a homemade dressing. It is so delicious! If I can get the recipe from her I might post it later.
And the salmon was marinated in the best marinade that I have ever tasted that has come out of a can. Kona Coast Paradise Pineapple Teriyaki. This was so delicious and everyone should go out and buy it immediately. It is sweet and tangy and citrusy and amazing.
After dinner my sister and I headed to Manassas to see The Proposal. Ahh it was so cute! I highly recommend it. We came out of the theater to a mass crowd of people waiting to see Transformers at midnight. We fought our way through the crowd to the exit and promptly headed to Wendy's for a Coffee Toffee Twisted Frosty!!!!!!! I was pretty excited because I love frosties, I love almost anything with toffee and I love frapachinos and other frozen coffee things! It was everything I could have wanted and more, but now I think I need to try one with the vanilla frosty instead of the chocolate one!
Breakfast this morning was a slice of cinnamon raisin toast with cinnamon raisin swirl PB Company peanut butter! I thought I took a picture but I guess I didn't, however it looked identical to the one I ate for a snack yesterday so you can just scroll up and look! After breakfast my sister and I watched Confessions of a Shopaholic. The Shopaholic series are my all time favorite books, and even though the movie was not a great representation of the book (hello it is suppose to take place in London and everyone should be British that should have been enough of a warning to me!) I still loved it and it has helped me rediscover my love for those books. I plan on rereading them all now and I'm glad this movie just came out just around the time I was beginning to become all about Twilight and Stephanie Meyer and forgetting about the Shopaholic books and Sophie Kinsella!

Anyways for lunch was more of my cinnamon raisin bread. I made an apple and brie sandwich and it was delicious!
And I had a peach on the side- which was not so delicious, it had like no flavor!
For dinner we are having a pork tenderloin in another Kona Coast marinade which tasted good on my finger so I'm excited to see how it tastes on the pork!

Wasting Time on Ebay

2009-06-22T17:28:00.007-04:00

Well I'm not going to lie, instead of blogging I've been spending all my online time on ebay. I've been bidding on juicers. I thought I was going to win one, but I always get outbid by people bidding way more than I can at the last minute! It is so frustrating, I want a juicer so bad but I really don't have enough money for one right now.

Anyways Saturday some of my relatives that I had just visited in Ohio were at my grandparents house, which is about an hour and a half from us. So we ate some lunch and then headed up to see them! I had some Amy's Soup
This is the first time I tried the Chunky Vegetable and it was delicious as expected, however the Chunky Tomato Bisque is still my favorite (and I think always will be!)
And some egg salad on a slice of soft oatmeal toast!
Once we got up to my grandparents house we decided to head to downtown Martinsburg to check out the local chocolate store, DeFluris. My grandparents buy us chocolate crosses from here every Easter and they are delicious, but we have never actually been in the store. They had lots and lots of delicious looking truffles

I got a Dark Chocolate Raspberry, Peach Brandy, Vermont Maple, Fisher Ridge Wine, a Cape Cod ("white chocolate, tart cranberries and a hint of orange create a wonderful refreshing truffle") to bring home with me! We then walked around downtown Martinsburg for a little, they were having a car show and the streets were blocked off and they had live music and vendors set up everywhere. We walked down to the train station so Braden could look at the old roundhouse because he loves trains! Eventually we made our way back to the cars so we could head back where my grandma had dinner waiting for us! I was planning on saving all my chocolate for later but once we were in the car everyone else decided to try one of their truffles so I pulled out one too. It was the dark chocolate raspberry one.

DELICIOUS! Nothing can compare to a good truffle! While we were in the store you can look through a window into the back where they make the chocolate and I was thinking how fun it would be to work somewhere like that. Can someone please find me a chocolate making job?

When we got back my grandma had a huge dinner for us. I didn't take a picture because we were crammed in, in the dining room and once I sat down I wasn't able to get back up to get the camera! But we had a pot roast cooked with carrots and potatoes (I love carrots cooked with pot roasts, yummm!), tons of fresh fruit and veggies, homemade applesauce (my grandma makes the best!), mac and cheese, and rolls. For dessert she made an angel food cake that is topped with a mixture of coolwhip, cream cheese, and pineapple (she also sometimes makes it with mandarin oranges instead.) Its the perfect light summery cake and was great to finish off that heavy meal with.

For fathers day we headed to Red Lobster after church for my mom's b-day/ fathers day/ my mom got $100 in Red Lobster gift cards from her students on the last day of school lunch. I couldn't decided what I wanted, I knew I wanted coconut shrimp but wasn't really feeling any of the other things they paired it with for the combo things. Then I realized I could order the appetizer version and get another appetizer for the same price as the combos and get the same or possibly more food out of the deal! So I ordered some crab and lobster stuffed mushrooms and my coconut shrimp that comes with the best pina colada type sauce ever!

I ate half of both the mushrooms and the shrimp and ate the other half for dinner! When we got home from lunch I had another truffle, the peach brandy one! Just as good as the others

And my dad got this like homemade twinkie type of thing that had been dipped in chocolate, so of course I tried a piece of that.

It was so nice outside yesterday I grabbed my dog and went for a run. I am so sick of this hot weather, if it would stay in the 70s all summer I would be much happier! I guess I need to move to Maine! I also got my dad to hang up my last shelf in my room and put up my headboard, so then I spent most of the rest of the day cleaning my room some more! It is getting there, I think maybe it will be clean by the time I start student teaching in the fall hahaha.

Today I woke up around 11:30 and skipped breakfast and went straight to lunch at around 12:30 ( I seem to be doing that a lot lately, I am clearly not a morning person like many other food bloggers out there!) I made a grilled cheese quesadilla, with garlic and herb cheddar, goat cheese, campari tomatoes, and spinach on a spinach wrap. It was delicious and the only thing that could have made it better was basil.
I am growing basil, but its not quite ready to eat yet. I planted my basil and parsley a couple weeks ago and its coming along nicely. I've never grown anything from seeds before so I'm pretty excited (I've planted the basil that you buy at the grocery store with the roots and everything and it actually works about 50% of the time haha)

My mom said she was grilling hamburgers for dinner, however she is currently sleeping on the couch so I'm not so sure about that. Either way I'm not having hamburgers so I guess I should go figure out what I'm going to eat for dinner, hope everyone has a great day!

Happy Birthday to my Mom!

2009-06-20T11:40:00.004-04:00

I'm getting really bad at blogging! I think its because I have no set schedule really and so I just put it off because I know I can do it later. During the semester I would blog when I was procrastinating my school work. Now I usually blog at night before bed but a lot of times my camera is downstairs or something that I just am like oh well I'll just do it later. So my mom's birthday was on Thursday and for her birthday I made her a Chocolate Truffle Tar t, a recipe I found online from Fine Living, that has been sitting in my recipe book never made!

I topped it with a raspberry sauce and it was so delicious! This recipe is definitely a keeper! The raspberry sauce was a bag of frozen raspberries thawed in about 1/4 cup of sugar. Then you keep the juice and add enough water to make a cup. You bring the raspberries, juice/water mix, 1/2 cup sugar, and 2 tablespoons cornstarch to a boil. Boil for 1 minute and add a splash of orange extract. Then strain the sauce to get rid of the seeds! Its super easy and fast and delicious!

Yesterday I babysat in the morning. The night before I made a green monster and stuck it in the fridge to grab on my way out the door the next morning. I was very happy that it was still wonderful the next morning. It was some fage 0%, orange juice, a banana, spinach, overloaded spoonful of almond butter, and some of the leftover raspberry sauce from the tart! It was just what I needed to get me through a morning playing with kids!
I had a turkey and swiss sandwich for lunch while I babysat, but was still pretty hungry when I got home. I had made some egg salad the day (hard boiled eggs, mayo, and mustard) before so I topped some wheat thins with the egg salad.
Then for dinner I warmed up some frozen tamales. I threw the box away without thinking so I can't remember what brand they were but they were Spinach and Monetary Jack tamales with a pesto sauce. They were really good and I'll buy them again and take a picture of the box!
Last night was nice and relaxing, I soaked my feet in the foot bath thingy and gave myself a pedicure. I woke up this morning and my throat was killing me. So I had some spiced tea and some toast with almond butter! It was just what I needed!
Now I'm off to go shower and get dressed, yes it is noon but when I woke up at 11:30 I was the first one up in the house! My mom and brother are still sleeping! Once everyone is up and ready we are going up to West Virginia to my grandparents house to visit some of my cousins that are down from Ohio! Hope everyone has a great day!

Rainy, Blah Day

2009-06-17T23:52:00.004-04:00

Today has just been one of those blah days. It has been off and on raining all day, which meant I slept in until almost noon because it was pitch black in my room. I would have slept longer but I knew I needed to get up and go help my mom pack up her classroom. So I got up and picked up some food on the way over there- subway for her and sushi for me. Then I spent several hours helping her move stuff between classrooms because she is switching from teaching 5th grade down to 4th grade so she was moving down to the 4th grade part of the hall. Look at some of the fun stuff my mom got as end of the year gifts,

A huge picnic basket filled with picnic stuff (like plates, bowls, napkins, corn on the cob holders, etc), red lobster gift cards, a box of godiva chocolate along with various other chocolate things, and lots of other cute random things!
The cutest poster ever, its like a little poem and it has candy bars in place of different words. Some of these candy bars I've never heard of!And there were other things from individual students, but those were the main class things. Anyways last night was pretty blah too, salmon for dinner topped with some sort of parsley butter or something that my dad made and corn on the side.
We are seriously running low on food in the house, so we also pulled out some hummus and wheat thins to go with dinner.
And for Charlotte's dinner she got new Rachael Ray puppy food! She got a free sample of Nutrish and loved it!! So I convinced my dad to buy her some because 1) she absolutely loves it 2) it is supposedly healthier for her (i say supposedly because i have no idea what is healthy for dogs to eat and what is not) and 3) it was really only a couple dollars more expensive than the stuff she usually gets! Anyways look how happy she was to get it! If you have a dog you should get them the free sample so they can be as happy as Charlotte!
Anyways today as I said I woke up around noon, so clearly there was no breakfast happening. For myself for lunch I picked up a shrimp tempura roll and a philly roll from Asia Garden on the way to help my mom at her school. I forgot to take a picture because I was so hungry and eating at the school it really didn't occur to me until later. I didn't bring my camera but I could have taken a picture on my phone- oh well!

After I got home from cleaning my mom's classroom I was inspired to work on my own room. I made myself a Green Monster before I attempted to tackle my room! It had blueberry yogurt, a banana, the last of the spinach (about a cup), a splash of orange juice, and some ice cubes. It was delicious!
My room is getting closer to being clean! It is just so hard because I have so much stuff that has accumulated over the years from both Richmond and here at home. I am slowly packing away things I don't need and putting them in a closet downstairs but the problem is there is so much stuff I do need that I can't pack away that I really don't know what to do with! But I am getting there, I got some shelves put up and I am currently working on cleaning out the top of my closets to be able to put stuff up there!

For dinner my mom made shake and bake chicken- gag- so I clearly skipped over that and made a meal of the 'side dishes.' I really wonder what it would take to show my mom that a meal doesn't have to have meat to be a meal. I am far from a vegetarian but the way my family eats is ridiculous, its almost enough to make me want to become a vegetarian. So my mom made Velvetta Mac and Cheese, which I have no idea why she bought when we have healthier and better tasting Annie's in the pantry, but I made do by adding some chopped tomatoes. And alongside that were some sauteed mushrooms and zucchinis.

So we have an abundance of sliced baguettes leftover from my sister's grad party. For the party we used them to make burchetta and to eat with the crab dip. I also made cheesy/ garlic bread to go with dinner one night. Yet we still have more, its like neverending! So tonight I decided to make some bread pudding to use up this bread! Now not only have I never made bread pudding before but I've never really eaten it either. I've had tastes of it from other people, but I would hands down choose a dessert with chocolate or fruit in it before I would pick bread pudding.

Now that being said I searched AllRecipes and settled on this recipe. I read some of the reviews and set the pan inside a 9x13 pan of hot water to make a bath for it. I also cooked it for a lot longer than it was suppose to cook- like prob closer to 40 or 45 min not 25. I then served it topped with the sauce from this bread pudding recipe, because the one I had used didn't have a sauce to go with it. After all was said and done it turned out pretty good. It was a good way to use up some of that leftover bread (and we still have more!!!! ahhhh) but I still would pick cake, pie, ice cream, cobbler, etc over bread pudding. But my mom who loves bread pudding said it was really good and she would want me to make it again, and this is coming from the woman who doesn't believe a dessert is a dessert unless it has chocolate in it. (And I tried to make a chocolate bread pudding and she said no I had to make real bread pudding, I don't understand haha)

I also want to let everyone know of a few fun contests going on!

Maple Peanut Butter is probably my favorite kind of peanut butter ever. So if you want to win some head over to Erin's blog and enter her contest!

Over at An Apple A Day there are several contests going on,
Win some Once Again Nut Butter or Win Some Element Bars or Win Some Earthling Organic Bars

Clean Teeth

2009-06-16T14:19:00.006-04:00

Its been another busy couple of days! Dinner Sunday night was leftovers from Alicia's graduation party. My mom made the mini quiches then one small flat quiche with the leftover quiche mixture so we had that plus deviled eggs, bruschetta, and crab dip.
And some fruit on the side.
Then later for dessert some leftover homemade vanilla ice cream with a homemade chocolate chip cookie warmed up in the microwave so it was all gooey and delicious.Breakfast Monday morning was fruit salad mixed up with some plain 0% Fage- delicious!
I think before lunch I mostly lounged around and caught up on the internet. Then for lunch was more leftovers! A turkey roll from Costco, some meatballs, and carrots,tomatoes, and celery with veggie dip!
After lunch I caught up on my Jon and Kate Plus 8 and The Closer episodes on the dvr while doing some random yoga poses! I wish our treadmill wasn't broken, I really wanted to run while watching everything but the treadmill is dunzo and I've tried to convince my dad to buy a new one about a bazillion times! Dinner was a roast that I put in the crockpot that morning with some garlic, soy sauce, and worcestershire sauce. We have about a bazillion slices of bread leftover from the crab dip and baguette so I made some cheesy bread inspired by the asiago puffs I made for my goodbye party in Richmond. It was about 1/2 cup of parmasaen, asiago, and romano mixture, about 3 tablespoons of mayo, 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic, a teaspoon dried basil, and a teaspoon dried oregano. I mixed it all up, spread it on the bread, and broiled it until the cheese was all melty and gooey. We also had more leftover veggies and veggie dip. It was all very delicious!Then it was time for The Closer (thats why I had to watch it earlier!) and after that I took a nice long relaxing hot bath while reading my book (I'm currently reading 19 minutes by Jodi Piccolt). Then I went to bed early to wake up early for the dentist! For breakfast before the dentist I had some plain 0% Fage with a dollop of lemon curd, I'm sad all the fruit salad is gone and I had none to mix in with it. I need to get more watermelon asap because I really wanted to try making a green monster with it!
The dentist was good, my teeth are perfect no cavities! They didn't even yell at me for not flossing like they usually do and they asked if I had my teeth whitened recently (which I have not) because apparently my teeth are really white?

I got home and was starving so I made a yummy wrap to try out my new garden herb sunshine burgers! My verdict- they were better than the Morningstar Mushroom Lovers but not quite as good as the Morningstar Pizza burgers and Gardenburger Portabella burgers! I would buy these again though.

I put them in a wrap with some garlic aioli, garlic and herb cheddar, spinach, and leftover bruschetta mix (tomatoes, onions, garlic, and basil). I was about to wrap it up when I saw the leftover fresh mozzerella and decided to throw some of that in as well. It was pretty delicious! Then I went to go meet with a family to possibly babysit for, which ended up with me watching them for about 2 and a half hours and she wants me to come back Friday morning so yay for making some money. Now I'm off to eat dinner, hope everyone has a great evening.

Little Sister is Graduated!!!

2009-06-14T17:47:00.006-04:00

My little sister has graduated!!! yay! It has been a super super busy and exhausting last couple of days! Thursday after I blogged last I made a wrap with a Morningstar Mushroom Lovers Veggie Burger, spinach, tomatoes, hummus, and garlic herb cheddar.
I don't even remember what I did the rest of Thursday! I hung out with my cousin and aunt some and I think I helped my sister plan out food and make grocery lists for her party. For dinner I made some pasta. I sauteed up some baby bella mushrooms and then added some garlic a little white wine and milk. Then added some asiago, romano, parmesan mix and a little goat cheese I found in the fridge. Then I stirred in some campari tomatoes and topped it with some more cheese and parsley. It was delicious!

Friday morning I woke up and tried some blueberry Oikos for breakfast. It was pretty good but I think I prefer my Fage and Chobini.
Then my mom and I went to the grocery store with a massive list of everything we needed for my sisters party. When we got back I promptly made a green monster with orange juice, plain 0% Fage, a very ripe banana, and lots and lots of spinach. It was delicious!!!
Then I started cooking! I mixed up dough for chocolate rolled cookies and started chopping tomatoes up for bruschetta Dinner was a quick frozen pizza as I got ready for graduation. I had never had Palermo's before but it was delicious! It came with goat cheese and spinach and I added some mushrooms! Yummm! I ate half the pizza and then remembered to take a picture before putting it away.
Then we set out to graduation. Graduation is at Nissan Pavillion- which is a local concert venue super close to our house. We didn't think graduation would cause as much traffic as a concert but apparently it did. We sat in tons of traffic and saw lots of the seniors getting out of their cars and walking/ running to get there because they were all very late! Finally we got there and found my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousin!

It was suppose to start at 8 but they came on around 8 and said because of the awful traffic they were going to delay it a little, so it was after 8:30 when it started. The speeches were pretty good, their main speaker was the person who runs Meet The Press on NBC. She was pretty good and to the point, but my favorite was the SCA president who said "I have a mouthful to say- that's what she said" and he got the entire mass of people there to crack up laughing. It was pretty amazing. After the speeches we sat through them calling all 622 names. All in all it was probably a little after 11 when it was finally over. Then we spent forever trying to find my sister, who left her cell phone and everything in the car because they weren't allowed to carry anything with them. Once we found her we took lots of pictures! Here is one with me and my little brother and my sister- the last one to finally finish!
Afterwards we quickly ran to Wegman's to pick up the graduation hat cookie cutter because my sister wanted graduation hat shaped cookies! On the way out I found true love
I finally found this new sparkling tea!!! I've been seeing these commercials everywhere and have been dying to try it! I've looked at Wegman's before and at Giant and Harris Teeter and haven't been able to find it anywhere! We were walking to the check out line when I saw the display! I was so excited and my mom just rolled her eyes, but let me tell you this is the most amazing thing ever. It was everything I imagined and more hahaha. The strawberry kiwi flavor is really good and I'm really not even sure what other flavors there are but I want to try all of them!

When we finally got home, after midnight, we cooked some more! My mom and I cooked until 3 am while my brother and dad set up a new table for the deck. My sister came home from her after grad party at about 2:30ish and was very confused to see us all up! Around 3 am when I finished the graduation hat cookies, rest of the bruschetta topping, and deviled eggs I finally went to bed, only to wake up right before 10 am to start cooking again! I decorated the graduation hat cookies, mixed up crab dip, sliced up tons of baguettes for bruschetta and crab dip, and made chocolate chip and chocolate peanut butter chip cookies.

I took a break around 12:30 for lunch. I had a yummy egg sandwich with cheddar cheese on soft oatmeal bread!
Then it was time for the grad party! Here is her pretty cake from costco!
And here are the chocolate chip cookies- recipe from the back of the Nestle Toll House bag- it never fails!
And the graduation hat cookies! The cookies themselves weren't that great tasting I thought- but they sure were pretty! The recipe is from Taste of Home and I subbed out the butterscotch chips for chocolate chips.
And my personal favorite- chocolate peanut butter chip! The recipe is on the back of the Recess Peanut Butter Chips! These cookies are so good and I don't know why I don't make them more often! They are really chocolaty and gooey and delicious!
And here is the dessert side of the table- all the cookies and cake.
And here is the whole table! Except more things kept getting added so not everything got pictured!
Deviled eggs that I made! I think the recipe has been posted before, probably around Easter

And my crab dip! I honestly don't know where I got this recipe- I printed it offline somewhere. It is 1 pound crab, 2 blocks of cream cheese, 8 oz sour cream, 1/4 cup mayo, 1 cup cheddar, 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, dash of worsteshier sauce, some dried mustard (i think about 1/2 teaspoon) and you mix it all up and cook for about 20 min. Then you stir it up and top it with some more cheddar and paprika and cook it for about 15-20 more minutes until the cheese is all gooey and bubbly! I highly recommend it, it is so good!
Well apparently I missed taking pictures of lots of other things! I also made bruschetta I chopped up tomatoes, onion, garlic, and basil and put it on baguette slices, topped it with some fresh mozzarella and popped it in the oven until the cheese was all melty and gooey! We have some leftovers so maybe I'll take pictures of them later because they were so yummy and pretty! And my mom made mini quiches that were super cute and really good! She also made meatballs with grape jelly and spicy ketchup! And we had a fruit bowl and veggie tray! And I think that is it!

This morning I had a cherry pie larabar on the way to church and then came home and laid out/ floated around the pool all day. We had some leftovers from yesterday for lunch and are about to have others for dinner!

Baltimore

2009-06-11T12:10:00.003-04:00

I'm finally back home! It has been a fun and busy last couple of days! I went to Baltimore on Tuesday with my aunt, uncle, and cousin. We walked around the harbor and went to the aquarium. We ate sandwiches before we went into the aquarium and then for dinner we went to the Phillips to Go and ate crabcake sandwiches! They were so delicious- crab cakes are always better in Maryland- lots of crab and little fillers! And it came with utz crab chips. Which are pretty awesome but we never buy because my mom hates bay seasoning! I dipped them in some extra tarter sauce and it was a pretty awesome chip dip for crab chips!
Then yesterday I spent all day shopping at the Hagerstown Outets with my grandma, aunt, and cousin! Between the 4 of us we got quite a lot! My cousin helped show just how much we bought!
My part of all that was stuff from Dress Barn, J Crew, Gap, and Le Gourmet Chef! I forgot to take pictures of the insides of my bags but they were a cute sweater from dress barn (70% off!), shorts and a polo from J Crew (except somehow the polo that I picked up and the one I got in my bag magically changed sizes so my grandma has to go take it back to exchange it for me. I think what happened was when she went to fold it up and put it in the bag there were others on the counter and she picked up the wrong one), 2 shirts and a tank top from gap, and an oven mit that perfectly matches the apron I made a couple years ago (hot pink with black polka dots) from Le Gourmet Chef!
We came home from a long day of shopping for a wonderful crab leg dinner! I stuffed my face full of crab legs!
Now I'm finally back home and exhausted! I slept for forever last night and skipped breakfast this morning. Instead I had some spiced tea since my throat was starting to hurt. Now I'm about to go make some lunch and lay out by the pool! Tomorrow is my sister's graduation and my mom and I will probably be cooking for her grad party on Saturday all day! I hope everyone has a great end of the week!

Cake and Pie!

2009-06-08T16:38:00.006-04:00

I have to make this a quick post because I'm about to leave! Yesterday's birthday plus other things celebration went very good! I started the day off with some toast and almond butter in the car on the way to church.

After church we came home and I quickly scarfed down some bunny butts (original white cheddar plus tomatoes). I almost forgot to take a picture!
After lunch I got to work on decorating the cake. The night before I got it covered with fondant but the rest of the fondant was too sticky to do anything with so I let it chill in the fridge over night. I learned 2 things about fondant- 1) use a normal traditional recipe- I tried to use a buttercream fondant recipe because my mom kept complaining about how she doesn't like fondant so my priority was to find a good tasting one to change her mind, however it ended up being super greasy and just didn't work very well. 2) make sure you have a long rolling pin- our rolling pin was not long enough to roll the fondant over to drape over the cake, i ended up having to do 2 halves and try to blend the seam together. Even though it didn't turn out exactly how I wanted, it was fun and I would definitely do it again with a different fondant recipe!

Pretty soon after I finished the cake my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousin showed up. They grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner and I had a veggie burger. I tried the Mushroom Lovers Morningstar burger. It was okay, much preferred to the hamburgers, but I like the Portabella Gardenburgers a lot better. On the side were some chips and dip and lots of fruit with a yummy dip that my aunt made (well most of those were eaten while we waited for the burgers to cook and not actually on the side haha)Then after dinner was of course dessert! We brought out my cake and my pretty Key Lime Pie!

I just have to say that this was so awesome! I used the Key Lime Pie VII recipe on Allrecipes and it was so delicious. It is super easy (well after you squeeze all the key lime's it is but you could just buy already squeezed key lime juice I suppose and make it really really easy) and super delicious. It had the perfect amount of tangy tartness and had that melt in your mouth creamy texture. I will for sure be making this again- and probably a lemon form of this since my mom does not like lime.

My grandpa loved both his cake and his pie! And also the homemade ice cream that my mom made for him (which I forgot to take a picture of!)

The cake was really good too! I used the Four Egg Yellow Cake recipe also from AllRecipes which I used in my cookie dough cupcakes too. This is my new go to yellow cake recipe, it is rally good! And I used the chocolate buttercream recipe on the back of the Hershey Cocoa box (which is so delicious) and then used this Rolled Buttercream Fondant recipe which tastes good but is super greasy and not stiff enough to do anything with, which is why everything is flat on the cake because this fondant wouldn't hold its shape!
I collapsed in bed pretty early last night and slept until noon today because I was exhausted! I laid out by the pool for about an hour then came in for lunch. Don't judge but I had a very unhealty lunch of chips and dip (soooooo good but so bad for you!) and spaghettios that my brother warmed up

Then I went back out and laid out by the pool/ sat and read on the steps in the water! Now I'm packing up my stuff and I'm going to head up to my grandparent's house for the next couple of days. Tomorrow we are going to go to Baltimore and see the aquarium and the Harbor! I'm so excited because I've never been to Baltimore- we always go to DC to do anything but Baltimore is not that much further away! And then on Wednesday we are going to the Hagerstown outlets, which are right by my grandparents house to go shopping! I'm bringing my computer but my grandparents do not have wireless internet so I'll only be able to post if I can steal a neighbor's internet!

Key Lime Pie

2009-06-06T19:09:00.004-04:00

Today has been another super busy day, but first lets back up to yesterday! Right after posting I made a delicious roast beef grilled cheese. It had roast beef (of course), munster, garlic and herb cheddar, and campari tomatoes all on soft oatmeal bread. yummm
And I had the last chocolate chip cookie for dessert.

Then I made myself some spiced tea because I was really not feeling that great.
I was feeling a little better after my spiced tea so I decided to frost the rest of the cupcakes. I whipped of some chocolate buttercream frosting. I honestly don't even remember what recipe or combos of recipes I used, I was feeling a little better but still not great! It was probably the recipe on the back of the hershey cocoa box! Note the frosting on the front left cupcakes, somehow there was a hole in the side of my bag and after frosting one cupcake I noticed the one next to it looked like that. haha its kind of fun I like it, maybe I'll do some cupcakes like that on purpose later!

Then for dinner we cleaned out the fridge and had leftovers, I had some cous cous and bbq.
And pears on the side.
Then I worked on cleaning my room until bed, I finally have my desk cleared off and my dad is going to put up my shelves tonight! yay!

This morning I had a delicious not so Green Monster! It was some vanilla chobini, a splash of milk (because the greek yogurt is too thick and my mom had no more thin yogurt), a banana, two cups of spinach, and about 1/2 cup of frozen blueberries. It was delicious!
Yesterday I soaked some almonds, so one of the first things I did today was make some of Ani Phyo's Raw Donut Holes! Delicious of course, if you haven't tried making these yet then I highly recommend it! I was able to get my hands on some organic no preservative pineapples and dates and it made a huge difference! They mushed up together and rolled together perfectly!

Then after I finished those it was lunch time, there was not much to eat so I had an Annie Chun's Peanut Noodle Bowl.
Then my mom and I went to Wegman's to get stuff for tomorrow! My aunt, uncle, and cousin are coming in town for my sister's graduation and tomorrow we are having a birthday party for my grandpa/ very belated mother's day. (and possibly father's day and my grandma's birthday but I'm really not sure about that!) Anyways while at Wegman's I got some food from the hot bar to bring home and eat for dinner later. The delicious shrimp that my sister and I usually get, some eggplant thing, and a shrimp roll.
When we got home I made a key lime pie for my grandpa. I squeezed a bazillion key limes by hand so this better be delicious! Tomorrow I'm going to put whipping cream and some lime slices on top and make it all pretty!
Now that the pie is done, I have a cake baking in the oven and I'm eating my delicious Wegman's food! I'm going to frost my cake tonight and cover it in fondant and then depending on how much time I have I'll either decorate it tonight or tomorrow. I'm pretty excited because I'm making fondant for the first time so we will see how it turns out!