HTML is killing me!

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!

Graduation Festivities Begin

Sorry again for the lack of updating! Starting last night was the beginning of a week of graduation festivities for my little sister! Last night was the baccalaureate service, but before we get to that. Wednesday night we had a wonderful dinner. It was suppose to be a pork tenderloin in the crockpot with bbq sauce. However it was so tender that when we tried to cut it, it just shredded apart. So instead we made bbq sandwiches sans the sandwich part! I like it better that way anyways! It was really good, I have no idea what kind of bbq sauce my mom used but it was really good, tangy not smokey- just the way I like it (but usually not the way my parents like it, so I was surprised). On the side were some leftover zucchini and mushrooms.
Yesterday morning I woke up and had a green smoothie for breakfast. This combo was vanilla yogurt, 2 cups spinach, strawberry fruit popsicle, and a handful of mini strawberries. It was really good, I was worried because we were out of bananas and fruit yogurt and the strawberries we had were really not good but the strawberry popsicle makes all the difference!
Then for a quick lunch I had some leftover Moroccan Cous Cous
with a side of this awesome garlic and herb cheddar cheese. Holy cow this is seriously some of the best cheese ever! It is so good!
Then I had plans of making cookie dough cupcakes for after my sister's baccalaureate. I mixed up the cookie dough and rolled up half of it into balls and then was going to make cookies with the other half. However our drawer that holds the cookie sheets has been stuck for about a week. Luckily my dad was working at home and I told him that if he wants cookies he has to get the drawer open. We couldn't see what was stuck so we stuck my camera in the drawer and took a picture and found thisHahahah, my dad somehow got it open and the circle pan was very bent but at least we go the drawer open! So I was able to make these mini chocolate chip cookies- from the recipe on the back of the Toll House chocolate chip bag. This is my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, it never fails.
After my cookie dough balls froze I made some cupcakes. I used this Four Egg Yellow Cake Recipe. The cake itself was really good! I highly recommend this recipe, however the balls were so ginormous that to get any cake in there I had to overfill the cupcake tins, so they kind of overflowed while baking. And I topped them with purple buttercream because my sister's school colors are purple and black. The buttercream was one box of powdered sugar, 1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup shortening, splash of vanilla, and 3 tablespoons of milk. And I also made some chocolate graduation hats to top the cupcakes with. They were so cute! Oh and I almost forgot, I was piping the frosting on and my tip totally just fell out, so I just piped the rest of them through the hole cut in the bottom of the bag, thats why they look kind of ghetto!
For dinner my mom made some tilapia topped with a parmesan herb mixture. I was still busy frosting cupcakes and cleaning the kitchen so I ate mine straight up off the pan.
Then we went to my sister's baccalaureate.
After my sister's baccalaureate service we came home for cupcakes!
She loved the little chocolate graduation hats!
And here is a picture of the inside with the cookie dough filling. It didn't really work as well as I was hoping for. I think if I made these again, which I probably won't, then I would definitely make much smaller cookie dough balls and freeze them overnight. The recipe's that I found online said freeze them for about 2 hours, but that was definitely not enough time.
Now I'm off to go find something for lunch. I hope everyone has a great day!