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!

Lots of Pork!

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!

Happy Birthday to my Mom!

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 Tart, 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

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

Key Lime Pie

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!