Stonyfield Fairy

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

Peach Cobbler

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!

Random Pasta

Today has been almost the same as Monday! I wasn't at all hungry when I woke up at 10:30 so I skipped breakfast. I caught up on facebook and blogs and read some more of my book. Then around noon I ate the rest of my bunny butts from yesterday.
After lunch my sister and I went to Fairfax- again- to pick up the pool pump- again. And of course I stopped at Robuks and got juice! This time I got an apple, beet, carrot, and ginger! It was delicious! My sister got a strawberry banana smoothie and she really liked it- but she said she didn't like my juice :(
Then I came home and finished reading the Pact by Jodi Picoult book. This was my first book by Jodi and it was really good! I need to get My Sister's Keeper next so I can read that before the movie comes out! After I finished my book I started packing for Ohio! I'm so excited! My grandparents are calling it a long weekend but I could very well be gone for a whole week haha. I'm heading up to my grandparents house in West Virginia tomorrow evening and we are heading to Ohio on Friday morning. We are staying until Wednesday and depending on what time we leave they will either bring me all the way back to Haymarket or I will stay at their house and they will bring me back Thursday which will be a whole week! I also didn't realize until yesterday that this is Memorial day weekend so hopefully we won't get stuck in tons of traffic on Friday- we are going the opposite direction of the beach so hopefully everyone else is going to the beach?

For dinner my brother was making chicken so I made my own dinner! I sauteed up some zucchini, squash, and mushrooms for them to eat with their chicken. I took some out and added some onion and garlic, tomatoes, and made a sauce with some white cooking wine (which was not very good but it was all we had because my parents don't drink wine) and some of this manghego sheep milk cheese!
Then I tossed in some leftover spaghetti noodles from last night and topped it with some goat cheese and fresh basil! It was pretty awesome! Pasta made from whatever is around is pretty much the best kind of pasta ever because its always different!
Now I'm watching the American Idol season finale. I haven't watched it at all this season -or any other season- but sometimes watching the finale is interesting. Anyways I decided that I liked Chris because 1- he's a Christian, 2- he actually has a good voice, 3- he looks normal (actually he is pretty gorgeous), and 4- he plays the guitar and piano. And to top all of it he just played a duet with Keith Urban who is hands down my favorite singer ever!

I'm not sure when I'm going up to Ohio tomorrow but I'm not too sure about the internet situation up there so I'm not bringing my computer because I don't want to lug it around if there is no internet! So I might not be updating for a week but I'll post a big update when I get back! I hope everyone has a great memorial day weekend!

Too Hot!!!

So last night I decided to clean instead of bake but clearly I picked the wrong thing. It was 96 degrees today and the gas oven did not help things! Our ac is set to 70 and it is currently 80 in our house and the oven has been off for over 2 hours!

So anyways I started out this morning with a yummy omelet! It had spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, and goat cheddar!!! yummmmm
Then I got to work on writing my final reflection for tutoring. I finished writing that and made some copies of some things for my parent packet and then broke for lunch. I wasn't starving so I just had a little risotto that I pulled out of the freezer yesterday (another freezer find! If I had known I had this food in there I would have waited to go to the grocery store!). It was sundried tomato and mozzarella risotto that I made a while back! It was delicious.
Then for dessert a delicious ice cream sandwich. I think I've decided I like the other ones better. The banana flavor in these is good but I think I prefer it without. Actually I think what would be amazing is if they just had a plain strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla coconut ice cream sandwich. That would be delish!
After lunch I got to work on baking. Since I have no measuring cups I used this glass as my one cup guide!!! I actually found an old disgusting blender that came with out house and poured one full glass of this into it and it was exactly one cup so yay! Then i put that blender far far away because it was really gross.
Then as I was searching for vanilla in my cabinet I discovered a miracle!
I knew I had bought measuring spoons from the dollar section when I bought my hot pink measuring cups! I couldn't find them for the life of me when I was packing up my kitchen stuff but for some reason they were in my cabinet behind all my baking necessities! The only downside to this search was that I had no vanilla so all my cookies had to be sans vanilla.

So first I mixed up my monster cookies! I got nervous about adding the coconut so I baked about half the cookies without the coconut and then added it in to the second half.

Above without coconut and below with it.

I went kind of picture crazy! hahaha so the final verdict is that next time if I add coconut I need to decrease the oats because they were too crumbly, however they were delicious.

So the recipe originally came from my old roommate Vicki, and it is actually her birthday today! The original recipe calls for normal semi sweet choc chips instead of recess pieces but you can really put in whatever you want in monster cookies- m&ms would work too if your not a big peanut butter person.

Monster Cookies
1 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups creamy peanut butter
2 teaspoons baking soda
4 1/2 cups oatmeal
8 oz mini semi sweet chocolate chips
8 oz reeses pieces

Cream together the butter, sugars, and eggs until fluffy. Add the vanilla and peanut butter until its incorporated together. Stir in the oatmeal and baking soda. Then add in your mix ins (choc chips, reeses pieces, m&ms or whatever you want- don't limit yourself to this specific recipe!)

So after baking monster cookies for forever (I only had one cookie sheet!) I started on the White Chocolate Macadamia cookies! White chocolate macadamia are probably my favorite cookie, which is funny because I never make them! I think I've made white chocolate macadamia cookies maybe once in my entire life, but I always get them when I see them somewhere else, especially the ones at Subway! So after searching through All Recipes I settled on White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies IV. Most of the other recipes had brown sugar in them and I really don't think brown sugar belongs in a white chocolate macadamia cookie!

So this recipe was definitely a keeper and exactly what I was looking for!
Some of all of the cookies!
All the sans coconut monster cookies!!
And here are the ones with the coconut!
And the white chocolate macadamia!
Then once the oven was off I took a much needed shower! I have to say I might have been sweating more baking in the 96 degree weather then when I was cleaning yesterday with the ghetto vacuum! Then for dinner I made some pasta. I sauteed up some mushrooms, onions, and garlic and then added some spinach and tomatoes and made a sauce with milk, a little goat cheddar, and asiago.
It was delicious but while I was making it I was thinking I should have skipped cooking tonight because the stove was heating up the kitchen and I was sweating again! I hate hot weather!! The plan for the rest of the night is to finish up my parent packet because tomorrow is church, hanging out with the grandparents, and then nail painting party tomorrow night!

Disney Obsession

Today has been another busy busy day!!!! And I don't have a lot of pictures of food from today so here are some pictures I took last night! Kylin and I watched Beverly Hills Chihuahua and it was super super cute! I think I'm going to have to buy it hahah! Anyways I've been eating lots of unpictured Easter candy but I managed to take a picture of an easter bunny kit kat that I had last night because it was just so cute!!!!I tried to put it on Baby Cat so she looked like she had ears!
She was not impressed!!!
Anyways today was wonderful and I slept in until 11:30!!! So no breakfast for me! After showering and getting dressed I went straight to my leftover tuna pasta for lunch!
Then I went with Maggie to go see 17 Again. Why oh why is Zac Efron so gorgeous??? Besides Zac being awesome the movie was also very cute but I really wanted them to sing at least once. There were so many moments when Zac or Matthew Perry could have broken out into song and it would have been totally appropriate. And there was a point where Zac said we're in this together and I just busted out laughing. Also in other non related disney excitement. Last night Maggie and I decided to tweet at Mitchel Musso (from Hannah Montana) and see who would reply back to first. And he totally replied back to me but not her! I was pretty excited. Yes I promise you I am not 12 years old. Also everyone should follow me on twitter if you don't already.

Anyways after the movie I came back to my house real quick to grab stuff for class. I didn't have anything really to pack for dinner so I grabbed a piece of foccacia bread and brought it with me to 2 hour 40 min class number one.
I was hungry and ate it at the break during psyc. So in between classes I ran down to 7-11 and got a smoked turkey and jack sandwich and then ate it while talking with my group real fast before class. It was okay, not great but not awful for something premade at 7-11. So then in 2 hour and 40 min class number 2 we did our group presentation. I'm so glad thats over with- I feel like the next 2 weeks of the semester are pretty much downhill from here! So yay!

Also in class today I was told that I should bring cookies or something to class since I am the baker of the group. So maybe this weekend I will attempt some cookie making which should be quite fun since I've packed up and taken home all my kitchen stuff. But my kitchen aid is still here and we have 2 cookie sheets that were not mine so I think it can work!

Tornado!!

No there is not actually a tornado but we are under a tornado watch and it is thunderstorming outside! Today has been one of those rainy days where you just don't want to get out of bed! However I drug myself out of bed to go to tutoring this morning even though I just wanted to stay in bed and sleep! I had this cliff nectar bar on the way to the school. It was really good- I love these cliff nectar bars and this dark chocolate walnut was no different!
When I got back to my house after tutoring I was starving! I snacked on a Sargento Vermont White Cheddar Cheese stick while I headed up the other half of my Trader Joes flatbread pizza in the oven.
I ate this and then just chilled out and watched tv for a while. Then I was like why am I sitting down here watching tv when I could be taking a wonderful nap in my bed! So I went upstairs and took an absolutely wonderful nap! Unfortunately I had to wake up and go to my ethics class at 4. I was sitting in class thinking about what I had at home to make for dinner, I am seriously running low on food! Erica said she was making tuna helper and I was like that sounds good I'll make some kind of tuna pasta! So here is my tuna salad pasta!!! (I used the last of my elbow box and then added some bow tie pasta in haha)
I sauteed about 1/3 of an onion and then deglazed the pan with some red wine. Then I added a can of tuna, parmasean, some mustard, and a little sour cream to make it more creamy since once again I don't have milk (I don't drink milk so I really don't buy it, sometimes I fill a water bottle up with milk when I'm at home mostly so I can make pasta lol). Then I added some fresh thyme and dried oregano. yeah it was pretty much any random thing I could find that I thought could work. haha it wasn't the best pasta I've ever made but it was pretty good for what I had to make it with! I ate about half of it and put the rest in the fridge for lunch tomorrow. Then for dessert I had my last coconut ice cream sandwich!
yummm! Now I'm waiting for Kylin to get home and we are going to watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua. I'm pretty excited I've wanted to watch it but nobody would watch it with me! Then it will probably be some yoga and early to bed because I'm pretty tired and I'm not feeling all that great. My allergies have been acting up and although its not as bad as normal I'm pretty congested and my chest and head have been stuffy and achy. Then tomorrow Maggie and I are going to see 17 Again!! hooray- I love me some Zac Efron.

Oh and by the way I really am 22 years old. I just have a love for puppies and High School Musical. And Hannah Montana and all things Disney. ummm this is why I am going to be an Elementary school teacher!

A Bazillion Books!

Today has been busy busy! My mom and I went to the grocery store and bought lots of stuff! We went to Harris Teeter because thats my mom's favorite grocery store- she doesn't like Wegmans can you believe it!!! So I'm a little sad but my sister and I have a Wegmans lunch date planned sometime this week so I know I'll get to go later! So as soon as we got back I started making dinner- Spinach and Mushroom Lasanga Roll Ups with a Gorgonzola Cream Sauce which of course I got from Rachael Ray!!! They were super easy and fun to make! Its basically cremini mushrooms, onion, garlic, spinach, and ricotta on the inside rolled up inside the lasagna noodles and covered with a sauce made from chicken stock, gorgonzola, cream, and I also added tomatoes!
Then you top them with mozzarella and put them under the broiler for a little bit until the cheese is all melty and bubbly! Also they didn't fit in my pan laying down so I stood them up but I do think that it would have been better laying down because the cheese would be all over the shell instead of just on the top.

Yummmmmmm! these were so good and I will definitely be making them again! Me and my dad loved the gorgonzola sauce, I would probably just use this sauce with the tomatoes and put it on pasta and it would be wonderful! However my mom didn't like it so I said next time I would try it with fontina or gruyerecheese for he. Also I added a little parmesan, asiago, and romano mix to the filling and next time I think I would add some of the mozzarella too!

After dinner I spread out the bazillion scholastic books that me and my friends ordered from my mom and sorted them out! And there were definitely a lot! I wish I had taken a picture as they were spread all over the floor but they are all organized in bags now.

Now I'm watching Lost and snacking on a fruit tart that my mom got from Harris Teeter. It was okay, not that great. My mom makes an awesome fruit pizza and it is 500 times better than this.
So just when Lost was starting to make sense they have to do something crazy and confuse me even more! I can't figure out who is dead and who is alive and why the dead people are alive all of a sudden on the island! There are about 5 minutes left so maybe something will make more sense but I seriously doubt it!