Muddy Buddys!

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!

Happy 4th of July!

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!

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!

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

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!