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!

Kona Coast Marinade

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!

Cake and Pie!

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!

I Hate Season Finales!!!

So first things first, here is a picture of my new haircut! I've been styling it differently every day and I think I decided I like it flipped out a tiny bit but not a lot the best.Anyways my room is still not in order! At least all my clothes are unpacked now so I don't feel like a homeless person when I'm getting dressed in the morning! However the rest of my room is still a hot mess but I'm not worrying about it until after my VRA's tomorrow!

For lunch on Wednesday (I know I've gotten bad at updating without my computer!) I tried some of the Buitoni reserves that I've seen popping up everywhere! I'm really sad because apparently I signed up for the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program right after they sent out these babies! Everyone else except me got them- so I went out and bought some myself because they looked so good! First up was the cheesy ones haha!
Which I topped with Buitoni pesto which is probably my favorite store bought pesto sauce!
And it was so delicious! Super rich and creamy and had an amazing taste. The ricotta cheese made for a great background for the rest of the cheeses and made it super creamy and delicious. I just wish they came in bigger packages because it would take three of these boxes to feed my family. I ate half the box for lunch (the serving size is only 2) and then found myself reaching into the fridge and pulling out one every once in a while for a snack for the next few days haha.
Later in the day I took Charlotte out for a run and made my first Green Smoothie when I got back! It had a banana, a cup of spinach, and a cup of milk. It was surprisingly good! I think it had a little too much banana for me so I would add some other fruit into it next time and I would use yogurt next time instead of milk, because I'm not a fan of milk anyways.
And I also snacked on a small handful of these babies- chocolate covered sunflower seeds. Last week was teacher appreciation week and a student brought these in for my mom and they are delicious!
Then for dinner was making burgers, so I made a yummy Morning Star pizza burger! Topped with smoked cheddar, campari tomatoes, spinach, and sabra roasted garlic hummus!
With a side of juicy watermelon!
For breakfast yesterday I needed a change of pace from the waffles, so I had some Cinnamon Pecan Special K with some Vanilla Chobini. It was delicious!
Then I went to Fairfax to pick up the pump for our pool that was getting fixed so that we can hopefully open the pool up this weekend! While I was out that direction I stopped at Robeks for some juice! I got a G-Snap which was orange, carrot, and ginger! It was so delicious, the ginger just gave it that extra 'snap' haha.

Then I came home for lunch and had this Simply Asia spring vegetable rice noodle soup bowl. I had high hopes because I love Annie Chun's noodle and soup bowls, but this was super disappointing. The broth really didn't have much flavor at all and there weren't that many vegetables in it. It certainly doesn't look anything close to the picture on the box. It was really bland and disappointing- I would not buy it again.
For dinner last night my dad was grilling chicken so I decided to bust out one of my frozen Kashi meals. I went with the Tuscan Veggie Bake. It was okay, not great but not awful. I added goat cheese on the top which improved it immensely. All in all I probably wouldn't buy it again but I would eat it if someone else bought it and it was sitting in the freezer.

I was still hungry after this so I made some toast with Almond butter. I have this oatmeal bread that is surprisingly really good and some Nature's Promise Almond butter which is also surprisingly good. At first I wasn't a fan of the almond butter- this was the only kind they had at Giant, but I think it was just because its not chunky and I really want the almond chunks in it! But as I've continued to eat it its actually got a really good flavor- its just missing some chunks!
After dinner it was time for Grey's. Can I just say how much I hate season finales! Grey's was definitely the worst, Private Practice was also really distressing, and so was Lost and I'm sure Desperate Housewives will be just as bad. I hate cliff hangers and I hate when they kill people off a show (especially when its 2 people!)

Anyways now that thats off my chest! Today I woke up at the wonderful hour of 11:30 and decided to skip breakfast. I'm currently boiling water to try some of the mushroom Buitoni reserve for lunch! I'm heading up to West Virginia this afternoon to go up to my grandparents house. Tomorrow is the VRA in Winchester (which is closer to my grandparents house which is why I'm going up there tonight). I won't be back until tomorrow evening, so I hope everyone has a great Friday!