Bad Food Blogger

I have been a very bad food blogger the last couple of days! I only have one picture from Tuesday, and it is my lunch. I had a Cedarlane Eggplant moussaka. It was pretty good for a frozen dish but not as good as other moussaka I've had before. I think it needed some feta cheese on top to make it better!After lunch I babysat for the rest of the day. When I got home it was just my mom, me, and no food in the house so we went to Qudoba where I got a steak quesadilla. It was pretty delicious and I ate half, and will probably eat the other half for lunch today. After dinner I went with Maggie and Rachel to see My Sister's Keeper. I have to say that I was very very disappointed in this movie! It started out so good, but they cut out the entire character of the guardian ad litem, didn't concentrate hardly at all on the trial, the brother didn't set any fires, and the worst part was they changed the ending- a lot!!! ahhhh it is so frustrating how much they change books when they make them into movies!

Anyways yesterday I tried to make up for the lack of pictures from Tuesday. My day started with a delicious juice of pineapple, peach and cucumber.
Then we waited and waited and waited for my sister to get ready before heading out to lunch at Lion and Bull, the restaurant she works at. I got the Portabella Sandwich which was really good!
And on the side I got the best onion rings ever! They were black and tan onion rings and you could really taste the beer in the background, unlike many other beer battered onion rings. They were so good!
After lunch we headed to Leesburg to shop at the outlets. We had a Cinnabon break when we were about halfway though shopping. There are no Cinnabon's at any of the malls we normally shop at, so when we find Cinnabon we don't turn it down. It was delicious- it reminds me of my childhood, back when Manassas mall was not so ghetto!
After we finished shopping our bags took up quite a bit of space in the back of the car. You can't even see half of the bags that are behind these ones.
And before heading home we stopped at Panera for dinner. I got the strawberry poppyseed salad, which was massive and I only ate about half of it. But it was soooo good!
Now I'm off to do some laundry and find some food. I'm heading to Richmond tomorrow for a wedding this weekend. I'm staying at Maggie's so I'll prob be blogging per usual (which has not been so usual over the summer but maybe once I get back in Richmond I'll be back in my groove!)

Puppy Play Date!

I hope everyone is having a great day! Charlotte had a very fun and exhausting day playing around with Corbin!

Last night for dinner my mom made a chicken casserole. This is like one of the only ways I eat chicken.
Wild Rice Chicken Casserole

6 ¼ ounce package quick-cooking, long grain and wild rice
1 cup cooked, chopped chicken
1 cup finely chopped celery
1 ¼ cups finely chopped onion
1 cup light mayonnaise
10 ¾ ounce can condensed cream of mushroom soup
paprika

1. Preheat oven to 325°
2. Cook rice according to package directions
3. Combine rice with chopped chicken, celery and onion
4. Place in a 8 by 8 baking pan
5. Stir mayonnaise and cream of mushroom soup together and spread over chicken mixture.
6. Bake covered for 1 hour, uncover for last 5-10 min of baking and top with paprika if desired

Last night after dinner we watched the movie Seven Pounds. I have been wanting to watch this movie for a while, there has just always been other movies I wanted to see more. If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it, it was so good but so sad!

This morning I had a lovely breakfast of Vanilla Chobini with coconut cranberry granola.
Then I lounged around and wasted time online. I was about to go out to the pool when Maggie texted me that she was up in Manassas. So I quickly showered and made lunch so we could take our puppies to the dog park! Lunch was some bunny butts with tomatoes!
And I made some juice to take with me- apple, orange, carrots, beet, and ginger! It was delicious
Charlotte spent her time at the dog park sniffing everything, sitting in the shade, and not playing.Corbin on the other hand spent his time playing with me and Maggie, sniffing everything, and sitting in the little kiddie pools. hahaha our dogs are so social!
After the dog park we brought the dogs back to my house to let them play in the pool. They were like totally different dogs, they started chasing each other around and we ended up putting them both on a float in the pool where they both ended up in the water totally wet. All this excitement has really worn out Charlotte though, she is now fast asleep on the couch!

For dinner my mom made spaghetti and I was able to convince her to leave some sauce out sans the hamburger that she puts in. I had some spaghetti along with a roll and green beans.
After dinner my sister and I went to starbucks where I got an iced Apple Chai! yummmm!
And we left some Operation Beautiful notes around Gainesville! If you haven't heard of Operation Beautiful check it out!
Now we are watching some Clive Own movie and I have no idea what is going on because I haven't really been paying attention so I guess I better go figure out what I've missed!

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!