Sunbutter Review and Aldie Mill

I've had a very busy last couple of days! We drove down to Virginia Beach yesterday to spend the day at the beach with my cousins who have rented a house for the week. I got to hang out with one of my best friends from VCU who lives down there and then I drove up to Richmond where I currently am at Maggie's house. However I also did fun things on Sunday so I think I'm going to just update on that for now and maybe later tonight I'll do a today and yesterday post!

Sunday started off with some apple, beet, carrot, and ginger juice on the way to church.
I also tried a new product, Sunbutter! I got a free sample in the mail and have been meaning to try it but I always think of it after I've slathered almond butter on something. So I put it on a kashi waffle that I ate in the car on the way to church. My feelings on it? Its not my favorite. It definitely has a sunflower seed taste to it, which I like sunflower seeds and all but I just don't think its a great alternative to peanut/ almond butter. It is a little too salty for my tastes, but its not awful. I think I'll stick to my almond butter and PB&Co Mighty Maple Peanut Butter. What can I say, I like to eat my nut butter on waffles, fruit, and other sweeter things.
For lunch I warmed up some leftover Mac and Cheese. Of course it was dried out because thats what happens to leftover pasta, but I sprinkled some goat cheese on top, zapped it in the microwave, and stirred it up so the goat cheese made it all creamy again. It was pretty delicious!
And I couldn't resist a couple cookies for dessert.
After lunch my family headed over to the Aldie Mill, which is a working old historical mill. They still grind up corn and make cornmeal to feed the animals!









I could have told you what all those things were and exactly what they did if I had updated on Sunday but I can't remember now! After the mill we drove a couple miles up to Middleburg and walked around some of the shops up there. I can't believe we live so close to Middleburg and have never been there before. It is adorable. They have lots of cute little restaurants and shops, it reminds me of Carytown in Richmond. We got ice cream cones at an ice cream shop that was owned by the Middleburg Humane Society and the proceeds go to help all the homeless animals. I love it- whats better than ice cream and helping animals!

We got home and I ran off all that ice cream on the treadmill! Dinner somehow escaped my camera because I ate fast in the middle of packing for the beach/ Richmond. I believe I had a tiny half of a pork chop, half a baked potato, and maybe some zucchini? I'm not entirely sure about that!

For dessert later I made something that has been all over the food blog world. Gena's Raw Banana Soft Serve. Let me tell you right now that you should go ahead and put a couple bananas in your freezer because you are going to want to make this. Are you ready for this secret recipe?
Okay go put 2 bananas in your freezer.
Let them freeze.
Take them out and peel them
Put them in the food processor until they get smoothy and creamy and look like soft serve ice cream
Yes it really is that easy. I had about half, which is one banana. Who wouldn't rather eat banana ice cream instead of just a plain old banana. Throw in some chocolate chips and walnuts and you have your own healthy Chunky Monkey ice cream! Okay so go try that and later I'll update about the beach and Richmond!

Mac and Cheese and Cranberry Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies!

Look 2 posts in one day! Well don't expect this every day but I had things to update about tonight!

First lunch was pretty awesome! I made a pizza on a rosemary and olive oil wrap. I popped the wrap into the oven to get it toasty and then loaded it up with garlic, tomatoes, leftover veggies from the veggie melts last night, mozzarella, and cheddar cheese! I popped it in the oven then went to do something else and took it out a couple minutes too late. It was a little extra crispy around the edges but other than that it was still good!
After lunch my dad and I went to The Farm at Broad Run- this nearby organic farm that has a farmers market to sell all their produce. It was definitely picked over, you could tell they had lots more this morning, including chicken eggs. I definitely want to go back and get some of their eggs. But for today we got some donut peaches, yellow and red little plum tomatoes, beets, squash, and an eggplant! The peaches were so good, we had never had donut peaches before and the people working at the farm told us to go ahead and try one and they were delicious so of course we got some!




For dinner everyone in my family was doing different things. I was in kind of a bad mood so I decided to make some ultimate comfort food- mac and cheese!
yummm it had cheddar and gorgonzola cheese, tomatoes, and mushrooms of course!
Cheddar Gorgonzola Mac and Cheese
2 teaspoons evoo
2 cups mushrooms sliced
2 bunches green onions
1 cup diced tomatoes (whatever kind you have on hand)
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2/3 cup pinot grigio
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 cup cheddar
1 to 1 1/2 cups gorgonzola
2 1/2 cups macaroni cooked and drained
1/2 cup bread crumbs

1. Preheat the oven to 375
2. Sautee the mushrooms in the olive oil until they are tender
3. Add the green onions, tomatoes, garlic and wine and cook about 5 minutes until the wine reduces some
4. Combine the milk and cornstarch and slowly add it to the sauce stirring so its completely incorporated
5. Bring the mixture to a boil and then add the cheese and stir until all the cheese is melted and smooth
6. Add the macaroni to the sauce mix well and pour into a casserole dish.
7. Sprinkle the bread crumbs on top and cook for about 30 minutes until its warm and bubbly!

After eating dinner I made some cookies, because baking always puts me in a better mood! I've been wanting to make cookies with chocolate covered cranberries ever since my dad got some chocolate covered cranberries at the chocolate store up near my grandparents house. However I've been looking for chocolate covered cranberries and haven't been able to find any around here (well I'm pretty sure they have them at Wegmans I just haven't made it to Wegmans recently). So I decided to make some oatmeal cookies with dried cranberries and chocolate chips instead!
Cranberry Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon orange extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3 cups oats
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350
2. Combine the butter and sugars until fluffy
3. Add the eggs, vanilla, and orange extract and beat until well incorporated
4. Slowly add in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt until everything is well mixed.
5. Stir in the oats, cranberries and chocolate chips
6. Drop onto the cookie sheet and cook for about 10 minutes

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Veggie Melts

Happy Saturday everyone! I hope everyone is gearing up for an exciting weekend. Yesterday was pretty much a waste of a day, as I did absolutely nothing. The one and only thing I did yesterday was drag my mom out of the house (yes I literally had to drag her) to DSW to get some running shoes. My mom said I exhaust her because I suggested we go to a nearby farmers market on our way back from DSW (like I said I had to drag her out of the house in the first place). Oh well, hopefully today I convince someone to go with me and if not I might just go by myself.

Anyways Thursday night my mom made probably one of the only vegetarian meals she has or will ever willingly make- veggie melts! These are super easy to make and so delicious- even my family who scoff at any meal without meat in it eat them (well my parents do, my brother added chicken to his and my sister doesn't eat veggies).
Veggie Melts
(I'm not putting any amounts down because you can use more of veggies you like, less of things you don't like as much, or just switch the veggies up completely.
onion
bean sprouts
mushrooms (whatever kind you like the best)
green peppers
butter or evoo (whatever you like to sautee in
some kind of bun or hoagie to build the sandwich on
monzerella cheese
parmasean, romano, and/or asiago cheese
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
2. Sautee the onion, sprouts, mushrooms, and green pepper with your butter or evoo until all the veggies are slightly tender.
3. Sprinkle the desired amount of cheese on your bun then top with however many veggies you want.
4. Pop in the oven for about 5 minutes or until your bread is toasted and the cheese is melty.

Anyways, yesterday for breakfast I made a Kashi waffle topped with almond butter and bananas. Yummmm it was delicious! I'm all out of greek yogurt so I see more almond butter centered breakfasts until I get some more yogurt!
Then for lunch my mom heated up some taquitos and miny chimichangas in the oven. I don't know what brand they were or where they came from but they were not that great. It was like a paste inside with meat and cheese all blended together. I prefer the Friday's quesadilla rolls because you can actually see each separate ingredient and they taste so much better!
In between lunch and dinner was when I dragged my mom out to DSW and of course when we got home I had to test out my new running shoes. As you may know our treadmill was broken and my dad recently kind of fixed it. It works but after like 20 minutes it starts to smell like its burning. Oh well I kept going, hopefully I won't kill it. I think once I get my security deposit back for my house in Richmond (which should be any day now) that I'm going to make my dad use that to buy a new treadmill.

Dinner was taco salad and I made a little taco to go alongside. My taco salad had taco meat, an assortment of greens, tomatoes, green onions, cucumber, a few crushed up tortilla chips, and a little ranch dressing. Taco salad is the only salad I like ranch dressing on because it is creamy like sour cream which I can't live without on my mexican food.
This morning I woke up and made juice for breakfast! It was an apple, ginger, 3 carrots, and a beet. It was pretty delicious!
I just finished drinking that while I was writing this and now I have no idea what I'm going to do for the rest of the day but I'm hoping it is more productive then yesterday was!

The Beautiful South Restaurant- Hamilton, VA

Wow its been a busy and fun last couple of days! We drove out to Harpers Ferry on Tuesday morning and spent the day tubing down the Potomac River. Some of it was flat water that involved lots of paddling with your arms, which was very difficult to do in the tubes we were in, there was no comfortable way to sit and paddle at the same time. When you hit the rapids there was no paddling just hanging on and trying to sit up high enough in the tube that you didn't hit the rocks underneath! All in all it was really fun and if you have any river near you that you can go tubing in I highly recommend it. Its also a great workout because I can feel the burn in my abs (and my neck) and some of my family that came also said their arms were sore from all the paddling.

Anyways on our way back we decided to stop at a restaurant that we saw on the way up called The Beautiful South in Hamilton, VA. I'm not going to lie I did not have high expectations for this restaurant, I was expecting fried chicken and grits. What none of us knew was that they weren't talking about the US South but Southern Europe, their website says "Whether it is the southern region of Italy, France, Germany, or Greece, from where our family originates, the flavor and beauty of those places are captured in our food and atmosphere." Well I was happily surprised by that and their menu that had lots of yummy looking food. I started out with a salad that had their own house made Greek dressing that was really good!
And we ordered some calamari as an appetizer. It was also really good, even though I will forever compare it to 3 Monkey's in Richmond and I don't think I'll ever get any calamari as awesome as theirs!
My main meal was crabcakes. They were delicious, filled with lots of chunks of crab and not a lot of other fillers. They also came with their awesome homemade tarter sauce that was amazing! I ate one of my crab cakes and used the entire thing of tarter sauce with it and then stole my sister's tarter sauce that she didn't eat with her fish and chips to bring home with me to use on the other one!
I also had some of my dad's dish which was a pasta in a seafood cream sauce. It had scallops, shrimp, lobster, and crab. It was really good, and I almost got that for my meal too but I really wasn't feeling the pasta in it. But I'm glad my dad got it so I could steal a few bites!
When we got home I showered and took a quick nap before Harry Potter! Maggie and I got there around 10 and they were already letting us into the theater, which was awesome because we didn't have to sit on the floor in a line outside. Harry Potter was pretty good, there wasn't a lot that really happened in this movie- just a lot of build up for the next one. I haven't read the books but I love the movies, so maybe I should read the book because apparently they left a ton out of this movie. Also I was way more disappointed in the fact that they didn't show a New Moon preview before hand. Maggie and I kept hoping for the next preview to be for New Moon and then the movie started. During Twilight they showed a Harry Potter preview so I think it would only have made sense to show a New Moon one during Harry Potter!

Anyways I got in after 3 am from Harry Potter and passed out until 12:30 Wednesday. For lunch I had my leftover crab cake and then spent most of the day laying out by the pool with my cousins. For dinner my mom made chicken so I made an Amy's bowl! This was my first Amy's bowl and it was really good! I usually am not a big fan of rice but I figured I would try this anyways. I added some green onions and ginger and it was pretty amazing!
Oh and on the side I had some zucchini and squash. It was a very filling meal.
After dinner we waited for my sister to get off work then headed to Manassas to get ice cream at Milwaukee Frozen Custard. Milwaukee is the best ice cream place ever (even though its frozen custard not ice cream). It has become a tradition to go when Stephanie visits. I'm not sure when the first time we took her was but every time since then when she has come down she has asked to go, so of course we always do! They have vanilla, chocolate, and a flavor of the day. Over the years they've gotten other things like italian ice and such but nothing compares to their vanilla frozen custard. The chocolate is good too, but the vanilla has such a unique flavor you just can't resist it. The flavor of the day was cookie and cream so it was just the vanilla and oreo which I got in a chocolate dipped waffle cone. Delicious!!!
After that we wandered around McKay's Used Bookstore which is in the same shopping center. Then we came home and me Alicia, and Stephanie watched the Twilight commentary, I know I've said it before but it is hilarious and every Twilight fan should watch it!

This morning I said goodbye to all the relatives as they headed down to Williamsburg and VA Beach. After they left I made some orange, carrot, cucumber, and ginger juice which was delicious.
And some Vanilla Chobini with cranberry coconut granola.
Then I laid out by the pool for a while before lunch time! For lunch I ate my dad's pasta leftovers (he told me I could eat them I did not steal them!!) I added some garlic and asiago cheese which made them even better!
Then I read for a while before taking a blog break! I think later this evening there will be a grocery store trip and hopefully a DSW trip with my mom! Hope everyone has a great evening!

Sette Pizza Richmond

I am back at home after my awesome weekend spent in Richmond. This weekend was just what I needed to lift my spirits because I've been kind of down lately living back at home 2 hours away from all my friends that are still in Richmond. I'm going to be at home for the next couple weeks but I'm going to be down in Richmond 3 weekends in August for various events, so at least I have something to look forward too!

Anyways before leaving Richmond Maggie and I went to Sette for lunch. Sette is a fire roasted pizza place downtown at 23rd Street right off Main. I had been dying to try it but never got a chance before moving back home so I dragged Maggie downtown from her West End house to go get pizza. I ordered a Wild Mushroom pizza which had pesto sauce, monzerella, goat cheese, sundried tomatoes, and of course mushrooms. It was delicious and I ate half and brought the other half home! The crust was awesome and there was plenty of goat cheese which in my opinion makes or breaks the pizza. The only thing I would change about the pizza is I wish there was a little more pesto and I think I would like fresh tomatoes instead of sun dried tomatoes. Don't get me wrong I love me some sun dried tomatoes but on a pizza without tomato sauce I need some juicy tomatoes on the top instead of the dried ones!
Maggie got the 4 cheese, which was essentially the same as mine only with red sauce instead of pesto and no mushrooms. Of course we traded pieces so we could try each others. Their sauce was really good and I think I would like my Wild Mushroom pizza with red sauce on one half and pesto on the other and it would be perfect. Maggie liked the red sauce and said she would probably just add mushrooms on hers (she also loved the sundried tomatoes on her pizza and I agree with the tomato sauce the sundried tomatoes are the way to go!)

All in all I loved Sette. I think I would pick it over Bottoms Up because they have really similar kinds of pizzas and personally I thought this pizza was better and cheaper. Its a much smaller place which might make it difficult for large groups, I know that every time I've been to Bottoms Up its been a huge group for someone's birthday or other occasion. But Sette is lesser known so its less crowded and probably has less of a wait time. On a Sunday afternoon there was only one other group of people besides us there so we pretty much had awesome service. If you are in Richmond I think you should probably stop reading this and head over to Sette right now!

After lunch I headed home. There was so much traffic and what is usually a 2 hour trip took me 3 hours. Since I had such a late lunch I really didn't have dinner but instead made some apple, cucumber, and ginger juice (no carrots or beets because we were out but this was pretty good too!) and then later had a piece of toast with PB&Co's Mighty Maple Peanut Butter.

This morning I was scheduled to babysit but when I got to their house the mom told me they had swim lessons she forgot about. So instead of the usual 2 1/2 hours I was only there for 1. I immediately went to Starbucks afterwards for an Iced Apple Chai.
I had to stand in a ridiculously long line for my apple chai, I had no idea so many people were at starbucks at 11 am! While I was waiting in line the mini vanilla scone was calling my name and for only 75 cents I couldn't resist it. It was good but no scone will ever compare to a cranberry orange one!
I got home and finished reading The Tenth Circle by Jodi Piccoult! It was pretty good, not my favorite Jodi Piccoult book but also not quite as sad/ depressing as some of the other ones. For lunch I ate the leftovers of my pizza from Sette, which I didn't take a picture of because I knew it would be posted with the original pizza picture!

After lunch I helped my sister clean her room so my cousin could sleep there when they all came in town later! After they got here we laid out by the pool for a while. It was funny because my cousin is reading the Twilight series for her first time around and is on Eclipse and my sister and I had both kind of started rereading the whole series but had gotten distracted by other books. Since I just finished my Jodi Piccout book I decided that I would pick up Twilight again and my sister did the same thing. So we were all 3 out my the pool reading Twilight books while my mom, uncle, and brother rolled their eyes at us!

For dinner my mom made a roast and baked potatoes. I had a tiny piece of roast and made a baked potato loaded with chives, sour cream, and cheddar as my main meal. With watermelon and green beans on the side.
Tomorrow we are going to Harpers Ferry to go tubing down either the Shenandoah or Potomac river. Its an or because we haven't decided if we are going to go flat water tubing or white water tubing. I think we want to go white water tubing, which is down the Potomac, but we aren't sure how big the rapids are and if my little cousin could do that. So if we think its going to be too intense for him we are going to do the calm or "flat water" as they call it in the Shenandoah. I guess Harpers Ferry is where the two rivers intersect so we can go up there and talk to the people and then decide which one we are going to do.

And after tubing it is the midnight premier of Harry Potter! yay!

Stephen and Mandy's Wedding!!!

Well I guess I lied when I said I would blog this weekend. I haven't had time to blog until now! I came down Friday afternoon but Maggie was still at work so I sat outside of her house in the gorgeous weather and got on my computer.
Then we hung out and had dinner (Annie Chuns) eventually headed down to the Byrd to see Land of the Lost. It was funny, not my favorite Will Ferral movie but not my least favorite in between. One of those movies that your glad you saw, maybe would watch again if someone else rented it, but wouldn't buy.

Saturday I woke up and headed over to Grace's to get ready for the wedding. She made me some spaghetti which she said I was not allowed to share the recipe for her homemade sauce on the blog.
Then after we were all ready we headed to the church which was like a few blocks away. All my pictures were super blurry from the ceremony because with the flash they were too dark because we weren't close enough but without the flash they were too blurry! Anyways the reception was out in the West End and it was so pretty and so much fun!

Of course I got a picture of the cake- which was delicious!And also a pictures of the groomscake
And all the food!








My plate! I had some of the tortellini and ravioli, caprese salad and of course some lamb!
And wine of course to go with it
Me and the gorgeous bride!
I'm sad that these turned out so blurry, but by this time my camera battery was dying. They say Stephen and Mandy on the M&M's, it was so cute!
And they had a Just Married golf cart to leave in! It was so cute!
After the wedding I headed to Buffalo Wild Wings with a bunch of old friends but managed not to get any pictures because my camera battery was pretty dead at that point. I took more than enough pictures of the wedding to make up for that.

I don't know what the plan for today is but probably hanging around with Maggie for a little before heading back home. I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!