6 Month Blogiversary!

Today is my 6 Month Blogiversary!!! I can't believe I've been blogging for 6 months!
This week has been and will continue to be insanely busy because my sister leaves for her freshman year of college on Wednesday! She is stressing out about all she has to get done before she leaves!She has been putting off doing lots of stuff and has tons of things to get done before that. I've spent all day today helping her finish up scrapbooks that were suppose to be her graduation presents to some of her friends. She also still has to write thank you cards for graduation presents and not to mention laundry and packing. Also tomorrow her and her friends are doing a city wide scavenger hunt before they all leave each other! My brother is also going back to school, but not until Saturday. They actually will be at the same college but freshmen move in is during the week and returning students are on Saturday. And boys don't have near as much stuff to do and pack as girls do- I doubt he has even thought about packing things yet!

Anyways we got some of our first tomatoes this week! They are mortgage lifters? Last year we grew a bunch of different tomatoes but they all got blight, so we were going to not grow any this year because the blight can stay in the soil, but my grandpa brought these back from Ohio when we went up for Memorial Day. So we are growing them in big pots instead of actually in the soil to try and avoid the blight. They are looking pretty good and are pretty delicious too!

I made a yummy capreseish salad with the tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, spinach, basil, topped with a balsamic vinaigrette.
And some Amy's chunky tomato bisque alongside!
I was really needing something sweet that night so I dug around in the freezer and found some Vita Brownies that I heated up and topped with some vanilla ice cream and some butterscotch!
The next morning for breakfast I used my neglected for too long juicer to make some juice! We have been out of one or the other ingredient to make juice for a long time and I finally got some apple, carrots, and ginger juice (we didn't have beets). And I finished off the end of the vanilla chobini with the end of the mango granola!

That was kind of my brunch because it was 11:30! After brunch my mom and I headed to Target with my sister to get some last minute college shopping done. We were in there for hours and by the time we were leaving I was starving. So I headed over to the grocery side (we have a Super Target which is the most amazing thing ever) and picked up some Vermont White Cheddar Artisan Wheat Things aka crack crackers. They are so addicting.
My mom decided she didn't really like them- she is crazy! So we drove through chick-fil-a so she could get some fries instead and of course we got peach milkshakes as well.
My mom and I did some more shopping, including grocery shopping at Wegmans! By the time we got home it was dinner time! My mom made chicken so for myself I made some Cous Cous! I found a box of Cous Cous at Wegmans that sounded similar to the Moroccan Cous Cous I made a couple months ago. I added some raisins and topped it with feta! I had some of my mom's mandarin orange salad on the side! It was a delicious dinner!



And I finally found Starbucks Ice Cream at Wegmans. I had a coupon for a free pint but they do not have it at Giant, I should have known my beloved Wegmans would have it!

It was pure bliss in an ice cream carton!

The next morning for breakfast I had some 0% Fage with pineapple preserves and apple granola. The one thing they did not have at Wegmans that they have at Giant is the mango granola!!!
Lunch was a delicious tomato, basil, mozzarella sandwich. These are probably my all time favorite sandwiches. We picked up some heirloom tomatoes at the local farm and they are the most amazing tomatoes ever!
I spent the rest of the day working on graduation applications! When I graduate in December I get both my bachelors and my masters because of the way the teaching program I'm in works. So I have to fill out two different forms, meet with two different advisors, etc etc. When we move my sister down to CNU on Wednesday I'm going to go to Richmond afterwards instead of back home. I am going to a wedding on Saturday and didn't feel like driving home and then back down there again (Richmond is in between our house and CNU). So I figured while I was down there I needed to go meet with my advisors to get all my graduation stuff squared away since I won't be able to once I start student teaching. All the paperwork was giving me a headache so I made some tea. I got some peach tea at Wegmans so of course I tried combining the two teas together. It worked out wonderfully and was delicious! Exactly what I was expecting the original one to taste like.

That evening my sister and her friends came over for a bonfire. We had hot dogs with watermelon on the side!
And then of course late we had smores! We have a fire pit in our backyard and usually make smores throughout the whole summer but this was actually the first time- and probably the last too!
This morning I ate a cherry pie larabar on the way to church. This was the last week in church with the whole family :( When I got home I made the best sandwich ever for lunch!
Tomato, basil, mozzarella, feta, and sprouts!! Holy yum!!!!!!!!

And for dinner we had BLTs. We have definitely been eating a lot of these over the summer! Its just the perfect way to eat all these delicious tomatoes!
And then for dessert was a brownie mousse cake!

Brownie Mousse Cakes are infamous in my group of friends in Richmond. It is like my signature dessert and I can't believe in my 6 months of blogging that I haven't made one yet! It is super easy, I could see this being on Semi Homemade with Sandra Lee because you use box brownie mix, can of frosting, and cool whip. All things that I would frown upon when baking many things because I am definitely a made from scratch is always better kind of girl. However this recipe was my absolute favorite dessert that my mom used to make when I was little and although I suppose you could make this more homemade with making your own brownies, icing, and using real whipped cream I never have because it is pretty amazing just the way it is! Also be sure to get the bigger size box of brownies- you know the ones that are made to be cooked in a 9x13 pan not a square pan. I had a coupon for free brownie mix at Wegmans and didn't realize until I went to mix them up that it was the smaller size so the "crust" part is a little thinner in my pictures.

Brownie Mousse Cake

15 oz brownie mix
1 can vanilla or cream cheese frosting
8 oz pkg cream cheese (softened)
12 oz Cool Whip
1 pkg mini chocolate chips

1.Preheat oven according to directions on brownie mix.
2.Grease the bottom of a spring form pan.
3.Follow the directions to make the brownie mix and cook it in the spring form pan
4.After cooking, let completely cool
5.Combine the frosting and cream cheese until smooth
6.Fold in the Cool Whip and about ¾ of the bag of the mini chocolate chips
7.Spread on top of the completely cooled brownie in the spring form pan
8.Top with the rest of the chocolate chips.
9.Refrigerate 3 hours before eating.


Well the rest of this week will be pretty busy helping my sister pack up then heading down to Newport News to move her in on Wedneday, then running around Richmond until Sunday! I'll try to blog in between all the craziness! Hope you guys have a great week and thanks for helping me get to the 6th month point in blogging!

Organized Mess

Well in my last update I just briefly touched on the weekend so we are going to pick up normal food blogingness on Tuesday night! So there is this BBQ place in Manassas called Hogs on the Hill which my dad and brother are absolutely obsessed with. They closed a couple years ago for remodeling or something that was suppose to be a temporary closing but they never reopened. Every time we go by them we would look to see if they were opened yet, but they never were. We had just about given up on them when my dad and brother drove by this weekend and they had a huge Grand Reopening sign out. So of course they brought home tons of barbecue and we've had several meals with it. Also it is run by an adorable Asian man (yes I know super random but they do make pretty amazing barbecue) and this guy actually recognized my dad, even after being closed for 2 years. They give you the plain pulled pork and both regular and hot bbq sauce for you to mix in to your own meat. So I made a delicious open faced sandwich on 7 Grain bread with a little of both of the sauces! Delicious! I don't know if i I would go far as my dad and brother to say this is the best barbecue ever but it is pretty delicious!
Yesterday was a wonderful day of sleeping in, which was much needed after the little amount of sleep I got in Richmond and babysitting the next morning I came back. So of course I skipped breakfast and went straight to lunch. My mom and I went to the farmers market on the local farm by our house and got some awesome tomatoes so of course my lunch revolved around those. Tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil from my basil plant!! (its still not huge but big enough to take a couple leaves off occasionally for sandwiches like this!), and a little drizzle of balsamic vinegar all on 7 grain bread. It was delicious! The only thing that would have made it better would have been some pesto, but I certainly don't have enough basil on my plant to make any pesto yet and I didn't think to buy any at the store!
For dinner my mom made lasagna. My mom was a stay at home mom and we use to get homemade lasagna and other meals all the time. I always took it for granted until she started working and stopped cooking all these awesome things. She started going back to school when we were all school age and actually graduated from college the same year I graduated high school and started teaching the same year I started college. Since she is a teacher she basically doesn't cook during the school year, which is why when I would come home I would always be able to cook and go to the store. Now that it is summer she has been able to cook more, which I think is one of the biggest reasons I'm not as motivated to update my blog as much. I'm really not getting to cook many meals because my mom is home cooking.

Anyways I can't remember the last time my mom made a lasagna, but it has been so long that I really associate lasagna taste with the frozen Stoffers ones that she would pull out of the freezer when she didn't have time to cook anything else. Needless to say this is 500 times better! I was starving so I got myself a ginormous piece before it cooled enough- thus the lasagna mess all over my plate hahaha. Of course we also had some garlic bread to go with it! It was delicious!
For 'dessert' after dinner I had bought some new tea to try! It was ginger peach green tea and I was super excited to try it.

The verdict? Not that impressed with it, it definitely has a strong ginger flavor but I could not taste any peach in it at all. I will drink the rest of the ones in the packet but I would probably never buy it again. Actually I might buy some normal peach tea and brew them together to get an actual ginger peach flavor, hahaha. If I do that I'll let you know how it turns out.

This morning I ate an Apple Pie larabar in the car on the way to babysitting. When I got home I busted out some more of that lasagna for lunch, I didn't take a picture of it because my camera was upstairs and microwaved lasagna might be delicious but is certainly not pretty because it oozes out everywhere! Much of the rest of the day has been spent organizing the bathroom that I share with my brother and sister who are both leaving next week for college. It was stressing me out and now that I know they will not be here to mess it up I designated all the shelves and drawers for specific things and put post it notes on them so that until they leave they can know what goes where! I'm definitely an organized mess kind of person, things don't have to be spotless, they just have to be where they belong. The best example of this I can give you is that there are random small piles of clothes all over my room. I've got my pjs next to my bed, work out clothes on the floor underneath my laundry bags, and tank tops that I have worn once and might need to wear again before washing hanging on the closet door knob. It might look messy to you but it is where things belong!

So everyone who reads this blog regularly knows how much I am in love with all forms of goat cheese. So head over to Mara's blog for a chance to win some free goat cheese! Yummmmm!

Awesome Friends

I just want to say that I have the most amazing friends ever. Too bad they are all in Richmond and I'm up in NOVA now! I had a fabulous weekend that ended up being way more busy than I thought. That combined with my camera battery dying left me not being able to update everyone on the excitingness! I won't go into much detail, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. However other unpictured funness included my first ever drag show where one of Maggie's Radio Disney co-workers was performing, the much anticipated Shadow Games Premier at the Byrd (one of my friends has been working on this movie for years and it also stars many of my friends!), and a trip to the James River with the puppies!.

(Maggie cuddling Charlotte who accompanied me to Richmond!)

First up is a newly discovered restaurant called Palani Drive. It is over in the Libbie and Grove area. Maggie and I got a quesadilla which were amazing, however Sara's wrap was really not that great! So I highly recommend going and getting a quesadilla they have a bazillion options, mine was an italian one filled with "gorgonzola cheese, artichoke hearts, tomatoes, mushrooms, and pesto sauce on a wheat tortilla served with hummus and tabouli"
And of course what trip to Richmond would be complete without some Joes! I met up with Grace there for brunch before the Shadow Games premiere. I got a yummy omelet with feta, mushrooms, and tomatoes!
And then Kylin, my old roomie showed up!
After the movie I met up for dinner with Ashley (another old roomie from a different year), Courtney, and Maggie at Casa Grande (another staple throughout my years at VCU). However I deviated from the normal things I get and got nachos which I was highly disappointed in. Just a pile of beef and cheese on top of chips :(


And Sunday of course was Sara's birthday party! She made tons of little cupcakes and petite fours along with candy apples and rum punch. It was Mary Poppins inspired and everything was not only adorable but also delicious! She even made boxes (yes made them) so we could take home goodies with us!






Anyways I had an awesome weekend and am glad that I'm going back in a week and a half for another friend's wedding!

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!

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!

No More Staycation

Well our staycation was fun! We did some hiking, dinner theater, saw some caverns and the natural bridge, and I spent some awesome alone time laying out by the pool while my family went down to the beach ( I am really not a beach person, I love me some Outer Banks but not so much Virginia Beach where they were going).
Staycation started with a fruit pizza that my mom made! I love some fruit pizza, and for some reason this was the first one she had made all summer!

Sunday after church we kicked off staycation with lunch at Desiderio- a new italian restaurant in Gainesville that makes their own mozzarella and pasta! It was delicious! We started out with the bruschetta duo- one was topped with a cheese mixture and one topped with tomatoes marinated in a balsamic mixture. I had half of each and they were both delicious!
For my dinner I got a Seafood Fra’Diavolo which had "Shrimp, mussels, and calamari, tossed in our spicy Fra’Diavolo sauce and served over linguine" It was pretty much amazing! Also the portion sizes weren't as massive as you sometimes get, it was still a little big but not huge which was good!
Of course I sampled everyone elses meals as well. My brother and sister got the ravioli, which was their handmade pasta stuffed with their homemade mozzarella and some parmesan and ricotta. I had high expectations for this and it definitely lived up to that!
My dad got lasagna which was pretty good too, but the sauce needed a little more tomato base to it. However the huge globs of the mozzarella totally made up for it.
My mom got their daily special which was penne in a spicy marinara with fresh local sausage. I'm not a big sausage person but this was really good!
And for dessert we couldn't resist the cannolis . We got mini cannolis- you could pick chocolate or normal shell with chocolate or normal cream inside. Of course I got chocolate chocolate- and it was amazing!
Thursday night we went to the Lazy Susan dinner theater to see their production of Little Shop of Horrors. I started out with their signature cocktail- sans alcohol since my parents don't drink. It was still pineappley and delicious!
For dinner they had a buffet. You couldn't walk around and see what was on the buffet, so not knowing what was at the end I got stuff at the beginning that I wished I had not because they had better stuff at the end. Its safe to say that I definitely did not eat all of this, I just kept finding better things to get! My favorite was probably the mac and cheese, it had a thick layer of just cooked cheese and a little bread crumbs- yumm! When my sister makes stouffers mac and cheese (which is a lot) I usually eat the burnt part around the edges because it is my absolute favorite and she does not like it!
I wasn't going to get any bread until I saw the apple butter, and I can't say no to apple butter!
Yesterday we went hiking at Crabtree falls and on the way back stopped in Charlottesville for dinner. We went to Mellow Mushroom, which I guess is a chain but I've never heard of it. It was really cute and they had tons of stuff on the menu that I would want to eat. I couldn't resist a pizza, but they also had lots of sandwiches, including tons of vegetarian options. My pizza had tomato sauce and pesto, tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, mozzarella, and feta. The whole thing was amazing, but the crust was especially delicious!
Now it is raining so I don't think we will be doing much of anything today, just relaxing and enjoying the last day of our staycation!