Happy Day!

I am so happy today!!  And not just because it’s Friday but because it’s Friday and MY SISTER IS HOME FOR THE WEEKEND!! Is it slightly pathetic that she only moved away three weeks ago?  But I don’t care because she and her fiancée are home for a few days and that makes me over the moon excited!

I haven't talked much about B on here because her sudden uproot and move kind of rocked my world (in a bad way).  I know, how selfish can I get it??  She moved for all the right reasons… her fiancée got into law school which has been his dream for like 10 years and B ended up getting an awesome job that pays her basically double what she was making.  So I am incredibly happy for her and I know this is an exciting new chapter in their lives but I am just going to miss her so goddam much.

B is (besides my hubby and in only a way a sister can be) my bestest friend, my rock, my champion and reality kick when I need one.  She is an amazing person - last year she worked her full time job, became a CMA and was my maid of honor (another full-time job in itself, sorry B!) AND she was still the amazing friend that she has always been.  That’s one thing I envy about B – she has developed some of the best friendships I have ever seen and is so loyal to those lucky people, me included.

It wasn’t always that way… B is four years younger than me and when I was a teenager that was a pretty big age difference.  And I’m pretty sure all sisters fight but I’m also pretty sure certain I was quite the bitch and not the nicest person to my little sister.  But thankfully now that we are ‘adults’ we have an amazing relationship and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I can’t wait to see her tomorrow and hubby and I are having some people over as a farewell for B & A because everything happened in about 6 weeks and with everything involved, we didn’t really have a chance for a proper send off.  So I am looking forward to hugs and laughs and good times and many, many drinks… and then doing it all over again on Sunday with the family!  Hopefully I’ll get some good photos too.

B and me

Have an amazing weekend everyone!

Sxxo.

Purple Pot Cooking Cheesy Goodness

You may recall that I recently got a purple pot (one of those heavy duty cast iron ones) and last weekend I wanted to christen it with a tasty Sunday dinner… but I was clueless as to what to make.  I did some Pinterest searching on Friday night and decided I wanted to make beef stroganoff and planned to visit the butcher on Saturday.

And then wine happened.

So there I was on Sunday afternoon, almost recovered but in no mood to go anywhere and hubby asked – what are you cooking in your purple pot?!  Back to Pinterest I went...

[caption id="attachment_120" align="alignnone" width="225"] My purple pot :)[/caption]

I can across this Cheesy Bacon Chicken Casserole recipe and worked for two reasons: 1) it was quick and easy, and 2) we had all 7 ingredients in the house (or at least ones I could substitute).  I did cut the recipe in half because there are only two of us.

Ingredients:

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into bite size chunks


• 4 strips of bacon


• 1 can cream of mushroom soup (original recipe called for cream of chicken but we didn’t have any)


• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (original recipe called for Monterey jack cheese and I’m sure it would have been yummy)


• 1 tbsp garlic poweder


• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°

Start making pasta according to directions – I made the pasta in my purple pot  :)

Cook bacon and then set aside

Cook chicken IN BACON PAN – so delicious, use those drippings!

[caption id="attachment_187" align="alignnone" width="225"] Chicken in bacon drippings!![/caption]

Once chicken is cooked, add garlic powder and then salt and pepper to taste

Drain pasta and return to (purple) pot

Add chicken, cream of mushroom soup and ½ cup of cheese – mix well*

Crumble bacon and put on top

Add remaining cheese

[caption id="attachment_188" align="alignnone" width="300"] Ready for the oven...[/caption]

Bake for approximately 20 minutes until cheese is melted and browning on top

[caption id="attachment_189" align="alignnone" width="256"] Cheesy, bacon chicken goodness![/caption]

*The other recipe tells you to spray a 9x13 baking pan with cooking spray and then pour the pasta and chicken mixture into the dish, but I wanted to use my purple pot so I just left it in there.

This cheesy casserole was perfect for a lazy Sunday night dinner and we even had leftovers.  I love mushrooms and next time might consider actually adding a few, but I will also try it with the cream of chicken soup.  I think this is the kind of cheesy goodness that you can mix up a few ways and enjoy!

Any other suggestions for purple pot cooking?

Sxxo.

Snack Attack

I found these gems at Walmart last week and I am now addicted to them.  I haven't seen them in years and then I was stuck in line at a random Walmart and picked up the snack pack (I am a marketer's sucker dream, they always get me with the register displays!).  I devoured the snack pack.  Then I was in the Walmart by my work and I saw the full size for ONLY 50 CENTS MORE THAN THE SNACK PACK!!  I had to buy it right?  That is totally a bargain!

I actually may have bought two.

Except now I have them in a drawer at my desk and I can't stop eating them.

I have now banned myself from Walmart on my lunch break.



 

How do you manage your snack attacks?

Sxxo.

Another Weekend Come and Gone

This past weekend was another great one which meant it was that much harder to wake up and get out of bed this morning.  Mondays… a bad day to begin with and only made worse because two fun days were over.

Our Friday evening got off to a slow start as I was stuck on the parking lot highway following an accident on the bridge and it took me over an hour to get home.  Needless to say I wasn’t in a great mood when I got there and proceeded to snap hubby’s ear off.  This continued until the grocery store when I finally relaxed (I was surrounded by food and planning the bad for you yummy snacks I was going to devour eat all weekend!) and realized hey, IT’S FRIDAY!!  After grocery shopping we picked up dinner (best butter chicken EVER) and headed home to enjoy… at 8:30pm.  I managed to get hubby to stay up until after 10pm so all in all it was a good evening :-)

Saturday started with my usual bliss (Carolan’s coffee and PVR’d shows in bed) and then I finally got myself out of bed and dressed for… I can’t believe it… a run.  Yes, I finally started running again on Saturday.  I am starting slow with the C25K (couch to 5k) app and I have to say, I felt great after.  And Milo obviously had a blast so it was a win-win.

[caption id="attachment_176" align="alignnone" width="200"] First run of the program completed![/caption]

[caption id="attachment_175" align="alignnone" width="225"] Someone is very happy he gets to run again![/caption]

 

The weather this weekend was amazing (most likely our last tank-top acceptable weekend of the year) so after my run I poured myself a nice big glass of wine and sat in the backyard until hubby convinced me to run a quick couple errands with him.  Then my friend/SIL came to hang out with me and we took over the living room to watch girly shows on the PVR (at least once a month we sing to watch Pitch Perfect but this time it was Drop Dead Diva) and we managed to polish off two bottles of wine AND break into the box of wine I finally got smart enough to buy for midnight later in the evening when we no longer have any tastebuds.  Which lead to…

An epically hungover Sunday morning.  I don’t often get the real bad put-me-out of my misery hangovers but when I do, they are vicious.  What made it worse was the sun shining even brighter than Saturday and the fact that my mom was coming over to help me do some organizing in my house (clean out my car, sort (and finally get rid YAY!) all the random crap lying around, clean out my closet and organize the spare room).  I managed to get myself together and outside by the time she showed up with a Starbucks white chocolate mocha (now this drink is amazeballs PSL people!).  It was GORGEOUS outside!  Thankfully we were doing some stuff outside so we got to enjoy the sun.

[caption id="attachment_178" align="alignnone" width="225"] Gorgeous sunny weather!! (Apologies for the horrible iPhone pics!)[/caption]

I have to say that hangover aside,  it felt so good to get some stuff done around the house and I also have the best mom in the whole world (seriously, she rocks) and by the time she left I felt great.  Not pour a glass of wine great but wow I accomplished stuff this weekend great.  The rest of Sunday was spent trying to stay awake relaxing on the couch.

I made a casserole for dinner and will post the recipe this week :-)

What did you get up to on your weekend?

Sxxo.

On Friday mornings I always treat myself to a tasty coffee and maybe a breakfast treat... I rarely go to Starbucks because at 7:30am I much prefer a drive thru and the one closest to my house doesn't have one.  Plus I don't really love their breakfasts choices and my coffee house of choice has amazing sausage breakfast sandwiches and to do for french vanilla cappuccinos.

But a few days ago a colleague gave me a coupon for a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte.  I have never had a pumpkin spice latte but every social feed I have has been blowing up since the "PSL" came back in September, and I know people LOVE these things.  Now I'm not a huge pumpkin fan... I don't have pumpkin spice candles (I don't really have any candles, I buy them occasionally and then put them away until I buy another one a go to put it away and find the other candles I bought a year earlier), I have maybe a sliver of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving but it's covered in whip cream (one of those 'would you like some pie with your whip cream?' scenarios) and it's ok but I really just eat it because I feel like I'm supposed to.  I am however the type of person that doesn't want to be left out of something amazing so I was like, I have to try this pumpkin spice latte and with this coupon to get it for $2 I felt like a force bigger than me was urging me to get one this morning.

So I did.



Not a fan.

And before any PSL lovers out there attack me, let me just point out that now there is more PSL for you to enjoy!  What really sealed the deal for me was when I took my lid off about half way through (because of course I finished it, it's my Friday treat) and the coffee was orange!  ORANGE!  And it wasn't orange whip cream they were putting on it... so I think I will stick with my white chocolate mochas next time I hit up a Starbucks.

Tonight is a different story, my wine o'clock treat is one of my favourite Gewürztraminers from my favourite winery:

 

Cheers and Happy Friday All!

Sxxo.

Hump Day Happiness

[caption id="attachment_164" align="alignnone" width="300"] Happy Hump Day![/caption]

It's Wednesday, my fourth favourite day!  My favourite days are as follows:

#1 Saturday - because I get to sleep in, do nothing whatever I want all day, have drinks that afternoon night and still look forward to another day off the next day!  Approximately 10am on Saturday morning is probably my favourite time.  (Does anyone else have a single favourite TIME of the week or am I a little weird?)

#2 Sunday - second sleep in and recovery day off!  And there is always the possibility of a little Sunday Funday!

#3 Friday - I still have to wake up and go to work but I have so much to look forward to starting with wine at wine o'clock (about 7pm to be exact because hubby always makes me drive on our Friday night outings... he drives when we go away and to family dinners and events so I suck it up because I am so not a fan of long distance driving and staying sober at family dinners!).

#4 Thursday - the day before Friday and The Big Bang Theory is on, it runs a close second to Friday for the #3 spot because I love me some TBBT!

#5 Wednesday Hump Day - because when I kiss hubby goodbye in the morning he reminds me that when I get home that night we are more than halfway to the weekend.

And that's about it because Monday and Tuesday really don't even register on my radar and I just focus on getting through them!

It is my night to cook dinner and I usually stress about it (baking I love, cooking I find stressful) but hubby let me take out the last shepherds pie freezer dinner I made in the summer, so into the oven and throw together a salad, easy!

How is your hump day going?

Sxxo.

 

Super Easy Coconut Macaroons

One of my most enjoyable addictions is Pinterest and I was excited to find a coconut macaroon recipe to try as I have been obsessed with lemon and coconut (together or separate!) desserts lately.  I found this 4 ingredient recipe courtesy of the Pepper Design Blog, click the link for the original recipe.

Ingredients (I was low on coconut so halved the recipe):
3 cups sweetened coconut flakes (I ended up mixing in half unsweetened and they were still yummy!)
1.5 egg whites
1/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup milk chocolate discs (optional)



Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350° F (our oven cooks really hot so I next time I would preheat to about 325° F) and line cookie trays with  parchment paper and/or cooking spray

2) Whip egg whites, sugar and salt



3) Add coconut and mix thoroughly



4) Use spoon to scoop into mounds on cookie tray (this method didn't work well for me so I scooped them up in my hands and tried to shape them into nice mounds... I really need to work on my form!)

5) Bake for 12-15 minutes (15 minutes was just a bit too long for my first set, 12 minutes worked much better.

6) While the macaroons are baking, melt chocolate to drizzle on top.  I melted the chocolate in a stainless steel bowl placed over a pot of water on medium heat.  Once melted I used a spatula to drizzle on top.

 





 

 

 

Hubby and I both thought these were delicious!! I want to work on the form a little bit so lucky me, I get to make a few more rounds of these!  So quick and easy for a delicious treat.

What coconut recipes have you made?

Sxxo.