The Rhythm is Gonna Get Cha..

One of my besties came in town last weekend (and brace yourself, another one's coming this weekend) ... and in honor we decided to catch up over a couple bottles of wine. Snacks.... obviously... were in order. Have I discussed Paula Deen's secret VEGAN recipe? The queen of butter and fried things accidentally made something healthy. It had to have been an accident, and what a delicous and healthy one that it was. She has an amazing black bean salsa recipe that includes the following:

• tomatoes
• black beans
• corn
• avocado
• onion
• cilantro
• red wine vinegar
• lime juice

ridiculously easy and heaven on a stick. I make big batches of this and eat it all week long (with fish, with cream cheese as a queso, in quesadillas, tex mex breakfast scramble...the options are endless).

I made a BIG 'ole batch to take to a Hog Roast the next day too. It was hit.. mostly because i was spreading rumors of how good it was. Also I made Zesty Cook's (food blogger extraordinaire) super easy greek dip. It basically included the following:

• cream cheese (like you could go wrong after that)
• feta
• NF plain yogurt
• dill
• tomatoes
• olives
• green onions

it was also supposed to have cucumbers but i forgot to add them to my grocery list..... so..... you know how that goes. Anyway with warm pita bread it was heaven.

Amy grabbed triscuits, some sort of summer sausagy thing and a delicous new kind of herbed cheese that for the life of me i can't remember it's name. This was the kind of gourmet lunchable that pseudo adults like us just LOVE.

Emily made fried green beans. She used some seasoned flour and fried them. With ranch they were SO good.

After mucho catching up and killing a few bottles of wine we got ready (this all went down just after work on friday, necessitating quick snacks and brief wardrobe changes). While we listened to some serious MJ hits and decided to be 'man in the mirror'

Which lead to this....

Which lead to a suggestion (I think emily gets the credit for this).. for pulling out a pair of white knit gloves from an OLD winter stash of warm things. It made it out with us for dance party madness. In recapping the evening the next morning on the phone with my mother she asked what others thought of us. Truthfully...... not sure. We actually just walked to bar area, proceeded to dance out in the open (where there's a DJ but no cover, etc.) and then go home. We actually had little interaction with others (minus friends of ours that were nearby and met up/hung out/dance partied too)

HIL.AR.I.OUS.

Lots of moonwalking happened too... I'm just saying.

Awesome.

233 Years of Awesomeness

Happy Birthday America (okay technically that's 2 days belated).... I was celebrating our nation's birth in true americana style... the only thing missing was the gorgeous weather (very present on July 3rd and 5th.. go figure) Friday we spent 6 brief hours in the car to get to fam in Iowa. We went to dinner theater featuring best of Monty Python. How great is that?

They had cake. And Booze. And encouraged people to sing 'always look on the bright side of life' and there was whistling involved, which is not my forte. I end up doing a lot of spitting. Over cake. boo for that.

On the fourth we got to Judge the parade!! The town has 600ish people (is that a good estimate, family?) and the turn-out was undoubtedly hampered by the subzero temperatures. Seriously despite checking my iphone every 5 minutes for weather conditions I failed to adequately pack for the forecasted gloomy weather. What i brought was a sundress and sandals. What i SHOULD have brought was sweatpants tucked into rain boots. And puff paint, obviously, to decorate the sweatpants in all of their 4th of July glory.

It was still really fun though. Minus when Dad did this (he was just kidding though)

My sister, John (in a poncho... pause for laughter..) and I as my uncle gives us instructions on how to judge the float entries.

In a fierce pro and con deliberating session. Judging floats isn't easy, you know.

Discussing the float with the goat on it (there was one with chickens too!) ... I think we gave it 2nd place in its category. John found it hilarious that they were holding he umbrella over the goat..... considering I had requested that he hold the umbrella over me all morning.

The night ended with watching a big fireworks display over the Mississippi River. It was perfect :) !

On to the eats! This week I found a recipe for a california roll salad. It was MUCHO interesting (or should that be reserved for mexican entries?) how about it was most interesting? Anyway it had:

• torn nori strips
• sesame seeds
• imitation crab meat (i know, i know, it's super processed)
• avocado
• cucumbers
• lettuce
• Jasmine rice (i know, i know, it's white and not the healthier option either)
• soy sauce/ginger/rice wine vinegar

the recipe had some sort of combo for the salad dressing, but it looked/smelled weird when I attempted it (through no fault of the recipe i'm sure)... but i thought this was creative and yummy. Just like the 'ole california roll and it satisfied my sushi craving for days!

Next up for my interesting eats last week was this little Ellie Krieger gem from her cookbook. The Shrimp/Tomato Bake had:

• shrimp
• diced tomatoes
• feta
• onion
• seasonings

Just how I like it, a SHORT ingredient list! Actually this was pretty good, John even liked it (gasp!) We had it served over orzo and had big crusty sourdough bread and corn on the cob with it too.. YUMM.

I hope everyone had a FABULOUS 4th of July!

Long Live the King

I woke up this morning wishing it was winter so I could ceremoniously wear one glove in memorium. I might've bedazzled it too. I loved that Michael loved bedazzlement. *sigh*

This further makes me vow that we WILL learn the thriller dance this summer. In college my good friend Amanda would ALWAYS lead the crowd/dance floor, knowing every single move. She was amazing. However in desperate need of-but without the guidance of the brilliant Amanda, we instead looked up the thriller youtube video and stopped/started it while we tried to learn it backwards (micheal facing the camera, us facing micheal) over a few bottles of wine. Cut to the next weekend on a dance floor when thriller was played and --not surprisingly -- when 1 1/2 eight counts into the dance when we crashed into one and other we asked the DJ to stop and start it again (he didn't)... it was SO FUN though. Here's to you Micheal, and moonwalking your way into our hearts and group dance aspirations. In other news, I had a FANTASTIC and creative meal planned, I promise. However, game time, one of the star pieces of produce in said meal was peeled and discovered to be BAD. that's right. dead. old news. finito. checked out. swimming with the fishes (okay that one just didn't make sense). gone to Avocado heaven (mexico? could be). Anyway Instead I decided to make an impromptu big 'ole salad based on inspiration from the following article:

Animals on drugs: Australian crop circles created by 'high' wallabies
That's right. Apparently a bunch of wallabies (by the way, what IS the difference between kangaroos and wallabies?) anyway, they got into some poppy fields and got HIGH and spun around a bunch of times until they crashed, ruining crops and causing all kinds of problems for farmers, animal control, and of course causing hilarity.


Then I got to thinking how poppy seed dressing sounded SOOOooo good. I searched my calendar for upcoming drug tests:
But since I'm not a MLB player, have a parole officer, or on Seinfeld, I'm pretty much able to have all the poppy seed I want :)

My Salad was DEE LISH

• Spinach
• Iceberg Lettuce
• Red peppers
• Roma tomatoes
• Carrot shreds
• Cucumber slices
• shelled edamame (YUM)
• PLENTY of poppyseed dressing

For more protein/good measure I had a little cup of lowfat cottage cheese and some fig newtons.


What did I do LAST weekend you ask? Well, John and I saw UP in 3D :) It was AWESOME. Totally adorable story line, and really cool to see things in 3D (check out our cool glasses!)

Also my friend Jessica (the first to have offspring) came into town and I got to have my second date with her completely adorable son. Not surprisingly, this rang no bells, clocks or timers. As much as this kid was trying to crawl away from me most of the time he was there, I was happy to live vicariously through his momma. :)

He IS cute though isn't he?

In other news the CHIRO says I need to have a more active spine at work. Hence forth, My regular spinning chair has been replaced by this guy:

Abs of steel in like ... what... two? three weeks? Too bad I spend most of the day with my elbows on the desk typing/moving hte mouse. I guess it will take more like a month for a six pack then, huh? :)

Hope everyone is has a FABULOUS weekend!

Salad and lots of dorky dancing

Because I have champagne taste on a beer budget (as mom would say), I had to slash the grocery list from lofty goals and ingredients like goat cheese, salmon, and nori.............. to PB&J... which is what I have actually been eating all week (although delicous, not necessarily blog-innovation worthy, even on my remedial level). My shifting of priorities was for a good cause, I promise. Multiple Chriopractor visits this month so I can turn my head to the left (and dance the robot out of choice and not necessity in the future), a SUPER fabulous bday party weekend out of town with some old sorority peeps, and some new summer threads (don't judge... the banana boat has gone to my head and caused poor fiscal summer-related decisions). So behold, yesterday's lunch combo that impressed myself and my low standards.

Feta/Watermelon Salad:

• Watermelon
• Feta
• Spinach
• Balsalmic Vinagar

And finally, because all I do recap weekends on here anyway, a photo summary of my very favorite weekend of June '09 (too early to say that?) Starting with a trip to see my H.S. BFF -- seriously the funniest person I've ever known. It was good times. She acts/speaks/thinks just like Liz Lemon. Further reinforcing my thoughts that Tina Fey and I would be BFF in real life.

Saturday was a Birthday party and night out with old friends in a random college town that was not our own. A few girls live in KC and a few live in the STL, so we decided to meet in the middle for a birthday bonanza. It did not dissapoint.With some besties.... Heart them big time! (Nin I know you're reading this ;) They even indulged in my LOVE of headband that evening and request to be called Blair Waldorf.After making a spectacle at a number of establishments, and making the cab/van driver take us through the drive thru (i was good, minus the handful of onion rings I stole) obviously we came home and put on our favorite sorority songs. Good thing I have a playlist entitled: 'delta zeta' which has every girl's favorite madonna, whitney, cindy lauper, pat benettar, britney, etc. tunes.

.... DANCE PARTAY!

Hilarious.

In very exciting, non-weekend-related news.... word on the street is that my favorite food aunt is further guiding me along the light and way of the cooking world by supplying me with the following:

How great would THAT be? Hope everyone's Thursday is BANANAS (you know, in a good way).

Flo Rida... Holla!

Goood morrow my peoples! Flo Rida.... the location (as opposed to the rapper, and yes i totally spelled it that way on purpose) is where i have been hiding out all week/weekend. Despite the fact that I am mostly all work and little play... behold the BEAUTEOUS view from out the window:


Which obviously leads to this... (high SPF? check and check)


Though I obviously couldn't cook, I sure was eating... HEY OH. The most healthful and food blog related eats were when I tracked down this beauty of a restaurant I had heard so much about (okay actually it was only 2 miles from my hotel, but still, i was determined). This place is AMAZING!

• All seasonal and fresh foods (hence, the name)
• Everything is under 500 calories
• There are no fryers in the entire restaurant and they don't use butter (i'm not sure how that works with their completely delicious shot glass size desserts, but kudos restaurant)
• hands down the best place i went all week (including local buttery seafood places where the taste of the food was crazy delicious.... a la red vines and mr. pibb)

My companion for dinner was a friend from college, then we went to a dive bar on the beach... LOVED it! Early flight though, so it was fun... with time and drink limitations.

Before I left KC, in addition to a super fun rehearsal dinner that john was in (well he was in the wedding too, but i had to miss that to travel :( Anyway one of my besties flew in from Denver, and we.... OBVIOUSLY... had a dance party. The caption to this beauty below might read something like.... oh no... walk out the door... don't come around here.. you're not welcome anymore..

A more composed pic:

AHHH love. Can't wait to GET BACK! I have the best girls weekend in history happening, school starts tomorrow (okay okay, can totally put that off longer)..

by the way: did anyone hear Al Roker's HILARIOUS joke just now about coffee and all the single lattes? (beyonce style). Total highlight of my morning. Well, that and having an A boarding pass.

Tood-le-loo

And I'm Spent..

This weekend was fabulous. Emily and I had plans to spend the day trolling for treasures at flea markets, etc. .... until we realized it was going to be 90+ degrees and sunny. Pool-side margaritas trumped anything else we could think of (we did stop at a garage sale as we got lost on the way to the pool... so that counts.. right?)
Too bad I'm Irish and invariably end up looking like this:

Many hours later........ DANCE PARTY (and no emily and john are not getting sucked into a sci-fi black hole in space or morphed into anything.... my hands were just shaking and i was too lazy to get out the real camera, and instead used the low res iphone camera)

Sunday John and I watched Milk.... loved it. How lucky is my generation to have not been really (i mean really) persecuted? Deep thoughts.

Also we won tickets to a comedy club nearby to see hanging with Mr. Cooper (ironically, john and i had seen him there a few years ago)... i heart comedy.

So last night I felt it was my blog duty to make some things I hadn't yet made. So.... I tried my hand at Granola

• rolled oats


• sesame seed


• almonds


• brown sugar


• salt


• cinnamon


• ginger


• applesauce


• honey


• canola oil

My entire apartment smelled like baking applesauce.... yum.

The lumpy mass below is my attempt at a hot pocket feast. After my failed martha attempt a few weeks ago, I decided it would be fun to try making different kinds of hot pockets. I've been asking my OH-SO knowledgeable food aunt Anne dough questions so I can make my own healthy whole grain stuff from scratch. However..... because this is an all around new attempt (however simple in its nature) I thought I would remove potential for it to fail on the first time (let's be real here). So... pillsbury pizza dough it is. BTW, how annoying is it they don't have a multigrain option? The uber processed was less desirable, admittedly, but... here we are.

My first attempt was a 'veggie' pizza HP (hp = hot pocket, not harry potter.. or hewlett packer) anyway i added spaghetti sauce with peppers, mushrooms and part skim mozz cheese shreds.

the next one was cheddar cheese with broccoli and cauliflower.

Then tex-mex-ish (yeehaw!) and had corn, peppers, black beans and cheddar

Then swiss with chopped turkey and spinach.

All together now (ignore the one on the bottom left, it's ugly and was a scrap one). So what IS the difference between a Lean/Hot pocket and a Calzone and a Pizzone? Marketing? Square versus half-circle shape? Can I call these Lauren Pockets? I do really like pockets.

So I baked these according to the dough directions (10-15 min?) and hope to be eating these bad boys all week.

Jerry's Thoughts:

• get a rolling pin. (What is it that is so difficult about dough? It's a sticky, unmanageable concoction that is impossible to spread without poking fingerholes).... the dough was way too thick, and I'm guessing the famed kitchen tool would be helpful in the future


• do NOT use spaghetti sauce. For all things spaghetti/marinara spag. sauce has always worked (a tomato is a tomato is a tomato, right?... wrong). This time it was leaking out corners and pretty much dissolved during baking. TOMATO PASTE is where it's at next time people, tomato paste


• just make the homemade stuff.... all of that carby processed stuff finds plenty of other ways into my diet (re: margarita weekends), when I'm home cooking and experimenting the least I can do opt for the fresher/healthier stuff.


• That Heidi and Spencer make me want to gouge my eyes out. That if i'm a celebrity get me out of here' is on every monday night all summer, then I'm throwing my TV out the window.... onto the street... from the fourth floor. OI.

Special shout out to Anne/Grandma/Mom who went to the most FABULOUS little artist's colony in Wisconsin where yours truly was born. So Jealous... want to go back. Hope you ladies had a wonderful road trip!!

More shout outs (what is this a radio station?) HAPPY 18th Birthday to my SEESTER! She totally doesn't read this blog, but she is SO wonderful.

Hope everyone is having a FANTASTIC week thus far!

So there i was.... minding my own business....

Okay, not to get all iphone on you, but I have been reunited with itunes (we were on a money saving/no additional computer memory hiatus for a few months) and it . is . Glorious.

So last night after watching a PBS documentary on 'In The Heights' the AMAZING Broadway musical, I proceeded to download a bunch of showtunes that I love (we didn't have cable or neighbors growing up, and mom would rent us musicals from the library.. I am a fan) .... and itunes suggested I download a Song from 'A Chorus Line'. Now, itunes knows my musical tastes pretty well by now. However.... How they KNEW I was in a summer theater workshop as a kid and performed this very act (at both a theater and the county fair) I will never know. Well played itunes/stalking, well played.

So there I was... on my way back from lunch and listening to my new sweet musical tunes and I get excited to start pretending to tap dance to 'one singular sensation' when this came on instead....



WHAT??????? I accidentally downloaded the GERMAN VERSION of the song by accident. MWAHAHAH.... It sounded a lot less appealing. Kind of harsh actually. Oh those mean-sounding Germans.


So then... I got to thinking. Where did I see a picture from that very song/performance? And then I looked around. And then....randomly... for no reason whatsoever, I located said picture at my desk. My desk? My bewilderment is the internet's gain. Check out my SWEET cumberbun and bowtie (I'm second from the right... with approximately the same haircut i have now)

But again, for no apparent reason, I have the second photo in this series at my desk also (which is WAY better by the way).

Behold my brother now (or at least what you can find as his FB profile pic)

And Brother then. In front. Yes that one.

Oh what his former Navy shipmates would say. Also, for kicks.... (and because this is supposed to be a food blog for crying out loud) I took a photo of lunch. Note I took a page out of brooke's blog to try to create art via ketchup. Too bad that stuff came out so quickly instead of a margarita glass I made a gametime decision to do a pointy blob.

Ahhh art. Interpret, if you will. Is it a flower? Is it a sun? Is it a self portrait of a grow-your-own-boyfriend doll? (shout out to kostas). Art is love people, art is love.