Wednesday, October 31, 2012

WIAW - Week 2


It's time for another WIAW!! 
We're once again linking up with Jenn over at peasandcrayons.com

Happy Halloween everyone!!!

Breakfast:  Multigrain cheerios, a banana, and some peach/mangosteen green tea





Snack:  Chobani Apple Cinnamon Greek Yogurt.  Yummo!! 
(I thought it would be a good fall snack today)




Lunch:  Roast beef, mashed potatos and corn.  Dessert: Pudding Pop
(My work provides lunch for free to the employees, otherwise, I would never eat lunch like this on a daily basis.  I plan on no dessert tonight after dinner.  The pudding pop and tootsie rolls might have been my desserts for the day......  :)



Snack:  Too many Tootsie Rolls.....dang that candy for being in the office....cant wait till it goes away!


Dinner:  Mama Lucia's frozen pizza, homemade cheese sticks and a side salad 
I've got to sneak my veggies in somewhere.  : )





Beverage of Choice:  Water all day.  I need to drink more of it, but I get distracted at work and forget. 
I really try to stay away from soda, and am no where addicted to it, but sometimes a good ol' Diet Coke or Cherry Diet Dr. Pepper just hits the spot. 


I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween!!

~Jessica



Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Kitchen Aid Mixer

Can I just say, I LOOOOOOOVE my Kitchen Aid Mixer!!  If you like to bake as much as I do,  you will NEED this mixer.  My wonderful mama got me my Kitchen Aid mixer as my bridal shower present.  You can get the exact model mixer here.  Yes, it is pricey, but I think it is well worth it.  A lot of the time you can find deals on the mixers, I know Target had one just this past week in their ad.  Also you can get one at Bed Bath and Beyond and use one of their 20% off coupon.  A hint, if you coupon is expired, DO NOT throw it away, they will still honor their expired coupons!!!


Special thanks to my mama!!  Love her!

 My mama and I at my Bridal Shower

Me opening the mixer at the shower, my maid of honor, Jennifer and her daughter, Maddy, helping with the presents.




 LOVE IT!



Monday, October 29, 2012

Thoughts and Prayers

My thoughts and prayers to those on the East Coast who are being battered by Hurricane Sandy.  Stay safe!

~Jessica


Sunday, October 28, 2012

Weekend Recap

Friday Evening - Such a lazy evening for me.  My contacts were bugging the crap out of me but I was already at work for the day and couldn't get home to take them out and put the glasses on.  By the time I got home and rubbed my eye all day, the damage was done.  I had scratched my eye.  It was burning and watering like crazy.  I hate my glasses, but sometimes you have to just deal with it. 

Saturday - I decided to wake up at 9am Saturday morning.  No clue why, but I was ready to get up!  I was ready to bake and wanted to make a new recipe for breakfast that morning. 

We can thank pinterest and Sweet Peas Kitchen for this awesome recipe:



Ingredients:


For the Muffins:

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup milk

For the Glaze:

3 tablespoons butter; melted
1 cup confectioners’ sugar; sifted
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons hot water

Directions:

  • Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line 12 muffin cups with muffin liners or spray with nonstick cooking spray.
  • In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together butter, vegetable oil, and sugars till smooth. Beat in eggs, one at a time. With the mixer on low speed, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt and vanilla until just combined. Stir the flour into the butter mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour and mixing until just combined. Do not overmix!
  • Spoon batter into cups, filling the cups, and smooth tops. Divide batter equally among prepared muffin cups. Bake until muffin tops are a pale golden and springy to the touch, 15 to 17 minutes, rotating halfway through baking time. Cool muffins in muffin tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack and cool 10 minutes before glazing.
  • To make the glaze, In a medium bowl mix together the melted butter, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla and water. Whisk until smooth.
  • When muffins have cooled slightly, dip the muffin crown into the glaze and allow the glaze to harden. Once hardened, dip a second time and allow to harden then serve.
Recipe Note: Muffins will keep at room temperature for about a day.







These muffins came out so delicious!!  I would suggest not using the paper wrappers with the muffins.  Once you put the glaze on these, they become very messy and sticky and hard to eat.  The paper wrapper is kind of pointless.  Thanks Sweet Pea's Kitchen for a great recipe!  :)  I had also made me and Andy scrambled cheesy eggs and heated up the leftover turkey sausage to eat.  I wasn't in a sausage mood, so Andy received all those. 


After breakfast and cleaning up around the house for a bit, it became a lazy kind of day as you can see by the dog and cat, tough life I tell you.  :)


Keeley lying next to me at the computer. 
She would wake up if I made any sudden movement
That's why her eyes are open in this photo.

Smokey lying in his tower.  He loves that thing,
it was well worth the money!

 
I decided that I wasn't done baking for the day.  At the library, I found the new baking cookbook from Entenmann called, "Entenmann's Big Book of Baking".  I was in no mood to go to the grocery store, so I found a recipe that used only ingredients that were in my pantry.  So I decided on homemade brownies.  As shocking as this might be, I had never made homemade brownies NOT from the box.  I'll post the photos and recipe later on.

I also made a crock pot meal for dinner that night.  It comes to us from:


Cheesy Chicken Tater Tot Casserole


Holy cow it was so good and so easy to make!  
I would totally recommend this to someone who is on the go and wants something fast and easy to make.


Sunday - Spent the morning with my mom and sister, Jena.  We did our Sunday usual, Target, lunch and grocery shopping (Dierbergs).  It was as usual, a great time spent with them.  Andy and I met up with his parents, Tim and Lynn for dinner and a movie.  We ate at a resturant called, "Shamrocks".  I didn't have much hope for it, but it turned out really good.    Andy got this burger that was 2 grilled cheeses with a burger patty inbetween.  I had a bite and was in heaven.  We saw the movie, "Trouble with the Curve".  Soooooo good.  Number one, its a baseball movie.  You can't go wrong there.  And number two, Justin Timberlake was in it.  I recommend that movie to anyone!

Back to another work week, once again the weekend flew by!

~Jessica


Thursday, October 25, 2012

Follow Better Together and Forever!

Happy Thursday!!

Just wanted to remind you to follow my blog.  If you follow, you will get updates as to when I update my blog and post new things!  :) 

To follow either register with your google account or email address at the left side of the screen.  You will scroll down just a few to see where to input your information.  I will in NO WAY do anything with your information. 

~Jessica


Wednesday, October 24, 2012

WIAW - Week 1


Hi to all!!  I'm linking up with Jenn over at What I Ate Wednesday!  I'm excited for my first WIAW!  :)


Breakfast - Banana and Peanut Butter Smoothie.
  I experiment with smoothies for breakfast all the time, this was my first time trying this out.  It tasted like peanut butter captain crunch cereal!  So delicious.



Morning Snack - Blueberry Chobani Yogurt




Lunch - Leftover Pasta House Mostaccoli 




 MidDay Snack - Hand full of Colby Cheese-Its




Dinner - Outback Steakhouse (not good for you, but we had a gift card to use)
                                                 
                                               Salad                        6 oz. steak with garlic mashed potatoes
Nutter-butter pie that Andy and I split. 


Happy Wednesday Night Everyone!

~Jessica



Drapes

We moved into our home in September 2011, on October 23, 2012, we FINALLY picked out and hung drapes in our living room!  About time, right!  :) 

It was a really hard choice to pick out curtains for the living room.  Our kitchen cabinets are dark, dark brown, the countertops are brown and beige, the kitchen wall color is chocolate brown.  The living room is a bit lighter than the kitchen color and we have a beige couch and black and brown swirl rug.  So do we go with color for the curtains or just go neutral and how neutral, dark brown, light brown, black, grey.....as you can see there were many decisions to go off of.  Another reason why it took so long, the cost of curtains!!  Holy moly can they be anymore expensive??  I found one day at TjMaxx a set of 2 curtains for $19.99, a deal if you ask me!!  The curtain rod was $19.99, and it wasnt gaudy looking either!  Score!  In all the total cost of curtains and rod was $80.00 total.  A lot, yes, but were covering 3 windows here.


Before

After 


Yep, we went with a cream color, but nice and inviting.  It ties the living room and kitchen together really well.  In fact when I came downstairs this morning, it was odd to see curtains in the living room!  I think we could use 2 more curtains up there, but I'm afraid it will make the rod too heavy.  We shall see though.

Kudos goes to my husband for coming home yesterday from work and just deciding to put the curtains up!!  :)  He did a great job if you ask me. 

Enjoy your day!  The high here is suppose to be 87 degrees!  It's summer weather all over again!

~Jessica


Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Pumpkin Apple Muffins


Ingredients

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
2 eggs                                                                                                         
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup vegetable oil
medium finely chopped peeled tart apples (I used honeycrisp apples)

 



Directions

In a large bowl, combine the first eight ingredients.
In a small bowl, combine eggs, pumpkin and oil; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in apples.
Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full.
Bake at 350° for 30-35 minutes or until muffins test done.
Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan. 
Yield: 1-1/2 dozen.





I personally made 2 batches of these because I like to freeze them in freezer zip-lock bags and take out how ever many I want to eat.  I let them sit out for about an hour and zap them in the microwave for 15 seconds so they are warm and delicious smelling.  They are easy to make and a perfect fall breakfast to include into your home.


Weekend Recap

Sorry for the delay in this post, I haven't had much motivation to get going on this post.  It's probably because Andy came home late Sunday night from his weekend in Wisconsin and all I wanted to do on Monday night after work was lie on the couch with Andy and catch up on our TV shows.

Friday - Spent the evening with my brother Jeff and his kids, Jackson and Claire.  Love, love, love those babies!! :)  It was a cold, rainy day (around 50 degrees) and the Cardinals were home for the 5th game of the NLCS Series.  Jeff is making dinner and Jackson says to me, "Lets go to the Cardinals Game".  I tell Jackson, "It's too cold and the game is sold out buddy".  His response, "I have a hoodie I could wear!"  So cute!  We played and had a good time.  I was glad I got to spend some time with them.  Both kids decided to sit on my lap and we took a bunch of photos together, I think they turned out great.  Lots of great memories documented.  I would like to comment that my phone is a piece of crap....I have one more month to go until I can upgrade and I cannot wait.  So I apologize in advance for the quality of these photos.


 This is my favorite photo of the night!!  I cant believe I got a decent photo of all 3 of us!!





I absolutely LOVE Jackson's face in this photo!  He thought I was being so funny!






Saturday -  Girls days with my mama and sister Jena.  Spent the day shopping, eating and just having a good time.  Oh and yes, I have already started Christmas shopping!  We went and saw the movie, "Pitch Perfect".  I really liked it.  It wasn't my absolute favorite movie, but it was good.  I loved Anna Kendrick's voice in this movie and Rebel Wilson is absolutely hilarious!!  Rebel Wilson and Melissa McCarthy are my favorite actress' right now.  A big thanks goes to my Dad, JP for getting up on the second floor of my house and putting up the piece of siding that fell off awhile ago and cleaning the window with the mud ball that was thrown up there in the spring.  A weight has been lifted off my shoulders now that, that is done.

Sunday - Pumpkin Patch Day!  I had my mom, dad, sister, brothers, and Aunt Nancy over for breakfast.  I made my cheese danishes and my mom made scrambled eggs and sausage.  I meant to take a photo of the breakfast but by the time we ate, I was too hungry and lazy to take a photo.  The cheese danishes are time consuming, but so delicious!!  The whole family (except Andy, he was still in Wisconsin, sadface) went out to the pumpkin patch.  Even Aunt Nancy went out with us, which was great because I enjoy being with everyone, just wished Andy was there with us.  We took a hayride out to the field to pick or own pumpkin.  Jackson and Claire LOVED the hayride!  Let me tell you how hot it was, I think the high was around 84 degrees.  I was in shorts and flip flops.....not fall weather at all!  Andy came home late that night and we learned that Keeley is a pretty good guard dog.  She was thrown off guard with Andy coming home so late.  He was gone from Thursday to Sunday.


How cute is he!  I love this photo of him!



My sister Jena and my Aunt Nancy


My brothers Jack and Joe


O'Hara and Claire


Claire playing in the corn box, she loved it!!



Jackson on the pony ride


My Mama and I!  Love her!


There was a great photo of my Aunt Nancy, my sister Jena, me and my mama, but my camera is stupid and it didn't save the photo.  I'm sad that photo didn't save because it was a great photo of all of us!  

New digital camera and cell phone are on the list of needing soon!


I hope every one's weekend went well, and as usual they go by wayyyy too fast!

~Jessica


Friday, October 19, 2012

Lunch Date

Yesterday, Andy and I decided to have a lunch date.  We hadn't had lunch together in a while during a work week and decided to join up together and eat at our favorite pizza place, Fortel's Pizza Den.  Delicious!!!  It's right by Andy's work and only a 15 minute drive for me.  We met up at 11:30 for lunch and it was soooooooo good as usual.  The atmosphere is very sports themed and the service is excellent!!  I cannot rave enough about how great the employees are who work there.  I have never experienced anything wrong since we started eating there 2 years ago.  Good job Fortel's!  :)

We always get the following:  A 10" cheese pizza, beer battered cheese sticks, and a side salad for me.  I cannot explain how good the cheese sticks are, yes they are fried and not good for you but delish when eaten in moderation.   We had leftovers and since my friend Judy at work was so nice to me the day before when I was having a rough day, I brought her back the remaining pizza and cheese sticks.  She was in heaven since her lunch was not up to par!

The delicious cheese pizza!

The cute cups you get from there.

The beer battered cheese sticks!!  Sooooo good!


This weekend should be a good one!  The Cards won last night, which means, they are one win away from going to the World Series again!!  '12 in '12!!  So excited for them.  I wore my Cardinals VS Pink hoodie today to work to cheer them on, yes we can wear stuff like that here!  Hope everyone has a great weekend!

~Jessica