Loaf. hummus. wine

I was in a baking mood last night. On a never-ending quest to have my co-workers adore me, I planned on making Peppermint Puffs. I love anything that involves peppermint and white chocolate but had a feeling these would be dangerous so would bring the majority of the batch into work. Sadly, I bought the wrong kind of candy canes. I don’t know how I picked up fruity candy canes, which by the way, just sounds disgusting . They look like normal candy canes and would’ve thought the fruity ones would’ve had different tropical colored stripes but I thought wrong. I wanted to bake something though and decided to tweak this Pineapple Coconut Loaf Cake recipe by Martha Stewart I made before.

Substitutions I made

*Added mini chocolate morsels (about 1/4 of the bag) and chopped walnuts (1 cup) to the mix (instead of pineapples)

*Subbed apple sauce (1 cup) for the sour cream

*Used 3/4 sugar instead of the called for one cup

*Used 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup all-purpose flour instead of the 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

The mix

With that Chocolate Walnut Coconut Loaf Cake…..

It was delicious, the apple sauce gave it a moist texture but it still held together and it was sweet but not overly sweet. Speaking of not overly sweet, I forgot to mention an interesting remark towards me at Autozone yesterday. I went there before going to Value Village to pick up an air filter and an elderly papi chulo named Pedro was helping me. When I scanned my credit card, I grabbed a pen to sign the receipt but he told me that I had to sign on the machine. I would usually due that but I wasn’t quite awake yet and jokingly said “Oh sorry, I can’t function yet because I didn’t have my coffee” Then Mr. Pedro patted my hand and said “Maybe you don’t need coffee, maybe you need some love in your life.

W

T

F????

I’m sorry but how does that come into play? Is it that apparent that I am single or high-strung? Right there, I wanted to give him my mother’s phone number so they could discuss my love life. On a related note, I’ve been singing Bieber’s “Somebody to Love” all day long. I think Lincoln is starting to tire of it though since I’ve been singing to him and giving him kisses. Maybe Mr. Pedro was right? Sigh.

Going back to work today was rough. There was no traffic going in and I got to work in record time. There really wasn’t much to do today so we sat around schmoozing for a few hours and did some busy work in between. We decided to go out for lunch instead of dining in the break room and went to The King’s Kitchen. This is a newer restaurant in Uptown Charlotte  that’s a not for profit restaurant serving up southern cuisine. Their employees are people who are formerly homeless trying to get back on their feet, people in recovery and at risk teens. Plus they do a lot of giving back to the community so I feel warm and fuzzy about patronizing The Kings Kitchen. Their Country Fried Steak was the special of the day and nothing else was really singing to me.

Another thing I like about it is that although it is heavy, comfort food they don’t give you an insane amount of food. When I worked at Cracker Barrel (you can stop laughing, I worked there for four years), the country fried steak portion was absolutely ridiculous and easily two times the size of this one. It was just enough and I got mashed sweet potatoes, cole slaw and wilted spinach on the side and I received my card to the clean plate club in turn. The sweet potato mash was some of the best I’ve ever had and wish I would have gotten double of it. Needless to say, I was in a food coma afterwards and didn’t want to work the rest of the afternoon.

I went on another shopping spree after work….to Trader Joe’s! I don’t visit the location closest to me that much because I hate the parking scheme. It has a parking garage only and with having watching too many thrillers in my day, parking garages freak me out. Apparently, my inner wino was telling me to buy some wine so that I did

And my wine rack no longer looks pathetic with one bottle of wine sitting in it

I also remembered to pick up some hummus when I was there, it’s been waaaaay too long since I’ve been without

Which then turned into dinner out of pure laziness. I was going to have leftovers and cook up a side dish but I just wanted to put on my fleece pj pants and sit down. And I’m fine with that, I’m an adult so I can eat whatever I would like for dinner.

I was a huge fan of TJ’s Three Layer Dip when I tried it earlier this year, especially the cilantro hummus portion. But this time around, I really wasn’t feeling the cilantro. I think it was a bit too much for me so I stuck to noshing on the original and red pepper portion instead.

And with that, I want to go to bed. Just being back at work for one has left me mentally exhausted. Is it sad if it’s 7P and I want to go to bed?

I’m happy to see that you all approved of my ugly sweater. I think I am going to doll it up with lights and possibly jingle bells. I can’t wait to see everyone elses! Be sure to check out The Fitness Dish for my Friday 5 Websites I Visit When I Need a Laugh!