An update

Hey all–glad you all  are entering the I Love My Dog bumper sticker contest—I absolutely love hearing about everyone’s dogs so keep em coming! Lots going on so I am going to attempt to categorize this and make it light and easy

On the food front: A whole lotta randomness has been happening. With the weather getting nice out (you know, since it’s February and all) I’ve been craving less than stellar stuff….like nachos. However, it’s rare that I have tortilla chips at home seeing that I can plow through an entire bag in one sitting. So what to do when a girl wants nachos and doesn’t have tortilla chips? Make her own!

Instead of brushing with extra virgin olive oil like I normally do, I sprayed with vegetable oil non stick spray then sprinkled black pepper on them. I popped them in the oven and cooked for about 12 minutes at 350 degrees.

This was a terrific way to make nachos in a pinch and did the trick for me!

Friday was a stressful day at work. I was running late plus we had a two-hour training to get to from 10A to noon–who does that? What kind of masochist schedules meetings and trainings on a Friday? I just don’t get it plus Friday is my day to catch up on stuff and tie up loose ends. I turned to old faithful to relieve some stress—a gyro and crinkle cut fries from Showmars.

Oh Beatles even though I love you so, I beg to differ, sometimes all you need is grease.

A new sweet treat I’ve been having lately is a chocolate Vita Top topped with Pumpkin Spice topping from Smuckers.

I bought the topping some time ago on clearance and completely forgot it. When scouring my cabinets I found it but had no clue what I was going to do with it since I rarely have ice cream at home (their fate ends the same was as tortilla chips)

Do I need to say how delicious this is or does the picture do it justice?

Another sweet treat that I indulged in this weekend?

SHAMROCK SHAKE!!!!!

Can I get a holla?

Yep, that Shamrock shake didn’t live to see five minutes of life on this earth. I slurped it down in record time….and without brain freeze thank you very much. Last year, I didn’t have success with finding a Shamrock shake so you can imagine how excited I was to find one this year! When going through the drive thru, I told the employee at the window how happy I was about the Shamrock shake and he told me that he was happy for me and I quote “Your hair looks good, boo” Just what I needed to hear after getting my hair done. Love. Now the question is, when am I going to have my next Shamrock shake?

Shortly after, I had plans to go day drinking so my friend picked me up and we had plans to go to Angry Ale’s since I had a Groupon for $20 worth of food

We thought it was a little odd when we drove up no one was out on the patio on such a beautiful day. I guess we didn’t hear about the fire that happened there back in January. Oops, sorry Angry Ale’s! And for those of you who know how frugal I am, don’t worry, I already contact Groupon and got a refund!

We ended up going down the street to Brazwell’s.

There is when we had some real nachos.

Those nachos but my mock nachos to shame.

I went with the buffalo shrimp as my main course. Why am I saying main course? It was 3pm on a Saturday on a patio where I was enjoying $2 Coors Lights. I guess I am too lazy to change it, yes, that’s what it is.

The crowd started to get a little too early 20’s, pastel colored popped collar crowd (i.e. the reason why I cannot date in this godforsaken city)  soon after so we headed to Dilworth Neighborhood Grill to let the day drinking commence.

I guess Coors Light is currently the “it” beer because there too it was only two bones. Or maybe they think Coors Light just sucks and they were trying to get rid of it. Lucky for them, I will drink cheap beer. I actually prefer Natty Light over some others.

I was just really happy to be back in dress-wearing weather. It felt nice not having to bundle up in layers and rocking some sandals.

I love day drinking, I prefer it over night drinking actually. Of course the sad thing is that day drinking must come to an end at some point unless you live in Alaska. I hate the transition from day-to-night drinking like when you’re at a bar day drinking, a couple of hours pass, you walk outside then boom, it’s night-time. It always catches me off guard as if I don’t know the night is coming or something.

I indulged in some shrimp pad thai with shrimp from Noodles & Company. I wasn’t too impressed with their pad thai, it was more meh than anything. But then again, I really wasn’t expecting anything authentic from Noodles & Company when it comes to Asian fare. I got the shrimp pad thai and there was some chicken in it–good for me, bad if I was a vegetarian.

I had some oats with Pumpkin Spice topping + baked apple+cinnamon+flax seed

Holy deliciousness!

Roast beef sub with potato salad

On Sunday night, I made an interesting new dinner!

First I cooked some baby carrots in the crockpot for five hours on low with water and 1/4 cup brown sugar

Then the main event–cooking a whole chicken

I’ve never cooked one before so this was a new experience. I took it out of the packaging and just stared at it—what was I supposed to do with it?

I quickly googled what to do with an entire chicken and realized I had to reach inside and pull out the innards. Gross. Don’t worry, no pictures of that b.c I put on some gloves, grabbed it then tossed it in the trash.

I patted the chicken dry then rubbed with extra virgin olive oil, garlic, parsley and green onions

I cooked at 400 degrees for a little over an hour. Having a meat thermometer would have been extremely helpful

Such a beautiful bird! Luckily, it was cooked all the way through just right.

Dare I say, this was one of the best chicken dishes I’ve ever made. Having the bone in makes such a difference with the flavor and makes it more succulent. The seasonings I added were simple but just enough to make my senses come alive!

Exercise wise: I went to the gym on Friday night and did 45 minutes on the Precor AMT then did some upper body exercises such as lateral pull down, chest press, row and deltoid row

On Sunday, I attended  a free  Combat Cardio class at Dick Harrell’s Martial Arts studio courtesy of Yelp.

I was a little nervous to go to the class after watching the videos–this looked like another CrossFit type of class. But I am always up for a free class and mixing it up from my normal regime.

We started out with a little jog then ran in a circle inside while people with in the middle individually and practiced kicks, jabs and crossover jabs.

Then we partnered up (I had the same partner at my CrossFit class so it was good to work with someone who I’ve worked with before) and there were five station rotations-burpees ,  sit up passes (with a 12 lb medicine ball), wall squats (with a 15 lb medicine ball) sprinting (with a resistance band while your partner pulls against you) and kicking. Not that that is exhausting enough but we did that set four times in a row which totally kicked my ass. I can say with certainty that I hate burpees and surprisingly enough, the sprinting was my favorite. I now have parts of my body hurting that I never thought could hurt but it’s a good hurt if that makes sense? Plus I had a pretty sweet calorie burn–thanks Yelp for sponsoring this–I am looking into going to more classes there!

Job wise: Work still sucks. Even though Monday was a bank holiday I went in for a couple of hours just to get stuff done. I will be putting in my two weeks notice in April so I can get a good reference (hopefully?) then ride out the rest of my lease. I have plans to check out Pittsburgh at the end of March. I have a bunch of friends who live there, hear it’s a fun city, near WVU where I went to college and is cheaper to live than Charlotte. I’ve been looking into what I will do financially and think I am going to take out some of my 401K–just enough that I will be able to live off of and then still have a nice portion left so I can roll over into a rollover IRA. Still working on paying off my one credit card I have and paying extra on my student loans and car loan.

So yep, that’s what’s going on over here–a busy and full weekend!

Have you ever cooked a whole chicken?
Anyone else having gorgeous weather?? I am confused how it’s 70 and sunny in February but I’m actually enjoying it!

I Feel Like Chicken Tonight

The rest of my day off was enjoyable. Why can’t every day be a day off? I feel so much more productive getting stuff done around the house than when at work. That being said, operation win the lottery or find a sugar daddy is in full effect. I could really get used to not doing the 40 hours of work thing but wouldn’t mind it if I could do something I loved and didn’t have to worry about money. Sigh, let’s see this operation takes me…….

After Panera yesterday,  I had to pick up a few things at Wal Mart and found some Halloween items on 90% off clearance!

I have no clue what I am going to make with black frosting but for $.17 I will try it out! Then the sprinkles were only $.30, I should have stocked up some more. Thankfully they didn’t have any Halloween candy because that is the last thing I need. Want? Hell to the yes. But need, not so much.

I had leftover chili that I made on Friday for lunch with Food Should Taste Good Olive Chips.

These babies have been sitting in my cupboard for a couple of months but to be honest, I was kinda scared to open them up. I figured they would either be really good or really bad. The verdict? I think these may be my new favorite flavor. I love all things olive but recently started liking black olives but I would say I tasted kalamata more than anything.

Since the chili was more thick than anything (that’s what she said), I used the chips to scoop. I originally thought the chili was a fail but it was more of a thick, hot dip this time around. I made it with fresh peppers, onions, corn, cannellini beans and Morningstar Veggie Crumbles but not enough stock or diced tomatoes. I wish I would’ve saved more instead of throwing out some of the remains since I thought it would taste horrible.

Inspired by Devon’s Buffalo Chicken Tacos, I put some chicken in the crockpot with hot sauce and water and set on high.

 I didn’t have any of the ingredients for tacos but by making them in the crock, I could have chicken on hand to make a few versatile dishes this week. I will be feeling like chicken each night

Does anyone else remember that commercial or once again, am I aging myself?

The first thing on the list was a simple dinner of pulled chicken, green beans and brown rice sprinkled with chile powder. I’ve been craving canned french cut green beans this past week. I can’t do frozen green beans for some reason, only fresh or canned.I’m a condiment girl so the honey mustard on the side was essential.

A couple of hours later, I was craving something warm and sweet. I had phyllo dough defrosting in the fridge with an apple that only had a few more days left to enjoy so I decided to make  a few apple tarts. I cut up an apple, sprinkled cinnamon and agave nectar on it then microwaved for two minutes then scooped into the phyllo in a muffin tin

Covered with the remainder of the phyllo, sprinkled with more cinnamon and agave nectar then baked at 400 degrees for 17 minutes

These were absolutely delicious and hit the spot! They were so easy to make along with a quick fix when something sweet was needed. The only thing that would have made it better was some Cool Whip (said the same way Stewie says it of course)

Contemplating what I could make with the crockpot buffalo chicken, my mind naturally wondered to quesadillas. I’ve made the traditional quesadillas and even pizza quesadillas but I never thought to make buffalo chicken quesadillas. Once I thought of that while entering DOS codes into our with the times computer program at work, it was so on.

I took the shredded chicken and added chopped onions, fotina and shredded mozzarella cheese

Then I remembered I had an unopened bottle of this stuff in the cupboard, if you haven’t tried it—go out and buy some, it’s fabulous!

Added some to the chicken mix and spread on a whole wheat tortilla then topped with another and let cook for about 10 minutes

I mixed a couple of teaspoons of the wing sauce with a spoonful of ranch to make a zesty dipping sauce. The day I get sick of condiments is the day I die.

If you like buffalo chicken and like quesadillas–make these, like now. They turned out wonderful and I was a bit skeptical about using fontina but it melted beautifully with the mozzarella. I can’t wait to make these again!!

In other big news, my bestie just created a blog! She is writing about her training for her first half marathon in January, PF Changs Half Marathon no less so it will be rocking time (pun intended). She’s ran a few races in her day but never attempted a half and I am so happy for her! If I train, maybe I will meet her in Phoenix for it, you never know! I can’t wait to read about her progress and other fun, random happenings! Anywho, check it out—Thirteen.Point.One

Today, I took a beating mentally. It was my first day back at work after a three-day wknd (and that means I have a three-day workweek with Veterans Day on Thursday!) plus we got our credits assigned to us yesterday so jumping into that was interesting. The first part of the day, I was overloaded but soon found my groove into how much workflow would go. I also spoke with HR and my paycheck will be coming to me on Friday (grrrr) but it is more than I expected plus I will get my normal paycheck the following Monday. I can hold out until then and budget money, bring leftovers for lunch, etc. AND, I spoke with my mom today and she found a job! She worked at a newspaper in South Florida for 10 years then due to lack of sales, they laid her off last year. She has been depressed about not being able to find anything and been looking anywhere she can. Not only did she get a job, she got a sweet ass job at William Sonoma as a gift wrapper so let’s hope they hire her full-time or keep her on part-time. And let’s hope she takes that 40% discount and buys me a useful gift for Christmas and birthday!

With that, I plan on snuggling with this little man tonight. We got some Netflix to catch up 🙂

***Giveaway Action***

-Win some coupons for Terra Chips over at Eating Chalk!!

-Win Two Moms In The Raw products at Clean Eating Chelsey!

We never found out who let the dogs out.

Sometimes when I get ready to take Lincoln out, I get “Who Let The Dogs Out?” in my head and once again, it’s crept in my head.

I am seriously contemplating downloading it from itunes.

I made french toast with fresh strawberries this morning. Yay for spring and cheaper fresh fruit! I need to hit up the farmers market soon.

I decided to get some spring cleaning done and cleaned out my closet and packed away my winter clothes, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. Does anyone know of a good earring organizer> This is what it looks like when it’s “orderly” and is such a pain in my behind trying to organize, untangle, etc.

 I love my ghetto baby girl earrings!

I put away a bunch of clothes into my outdoor storage and put away a bunch of stuff that I’m donating to Good Will. All that stuff worked up my appetite and decided to make zucchini cakes.

The cakes frying up

Looks wise=fail. Taste wise=fabulous. They didn’t look as good as the last time I made them but still tasty!

Dessert was greek yogurt, pineapple, strawberries and flax

I got the bubble bath going and put on my bathing suit because it was time to give Lincoln a bubble bath! He hates going in the kitchen sink so have to give him a bath in the tub and he has this pina colada dog bubble bath that smells wonderful.

He looks so fluffy and clean now

And without a collar, he looks like a little naked puppy!

I ran to K-Mart to pick up some random stuff plus Easter gifts for my nieces. I love going there as opposed to Wal-Mart since the [prices are comparable and not as many people go there. One of the things I cannot stand about Wal-Mart are the crowds (given it is good people watching). Soon enough, it was time for the WVU-Missouri game. I made popcorn with my new White Cheddar seasoning

WVU won so they are onto the Sweet 16 and play Washington on Thursday–bring it Huskies! I feel asleep right after and hate that about Sunday afternoons. I never sleep well on Sundays due to me not being happy about another work wk starting but something about Sunday afternoon naps is so right.

Dinnertime was approaching and already had split chicken breast in the crockpot cooking so all I needed was a side dish. I had this box of Annie’s Organic Shells and Cheese sitting on my shelf for a few weeks and have been itching to make it. This was my first Annie’s experience and was excited!

Shells and cheese alone never fills me up so I steamed some broccoli and threw it in the mix with some pepper

 

I pulled the chicken apart to make pulled chicken, spooned Budweiser bbq sauce on top and let simmer in the crock while the shells were cooking

LOVED the shells and cheese. It didn’t taste as processed as Kraft shells and cheese, which I definitely liked it. It was light, cheesy and paired with the broccoli, a perfect side dish.

Since I already had dessert at lunch, I figure why no continue to have dessert at dinner.

This was another first for me–Skinny Cow Chocolate Truffle Bar

I’ve always wanted to try these but they are super expensive but only $2.48 at the supermarket this wknd so I had to buy a box!

Mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm mmmmmmm. This was delicious and reminded me of Pudding Pops from the 80’s!

God, those were so good!

I made lunch for tomorrow–Barilla Plus Whole Wheat Farfalle with sautéed baby spinach, artichokes in olive oil with fresh garlic and red pepper flakes.

It’s hard to believe this is one serving of the farfalle—56g. Before I had a food scale, a “serving”—eek!

I signed Lincoln and I up for the Dogswalk Against Cancer Event on the 3rd here in Charlotte this evening. Some of my former co-workers may come out with their dogs to walk as well. It’s the weekend of Easter and will be something fun to do since I have no plans for Easter Sunday itself.

Does anyone watch Desperate Housewives? Does anyone else want to shave off Preston’s porn-stache or think MJ is super whiny all of a sudden? I know I shouldn’t pick on a five-year old but suck it up MJ and stop whining about everything under the sun!

I wish I could tire out as easily as this little guy  but no can do. Hopefully I will start getting sleepy soon enough!