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And Speaking Of…

Posted on January 24, 2013 by kissmybroccoli

Hey guys!

Thank you all SO much for the congrats on my service award I received the other day! Five years is definitely something to be proud of…even if it some nights it DOES feel like I’ve been there for an eternity…yeah, here’s looking at you Mr. Drunk McGee! 😉

So there’s been some happenings around here lately that I ~~thought I’d~~ can’t wait to share…

First and foremost, the fact that after I woke up yesterday and checked my phone, I ~~almost peed my pants~~ jumped up and down when I saw my Twitter alerts…

Anyone else catch Food Buzz’s Top 9?

Because that’s my Pumpkin Pie French Toast right there in the mix!

*Squeal*

This is my first time EVER being featured on the Top 9 and I feel EXTREMELY honored to have one of my recipes included with so many other talented bloggers!

And SPEAKING of pumpkin…

I may or may not have rekindled my love affair with the good ol’ orange stuff…and also become insanely enamored with the new Valentine’s Day effects on PicMonkey! 😉

Ok, I totally did…love, love, love, love, LOVE! 😀

#strangebutGOOD recipe coming at ya tomorrow!

And SPEAKING of good…

On Tuesday, I finally picked myself up out of the puddle of self-pity I’d formed since my knee went out on me, wrapped it up and headed to the gym!

Lifting weights, swimming laps, and soaking in the hot tub does a~~n injured~~ body GOOD!

It feels SO good to get some sanity back…even if I was taken by surprise by DOMS two days later (don’t be fooled, I secretly love it!)

And SPEAKING of surprises…

It was DEFINITELY a surprise when this bundle showed up on my doorstep last week!

Ok, that’s a lie…I knew they were coming since I obviously ordered them online but it WAS a surprise that all THREE? boxes arrived on the same day! 😉

I think it’s safe to say that after allowing me to review these bars a couple of months ago, Quest has officially created a monster, especially since when I ordered these boxes, I had yet to finish off the ones I purchased a month before…

What can I say?

Oh, how about that the banana walnut flavor is absolutely AMAZING and seriously almost tastes like an actual muffin!

And SPEAKING of stuffing bites of deliciousness in my mouth…

Somewhere amidst the mouthgasms that resulted from warmed banana nut muffin bars and more Coconut Banana Bread than I knew what to do with (I eventually froze the rest), I managed to catch a bit of a bug, but not of the tossing toast variety…no, I was stricken with the BAKING BUG! <- I know, I never saw it coming either!

I whipped up a batch of these almond cookies last week after seeing how much Chelsea raved about them over the holidays. I decided to throw in some dried cranberries at the last-minute and boy am I glad I did! They turned out fantastic…soft and chewy and perfectly sweet!

On Sunday, I wanted to do something special for my co-worker’s birthday and since she absolutely adores anything coconut, I just had to make these healthy coconut cupcakes:

I finally got to use my almond flour for the first time and (sadly) used up the last of my xylitol…time to buy more! 😉

I topped them with some vanilla Chobani and a bit of unsweetened shredded coconut and they were absolutely DELICIOUS…as in almost dangerously so! I had to put the leftovers in the freezer just so that I’d quit grabbing them!

And SPEAKING of dangerously delicious snacks…

Remember these guys?

Back in the spring of last year, after polishing off one of the two tubs (in ONE WEEK!) that my friend Missy was ~~evil~~ kind enough to send me, the second tub was placed in the snack-ness protection program…aka, the darkest depths of the pantry…out of sight out of mind!

Well, that is until they were recovered and CRACKed open during movie night with the man-friend last week.

200 pretzels, half a jar of sweet potato butter, and two tummy-aches later…

I SWEAR these things are pure EVIL!

The little crunchy sticks of ~~heavenly goodness~~ pretzel crack have since returned to the darkness from whence they came…and as for the more perishable sweet potato butter? It met an untimely death the next morning…death by “accidental” garbage disposal-ing.

Mwahahaha!

Yeah, I think I’ve hit an all time low in revenge seeking. 😉

And SPEAKING of lows (ok, actually highs, but work with me here)…

I couldn’t help but feel like a friggin’ rockstar the other day when I busted out a 100+ point word on Words With Friends!

Now if I only knew what “japer” meant… 😉

Hmm, guess you really DO learn something new every day! 😉

What’s new in your life…any recent surprises, snack out-witting, or vocabulary enhancement?

What is the last thing you baked?
If it totally rocked, feel free to drop a link!

Posted in Desserts, Strange But Good, Thursday Things, Workouts | Tagged baking, cookies, cupcakes, Foodbuzz, French toast, gym, twitter | 41 Comments

What I Ate at the Country Club!

Posted on January 23, 2013 by kissmybroccoli

Hey party people!

Yep, yep…it’s that special time of week…time kick back, relax, and ~~drool over~~ celebrate a delicious day of eats!

Happy What I Ate Wednesday!

As always, a big shout out goes to Jenn for putting on the biggest blog party out there! Be sure to head over to Peas & Crayons, show her a bit of love, and see what everyone else has been munching on this week!

So, there was a last-minute change of plans for this post. I had a compilation of mouth-watering pics from my meals throughout the last week all set and ready to go, BUT that all changed last night after:

I went to my very FIRST Service Award Banquet, a dinner celebrating employees as they hit milestones in their time of service. As of June of 2012, I’ve been with my hospital for FIVE years!

My invitation came in the mail a couple of weeks ago, thanking me for my service and inviting me (and a guest) to a dinner at our local country club which I had never visited before.

My mom makes a pretty hot plus one, no? 😉

The banquet hall was set up very nicely and held our congregation of nearly 200 rather well. Mom and I were fortunate enough to be seated at the table with the most personality in the room…we had good laughs all night long. And after explaining why I was taking a bazillion pictures of my dinner, and then using pictures of my
Red Velvet Protein Pancakes as bait, I think I may have even earned a new blog reader! 😀

Anywho, how about we get on to the good stuff, huh?

It all started with salad:

Mixed greens with cucumber, tomato, carrots, and onions. There were assorted dressings to choose from, but I opted to have the delicious Greek-inspired pasta salad be my topping…filled with clumps of tangy feta cheese, kalamata olives, peppers, and even broccoli, I swear this was one of the BEST pasta salads I’ve ever tasted!

For the main course, we were able to chose from either beef tips with peppers and onions or grilled lemon-pepper salmon:

Mom went with the salmon, which did have a nice flavor, but the beef was SO much better…tender, juicy, and FULL of flavor! Served alongside some buttery creamed potatoes, honey-glazed carrots, and peas with pearl onions, this dinner was the epitome of classic Southern cooking (basically, I was in HEAVEN!).

And for the record, the ONLY way to eat from a plate like this is to dance your fork around the plate, scooping up a little of everything for each and every bite!

And then there was dessert:

Mom went with the cheesecake with raspberry drizzle…

While I chose to go with the “mystery” dessert that turned out to a sort of
combo between crumb cake and bread pudding…it had a good flavor but I would definitely have preferred more of a pudding-like consistency.

After dinner, the awards ceremony started with a word from our city mayor and then we were all called up in our range of years…5, 10, 15…and even 45!!

Our token for the evening…a silver pendant that can be attached to our name badges…notice mine has the #5?

I’ll admit that I almost didn’t RSVP to this dinner. It was scheduled just before my shift began and honestly, I just envisioned a night of boring chatter and food catered by our ill-reputed cafeteria. I am SO glad that I was wrong! In this world, it’s not often you get a chance to have your time/effort recognized and I feel grateful to hold a position were the management does actually try to show their level of appreciation in some form or another.

What’s the longest time you’ve ever spent at one job?

Do you have to keep your food separate on the plate or are you a mixer-upper like me?

Posted in What I Ate Wednesday | Tagged awards, beef, hospital, pasta, salad | 30 Comments

Testing My Marvelousness

Posted on January 21, 2013 by kissmybroccoli

Happy Monday, my lovelies!

So this weekend was a bit of a test…

Even though I went to the doctor early last week about my knee and got on some medication for the swelling, the pain and accompanying pirate-ish hobbling has yet to pass. On top of being utterly annoyed with my newly acquired limp and the stares/questions that come with it, as luck would have it, I also had an 8 hour training class to go to on Saturday.

Ok, so now that that I’ve got THAT out of of my system (it’s nice to whine every once in a while, no?), I’d like to say that I feel I’m a glass-half-full kind of gal, so I shrugged off the negative thoughts, ~~carved my initials into my pirate leg~~ and ended up having a pretty MARVELOUS weekend!

After a few weeks out, I’m back to join in on the fun that is
Katie’s Marvelous in My Monday!

It started on Friday night when the man-friend introduced me to one of his favorite restaurants in East Nashville, Batter’d & Fried, a Boston seafood house with a wave sushi bar. They serve a lot of traditional fried seafood dishes, but I was amazed with the quality and the overall lack of that “greasy” feeling on the inside.

After perusing the menu, I decided to take the man-friend up on a recommendation…

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Seared tuna atop a bed of mixed greens with walnuts, goat cheese, and Kalamata olives with eel sauce and house-made balsamic on the side.

I was a little skeptical of the flavor of the olives mixing with the goat cheese and the walnuts, but I was pleasantly surprised with how well they went together. Seriously, the BEST salad I have EVER eaten in my life!

The man-friend ordered the salmon and chips of which I stole a few bites and I couldn’t get over the quality…fresh, not greasy in the LEAST, with some of the best homemade tartar sauces I’ve ever tasted!

After dinner, we found out that they were still serving some of their famous Boston Cream Pie for dessert. They order straight from a bakery in Boston and only get a limited amount each day and going by the fact that the man-friend immediately started drooling once the waitress confirmed their stock, I KNEW I was in for a treat!

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Now THAT is a thing of beauty!

I was pretty stuffed, but I managed to find some room for a couple of bites…

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So soft, so fluffy, so polished off in like five minutes!

On Saturday, after a LONG day of training, the plan was to head to Nashville again for some Thai food, but I just didn’t have the energy after ~~sitting on my butt~~ working my brain cells all day (plus my knee was killing me) so instead we decided on a quite evening at the house.

While he was on his way over, I had an idea!

I’ve been drooling over Heather’s Spinach Crust Pizza for a couple of weeks now and nearly jumped up and down (which is pretty much impossible with my leg right now) in the middle of the grocery store when I found the pizza yeast packets needed for the recipe the other day.

Since I don’t own a stand mixer, I took the time to take out some of my pirate aggression, but I have to say I was super nervous after a few minutes of kneading when things weren’t looking quite right….

Pizza Crust

The dough was hard and dry…nothing like Heather’s pictures! 🙁

I’ll confess that I almost gave up, but something told me to keep going. I whipped up a quick sauce out of tomato sauce and spices, threw on some toppings, and, with my fingers crossed, tossed ‘er in the oven.

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Fifteen minutes later, I opened the door and my mouth dropped open…I couldn’t believe how great it looked and smelled!

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And low and behold it TASTED amazing!

Which is nice since my arm is STILL a bit sore from kneading that dough! Lol

The rest of the night was spent relaxing on the couch with two of our latest movie rentals…

Movies

Both were absolutely HILARIOUS!

The next day…and well, into today as well, the marvelousness has continued via Instagram…

Coconut Banana Fans

In the last 24 hours, six people have already made my
Coconut Banana Pancakes!

I LOVE coming up with new recipes, but it’s all for nothing if I don’t have anyone to share them with. But seriously, every time I hear (or see) that someone has made and enjoyed something I’ve created, I get the biggest GOOFIEST smile on my face!

And THAT is absolutely MARVELOUS! Thank you guy SO much!

What was marvelous about your weekend?

Do you prefer to go out to the movies or stay at home?