Appe-teasers

Well, I have had a lot of time on my hands lately.... So I made a couple of my favorite things to snack on! (Just what I needed, right? I already eat when I am bored, might as well have delicious foods to eat!)

1) Puppy Chow -- I actually made this to take in the car to Mardi Gras with us, which was a terrible idea on my part! Do you know how messy and sticky all that powdered sugar is?!? Well, we definitely found out the hard way!

2) Spinach Dip -- This is by far my FAVORITE thing. If I could have this for an entire meal, I would!!! How to make it:
1 pack frozen chopped spinach
1 pack cream cheese
1 can Rotel
1 pack Monterrey Jack cheese
1/4 cup of cream

Heat up the spinach according to the package directions. Then mix it along with all of the other ingredients. Pop it in the oven at 425 degrees for around 20 mins, and WHALLAHH!! DELICIOUS! Tastes great on pita chips, Ritz crackers, or anything really!! :)

XoXo

Happy FAT Tuesday!!

It's FAT Tuesday!!! What does that mean?? Mardi Gras celebrations are coming to an end, Ash Wednesday is tomorrow, and 41 days until Easter!

This year, my friends and I braved the rain and hit Bourbon Street for Mardi Gras! Despite the pouring rain, it was a great time -- as always! This was not my first Mardi Gras, we also went our freshman year of college, but we ended up doing a lot of different things than we did the first time. Even though we missed the parades in an attempt to stay dry, we still caught lots of beads, drank hand grenades, and showed Bourbon Street how the Auburn ladies do it!!!XoXo

Pinterest Attempt

Last night, I attempted to make a recipe that I found on Pinterest for Pesto & Cheese Stuffed Baked Chicken. For an inexperienced chef like myself... this was quite a recipe to tackle!!

Some troubles I had:
1) Finding a utensil to pound the chicken with... I ended up using the bottom of a metal measuring cup! Haha!!
2) Getting it rolled up right. I feel like this was partially due to my pounding job. I think if it had gotten a little thinner this would have been easier -- and it definitely got easier as I went!
3) Covering it in egg & flour with toothpicks sticking out everywhere!! -- But really... How are you supposed to roll something that has stuff sticking out??? I ended up pouring the egg coating and patting on the flour.


Some things I would do next time:
1) Put a good coating of the stuffing on the outside of the chicken as well. I did this a little with some of the extra I had, and it turned out great!
2) Cook something else to go with it... the rice was not my favorite.

Here's what my recipe turned out like:
All & all it turned out delicious! I would definitely make this again!
XoXo

Starbuck's City Cups

On the trip I took to Vegas earlier this month, I bought a Las Vegas Starbucks City Cup at the airport. Thinking to myself - wow this would be fun to start a collection of all the places I have been!
So when I got home, I looked online to buy the other ones I would need to complete my collection, but you can't!! Come to find out -- they are highly collectible and the designs change every so often on them. From what I can see, they started doing these cups around 1994.

Here are the cups I would need so far to complete my collection:

Who Taught You to Cook???

So it is no secret that I NEVER cook... Slash don't even know where to start when it comes to making a meal. Granted, it isn't all my fault --- for starters, I still live in the dorms, not exactly a good environment to learn these types of things. I do know how to make a few delicious things -- I am really good at Ooeyy Gooey Brownie Cookie (a specialty of mine), chili, tacos, baked ziti, and spaghetti, but that is about the extent of my culinary knowledge.

I set a goal for myself to attempt to learn how to cook something new each week. So this was my first week. I decided to make Lemon Chicken Pasta. Which turned out to be an interesting task. Some of the ingredients on this Publix recipe hard to find, but might have resulted in a better dish that what I ended up doing. I couldn't locate the garlic butter, so I used regular butter and added garlic salt. I also had trouble finding the chicken base, but when I did find it - it was $6, sitting next to $1 chicken boullion cubes. In my mind I thought "oh this is easily substitutable" ... but I think that was a mistake. Next time around, I will definitely buy the chicken base.

Here is what mine turned out like...

Ingredients

1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon seasoned salt
large zip-top bag
1 lb boneless chicken tenders
1/4 cup garlic butter
8 ounces penne pasta
2 tablespoons capers
2 teaspoons chicken base
1 lemon (for juice, rinsed)
1/2 cup white wine
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

Steps

1. Fill large saucepan 1/2 full of water. Cover and bring to boil on high for pasta. Preheat large sauté pan on medium-high 2–3 minutes.
2. Place flour and seasoned salt in zip-top bag; shake to mix. Cut chicken into bite-size pieces and add to bag (wash hands). Seal bag tightly and shake to coat.
3. Place garlic butter in sauté pan; swirl to coat. Add chicken (wash hands); reduce heat to medium and cook 2 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until chicken is no longer pink.
4. Stir pasta into boiling water. Boil 6–8 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until tender.
5. Stir capers and chicken base into chicken; cook 2 minutes, stirring often, to blend flavors. Squeeze juice of lemon into chicken; stir in wine and cream. Reduce heat to low; cook 3–4 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until thoroughly heated.
6. Drain pasta and stir into chicken mixture. Serve.

CALORIES (per 1/4 recipe) 540kcal; FAT 19g; CHOL 105mg;
SODIUM 1040mg; CARB 51g; FIBER 2g; PROTEIN 36g;
VIT A 10%; VIT C 10%; CALC 4%; IRON 15%

A Year Later... I'm a Survivor

So it has been an entire year since my last blog post... Which is a testament to how BUSY, BUSY, BUSY 2011 was for me!! If you want the Spark Note version of what all I have been up to for the past 12 months, today is your lucky day!!! Here it is:

January:
This is a month I can never forget... January 10, 2011, was the day I witnessed Auburn win their 2nd National Championship. We were out in Glendale, Arizona, to watch the game, then there was a huge celebration in Jordan Hare Stadium once everyone got back. It was a great time to be an Auburn Tiger!

February:
Several members of our chapter council got to go to Tuscaloosa for the Xi Province meeting. We learned all kinds of great skills for our officer positions and met Kappas from around our province! I also randomly met Daniel one night at Sky bar, and we have been together since!

March:
We had formal at the Ventana's in Atlanta. A beautiful location with a great view of downtown!! Anne, Madison, Jordan & I also took the most random spring break trip ever to Branson, Missouri, but had a great time! We even met Neal McCoy!

April:
Our chapter held our annual Parents Weekend, and I had a great time with my parents when they came to Auburn to visit me!!

This summer:
I went to Dauphin Island with my family - and accidentally buried my car in a sand dune.... I attended 9 hours of summer school.... Prepared for recruitment.... And that's basically all I did for 3 months!!

August:

Brought about the most STRESSFUL week of my entire life to date, which resulted in one of the most rewarding days I have ever experienced. Recruitment was absolute HELL - unless of course you enjoy being awake for 48 hours straight, shaking hands with over 5,000 sweaty hands, and hours upon hours of small talk... However, the excitement & joy experienced on Bid Day made it all worth it!

September:
I TURNED TWENTY-ONE!!
And celebrated for an entire week straight. I mean, it is a once in a lifetime event, right???

October:
Daniel & I went to Florida for the Florida/Alabama football game. We spent some time at the beach drinking Rum Runners --- which did me IN!! --- and we also got to go inside the Florida football stadium.

November:
Our family went to the Gaylord to see the ICE! Exhibit. It was COLDDD!

December:

Was a month full of events! We had our Tacky Christmas Social (one of my FAVORITE themes), Daniel came to Dallas, we went to the Mavs game, & Christmas time!