Beer Mac and Cheese February 11, 2012
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Mac and cheese is perhaps one of my favorite comfort foods, however I have never made it myself without the aid of kraft or velveeta’s yellow box! I recently signed up on pinterest and came upon this recipe for beer mac and cheese. (click picture for original post)
In honor of my room mate’s 21st birthday I decided to give it a try 
To see how may first attempt at homemade mac and cheese went… Keep Reading!
Recent Reads – Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual by Michael Pollan January 31, 2012
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Now that I am done with school I made it a new year goal to read more. Specifically to read books, as I frequent a number of online blogs daily and will purse through magazines with ease, but for as long as I can remember I haven’t ever really read a book for pleasure. All the books I have read in the past were for school, especially after the implementation of summer reading projects in elementary school.
So after my sister informed me that the libraries now have electronic collections (which she frequents after getting her 7″ Acer Iconia Tab) I went and got myself a library card! My old one from when I was little was deactivated, perhaps due to inactivity after going away to college. After browsing through the listings and discovering many popular titles with lengthy waiting lists I came upon my FIRST pleasure read
Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual by Michael Pollan is a quick easy read which focuses on a simple idea for eating and foods to eat: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” The book goes over 64 “food rules” which the author has compiled regarding how to approach eating. The rules aren’t exactly anything groundbreaking, but rather it brings attention to the obvious things that society typically chooses to overlook.
With all the new years’ resolutions to be healthier or eat better it’s definitely worth a read.
Until I move up the wait-list on some other books I have started reading Jillian Michaels’ Master Your Metabolism – if you hadn’t sensed it, I’m trying to get myself back in shape particularly since the stresses of school are off my shoulders.
I am also very open to other book suggestions!
Quick Philly Cheese Steak Pizza January 30, 2012
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I came up with this in a mad dash to put something together for dinner, in order to avoid spending money on eating out once again.
With an upcoming weekend to Atlantic City I feel the need to save money. However, coming up with this wasn’t particularly easy due to dwindling groceries at the end of the month. In fact I was all but ready to give up on cooking dinner, until I realized I had a Pillsbury Pizza Crust in the fridge, and some left over Steak’ums type meat in the freezer. Spaghetti sauce leftover from the other night worked perfectly for the pizza sauce. Basically it was a quick, throw everything into a pan, and then onto the crust to bake type of dish. Took me just a little over 15 minutes to pull together
Quick Philly Cheese Steak Pizza
For details on how to pull together this quick meal… Keep Reading!
New Year full of coupons! January 18, 2012
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So it’s been quite a while since I last posted on here. All I can say is that the last two semester of my nursing program took over my life!! But thankfully I made it through and graduated on Dec. 10, 2011. For the rest of 2011 I spent it simply relaxing; it was the first time that I didn’t have any sort of commitments (i.e. work). The past two weeks have been spent in orientation for my new job at MCV as an OR Intern; not your typical hospital RN job, I’ll be going in Monday-Friday 7:00am-3:30pm until mid-August with no vacation allowed. Aside from the no vacation part I’m actually looking forward to it.
Now that I don’t have school assignments to worry about anymore I have some new goals for myself. Of those goals is to catch up on my couponing! I’m nothing like the extreme couponers on the TV show, but I am pretty pleased with what I’ve been able to do. I don’t have a huge stockpile of items, but it works for me $$
The other day I got caught up on cutting out all my coupons, but they have yet to be sorted. And don’t even get me started on cleaning out my coupon binder! Despite my current state of disorganization I decided to rummage through the pile to catch a couple of deals for this week. Last week I did some grocery shopping at Kroger and was able to cut my bill in half using coupons. The highlight of that trip was my 99 cent bottle of Tide Laundry Detergent!
Want to see how my coupon adventure went today? Keep Reading!
Dulce de Leche Brownies May 6, 2011
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For Cinco de mayo I put together this really simple desert… dulce de leche brownies!
Dulce de leche is a thick milk-based caramel like sauce
that can usually be found prepared in the Latin food section of the grocery store. In high school my friend introduce me to it when she brought in cookies sandwiched with the stuff. I have yet to recreate those cookies!
But for this recipe I decided to create my dulce de leche with a can of condensed milk. There are a couple of methods to do this including boiling a can in hot water, cooking the can in a pressure cooker, microwaving, and baking in the oven. Personally I attempted the oven baking method as I was concerned about exploding cans.
My attempt at dulce de leche
- Dulce De Leche Brownie
To learn how to make your own dulce de leche and brownie… Keep Reading!
Cinco De Mayo… wish I could taste it! May 5, 2011
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So unfortunately for this year the boyfriend and I are both feeling under the weather… what I wouldn’t give to breathe through my nose!
Never the less I still put together a simple dinner for cinoc de mayo featuring fish tacos, homemade guacamole, and dulce de leche brownies. While we could taste everything fully, I’m sure it was awesome 
I also took the opportunity to try out grilling fish. Let’s just say it was not a total fail, but not a total success either….
Grilled Tilapia for fish tacos
- Fish tacos with chipotle cream and guac
To find out how I put it all together… Keep Reading!
Fried Lemon Tilapia April 13, 2011
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My boyfriend came home from the gym with a craving for fish! Since it’s Lent I happened to have a bag of individually frozen tilapia fillets in the freezer. On the bag there happened to be a recipe for Fried Tilapia with Lemon. Unfortunately the recipe called for fresh lemon and parsley, which I did not have. I made the best of what I had, and whipped up this real simple fried fish with great flavor!
Served with rice and fresh diced tomato
To find out how I made lemon tilapia without a lemon… Keep Reading!
Chicken Parmesan Bundles April 12, 2011
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My boyfriend and I have been soo lazy about cooking lately; we kind of got into the routine of just going out to eat. BUT the other I finally decided to cook dinner! I wanted to do something simple, especially since we don’t have much in the fridge right now. Kraftfoods.com always comes to rescue in those situations and that’s where I found this recipe for chicken parmesan bundles.
I’m hoping that this will break our streak of eating out!
To learn how to make it… Keep Reading!
China Glaze Crackle Glaze: Crushed Candy March 4, 2011
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So tomorrow is the first day in a LONG time that I don’t have to get up early! I’m soo excited about not having to get up to be anywhere for once
Anyways, I haven’t done my nails in a little bit since I’ve been in the hospital a lot for either clinicals or my externship. Since I don’t having anything other than school work to do right now I decided to play around with another one of my crackle polishes from China Glaze.
China Glaze Crushed Candy over OPI Funky Dunkey
The other hand...
When I use my first crackle glaze I assume it was like OPI’s Black Shatter in that I would need a clear coat over the base coat before topping it off with the crackle. After reading other people’s reviews of the CG Crackle Glazes I decided to try forgoing the clear coat. I discovered that you DON’T need a clear coat prior to applying the crackle glazes!! Unlike OPI Black Shatter this didn’t “eat through” the base coat at all.
China Glaze: Crackle Glaze February 18, 2011
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So right now I am supposed to be working on my psych clinical assignments, but my new polishes are just too tempting
Last week I pre-ordered China Glaze’s new collection “Crackle Glaze”. This collection consists of 6 polishes that create a crackled or shattered effected when placed over a base color. OPI recently release their Katy Perry collection featuring Black Shatter, which is the same thing. China Glaze however took this trend a step further by offering colors other than black!
(left to right) Broken Hearted, Lightning Bolt, Black Mesh, Fault Line, Crushed Candy
I picked up all except for the gray color, since it just didn’t appeal to me. And I got the black to give to my sister since OPI’s Black Shatter is sold out pretty much everywhere and I prefer not to share mine.
