from the kitchen

homemade veggie pizza and homemade chex mix
which was sooo easy.
i've also been making lots of fish and omelets and
roasted zucchini.

mmm

today for mother's day (and my first day back home for
the summer) i made my mom and family a delicious
mushroom and zucchini lasagna.
it was pretty tasty. :)

from my kitchen :)

homemade peanut butter eggs for easter.
these were so good and so easy!
i wanted to dye some purple, but we didn't have blue dye. :(

homemade apple pie made with my friend, carley.
(we store bought the crust though. i mean were baking
in a dorm, we had no other choice, haha)

carrot cupcakes me and carley made for easter.
we dyed coconut green to make "easter grass" and used
egg shaped jelly beans and peeps to decorate.

slurpp

all of these adorable mugs are either vintage or
homemade from etsy. i want them all.
they're so cute, that i want to start a mug collection.

ahhhh!

such a sleepy owl!

his and hers mugs. so cute :)

i love birds!

inspirational and portable. the best combination.

another sleepy owl.

oreo truffles

this weekend, me and carley went on a mini baking spree.
we made chocolate chip cookies (pre made dough though),
orange bars (like lemon bars, but with orange), and delicious
oreo truffles. i've made these so many times because
they're so good and really simple.
there are only three ingredients, oreos, cream cheese, and chocolate.
first you break up oreo cookies into a food processor
and add a block of cream cheese. (i usually do one row of
cookies with 1/3 of the cream cheese at a time because i don't have a
huge food processor) after the two ingredients are very well
mixed, you will have a blob of black dough. refrigerate the dough
until it is firm and not mushy. then roll the dough into bite size
balls and refrigerate again (the warmth of your hands will have
made the dough mushy again). lastly melt some chocolate to coat
the truffles in. you can use a double boiler (or make a double boiler
with two pots) or you can melt chocolate in the microwave with oil
or baking wax and mix well. coat eat ball with chocolate and set on
wax paper. if you want to add sprinkles, nuts, or oreo crumbs,
do it now before the chocolate hardens.
also, you can drizzle white chocolate or melted peanut butter
chips over the balls after the coat of chocolate has hardened.
place the truffles in the freezer or fridge until the chocolate has
hardened and then enjoy! store them in the fridge.
they're so rich and good! :)
(the pictures above aren't mine)

yum!

eastern is always trying to make their food options better.
sometimes they actually do and sometimes their ideas fail.
the newest success was a milkshake machine in the eagle's nest cafe.
it is exactly like milkshake machines seen at wawa.
you pick what flavor you want; mint chip, cookies and cream,
vanilla, chocolate, coffee, strawberry, or fruit smoothie.
i documented the first time me and carley got one
because i was so excited. :)
we've gotten them pretty much weekly since then.

you peel off the lid and put the cup inside the mixer machine.
the lids have cute little messages on them.

and while the machine mixes your shake, you watch a little show. :)

the cups have cute little characters on them, too!
carley's mint chip (our current favorite) had a cute cow.

my coffee one had a cute little bean face.


there he is again! :)

who said vegetarianism wasn't cruel?

funny video

after you watch that, you should click on
the 'vegetable panic' video that's suggested.
it's pretty funny too. :)

carrot cupcakes!

one of my best friends, carley just turned 20 a few days ago!
i couldn't celebrate with her on her actual birthday because we were
both at home on break and not at school.
but i made her carrot cupcakes to take back to school
cause she really likes them and i have a really good recipe that
i found on allrecipes.com last year that i made for Easter.
here are some pictures i took while i made them.
sorry the quality is bad, their cell phone pictures.
cake ingredients mixed together
pineapple, walnuts, raisins, coconut, and carrots all mixed together.
this picture makes it look gross, but it's actually really colorful. :)

haha, this picture is sideways, but this is them before
i baked them. and i forgot to get a picture of the finished product,
but i frosted them with cream cheese frosting with lemon zest
mixed in. and i made some mini ones, too. :) so cute!
i also made her a super cute gift, but i haven't it given it to her yet,
so i'll post that later!

taste the rainbow

yum :)

some fun food links....

i've been web surfing a bit too much this week.
i thought i'd share some interesting food links i've found.

a month of pancakes

some of these sound absolutely amazing!
orange pancakes, peanut butter pancakes, or rocky road?!
and some of them are strange... like cheddar pancakes?
or sundried tomato and parmesan pancakes?
or chili and corn pancakes?
to each his own i guess...

uncommon foods to cook on a grill

summer is just around the corner and with it
is the time for grilling! i don't really have much experience
grilling, unless it's on a george foreman, but some
of these ideas might make me start!
i mean pound cake? or doughnuts...on the grill?!

and i've been on a homemade kick recently.
(if you couldn't tell by the english muffins and bagels in the last post)
it's just cool to be able to say "oh, i actually made
that. i didn't buy it." and it usually tastes so much more
fresh, too.

homemade ritz crackers

homemade oreos

oh. my. gosh. can someone please make these for me
ASAP?!

homemade wraps

homemade reeses cups

these sound pretty easy!

homemade frostings

oh my. i want to try the chocolate cream cheese
and the cookie dough frostings right now!

a week of meatless meals

i've semi-recently decided to become a vegetarian.

i'll probably explain why in a later post.
but for now, i want to share with you some meatless meals
that i've been making for my family this week.
at school, i don't have access to a kitchen, so i'm extremely
deprived and when i come home i have lists
of things i want to make. i've literally been living in my kitchen
this whole week!
so here it goes...
(sorry i didn't take more pictures)

monday:
roasted potatoes
roasted vegetable sandwiches with
pesto and roasted red pepper hummus
and chocolate covered rice krispie balls for dessert
ugh, it was heaven on a plate.
i've been obsessed with fresh, grilled/roasted veggies lately.
and seriously this was soooo easy.

tuesday:
cheesy rice and bean burritos
peanut butter oatmeal cookies
again, yum. i could eat burritos all day.

wednesday:
egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches
on homemade bagels and homemade english muffins
i made the english muffins heart shaped :)
this was probably the most time consuming and difficult
recipe of the week, but it wasn't even that hard!raw bagels


raw english muffins

finished english muffins

thursday:
penne pasta with a creamy lemon sauce
and marinated, grilled chicken.
(i didn't have the chicken, but my fam isn't vegetarian,
so i thought i'd make some for them)

friday:
i'm not sure yet, but i'm thinking maybe a pesto macaroni
and cheese that i saw rachael ray make today on her
talk show or maybe homemade pizza.
and i'm planning on making carrot cake cupcakes
so i can bring some back to school because it's
my best friends birthday soon and they're her favorite! :)
i have a great recipe for carrot cake that i found on allrecipes.com.

i also really want to try this apple cinnamon roll cupcake
recipe i found on a food blog. ugh, they look AHmazing.
but i don't want to overwhelm my family with too many desserts,
so maybe i'll wait until easter break for those.
and i want to make lemon cupcakes over easter.
easter is my favorite holiday, so i think it's okay to go overboard. :)

anyways, this post is getting wayyy too long.
i just wanted to prove that being vegetarian can be easy
and completely delicious. :)