A Wicked Good Weekend

I'll just warn you right now... you're going to be bombarded with foodie pics from the past few days because I've been racing around/too lazy/too busy (take your pick!) to post all of them... But I've been reading your bloggies anyway! :) I always have time for that...

HOW ARE ALL OF YOU!?!

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend... what did you do? Relax? Go out? Get craaaazyyy??? I did a little of all the above...

Where did I even leave off?

I believe it was the Breakfast Cookie incident Saturday morning (geeeez I'm behind!).... which, I'm very sorry to say and please don't hate me, I didn't enjoy. Maybe it was the combo I chose (I made a "pumpkin overnight breakfast cookie") but I just did NOT like it.... I'm thinking it's because I love hot oatmeal. I'm so used to having it every morning that the cold oats were just... odd to me. Eh, I gave it a shot!

So what to do with a giant breakfast cookie when you just don't dig it???

I added a splash of hot water, popped it in the microwave, & added coconut on top...

Still wasn't feelin it :( Blahhh... sadly, this bowl went into the garbage... It must have just been my preparation... I'm a pumpkin lover but I may have overloaded on it.

By this point all I'd had was my coffee & it curbed my hunger so I didn't even want anything after this... I went to the gym instead.

Had a great workout of just shy of 4 miles on the treadmill & felt awesome!

Can't forget about this little thing... I stopped at the Farmer's Market in town on the way to the gym and bought this funny shaped object...

A duckling?? No... a sweet potato. Can't wait to turn you into a pan of oven baked fries!! ;)

Snacked on this after leaving the gym Saturday....

Went out to lunch (and wine) with two of my girlfriends in town... we went to The Village, a slightly upscale restaurant with delicious appetizers like salmon & crab cakes, crisped goat cheese salads, etc. They're also known for decent size (delicioussss) lunches.. hence the leftovers you see below...

This picture doesn't do my lunch justice... I got the Grilled Portabella mushroom flatbread sandwich with a side of Sweet Potato fries instead of the regular fries (I sampled some of the regular fries though and they were amaaaazing! Not greasy at all... very crispy.. with just a hint of seasonings)


Rather than joining in on more wine drinking with my girlfriends, I came home to start creating my masterpiece of a birthday cake for my brother's b-day party that night...


I bought two bags of these babies...
To create a from scratch (no big deal) Cocoa Buttermilk cake with Peanut Butter frosting.... I got the recipe from Mare at Meet Me in the Kitchen. She has the most amazinggg and decadent dessert recipes.

Oh yeah... not to mention crushed Reese's cups in the middle layer ;)


Then topped with another cake layer and generously frosted with more PB frosting, topped with chopped PB cups...

The Review at the party??

People loved it! BUT.. the only "complaint" I got is that everyone really really wanted a gallon of milk to go with this aka it was extremely rich... Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it anyway. People couldn't believe it was from scratch either! What can I say??? I am a baking fiend! Baking this pain-in-the-A cake made me realize how much I miss baking too.... Oh and my friend Ray ended up physically stealing the remaining 1/2 of the cake from the fridge (ohhh the hilarious actions of the intoxicated) and taking it home with him so I'm pretty sure that makes it a hit...right??

The party was fun... everyone from work came, I played a little beer pong (P.S. not my game...) and drank Shocktops like the classy chica I am (HA!) Stayed at the party til 4am, drove 40 mins home (I drove my brother's ginormous SUV home somehow so drunky could get his beauty sleep in the backseat) and didn't get home to my own house until 530 am!!!

This is unheard of for me... I can barely stay up past 1am. Holy Bajeeeeze. Let's just say I STILL haven't fully caught up on the sleep I didn't get the other night. Especially since I had work Sunday gahhhh... the horror! So after a mere five hours of not-so-great sleep, I was up and attempting to recover. Ugh.

Which means there was plenty of this...

We're talking an entire pot to myself...


More snackies & eats throughout the day as my stomach began to allow me to eat solid foods Oy veyyyy... this is why I don't party the night away anymore!

Oatmeal! How I love theee...

Clif Bars & magazines make for a great hangover cure....

YUM!!! Loved the carrot cake flavor... especially the big chewy pieces of carrot..

Mucho apples consumed as usual...

Glenny's Soy Crisps packed up for work fuel...

Lots of grapes...

Flatbread Pizza from work...

I chose:

~Roasted red peppers

~Lots of Mushrooms

~Carmelized onions


Snacked on 1/4 of a Pumpkin muffin from a sweets collection my parents brought home from their trip to our cottage this weekend! :)

Breakfast this morning was a long overdue yogurt mess...

~3/4 cup FF Vanilla Nature's Promise yogurt

~1/2 cup Kashi Honey Almond Flax

~1/2 cup Kashi Honey Sunshine

~Cinnamon

~Drizzle of warm MaraNatha smooth PB ;)


My very green breakfast...

Packed some more work snacks this morning before my lunch shift...

I forgot I still had a box of these babies hiding in my cabinet so I thought I'd give this flavor another try. I didn't like these too much the first time.. It was mostly the layer of puree on top of the bar. It stuck to the roof of my mouth and was WAY too sweet. Today however, I needed a little bit of a boost so the sugar was welcomed happily :)

Of course I needed my java boost to go along with it... the day I don't I'll die of shock.

Tall coffee w/ 2 pumps of Pumpkin Spice syrup...

Work was busy, per usual, thanks Columbus... your milkshake brings all the peeps to the Bread. ;) HA lame, I know... whateverrrr. I made about $90 in tips.. proceeded to put ALL of that into my checking account so I can pay about 20 bills this week. Pretty much the story of my life with work for the past week or so... ugh.

I'll rank working your butt off allll day & night, making good hard earned money, & then seeing it go straight back out to bills as one of the worst things in the world... can I get a YES YOU ARE RIGHT ALLISON???

Ugh... moving on...

Snacked on this after coming home...

Nature's Promise oat pretzel sticks with Dark Choc Dreams = Heaven.

Brought home a salad from work for (a very very late) lunch...

~Red & Green leaf lettuce

~Organic carrots & celery

~Lots and lots AND LOTS of mushrooms

~Local Goat cheese

~Free range chicken

~Our Ginger-Tamari dressing

~Arame seaweed

~Toasted sesame seeds

I wish you could all try this... you won't ever want any other salad ever again. EVER!

Then went to the gym:

35 minutes on the treadmill - 2.8 miles - 330 calories

18 minutes on the elliptical

Honestly.... not my best workout. I definitely went too soon after "lunch". I could feel my food sitting in my stomach (ugh) and prettyyy much a few mins away from coming back up my throat (sorry if that's TMI... I'm pretty sure it is) I'm so used to morning workouts too.. I had a long day at work, I haven't totally caught up on sleep, and I didn't drink my usual massive amounts of water throughout the day so I was just not in my best form tonight... :( Better than nothing though! Especially since I took the day off (aka lazed around hungover until work time) on Sunday... oooops! Tomorrow morning will definitely more than make up for it!

Came home & had dinner tonight with the fam but opted for picking out the good things from the pot and skipping out on the white pasta & cream sauce... ehhh, not my thing.

So I enjoyed a big bowl of:

~Boiled kielbasa

~Broccoli from Jilly-bean's garden!

~Mushrooms (I've more than spent my mushroom allowance today... obvi)

~Chopped fresh tomatoes

~A little EVOO & Italian dressing


Yummmmm! Very full and happy :) But I'm definitely considering a little dessert... Hmmmm, any suggestions??

Hope you all had a Happy Monday! And hope some of you got to have the glorious Columbus Day OFF from worky! :)

And last but DEFINITELY not least... if you haven't already done so, get over to Natalie's blog and get yourself involved in a little thing called Project Feed-Me... it's a super easy way to help provide food to local food banks by purchasing 2 noted items per week for 9 weeks & then donating the whole loot at the end of that time! It's such a good cause and it will only cost you a few extra dollars a week (even those of us workin the room as a waitress can afford that!) ;) Natalie has a huge heart for getting this started & the more people participating, the bigger the affect it will have!!! :)