Paleo Porridge

Keeping this post SHORT & SWEET! 

I tell everyone about my favorite breakfast treat (when you're doing paleo sometimes the last thing you want to see is an egg!) 

3-4 Ingredients (Cinnamon is optional, I personally love it)

- Applesauce (I use unsweetened to keep sugar low- Trader Joe's $1.99)

-Almond Butter (I LOVE the crunchy texture, but if you hate it get smoothy)

-Coconut Milk (I use the vanilla kind from Trader Joe's)

-Cinnamon

I'm kind of embarrassed that I took pictures of every step. But why not.... 

1 & 1/2 Cups of Apple Sauce in a pan on medium heat 

Add 2 Tablespoons of the almond butter and mix

Mix in the 2 tablespoons of coconut milk

add as little or as much (or none) of the cinnamon

It takes no time to warm up since nothing actually needs "cooking" 

and that's it! in 5 minutes you can have a breakfast that isn't eggs :)

****Play around with the ratio, sometimes it is more watery or thick than you'd like so just tweak it appropriately!****

Paleo Ice Cream!

Before I found out about my intolerance to dairy... (Before the Whole 30 and 9 months of paleo...)
 I was addicted to ice cream. No, really. I would eat it all the time. My fridge always had Ben & Jerry's Creme Brulee on hand... Now... one tablespoon- and I don't even know if I should go on...

Anyhow. It upsets my stomach. There. I said it. I still get the cravings though! Of course there are dairy-free alternatives... but they aren't very wallet-friendly. So, I searched and searched until I found one out there and tweaked it a little. Here are the results!

all ingredients - add bananas of course haha

I didn't want to get my Ninja out and I really wanted a personal serving size- so I used my hamilton beach personal blender (can find at walmart/target $15)

i want some now! 

i couldn't wait. the top was perfect. but the bottom was still runny. I will freeze it better next time but it was still ridiculously tasty. 

Hope this satisfies that random sweet tooth you have! This will definitely be made again in this house. I wish it could stay frozen to keep on hand, but something about the inconvenience is a GOOD thing, cuz I would eat this all the time!

Zucchini Boats

After my last post, I have been more proactive in seeking healthy recipes to enjoy. Enjoy. Hm. That's funny. Before, when I was eating healthy for weight loss reasons, it was more of a daunting task that didn't matter whether I liked or not. Now, I am going out of my way to make my meals taste delicious. I am tired of the typical chicken and veggies dinner. I have been posting some pictures of these meals on my instagram and have been asked over and over for detailed instructions. I figured I should probably blog about them so I have them in my online "rolodex" to refer back to since I often forget a recipe that worked (since I just wing it most of the time).

Anyhow, they say never go grocery shopping starving. It's so true. Today, I was beyond starving. I was hangry AND sick. It is truly beyond me how I still am feeling under the weather 2 weeks in. Between the flu and D's ear infection- this house has def seen better days. I digress.

I was starving and sick and annoyed that I was even out of my bed. I was annoyed my fridge was empty and even more annoyed  that my sister won't be my personal chef. To add to the annoyance, I was at Publix and not even armed with a single recipe to work off of. So, I got desperate. I rushed hastily around the perimeter of the store getting what I thought might make a good meal. I was right. Here's what I came up with.

Please note: I am not a chef and this is not a cooking blog. I apologize for the lack of "oooh ahhh" amazing pictures.. you will have to do with my phone pics! The only reason I even HAVE the pictures was because I had to prove I was cooking and had sent these to my sister!

ignore my awesome manicure. or lack thereof. and the emergen C shot. It was a text pic to prove to my sister I was taking care of myself haha she can't help but mother me. 

Let me know if you try them and how it works! Also, feel free to tweak the recipe, as I am no chef and these only turned out edible by the grace of God. 

Rainbow Cookies

My bff and I got together to make these fun rainbow cookies! (They can also be "tie-dye" cookies!)

I saw the recipe here and immediately bookmarked it to make for another friend of ours... St. Patrick's Day cookies... mmhm.

Consider yourself warned... It's messsssssy! 

Basically all we did is take a store bought "log" of cookie dough and dyed it 6 different colors

 And flattened them then stacked the layers on top of each other... 

We made some rainbows and some other "tie-dyed" ones

YUM! Hope the cookies arrive safely!  

Delayed Girl's Night In Post!

This is a long overdue post... considering Girls Night was over a week ago... about 9 days to be exact... {who's counting, right?} and I just wanted to share some highlights and fun times!

It was the first {of many} Pjs & Potluck GNI! It was soooo much fun. The girls loved the elastic waist requirement to be able to enjoy all the amazing food! There was so much good stuff. Good ol' comfort food, pretty appetizers, and amazing drinks!

There are some talented chefs in the group! A table full of sweets too! {Typing this starving is seriously torture!}

The drink of the night is my signature drink. it's really, really complicated. I don't think it can ever be duplicated. It's pretty difficult to recreate... but i'll give you the recipe just in case you dare to try!

Ok. Truth be told, i'm ashamed at how simple it is. I absolutely love this drink during the holidays- i'm not much of a drinker {as in, i NEVER drink...} so it's nice to sit around and actually enjoy the drink in my hand at a party!  Yum. the sugar on the rim is most def my favorite!




It was a lot of fun to have my favorite girls over and enjoy eating and catching up since the weeks have been crazy with finals and all. It was our last GNI of the year! WEIRD! haha, I'm looking forward to 2011 GNI!

I wanted to stick with my "homemade" gift giving kick i've been on, and decided what better gift than a thoughtful one i took the time to create?! that and with so many girls I would have gone broke... haha these were adorable alternatives and they were so simple to make! I have heard feedback {since i gave them 9 days ago haha} and they have alllll been positive!

I had Cookies for Santa for the girls along with homemade sugar scrub- LOVED this! I was shocked out how amazingly easy it was to make these! {I'm a scrub-addict... with all my sunless tanning and need for exfoliating, i have spent a pretty penny buying the best scrubs- i will definitely be making my own from now on!}

It's so organic you COULD technically eat it- but who would want to? Another easy peasy freebie instruction:

 

I had to be a little more personal than just a pretty ribbon... so i wrapped the santa cookies in green tissue paper and hot pink tulle. The scrubs got a personalized label/tag that described each girl. I hope they like it- coming up with different words other than "awesome" was pretty difficult! It was a great night- I hope all the girls had as much fun as I did! There's never a dull or quiet moment and I love them all! 

Hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas Eve Eve! I personally can't wait until Christmas! I'm enjoying all this time with my family and it's been incredible! I'll leave you with a funny classic pup shot...

I've been lazy and haven't been soliciting votes, but i'd love for you to click below, thanks!

48 Hours of Christmas

Since my last final Thursday night, I have been soaking in all of the joy of the holiday season that studying had robbed from me! It has been INCREDIBLE!

Thursday night, after a straight 12 hour exam day, with blurred vision and a pounding head- I came home to:

a spotless house

Christmas music playing

candles lit

wine poured

crab cakes prepared

Who is this guy? {Mine!} haha I was so touched by his thoughtfulness I couldn't help but give up fighting the tears back... I am so lucky. I love Ordy Boy more than you could ever even imagine! It was such a quiet evening as I let it sink in that I didn't have anything to study that night, or any thing to wake up for the next morning... it was surreal! 

I spent Friday taking care of myself... the much neglected eyebrows, pale skin, and everything else that makes me feel better about myself! 

Saturday was the day I was waiting for. A full day of yard sale and estate sales. That's how incredible Ordy Boy is. He called me last week and said, "booboo, in honor to celebrate finals being over, I think we should celebrate doing nothing but stuff you love on Saturday...estate sales and yard sales." Well, after we found out that this weekend was Scott's, and a freezing day- we decided to not risk a wasted day of running around town and just hit up Scott's. LOVED it. We went with Ordy's parents and had a fun Saturday afternoon browsing and taking notes :)

I bought something. Yep, you probably already know what it is. You know, my weakness... another mirror. It's beautiful and tacky and french and gaudy and i love him. This one is a he. An older, refined,  gentleman of a mirror. I would show you pics but I hate before pics without afters... that's when people wrinkle up their noses and go, 'hmm...not my style but okkkk...' I like when after becomes EVERYONES style! haha unlikely, but I like to pretend...

And to wrap Saturday night up... I prepared these fun holiday gift ideas! I love stuff in jars. Cupcakes, cakes, cookies, buttons, pretty much anything in a mason jar = my favorite. 

I started the cookies with a plain sugar cookie with colorful m&m's... but, I decided I didn't like the way it looked- i'm a perfectionist. So, I changed it last minute- but the pictures are all from when I was doing the sugar cookie- but you can use your imagination and pretend my sugar is brown sugar, etc.. haha

I made these "Cookies for Santa" jars for my friends/mailman/nail technician/etc.. I'm pretty excited about them! I'll show you how! (I know there are tons of variations of cookies in a jar, but these are especially delicious! They're Triple Chocolate Chip

As you can see, it's not the cleanest process... but it's too cute not to do! There are so many different versions of cookies in a jar, this was my favorite AESTHETICALLY. I feel like such a scrooge for ditching the red and green festive, but it looked too cheap to me haha. Too childish, something about the ones without them seemed so "organic" and "pure" haha. Well, simple. 

Here are some labels I whipped up- I can figure out how to post on flicker later... it's 2 am and too late to figure it out now!

Enjoy and don't forget to click!

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