If its NACHO cheese... whose is it?

Guess what I had for dinner last night? One of my favorite meals- nachos! As promised yesterday, here are some pics of the experience. First, I bought the supplies. (It seems like my grocer REALLY wants me to know how much that taco seasoning costs!)

Then, I made the sauce. It's really yummy, and because it makes so much, I now have a couple of containers of nacho sauce in the freezer... YUMMY!

Then I chopped up some lettuce and tomatoes. (Other people like gross things like jalapenos and guacamole... can you imagine? YUCK!)

So, here are the ingredients I think make a PERFECT nacho: sauce, cheese, lettuce and tomato...

See? (Umm, why does my hand look SO weird in the pic?)

Holy cow, were they delicious! After dinner, I also broke out the sno-cone machine. I don't know what made me think of it, but a Cherry sno-cone for dessert is a BEAUTIFUL thing! First, I used my handy-dandy machine to shave some ice...

The I added some syrup...

And then I got to enjoy all my "hard work"! Isn't that the cutest little glass?

So there you have it- my yummy dinner/dessert from last night... don't I lead the MOST exciting life? ;) Hope you have a GREAT Thursday!

It's the last Wednesday in April...

It feels like spring has FINALLY arrived in NYC. After a few weird "summer" days, the temperature is a more normal 60ish... now I can enjoy opening my window at work! Tonight I'm making nachos for dinner- a personal favorite. If I can restrain myself from eating them immediately, I'll try to take some pics to post tomorrow. Nothing much new here, so I thought I'd share some photos I took at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden last October. (I still haven't sat down long enough to practice editing using PhotoShop Elements... so this are just raw images.)

An ode to my lunch...

Subway Haiku

Foot long for five bucks
Lettuce, tomato, turkey
Sandwich perfection.

It's no secret that I like sandwiches. From Jersey Giants in Lansing, Potbelly's in Evanston, and Subway in Dallas (it was just down the sidewalk from the scrapbook store), I'm a sucker for turkey sandwiches. In NYC there are a plethora of restaurants to choose from... and yet when it came to lunch, I usually just grabbed a quick sandwich. Although you can find a bodega/deli on every other corner, I was drawn to a Subway 2 blocks from my office. Not only was the price "right", but it also allowed me to feed my Self-serve Fountain Soda/Diet Coke addiction (you see, with a self-serve machine you can add ALL the ice you want... but that's a post for another day). I frequented this establishment on such a regular basis, that every one of the 12 employees there knew exactly what sandwich I ordered, including bread choice, condiments, etc. A few weeks ago, I decided I was in a rut, and made a vow to take a month off from Subway. You'd think that four weeks would be ample time to break an addiction. I mean, it's not like Subway is a gourmet haven- quite the contrary in fact. But man, have I been missing my fix. So today, I decided it was OK to go back. The minute I walked in the door, everyone behind the counter started shouting "where have you been", "we missed you", "welcome back"... Not only did they all remember exactly what I wanted, they made sure to let me know that my absence had been noticed. I know it sounds silly, but in a city this big, little things like that just crack me up! :)

Only a LITTLE sunburn...

Apparently Mother Nature didn't get the memo that April=Spring, because she delivered a weekend of summer weather here in NYC! All the weather(wo)men kept saying it was going to be a hot weekend, and they sure weren't kidding.

In preparation for the unseasonably hot temperatures, I did a little shopping on Friday at lunch. There's a great bargain shoe store by my office, and I picked up these flip-flops:
I thought I would buy some SoCal sandals to impress SFS- wouldn't you know that I picked out the shoes that were made in BRAZIL! Oh well- NEXT time I'll get the Reefs!

Friday evening found SFS and I hanging out with his roommate on the roof of their building. His roommate also invited their 3 year old neighbor (and his dad, of course) to play wiffle ball on the roof- and we didn't lose any balls over the side! After that excitement, we watched the sunset over New Jersey... don't worry, it was much prettier than it sounds!

In honor of the AMAZING weather, we spent most of Saturday in Central Park. There were TONS of people there, and I only got a SMIDGEN of a sunburn to show for it. And SFS bought me a red/white/blue popsicle... I might have gotten sticky fingers, but it was worth it!

After church on Sunday, I got to hang out with KS. She and I worked at the scrapbook store together in Dallas, and we met to catch up, grab some cold drinks, and enable each other's addictions. We headed over to PortraitBug, and I bought some really great stuff:
Aren't those papers great? Seeing all the new product just gets me all enthused to create things... especially all those vintage-y Jenny Bowlin goodies... I think they'll work PERFECTLY with pictures from my visit to the Flour Museum in MSP last summer! Hope you had a great weekend- Happy Monday!

Mmm mmm good!

There are plenty of times when living in Astoria isn't all it's cracked up to be. While I have to contend with the commute and crazy train schedules sometimes (February weekends were ROUGH), there are lots of pros that MORE than make up for the cons. For example, a new store opened this weekend, just a couple doors down from the subway stairs in my neighborhood. It's a 24-hour organic grocer, and the prices can't be beat. I stopped by last night, and got all of this for under $5!
If you're reading this in MI, I guess that price isn't going to sound so outstanding... but for my NYC following, what a deal, right? With all this yummy food, I decided to make a salad for dinner. This is what I started with:
I thought the onion looked especially cool:
Doesn't this look delicious and colorful?
I needed a closer look... YUM!
After that, I whipped up a quick blackberry cobbler. I saw the recipe earlier in the day on Pioneer Woman, and when all those blackberries above cost $2, I had to give it a try! First, I washed those pretty berries...
Then I mixed up some self rising flour and sugar.
After adding some butter and milk, I put it in a baking dish. Then I added those amazing blackberries, and sprinkled more sugar on top of the dish.
While it baked for an hour, I watched "The Office" and "Thirty Rock"... both were HILARIOUS! Can I just say I'm glad that Michael and Pam are back at Dunder Mifflin? Also, how funny was 30 Rock with all the Slanket references? (Clearly they were referring to the SNUGGIE!) After an hour, I went and got this out of the oven...

Not too bad. Admittedly, it looks NOTHING like the dessert that Pioneer Woman made, because her berries still poked through the surface. Maybe my self-rising flour was extra potent? But inside it was pretty- and YUMMY!
It had more of a cake-y texture, which wasn't what I was expecting, but was still really good! I think I'll have to make one more before I'm ready to make it for others... but this was a good start! Now I just have a work day to get through before the WEEKEND! We're supposed to have AMAZING weather here all weekend- with a high of 86 on Sunday! I plan on enjoying every last drop of my two days off... I hope you have a great weekend as well!

Just had to share this...

SFS's roommate showed this to us last night, and I was cracking up...

Wet Wednesday...

Well, we have another day of rain here in NYC! According to my TV friends (Dave Price especially), we're supposed to have SPECTACULAR weather this weekend. They had better be correct, because I'm sorta banking on their predictions that it will be in the mid-upper 70s all weekend (maybe even 81 on Sunday)!

In the meantime, I've been sloshing around town. In my Sephora excitement yesterday, I totally forgot to mention that I took another crochet class. Monday night I took "Pattern Reading: Crochet", and learned how to read all the short-hand terms/abbreviations that I see in patterns. The class was especially fun, because the teacher gave us a pretty complicated pattern and talked us through it. Here's what I came up with:

I didn't take my good camera to class (with all the rain, I was afraid to throw it in my purse), so please excuse my little cell phone pic. While at class I also stocked up on some yarn- I have a few kooky project ideas, and there's a new baby joining our family, so I might have purchased more than one skein... or more than 5... :)

I hope you're having a good day so far! With the rain and a trip to the gym, I was running short on time during my lunch a bit ago. Lucky for me, Walgreen's is right around the corner from my gym... my $1.99 was well spent (see below)! Yay for cooking!

I heart Sephora!

Sephora.

Do you hear the angel choirs? Has your heart rate increased since reading that one word? I don't know about you, but I just love shopping at Sephora. It's not that I'm a glamazon or anything (far from it, considering what I tend to wear as makeup), but I think that store is simply fantastic. Every kind of new, sparkly, dreamy make-up is open and available to test and try on. And not in a "I'm sneaking a stroke of nail polish at the drug store" way... but at the end of every row there is a make-up application station to assist you in your decision. PLUS, the fragrance selections surround the entire store. Even if my budget can't support my Dior obsession, a couple squirts here and there are absolutely FREE! I know there are people (some I'm related to, even) who get a headache just walking in the store, which is really very sad. But for me, a trip to Sephora is heavenly!

So imagine my delight when the stars aligned and I had to shop at Sephora last night. Yep, you read that correctly, I HAD to shop at Sephora last night! You see, I received a gift certificate from my Grandma for Easter (she knows about my little obsession with the store). And WOULDN'T you know, the next day I received an email from Sephora, notifying me of a 1 week sale of 15% off everything I purchased. Since the sale ends today, I had to make a run for it last night. But to make things even MORE exciting, I found an old gift card that I hadn't completely spent... woo hoo for $6!

So yesterday I made my way to the Sephora at Union Square (one of the 7 Sephoras that I visit on a regular basis... just to look, I swear!). First, I picked out this delish eye shadow compact. It's by Kat Von D, and it's called Ludwig (her other eye shadow compact is called Beethoven... how could I resist?). I liked it because the colors are vibrant, have a bit of shimmer, and yet aren't TOO loud to wear on a regular basis.




That was all I had planned on purchasing... and then I literally ran into a nail polish display (for real- my giant purse totally snagged on the corner of it!). Sephora recently teamed up with OPI to develop a line of nail polishes... so I got one. I know- I can't stop myself!


Luckily, I made it to the register without picking up anything else (I had to close my eyes as I walked past a giant tub of Rose Salve lip gloss tins). After I handed my BeautyPerk card to the cashier (oh come on- they're free and you get neat emails and perks) I heard this ringing. Turns out that at Sephora you get a free gift for your birthday (which is still two weeks away, for the record), and they ring a LOUD bell when it's your birthday. After the surprise (and mortification) subsided, I realized that Sephora got me a birthday present. See these pretty lip glosses? Just another reason to love this place (and their brilliant marketing ways)!


So this morning I got to wear my new makeup (I'm saving the nail polish for when I have time for a homemade mani). No one stopped me on the subway to tell me that I looked ravishing... but I know they were thinking it! :) Happy Tuesday!

M.O.N.D.A.Y.

What a fun weekend! After work on Friday, I headed to the UWS to meet SFS after work. Since I get out earlier than him, I spent some time in Joan of Arc Park, drinking an iced tea and crocheting. Dorky, yes... wonderful, OH YES! I took a couple of pics on my cell, just because the sun was setting and was making everything sparkly!


Then SFS took me out to dinner at Flor de Mayo. When he said it was a Peruvian/Asian place, I had my doubts... but it was SO delicious! I had Lomo Saltado with yellow rice, and a strawberry daquiri or two. (OK- technically I ordered two, but SFS helped me with the second one!)
On Saturday, SFS and I hit Central Park. It was a REAL spring day- 70ish degrees and sunny with a slight breeze. We found an empty spot on the grass and people watched to our hearts' content. We saw at least a thousand runners/bikers whiz by, tons of cute dogs/puppies out to play, and a little boy even "relieved" himself in a bush about 15 feet away from me. What can I say? I'm glad he made it to the bush!
The services at church went well yesterday- the week after Easter is always sort of odd. The attendance goes back to normal, but the lessons still call for BIG/exultant music. We sang the "Easter Fight Song" (our nickname for the anthem "Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem"), and I have to admit that it's not a bad piece when I'm vocally rested! :)
And now it's Monday- back to the grind! I hope you're having a SUPER day!

It's FRIDAY, y'all!

The weekend is so close, I can almost TASTE it! Which is a miracle, because last night I made mini-chocolate cakes, and I thought my taste buds went numb after "testing" the finished product to make sure it was good! :)

Why did I make mini-cakes you ask? Well, I wanted to bake a little something for my co-worker's birthday, I haven't baked SFS anything in weeks, and I got a really cool new pan from the 'rents for Easter. So, I decided that Mini-Triple Chocolate Bundt Cakes were in order.

Everything started out just fine- I had all the ingredients.

The batter looked YUMMY!

I used Baker's Joy in the pan...

And the mini-cakes were ready to BAKE!

While I waited, I made some dinner (seriously, how weird is it that I crave these things?)...

And then, the moment of truth...

What is that?

Hmmmm... somehow I forgot that the batter that normally FILLS a 10-cup pan will probably MORE than fill 6-cups worth of mini-pan... this is where I totally wish that SBV's way with numbers had rubbed off on me... oh well- they still taste yummy! Plus, I sawed off the bottoms, and the chocolate drizzle/frosting that goes on top TOTALLY covered up the rough spots. My co-worker was thrilled, and I'm hoping that SFS likes 'em, too. PLUS, I finally got to break in my NEW pan, and I just love it. How cute would it be if I had a REAL sized Cathedral or Bavaria pan, and then I would make matching full-size and minis? Guess I'd better take an empty suitcase with me to Minneapolis this summer- NordicWare Factory Store, here I come! :) I hope you have a GREAT weekend!

Mmmm... sushi!

Last night SFS met me in Astoria and we went out for sushi. To be perfectly honest, I'm not a huge sushi fan- this isn't a secret, nor does it deter me from eating at sushi restaurants on a regular basis. We went to Watawa Sushi, which is a small place on Ditmars, just a few blocks from my apartment. SFS always orders something fancy, and last night was no different. Check out his Spicy Roll Combo:

Dontcha just love that wasabi in motion? Meanwhile, I'm trying to expand my palate, and I order one roll. A SINGLE roll. It looks a little lame on a plate, but we're talking baby steps here, people. Plus, I only like the parts in the middle, so SFS always agrees to eat the head/tail of the Shrimp Tempura roll:

But that's not ALL I get... because I love fried rice! This place makes YUMMY veggie fried rice, with broccoli, asparagus, beans, corn, etc. DELISH!

The rest of our night was pretty low-key! SFS wasn't as into the A-List Awards as I was, so I have to catch up on some TiVo tonight! SFS and I also bought our tickets to Minneapolis/St. Paul- can't wait for our Memorial Day rendevous with my family! Happy Thursday!