Travels: NYC

I recently ventured to the Big Apple to just hangout with friends. It was my first time there, and I loved every minute of it! It's great to have public transportation or just being able to walk somewhere. I did have a little bit of spare time to run around to some sewing places, but I'll review those in individual posts.

One thing I miss are all the wonderful places to eat!! I wholeheartedly recommend all these places. However, these are not representative of all my favorite places...

Penelope's One Night Stand Waffles...

Donut Plant's donuts...


Luke's rolls...


Stumptown's cappuccino... 


Eleven Madison Park's beef tenderloin...



Not that you would be interested or would even have the time... but if you do, the rest of my 900 or so photos from the trip can be found here. ^__^

Food: My New Favorite Pizza

I LoVE the Pioneer Woman! If you haven't discovered her yet, you have to check her out. She's amazing! :) I've tried a few of her recipes and they're delicious... this is where my new favorite pizza comes in... Caramelized Onion Prosciutto Pizza. It's simply amazing!

It's pretty easy, too... all it takes is:

some pizza dough (recipe is included on the linked website):


caramelized onions... I used yellow onions because I didn't have any red ones:


prosciutto, parmesan, and mozzarella:


Then you layer all the ingredients:


Stick it in the oven and tada:


The most fabulous pizza ever!!

Merry Christmas

I just wanted to wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I made Christmas tree cake pops for my coworkers.  It's from Bakerella.  These were pretty fun to make.

Anniversary Update

I have been on a low fat vegan diet for the past 4 weeks... more about that in another post.  Because of this, we postponed our anniversary dinner/outing until yesterdat.  Before that we headed over to the restaurant, we stopped by The Steeping Room for some tea.  Then we went to Jeffrey's for dinner.  It was fabulous!!  Here are some pictures from the night.

My entree of Escolar Viennoise

Husband's entree of Ribeye

Yummy desserts...

The food was delicious and we took a picture of everything that came out, but I didn't post all the pictures because I didn't think I could name everything.  Did you notice the haircut?  :)  Here's what it looked like on Friday:

I cut over 12 inches of my hair.  I'll be sending it off to Locks of Love.  If you have 10 inches or more of unbleached hair, please donate to this organization.  Click on the link to find out more information.  Here's an update on my flowers.  There are a lot more open blooms since I first received them... hopefully the last few will open up tomorrow.

= Birthday Dinner =

My husband loves chocolate and peanut butter together. So for his birthday I looked for a chocolate peanut butter cake recipe and came across Smitten Kitchen, which had the perfect recipe! This recipe is one of the best! The cake is very moist, rich, and delicious!!

Potluck Lunch at Work

Our team every now and then has a potluck lunch at work. The theme this time was appetizers (plus desserts) and it was amazing!! Here are the dishes.

Smoked trout with dill on cucumber...
Crab stuffed mushrooms...

Steak tartare...

Asian beef bean sprout salad...

Bruschetta...

Brazilian desserts...


Stuffed Zucchini

I made the stuffed zucchini. Sorry for the rotated picture! I'm not sure why this one got rotated and I dont know how to rotate it back. :( Here's the recipe I used for the stuffed zucchini.

Sweet Surprises

=Girl's Night Out with Old College Roomies=
We went to Wink for happy hour and had some good 1/2 priced appetizers! Between four girls, we had steamed mussels, burgers, mac&cheese, cheese plate, chicken pate, and salmon. Mmm... so delicious!

Friends + Food + Wine = ^___^

We even got to eat Sprinkles cupcakes straight from L.A. Yummy! I even got a nice little surprise! I saw this post from Haus Maus about the Fujifilm Instax Mini 7s camera back in May and thought it was so cute! Well, I got it as a gift!! ^___^



I had so much fun eating, drinking, talking, and just spending time with the girls.

{Thanks, Wenny, for the cupcakes and gift!! Thanks, Viv, for the place to stay!!}

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

My brother and I made this amazing cream cheese pound cake.

It was delicious! The recipe is from Adrienne's blog, which is found here. You definitely recommend it.

More Knitting

I've really lost my focus for school. I thought I would be able to focus after Valentine's day, but... it's just not working out. I started another knitting project, which I'm super excited about. It's coming along really fast and I enjoy it. Here is my progress...

Pattern: Bold & Bulky Cardigan by Stefanie Japel (The link is for the free version on the Lion Brand website, but this pattern is in the book, Fitted Knits, and this book has so many great patterns that I want to eventually try.

Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick in Taupe (2 skeins) and Raspberry (1 skein)

Needles: Denise Interchangeable Needles Size 15.

Notes: The pattern calls for size 13, but my gauge was coming out too small so I went up a needle size. My gauge horizontal gauge is still off, but I decided to go for it anyway.

These are my favorite flowers... calla lilies... I bought these for myself at Whole Foods Market. They're so pretty!! ^___^

Flower bouquet from my hubby... also from Whole Foods. Love it! [You can see how messy my desk it... =P ]

I was craving this big time... so of course I had to make it! Yum yum!