I Bought a New Grill

I bought a new grill a couple weeks ago but didn't get it set up until today. I can't believe I didn't do this sooner. I can't believe I didn't buy this last summer when we moved up here. I bought this cute little electric grill from walmart.com. The upfront cost is higher but I'll never have to buy charcoal or propane so it's worth it. 

I bought some real hamburger so I could have real burgers instead of just turkey burgers. There's nothing wrong with turkey burgers but we put ground turkey in everything so it's nice to have some beef for a change. There was a $0.25 rebate on bacon in my Snap by Groupon app (psst, that's a referral link, if you redeem an offer I get a dollar *gasp*) and that was a good enough reason to buy some bacon.

My roommates were at work so I had to eat all of this by myself. Life is so hard.

Burgers and bacon on the grill

I'm actually really proud of this burger photograph. It's like I actually know how to use a camera. Also grill bacon is best bacon. I thought oven bacon was the best but it seems to be better on the grill because all the grease can drip off and it's perfect and crispy. It also takes about the same amount of time as the burgers so everything is done at the same time.

Bacon burgers with onions and lettuce.

Date Night at Applebees.

Josh has been making some resolutions to better himself so we went on a date night to get some couple time in. Applebees half-apps are one of our favorite because they're so cheap and long islands are so cheap and delicious.

So first we just sat and held hands and stared at each other. Because we're adorable and just super weird. I laughed first and lost. I started thinking about how silly we must look to everyone around us.

They had a bunch of new appetizers and we tried the Sriracha Shrimp which was good but not necessarily $10 good. 

I got long islands and chicken wonton tacos which were delicious as usual. Josh went for the beer pub pretzels even though they weren't half off. 

I'm not being paid for this post but I should be. 

Chicken Wonton Tacos at Applebees

Mango Long Island at Applebees.

Valentines Date at Qdoba

Josh and I went to Qdoba for lunch because they had a buy one get one free deal on smothered burritos if you kissed someome. So we kissed and ate burritos. They were quite good. Also you can't go wrong with free guacamole. Though it was kind of hard to eat since you couldn't pick it up and eat it. I left a lot of the tortilla in the bowl.

Working Toward a Healthier Me (Also I Made Sushi Today)

I recently got a membership to the YMCA. I'm not in college anymore and I need to lose the weight I've put on over the last five years. To be honest I actually gained most if it this last school year. I only had a couple classes and didn't really go out much. I also drank a lot more often because I lived off campus.

I'm an adult and it's summer time so changes had to happen. My roommate Chris got a YMCA membership too. Josh is in the process of quitting his second job which will leave his mornings open which means he has to get a membership too. Then we can all go work out together and get super healthy and in shape. Okay, I'm not really expecting us to all get super healthy and in shape but every little bit counts and every little bit helps.

I made myself a promise that if I drink I have to do a full hour on the elliptical the next time I work out. I had a few drinks with my friends on Wednesday night which mean today I had to do a full hour. Which I did. I'm so proud of myself. Actually I just wanted to see the end of "What Not to Wear." I caught it at the beginning of the episode and made myself see it out.

5 miles on the elliptical took me just over an hour
(it stared the cool down phase so it only says 13 seconds).

 Chris and I got home from the YMCA and made sushi because I've been craving it lately. It's just so fun and easy to make. It also gives me an excuse to eat a lot of avocados. I bought some seafood snackers to cut up and put in them. Raw fish scares me so I try to find alternatives to put in them. Josh doesn't like it if it's just vegetables. Walmart was out of cucumbers so most of them are just avocado, carrot, and seafood snackers. I also put some cream cheese in some of them with the seafood snackers. Best decision ever. But that might be because cream cheese is magical.

Sushi!! Chris and I made sushi as a reward for our workout. The blue plate is the ones I made for Josh.

Lunch Date

I was bored after class and decide to take myself on a lunch date to Arbys. I'm not a huge Arbys fan but I like their curly fries and their chicken sandwiches aren't terrible. Also it's located between the school and my apartment.

I made some rules for myself. No cell phone, no iPod. Just me and my lunch. I decided to try different dipping sauces for my fries, because they had a lot of choices. There's normal ketchup. Some spicy sauce that reminds me of the hot sauce they have at Famous Daves (or at least I think that's where I remember it from), and some honey mustard. I'm not a huge fan of honey mustard even though Josh makes me keep trying it. This one wasn't too bad and I ended up eating more of that than ketchup. I'm proud of myself.

It was a fun date. I'll have to do it again sometime.

Healthy Lunch

I've been trying to pack my lunch more often for school this semester. So I bought myself this really awesome Tupperware container divided into three sections. I do not want my food touching.

Today's lunch is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with two clementines, sliced peppers, hummas, cucumbers, and jalapeño string cheese.

I'm proud of myself. Doing this is usually enough to fill me up and if I've had a good breakfast and lunch I'm more likely to make good decisions for dinner.

151 Jello Shots

For homecoming weekend I made 151 Jello shots (because there are 151 Pokemon). So my fridge was full of Jello. It was awesome. I found most of the recipes online and since they turned out amazing I decided to share them here as well.

Sex on the Beach

Orange Jello

½ cup vodka

½ cup peach schnapps

½ cup cranberry juice

½ cup water

Dreamsicle

Orange Jello

½ cup whipped cream vodka

½ cup triple sec

1 cup water

Blue Firecracker

Berry Blue Jello

½ cup vodka

½ cup peach schnapps

1 cup water

Tropic Thunder

Berry Blue Jello

½ cup lemon vodka

½ cup blue curacao

1 cup water

Strawberry Lemonaide

Strawberry Jello

½ cup lemon vodka

½ cup triple sec

1 cup water

Bombpop

Cherry Jello

½ cup lemon vodka

½ cup blue curacao

1 cup water

Rootbeer Barrels

Plain Jello

1 cup rootbeer

1 cup rootbeer schnapps

Jolly Rancher

Watermelon Jello

½ cup vodka

¼ cup apple pucker

¼ cup lemon vodka

1 cup water

Grapetini

Grape Jello

½ cup lemon vodka

½ triple sec

1 cup water

Cosmopolitan

Cranberry Jello

½ cup vodka

½ cup triple sec

½ cup cranberry juice

splash of lime

½ cup water

Lemondrop

Lemon Jello

½ cup lemon vodka

½ cup triple sec

1 cup water

Rum and Coke

Cherry Jello

1 1/2 cups coke

1/2 cup rum

Sushi

I like to watch reality cooking shows like MasterChef and Hell's Kitchen, it makes me wish I was good at cooking. All of those contestants are so talented. One of the challenges I recently watched involved making  perfect pieces of sushi. I decided I wanted to try it at home. So I looked for a tutorial and I found this one. A Beginners Guide to Making Sushi. It was amazing and had all the information I needed.

I bought all of the ingredients at Walmart (the seeweed paper is in the asian section). I decided to fill the rolls with carrots, cucumber, and avocado. I wasn't going to mess with raw fish because I know nothing about fish.

The sushi turned out amazing. I am so proud of myself.

Tofu Stir-Fry

I discovered that my Walmart sells tofu. It's in the produce section with the health foods. So I was really excited to discover that. It's also only 2 dollars for 5 servings worth. Way cheaper than chicken and much healthier, also easier to cut and cook.

So I diced it up and put it in my stir-fry. A little unsure about the texture but otherwise it's pretty good.

Also I'm really trying to work on my plating skills. This food photography stuff is fun.

Stir Fry with Rice

So I love owning an iPod because I can easily take pictures of everything I make. I've been eating and experimenting with stir-fry a lot this summer. This is one made with rice. It was so delicious. I'm very proud of myself.

Cupcake Decorating for Valentine's Day

So my friends and I made and decorated delicious, delicious cupcakes last night. Well, I made them, they decorated them, but they were absolutely delicious.

So here are some of my pictures.

These first couple are of my boyfriend being silly, then I told him I was going to put these on my blog and he just acted sillier.

Then there's pictures of all the cupcakes and their cute designs, and all of the wrapped plates I had.

The Cake is a Lie - A Companion Cube Birthday Cake

Last weekend was Lorien's birthday party. Her roommate Suzannah wanted to make a companion cube cake for her (an item from the video game Portal) I told her it should have something in it to make the cake a lie (keeping with the theme of the game, they promise you cake but then don’t give it to you… I guess). We decided to put layers of rice crispy bar in it.

My sister came to pick me up for the weekend and it was a good thing because she's much better at cake decorating than Suzannah or I. 

Lorien was very impressed with the cake. It was extremely delicious. The buttercream frosting was really tasty with the rice crispy bars which is something I didn't expect. I thought it would be way too sugary but it was just right. 

Companion cube birthday cake. 

See, the cake is a lie.