Guess who’s birthday it is??
I see you!
That’s a little better. I swear she loves to sleep completely submerged under layers of blankets.
Happy 9th birthday to my Haley girl!
Haley must have been worn out this day to sit still enough for petting.
She loves to eat.
Her birthday presents!
She likes the PB ice cream treats.
PLEASEeeeeeeeee give me a Beggin’ Strip. She goes bananas for these things!!
One of Haley’s favorite things to do is lay in the sun and graw on a chew bone.
Happy birthday to my sweet baby.
Movies, movies, movies!!!
One of my favorite past times is going to the movies. I’d much rather go to the theater to see a movie. It’s the experience of the other people, the sounds, the cushy seats, the previews, the overpriced drinks….okay, I don’t love that part.
But when I watch movies at home, I get distracted. I rarely watch a DVD at home from start to finish in one sitting. I always start…then stop to fold some laundry…start again….stop to check my email, etc etc etc.
So, I went to see 3 movies over the past 2 weeks.
Drive with Ryan Gosling
I can’t even explain this movie! I mean, I understand what it’s about and what happened. But it’s just SO different from what I was expecting. I didn’t really research the movie. I just saw Ryan Gosling…hot…driving…action movie…Ryan Gosling…hot….I’m sold. This movie is NOT a traditional action/robbery getaway movie. It’s an artsy, brooding version of that.
I truly appreciated the uniqueness of it. The acting is great. Ryan Gosling has limited dialogue in the movie. He’s definitely the strong silent type. The movie HEAVILY relies on the music/soundtrack. And I can say I LOVED the music in the movie.
There’s even a line in the main song of the movie that says “It’s hard to explain.” My thoughts exactly. See this movie at your own risk. I still can’t even decide if I liked it or not! (I still love Ryan Gosling as an actor though. I love Lars and the Real Girl.)
Contagion with a crap load of famous people
I was supposed to see this movie last week. But then I caught a cold. There was no way I was going to go see this movie with a cold! Ha! I knew people would gasp in the theater and freak out if I started sneezing or coughing. 
I did enjoy this movie. It’s like Outbreak, but seemed a bit more realistic. Or maybe since it’s more modern it seems more realistic. It takes you inside what would happen if a new vaccine had to be developed and how people/countries would react in the interim of a vaccine being readily available. It gets you a moral dilemma, not just the science of it.
The part I took away: people touch their face 2000-3000 times a DAY! Eww! I just caught myself doing it a few seconds ago too. Stop, Julie, stop!
Moneyball with Brad Pitt & Jonah Hill
I really liked Moneyball! Brad Pitts plays Billy Beane, the manager of the Oakland A’s. He’s struggling with how to compete with teams like the Yankees that have a much bigger budget to use. In walks Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) who uses statictal analysis to help rate players that they can get for a “bargain.” The only factor for wins is how often they get on 1st base, because that equals runs which equals wins. They are no longer thinking about players’ other factors like traditional scouts used.
Okay, that summary may sound boring. But it’s not! It’s a really interesting movie. It’s written by Aaron Sorkin, so have some faith! And Brad Pitt is great in this movie! He has really great hair in this movie too. 
So….
Drive: see the movie if you’re up for something unique and love music
Contagion: don’t see the movie if you’re a germaphobe
Moneyball: see the movie. Period.
Also, check out Rock Star Dad’s blog! Kevin is super nice and featured 3 of my recipes today.
http://rockstardad.blog.com/2011/09/27/sugar-foot-eats/
Obviously I like baking with candy bars.
It’s delicious.
And an excuse to buy candy bars.
And a way to use up candy bars after Halloween. I’m just helping you pre-plan for that.
These Twix cookies are easier than the Snickers cookies as I just stirred the Twix into the batter. So if you don’t like the peanuts in Snickers, go for these Twix cookies! I preferred them regardless!
Twix Cookies
Recipe slightly adapted from The Smart Cookie Cook
Ingredients:
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, melted
2 cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 whole egg + 1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
8 mini Twix, chopped
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup semi-sweet mini chocolate chips
Instructions:
Melt your butter and set it aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set bowl aside.
In your mixer, mix together the brown sugar, granulated sugar, and your melted butter. Add in the whole egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract. Beat well.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet. Beat at low speed just until combined.
By hand, stir in the chopped Twix, milk chocolate chips, and semi-sweet mini chocolate chips.
Chill the dough in the refrigerator for an hour.
Preheat oven to 325.
Use a cookie scoop to place spoonfuls of dough on parchment paper lined cookie sheets. Bake about 15 to 18 minutes until the cookies are light golden brown.
I really try to avoid keeping Diet Coke or Coke Zero in my apartment. I’ve been so good for MONTHS! But this weekend, I just couldn’t take it anymore. Come back to Mama!!
Arby’s roast beef sandwich, nomnomnom. I heart Arby’s sauce!
I was feeling a bit cranky on Friday morning. So, I went to buy new pens and notebooks. I knew it would cheer me up!! Something about a new pen and a clean notebook makes me feel like I’m ready to tackle things.
Pumpkin Wheat beer!!! I was worried that I wouldn’t like it so I got my favorite Raspberry Wheat beer too. The pumpkin beer did not disappoint though.
I snagged the last 2 cans of pumpkin at Target!!! Now to decide which of the thousand pumpkin desserts I want to make. Too many choices!
New boots! Why? Umm, because the shoe store is right next door to the liquor store.
Did you watch the Emmys last night? I ignored the cheesefest parts (and caught up on my blog reading) and just paid attention to the awards.
I was super happy that Julie Bowen & Ty Burell won. I love Modern Family!!
Also, I was glad that Margo Martindale won for Justified. If you don’t want that show, WATCH IT! The Timothy Olyphant eye candy is reason enough.
And finally, I was STOKED that Kyle Chandler won for Friday Night Lights. I’m going to miss that show so much!! If only Connie Britton would have won too.
Nutella Chocolate Chip Brownies
Recipe from Pretty Tasty Things
Ingredients:
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 stick of butter, melted and cooled
1 cup of Nutella
1 cup of mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 325. Butter a 8×8 inch pan. Set aside.
Combine the flour and salt in a bowl. Mix and then set aside.
In another bowl, combine the eggs, vanilla, brown sugar, melted butter, and Nutella. Whisk by hand until smooth.
Add your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients. Whisk by hand until smooth.
Coat your 1 cup of mini semi-sweet chocolate chips with a bit of flour. The flour on the chips help them cling to the batter versus falling straight to the bottom.
Add your slighted flour coated chips to the batter and stir.
Pour batter into your prepared pan. Bake for 45 minutes.
These brownies are super tasty!!!!!!!! I’ve made Nutella brownies before and I have to say that I prefer these Nutella Chocolate Chip Brownies!!
Make some to enjoy while you watch TV.
Dang you, Kohl’s for always sending me good deals!
Do you get the ads in the mail for Kohl’s? You peel back the sticker and either get 15, 20, or 30% off. I’m really good at ignoring the 15 & 20% coupons. But 30% off…and go early this weekend to get Early Bird specials…and things are already on sale…and I get $10 Kohl’s cash for $50 spent. Oh, the temptation!!
I got my KitchenAid mixer earlier this year at Kohl’s for such a deal this way!
I’m going to try to resist you this weekend, my dear friend, Kohl’s. But don’t be surprised if you see me there.
Snickers Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recipe from Love Veggies and Yoga
Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
several fun-sized Snickers bars, diced
Yields about 27 cookies
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350. Place parchment paper on your cookie sheets. Set aside.
In a bowl, combine the flour, baking soda & salt and whisk. Set bowl aside.
In your mixer, beat together the butter, sugar, light brown sugar and vanilla. Mix until creamy. Add one egg and beat well. Add the second egg and beat well.
Slowly add your dry mixture to the wet and mix.
Stir in the semi-sweet chocolate chips.
Refrigerate the cookie dough for 20 minutes. (The refrigerated dough helps the dough not stick to your fingers when you’re working with the dough + Snickers.)
In the meantime, slice your Snickers bars. I sliced a fun-sized bar down the middle. Then I sliced the bars into 3rds lengthwise. The number of Snickers pieces will depend on how big you make your cookies. Just play it by ear!
Remove chocolate chip cookie dough from the refrigerator. Use a cookie dough scoop and scoop out a generous portion. Form dough into a ball.
Place a Snickers slice into the dough. You can use 2 Snickers pieces if you want the cookie to be extra Snickers-y.
Place another rolled chocolate chip cookie dough ball on top of the Snicker. Use your fingers to seam together the edges so that the Snickers is covered.
Bake for 9-11 minutes on your prepared cookie sheets.
Cool cookies on cookie sheet for 2 minutes. Then move cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
These cookies are very delicious! The next time, I would either use bigger Snickers pieces or smaller portions of cookie dough per cookie. I would have like more of an impact with the Snickers, but they tasted great regardless!
I’m loving September!! I like how September is sort of a new year/fresh start, since school has started for kids. And the weather is great. It’s put an extra pep in my step these last few weeks. I’ve gotten a renewed energy for baking and blogging.
And getting an award isn’t too shabby either.
I was recently given The Versatile Blogger award on Stephanie’s blog: Eat. Drink. Love. and on Samantha’s blog: From the Little Ferraro Kitchen. I recommend you check out the blogs of these 2 lovely ladies. Hello Nutella Cupcakes. Hello Creme Brulee. (I have NO CLUE how to make creme brulee!)
The rules of the Versatile Blogger award are to:
1. Thank the person who gave you the award.
2. Share 7 random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 other bloggers!
Thanks again to Stephanie and Samantha!! You gals rock. Bloggers really are the nicest people.
Seven Random Things About Me:
1. I always leave the closed captions on when I watch TV. I’m sort of addicted to it. I can hear fine, but I worry that I’ll miss some crucial piece of dialogue without the closed captions on to save me.
2. I have 2 tattoos…one on each ankle. I was 18 years old when I got my first tattoo. I was still living at home at the time. My Dad was so mad when he found out and made me give back his Phillips 66 gas credit card. Boo! (But he gave it back a month later…I win!)
3. I’m going to see The Script and SafetySuit in concert this Friday.
4. My Mom and I have the same favorite movies: Pretty Woman, Working Girl, and Four Wedding and a Funeral (I’m thinking a Mother/Daughter DVD watching day should happen soon.)
5. I swear that we saw Mr. T at a restaurant when I was a senior in high school in San Antonio for Spring Break. Supposedly, I’m the only “fool” that thinks it was him. But I know it was!
6. My favorite Halloween costume as a kid was when I was a Shirt Tale. I was Rick Raccoon two years in a row. (Reading that website, it says that Rick’s character asked a lot of questions. Ha! If you meet me in real life, you’ll find that I’ll ask you 1001 questions in 2.5 minutes.)
7. Every time I drive to my parents, I pass the Powerball billboard that tells you how much the jackpot is. The rest of the drive, I dream of what I would do with that money. But I have never bought a ticket!
Now I’m passing the award on to some other awesome bloggers:
1. Kevin: Rock Star Dad
2. Mary: Fervent Foodie
3. Kristen: Confessions of a (Not-So) Domesticated Newlywed
4. Miss: Miss In The Kitchen
5. Rachel: Good Thymes & Good Food
6. Tessa: Handle the Heat
7. Julie: Julie’s Eats & Treats
8. MJ: MJ’s Kitchen
Whew, I’m beat and stopping at 8, sorry! If one of you 8 already got the award from another blogger, well then you’re just that much more fabulous!!
I recently went to a United Way Young Leaders event. It was a good event and a good cause. And ummmm, I needed to do some networking.
I also won one of the door prizes, a $50 gift certificate to Bonefish Grill. Score!!
I’ve only been to Bonefish once in Charlotte and never had in Wichita. Since it was close to my Mom’s birthday, I asked my parents to join me.
Our waiter told us the Bang Bang Shrimp is by far the most popular item on the menu. It’s flipping delicious!!!!!! My Mom and I had fun showing off our chopsticks skillz. (She is much better at it than I am!)
I’m not really a fish person. I enjoy it, but I never CRAVE it. You’ll rarely find me choosing the salmon over the chicken at a restaurant unless I’m on a health kick. After studying the menu, I settled on the special of Crab Crusted Pompano.
The fish was good, but not stellar. I enjoyed the carrots more than the fish. I have learned that for me at Bonefish, just get a side salad and Bang Bang Shrimp and call it good!!
**Updated 7/9/12:
Come share in the tomato love at the Tomato Love Recipe Exchange, hosted by Gimme Some Oven & Bake Your Day, sponsored this week by KitchenAid. Also visit Recipe for Change to learn more about how to support tomato farmers.
Fall and weekends mean…..Soccer Saturdays!!
Three of my nephews are playing soccer this season. Eight AM games aren’t ideal for a Saturday, but nothing that can’t be made better with a Pumpkin Spice Latte.
Too bad you don’t tailgate at soccer. I could have brought these tomatoes.
Sour Cream and Bacon Stuffed Tomatoes
Recipe from Buns In My Oven
Ingredients:
About 25 cherry tomatoes
4 slices cooked bacon, cooked
8 ounces light sour cream
1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons dried parsley flakes
green onions, to garnish
Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste
Instructions:
Wash your cherry tomatoes. Cut the tomatoes in half.
Scrape out the insides/seeds of the tomatoes. (I just used my fingers to scoop out the seed guts.) Sprinkle your tomatoes with Kosher salt.
Cook your slices of bacon and then crumble it into small pieces.
In a bowl, mix together the bacon crumbles, light sour cream, Parmesan cheese, and dried parsley flakes. Add your black pepper to taste.
Spoon your sour cream and bacon filling into each tomato. (I tried to pipe it, but none of my pastry tips were large enough to work with the bacon crumbles.) Dice up some green onions and sprinkle on top.
These sour cream and bacon stuffed tomatoes are a super easy appetizer! They’ll be a crowd pleaser too.
After making these, I was craving more bacon. I served some tomatoes up with a bacon, egg, and cheddar cheese sandwich.
Salty goodness!
See, I read the books I buy too.
First, bear with me for some ramblings.
1. My new favorite cereal recently:
Quaker Oatmeal Squares was recently on sale at Target, so I gave it a whirl. It’s sort of like if Cinnamon Toast Crunch & Cracklin’ Oat Bran got married and had a baby. It would be Quaker Oatmeal Squares.
2. I love to bake a lot more than cooking. But I don’t really like Top Chef Just Desserts. I LOVE regular Top Chef though. You’d think it be different. Pastry chefs on Top Chef Just Desserts seem whiny. Chefs on Top Chef are bad ass. Anyone else on board with my opinion??
3. One thing that I just HAD to do today: break out my fall decorations!!
I have more Halloween decorations that it’s too soon to bring out. I love those decorations that are dual purpose too.
Fall pumpkin:
And I’ll turn it around on October 1st to be a Halloween pumpkin:
I also just got these owl candles at Target tonight. $5!!
I know one blogger that may want to head to Target for the owl candles!
4. I tried CherryBerry for the first time tonight.
Self-serve yogurt bars are EVERYWHERE now it seems. Not that I’m complaining. In the Wichita area, we have CherryBerry, Orange Leaf, Peachwave, and Yogurt Xplosion.
What I loved about CherryBerry is the dry topping are kept in these containers with turn knobs to dispense them. It was a lot cleaner than just having the toppings out in bowls with spoons.
I was hoping that CherryBerry has some fall flavors out already, but it was more generic flavors. I got some banana frozen yogurt and cheesecake frozen yogurt. I topped it with graham crackers, coconut, and some peanuts. The banana flavor was great! The cheesecake was not the best.
I still like Peachwave the BEST!!! This summer I used to get the pineapple frozen yogurt and raspberry frozen yogurt from Peachwave. It was so great for the hot weather. AND after looking at Peachwave’s website, they have pumpkin pie frozen yogurt out already. Methinks I’ll have to check that out soon.
5. Since I broke out the fall decor, it was only fitting to also break out my SNUGGIE!! The snuggie is perfect for keep my hands free to blog on the couch.
Book Review
I read Labor Day over Labor Day weekend too. I’m a nerd like that. Actually I specifically choose it knowing that our book club group would be meeting the day after Labor Day.
Labor Day is the story of Henry, his mom Adele, and a stranger named Frank who comes into their life over Labor Day weekend. Henry is 13 years old and going through figuring out how to grow into a man while still processing the divorce of his parents. Adele has emotional issues and prefers to live as a virtual shut-in.
One day, Henry and Adele have to go to the store to get Henry new school supplies as school will be starting after Labor Day. At the store, Henry meets Frank. Frank is clearly in distress and asks Henry if his mom would give him a ride to their house to let him clean up and rest a bit. Surprisingly, (or not so surprisingly after you get to know Adele more) she agrees to bring Frank into their home.
You’ll have to read the book to learn more!!
I really liked this book!!!! It dives more into the past of Frank and Adele so you understand how they both came to be in their current circumstances. I could see the ending of the book going several ways. I’m happy to say that I did not guess the ending, but was pleased with it.
Also, this book is already being made into a movie!!! Yay! I knew that it was going to be a movie, but I didn’t know the cast. I just looked and Kate Winslet will play Adele and Josh Brolin with play Frank. GREAT CASTING!!! Since I knew it would be a movie, I kept picturing Kate as Adele when I read it!!! And I’m a big Josh Brolin fan too. Can’t wait for the movie!
Now, go read the book, guys! And get yourselves from froyo!
Labor Day: 4.75 stars out of 5
