Today show and Shells

Good Day everyone!

Wow this is really becoming a once a week blog. The weeks keep getting away from me. The reason for this is because I work a school schedule and things are starting to dwindle down which means things pick up! Last week was awesome though. On Monday me, husband and my friend, went to NEW YORK CITY to see the TODAY show! This is something that had been on my "bucket list". We left at 430am...which was a half hour behind schedule. The long and short is, we were going to leave at 4am BUT for whatever reason the alarm may or may not have gone off. Our poor friend was at the house at 4am ready to go but low and behold all the lights are out. She was pounding on the door until finally we woke up at 420am and went running. After ten minutes of running around and me saying sorry, I'm so sorry, we were in the car by 431am. We got to the TODAY SHOW by 830. That was after some misguiding, traffic, ferry trip, and power walking. It was great though, we got our pictures with ANN CURRY, NATALIE MORALES, ans AL ROCKER. Natalie is my favorite, mainly because she is gorgeous and we were pregnant at the same time. So naturally we are bonded. After the show we went to the NBC store, bought mugs. FYI-I have been drinking out of it every morning and my coffee tastes better, I swear! Took the subway over to Little Italy/China Town. Got to my favorite bakery and indulged in my sweet treats. Bought a sweatshirt that of course says I heart NY. Ate lunch off a street cart, it was something that had chicken, lamb, and beef in it. It was awesome! We had the best time. I was so happy to go! I was really starting to have this issue of doing the same thing day in and day out. Anyone else ever struggle with that? I love my life and I am so blessed but sometimes I get in a rut and something new needs to happen. In addition to mix things up, Saturday my sister and I went to a wine and chocolate festival. My sister and I both have kids so it is hard to get together as sisters. We had the best time, tasting wine and having all sorts of food samples. Two pounds worth of samples!! I bought a bottle of blackberry wine, to break open one night soon. So last week really helped me with my everyday routine. It was just what I needed. Also I would like to thank my husband for taking over and watching the kiddo.

And because we all know I love food, I tried something new. This is totally not a new food to the world but I have never made stuffed shells. In six years of being married I always wanted to make them but always thought they would be to time consuming. Well as it turns out, they are easier to make then lasagna! They were so good and the kid loved them! So I am posting this recipe to Tasty Tuesday, Foodie Friday, Ultimate Recipe Swap.

Stuffed Cheesy Goodness Shells

1 package of jumbo shells

1 jar sauce of choice

mix all of the following together

32oz. container ricotta cheese

2 cups mozzarella cheese

3/4 cup Parmesan cheese

2 Tbsp. fresh parsley

2 eggs

salt and pepper to taste

1/8 tsp nutmeg

Cook and drain shells. Spread 1/2 cup of sauce on bottom of lasagna pan

Fill shells with cheese mixture-I used a cookie scoop-worked like a dream!

Arrange in baking dish and pour rest of sauce over shells.

Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

Top with some parm cheese.

Enjoy because it is awesome

AWARDS

Wow this week has been crazy busy. On Monday we went to see the TODAY SHOW but I will tell you about that next week. FYI-we had soooo much fun! In any case I have not been keeping up on my blogging. At my job it has been getting to the end of the school year so when I come home I am a little tired. But yesterday I checked my user comments and I won TWO awards!!! I can not even believe it. I was just totally shocked and it made my night. I see bloggers win them all the time and I think yeah they really do have an awesome blog. Well low and beyond I have an award worthy blog-GO ME!! So the first one I won is from Angie's Healthy Living.

The Versatile blogger-with this award there are some rules, which are as follows:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award

2. Share seven things about you.

3. Nominate 15 newly discovered blogs that you think are fantastic

4. Let your nominees know about the award.

So with all that being said

THANK YOU ANGIE for award you really did make me very happy and smile!!

Seven things about me- 1. I also have red hair like Angie

2. I have a little boy named Jacob

3. I met my husband when I was in 4th grade

4. I want to own my own bakery shoppe when day

5. I love spring and fall best

6. I get excited to check the mail everyday-it's kind-of like Christmas for me

7. I love cookbooks!!! I rarely go to a yard sale, estate sale, or anywhere without buying one

So now the 15 blogs I would like to nominate for this award are as follows: This Blessed Life, Finding Joy in my Kitchen, Adventures of a Betty Crocker Wanna-Be, Eat, Live, Run, Lucy's Kitchen, Cooking During Moments, The Happy Housewife, The Gracious Pantry, The Newylweds, My Scrapbook Addiction, Recipes from the Cookie Jar, New Nostalgia, Hopeful Homemaker, Balancing Beauty and Bedlam, Dairy of a Navy Wife

I follow all these blogs on daily basis and love them! These women are all amazing. I am so happy they open up their lives so I can share in them!

Now to get to the other exciting award from Sarah at Dairy of a Navy Wife. I met Sarah when my husband and I were engaged. The husband and Ben used to be college room-mates and they quickly became best friends. Through that friendship I met Sarah. She has a great blog where she has been talking about her experience of being a new navy wife. She is just so sweet and I find her to very strong. So thank you Sarah! The rules are to pick 10 blogs that I love to read. Well there are so many blogs that I read, that I just love and look forward to reading. But because I already listed 15 I am just going to stick to those blogs for now. Thank you again Sarah!

New Things!

YAY, it's FRIDAY! Friday means the weekend is here in less then 8 hours, this makes me happy. So this week I really have not had a chance to post anything but I wanted to share some food items with you.

I experimented this week with yogurt and I am finding yogurt is the wonder/super food. I made chocolate chip cookies and replaced half the butter with half Greek yogurt. The cookies turned out great. The husband was not a huge fan of them because he loves the texture of the full fat butter cookies. But everyone else that had them enjoyed them, as did I. These cookies are very cake like, so if you prefer that these are for you. But by replacing the butter with yogurt you save 20 calories per a cookie and a load of fat. I also made TollHouse Crumb Cake for the husband's birthday and used yogurt in place of the sour cream and it worked like a dream. I have read you can replace cream cheese with yogurt and mayo??? So I am going to try this because if I can eat cheesecake and not know the difference I will totally do it.

Another thing I tried this week was FRIED DANDELIONS!! Yes you read right, I ate dandelions!! I found this recipe in a wholesome/natural cookbook and thought I had to try this. So the husband and son picked dandelion heads for me and I fried them up! Only my mom and me were brave enough to try them. The husband gave me a look, like don't even think about it lady, hahaha! I would not recommend trying these. But I am happy to say I tried something new. My sister told me I was grazing.

Another thing I tired is homemade popcorn. The last few weeks I have been making my own popcorn on the stove top using canola oil. But last night I tired coconut oil instead and OH MY WORD...it was awesome. The canola oil is good but this was great. The popcorn was fresh and light tasting. It just tasted so so so popcorn. It was amazing! I always make extra because I am a bad judge of how much I am pouring in so I have some made for tonight. I don't know if you have tired coconut oil but you should try it. I continue to read the health benefits of this amazing oil.


And the last thing, I swear! Over at the Musings of a Housewife, she had this recipe posted. I tried it and well it was awesome!! So do yourself a favor and make this. If you are thinking holy cow that is a lot of fat/calories. Well I did it with 1/3 less fat cream cheese and fat free evaporated milk and it worked just fine. FYI-next time I am going to try the yogurt in place of the cream cheese to see if it works. If you try it before I do let me know how it goes. Thank You in advance! :)

Have a great weekend and enjoy the sweet goodness!

Being linked up to

Foodie Friday

Friday Feast

Food on Fridays

Food Revolution Fridays