Welcome to My Crib

Thanks so much for being patient with my guys, it has been a whirlwind of events recently and things have been crazy over here. But, that being said, I am finally moved in, and things are started to calm down. Phew! I feel like I have so many things to tell you. I guess we will start at the beginning.

After a delicious dinner with my roommate, our mom's, a friend, and my roommate's sister at Cafeteria in Chelsea, much packing was done. Actually, not much packing was done, which resulted in a crack of dawn wake up call to make sure everything was all set before the movers arrived at 9am.  The movers were a little late, but it wasn't there fault. Can someone please explain to me what NYC's reasoning is for not allowing anyone to take a right turn between 9th Ave and Madison on 34th street?  Ooph.  No big deal, they didn't charge us until they got there- Thank you Ace Movers :) (if anyone is looking to move, these guys are great and pretty appropriately priced)

A day filled with packing, moving, unpacking, decorating, drinks with Mama Nay Nay and D and finally, hitting the pillow for a nice snooze in my new room!  The apartment came together so nicely! Want a little peak?

Fun cute sign in the Kitchen- Words to live by :)

Yay! New kitchen! So much bigger than my last one (yes I know its still small, its NYC people, this is like a mansion's Kitchen to a 20something in the big city)

Woot Spice rack!- When roommate and I first got this spice rack, it was the biggest deal ever, you would have thought someone gave us a horse. I still feel the same way.  This spice rack is the best $7.99 I ever spent

Fun pretty apron!

Bathroom- isn't our new shower curtain adorable?

 We are apparently big into the blue, green and pink idea. I do not hate it.

Well, after much moving in was done. Much food was eaten.  Mama Nay Nay, Faj-city and I went over to Josies in my hood and I dominated these flax seed organic, gluten free, dairy free pancakes.  They tastes like heaven and I am not usually a fan of these semi-sorta-kinda-the real thing- typa dishes.  These held their own.  I was quite impressed.

Dont they look amazing? They were :)

Welp children, that is all for now.  Ill catch up with you later about my Fruit Salad Life inspired Pineapple Raspberry Popsicles.

The Best Day of the Year Beats Christmas Day

Today is what my sister and I like the call The Best Day of the Year Beats Christmas Day. My Faj is a twin so our entire family gets togehter on the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend every year and do an amazing all you can eat Brunch at a fabulous hotel in Boston.  Much food is consumed.  Much love surronds us all and many a pant button pops from the amount of over the top scrumptious eats that are consumed.  Sometimes you just need to enjoy the days that are filled with moments like this: 

Lucky for me- I get a little break from me Only Eat What You Have Challenge for this fabulous weekend at home with the family. Made to order omelets, fresh fruit, made to order pasta- you name is, today, I am eating it.

Some people may ask me, "how can you claim to be living a healthy lifestyle if you are telling all your followers that today you are going to eat whatever you want and never look back?"- Everyone has a different style of "healthy living". Some people do very well on Weight Watchers (tried it, loved it for the time being, decided to try something else).  Some people love to count calories, or carbs. Some people are good at completely eliminating catergories of food (think: white carbs, saturated fats, etc). For me, I know that I can not limit myself because I begin to feel like I am missing out on life. The majority of the time, I make healthy choices because I know they make me happy, give me more energy, and overall, make me feel better.  However, sometimes, I eat whatever I want, feel stuffed to the brim, and look back with no regrets.  Today is one of those "look back with no regrets" kind of days that I have every year.  At the end of this brunch, I dont think about how many calories I have consumed or how much oil was in my omlete.  Tomorrows a new day- "healthy living" here I come. Today, I am going to create more moments like this:

More pics of this years The Best Day of the Year Beats Christmas Day.

Hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend!

What are you all doing?

**I am not claiming to have the answer to how to live a healthy life for everyone. I am just say what is working for me right now. Everyone needs to find their own "healthy living" path.  

Rotting Banana's and Office Breakfast

 

Hi Everyone! So sorry to take so long to blog about this.  Busy, busy day, lots of apartment hunting going on over here- stressed out Jessica in the house!

Well on Sunday, after bf left and I was a smidge sad, I decided to not let my rotting banana's go to waste and I made a nice little breakfast for the office!  I felt like mini banana muffins was a great treat to bring in and a great way to take advantage of the perfectly ripe fruit. I find that every time I WANT my bananas to be ripe they are border-line green and every time I want my bananas to be perfect to eat, they are brown as mud.  This was a prime example- so Mini Banana Muffins here we come!

These are so easy to make.  The recipe was sniped, and adjusted from Gina's Blog- Gina knows how to do it right!

Ingredients: 

3 ripe medium bananas

1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1-1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp butter, softened

1/2 cup light brown sugar

2 large egg whites

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Steps:

1) Preheat oven to 325°

2) In a medium bowl mix flour, baking
soda and salt 

3) In a separate bowl, with an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy

4) Add egg whites, bananas, apple sauce and vanilla to sugar mixer with the electric mixture

5) Combine the flour mixture and the banana mixer at low speed until combined

6) Spoon batter into pam-ed muffin pans and bake for 20 to 30 mins 

7) Let cool and be the best employee ever and package them for work!

These can definitely be made into a loaf of bread as well- delish.  I promised you guys back in the day when I introduced you to the delicious My Mom Wants Me to Call This Banana-Applesauce-Bread... Bread that I would give you the general banana bread recipe so-  

You. Are. Welcome

 

 (Photo Source)

I give these a star fabulous rating of 8 out of 10- I wouldn't hate if they were bigger and I personally am not a super banana-y banana bread person! However, the consistency is amazing, they are moist (sorry to all you people who "claim" to hate that word), and they were definitely sweet.

Star Fabulous Rating: 8/10 

Pumpkin Walnut Raisin Muffins

Miss me? Its been a while! I was busy enjoying the amazing weather in the city this weekend.  Saturday was unbelievably beautiful and the great weather obviously brought me to Central Park for a nice long walk with the girls followed by an amazing Whole Foods picnic lunch on Sheep's Meadow. Sunday my sister and I decided to be children of the year and after an... eventful night... we voyaged to the Casino at the crack of dawn to surprise our Mom for Mother's day!   

This girl won big at Black Jack (thanks for your help dad!).  On the long trip back on the train I had plenty of time to commit to Tina's New Book!  She has some great advice and some amazingly easy recipes. 

While watching re-runs of desperate housewives I decided to finally use up the can of pumpkin in the cabinet that I got ages ago when I was on my pumpkin kick.  Tina goes on for quite some time about how fabulous these pumpkin muffins that she made were so I thought, what a better way to use the ingredient.  

Very simply recipe, which obviously makes everything better for me AND as you all know, I heart raisins and since those were incorporated I was good to go!  

I love raisins so much that my mom gave me one of those GIANT industrial size containers on Easter and its almost gone.  Nothing like some great trail mix and any cookie involving raisins to really make your raisin supply dwindle quickly!

Well now to this recipe.  My favorite kind of recipes are the ones were the steps are simple 1) put everything a bowl, 2) mix, 3) put in pan 4) bake.  This is one of those kind of recipes! 

Ingredients: (snagged from Tina)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup oats

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 cup canned pumpkin pie mix

1 egg

1 tbsp canola oil

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup walnuts

Steps: 

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

2) Coat muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray

3) Mix all ingredients into one big bowl with a spoon

4) Pour batter evenly into muffin tins.

5) Bake for 18-20 minutes.

These really hit the spot for me and I am not even really a pumpkin girl.  I bet they would  have been even better in the fall, I love to eat seasonal foods. 

I'd give these a Star Fabulous Rating of 6/10 because they are very delicious but I really do wish they were a smidge bigger! I bet they would be a solid 7/10 with some chocolate chips too.  Chocolate makes everything better (at least now a days, I am on a serious Chocolate binge!)

Star Fabulous Rating: 6/10

Chocolate Chip Morning Bread

Last night one of my roommates told me how she was craving chocolate so... Jessica to the rescue!


Realizing that I was down a lot of key ingredients I decided that I would see what I could come up with AND to my surprise this came out quite well if I do say so myself... ACTUALLY I guess I dont have to say it for myself because my roommate texted me today "I like the bread!!! Alot"... thats 3 exclimation points!


MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.


This creation is what I woud like to call Chocolate Chip Morning Bread because they have a similar consistency to scones and a nice slice (maybe paired with an orange) is a great breakfast on the go!


Ingredients:
1/4 cup apple sauce
3 tablespoons canola oil
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup chocolate chips
cut nuts
1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 egg whites
salt
12 almonds finely chopped (slices almonds work as well)


Steps: (EASIEST STEPS EVER!)
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2) Combine all ingredients in one bowl (except almonds) and stir well
3) Put batter into a pam-ed 9x5 (banana bread) pan
4) Sprinkle with chipped almonds
5) Put in the oven for 15 to 30 minutes
6) Cut and enjoy

I am so happy that my roommate got her treat and this little experiment worked so well. 

Star Fabulous Rating: 7/10