Cupcakes, champagne, and closets, oh my!

I have had the worst sugar/chocolate cravings lately, so I've been trolling Pinterest for some of the best Weight Watcher's recipes that can kill those cravings without killing my diet.  I thought I found one the other day.  It was easy, delicious, and the pin said it was only two points!  Score!  I tried it out last Thursday and was delighted to find that they were extremely tasty!

The recipe only called for these three ingredients (cake mix, pumpkin puree, and chocolate chips).  Mix, pour, bake!  Easy as can be!

Bake at 350 (I always up it to 375 since my oven is old and slow as molasses).

These are actually the finished product, the cupcakes don't rise or flatten out.  Kind of weird looking, but still yummy!  After eating the first one, I thought that there was no way that these were only two points.  They were way too chocolaty and delicious.  Well, I was right.  I plugged the recipe into the recipe builder on WW, and they calculated to 6 points per cupcake.  So much for a low point alternative.  I knew it was too good to be true.  But it didn't stop me from eating a few this weekend.  Speaking of this weekend, would you like to know what I did?  Or more specifically, what I drank?  Well, here you go!

Courtney came over Friday night for a couple of hours and we had some champagne cocktails. I modified this off a pin I saw that called for pear puree instead of peach.  I couldn't find any pear at the liquor store near my house and I didn't feel like driving anywhere else, so this is what we ended up with.  I've decided to name it "Sex in the Champagne Room," since it's kind of like a Sex on the Beach with champers.  Pretty decent.  I'll definitely have it again.  Especially since I have this giant bottle of peach puree now.

Here's the breakdown on amounts:

Sex in the Champagne Room

One oz. peach puree

One half ounce cranberry cocktail

Fill the rest of the flute with champagne 

Enjoy!!!

Very pretty, don't you think?

This weekend, I also went a bit crazy with organizing my closets and purging the house of stuff that needs to either be stored until I hold a garage sale or put in the garage.  This is what the office closet looked like before three trips to Target for storage bins, the proper fitting lids (don't even get me started on that story), and a few hours of organizing and sorting.

Much better, don't you think?  That's not a great shot of the closet, but it's impossible to get a picture of the whole thing.  There is another column of storage bins to the left of the one you see above.  Total, there are nine bins in there with a space on the right for items that wouldn't fit or are used too often to store.  Eventually we are going to put a shelving system in there so you don't have to pull all the bins out to get to one at the bottom, but that's a project for a different day.

This wasn't the only closet I tackled on Sunday, either.  I managed to completely overhaul both closets in my bedroom, the hall closet, the bar cart, underneath the bathroom sink, and the corner cabinet in the family room.  Needless to say, there are a lot of boxes to go in the garage, the garbage is full, and my ex has got to come get the rest of his stuff.  It's amazing the things you find when you really dig through the dark corners and nooks and crannies.  I was amazed at some of the stuff I found (re: my journal from Europe, clothes from my mid-twenties, medicine from 2003...).  Let's just put it nicely and say that I'm a bit of a pack rat.

I can't wait to tackle the garage this spring and purge myself of all the useless stuff I've been holding onto for way too long.  As soon as the weather turns warm and stays that way, I'm having a huge yard sale.  I'll keep you posted on when so you can stop by and laugh at my fashion choices from ten years ago.  Lord knows there were some questionable pieces.  

Until next time, go clean out your closet and see what you find!

Valentine's Treats and Riley's Birthday

Well, my "favorite" holiday has come and passed, with little fanfare or drama.  In embracing all things that usually make me cranky, I decided to make some festive cupcakes for the occasion.  I had read a recipe on Pinterest using angel food cake mix and blueberry pie filling to make a berry bunt cake.  I had made it before and knew that recipe turned out a little hard to get out of the pan and very chewy.  So I thought if I made it into cupcakes, it would go a little better.  Well, I was wrong.  I should have greased the cupcake liners with some Pam or something, because those suckers were hard to get off.  I used strawberry pie filling so it would be pink instead of blue.  The taste was pretty great, and only were two Weight Watcher's points, so not a total failure (like most of my dessert making endeavors).

 

 I also read somewhere on Pinterest that a quick and easy way to "frost" cupcakes was to add a marshmallow on top in the last five minutes of baking.  I figured, why not?  Ha, ha, ha.  That was a nightmare.  Not only did the marshmallow taste weird on angel food cake, they were way too chewy for the already chewy cupcake.  And then all the warm cupcakes stuck to each other when I put them on a plate.  Not my finest moment in the kitchen.  I only "frosted" half of them, so at least I didn't waste 24 cupcakes.

The unfrosted cupcakes made for a pretty decent breakfast on the go this week, but I wound up throwing the rest away this morning.  I don't think I'll be using that recipe again.  Oh well, adventures in baking don't always go as planned.

My Valentine's baby, Riley, turned eight yesterday.  I bought him a few special treats to celebrate, although he has absolutely no idea what he did to deserve them.  I love the ridiculous measures that I go to (and all dog owners do) for my furry friend.

Fancy dinner of chicken, duck, turkey and gravy followed by a delicious dinosaur treat.  He could barely wait for me to get the food into the bowl to eat it.  I also got him a new alligator toy.  Apparently, I have a thing for reptiles, because two of his other toys are dragons.

Nom, nom, nom.

After Riley's birthday celebration, the roomie and grabbed some dinner at Suggin's and headed downtown to catch the black and white version of Sabrina.  The Kentucky Theater was having a fundraiser for Old Friends, a thoroughbred horse retirement foundation.  I absolutely love anything with Audrey Hepburn in it, so it was a must go to event.  Robbie had never seen it, and was pleasantly surprised with how much he liked it.  How can you not, it's such a classic!  Humphrey Bogart is the kind of man I want to marry.  So dashing and smooth...

All in all, it was a great day for my most hated day of the year.  This whole "choose to have a better attitude" thing is working out quite nicely.  I think I'll do it some more.  Much love!

Embracing Cupid

Here's a shocking revelation...single people hate Valentine's.  I know, it's Earth shattering, this new information.  Ha ha ha.  I'm so funny.  So here's another tidbit for you...I hate Valentine's whether I'm single or not.  Also shocking news.  Me?  The Grinch who hates Christmas also hates Valentine's?  I would have never imagined!  Yeah...  I'm not into holidays that guilt you into buying overpriced stuff for the people you love to show them that you love them.  But in keeping with my new found principle of being less of a crotchety old bitch, I'm embracing my inner cupid this year.  I have decorated the house accordingly and plan on NOT drinking a bottle of wine by myself and calling my mother crying this year.  Well, maybe just the crying on the phone to my mom part.  I still want to drink the bottle of wine.  Anyway, I found this adorable printable pennant banner online to hang from the mantle.  I added a few candles from around the house, some (fake) tulips in julep cups, and some printed song lyrics and love quotes in frames.  I thought it turned out rather cute! 

The two quotes read "La la, love you. Don't mean maybe." and "ever thine. ever mine. ever ours."

Two cool points for knowing what song the first one is from.  Negative two cool points for knowing the second only from its use in a very popular chick flick.

Nice fingerprints on the silver, Eileen.  Way to stay classy.

Vases with heart shaped glass filler and candles.  All from Michael's.

 Hope your Valentine's is spent with the one you love most, or at least with the one you love right now.  I'll be hanging out with Riley.  It's his 8th birthday, so we will be having steak for dinner.  Just kidding, I don't eat meat.  He'll be having fancy canned dog food and I'll have something along the lines of a bowl of cereal.  Ahh, the eating habits of a single gal... Much love!

A Break from Hibernating

This past weekend I had plans that brought me out of my hibernation mode into back into the real world.  Saturday we celebrated my buddy's 33rd birthday by doing a brewery crawl throughout Lexington followed by sushi.  We had a great time, and the brewery tour was a lot of fun!  Our first stop was West 6th Brewery for some beers and a tour.  I started with the stout and it was excellent, although by the time the tour started, I was a smidge tipsy.

We had a beer or two after the tour as well as some munchies to tide us over until we got to the next place, Lexington Beerworks.  They don't brew their own beer, but do have a wide selection to try.  I had an IPA from a brewery out of Louisville called Atmosphere, I think.  We all were pretty buzzed by then.  That's what happens when you don't leave your house all winter, you lose your tolerance.

After Beerworks, we headed to Country Boy Brewing to watch UK win.  We may have also ordered an extra large cheese stick from Mad Mushroom because by then we all were flat out drunk.  Or at least most of us were...

Following Country Boy, we headed over to Seki for some sushi.  It used to be the best place for sushi in Lexington, but the original owner passed away a few years ago.  I don't know what it was like before he passed, but I didn't understand what all the hype was about.  We still had a great time, though!

After dinner, a friend picked me up and we went out for a bit before I headed home.  It was a long day and I was burned out on drinking, so I didn't end up staying long.  Sunday was Super Bowl and in lieu of going to a big party or watching it at a bar, I decided to have a few friends over and cook a few appetizers.  I made turkey meatballs, a white cheddar cranberry dip with crostini, and a hot corn dip with tortilla chips.  They all turned out pretty decent, but I think that I would add a tad more cream cheese to the corn dip.  It was a little runny.

Jen and Tyler

 Riley really wants some of Scott's meatballs.  Much to Riley's dismay, he did not share.

Leaving the house was a bit challenging this past weekend due to the massive amount of snow we got and miserably cold temperatures.  By massive, I mean roughly 3 inches.  Hey, that's a lot for Lexington!  It was totally worth it to see some friends from college and get out of the house for the day.  I'm enjoying the fact that I haven't been into going out much.  It's been very comforting to nest this winter.  I'm guessing it has something to with the cold weather, but really, I think I've just realized I'm just over going out.  Apparently, I'm getting to that age.  It was bound to happen sooner or later.  I'm sure when spring hits, I'll be ready to get out and about.  There's nothing better than a long night on a patio with some yummy cocktails!  I'm already collecting recipes to test out when the weather is warmer.  Until then, you can find me curled up on the couch watching Netflix.  Til next time, ciao!