"we can't call ourselves college kids with the way we eat"

...super long post because I have been a major slacker.

That's a pretty accurate statement after the past few weeks. I've been a slacker, one, school our social life is starting to consume my life, two, I've needed inspiration to write. Yes, I love, love, love to write and if I could make millions off it, I would, but I definitely need to be in the mood.

Let's see..Rewind back to January 22nd..a sad sad day in the basketball world. Despite an upset, we still made the most of it. Friday night we decided we'd play it safe, not go over board since we had to wake up bright and early for our guests arrival at 9:30. Do we ever follow rules? That'd be a negative. 9 am came quite quickly. Mariah was in bed until after our guests arrived. Good thing Jared got her moving or she would of stayed in bed all day. Jared, Koji, Mike, Taylor and Kerry are shuffled over for some breakfast and drinks before we headed to the game. On the menu: omelets in a bag! (sadly, the bagels never got made..but we're determined to tackle bread of some sort this semester)

 Jared, decked out, hard at work making his omelet

 Into boiling water for 12 minutes...

...and wa-la a perfect omelet!

 Although the basketball team let us down, we still made the most of it and had a wonderful time. Our friends are great, we had such a good time, despite the loss and basically being able to touch the ceiling of the dome. After the game we came back, hoping to nap the day away in preparation for the evening, pretty sure none of us napped, but don't worry we still made it out that night. Conveniently our girl neighbors we're having a party so we didn't even have to go far and before we went out we even did some school work..chemistry to be exact..

 Amelia hard at work with that chemistry..

 Our wonderful neighbors, Taylor and Teresa

Now onto the week..a little background info as to how the menu comes about..

It all starts on Sundays when I sit down and scower the internet for just what concoctions I will be preparing for the week. Tess showed me this awesome awesome website, my roommates and I may or may not spend hours book marking thousands of recipes..Once I've weighed my options, gotten the girls opinion this is created and hung on the fridge so I don't get, "Mom what's for dinner tonight?" asked every night. (It still does despite the fact that this is hanging front and center on the fridge each week.

Sunday: Chicken Tortilla Pie

I know, I know I deviated from Sunday Soup Day but we saw this and decided to give it a whirl.

 Cheese sprinkling courtesy of Mariah

 chicken, bean, cheese goodness. We topped it with some avocado slices because we looooove avocados. 

Monday: probably one of the best meals I've made thus far if I do say so myself and where the name of this post originated from.

Pan seared salmon with spicy avocado puree..um, YUM.

My mother sent me back to school with some salmon so I searched for the perfect recipe and found this and since it had avocado in it, it was an easy yes. 

What college kids do you know that eat salmon on a Monday, just because? (thanks momma for the salmon!)

 The puree consisted of avocados, a shallot, garlic, evoo, lemon juice, a serrano pepper, dijon mustard, parsley and basil

 The final product:

 

The salmon was cooked perfectly, good thing because last semester when we had salmon I cooked it too long, and dry salmon is not very tasty. This was delish.

 

Wednesday we had crunch honey chicken, I failed to take pictures but basically in a nut shell it was like stir fry. The only bad thing about this was coating the chicken in corn starch. After dipping the chicken into the egg whites you put it in corn starch and it was the most awful feeling. It was like 10x worse than sticking your hand into flour and made a yucky noise, ah just thinking about it gives me the chills. Despite that, it was definitely a winner.

Thursday we had baked ziti courtesy of Mariah and my mother's sauce. To be completely honest I do not know if I have ever had baked ziti (except for that so called baked ziti served at banquets). Our weekly dinner with Willy and Jonny started back up that week and Mariah offered to take over the wheel. Again, failed to take pictures but thanks to my mother we had homemade sauce which obviously no other way to eat sauce. It was deeeeelish, but then again anything involving my mother's sauce is deeeelish. Mariah did a fabulous job, it was cooked to perfection! Maybe one day you'll be taking over my job in the kitchen, Maria :)

I lied..this was what the lonely picture I took..

The boys bring the alcohol and dessert and we make dinner, perfect combo. This week they brought Andre, our personal favorite.

One night this week, or maybe the week after, I don't know, all my weeks get jumbled together..I had a super productive day, went to class, gym, homework and everything done by like 3 so after dinner when Mariah and Emily headed off to the gym I decided I wanted to make cookies. Oh! Actually It was last week because when they got home we made more cookies for our party last Friday (more about that later..) I decided, I really do not like making cookies, or baking for that matter. We really never bake a lot at home, mainly Christmas time when it is time to crank out mass quantities of cookies but besides that, the occasional pumpkin bread. I don't like it because you have to be so precise and measure things out so nicely unlike cooking, where you can be a little bit more messy. But, I was bored so I decided oatmeal chocolate chip cookies it was.

 Obviously I added more chocolate chips than you're supposed too. There is no such thing as too much chocolate.

I had a mini panic attack and texted Maria saying I am a failure at baking because I thought they got too much of a sun tan..but she reassured me they were okay. They ended up tasting great so all in all it turned out okay.


Friday the 28th we had a party, we LOVE to have parties. They are definitely a lot of work but so worth it. The theme of this party was Mariah and my one year anniversary. Surprise, Mariah and I are dating. Just kidding. But we definitely tried fooling some people into thinking it was our coming out party. It was really out one year anniversary of being at Syracuse, aka making the best decision of our lives.


All our friends know us for our baked goods, we never go any where with out them. Naturally our party was going to be stocked full of baked goods and non alcoholic drinks. Again (for the third time) failure to take pictures but we made cookie dough truffles which can be found here. So easy and so good. We also made golden graham treats which are a made up recipe from the creative minds of MEM (aka Mel, Mariah and Emily). We made them once for dinner with the boys and they loved them so we decided, why not? They are golden graham cereal, marshmallows and chocolate chips..basically a rice krispy treat but rice krispys swapped for golden grahams and the addition of chocolate chips. They went so quickly at the party you would of never guessed we even had them! Also, chef Mariah whipped up some of her famous jell-o shots, 62 to be exact and they were probably gone in 62 seconds, they are a hot commodity! 

 hi pretty :) 
ps, loving your skirt..wonder whose it is!

 Remember those awesome shoes?! I finally got to wear them! It's great not having to leave the house in this snow globe we live in.

Oh you know, just being fierce. (btws, Amelia, loving the shirt..again wonder whose it is!)












































The party was a huge success, at one point the apartment was jam packed, we were like sardines. A good time was had by all, thank goodness..we always worry when it comes to throwing a party but it was great, can't wait for the next one!


This past week was a little mumble-jumbley and we had to rearrange the schedule a little bit due to a house full of sicklings (E and M, mainly M)..


Monday: Feta, Sundried Tomato and Spinach Turkey Burgers which we've had before but they are Mariah's fav so we had them again and they are super easy to make.


Tuesday: Eat on your own day..little sickling stayed in bed all day.


Wednesday: Lemon Poppyseed Waffles with blueberry-lemon sauce. YUM. My dear cousin and I have this thing for lemons. We just do, not sure how it came about but our best work always consists of lemon as a main ingredient (minus our white chocolate raspberry cheesecake).  We swapped the white flour for whole wheat so we had to add some more buttermilk and they were a bit more dense but they were so good. A little bit summer-y but with this awful weather we needed a little pizazz and these did not let us down.

In our apartment we have this thing for peas,if you look closely you can see them on the plate in the back. Naturally we thought peas would be a nice side with our waffles..









 Thursday: We, well Emily, had a dinner guest on, which was kind of last minute but thankfully we were having grilled balsamic bruschetta chicken  which worked out nicely because we had enough for one more (especially it being a boy that had 3 helpings!) Mariana told me the balsamic vinegar smelled like feet, so I was a bit nervy making it but it turned out really good! It was also super simple and we love simplicity. Derek told us it was the best meal he's had since we've been back, granted he eats in the dining halls daily, but still.

Friday: oh Friday, how I never thought you would come. Last week was a verrrry long week. Thursday night I whipped up some snicker doodles, we had cookies in a jar I stole from home before I came back, because I was meet my bestest friend Friday for lunch and thought she'd like a treat :) Friday I took a mini road trip to Hobart, much needed Al-Mel time..even though it will be 2 years in may (can't believe that in a few short months my sophomore year of college will be over!) that we have been apart for more than 1 consecutive day (unlike all our years of growing up where it was weird to not see each other for 1+ day) it's still weird not seeing her and I miss her oh so much! Since I was gone for the day Friday we had a free for all for dinner..but we did whip up a killer batch of brownies after seeing these and we promised a friend we would bake for him so I came across this recipe which was virtually same as the picture so we decided those would be fitting to show off our baking skills. Due to an impromptu party at our apartment (aka got a text saying we're coming over tonight!) around 9ish, in a panic we started getting ready/ cleaning/ baking..and drinking..probably not the best combination but heyyy that's okay..we had fun.

 Semi-frightening..

 It calls for pb pretzels but obvi we forgo anything with pb.


When we bake, my job is always the chopper..they don't really trust me with anything else..

 quality control, obviously.

 Cream cheese and cocoa powder

 before..

 finished product! they were supposed to cool for two hours before serving but the boys' patience levels did not exist so we popped it into the fridge for a little then served it like pie. Now, they were giving us a hard time about the pretzels but they were just being facetious since they ate almost the whole thing!

















Sunday, we made goodies but nothing too exciting..just some guac, cheese and crackers and mini hot dogs in crescent rolls and the boys made chicken wing dip. Oh! We also made golden graham treats which I mentioned earlier which are always a hit and so simple.

Side note not related to food..

I made more glitter flats! My mom found them on sale and sent them my way so Friday night before our guests arrived I went to work..(bad quality from my phone but they are super cute!) I even got to wear them Saturday night because, yet again we had an impromptu party which was fine by me because it was a blizzard outside so not having to leave was nice.

another side note..


My father has volunteered to stay home for the week with the devil we call a dog so my wonderful mother and I can jet set across the country in March to visit my aunt and uncle in California for the week (!!!) and I've already started planning all that we're going to do and obviously top on my list is going to Sprinkles Cupcakes because 1. cupcakes are great 2. Cupcake Wars is one of my favorite shows 3. they look AMAZING!