My Valentine's Cupcakes

My Valentines cupcakes are not as cute as the Atlanta Cupcake Factory and pretty messy, but they had sprinkles from my fun Valentine's day sprinkle pack! Same pack that I dropped out of the cabinet yesterday and sprinkled the floor with. Oops. I don't think I cooked the cupcakes all the way and the icing wouldn't spread on. This is why I eat out a lot and buy other people desserts as presents instead of making them.
Today was a very long day at school so I came home and took 2 dance classes in a row. Dance101 (Dance101.org) is my new favorite thing in the world. I really think it's worth the expense of classes because I haven't had this much fun or stress relief through working out in a long time! I bought ballet shoes, but lately I've been going to a lot of the hip hop/urban rock/and dance fitness classes. I like the ones taught by the guys better-- I've gone to two classes taught by the same girl and she spends more time talking about her life and how she made up the dance in her living room than actually teaching or making us work up a sweat. The guys are nonstop jumping around so I feel like I'm going to die by the end of class! It's so fun though!!! Also...if I'm lacking on going out to dinner pictures it's because dance classes have replaced my takeout habit.... sorry :) but I will continue to post what I DO eat and try to keep it fun!

Veggie Burger

Veggie burger and Maggiano's leftovers again. This is how I start eating when I get bored, short of time, and haven't been grocery shopping. Hope I get to Kroger today because I am about sick of veggie burgers/veggie chicken patties/veggie barbeque. I went crazy in the Morningstar section last week because I thought it would be a great way to switch things up and use all of my hamburger buns before they went stale. No. Bad idea. Once again a limit to living and eating on your own...

Maggiano's

This is a huge bowl of chicken and mushroom pasta with marsala sauce from Maggiano's. Sorry for the bad lighting. I took lots of pictures last night at Ra but my camera cord is at home (I think, if mom ever looks for it- mom are you reading this? go look for it in my room behind the pink chair. thanks.). Anyways. This huge bowl of pasta was all mine and I am about to eat some of the frozen leftovers that I've had for a week for lunch. That's all for today, I'm too tired and hungry for anything else to be written.

update from last post!

Cecile loved the cupcakes! We're about to go to Ra for sushi. It's happy hour so appetizers and select rolls are half off 5:00-7:00! Here's a picture of after she opened the cupcake box so you can see exactly how delicious they look. Top right corner is salted caramel/vanilla, clockwise is raspberry/chocolate, chocolate/chocolate, almond/red velvet x2, and vanilla/sugarcookie! The cupcake factory posts each weeks flavors on their website so you can plan ahead.

Atlanta Cupcake Factory

Cecile's birthday is Monday and we are celebrating today so I bought her cupcakes from the Atlanta Cupcake Factory! (http://www.theatlantacupcakefactory.com/) They are the most delicious cupcakes. There's a similar place in Raleigh..I can't remember the name right now (but that's probably good because I'm about to bash them) that makes cupcakes but they are too rich and the icing is really thick and hard. These cupcakes are moist and the icing just melts in your mouth. They even make little sugar confections to go on top like little flowers, hearts, and even fish! to decorate them. The people who work there are so nice, they gave me a candle to put in one cupcake and a bunch of little happy birthday toothpicks to decorate. I'm excited to give these to Cecile, I think she just walked in the door to our apartment so I'm going to go find her!

Rootbeer Float

Wish I had this right now. A rootbeer float! This one is from Buckhead Diner (same place that I had the delicious carrot cake from 2 posts back). I just got back from the Black Eyed Peas concert and am very parched. I'm about to go get some water and head to bed. Time to get some sleep and rest up for the weekend - I love not having anything planned on Fridays.

Panang Curry from Thai Chili = love

This is a lunch sized portion of one of my favorite meals. The first week I was back in Atlanta after winter break, Cecile and I ate lunch at Thai Chili http://www.thaichilicuisine.com/...since then I have ordered the panang curry tofu 3 more times in take out. It's so good. I have trouble finding a lot of Thai that I like. I tried ordering another dish with spicy flat noodles and it tasted almost burnt or some spice that I really didn't like. But this tofu curry is so good! The dinner sized portion is about twice as big with more rice. I like the lunch one because it can still last me 2 meals and you get the coconut chicken soup with it for only $8.25. The soup is the best part for me. And somehow it stays hot even if you have ordered takeout and have to drive 15-20 minutes home. Hot enough to burn my tongue pretty bad before I learned that... I love Thai! I am wanting to try the panang curry at Thaicoon, but haven't been very impressed with them lately so I keep going back to the amazing Thai Chili. I also need to remember the name of another nearby Thai place I went to with some friends a few months ago. I had the best pad thai I've ever had there and would love to go back and write about it!

Carrots make your eyesight better...so eat this cake.

If this doesn't make you hungry - you are insane. The most amazing carrot cake I have EVER had, from Buckhead Diner (http://www.buckheadrestaurants.com/diner.html). The icing was perfectly cream cheesy and the cake so moist. See that strawberry on the side? That was maybe the best part. For the rest of my meal I had a portobello mushroom sandwich with a salad and homemade chips. The chips were delicious and the salad had the perfect amount of oil and vinegar dressing. I hate when salads have too much dressing. The sandwich wasn't the best only because I forgot I don't really like the texture of a portobello mushroom as the "meat" substitute in my sandwich. Overall, it was a great restaurant experience, much more elegant than I expected. The waiter's all had cute white outfits and acted like I was somebody important. That's nice when you're used to being young grad student me :] OH my half birthday is Saturday. 22.5. There will be celebration with food! (Actually the celebration will be Cecile's birthday dinner at RA...but that's okay, pictures to come!)

Hit or Miss Seafood Shopping

All I have to say about this is don't buy Kroger brand stuffed clams. Don't let them tempt you with the 6 in a box for only $6. They are so bland and I had to drown them in ketchup for them to be edible. Notice how the rest of the meal looks like the rest of all my meals look...bread..carbs..salad. I think this is a sign that I need to switch things up at the grocery store.

The Colonnade

I recently went to eat at the Colonnade. It's a southern food restaurant that was featured on the Food Network's Diner's, Drive-in's, and Dives a long time ago. (http://www.colonnadeatl.com/) My dad had been wanting to eat there ever since I moved to Atlanta, so my parents came to visit last weekend and it's the first place we went. I had the vegetable plate with sweet potato casserole, macaroni, loaded mashed potatos, and okra. The most surprising thing about the restaurant was how AMAZING the dinner rolls were, they must have been homemade. I went on a Friday night and it was pretty crowded- my parents noted that no one looked southern even though it is a southern fried food restaurant in a southern city....that's how things go a lot of times in Atlanta. The food was very good, but make sure you bring cash! They don't take checks or credit cards. We almost sent my dad out on an ATM search, but luckily they have one in the lobby. Great food, atmosphere is like a family style restaurant, nothing swanky, but makes it's point. A great place to go for a ton of food.

Dinner for 3

I had this lovely dinner made for me about a week ago. It was pasta with the best cream sauce ever. It wasn't too thick or heavy and had the BEST taste I've ever had. I seriously need to get the recipe written down- although I don't know if I could make it myself. It had sundried tomatoes, spinach, and chicken in it. We also had some french bread with butter. I used the leftover spinach to make a little salad on the side so I wasn't eating 100% carbs. Overall it was a fabulous meal! It's always a treat to have someone else make you dinner and I was extremely, extremely impressed with this one.

Berry Berry quite contrary

The best snack EVER is blackberries and raspberries. Also try adding them to yoplait light french vanilla yogurt. I love it soooo much. Okay it's Sunday at 2pm and I just got up so this post has to be super short. It's actually sunny today so I think I'm going to eat the rest of my blackberries (haha) and head down to the park down the street to go on a walk. Actually, it might be super cold. That's the bad part about living on the top floor of my apartment. I can't step outside to see how it feels very easily!

Gingerbread Fam

These gingerbread cookies were made by my friend Hillary! They are too cute. I ate the 2010 man, but I'm pretty sure the other two have gone stale because I just set them next to each other like a little family and look at them everyday instead of eating them...

You know you have good friends when they share yummy cookies!

Pasta, pasta.....and more pasta

One of the downfalls of living and cooking on your own is that if I go out and spent the money on ingredients for a decent recipe, I feel that I need to eat all of it. Why can't they sell more things in single sized portions? For instance, salad. When I want a salad, I would like to enjoy it maybe one evening or two with my meal...not everyday until the leaves turn slimy and green. One trick I use is to make a big portion and then freeze the rest. Those that know me might remember the time I made lasagna while living at Centennial Village in Raleigh and ate it for nearly a month.

On to the point of this post, I made spaghetti, with Bertolli mushroom and garlic sauce, added extra fresh mushrooms and green pepper and some grated parmesan that was on sale in the cheese section. With that I had a salad with romaine lettuce, sesame seeds, and the new ginger dressing I bought from the sushi section of Kroger (note: it does not taste like Japanese restaurant ginger dressing at all). Final addition was the Hawaiian King bread MMMMMMM. and, voila, had my dinner. And to prove my point below I will post a picture of the exact same dinner I had 2 nights later.

6 months later...

I've been awful at updating this blog.

I have been thinking about turning it into a food blog, since most of my life revolves around school and going out to dinner (and I doubt anyone's interested in school).

So. I get paid Friday and we'll see what restaurants I end up at/if I take pictures and remember what I ate.

I think it would be fun to keep track just for myself. I'm all about looking at some food pictures. I'm hungry right now actually.

Well, we'll see what happens!