On being a red head....

If you haven't noticed yet, I'm a redhead. Duh.  Well I was informed of this link, by three friends the other day, so I thought I would share.  Oh, the things you hear and the comments you receive as a redhead. Our minority hair group has certainly become popular in the last few years!  I guess it is all the more reason for me to write a book.... I think I smell a NY Times Best Seller?

Just a random picture from a wedding this summer.  Me, with Andrew and his sister, Hannah.  Have a great Sunday.

Rest Time

I have a problem that has developed in the past year that I am trying to find ways to alleviate it.  My problem?  Simply, I'm too busy.  I work a part-time and full-time job, am involved at church, am in a bible study, am trying to start writing freelance, blog, and that's all before I find time to dedicate to Andrew and our marriage, Boone, family and friends- from Memphis, Charlotte and every where else.  Sometimes I find myself not truly sitting down from the time I go to work till I have dinner.  That's not OK, at least, that's not how I want to live life.

Here is what I am trying to do to work on this issue.  I was inspired when I went to Dublin with my family and my mother and I went to this beautiful hotel for a formal tea.  I loved it so much.  I was so impressed that sitting down to enjoy a glass of tea each afternoon was a ritual engrained in many European cultures, why is that not something that happens in our country?  Well that's easy. Our country is full of workaholics who look down upon people who purposely rest--those people are deemed "lazy".  I am totally guilty and have a tendency to feel like other people are lazy if they aren't doing as much as me, which is terrible and wrong.  Well now I'm trying to become one of those "lazy" people by establishing my own personal tea time.

Around 4ish everyday, I am trying to make myself sit down with a glass of tea and just relax.  I believe it will help my sanity.  I'll keep you posted.  But to kick this goal off, I went to Teavana and purchased some Caramel Almond tea, and yes it is superb.  I made this recipe to accompany my tea yesterday.  The recipe is for grain-free PB Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites (i'm also trying to watch my sugar intake, that is a constant struggle).

My new tea, it smells incredible

I highly recommend Teavana. It's a bit pricey, but if you buy small quantities, it's not too bad.

P.S. Sorry you keep seeing the same plates and tablecloth, I'm sure you are sick of them!

Muffin Mondays

Finally, I have a day off!  Well not really, I actually have the morning off, but I love when I get to spend the morning with Andrew and make him breakfast.  So I'm on a muffin kick, a pumpkin one at that.  I have this great recipe for pumpkin muffins, and they are vegan!  But don't be scared of that, Andrew didn't know they were vegan till after he ate three and I told him.  Oops. I always try to trick him with vegan food.

The recipe I used is for plain pumpkin muffins, but I decided to add about 1/2 cup fresh cranberries and made a cinnamon cream cheese glaze to put on top, so unfortunately that's not vegan, but could easily be altered. I'm not too fond of recipes, probably because I follow them all day long at work, so if you want the cinnamon cream cheese glaze recipe, I can easily recreate it for you.  But it consists of cream cheese, powdered sugar, cinnamon and milk...super easy.

Got too hungry and had to taste while photographing!

Star & Micey

Have you ever heard of the band Star & Micey?  Well for people outside of Tennessee you may not have, but you will eventually....

My co-worker and friend, Karen, is married to a member of Star & Micey, so I always get the latest band updates while Karen and I ice cupcakes together.  Well, the band is about to go on a month long tour for the release of their new EP (some sort of CD demo for those of you who don't know music jargon, including myself) and kick off the tour with a concert in Memphis tomorrow night.  Andrew and I are excited to attend!

Here is the link to their music video for the song "I can't wait".  The girl in the music video is my friend Karen, such an actress!  Here is more info about their tour and concert dates.

P.S.
Karen is also an artist and does all of the band's artwork, including the picture above.

Diaries of a Fruit Maiden

Sorry I have been so absent, work has been incredibly busy!  Well here is a little something to keep you going till I have time to sit down tomorrow and write.  I have a new post on the Muddy's Blog.  Enjoy!

Not so dreamy apple pie

As you can see from former posts, we went apple picking this past weekend!  If you have read older posts, you will also know that I have a deep love affair with picking fruit, and apples are by far my favorite fruit to pick.  So you can imagine how giddy I was all weekend.  Well Sunday night I decided to use some of the apples to make a heavenly pie.  My mom has always talked about the incredible apple pie she made from a recipe by the Pioneer Women, so I decided to give it a shot.

Although this Dreamy Apple Pie looks inviting, don't be deceived.  Don't get me wrong, the pie tasted splendid, it just didn't stay together when I took it out of the dish.  Let me put it this way, my version should have been considered a crumble.  I should be clear, my frustrations were not as much with the pie filling and topping as they were with the crust.  I love using the Cook's Illustrated pie dough recipe.  It is a heartier and reliable dough that shapes easily...I can always count on it.  I did not have such luck with the Pioneer Women's dough recipe.  Once rolled out, it was fragile and impossible to put in the pan without breaking.  In the future, I think I would use the filling and topping recipes, combined with another pie dough.

Even with this critique, don't assume I didn't eat the pie....Andrew and I ate about half of it that night, and the other half the next day.  Just putting on those newlywed pounds!
Oh and my apologies for the not so good looking pictures.  It was late, bad lighting and my sweet tooth was calling my name.

Tortilla Time

One of my favorite meals to make...tacos. Now let me tell you why.  I don't eat much meat, actually I rarely do out of former habit from being a vegan for roughly two years.  With tacos, its an easy dish where Andrew and I can eat the same meal and he just adds meat and I eat all the veggies.  Well tonight we decided to get wild.  Ohhhh yea.  We decided to make our own tortillas!  Homemade tortillas make a huge difference, and they tasted better than I imagined.

We used this recipe, and they turned out really well.  The recipe is simple, and cheap!  You only use three ingredients, how nice is that?

Masa flour, very important

The dough, after adding water and salt

Andrew's meal. Please excuse the paper plates...

My tacos, loaded with veggies.

Banana breakfast

It was my day off and I decided to make some quick and easy banana muffins for Andrew before he went to work.  I used this recipe.  It was super easy, fast and full of sugar and butter, which Andrew loves.  I made the bread into muffin form and then added a bit of brown sugar on top.  As far as I know, he loved them!