Lindsay and Rudy say "I DO!"

Saturday morning my roommate and I road tripped to Pittsburgh for the wedding of 2 fellow graduate students.

The beautiful bride:

The wedding took place on the a beautiful little farm. Having a few horses, goats, and sheep in the background of the ceremony added to the atmosphere and made for some pretty awesome photos.

And the barn itself was beautiful.

The first dace:

Cutting into the Funfetti cake:

And dancing the night away:

Thanks guys for letting us take part in your special day!

Nicole

Lettuce Wraps

Hey Bloggies,

This evening I gave the 600 rep challenge from BodyRock.tv another chance. I first attempted this routine 3 weeks ago and was able to go through the routine once (300 reps) in about 50 minutes. I took lots of breaks during and in between exercises and it was still torture. This was also after about a month of travels and irregular workouts.

This time around I really pushed myself and got through 300 reps in 32 min 14 sec. Talk about an improvement! I plan to try it again in about 10 days and get through 600 in about an hour.

After breaking a sweat I made shrimp lettuce wraps for dinner. Buttercrunch lettuce from the CSA, carrots chopped, avocado, and shrimp in an avocado sauce.

For the sauce I combined a bit of avocado, about 2-3 tablespoons of yogurt, cayenne pepper, and paprika.

To satisfy my sweet tooth I microwaved berry applesauce with a crumbled up cookie...I wanted to go back for another cookie but controlled myself.

Back to reading and then some pilates to stretch out from the BodyRock, otherwise I'll be feeling it in the morning.

Catch ya later,

Nicole

Bring on the produce

Yay for the 2011 CSA!! Has a vegetable ever looked so good!?!

Summer in the City

Another weekend has come and gone but thankfully this one was full of sun and I took advantage with lots of walking, a visit to the Central Park Zoo,




and mini golf at Governor's Island.

I also listened to Selena Gomez's "Who Says" about 100 times ;)

What did you do this weekend?

Nicole

Easy to Please

I haven't been to the grocery store this week apart from buying some yogurt, english muffins which were on sale, a can of black beans, and 4 bananas. Originally I had intended to go to Whole Foods this weekend to pick up a few more items, but my freezer and cabinets are pretty well stocked and the bank account is running pretty low while I wait on either reimbursements from the last conference or my next paycheck. It also doesn't help that I've been eyeing a few summer shoes, tanks, and dresses that I really want to purchase. Not to mention I'm just 1 day away from my first CSA of the season! From June until the end of November my refrigerator will be overflowing with goods.

All that to say I wanted tonight's dinner to come from ingredients I currently have in stock.

Well, I have pasta, and an egg, and veggies, and cheese...I'm sure I could do something with that, google search. Haha, okay, pasta with a fried egg on top sounds perfect to me!

And it was pretty delish!

Catch ya later,

Nicole

Quality time in the kitchen

Wow, I've been baking up a storm. Checkout these eats from the week:

Strawberry flat bread from Joy the Baker

This was my first attempt at making a yeast bread, it was a long process, and my cooking time was much shorter than the recipe called for (hence the dark color) but it was fun and still taste great! Now that I've got my toes wet with making yeasty breads I'm going to have fun with it, there are so many recipes I want to try!!

Blueberry cookies from How Sweet Eats

Go make these now, they are fabulous!

Spicy Pulled Chicken based off of this recipe, though I used liquid smoke instead of worcestershire sauce.

Layer of chicken into the pot:

Followed by a layer of onions and seasonings, cook on low for 6-8 hours:

Sorry, realized I never took a picture of the final product but it made an appearance Friday night at a picnic in central park. Isn't this picnic basket my mom got me for my birthday cute!?!

And this doesn't really count as cooking, but I'm also now in love with my crock pot! I've had it for over a year but never bring it out. This week in addition to the pulled chicken, I also made steel cut oats. Best way to eat this grain because I rarely feeling like cooking them for 40 minutes when I wake up in the morning.

This way I place the water, grains, salt, and cinnamon in the night before on low, and viola, a perfect bowl in the morning!!

Cook anything good this past week?

Hope you're having a great weekend,

Nicole

Cornmeal bake

Do you remember the vegetable quiche I ate in Peru? I've been thinking about it ever since and attempted to recreate it last week. I came pretty close and the outcome was delicious, but the cornbread base I had in Peru was creamier, moister maybe?

Cornbread based quiche:

1 cup flour

1 cup cornmeal

2 Tbsp sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

dash black pepper

1 cup plain greek yogurt

2 eggs

1/2 cup water

3 Tbsp butter melted

3/4 c cheese (play around with the cheese type, I used a harder cheese because that's what I had on hand but I think a softer cheese would give me the texture I desired)

Filling-whatever vegetables you fancy. I used 1 cup onion and then sauteed a bunch of frozen vegetables including spinach, peas, and peppers.

As with most baking recipes, mix together the dry, and the wet (minus the butter and cheese) and then mix wet and dry together. Then add the butter and 1/2 cup of the cheese).

Pour half of cornmeal mix into 8x8 greased pan, add vegetable layer, cover with remaining cornmeal mix, and finish with remaining cheese. Pop into a 400* over for 25 minutes or until cornbread is browned and knife comes out fairly clean.

Enjoy,

Nicole

Sightings in the City

Hey Blog buddies,

I've been MIA this week recovering from my jet lag and working on my summer To Do List. Through the week I'll have a few new recipes for you that I've been testing out.

This week I also had 2 celebrity sightings!

Sighting 1 Jay Z, Kayne West, and a 3rd person who is probably famous in his own right but unknow to me.

The sighting went down like this-

Nicole, Sherika, and Rupa are walking down the street heading for bhangra dancing. Nicole sees 3 well dressed black men walking toward her. She gasps when she realizes that the one in the middle is Jay-Z! She shakes Sherika's arm and no response. Again she shakes and nothing. Finally as they are right across from the group she says aloud, "Will you look, how do you not see that it's Jay-Z!!!"

After passing the group Sherika admits that she didn't see Jay-Z only Kayne West but was trying to be the cool New Yorker and not respond. Nicole on the other hand didn't care and wished she had her camera so she could have taken a quick photo of the group!

The end.

Saturday I spent finally getting back to the gym and relaxing in central park. While there I ended up seeing Bear in Heaven member Adam Wills (there on the left).

source

Later,

Nicole

Yesterday I...

1. Woke up (PS I really need to edit more carefully, my first post said work up, sigh) at 7 am and thought I was going to get over this jet-lag thing quickly, but after having a large breakfast I ended up passing out until 10:30 am. At which point I showered and got my butt to lab.

2. Wrote my yearly report updating the Dean's office on my progress.

3. Listened to Rooney

4. Which reminded me of the OC's theme song California

5. But then I went back to Rooney

Did I ever tell you that I met the lead singer when coming back from Disney World the summer of 2008. I thought I recognized him at baggage claim and then when he ended up on the shuttle I knew it was him! I usually never react when I see a celebrity, but they're not incredibly known so I asked for his autograph, shaking the entire time. He ended up asking me directions into Manhattan and I even bought his metro card for him...wish I hadn't been so nervous and could have continued the conversation. Oh well, still good memories!!

-Nicole