Essentials: Animals, friends, alcohol and vegan food.

Molly Dooker is my favorite wine, I’ve been obsessed for about a year now.

Right before we moved, I caught my cat chillin’ in the bathroom sink with his tongue hanging out. He never, ever gets in the sink, so I had to take a picture.

GF Brown Rice Treats. I’m always a little disappointed in myself when I use almond butter instead of peanut butter. I bet tahini would be better than either.

Summery beer has arrived. and I’m loving it.

I also love that my husband has a friend who owns a flower shop. I get flowers more frequently than most women. <3

back to contacts, huge sunglasses, a bright pink lipstick. pls excuse my gigantic eyeballs.

Pride pop. heh.

TastyBite Bombay Potatoes over quinoa. I can’t believe those packages are supposed to be two servings. Yeah, right. Tastes much better than it looks.

Now this was an experiment that ended up awesome, but next time I’ll make about a quarter of the suggested recipe. This was Spinach Artichoke dip with feta. Do I need to say it’s vegan? I hope you’re already knew that. Anyways, I used a nonvegan recipe and just used all kinds of processed vegan junk food to make it. SO WORTH IT.

More fruity beer that I only drink during the summer. I do not like the Raspberry variety of this brand, but the blueberry is excellent. Speaking of, Blue Moon is putting out a new flavor of beer this year, and I got to sample one of the contenders, the Blackberry one, last night. It’s tastier than regular blue moon!

Blackberry lemon drop with raw sugar, from rumba.

Best.Game.Ever.

Kayla and Tyler. He loves that polo shirt. and I do too.

More local beer! If you like porters, you should check this one out. It’s really great.

I ran into these pretty girls I know on Sunday Funday.

Yesterday’s breakfast: cinnamon oatmeal with bananas and a tablespoon of peanut butter. Life changing stuff here.

Also, I know it’s processed and packaged, but I’m trying to follow the McDougall diet (except I still drink-but oil is gone from my life anyways), so I bought a bunch of these to eat for lunch. They’re actually all really good, although a side salad with some kind of oil free dressing is really necessary for this to be considered a complete meal.

Summer Beer Season Has Arrived

A note: I am known for my concoctions. I have a wonderful friend, Andrew, who throws fantastic house parties. I normally take charge of the drinks and come up with interesting, tasty, and crowd pleasing drinks. I always come up with something different, but whatever I make generally involves vodka. I think I’m going to start sharing these drink recipes with you all. It will help me experiment more with gin and whiskey. (I’m not a rum girl and I probably never will be…).
Ok, last week it seemed like summer beer season was here. Then this week it has gotten cold again. Classic Nashville, TN weather we’re having. It was in the 80′s. Today it is 40. That’s not going to stop me from thinking about my favorite summer time drink.

I was introduced to this concoction last summer. Had I known what was in it, I probably wouldn’t have tried it. Let’s be honest here, a lot of people can’t drink liquor and beer at the same time. There’s a certain order that must be followed: “Beer before liquor, never sicker; liquor before beer, never fear.” And while this holds true for most I know, I have a few friends who can drink whatever they please, when they please, with no ill consequences. I have other friends who have to choose one or the other for the night. We’re all different and I feel like an alcoholic just saying this all, but trust me, I’m not! I enjoy a nice beverage or two and lately, I stop with that. Alcohol is full of empty calories-you literally might as well be drinking Coca Cola. Margaritas are even worse than coke. I’m off track.
This is my favorite vodka most of the time (although Pinnacle Vodka is starting to grow on me, and I like Rain Organic when i find it…)

Three Olives has a LOT of flavors. When making summer Beer you want to choose a plain vodka, or if you *must* have flavored vodka, choose lemon or lime…or pink lemonade. But nothing else, you don’t want to ruin the summer beer. If you’re having a party, which is when I usually make this, you want 5 and a half cups of vodka, so buy the big bottle.
The next part of Summer Beer involves a neutral beer. I don’t care if you don’t usually drink neutral beers that were made in the USA. I don’t care if Belgain whites or Oatmeal Porter is the only kind of beer you like. Summer Beer needs a nuetral beer. You don’t want to ruin it after all. You can choose any beer you like, but I tend to go with a light beer because well, the beer isn’t the star in this drink. Nothing is actually, it’s the combination of ingredients that makes this. My brother tends to use Budweiser, Yuengling, PBR or MGD. Me? I choose PBR Light (it’s cheap) or:

It’s neutral tasting and affordable. And it’s light. If you use the above amount of vodka, you need 17-18 twelve ounce beers. I hope you’re paying attention; this is the measurements I use for parties.
The last component of summer beer is frozen limeade concentrate. You need two frozen containers. I’ve read of blasphemy and the use of pink lemonade instead. That’s not what I like to do, I think limeade works better.
Lastly, add lots of ice and invite friends over. I hope you have a three gallon container witha spout. You’re going to need it…!

Rose Pepper and a Recipe Review

So, I skipped St. Patrick’s Day this year. Honestly, if I think about it, St. Patrick’s day always gets me in trouble when it falls on a week day. I go out with friends, drink too much, spend too much money, and stay out far too late. Then I’m miserable at work the next day. Besides, my kidneys have been aching lately and I thought a night of drinking was probably a really terrible idea. So I skipped out on the east Nashville pubcrawl for the first time in six years. Damn, I’m an adult. (oh no, I’m old!!!)
So, I went for Mexican Food…

Guacamole, featuring Wes’ hand. Last night’s batch wasn’t the best-which is not typical, it was too…mellow. It needed something, so we stirred in spicy salsa and it was amazzzzzzzing. I love guac. Disregard the menu please, that’s the specials and obviously not what I ordered

And I really couldn’t not have a top-shelf margarita. If I’m drinking liquor, it’s going to be top shelf. There’s no reason to drink crap and feel like crap later.

We went to Rose Pepper pretty early yesterday because we knew everything in the neighborhood would be crazy busy. When we got home, I decided to try a recipe I’ve been eyeballing since it was posted, Choosing Raw’s Walnut Cheddar Cheese
So I gathered my ingredients…

Not picture, lemon juice. Trust me, I added it. I was so excited about this recipe. The ingredients are all things I use regularly and…well, let’s just say that while it smells like cheddar cheese and is an orange-y color like cheddar, it has this awful too twangy taste that’s like over sharp over aged possibly bad dairy cheese. It wasn’t good. It was too…almost salty/twangy which is a big deal for me to say, because I’m quite the salt fiend. I saved what I made and I’m pretty sure I can mellow this out with some plain soaked cashews and make it edible. I refuse to throw way something that’s made from such expensive ingredients. A note about the recipe though; I only used 1/2 c of water and mine was pretty thin, not like pourable, but pretty close to pourable, definitely a little too ‘wet’ to use in a sandwich. Any one else tried this? I usually like Gena’s recipes, but this one needs some work [to me].