Girls Night Out & Munchkins

I feel like I haven’t written a post in weeks! That was the longest/shortest weekend of my life… Friday night I stayed in to prepare for my girls night out Saturday – Good thing I did because we were up until 5 am! We started out with dinner and drinks at Rio and then headed downtown DC to Eden Nightclub. Dinner was kicked off with chips, salsa, queso, guacamole and frozen sangrias.

We all basically ordered the same dinner with different variations. I insisted on ordering dessert…

I’m a good decision maker. Sopapillas (hot mexican doughnut w/ powdered sugar and caramel sauce) with a large scoop of ice cream in a toasted coconut and pecan shell, drizzled with more chocolate and caramel sauce. We took this down in about 3.4 seconds… I’m not gonna lie, I ate more than half. Someone had to finish it 🙂

Clean Plate Club. Don’t judge.

Eden was crowded but we still managed to make room so we could dance and burn off some of those dinner calories! I love girls night outs and my pretty friends.

Sunday was one of those cheat days where you don’t photograph anything you eat… Pizza, Girl Scout cookies and homemade doughnuts. Everything was unhealthy but I don’t regret it – You have to give yourself some cheat days 🙂 I only made one thing this weekend BUT it was one of the best “fat snacks” I’ve ever made.

I saw that Julie made some homemade munchkins with her mom  this weekend and I was craving some but didn’t have any biscuits on hand. However, I did have this…

Score.

My cousin wanted to help so we put on our aprons and got to work.

Try and remember I was up til 5 am and woke up at 9…

Homemade Munchkins

Ingredients

• 1 package of cinnamon rolls
• Canola Oil
• Powdered Sugar
• Cinnamon Sugar

Directions

• Remove rolls from package

• Cut each roll into 4 pieces.

• In a skillet heat a layer of canola oil and drop the pieces in one by one

• Let them brown for about 35 seconds and flip them until the brown on the other side for about 35 more seconds.
• Sprinkle your choice of topping (caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar etc…)

Make sure you eat them when they’re warm! I also dipped mine in the icing that comes with the cinnamon rolls. I told you it was a cheat day!

Looks like I have some catching up to do on my 30 day challenge…

Day 3: Your first love
Day 4: Your parents
Day 5: A song to match your mood

Day 3: My first love… Well, to tell you the truth I think you only fall in love once. I was in 3 serious relationships for 10 years of my life without being single for longer than 2 weeks. When I finally gave myself some time to figure out what I want in a relationship (3 months) I started dating my current boyfriend. I went to Atlantic City to meet Brody Jenner with my girlfriends because #1 I’m obsessed with him and #2 I was going to move to Florida and thought this would be the perfect way to say goodbye. We got to the casino/hotel and checked into our room. There were some guys staying in our suite but I kind of gave it the shrug off because helllllo I was about to meet my future husband (brody). We all got ready and headed to the club for one of the BEST nights ever… After hanging out at Brody’s table, I somehow stumbled into one of the guys that were staying in our hotel room. Since it was late/early we went out to breakfast and ended up hitting it off. He sneakily got my phone number and we talked all day everyday until I saw him again a month later. I ended up changing my mind about moving to Florida because I knew our relationship would instantly fail if I was over 1,000 miles away; 200 was already far enough! Everything happens for a reason… I had a good feeling about him and knew it would be worth it to give this a chance. Every time I “fell in love” before it felt different and once I fell again I knew that what I had in the past wasn’t true love… But this time it feels right…and I hope that it continues to stay that way. SO yes the moral of my story is that my current boyfriend is my first true love 🙂

Day 4 – My parents

My parents are no longer married but I have still kept strong relationships with each of them. I lived with my mom (and my 2 brothers) from 4th grade on and when we moved to Maryland my dad stayed in Florida. My mom has done a great job providing us with everything we need, want and wish for. My dad has taught me a lot of lessons in life whether he meant to or not. I love them both and don’t know what I would do without either of them in my life 🙂

Day 5: A song to fit my current mood: Since I just talked about my boyfriend, my friends and my parents I was thinking “My life would suck without them” So, thank you Kelly Clarkson… This song fits perfectly.

I am pretty sure I’m getting sick so I’m headed to bed with some NyQuil and hoping to feel better by tomorrow!!

 

QUESTIONS: Do you believe you can only fall in love once? Have you ever made doughnuts? How often do you go out for a girls night out?

 

♥Alyssa

Funfetti Pancakes & Favorite Friday

Happy Friday everyone! This week went by fast =) I love when that happens… Remember when we all used Myspace and people would send you Happy Friday comments? 

Sometimes they’re good for a smile.

Yesterday I woke up to 10 inches of snow on the ground! Yay for a snow day… I decided to make myself a yummy breakfast since I wasn’t in a rush for once. If you know me, you know I’m OBSESSED with funetti cake/cupcakes/cookies. I make them once a month and always have a spare box in the pantry. So, this morning, I ripped open the box in an attempt to make Funfetti Pancakes…

Mission Accomplished. I love incorporating one of my favorite things into breakfast because breakfast is my favorite meal so it’s bound to make for a wonderful day! Oh and these weren’t just regular pancakes, they were packed with protein and made with whole wheat 🙂 Give them a try, you wont regret it.

Protein packed Funfetti Pancakes

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons of brown rice protein
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup oats
• 1/3 cup almond milk
• 1/8 cup greek yogurt
• 1/3 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 cup egg whites
• 1 tbsp ground flax
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp funfetti cake mix (or more if you’d like)
• Sprinkles

Directions

1. Mix dry ingredients – protein powder, flour, oats, flax, baking soda, sprinkles and funfetti mix.
2. Mix wet ingredients – almond milk, greek yogurt, vanilla and egg whites.
3. Combine together.
4. Heat a skillet with cooking spray to med-high heat. Drop the batter into 3 portions in skillet and heat for 3 minutes on each side. Make sure you press down after flipping the pancakes the first time.

5. Transfer to plate and top these however you would like.

I topped mine with frozen blueberries that were defrosted in the microwave. We were out of sugar-free syrup and I didn’t want to use regular. (Sugar free has 30 calories while regular has 210!) I’m still thinking about these pancakes because that’s how much I loved them.

Good thing I had a hearty breakfast because I was headed outside to shovel for my first time! Apparently I have OCD and couldn’t stop shoveling because I ended up shoveling the road… Ridiculous, I know. I was all about the calorie burn so I just kept going… I shoveled for about 2 hours and let me tell you that I’ve never been more sore in my life. Who would’ve thought that shoveling snow would’ve been the best workout I’ve ever had?? There is not 1 muscle in my body that isn’t achey today…

We had the cleanest sidewalk/road/driveway in the neighborhood and burned about 600 calories while doing it 🙂

After I got showered and warmed up I was hungry again! I decided to make a cheese”burger” out of last night’s Sweet Potato TurkeyLoaf.

Stuffed it in half of a pita with some spinach and it was goooood!

I love creating new meals out of leftovers.

During the day I also snacked on some watermelon slices and of course a protein granola bar. Those will finally be gone tomorrow! Need to think of a new snack to make 🙂

We had A LOT of fresh veggies on hand so we decided to go the stir fry route for dinner

Stir-fry is probably one of my favorite dinner choices!

We broiled some salmon and threw it into the veggies with brown rice, drizzled szechuan sauce and topped with sesame seeds. 15 minute meal – 6 ingredients – Rachel Ray & Claire Robinson would be proud.

Even though I am out of Vegan Chocolate Chips I still managed to have dessert…Imagine that. I received this candy bar 2 weeks ago and have been saving it for the perfect moment.

Which was clearly, now. I broke off 3 squares, topped them with marshmallow fluff and placed that on top of 1/3 of a piece of graham cracker.

I love mint, I love chocolate and I love anything that resembles smores so it’s only fair to say that I love this dessert as well. I didn’t even miss my chocolate chips. Did you notice I went an entire day without Peanut Butter? Weird, hope I’m not getting sick 😉

Onto Favorite Friday… I made a list of my top 10 favorite foods that I could NOT live without. Ready…

10. Green Beans – By far my favorite vegetable. I love them szechuan style the most!

9. Avocado – looks like greens will be at the top of the list. I love that you can add this to a lot of different dishes… But sometimes I just scoop it out with a spoon 🙂 

8.  Goat Cheese – On pizza, salads, quesadillas or the simple way with crackers

7. Pancakes…hence why i make them at least once a week

6. Apples – Honeycrisp to be exact. Of course they have to be the most expensive 😦

5.  Mac & Cheese… I’m sure you all agree

4. Strawberries – I’ve yet to meet someone who didn’t enjoy these

3.  BACON! I feel like the dog on the commercial when I say that.

2. Ice Cream – Tasti D Lite is the best EVER. They need to open one up in Maryland ASAP

1. Peanut Butter… any type. I currently have 5 different jars in my cabinet. That’s true love.

What are the top ten foods you cant live without?

Day #2 of my blog challenge – Meaning behind your blog name

Fashion – Fitness – Foodie – Staying fit while eating good food in stilettos.

I wish I had some awesome story or could tell you that there was a deeper meaning behind my name – But it’s just 3 things that I’m passionate about… Fashion (shopping) Fitness (working out and being fit) Foodie (food – healthy and not so healthy!) I was introduced to blogs by a friend who wanted me to make a recipe from someone’s website and I quickly became sucked in. I jumped from blog to blog reading about people’s daily eats, workouts and recipes they’ve created. After 2 weeks of basically stalking people I decided I would try one out myself…and now here I am testing out the waters. It’s only been a little over a month but I enjoy writing, thinking of new recipes and of course reading all of your blogs too 🙂

I hope everyone has a great weekend!!

QUESTIONS: What is the meaning behind your blog name? Weekend plans? What is a food you CANNOT live without?