Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas!!!

After baking well over 12 dozen cookies over the past week I was glad to have many appreciative friends and family members thankful for the effort and the undeniable sugar rush, lol.

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!
Be Safe.

 Much love from me & my family!

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Celebrate the new year with a COFFEE-MATE Cafe Party!

I Love coffee, I love to add different creamers to my coffee to change it up.. it all started a few years back with the Peppermint Mocha creamer and had grown since then.  Coffee-Mate is the creamer that I tend to stick with because the flavors are really good and never too sweet like some of the others tend to be.  Right now my favorite flavor of coffee-mate is cafe Latte, it's so good!  I've managed to cut down going to get coffee at my favorite bakery to once a week.. saving me a good chunk of change.

Here's your chance to Save a chunk of change too while sharing some good times with family and friends.  On February 4, 2011 COFFEE-MATE is giving away 100,000 bottles of COFFEE-MATE in the form of coupons, to celebrate 25 unique flavors and encourage coffee fans to discover their favorite!
On Free Flavor Friday, where you can introduce friends and family to COFFEE-MATE and its 25 unique flavors, including our three new coffeehouse-inspired flavors.

Hosts of the COFFEE-MATE Café Party will…
• Enjoy and share COFFEE-MATE’s newest collection of classic coffeehouse flavors featuring Caramel Macchiato, Café Latte, and White Chocolate Caramel Latte.

• Choose one of four entertainment themes to host your party with kits loaded with fun activities – Bistro Baking, Classic Game Night, Art Party or Office Party.

• Give your party attendees free product coupons to purchase any one of COFFEE-MATE’s flavors.

• Receive exclusive COFFEE-MATE recipes, party tips, and insider news on Free Flavor Friday.


If any of you have any questions please feel free to let me know and please leave a comment if you sign up.
Ash~ 

Monday, December 20, 2010

There are cookies.. and then, there are These

These are the cookies that are one of the most incredible cookies I've ever made... these are the ones that have been known to mysteriously disappear from the cookie plate or, in last year's case they were snatched up by a certain someone and stashed in a box where nobody else could find them. 


Yea, they're that good. So good in fact that I now double the recipe and make 2 batches of it so nobody gets left out.. and make a reminder to myself to make one without coconut because of an allergy.  Leaving out the pecans isn't a huge deal.. and if I'm making them to give on a platter I will leave them out and sometimes, pecans just aren't in my cookie baking budget.


We refer to these as "The Sticky Cookies" they're so amazing.  I made these the first time with The bestie, who is now in Mozambique and made a special request for the recipe, so when I shipped her a box full of goodies the other day, I added the recipe in along with a conversion chart because Everything's different on the other side of the world.  


I'm Mailing some of my friends cookies, but unfortunately I'm not sure these would ship well.. so here's the recipe to share so nobody gets left out.



Chocolate-Caramel Bars

1 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/4 Cup Packed Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Butter
2 Cups coarsely chopped Pecans (we used walnuts)
1 Cup Flaked coconut (Oops, I forgot the coconut when we went to the supermarket, lol)
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
2 tsp. vanilla
20 vanilla caramels
2 Tbs. Milk
6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

    1. Preheat oven to 350°f. For crust, in a medium bowl stir together flour and brown sugar. Cut the butter into the mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. Press flour mixture into the bottom of a 9 x 13 x 2 inch baking pan. Bake 15 minutes. 
    2.  Sprinkle coconut and nuts over partially baked crust. In a small bowl stir together sweetened condensed milk and vanilla, pour over coconut and nuts. Bake for 25-30 minutes more or until set.  Let stand in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes

    4. In a small saucepan combine caramels and milk. Heat and stir over medium-low heat just until caramels melt (be very careful here, molten caramels will give you a nasty burn!) Drizzle caramel mixture over baked mixture. Sprinkle top with chocolate chips. Cool completely and cut into bars.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Being Proud of myself

If you're a regular reader and read This post you'd know I'm making a more concerned effort to eat healthier and start drinking water. Yup, you read that right.. START drinking water.  I never liked the stuff.. and it was always a huge chore to mange to get myself to drink any unless I was absolutely dying of thirst and there was no other option.

But.. since that post.. I've been doing it. I've been downing at least 1 23 ounce bottle of water a day, sometimes 2 and I even drink it when I'm home.... really people, this is HUGE.  I'm actually going to get one of those water filtration pitchers so I can drink healthy water at home.. because the tap water in my apartment is, well.. it's pretty damn gross.

And ya know what's really the best part.. I feel better.

Like, Duh Ashley.. try being properly hydrated you stupid girl.

*sigh* it only took me thirtysomething years to figure this one out.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Friday Flip Off's 12/10/10

Gooooooooooooooooooooood morning Fellow Flippers.



It's Friday!! I'm absolutely positive today's Friday.. only because I got paid yesterday.. but damn I've been messed up with my days All week. Big hugs to MommaKiss for being our gracious host.

OK.. Ready?

You sure?
I'm gonna flip off TIME.. because there's just never enough of it.. it moves too fast and DAMN! There's 2 weeks until Christmas, next Saturday is my Nephew's birthday.. he's gonna be 7 and I still can't believe it. Damn these kids and their growing up nonsense (lol)    I've barely started my Christmas shopping.. for none other reason than the fact that I just don't have the money.. yet. (here's to hoping for the Christmas bonus).

Winter.. Flip the hell off.. it was 20° when I got up this morning, my poor truck doesn't like the cold so I have to give her a good 15-20 minutes to warm up when it's cold like this.  I'm absolutely Dreading snow.. I hate the stuff.  It's all pretty and shit at first.. but I hate being out in it.

My job...
moreover.. almost everyone here with very few exceptions.

... and the Huge WTF of the week.........

Someone Stole the UPS box from behind my office building.  One of the girls went to take a package to the UPS box on Monday night and the box was gone so on Tuesday when I got to work I called UPS and asked what happened to the box and they didn't know and said they would have someone call me back.  A few hours later a rep came to my office and said that they'd had a few complaints and from the looks of it, it seems the box had been stolen.  When I asked Why and how.. the guy said that they're taken apart and sold for scrap metal and that apparently this box wasn't bolted down to the sidewalk.  I was really shocked.. but then again I guess it's really true in most cases.. if it ain't bolted down it'll be stolen.  sheesh though.

Now.. Get your act together.. join the other flippers and GRAB THE CODE and be one of the cool kids ;:)



Enjoy your weekend and stay warm.. I'm planning on putting up my tree and get some cookies baked this weekend.. I WILL blog cookie recipes.

Monday, December 6, 2010

My Christmas Wish


Dear Santa,
All I want for Christmas is to get out of this apartment. Top floor with nobody upstairs, 2 bedrooms and a landlord who isn’t a complete asswipe.

Love,
 Ashley

Friday, December 3, 2010

Friday Flip Off's 12/3/10

Eventually I'll get my shit together today... a little late, but better  late than never.

I do Not remember giving December the OK to get here already.  WTF?  *sigh*  OK, fine... not like I can do anything about it.  So here we are, Decenber 3rd, 2010..FRIDAY!!!

So, in honor of it being Friday and thanks to our gracious host MommaKiss... Let the Flipping Begin.





First off..
Fuck off Cancer.. Fuck you for messing with people's lives, destroying families and being an all around asshole.

Second, my landlord and his family.
I am thankful to have a roof over my head.. but I pay these people rent that is more than this crappy apartment is worth and the only reason I'm still stuck here is because I can't afford anything else other than a studio and I'm not doing that to my kid.

I don't know if these people work at all anymore and I'm almost convinced that my landlord lost his job because he's been home for 3 weeks. Anyway, the constant noise until Midnight every single night this week is getting on my nerves, I get up at 6:15 every day (unless Jackass kid#2 up there is up at 5am, because then I'm up at 5 because of the stomping and blaring TV noise over my bedroom).  I need sleep, I enjoy sleep.. but when I'm getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night because of these people I'm not a very happy person, and nobody likes a cranky receptionist.

Third, my job.
Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful that I even have a job but I'm so freaking under appreciated here not to mention underpaid.  I am the receptionist, accounts payable, in house IT person, open and distribute daily mail and take care of the deposition transcripts, I also do medical authorizations and legal research.... I'm also the "voice mail"of the firm since we don't have real voice mail.. yea, I've got paper messages and have to jot the messages down in to the guys' message books.

Forth, Winter.
I hate winter, I don't like the cold and don't even get me started on snow.

Fifth.. ToysRUs
Fuck off for the item in my cart going out of stock AS I WAS CHECKING OUT ONLINE.. WTF is that all about?


Since my apartment is as dry as the Sahara desert I'll be investing in an artificial Christmas tree this year, which really makes me sad, but I can't afford to have another fire hazard in the middle of my apartment like I did last year.  I'm also planning on getting at least a few batches of cookie dough made this weekend so I can get a move on the holiday baking and get some boxes of cookies shipped out soon.

Now... get your shit together and grab the code and get on the list

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Kale has been the star of the show this week


Starting with the soup on Sunday I’ve been on a Kale kick this week.  If you follow me on Twitter you know I’ve got a goal of losing 10lbs by the new year.  I know I’ve been saying for months that I needed to start eating healthier and all that jazz, it just hasn’t seemed to kick in until now... or, actually it happened on Thanksgiving when I was at my aunts house and decided to step on the scale that was in the middle of the hallway.

Big mistake.

Or, well.. Maybe not.

I mean, all my clothes fit loosely and I haven’t felt like I’ve gained any weight in the past year, I’ve actually gone a notch down on my belt. But even so, I’m almost 15 pounds heavier than I thought I was... because I do not own a scale.  We didn’t have a scale in the house growing up and I never had issues with body image.  I am what I am and if you don’t like it, too bad.

But, it’s bothering me.

So I’ve upped the ante and have started drinking water.. My goal at this point is at least 1 23oz bottle of water a day. (Right now, I’m on my 2nd)  It might not seem like much, but for me it’s HUGE.  Mostly because Every day I have a 16oz coffee in the morning and more often than not I go without drinking anything else until I get home and then it’s either juice or a glass or 2 of milk with dinner. Occasionally I’ll get an iced tea with my lunch but that’s it. Yeah, I know.. It’s pretty bad.

So this week Kale was on sale at the local supermarket for $0.99/lb so I grabbed a few bunches.  I like it Sauteed with a tiny bit of oil, a bit of sea salt, a sprinkle of red pepper flakes and a splash of lemon as a side dish and just last night I made it sauteed with turkey sausage just like I make Broccoli Rabe & Sausage and The Kid gobbled it up.

So yes, now I’m making a concerned effort.. For myself and The Kid.  We will eat more Vegetables and fruit and I will drink more water, The Kid likes water and it’s never been a problem for him to down a glass like it is for me.

So... Stay Tuned because this time I’m doing it.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Does Kashi Make You Smile?


I Love Kashi.  There is a box of Kashi stashed in my desk at work at all times.  It's great for breakfast to give me a boost, with milk or mixed into yogurt or to just munch on as a crunchy snack... and for the days when lunch just doesn't happen it's Kashi to the rescue.  Kashi Go Lean Crunch in Honey Almond Flax is my absolute favorite and is packed with protein.  

Can the taste of Kashi cereals actually make you smile?  Kashi wants to find out if people think their cereals are as tasty as they are good-for-you.  And they are looking for your help!  You can share your thoughts on how eating Kashi cereal makes you feel in a quick and easy video on KashiSmileReview.com.

Please visit www.kashismilereview.com to get started (and to see example reviews).  Kashi will be reviewing all entries until the deadline (December 19th), so make sure to get those cameras rolling!  Your feedback will help Kashi make eating healthier something to smile about.