Lulu Loving

Welcome to OKC Lulu! We have had a showroom in the city for about the past 9 months, but a full fledged store front opened in Classen Curve a week and half ago! I was dying to get up the store to do a little shopping. 

Below are my recent purchases! My favorite lulu tank is the power Y tank. I have it in a mint green version, but the plum color is perfect for going into fall! 

Beside my tank I stayed pretty simple and picked out some basic black speed shorts and inspire crops. My inspire crops actually have the fun bright color waist band shown on the purple speed shorts. 

power y tank/ run speed short / inspire crop

I highly recommend these three products. The speed shorts are without a doubt my favorite shorts lulu makes and same with the power Y tank. I am new to the inspire crops, but I got great recommendations on them!

One of my best friends just started working at the new store so now I have an even better excuse to go! I love shopping in person instead of having to drool over my computer while I would online shop!

How can you not love lulu?

xo annie

Bites of My Life

I'm baaaaackkkkk! It's been more than 3 weeks since my last post so of course I have to come back with a bites post to update you guys on my life since I've been gone! Sorority recruitment kept me busy over the past few weeks. My days were filled and left little time for blogging. I felt so disconnected.

Now that recruitment is over, school has started. Yesterday was the first day of my junior year. Like what??? A junior? Nutty I tell you, I swear I don't feel that old!

-I finally did the chop and cut 5 inches off my hair! It feels great but I am still getting used to how to style it. My go to fun bun isn't really an option with it this short. The picture was taken on move-out day of the loft. It was the best summer in our little space and we are going to miss it so much!

-My favorite taco truck showed up one night during work week! We  were cooped up all day, so tacos on the front lawn was the perfect break!

-Excuse the poor quality of the next two pictures, but I had dinner with my parents a couple weeks ago at an awesome new restaurant in Norman called Scratch. Everything is homemade and made from "scratch." I got the quinoa crab cakes and we all split a side of the pancetta mac and cheese. 

-I was so excited when I was asked to make my sugar cookies for a treat at our alumni night! I took on the task of making 120 iced and decorated cookies! I made some blue and blue tassel garland as well to help decorate!

-The best just got better. 3 weeks of hard work paid off!

-Broccoli rabe, sausage and orecchiette at the best italian restaurant in OKC! My grandmother turned 89 last friday, so italian food was in order to help celebrate!

-The most decadent apple pie I've ever had. My aunt, mom and I dug in to this as we enjoyed Oklahoma's amazing patio weather this weekend.

It's been a while but I'm back. Check back tomorrow for more on my Lululemon obsession. Lulu just opened a store in OKC. Things are about to get dangerous.

xo annie

Hand over the pie please

Hand over the pie please...punny right? These rustic apple hand pies are the result of my itch to randomly bake something at 11:00 a.m. yesterday morning. 

I had a couple granny smith apples sitting around so I knew I wanted to incorporate them into something. As I've mentioned before I'm kind of a lazy baker. I hate having to go to the store to buy only a few ingredients so I usually only make recipes I already have everything for, or I just adapt the recipe to fit what I have on hand. 

I used my grandmother's crust recipe and then some cinnamon apples to whip these guys up!

My attempts add "food styling." Not quite sure how my efforts turned out.

My grandmother taught me how to make her pie crust when I was probably about 7 years old. I vividly remember the night she was babysitting me and taught me the recipe. She told me how this was my dad's favorite thing. She always thought he loved her pies, but later found out it was really the crust he loved. She started making just the crust and would roll it up with some cinnamon sugar to make little bites of pie crust!

The best way to combine the dough is with a pastry cutter, but if you don't have a pastry cutter you can do it the way my g-ma taught me. You use two dinner knives and cut through the mixture until a dough starts to form. Then use your hands to continue to combine it.

The recipe calls for 4-5 tablespoons of water, it's a pretty dry dough, but just add until you feel it is the right consistency and starts to come together.

I used about a 4 1/2 inch cookie cutter but anything that is round and about that size will work to cut out the crust. 

I could eat that whole bowl of cinnamon apples before they even make it inside the crust. When we make our apple pie on Thanksgiving we make sure to cut up enough apples to have some leftover for snacking on!

Fold 'em over and pinch 'em up! (the crust ripped a little bit, no worries, that's why we call them "rustic")

Rustic Apple Hand Pies
makes 8 pies 

Ingredients:

For the crust:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (can use all whole wheat or all, all-purpose I just like the combo)
1/2 cup shortening or 8 tablespoons
1/4 teaspoon salt
4-5 tablespoons of cold water

For the filling:
1 large granny smith apple, chopped
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons sugar, extra for dusting
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 egg, whisked for the egg wash

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Combine crust ingredients, starting off with only a couple tablespoons of water. Add more as you go. Using a pastry cutter or knives, cut through the shortening to combine. Once you have a dough consistency dump it out onto a floured surface. Roll pretty thin, about 1/8-1/4 inch thick.

Using a cookie cutter or something circular about 4 1/2 inches in diameter cut through the dough. Place on a greased cookie sheet.

Chop apples and add cinnamon, sugar and lemon juice. Only about a tablespoon of filling will fit in each pie. Fold the crust in half and using a fork pinch the edges together. Fork the top or cut a few slits in the dough to allow steam to release when baking. 

Brush the tops with an egg wash, sprinkle with a little bit of sugar, and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

Enjoy these for a yummy afternoon snack or an easy way to fix your itch to bake, like myself! I'd have to experiment, but I'm sure any fruit would be delicious in these! 

Annie

Bites of My Life

First off, take a bite now has its own domain! No more blogspot attached to my blog address. I'm now official at www.takeabiteblog.com!

Secondly, this weekend wrapped up my last weekend of summer. I move back into my sorority house on Friday to start prep for recruitment. Goodbye to one of my best summers. It seems crazy that summer is coming to an end, but I can't wait for all of my friends to be back in town! 

I actually don't have any pictures from last week except for food pictures, naturally. Enjoy my foodgrams and some of my favorite pins from last week!

{Food Bites}

 -Quinoa cakes for an easy weeknight dinner last week! So easy and made on the panini press. Served on a spinach salad and topped with the best yogurt sauce (so good we licked the bowl clean).

-Got my thai food fix Friday night. I could eat curry every day.

-My favorite snack. Apples and almond butter.

-Made the PW's watermelon pico de gallo last week for my parents as an appetizer before our black bean and corn quinoa tacos. I halved the recipe since there were only three of us yet we still ate every last bite. This stuff is addicting to say the least. The tacos were just as good. My dad admitted he was skeptical, but ended up going back for seconds! 

{Pinterest Bites}

-I'm having a major denim and converse moment right now and my pinterest is showing it. I love how these outfits are all as equally chic as they are comfy. 

-Using these pictures as inspiration and wearing my jean vest and monogram converse today.

-All images via my "fashionista" Pinterest board

here's to the last week of summer!

xo annie

Hooked on Houses

My aunt introduced me to the site Hooked on Houses a few years ago and I've been waiting for the right time to blog about it. The other night my mom and I got to watching Sleepless in Seattle. I love the houseboats featured in the movie like the one Sam (Tom Hanks) and Jonah live in. Anyone remember Jason Mesnicks season of the bachelor? Jason was the present day "Sleepless in Seattle" while he and his son lived, just the two of them, in a houseboat like the one in the movie. You can see an inside look at the houseboat on Hooked on Houses.

{Overview of Sam and Jonah's houseboat}

Hooked on Houses is a website created by Julia, a self proclaimed "house swooner." She gives you an insight into some of your favorite celebs, movie and TV houses! The site features houses such as the Hampton estates from Revenge, the ever-so famous "Bachelor Pad," everyones dream house, the Father of the Bride house, and my personal favorite, Meryl Streep's Santa Barbra cottage in It's Complicated.

{Swoon. This is the actual Father of the Bride house located in Pasadena, CA. The front was filmed here, but they used a different house's backyard to shoot the basketball scenes.}

Julia uses pictures from the movie and ones found online to show off the famous movie houses! I could spend hours on this site looking at these iconic houses.

{The Bachelor Pad like you've never seen it. An ex cast member describes it as a "compound." What they don't let you see on the show is the 7 ft cement wall surrounding the mansion.}

        

   {Dan in Real Life is one of my favorite movies. The Rhode Island river house they spend Labor Day weekend at in the movie is actually a real house that you can rent out. I wouldn't mind spending a cozy weekend here!}

{Iris's cottage in The Holiday is actually a movie set. Everything was custom built for the movie.}

{Meryl's kitchen in It's Complicated}

{The house in It's Complicated is a real house in California, but all the interiors were filmed on a movie set in Brooklyn. Here is the the kitchen in the real house that was used for exterior views.}

Head over to Hooked on Houses and you can see some over my other favorite on-screen houses from The Proposal, Sex and the City, The Parent Trap, Something's Gotta Give, Gilmore Girls and The Blind Side.

xo annie