What I'm Listening To

I've expressed my love for Sam Smith before, but this song deserves some more love. The instructor in our Soul Cycle class last week used Sam Smith's cover of "How Will I Know" by Whitney Houston as one of the cool down songs. I was instantly making mental notes to go search this song after class. Still waiting for them to put in on Spotify, but in the mean time, enjoy!

Annie

Bites of My Life

Last week started slipping downhill gradually all week, but it then made a turn around and inched quickly back uphill. School felt like it was swallowing me and I was having a first of the semester freak out. I was feeling the senior year/quarter life crisis pressure and it took a little refocus and weekend fun to turn it around. After chilling myself out, the week ended out swell! A friend's birthday, a girls night, a date party and a Sunday full of a little Jesus, cooking and baking can really turn things around. 

Last night I had plans to make butternut squash soup and have a Miss Universe watch party. My friend Kate jumped on board wanting to contribute. We later found ourselves with bowls of soup, jalapeño poppers, zucchini chips, an abundance of sweets in front of us as we pretended to be our own judge on Miss Universe. We were all big USA, Australia and Jamaica fans, but weren't mad about Columbia winning! 

I'm now counting down the days this week because I'm going back to the Fort Worth Rodeo this weekend. A group of my girl friends went last year and had a blast. I'm in that whole living-for-the-weekend phase of my life right now.

-Seasoning my new cast iron pan, a normal 21 year old thing to do...

-Shrimp and Butternut Squash stir fry over quinoa, a special post to come.

-Been eating this granola by the handful, did you catch the recipe? I also can't get enough of grapefruit right now.

-Remember that resolution to cook at least two recipes a month from my cookbooks-check! Made this fresh spring pea omelet from Vibrant Food, the same cookbook these stuffed peppers were from! My soup recipe quailfied as the second cookbook recipe.

-Had the sweetest afternoon catching up on life and school assignments over tea with my first ever friend!

-GNO...actually I just felt like I needed to include one non-food picture from my week. 

-Sunday afternoon spent making "marry me" cookies, I'll explain later. 

-I can't wait to tell you more about this butternut squash soup!!

-Jalapeño poppers for a Miss Universe snack! We loved you Miss Columbia!

Annie

Coconut Oil Honey Almond Granola

I'm a big granola eater if you didn't already know. I eat it with yogurt, on top of my smoothies, with my oatmeal and by the handful. Sister Kathleen got the whole family hooked on homemade granola. I couldn't tell you the last time I had or bought store-bought granola. She made the yummiest sweet potato granola for a travel treat last weekend that it's times like this I wish she still had her blog so she could post the recipe, maybe a guest post is in order!

I had already finished off my batch at home and was in need of some more to get me through the week. I compiled a few recipes to create this honey almond granola made with coconut oil. It's super crunchy and not too sweet, just perfect if you ask me. 

Coconut Oil Honey Almond Granola
makes 3 cups

Ingredients:
2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup slivered almonds
3/4 cup shredded coconut
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup honey
3 Tbsp. coconut oil (sub 2 Tbsp. olive oil if don't have coconut)
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. In a large bowl combine oats, almonds, coconut, salt and cinnamon. In a small microwave safe bowl, melt the honey and coconut oil for 40 seconds. Stir the extracts into the melted coconut oil mixture. (If using olive oil still melt the honey to make it easier to mix in). 

Pour the honey mixture over the oats until it is all coated evenly. Spread out on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake in two-20 minute increments, stirring halfway through for a total of 40 minutes. 

Before eating at Jack's Wife Freda in New York I scoured their Instagram and Yelp page to help decide what I wanted to order (I do this with every new restaurant I eat at). Their food is so colorful and pretty it didn't really help narrow it down. I wanted something a little more hearty, but my eyes were struck by their pretty bowl of yogurt with grapefruit and granola. I passed it as my order but made note to recreate at home! I'm on a huge grapefruit kick right now. Bright citrus mixed with creamy yogurt and my crunchy honey almond granola makes for the perfect start to your a.m. 

Annie

Serial in my Cereal

Disclaimer: this post has nothing to do with cereal I just thought it was funny. I was always a fan of homophones in grade school.

image via P.S. Remember This

I've been sucked into the Serial sect, serial for real-ial. It has been on my to do list to listen to the podcast for a while now, and with a three hour flight in front of me, it seemed like ample time to start. Oh and if you don't know what I'm talking about, come out from under your rock and Google Serial, it's taking over. Created by The American Life, reporter Sarah Koenig goes week by week investigating the murder of Baltimore high school student Hae Min Lee. Was it Adnan, was it Jay, was it the man in Leakin Park? Who knows who did it or what really happened, but the podcast has me on a roller coaster I can't get off. 

I ask myself why Serial has gotten so popular and I really have no idea. Yes it's a thrilling mystery on who really killed Hae, but I'm still puzzled on why this 15 year old crime is resurfacing now and catching people's attention nation wide. I guess that's beside the point because I'm totally one to give in to what's popular at the moment so I too am now a serious Serial listener. I'm only on episode 8 though so don't give anything away!

The Everygirl wrote an article called "Life after Serial," a hilarious list of 9 ups and downs you may face once you get sucked in to the podcast. StyleCaster also has a list of 20 similar podcasts to kill the time until season 2 comes out. Listen to Serial here or download the episodes from the podcast app on your phone or iPad. Both ways are free.

Annie

Sisters and the City

My sisters and I grew up watching Father of the Bride and can probably agree it's our favorite movie. We always pictured our dad as George Banks and us as his little girls. When it came to one of us getting married I never really pictured it happening. It's one of those things you know eventually will but just can't picture it. Well the time has come. Kathleen got swept up and she's the first one to walk down the aisle. This whole Maid of Honor thing is new to Claire and I, but when Kat said she didn't want a conventional bachelorette party, we easily supported that. A trip up to New York (Claire's home) was the substitute bach party! 

Claire and I are six years apart, so until recently, we haven't really been on a similar page of life. Now that we are all technically "grown up" we could have fun grown up sister time! Nothing crazy here people, but having a drink at dinner changes things. We spent the weekend shopping, getting manicures and eating, typical Tucker sister things but double the fun when you're in New York. 

Our fancy dinner at ABC Kitchen may have been our favorite meal of the weekend. We went all out on crab toast, kombucha squash toast, roasted butternut squash with hazelnuts and goat cheese and the roasted carrot and avocado salad for apps. That was just the beginning. A variety of fish dishes and an amazing brussels sprout pizza with jalepenos and garlic for our mains then somehow stuffed in their famous salted caramel and popcorn sundae.  

Kathleen and I may be little Barre3 ballerinas, but Claire is an intense Soul Cycler. We all signed up for a class Monday morning before coming home and holy cow. Fifteen minutes into the class I hated it. Cursing under my breath about to give up then all of a sudden I loved it. A black room with candles burning, an insane/awesome instruct and a great playlist really gets you in the groove. I was a nasty sweaty mess afterward, but I'm already having withdrawals. 

Okay enough of the workout, back to the food. Hello beautiful brunch. Saturday at Prune and Sunday at Jack's Wife Freda. I couldn't pick a favorite. They are both equally tiny and have amazing menus. Kathleen and I both mentioned how there are few places at home we would wait an hour for brunch, but since the spaces are all so tiny in New York and the food knocks it out of the park I didn't mind at all. 

So at Prune we started with banana bread after having order envy with the table next to us. Then we got the huevos rancheros, pear dutch pancake (so dang fluffy) and the spicy stewed chickpeas with crispy battered egg. Unusual but spectacular. 

At Jack's Wife Freda I went in knowing I would get the avocado toast. I'm on a huge avo toast kick right now, but with their sweet cherry tomato jam on top it really kicked it up. Claire got the green shakshuka and the mediterranean breakfast for Kathleen. All a win. 

Lox and bagles and of course some soft serve from Milk Bar also made the food list. It was cold and rainy, but we didn't let much rain on our sister bachelorette weekend. Who knows if and when we will be able to do something like this again so I'm really cherishing it. Maybe when the next sister gets married...

Annie