Happy Belated St. Patrick's Day!

Phew! It has been quite a while since I've posted anything! The past month or so I have had a hard time feeling positive, after coming to the realization that I am not at a place that I thought I'd be at 26. It is hard to handle the thought that, if 23 year old me knew where I was at career-wise and the monetary struggles I've had lately, she'd freak out. But she'd also probably be excited about the fact that I have great friends, an amazing man in my life and have abandoned a lot of the self-destructive behavior that used to be part of my every day life. But it's been hard to think about those positive things when I have been feeling so disappointed in myself. Struggles make us stronger, right? Well, if I encounter too many more, I'll probably turn in to a world-champion body-builder.Things are looking up though.

It is certainly good to have goals for yourself, but sometimes we need to take a step back and realize that just because things aren't how you wanted them to look, doesn't mean they're not beautiful. And now, in addition to the great family, friends, pets and boyfriend that I have, I a new job and am starting to make more responsible decisions. That's all I can really ask of myself, right?

Moving on to more fun things, I regret that I did not get to post about my St. Patrick's Day earlier, as it was a GRAND one. I am pure-blooded Irish American, so this holiday has always been a big deal to me. My parents raised me to be very proud of my heritage, which led me to take Irish dancing, Gaelic classes, and I've already been to Ireland twice. This year Tom and I decided to throw a big bash with all of our friends and some live music. 

Over the several hour party, roughly 100 guests passed through my apartment. The highlight of the night was definitely our friends Le Tour and Secret XYZ playing in my basement. Tall people had to hunch over, everyone got over the moldy smell, and the sound was great!

Patrick of LeTour making tunes off of the ceiling pipes.

Sexret XYZ, with this protagonist's own leading man on the left

More highlights of the weekend included making amazing vegetarian Irish stew, seeing local Irish-rock dudes, The Tossers, and spending St. Paddy's Day morning in downtown Chicago with the green river and parade (in 75 degree weather, no less!).

But let me tell you about this stew!! It seriously blew my mind. After sifting through several Irish stew recipes online, I decided to go with my gut.

Vegetarian Irish/Guinness Stew
3/4 package Gardein beefless tips
2 cans vegetable broth
1 1/2 cup Guinness
1 cup red wine (I used a cheap pinot noir)
5 cloves garlic, minced
3 medium-sized potatoes, cubed
1 large onion, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
3 spoonfuls tomato sauce
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp dried thyme
1 Tbsp dried parsley
2 bay leaves


With a nice coating of olive oil, I heated up the beefless tips in a large pan, making sure all sides got a nice dark brown color. Once they looked nicely cooked through, I added the garlic and let it simmer for about two minutes. Then I added the Guinness, red wine, tomato sauce, sugar, thyme, parsley and bay leaves. After bringing that mixture to a boil, I reduced the heat, covered and let simmer for a little over an hour.

While that was heating up, I sauteed the carrots, potatoes and onions with some butter for about 25 minutes.

After letting the main mixture simmer for the previously mentioned time, I added the vegetables and let the whole thing simmer uncovered for about 30 minutes. Before serving I removed the bay leaves and then, ENJOYED.

This stew was extremely flavorful in all the right ways. It wasn't too thick, but there also wasn't a lot of broth remaining in my bowl after I devoured the "meat" and veggies. I promise that this dish will impress even meat-lovers. And if it doesn't well, then I'm sorry for the blarney!

Of course I enjoyed it with a side of Guinness! 

My Picks for Best of the Red Carpet 2012

Now that awards season has officially ended with the Oscars this past Sunday, I thought I'd share some of my favorite dresses from the Red Carpet. There were a lot of styles I loved, as stars took a hint from vintage couture and really classed up their look. But, per usual, there were also a lot of styles I hated.

I won't wasted your time with that long list but here are few "statements" that I just don't understand:

• Too much skin. I know I sound old fashioned, but I don't think an award show, where you are being recognized as one of the most important people in the entertainment industry, is the time to show off your abs or cleavage. You are supposed to be making an impression on other top industry professionals, as well as the millions of people around the world watching the show. There's a fine line between classy and tacky, and it is crossed very often by Jennifer Lopez and many celebrities. Exposed backs, however, are a completely different story. That's just sexy.
• Wedding dresses. I know white is a hot color, but too often celebrities seem to choose white gowns that look they should be going down the isle, not the red carpet. Here's a tip: If it has a train, save it for the "I Do's."
• Nude-colored dresses. This was a really hot trend this year and there was only two that I didn't look at and think "Blech." If the dress matches your skin tone, I personally think it looks very awkward and extremely unflattering. Judging from the amount of these dresses I saw this awards season, it seems that I am alone in this belief.
• Prom dresses. Award shows are a chance for you to look unique and fabulous, and express your personal style. Why oh why do people wear things that I saw at Macy's during prom season?!

Now that I've gotten a little rant out of my system, here are the trends from this season that I absolutely LOVED:

Bernice Bejo in Elie Saab at the Academy Awards

Here is a great example of a white dress that can't be mistaken for marriage gown. The bead work is outstanding, the sleeves add a unique touch and neckline is classy and flattering. I love this dress.

Charlize Theron in Dior at the Golden Globes

Let's ignore the fact that Dior is my favorite designer and can rarely do wrong by me, I want to meet this dress, fall passionately in love and go on wonderful adventures with it. It's sassy, chic and unique. Yes, I know I said too much skin was a negative, but this very low neck line doesn't make her look trashy at all.

Emma Stone in Lanvin at the Golden Globes.

I love Emma Stone and love that this ginger wears red so often. In this Lanvin dress she looks smoldering, with minimal jewlery and a statement-making belt. Some blogs put her on a worst-dressed for this dress, but I totally disagree. Although, I feel like I'm watching Zombieland with the amount of eyeliner she's wearing; that could definitely be toned down.

Heidi Klum in Calvin Klein at the Golden Globes

Here's an example of a nude dress that I think looks fabulous. The open back is sexy and the turquoise necklace adds pop. I didn't see anything else like this ensemble.

Julianne Moore in Chanel at the Golden Globes

This dress is classic with a little flare. The material on the hip accentuates her curves and the layers of fabric on the bottom keep this dress interesting. Julianne is another red-head I love!

 Emma Stone in Alexander McQueen at the SAG Awards

Yep, Emma again. I think she nailed it this season with all of her dresses. I've always been a fan of tea-length gowns, as I think they come off as fun and flirty. The detail on the chest, as well as her shoes complete this sassy look.

 Kara Mara in Jack Guisson Couture at the Academy Awards

I can't believe I haven't seen Kara on more "Best Dressed" lists. This dress is stunning. Vintage looking with exceptional bead work. I also love how the belt adds a nice accent.

Louise Toe in Black Halo Style at the Academy Awards

Despite how annoying I may find the wearer, I think this dress is SO classy.

Michelle Willamiams in Valentino at the SAG Awards

I personally think Michelle Williams is the best style icon of my generation. She always looks great and her clothing not only flatters her, but shows of her individual style that is hard to match. This dress has it all, bold color, class, chic and LACE.

Rose Byrne in Vivinene Westwood at the Academy Awards

Sequence done right.

Corinne Bailey Rae in Christian Siriano at the Grammys

Kate Beckinsale in Zuhair Muradat the Grammys

The Grammys are a little less formal than the other awards dominating the season, so I love that Kate chose this fun, short number with black accents

And Best Dressed goes to:

Stacey Keibler in Marchesa at the SAG Awards

I know that this is a design we've seen throughout the years, but I'm obsessed with black lace and think this particular dress makes a bold statement without being too flashy. If you can stand next to George Clooney and be the one who I'm looking at, I have to give you mad props.

Is there anyone that was on your "Best Dressed" list that I ignored? Do you disagree with any of my picks? Leave a comment!!

Valentine's day and amazing home-made pizza sauce!

Valentine's Day: The one holiday you really want to say "whatever, it's just a Hallmark holiday, no big deal" but secretly hope that your significant other does something really special. Disappointment ensues. I blame my mother. She still sends me Valentine's Day gifts.

Boyfriend took me to dinner over the weekend and actually volunteered to go see The Vow (I kinda loved it, not gonna lie), But I decided to make the plans for actual V-day this year and picked something a little weird unique: Church bingo!! I didn't tell Tom where we were going, just picked him up, parked in front of a church, and walked in to the school gym. We were surrounded by very passionate seniors, who had their lucky daubers lined up in a row and about 20 bingo boards in front of them. After purchasing one packet of boards for each of us (with only 6 boards per game, such amateurs), we figured out the rules (with a little help from people around us), and conquered that Bingo Night. Ok, so we only won $5 in a raffle, but we were SO close to getting Bingo many, many times. With the game, making art with the daubers and the treats I brought, we had an awesome time.

Wine in a water bottle, straight class.

In addition to wine in a water bottle, my other treat for Bingo was a home-made version of Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay Biscuit. Tom and I have discussed going to Red Lobster lately, mainly because of these biscuits, and one day the recipe from The Girl Who Ate Everything randomly popped up on my Pinterest. Well these ended up being DIVINE. They taste just like the restaurant's biscuits but without the embarrassment of telling your friends that you drove 15 miles to go to Red Lobster. I suggest attempting this recipe. My note would be that they are pretty hard to mix, and even after mixing for a while, the batter doesn't look right, but it is! The recipe warns against over-mixing, so even though I was worried about their look, I put them in the oven anyway and they turned out great! The dozen that came out of the batch is already gone.

After Bingo I took Tom back to my place, where I made him a heart-shaped pizza, as I have previously revealed his addiction/obsession. It turned out very good and the best part was this home-made sauce that I want to tell you about.

After deciding the plan for Feb 14th about a week ago, I searched the internet for the "best" home-made pizza sauce recipe. Well, there sure is a lot of different advice floating around out there. I told my friend Sam about my quest and, being an Italian New Yorker with a father who knows what's what with pizza, she told me to ignore everything I had read thus far and follow her families extremely simple recipe. It called for little more than tomato sauce, olive oil and italian seasoning. 

"No fennel seeds?" I asked her. "There are a few recipes that insisted that you use fennel seeds."

"Those things are gross," she snorted. 

"But every recipe I've looked at either calls for sugar or honey."

"These are exactly the type of things Americans like to add to their sauce that my family laughs at them for."

"Fine."

 So respecting her advice, I basically followed her family recipe, with a few embellishments that I thought would help. And they really really did. Also, the most important part of this sauce turning out so well was storing it overnight, It made the sauce flavorful and rich, but not over-powering. Here's a run down:

2 8oz cans tomato sauce (I tend to buy store-brand stuff, but this time I spent a little more on nicer tomatoes and I think it paid off)

1 tsp Italian Seasoning

1 tsp Oregano

1tsp Basil

1 tsp Garlic Powder

1 tsp Onion Powder

Sprinkling of Red Pepper Flakes (per your spicy preference)

1 Tbsp Parmesan cheese

1Tbsp white wine (I used Savignon Blanc)

1Tbsp olive oil

You simply toss all of those ingredients in to a tupperwear container, shake, and throw in the fridge for 24 hours.

After arriving home from bingo, I just rolled out the pizza dough (using my usual garlic and herb crust from Trader Joe's), carefully placed it in my greased heart-shaped pan, brushed some olive oil over the whole crust and popped it in the oven for about 8 minutes. The next tip Sam's dad gave me was, before putting down the sauce, toss some mozzarella around that pizza. I complied. I also got a little fancy and included some goat cheese along with the standard mozzarella.

After baking this bad boy for about 10 minutes, we then took it out of the pan and placed it directly on the rack, to ensure the crust cooked fully. And then we ate our hearts out (Ehoh!)!

Tom may have grabbed a piece and taken a bite before I could yell "NO! I have to take a picture!"

This was a great valentines day meal! What's your favorite go-to pizza sauce recipe?

Fake Chicken Alfredo Pizza

I believe I've explained the addiction to pizza that boyfriend suffers with, and I have become one of those innocent loved ones affected by by his "disease." He IS getting better, eating pizza less often, besides the fact that we ate at Piece on Thursday, then got a frozen pizza after the bar on Friday, and made this pizza on Monday, but I digress. So when thinking of what to make for dinner on Monday, he, of course, suggested an alfredo chicken pizza, I suggest adding broccoli, and we went from there.

We rolled out the garlic pizza dough from Trader Joes on a greased cooking sheet and put it in the 400 degree pre-heated oven for about 7 minutes. While that was in the oven, we fried up the broccoli and fake chicken with about 3 cloves of garlic, minced, and just a little bit of olive oil in a frying pan until the chicken was slightly crispy. Then we realized we had some fake bacon in the freezer, so we fried that up with some vegetable oil and cut it up in to small bits. I then grated the cheese, but blast me, I can't remember the name of it. I was a harder mozzerella from Trader Joes and it was perfect on this pizza.

After we let the crust bake for a little in the oven, we took it out and added the alfredo sauce. In order to keep the pizza from being too heavy in our bellies, I went with Ragu's Cheesy Light Parmesan Alfredo sauce, and it only took half of the jar to cover the pizza. I then placed 4 slices of provolone cheese around the pizza, spread out the chicken, broccoli and facon, and sprinkled Italian seasoning over everything. We topped it off with the shredded moz, and 4 more cloves of minced garlic.

It was in the oven for about 25 minutes when the crust nicely browned and the cheese looked like this

BOY was it delicious. And Surprisingly, after 4 pieces, I wasn't stuffed! So, in summary, here's a list of the ingredients:

1/2 package fake chicken
4 strips fake bacon
1-2 cups chopped broccoli (we used the frozen variety)
3 cloves, then 4 cloves garlic, minced
4 slices provolone cheese
1/2 jar light alfredo sauce
2 cups shredded mozzerella
1 pizza crust
2 Tbsp Italian seasoning

This only took about 45 minutes total to make, the ingredients weren't more than $15 and the pie was a real mouth-pleaser. I highly suggest making it!

Crecent roll, egg and facon cups

As you've probably figured out by now, I do my experiements cooking exclusively on the weekends. Well, this past weekend was my roommate's birthday, so I wanted to make him a special breakfast.  I was inspired by this recipe, but knew some changes could make it more interesting. And after you check out what I made below, take a look at the cupcakes I made that got RAVE reviews.

For my (delicious) breakfast recipe, I replaced regular bread with crescent rolls and bacon with the fake stuff. I also thought the addition of onions, green peppers and cheese couldn't hurt.

I preheated the oven to 375 then heavily greased a muffin tray and rolled out one crescent roll per cup. I then fried up the facon, onion and green peps in a frying pan before adding them over top of the crescent rolls

I then simply cracked an egg over each cup, sprinkled some cheese on top and covered each cup with any extra dough that was hanging over the side,

After about 25 minutes in the oven they looked like this:

And tasted AMAZING. The egg yellows were cooked through, but the rolls didn't burn. Good dipping sauces for these would be hot sauce, ranch or worchester sauce.

Roommate and boyfriend loved these and, while two per person was the perfect-sized meal, we were all left wanting more.

What's in a face?

Just for fun, I thought I'd highlight a few items that are pretty much always on my face:

Ok, most people hate me when I tell them this,  but I only wash my face about every other day. If I wash it more, I break out more. It's science. While I was backpacking through Europe, however, the water did NOT agree with my face, so I bought this face wash in Italy, and I now swear by it. I'm running low and I can't figure out where to buy another bottle!

 To even the tone on my face, a light, natural feeling foundation is essential. It took me years to find the perfect one, but I finally discovered and use it daily: Mary Kay's medium-coverage liquid foundation.

Ever since I got my new frames last summer, I've practically ceased wearing contacts all together. They're cute, chic and pretty unique. When people make comments about their "hipster-ness" I simply say, "They're not hipster, they're CHANEL!"

What a great man Burt is! I ALWAYS have a tube of Burt's Beeswax Lip Balm

I stay pretty simple with my daily makeup. Just eyeliner and mascara! I stick with Mary Kay since I was raised on this brand :)

What are some of your must-have beauty items?

Pizza Pot Pie: Party in your mouth

So I don't want to say that this is the best meal I've ever made, but I WILL admit that I've never thought so much about a meal after eating it. Since Friday night, anyone who has been around me has heard about this creation and seen the look of longing in my eye...*siiigh* AHEM

A certain Chicago restaurant made pizza pot pies famous, and I've been craving to go back there for a while, but seeing as I'm on a tight budget, Tom and I decided to try and make our own. I have to be honest, these were better than the restaurant's popular pie.

Since I'm not a real adult yet I haven't quite finished my collection of necessary kitchen supplies, I didn't have any ramekins to make these in. Instead of opting to make one big pot pie in a baking dish (which I can imagine still tastes great), we found these soup mugs for pretty cheap at target. They worked perfectly! Tom's instincts told him that we should use vodka sauce instead of pizza or marinara and I do believe this inclusion made this in to the glorious meal experience that I am now bragging about. These are the ingredients we ended up with

1/2 jar of vodka sauce
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
Handful of cherry tomatoes, chopped
1/2 package fake beef tips/strips (This was the first time I've ever tried Gardein's Beefless Tips, and I was very impressed.)
1/2 package shredded Mozzarella and Parmesan (we opted for a combo package, but one or the other would do)
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
1 bag garlic pizza dough from Trader Joe's

We preheated the oven to 400 degrees, then combined the onion, cherry tomatoes, and garlic in to a sauce pan. We let those items sizzle for a while, then added our fake beef tips, which I thawed in the microwave for about a minute before throwing them in the pot.

We then threw in the 1/2 jar of vodka sauce and about a tablespoon of Italian seasoning, and stirred until everything was well mixed. I rolled out the pizza dough using a wine bottle since I still don't have a rolling pin and cut the top of our pies by simply placing the upside down soup mug on the rolled-out dough, and cutting around the mug, about one inch out from the rim.

We started packing our pies by beginning with a layer of our cheese, then a quarter of the sauce mixture, per pie, another layer of cheese, the rest of the sauce and topped it with more cheese (I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I'm quite the cheese fanatic). Your ingredients don't need to be at the very top of the cup, but they should be close to the top.

I gently placed the dough on top, we cut it to vent, and sprinkled some more Italian seasoning over the top. After placing them on a baking sheet, we popped them in the oven!

They were in the oven for about 30 minutes, and we knew they were ready to be consumed when they looked like this:

Some recipes call for you to turn these upside down and empty them on to a plate before eating, but we just dove in with a fork. These pot pies, with a side of Yuengling and a serving of Friday the 13th part 7, made for an excellent Friday evening!