Homemade is always the best

I love cooking! Honestly, I love food! I sometimes just wish things didn't take so long to make...for example, I really wanted a chicken pot pie but the store made ones (typically frozen) have very high amounts of sodium. So, I gathered all of the ingredients that I needed and set to work:

I bought some pre-cooked, cubed chicken at the grocery store and just kept it in the freezer until I wanted to use it. You can use left over chicken breast cut up, rotisserie chicken pulled off the bone, or try canned chicken in water. I use soup (1 can of cr of chicken and 1 can of cr of mushroom) because I was making a chicken pot pie and I like mushrooms as well. You can use cream of celery or two of the same or even a gravy base. I had a bag of frozen veggies that are the steam fresh kind you cook right from frozen. If you use other frozen veggies, you may want to cook them ahead of time. I also like to add potatoes to mine, so I sauted up some red potatoe chunks with olive oil, salt, pepper, and one of my fave spices~thyme. While the potatoes were on the stove, I made up a quick crust.

Pie crust is actually one of the easiest things to make and I'm glad my mom taught me a quick, easy recipe: Mix 2 cups of flour, 2/3 cup of shortening, a pinch of salt, and 5-6 tbsp as needed. This is enough to make a top and bottom crust. So I rolled out the two crusts, mixed all of the ingredients together, and ended up with this:

Then just bake for about 45 minutes @ 375 degrees and enjoy:) Do you like chicken pot pie? What are some of your variations on the recipe??

And since I was in the homemade mode I decided to get up the next morning and make myself some scrambled eggs & pancakes:

Roanoke Adventure

You would think that with Liberty University being in Lynchburg, there would be a lot of stuff to do and cool places to eat. Well, I guess there are some cool things, but it's not that big of a city as the nearby Roanoke and Charlottesville. Sara and I decided we should try and go to Roanoke one night a month to try a new place to eat and have a girls night. So far, we went one night in August and haven't been back, but we do so much other stuff together that it makes up for it. {lol} But, here are the few photos I have from that one fun night:

I'm not sure of the name of the restaurant we ate at, but the sushi in NC was much better! So was the service and the vibe of the place. After dinner, we went to a yummy spot Sara showed me called Bubblecake. They make all kinds of fresh, flavorful cupcakes and babycakes. I just saw on the news this morning that they are opening a 2nd location too!! The last picture is of a fountain that was near the restaurant and since I love fountains, I had to snap a photo...What do you like to do on a Friday night? Do you prefer to try out new places or stick with what you know is good?

A Helping Hand

So at my church we have three services a day and the production crew and band have to get there very early in the morning to set up and practice for the day. As part of the volunteer program this summer, I had to make breakfast for about 25 people twice. I didn't take a picture the frist time, but I made stuff to have breakfast burritos and a variety of muffins. This time I made french toast casserole and hashbrown casserole and I took pics. Working at Camp BaYouCa, I made this stuff often, but I had to make it on a much larger scale. This time around was much quicker. :) My friend Bethany would often help me make the hashbrown casserole and because the hashbrowns are frozen, it's torture on your hands because you have to use them to mix it up well:

Something Bethany always wanted me to add to the hashbrown casserole was meat. So, I decided to put it on top of the casserole and just wished she was closer so she could have some!! Looking at that hashbrown casserole makes me really want some french toast....so I might have to have that sometime this weekend...What are your favorite breakfast foods? Have you ever had hashbrown casserole or french toast casserole?

Work & Play

One Saturday at the end of July, I went with some work ladies around northern VA on a short wine tour. My friend Katie lives up in Charlottesville and offered that her husband would drive us around and we could spend the evening at her home since it's a little over an hour away. I didn't take anymore than the once picture below, and I'm bummed about it because we had a great time. We started out having lunch at Devil's Backbone and I had a delicious burger. Then we started hitting up different vineyards. Now, I'm not typically a wine drinker, so I ddn't think I would find much that I enjoyed. I do like the sweets and even some of the more semi sweet to dry whites, but I haven't found a red that I like yet. Too dry for me! After hitting up 4 or 5 places, we headed back to Katie and Ben's house and got ready to go out for some dinner. We went to a local place that Katie raved about at the outdoor mall in Charlottesville. I can't remember what I ordered, except that we had ordered nachos as an appetizer and I was so full from them, that I could barely eat it. I think it was a sandwich. Then we headed back to the house to play one of my favorite games: Geerheart. This game is super easy and super fun. Each person that plays makes up two or three clues and they all go into a bowl or hat. Then you split into two teams. Each team takes turns going through all the clues until they are gone in three rounds. The first round is like catch phrase: you can say anything other than what the clue is, the second round is charades: not talking, and the third round is like password: you can only say one word. But by the time you get to the third round, you have already gone through all of the clues twice, so even though you only have one word, it's pretty simple. If you have friends over and are lacking in the board games area, this is great! All you need is some paper, pens, and a bowl. Here is the only pic I got from the days events:

Have you ever been on a wine tour? What kind of wines do you like? What kind of games do you play with your friends?

Thinking Of You

If ever asked the question: "Would you rather be blind or deaf?", I chose blind every time. I am a huge music lover! So, this summer when my pal Sara kept asking if I wanted to go to some concerts, I was fully on board. I have never been huge on concerts and I can't say I have been to more than a dozen of them. Typically, I go to them when I am invited and it's free for me. {grin} We weren't picky about where we sat though, so we went with the cheapest seats in the house. The concert was a couple hours south of here in Raleigh, NC. We drove downt the night before, checked in to our hotel, and went to find some yummy dinner. Let me just tell you, this is the best shrimp & grits I've ever had:

They were so smooth and creamy and flavorful!! We were looking for seafood and after a google search didn't return much, we ended up picking the 42nd street Oyster Bar & Grill. Being that most of the menu was seafood, it was semi expensive and if you are on a budget, I wouldn't recommend it. If you are in the area and looking for a great seafood place and you plan to spend about $50 for two people, then you will love it! As mentioned int eh name, they do have a raw & steamed oyster bar. I didn't get them this time, but I am a fan of steamed oysters.
The concert wasn't until the next evening, so we got up early and headed out to a fun breakfast spot. Sara is a huge fan of Alice in Wonderland, so she had already scouted out a place she was wanting to try: Mad Hatter's Bakery. This place was yummy and had good portion sizes that were healthy and reasonably priced (about the same as a panera combo) and I picked something I knew I would like: Egg's Benedict:

I also grabbed that carrot bran muffin to eat later since we weren't planning on getting lunch, but having an early dinner before the concert. Not far from here, we headed over to the outlets and did some relaxing shopping and wandering around. I was able to find some birthday presents for friends and stay within my budget, which is always a plus! After hitting up all the stores we wanted to, we headed to lunch. Now, I have to preface this by saying I never thought I would want to eat sushi, but Sara was just itching to ease me into liking it. I made sure I wasn't going to try anything that wasn't cooked though. We went to Shiki Sushi and got their just in time to still get something off the lunch menu, making it a not too expensive meal. We started wtih calamari (how could you go wrong?):

Then I had my shrimp tempura (on the left) and spicy tuna tempura (on the right):

I have to say, with the green wasabi, I am a fan of the cooked things, but I don't like imitation crab, so I don't know if I will ever eat that kind...but I look forward to trying more:)
We then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the concert. I'm not sure why, but I really wanted to go 80's so this is what I wore:

The concert was super fun and I was not ashamed at all to sing along to all of the pop hits! I don't even own a Katy Perry CD, but I enjoy all of her music. My pictures didn't turn out too well being that they were taken from my phone and the lighting was always changing. But Sara got some online and put them on her blog (check the June archives~I'm behind I know) about our trip if you want to check it out. Happy reading bloggers!!