Birthday wishes

Yesterday was my birthday. My 28th to be exact. And while I'm not really a "birthday person," I did kind of love the little unexpected sweet wishes that came my way during the day.

More importantly, I was greeted at my desk by a monstrous Starbucks bag overflowing with Majorca Sweetbreads from my friend Chris.

If you haven't indulged in these so called Starbucks Sweetbreads, whoa are you missing out. Like BIG TIME. Sugared dough baked then covered with powdered sugar. Sinful. Heavenly. Oh sweet addiction, you've got me!

My friend Chris knows I'm addicted to this pastry and poor him, he's usually the innocent bystander victim when I arrive at the Starbucks too late in the afternoon when there are none left and I have a near nuclear meltdown in the Starbucks queue....daily.

Did I mention that I love Majorca Sweetbreads?

And happy Friday...... we're celebrating with a large dinner party and champagne tonight. Probably not smart considering we are flying to Maui tomorrow at 11 am. Husband and I totally overbook ourselves. And we love it. And I'm fueled by Majorca Sweetbreads apparently.

Soda time

I stumbled upon the most yummy Italian sodas at Whole Foods recently. Coming in so many dazzling flavors I had to restrain my compulsive shopping and hoarding in order to buy just a few. Blood Orange and Apple.

They look so pretty served up in my Waterford Crystal goblets. With a little slice of orange to garnish it up a bit.

See, Wednesdays can be sweet like soda too. Now, if only I had purchased more bottles, I would have enough for the rest of the week. Sometimes I should give into the hoarding, even though husband would definitely object. Pun intended.

Birthday week

In anticipation of this being a very promising week, I thought I'd buy some flowers to start it all off. Why promising you ask???? Well, if I MUST tell you....

1. It's my birthday week. And as I creep closer to that 30 year mark (and NO I AM NOT 30 yet!)....I've realized that life has been pretty good to me.

2. I started my Sunday off with a fabulous facial at the fabulous Canyon Ranch Miami Spa with my friend Angela. And yes, I used fabulous twice in the same sentence. Get used to it.

3. And I am running off to Maui come Saturday with husband for 9 much needed days of pineapple, sunsets and  insanely large meals since we are overworked gluttons. Fab times three. And did I mention we're going First Class like silly looking honeymooners? Yes I had many many garbage American Gangster Airlines miles in my arsenal and I used them wisely I'll say.....

Hmm, sounds like this is the first Monday in years that I've been giddy. Another fabulous.

Hippie Style for Cocktails

I met a friend for free champagne night at Greenstreet in the Grove a week or two ago. It's a usual favorite. Bubbly in the boiling Miami heat. What could be more fun. Seriously. It's pretty damn fab.

Usually I have to peel myself off the couch on a Friday after work in order to have cocktails unless I head out for Happy Hour RIGHT after work. Unfortunately my 4:59'er attitude doesn't quite match up with my CPA friend's work schedule. Workaholics. Please.

In order to get myself giddy again after sitting in traffic and then watching the 5:30 evening news (which was no less chock full of the day's shootings and impending hurricane paths), I decided to put on a fun outfit.

Being that it is currently 300 degrees in Miami during August, I opted for all cotton. You know, the fabric of our lives. Hippie style in my Free People apricot shorts and Joie peasant top. Oooooh floaty. Just like how I felt after taking down 3 glasses of bubbly.....yummy.

It's Friday. Get floaty however you like to.

Spinach Chips

Wednesdays are pretty mundane. So is spinach. Don't you agree?

I had a random bag of spinach in my fridge. Part of those many gifts my mom brings to Miami when she leaves town for a few weeks. Aka cleaning out her fridge with perishable crap and then unloading it on me.  A fascinating strategy. Apparently we don't get rid of anything in our family, we just pawn it off on someone else instead. Regift much?

So I turned lemons into lemonade. Well, not quite. I mean I turned that icky boring old spinach into wondrous spinach chips. Chiiiiiiips. Yum.

Healthy chips. In the oven. Super easy. Even you can do it. That's right Popeye. Get rid of that spinach.

Follow this recipe here if you're interested. The key is lining your cookie sheet with parchment paper. Otherwise, you'll still be peeling spinach off the pan come Friday. And that's NOT how we want to ring in the weekend is it?

Tissue paper thin. They melt on your tongue.
I had to tell Husband to restrain himself.
Because this entire bowl would've disappeared in 0.3 seconds.

Bahamas Photo Journal

Even though it was well over a month ago since our Bahamas trip, I'm still wistfully thinking about how much conch and rum I indulged in. When in Rome....

While we usually just take our boat straight over to Bimini, Bahamas, just a mere 50 miles from Miami, we decided this year to spend God knows how much on fuel and take the two day boat trip over to the Abacos which are due east of West Palm Beach. All in, we took our little boat about 200 nautical miles from Miami. Risky with only one engine, but the rewards were sweet when I got to frisk about on a beautiful pinkish sanded beach for about 8 days. Heaven, after the hell of 6 to 8 foot seas during our Gulf stream crossing. Yes I did have to ask husband where the life preservers were....just in case.

Because we all know I avidly hate Mondays. Let's have fun reminiscing about a location where I'd much rather be.

Some More's

Do you ever run around like a chicken with your head cut off? Especially when it comes to finding JUMBO marshmallows??

God I have problems, yet again. I found this recipe here on this blog I read everyday, called How Sweet It Is. You need to convert.  It looked like such a fun, whimsical dessert, that I needed to duplicate it. Right that minute. Except I couldn't find the dang jumbo mallows. Three grocery stores that Sunday. THREE. Husband wanted to tackle me in the candy aisle after Store #3 because the stupid marshmallows were there all along, all I had to do was ask someone. Right on the freakin bottom shelf. Since WHEN were marshmallows considered part the candy food group?? Shouldn't they be safely nestled in the baking aisle, all snuggily right next to the coconut and jar of icky marshmallow fluff? I confused.

So anyway, after a Sunday of touring Publix, Milams and Winn Dixie.....I made these. And they were fab. Until I tried to cart them down to the Keys for the weekend in my overheated car, and they fell off the plate, and onto the parking lot, all melted, because it was 300 degrees outside. I promptly scooped them up and put them back onto the plate, asphalt crusts and all and then served them to my parents and husband. 3 second rule.

Happy Friday.

Wonka style

Before they got jacked by the parking lot

Get me to LA now.

You know what's really jacked up? No, not the fact that the stock market tanked this week (which made my Monday absurdly annoying face) or that it's been a soggy swampy rainy week in MIA, or the fact that I mistakenly made my July Banana Republic Card payment to my husband's BR card account instead of mine. Damn online banking. Grrrrr......What sucks is that I'm going to LA on Thursday to celebrate my friend's bachelorette party and this week has been going by soooooooo slooooooooooooowly. Seriously, snail's pace.

Why do three day work weeks seem to creep on for like 300 years?????? Sucks. So. Much. Get me on a plane now. As in now now now. Not that I'm really looking forward to dealing with bonehead American Airlines but I need a vacay. A girls trip. Some wine and some crazy dancing. Like the kind of dancing I do when I've had too much to drink and I want to show off all those amazing years of ballet training by doing the Robot. Awesome.

Can't wait for a fabulous weekend. California here I come, 3 ounce liquids and gels in tow.

Explosion

No this isn't a war zone. It's my living room. I took the liberty of ordering some bedside tables, lamps, and some hanging art courtesy of the pottery barn last week.

Packing material might be the most wasteful thing in the world. But at least my cat likes it. Now, if I can only keep her away from the plastic bags. Potential death to kitty via suffocation.

Mondays blow. That's why I'm showing you all this packing material that exploded in my house. That way you know your Monday is obviously is better than mine.

landfill much?

Anniversary Dinner

Ocean Reef, the place where we got married last July offered to give us a first anniversary dinner this past weekend. Their catering department puts together a private two person table and serves your wedding menu that you had the year before. Oh and there is champagne too. What would an anniversary dinner be without bubbly???? Eh, probably not as fun.

The best part was that they served us all our passed hors d'oeurves too. Since we were too busy snapping photos for the wedding album a year ago, we didn't get to experience the fabulous cocktail hour that all our guests got to partake in. Sadface.

And another nice surprise, when we got to our private dinner, there were TWO bottles of champagne in the bucket. Holler! Or should we say, Baller! Turns out some of my parents friends knew about our private din din and had sent us a surprise bottle numero dos. For a good time of course.

Happy Friday. Maybe you should indulge in some bubbly tonight? If you're not a drinker, maybe a bubbly bath????

our personal menu for the evening

salad course

nibbles that were served during our cocktail hour

glutton

Mail call

I love getting catalogues in the mail. It's way fun to come home after an annoying day to find three amazing beautious catalogues to thumb through in my mailbox. Daily doses of excitement for me are rare and the sources are strange, I know.

There's nothing like cuddling up in bed with a few candles and some tea and turning the pages of these. I have a habit of dog-earring every other page and husband thinks I'm a looney. I assure him this is my version of "window shopping" and he better not make fun of me or else I will put him into American Express hell.

Yesterdays postal service loot

Lettuce Wraps

Do you love PF Chang's? I adore it. In fact I love it so much, that I even fell victim to food poisoning there, yet I still went back. Yes, it must be true love, or an abusive relationship if you count the poisoning incident from Mongolian Beef.....

Ok, so I still eat their Mongolian Beef. It's fab. But you know what's even more fab? Their Lettuce Wraps. Fab times two.

But what's fab times three, is the fact that I can make them at home now!!!!! YAAAAAAY! Chef Little Lady Molly can make Chang's Lettuce Wraps! Here's the secret recipe I use ----- click here!

Rule #1 - omit the "special sauce." First rules of Molly cooking, omit things that have more than ten ingredients just to make a freaking sauce. Come on people, I do have a day job here. I can't spend 30 minutes blending 15 different teaspoons of crap just to make a measly dipping sauce.

Rule #2 - don't use iceberg lettuce. It cracks and all the yummy chicken stir fry falls out onto your plate. Or onto the floor, if you eat like my husband. Annoying. Use Boston Lettuce. You know, the kind that boasts on its label at the grocery store "It's alive." Like, they claim that the lettuce is actually still alive. Random marketing.  BUT, bottom line, this lettuce is the wiser choice.

Okay. So make these. They are yummy. Better than Chang's themselves, because they aren't as salty. And you don't risk food poisoning. Unless you're just an idiot in the kitchen with your poultry and then in that case, you shouldn't be cooking at all.....

I like green onions better than using regular onions. Plus they look so pretty when all chopped.

So wonderfully tasty you don't even know. So you should make them. Now.