January chic

January chic by katieannemccoy featuring a leather bangle

Rise and Shine

Good morning! I don't know about you, but I love to have a filling and healthy breakfast to start my day off right. Since we're headed to the gym in 15 short minutes I knew I needed something that would give me a lot of bang for my buck. Homemade oatmeal it was! Oatmeal fills you up and provides plenty of energy for vigorous activity throughout the day. It was my savior food while training for the Portland Marathon. The flavor of freshly made oatmeal, some brown sugar and blueberries for an extra spark satisfy me every time. Don't forget the coconut milk! :) Now that my body has a lovely aversion to regular cow's milk, I drink the vanilla flavored "SO Delicious" brand of coconut milk so I don't miss out on my calcium and vitamins. It tastes great and keeps my mind off of all the ice cold glass of milk cravings I receive from time to time....Hope everyone has a great weekend, I get to celebrate my mom's birthday with the fam today yay! Happy early birthday to my amazing mother.

Grilled.

Happy FRIDAY!

Last weekend I whipped up a quick little lunch that will not disappoint a hungry crew.  We only had mozzarella cheese...but not to worry, it made a fantastic grilled cheese.  I used sourdough, two slices of mozzarella, 2 full leaves of basil, and a slice of honey ham, and voila! It was delicious and NOT greasy...I despise greasy grilled cheese. If you have these ingredients laying around I encourage you to give this a shot, it was very tasty and even better when dipped in tomato bisque soup!

Grilled mozzarella

Crochet

Crochet.  Now here is a word that I didn't think would regular my vocabulary.  When I think of the word "crochet" I picture little old ladies back in the 19th century making doilies. Great image right? Little did I know that I would one day LOVE to crochet! About a month back my friend Kelly taught me. She had made herself a great infinity scarf and I thought to myself, I NEED to learn, those are so stinking cute! Well friends, cows do fly...and I learned the fantastic art of crochet. 

Above is a baby blanket I made (with Brent's help holding the yarn roll) for friends of ours that are due to have a baby any day now! I'm so excited to see a picture of their little bundle of joy snuggled up in it!!!

Here it is close up and folded. We choose the extra soft and snugly yarn, as Brent put it. The baby needed something to cozy up into! Since this project I have been working on plenty of scarves in various colors. I must say, I did not ever think I would crochet...let alone extremely enjoy doing it! If you have the opportunity to learn I definitely recommend you do.  And now, I can be one of  those old ladies someday...doilies here I come!

Bake-a-thon

A couple days before Christmas hit my friend Kelly and I decided to get together and have a bake day! We carefully selected only the most delicious recipes for our baking adventure, which turned into a 13 hour day filled of baking! 

 One of the most time consuming, but MOST decadent cookie we made were the Dolce de Leche cookies with sea salt on the edges. They are to die for. I highly reccomend making them if you want to impress, but give yourself 4-5 hours to make them!

The finished product! They are so rich you can usually only handle one at a time, with a glass of milk, or cup of coffee...but they are ohhh so worth it!

We had to make the home made cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning! A tradition for both Kelly and her husband, and Brent and myself! We whipped these bad boys up from scratch....they were worth every ounce of effort. And the cream cheese frosting...oh sweetness, just do it, and use a lot of that frosting goodness.

The crinkle cookies had to be my all time favorite.  It was like eating a brownie/cookie. Again, if you're looking to wow some peeps...make these!

Last and definitely not least...Lemon Poppy seed loaf. This loaf tastes better than the goodies made at Starbucks. I swear it. Kelly had this recipe, and I'm SO happy she suggested we make it. 

Our bake day definitely lasted a long time, cough cough, 13 hours...but it was so worth it. If you want any of recipes let me know.  None of them are my own, so I do not claim to be the genius behind all of those fantastic goodies. But I do claim to have helped bake them!