roll*it*all*together...

...and what do you get??


A sweet combination, best known as tips&tricks*thursday/fun*friday fabuloushness.


Yup. I had to make up a word for how awesome a 2-in-1 day like today is going to be. I hope you're as excited as I am. 


So let's start with some tips & tricks. I found this excellent visual on Pinterest:

Pretty awesome, right? I don't know about y'all, but I love me some Greek yogurt. And I love the fact that you can use it as a substitute in richer dips. I mean, come on....how perfect is that!?! You don't lose any of the flavor [I think that the tanginess of Greek yogurt makes for an EXCELLENT flavor] and it stays as thick and creamy as it was originally intended. So, my friends....go crazy! Make that rich dip, or those cupcakes with 3 sticks of butter. Greek yogurt is coming to the rescue!


And now, on a completely different note [although I'll probably be having some Greek yogurt later on], what's  on everyone's calendar this weekend? We have our friend Chris coming into town, and some hiking at VT football [away at ECU] on the board for tomorrow morning and afternoon. Grilling, of course. And most likely some home cooked deliciousness on Sunday.


Hope everyone enjoys their two days off!


cheers :)

wedding*wednesday

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means, loves :)
[I digress, it's actually Thursday now....silly publisher time didn't work. ugh]


Wedding talk time! 


I'm going to make this brief this morning, as I'm transitioning into a new job and still working my morning routine with the engineer [and puppy] out. I wanted to share with y'all our engagement photos....not our real ones, but the ones that were "captured" when he popped the question. The best part about it [other than the actual proposal, the ring] was where he did it - sooo beautiful, and such an important place....


where we first met.


Enjoy, darlins'!

hope you love them every bit as much as i do <3 

cheers, loves!

oven*roasted*tomatoes

Tell me, friends....who doesn't love a good, wholesome tomato?

Feel free to judge when I tell you this, but I was "that girl" in elementary school. You know that girl, the weird one, the one who didn't go down the conventional road...

I was the girl who didn't like sandwiches in my sack lunch, and instead, my mom would slice the end off a vine ripened tomato, sprinkle on a dash of salt, and slip it into a round tupperware.

wait, you mean that's ABNORMAL?

what HAS become of my childhood?? - was I really the WEIRD KID??

ohman. okay. lemme sit down for a second. whew.

Ok. I think we're good now. Mild heart attack right there, but then I took another look at these pictures of glory and instantly felt better. I think I can accept being a weird lunch kid if it meant I got to snack on these on a daily basis, right?

Right. So let's get to it.

My friend [ whom I'm sure I've told you about at least a hundred times once or twice] stopped by my house last week with my weekly haul. A few local peaches and apples, and...get ready for it...16 fresh tomatoes. That's right. SIXTEEN. I was beside myself, I was hunched in the corner rocking back and forth because the engineer doesn't like raw tomatoes and ohmygosh what if they go bad!! was grasping at straws, trying to find information.

And then it came to me. 

I pulled out my smallest sheet pan, sliced those babies in half and packed them in like little toy soldiers. I turned my oven to 225 degrees [yes, you read that right]. A generous drizzle of olive oil, happy amounts of salt and pepper, and some whole garlic cloves were tucked in next.

have you seen anything prettier?

A little over 3 hours later, and they came out looking like this. 

behold. love.

If you look closely, you can see the tomato drippings that have escaped their fleshy, tender selves. Promise me, PROMISE ME that when you have let these cool and packed in a tupperware, you will grab a piece of crusty bread and soak up every. last. drop. It's that good, I promise.

note: for the last hour, I turned it up to 250 degrees to help get a little more color. You can pack these beauties into a tupperware and they should last in the fridge, drizzled with some oil, for a week or two. Or you can be like me and stick it in the freezer with plans for roasted tomato bruschetta, sauce, snackin's....stay tuned!

happy days, loves :) 
cheers!

thankful*tuesday

Happy Tuesday evening, y'all!


Today I am thankful for:
safe travels. 


My parents, after what seems like 20 years since their last trip [truly, I'm not exaggerating], landed safely in Italy at 2:30am our time this morning. I know that my parents were worried, but I think I was even more so. I blame my worrywart gene on my mom.


I know it's secretly a blessing in disguise sometimes not the best trait to have, but I think that overall it makes me a more connected person. I feel that I'm more aware of a situation, especially when it involves people near and dear to my heart. 


I'm happy that they're safe, and I can bet you anything they're going to have the time of their life!


....I'm only mildly jealous of all the amazing food/wine/sights/life in general that they're going to experience over the next two weeks....::sigh::


*side note: I'm also thankful for a KICKASS WIN my Hokies had on Saturday! Go Tech, Go!*


cheers! g'night, everyone!

fun*friday

IT'S FRIDAY, FRIDAY!!! GOTTA GET DOWN ON FRIDAY!!! 


Happy weekend, everyone :) hope that I didn't scare you off with my [semi] homage to the great Rebecca Black...


....just kidding. Although I for one couldn't be more excited that it's Friday! I sure am looking forward to a three day weekend, spent with the engineer. And friends. And HOKIE football.


"alicia, you really need to cool it with the all-caps."
got it. done.


Anyways. What are y'all lookin' forward to this weekend? As I've mentioned over and over this week once or twice, us Hokies have our season opener against Appalachian State tomorrow. I am sooo excited, I cannot even begin to tell you! 

this is basically Christmas for me

Tomorrow will be spent, for us, in a hazy/sunny/tailgate-y stupor. Fall is definitely my favorite season [and not just because my wedding is next fall] but because I love so so so much the foliage, the crisp air, and, duh, college football. It's such a great way to reconnect with my old college friends and spend the day outside; I honestly think that everyone needs to experience an excellent tailgate at least once in their lifetime. 


So tell me, friends. What do you all have planned for this weekend? Is football involved? 

maybe some romantical kisses?

Whatever your plans are this weekend, I hope that you have a fabulous time! Stay safe, enjoy the 3 days off of life, and have fun :)

cheers!

tips*&*tricks*thursday: investing in a bread machine

Hi, everyone! It's Thursday, which means that it's tips*&*tricks day! [...and a longer post too!]


I've decided that I want to set up, not exactly "theme" days, but set things that I can discuss with y'all on a regular basis. I'm going to try to have these recurring every week, so bear with me as I dive in headfirst! Below you'll find a breakdown of awesomeness what I plan on rotating through weekly:


-on Mondays, be sure to tune in for some of my "mindless" ramblings; fear not! I'm not talking about the kind of ramblings we used to do as teenagers on our livejournals [don't judge me, please]. This is going to be more along the lines of what I hope to achieve this week, topics that I find interesting and want to share with y'all, etc. I promise to keep it mixed up and lively so you don't get bored :)
-I'm generally a gracious person, but I really want to step that up. So, I've decided to make Tuesdays my "thank you" day. It could be a person, place, thing, noun, idea, product...anything! I really want to start making it a habit to realize that even the littlest thing/act/whatever can make a huge impact, and I thought to myself "SELF! Might as well blog about it!" 
i hope you're not getting sick of hearing my SELF references already...
-Wednesdays will be when I bring my calm,inner full-on bridal self out. Thus, Wedding Wednesday. I'll share things that I have going on with my upcoming wedding, and ideas that I'm having. I'll post pictures [next week, be on the lookout for our 'engagement, REMIX' shots!], ideas, boards, you name it. And speak up! I'd love to hear y'alls thoughts, so give me a little [or a lot of] feedback :)
-Thursdays will be my "tips and tricks" day. This could range from helpful hints for the home, cooking suggestions, time savers, and handy product, etc. I'm going to try and change it up as frequently as I can - variety is the spice of life! 
-Fun Friday! Let's talk about plans, fun things. Just a heads-up, I am a DIE HARD HOKIE FAN, so either brace yourself or get excited for lots of football talk during the fall :)
-Saturdays and Sundays I'll focus more on "shoptastic finds" from the farmer's market and what to do with them. 


I hope that y'all are as excited as I am about these posts! I thought that it would be a fun way to ease myself into daily posts so you don't get bored of me already. I'll still be posting LOADS of recipes and my daily *dallyings* in the kitchen, so don't worry! I have a few more recipes up my sleeve to share for the remainder of the week.


....but hey, weren't we supposed to be talking about some tips or something? Right. 


The first thing that  I decided that I wanted to share here is the all-powerful bread machine. 

not such a lowly machine, trust me.

Growing up, I was fortunate enough to live in a household where a bread machine was a product prominently [&proudly] displayed on our kitchen counter. If I recall correctly, my mom first discovered this at her sister's house then promptly proceeded to purchase one. This was when I was probably 7 or 8 - I'm 24 now, and she still has one. 

Yup, once you go bread, you never go back.

I had to somehow find the will to live make do without one while away in college, but rest assured, I always managed to bring a loaf back after vacations, visits, etc. Now that I am a big girl living in the big kid world in my own big kid house, I was finally able to purchase one this past February. I've been in heaven ever since. 

I know that you've heard me mention a few times about the wonders of such a machine [preserves, anyone?] and I kid you not, this machine lives up to all expectations. Not only does it make jam, but I haven't bought a loaf of bread since the day I brought it home. The engineer and I go through a large loaf of bread roughly once a week, so when it's gone, I do the ol' heave-ho and get my trusty maker out of the cupboard. 


Now, I bet some of y'all are wondering what else this product can do? Fear not, here we go:
Pizza dough, starters for breads, dough [that can be made into rolls, sweet rolls, English muffins, croissants, pretzels, bagels, breadsticks...the list goes on and on], cakes, jam, sweet breads. Can I hear you being convinced? This machine pays for itself in no time. 


Whew! What a post! I hope y'all enjoyed my tip of the day, and are as excited as I am about the direction that domestic*dallyings is moving in. I'm enjoying so much sharing these things with you! I hope that you'll stick around for a long time!


....now get back to work, aren't there some documents you should be reading? :)


cheers!!

easy*peach*preserves

....if y'all are anything like me, oftentimes you end up with WAYYY more produce/fruit/food [in general] that you had planned on.

This was just what happened to me. After waiting for longer than I thought necessary for my 5 huge ginormous peaches to be ripe, it came the time for me to finally enjoy them. I had bought more than enough, I naively though, to last the engineer and I for at least the length of the workweek.

Turns out, I opened my front door earlier to find a bag of produce from my gardener friend, along with a bag of one dozen local, farmstand peaches.

"'YES!!" was my first thought, then....

...."what on earth am I going to do with close to TWO DOZEN peaches? Yikes!"

After pulling my hair out in frustration over this sudden abundance careful thought and consideration, I figured I might as well put on my happy face - we're talking LOCAL peaches, after all! What more could a foodie gal like me ask for? I knew that I wanted to make something that would last, so I settled on peach preserves made in my bread machine.

Let me repeat that - preserves.made.in.the.bread.machine.

life does not get simpler.

By all means, you can certainly do this on a stovetop with the same ingredients, but I cannot begin to tell you how easy this is if you have a miracle-worker machine bread machine. Here's the what-you-need and how-to below: 

what you need

-a ridiculous amount of peaches...I used 6 large ones, skin on and everything

-scant 1/3 cup of sugar [I normally don't like to put sugar in my preserves, but the engineer likes it a little sweeter...must be why he chose me!....so I threw a little in]

-1 packet of fruit pectin

how to:

1. Begin by cutting your peaches in half around the seed, and discarding them [the seeds, not the peaches. duh].

heavenly goodness.

2. Next, load all the peaches, sugar, and pectin into your bread machine, being sure to set it for the JAM cycle. I've never tried making bread with just fruit, but I think it's a safe bet it wouldn't turn out.

note: if you're making this on the stovetop, place ingredients into a pot and simmer until the desired consistency....probably a good 20-30 minutes.

3. Once complete, pour into canning jars or tupperware, and enj

Because jams and preserves never last long in my house, I typically don't use the canning method to preserves them for months and months. Untreated jars and tupperwares should last a few weeks with regular use.

Hope the hump day is treating y'all well!

cheers!