Summer is flying by

Once again I find myself stopping to look around and smell the roses for the first time in a while. It seems the past few months have flown by in a blur. Here's a short synopsis of what's been going on:

We went to 'Pints for Paws', a beer festival that benefits the Animal Shelter Foundation. It was really cool. The beers featured were all from local microbreweries and home-brewers. Not gonna lie - some tasted like crap but overall we had an awesome time and left with a nice buzz and warm heart knowing we contributed to the saving of animals :)

Kelly found this one particularly special because of its name "Sly Guy Rye".

Lacey came into town and we had a girls night at 101 then back to my house to watch the CMT Music Awards. After drooling over Luke Bryan and jamming out to the Pistol Annies, we got a little silly with Peebles ... Disclaimer: no animals were harmed in the taking of this photo.

Kelly and I found our new favorite happy hour spot - El Jalisco in Killearn. They had live music and 2for1 drinks. We had a blast and thoroughly enjoyed some quesadillas!

And of course we celebrated America's birthday last week. Although the rain completely ruined our plans of sunbathing at the pool all day - we feasted on Baby Back Ribs, Grilled Shrimp, and Smoked Sausage. Yum!


Also, I've been promoted! I am now officially the Marketing & Event Coordinator at my place of business, First Franklin Financial Services! I'm so excited! My first event is this Thursday at Hotel Duval and I can't wait. I feels so awesome to have such a big girl job!




It's funny how when you're a kid it seems like time is just crawling by, but the older you get the more you feel like time is flying by. I know I'm not alone in my wish that someone will create a play/pause button for life.

My Journey to Culinary Genius

I have to say that I've always had a knack for cooking. I can remember helping my mom in the kitchen from an early age. Like any good southern girl, the first thing my mom ever taught me to cook was homemade mashed potatoes. These are still one of my favorite things in the world to eat with dinner. Baking became a regular weekend hobby when I was in high school. I can honestly say I probably made every single dessert in Paula Deen's original cookbook 'The Lady & Sons' at least once during that time. My baking became such a regular weekend activity around my house that my dad would expect a fresh baked dessert every Sunday at supper. Bless my family for being my willing taste-tasters back then. I know for a fact that those desserts didn't always come out perfect.

As my love of the food network grew, my cooking improved substantially. In those early days I was hooked on Rachel Ray and Paula Deen (obvi) and couldn't stand Giada and the Barefoot Contessa with all their fanciness! However, recently I've found that the Barefoot Contessa has become one of my favorite chefs. Admittedly, her personality gets on my nerves sometimes with her high-end, Hamptons life-style but her recipes are truly gems. I love how she takes these super complicated, fancy recipes and turns them into rustic, simple dishes. Her recipes for Coq au Vin and  Peach and Blueberry Crumbles have become staples in our household.

I have reason now to add another staple Barefoot meal to our repertoire - Real Meatballs and Spaghetti. Holy cow guys, this was the absolute BEST spaghetti with red sauce I have EVER had (keep in mind that I have been to Italy)!! The red sauce alone made this meal fantastic. I will never ever ever purchase red pasta sauce out of the jar again! It was very simple to make and probably costs about the same anyway. Please do yourself a favor and make this sauce tonight! You won't regret it. I wish I had pictures to share but I am not devout blogger yet and don't think about these things. Anyway, the directions are straight forward and I am in belief that even the most novice cook could handle this. I also used a whole wheat spaghetti and it was a nice nutty contrast to the acidity of the tomato sauce.

Thanks Ina for making my husband believe that I am a Culinary Genius :)

March is awesome, I love March

The sun is out, the birds are singin', the flowers are bloomin' - SPRING IS HERE. I don't know about the rest of you but I've been waiting on this for what seems like an eternity. Although we have had an extremely mild winter this year, there was still the occasional cold snap and the never-ending rainy days that define the New Year in Tallahassee. Thankfully that is all behind us now.

At the beginning of every season I tend to get just tickled pink over all the new things it will bring. Fall brings football, cool evenings on the back porch, and my birthday. Winter brings comfort food, family, and of course CHRISTMAS! But Spring? Spring brings flowers and sunshine and cool breezes and the beach and St. Patrick's Day and Mardi Gras and Easter and my wedding anniversary (not in that order). Spring. Spring. Spring. I love Spring.

Okay I'm done now. Any who, a lot has been going on already this month. There are so many things to be thankful for and so many good times still to come. Here's what's been going:

Kelly got a new truck!

Now for those of you who didn't know, the poor boy has been riding around in my old Jeep Liberty for the past 6 months waiting patiently for the opportunity to get a new vehicle for himself after buying me my new Mazda. Thankfully I love him unconditionally because let me tell you - the jeep was not a very good look. So finally his sentence has been served and he is the proud owner of a brand new GMC Sierra. As you can see he is absolutely smitten.

I went home to Plant City two weekends ago and got to spend some time with two of best friends. This time last year (before the wedding) these two literally saved my sanity and reminded me how to have a good ole' redneck time. I miss them and all those trashy bars so much :)

While home I also got to spend some time with my Mom at the Strawberry Festival. For those who don't know - Plant City, Florida is the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World (no, really google it). Meaning that for the last week in February and the first week in March every year people at home go crazy over strawberry everything. We wear strawberry earrings and shirts with rhinestone strawberries saying things like Farmer's Daughter, Southern Girl, etc. We eat strawberry milkshakes, strawberry pizza, and strawberry salads galore! The festival has really evolved over the past few years into its own attraction for all the snow birds who flock to Florida during the Winter, but for us locals - all the we care to do is go there to eat, support the local FFA chapter by attending a Live Stock show or two, and pray for tickets to the few decent country artists that decided to play at it that year. I tend to be real into the whole "eating" aspect. The coolest part about the festival it that everything is the exact same every year. Meaning all the vendors and attractions are set up in the places so you always know where to get the best elephant ear (Dumbo stand by the Indians), the best corn dog (stand next to the Red Caboose), etc. One of my favorite treats are the Texas Taters!

This past weekend we decided to head to Destin for St. Patrick's Day. One of the members of our favorite band was playing with one of his small side bands at the Funky Blues Shack. We spend the whole of the night hippy dancing and giving high-fives to the guy and praying for an invite onto his tour bus. It was really fun and a great way to spend St. Patty's! Here are some pictures: 

Before the music started - we were so excited!

My creeper picture with JoJo at the end of the night because we wouldn't take a picture with anyone.

The day after the concert we of course headed to do a little shopping at the Silver Sands Outlets then spent the rest of the day on the beach. And boy oh boy was it BEAUTIFUL!

This weekend we're set to see Eric Church at the Civic Center here in Tallahassee then next weekend we're headed to New Orleans. To say the least - Spring 2012 is looking to be one of my favorites!

Ridiculously Delayed but alas - Jambalaya

Okay so the past month has been a whirlwind and I completely neglected this blog ... sorry! Thankfully things have slowed down and I can finally share my recipe. 


For those of you who don't know, Kelly's family is from New Orleans. Actually the vast majority of his family still live there today. Needless to say, I have eaten some of the most amazing creole and cajun dishes with these people. I'm talking ridiculously, sinfully delicious food. The first time I met Kelly's parents they had me over for a Low Country Boil Dinner - needless to say I decided I would marry him that night. 


Last year Kelly's older brother Keith threw us a Wedding Shower in NOLA and cooked us up a crawfish boil. 

I'm talking live crawfish straight out of the bayou cooked up in big ole' pot with all the fixins dumped onto a table for everyone to just dig in.

Awesome, right? This was a seafood lover's heaven! But I understand that seafood isn't for everyone (like my Momma) so here's a recipe for Jambalaya seafood-free instead. 


Seriously though, if you've never had legitimate New Orleans cuisine please do yourself a favor and try this dish as soon as possible!


The basis of this recipe came from The Neely's off of The Food Network and can be found here. Below is my personal tweak on it because I have a personal obsession with not following directions and throwing my own spin on dish. BYOC! (Be Your Own Chef)

My First Post

So I have finally made the executive decision to start a blog. It's something I've been debating for a while now and since I finally have a more structured schedule I feel the time has come to start one. I can't promise that my life is very entertaining, that my grammar and spelling are up to par, or that I even know what the hell I'm doing, but I'll give it my best effort. Let me begin by explaining my title ...

First and foremost, I love food. Not in a "I'm 500 pounds and have a problem" way, but in an irrational all-inclusive way. I like to read about it, cook it, watch TV shows displaying it, shop for it, dissect it, and of course EAT IT. I've stated multiple times I am a fat kid at heart - hence my reasonings for constant use of the #fatgirlproblems hash tag on Twitter. My point in this random rant on how I'm doomed to one day look more like Paula Deen than Giada DeLaurentis - there will probably be a significant amount of food posts on this blog.

Secondly, I'm 23 years old and recently married. As if the whole graduating college and becoming an adult in the "real world" thing wasn't impossible enough I went ahead and got married too. As I'm attempting to become a productive, rational adult I'm also attempting to be a loving, perfect wife simuletaneously. Sounds a little daunting, huh? I'm over exaggerating (warning I do it a lot). To be perfectly honest - I wouldn't have it any other way. I feel so fortunate to have been able to meet my soulmate so early in life and to be able to share all the experiences of my early twenties with him. God knows I never would have made it on my own; Kelly deserves a lot more credit than I give him for allowing me to still act like I'm in college most days. My point here is that I'm predicting that there will be a few posts to come centered around the normal moans and groans of twenty-something newly-wed.

So now I have explained the name of my blog - but fret not there will most definitely be other posts besides those falling in the "whine" or "dine" categories. My sole purpose of this blog is an attempt to let friends and family that I don't get to see on a regular basis get a glimpse of what's going on in my life - because I am absolutely HORRIBLE at calling people (its nothing personal I just suck).

Okay, I think this was sufficient enough for a first timer. I've got to get started on dinner before Wheel of Fortune starts (yes embarassingly enough I'm an old lady and watch that show every night). I'll be blogging about the dinner later this week as long as it comes out yummy.

Please leave a comment to let me know how I did and/or if you have any tips.