Fall TV Dates

My bloggy BFF did a post similar to this recently, we think alike!

I'm a self-proclaimed TV junkie! Looks like I'll be busy next week with the premiere of all of my favorite shows! Here are the shows I'll start out watching, but I may weed some of them out as the season goes on:

Sunday
Boardwalk Empire (this is for C) - Sunday, Sept 25, 9/8 c
Pan Am (NEW) - Sunday, Sept 25, 10/9 c

Monday
Dancing with the Stars - Monday, Sept 19, 8/7 c
Castle - Monday, Sept 19, 10/9 c
Hawaii Five-0 - Monday, Sept 19, 10/9 c

Tuesday
Ringer (NEW) - Tuesday, Sept 13, 9/8 c

NCIS - Tuesday, Sept 20, 8/7 c

NCIS: LA - Tuesday, Sept 20, 9/8 c

Wednesday
Survivor - Wednesday, Sept 14, 8/7 c
Glee (?) - Wednesday, Sept 21, 8/7 c
Revenge (NEW) - Wednesday, Sept 21, 10/9 c

Thursday
Charlie's Angels (NEW) - Thursday, Sept 22, 8/7 c
The Mentalist (?) - Thursday, Sept 22, 10/9 c
Private Practice - Thursday, Sept 29, 10/9 c
Bones - Thursday, Nov 3, 9/8 c

Friday
Nikita - Friday, Sept 23, 8/7 c

I'm excited to give a couple of new shows a try. I'm most excited about the Charlie's Angels reboot and I hope it turns out to be good. I don't have the highest hopes for it, but I also didn't think Hawaii Five-0 would be good and it's my all-time favorite show on tv now! I was intrigued by the Revenge promos so I will give it a shot. I will most likely be cutting Glee and The Mentalist this year. Neither show kept my interest last season.

I'm disappointed that Nikita got moved to Friday nights. I hope this isn't a bad sign for the success of the show because it is one of my favorites! If you haven't watched, I highly recommend getting caught up and adding it to your list this season. It's so good!

Did you hear about the Five-0 & NCIS: LA crossover??! I for one, can't wait for that episode!

What's on your must-watch list this season?

Tuesdays at the Table (7)

I missed last week's link up with Cole for Tuesdays at the Table!

I haven't really done much in the kitchen lately so I was stumped as to what to share today. Then I remembered that a couple of you have asked me to share about the desserts I made for the dessert table at my best friend's bachelorette party.

I did most of the work the day before the party and finished up a couple of things the day of. I'm going to break each dessert down by ingredients, tasks, and timeline. I feel kind of silly doing this because everything was literally so easy, but I do hope this helps at least one person searching for dessert tables on the internet....

List of Desserts:

Chocolate Brownie Parfaits - makes 20 servings, using these mini parfait cups

Banana Pudding Parfaits - makes 20 servings

Chocolate Dipped Pretzels

White Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Cheesecake Pops

Chocolate Brownie Parfaits

1 JELLO instant chocolate pudding (the large size)

1 Betty Crocker fudge brownie mix

1 lb. Freshly chopped strawberries

1/2 tub Cool Whip

Day Before - Make your instant chocolate pudding and the brownies.  You can keep the pudding in the refrigerator until needed.  Once the brownies have cooled, break into small pieces and keep in a tupperware container.

Day Of - Chop the strawberries into small pieces. Line up your parfait cups and set up an assembly line - brownie bits, pudding, and strawberries. Put a small amount of brownie in the bottom of each cup and top with a couple tablespoons of pudding. Add a handful of the chopped strawberries. Repeat until you have 2 layers of each ingredient.

Right Before - Add cool whip to each parfait and top with a sliced strawberry.

Notes - I actually had a really hard time finding mini parfait recipes so I kind of made these up!

Banana Pudding Parfaits

1 JELLO instant vanilla pudding (the large size)

1 box Mini Nilla Wafers

2 Freshly sliced bananas

1/2 tub Cool Whip

Day Before - Make your instant vanilla pudding. You can keep the pudding in the refrigerator until needed.  

Day Of - Slice the bananas. Line up your parfait cups and set up an assembly line - broken vanilla wafers, pudding, and bananas. Put a couple of broken vanilla wafers in the bottom of each cup and top with a couple tablespoons of pudding. Add 2 banana slices. Repeat until you have 2 layers of each ingredient.

Right Before - Add cool whip to each parfait and top with a vanilla wafer.

Chocolate Dipped Pretzels

1 bag Snyder's pretzel rods

1 bag milk chocolate candy melts

1 bag white chocolate candy melts

Sprinkles or other topping

Day Before - Set up a cookie tray covered with wax paper. Sort out your pretzels, eliminating the ones that have been broken. Melt your chocolate according to the package directions (usually 1 minute in the microwave, followed by increments of 30 seconds). Quickly dip your pretzel in the melted chocolate, using a rubber spatula to distribute the chocolate on about 3/4 of the pretzel. Be sure to apply sprinkles before the chocolate cools. Set on the wax paper and allow to cool completely, about 24 hours.

Notes - These are so easy to make, and everyone loves them! I've seen etsy sellers that sell these, but why pay for it when you can do it yourself in about 5 minutes? These also look really cute packaged up in plastic treat bags and tied with ribbon. You can change the color of the chocolates/sprinkles to fit just about any theme!

White Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

1 box Duncan Hines white cake mix + Ingredients to make

1 cup butter, softened

3 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted

1 t. vanilla extract

1 to 2 T. whipping cream (I used whole milk)

Sprinkles or other decorative topping

Day Before - Make your cupcakes according to package directions. Allow to cool, then store in a tupperware container until ready to frost.  

Day Of - Make the vanilla buttercream frosting. Top each cupcake with a swirl of frosting and add sprinkles.

Notes - I was able to make 18 cupcakes and generously frost all of them using the above recipe.

Cheesecake Pops

1 store bought cheesecake

1 bag milk chocolate candy melts

1 bag white chocolate candy melts

Sprinkles or other topping

Paper straws or other stick, optional

Day Before - Make the cheesecake balls by using a melon baller. Place on a cookie tray lined with wax paper. You can use paper straws or short lollipop sticks (from Michael's) to make the ball into a pop. Place in the refrigerator until ready to dip in chocolate.

Day Of - Melt the candy melts and dip each pop individually. You will want the pops to be completely hard, otherwise they will fall apart. I found that 30 minutes to an hour in the FREEZER will help a lot. Sprinkle each pop before the chocolate cools down. Set on a tray and put back in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Notes - The cheesecake will get hard to work with once it warms up. Try to work as quickly as possible. I was able to make 30 pops from a store bought cheesecake.

Like I said, these are more like how-to's than actual recipes. I do hope that someone finds this useful though! And I promise I'm done talking about the dessert table now :)

Happy Birthday

to my Mom!

I hope you have a great day celebrating (even if you are one year older)!

Love,
Angela

Weekend Getaway

Thank goodness the weekend is finally here!

We haven't been able to fit in a trip to Carlsbad this entire summer! No fair! Luckily, we've got some timeshare points that need to be used up so we'll be heading down today after work for a much-needed weekend getaway!

MarBrisa Resort

I'm hoping to lay out a little (the high is only 70° so good thing there is a jacuzzi), ride my bike along the beaches, and eat more than my fair share of Pizza Port. What a great way to say Adios to summer!

Have a great weekend folks!

PS - Thanks for all of your sweet comments on my dessert table! It was a lot of hard work, but definitely worth the effort. I couldn't have done it without my mom & dad, who were both running around helping every way they could (my mom pretty much did every aspect of the table besides the baking)! I have the best parents :)

Thursday's Thoughts

One of my favorite things about going home involves getting to eat all of the food I miss while living in California! I drink my weight in sweet tea, eat biscuits & gravy like they're going out of style, and basically just gorge myself on one bad (but oh so good!) meal after another!

This was a short trip so I only had time for a few meals. In fact, on Sunday night I chose to have both Moe's and Zaxby's because I had run out of meal times! But to be fair, my dad did eat most of my nachos so it wasn't a complete disaster....

Breakfast at Cracker Barrel, one of my favorites!

Dinner at Jim 'N Nick's! I love the cheese biscuits and collard greens.

Dinner at Moe's and Zaxby's. I'm only slightly ashamed by this.

  

Another favorite thing is finally getting to meet my "nephew" Hunter! He is 6 months old now, and absolutely precious. I was so happy that he liked me :)

 

I'm really loving my new nails. I used a light pink OPI (not sure the name) color as the base, and added glitter to one of my nails on each hand. It's so feminine and pretty!

I hope everyone is having a great day! I love a short work week and am excited for this weekend.