 Look out world - your girl has officially joined the Apple watch universe. 😅 Even as I type those words, there's something that frightens me about this process. Do I really need to know how many steps I take around my kitchen island in an afternoon, how many times I go up and down the basement steps to get more butter in a day or how high my heart rate spikes while I'm decorating a cake? ❤️ All good information of course, but after living in oblivion for more than 50 years, I was hesitant to jump on the Apple watch bandwagon. I've been a watch owner for one week and I find myself monitoring all kinds things that never mattered to me before. 🤣 A week ago, I had never even considered the total number of miles that I walk in a day or the number of hours that I stood throughout the day. But, now I find myself not wanting to go to bed until I've reached my "goals" for the day. I sure hope that I'm not the only person walking circles around the dining room table to finish the last two tenths of a mile of an outdoor walk. 🚶🏻♀️😅
I'm fairly certain that the intent of Apple was to promote healthier, more active lifestyles with this unique device that tracks heart rate and activity levels. Ummm, I think it's had a reverse effect on me. 😂 When I hit 15,000 steps - I feel accomplished and I reward myself with a cookie.🍪 When I reach the 25,000 step mark - I celebrate with a glass of wine. 🍷🤣 You see where I'm going with this, don't you? The more I move, the more I intake. 🤦🏻♀️ I need the app that reminds me to not snack on sugary treats after a workout. 😂  I'm not sure that there's much credibility to my theory that my over zealous snacking this week is directly related to the increased activity because of this new watch. But, if you think about, my watch is making me more active which has given me an increased appetite so maybe it really is to blame for my cookie cravings. 🤣 The truth is, even though I want to blame Apple, I crave chocolate chip cookies on a regular basis. 🍪 They really are the perfect little dessert. My chocolate chip cookie recipe is constantly evolving and changing. I continue to tweak it to make it even better every time that I make it. These triple chocolate chip cookies are one of my newest creations. Combining white chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate is a great way to boost the flavor profile of a chocolate chip cookie.  Triple Chocolate Chunk Cookies 2 1/4 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup brown sugar 12 Tablespoons butter, melted 1/2 cup sugar 2 eggs 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla 4 ounces white chocolate 4 ounces milk chocolate 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
 Thanks to my morning workout and walk - I've met my activity and my exercise goals for the day. Time to celebrate with a Triple Chocolate Chunk Cookie!!
Ciao!
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 I gave my family a pass. A pass to NOT get me a birthday cake this year.🎂 Birthday cakes, cupcakes and cookies are as common in my kitchen as white rice or bananas in a most homes. 🍎🍌🤣 Most years, If I'm being honest, the thought of another cake isn't how I want to celebrate my birthday anyway. 😬 In past years, my sweet husband has gone to great lengths to get me a sweet birthday treat that I don't make for clients on a regular basis - which is no easy task. But this year, I decided to make my own birthday treat.  Roughly 2 decades ago, we lived in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and it was there that my love affair with raspberry pie began. We lived close to the most amazing raspberry farm that sold freshly picked fruit and slices of the most incredible raspberry pie. Some of my fondest memories of our years spent in Pennsylvania, occurred while sitting around tiny cast iron tables, on a vine covered terrace eating homemade raspberry pie at this farm with my family. 🥧 This is also where I learned that kids eat raspberries like they eat they eat ice cream. 🤣🍦 #raspberrieseverywhere  There are things that I don't miss about Pennsylvania - our drafty house, shoveling snow and closed bridges. But, leaving Pennsylvania also meant saying goodbye to our sweet friends, our neighbors and this amazing pie. Apparently I wasn't shy about sharing my feelings about this raspberry pie with my family because my better half actually arranged to have one shipped and delivered to me for my birthday a few years ago. This year, I'm taking the burden off of my family and making my own raspberry pie for my birthday. This might just be the only day all year that I make a dessert specifically for myself. And I couldn't think of anything that I'd like more than a slice of homemade raspberry pie.  Raspberry Pie 1 recipe for double crust pie 4 cups fresh raspberries 5 Tablespoons cornstarch 1 cup granulated sugar 1 pinch salt 3 Tablespoons lemon juice 1 egg 1 Tablespoon water 3 Tablespoons coarse sugar
 Dust with sugar and bake 10 minutes at 400. Reduce heat to 375 and bake 35-45 more minutes. Cheers to another year! Thanks for hanging out with me once again blog friends.
Ciao!  I've told my story on the blog before so at the risk of being redundant - I will do my best to summarize concisely. I met my soul mate when I was 10. We went on our first date when we were 15 and we made the commitment to spend our lives together at the ripe old age of 22. 💒 Of course, we had it all figured out - in a way that only 2 young twenty somethings could. 😅 We had it so together, in fact, that me moved across the country and welcomed our first baby before we reached the age of 24.👶🏻 😂 I definitely feel like we grew up together in a way that a lot of couples don't get to experience. I will only speak for myself when I say that I've changed and grown and evolved into the person that I am today - as a result of having this incredible person in my life for the last 40 years. If you're privileged enough to know him, you know that he's got a heart of gold and loves with reckless abandon. #toknowhimistolovehim
He's my complete opposite in so many ways and yet I still have no doubt that he's the perfect person to spend my life with. If you're an enneagram person - he's a 7 and I'm a 1. Basically, he's the optimistic, find the fun in every situation, life of the party kind of guy. I'm the perfectionist, planner, introverted, organizer extraordinaire. We're different. VERY different. One of us is a land lover who enjoys anything with water. The other likes to have his head in the clouds.✈️ For years, my better half has worked towards earning his IFR certification. Those of you in the flying world, already know what that means - and for the rest of the population who doesn't understand airplane lingo (including me) - this means that my favorite pilot can now have his head (and airplane) in the clouds. ☁️  So many sacrifices, study sessions, test flights and prayers went into achieving this monumental goal. This was an achievement worthy of celebration. And in this house - we celebrate all major accomplishments the way that everyone should - with dessert. 🎂 And my family's celebration dessert of choice is unquestionably - chocolate cake.
Classic Chocolate Cake Cake 6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped 3/4 cup hot water 1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons cocoa 2 1/2 cups + 2 Tablespoons sugar 2 1/2 cups + 2 Tablespoons flour 1 3/4 teaspoons baking soda 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 1/2 cups buttermilk 3 teaspoons vanilla 6 eggs + 3 egg yolks 18 Tablespoons butter, softened Frosting 1 1/2 pounds semisweet chocolate 12 Tablespoons butter 1/2 cup sugar 3 Tablespoons corn syrup 3 teaspoons vanilla 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 3/4 cups heavy cream
 Bake 28-30 minutes at 350.
   Enough said. 😅
Ciao!  Spending an afternoon in the mountains is good for my soul. And last weekend, the weather in the North Georgia Mountains was perfect, the food was amazing, the wine was delicious, the horseback riding made me feel like a full fledged cowgirl and I got to do it all with some of my favorites. 🏇🏻 💙
 We headed up towards the Tennessee border for the day and normally all of my meals are very well thought out and planned. The meals that I make at home AND the meals that we eat out. (My other type A personalities will be able to relate.🤣) But, in a moment of rare spontaneity, I decided that we should head towards this new town and just "wing it", as they say, for lunch. What I didn't realize was that my moment of spontaneity coincided with Mother's Day which is THEE most popular day of the year for restaurants. 🤦🏻♀️ We tried several restaurants but they were all serving a buffet style brunch and I'm just not a buffet person - for reasons that I won't go into right now.😅 Needless to say, our lunch options were limited. After 3 failed restaurant attempts, we accidentally ended up at a BBQ place on the side of the road that had some incredible smoked meat options. We ordered our lunch, drove to a local winery and enjoyed it on the terrace of the most beautiful little winery with a glass of wine. 🍷  BBQ might seem like an odd choice for a girl who doesn't eat beef or pork but this place had some of the best smoked chicken that I've ever tasted. I don't know how they got all that smoky flavor infused into the meat without drying it out but whatever they were doing to those chickens in that little shack in the side of the road was nothing short of amazing. 🤣 I won't even compare my roasted chicken wings to the smoked chicken that I had from Tomlins because they're vastly different. Both good. Just different. My Roasted Chicken Wings are ridiculously simple to make. They only have 4 ingredients - all of which you probably have on hand right now. These wings are perfect for parties or just a Tuesday night dinner.  Roasted Chicken Wings 4 pounds chicken wings 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil 1 Tablespoon salt 1 teaspoon pepper
 Transfer wings to a platter.  Brush with reduced juices, transfer to platter and serve.  You'll get no judgement from me on how you enjoy your chicken wings. Drench them in your favorite sauce, dip them into a simple ranch dressing or sprinkle them with your favorite seasonings. I eat mine plain with a knife and fork - don't judge me. I've got weird chicken bone quirks. 😂
Ciao!  My husband is super photogenic and he looks good in every picture - no matter the lighting or the background. Yeah, I'm not one of those people. 😐 This is what happened last weekend when we tried to take a nice photograph while we were all dressed up for a wedding...
Truth be told, I'm actually thankful for ALL the pictures from the weekends events - the couple of good ones and the ridiculous number of bad ones too. I had good reason to be making those silly faces and laughing hysterically in those photographs. Over the course of last weekends events, four different people used the word "young" to describe my handsome husband. There's no question that he's young and handsome but I can't deny the fact that it stung a little each time he was singled out at the "young looking" one in the Davis family. 😆 Hence the ludicrous faces. 🤣
No doubt that this handsome guy beside me is, very young looking but, those of us who have the privilege of doing life with him know that his heart is really his best trait. He loves big and he loves his people well.  Unlike my young looking, photogenic husband, I'm much more comfortable being behind than camera than in front of it. 📷 I'll stick to what I'm good at - photographing food. 😂 This golden hued bourbon chicken in a light, sesame soy sauce is not only super photogenic but incredibly flavorful and delicious as well. I chose to serve mine with white basmati rice but a long grain brown rice would be a nice compliment to this dish as well.  Bourbon Chicken 1/2 cup soy sauce 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup water 2 Tablespoons bourbon 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil 1/2 teaspoon pepper 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1" pieces 2 Tablespoons cornstarch 2 Tablespoons oil 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh ginger, grated 2 teaspoons cider vinegar
 Serve with rice.
Ciao! |
