Valentine's Weekend

Valentine's Weekend was so amazing and full of great memories.  As I said in my last post, the festivities started Wednesday night with a little dessert party in our apartment.  As promised, the chocolate chip blondie cookie recipe is posted below.  The Valentine's festivities continued on Thursday when my boyfriend, Ron, came to Austin so that we could our 5th Valentine's Day together.  He surprised me with two dozen red roses, a teddy bear, a balloon, a picture frame and a lot of chocolate!  We started with a little happy hour at home, and then made our way to a restaurant called Chez Zee.  This restaurant was the definition of romantic and cheesy and right up my ally.  The walls were covered in twinkle lights and heart lights, a band performed love songs in the middle of the restaurant, every table had a vase of fresh roses, and there was even a candy apple red grand piano at the entrance.  We at spinach and artichoke dip, shrimp bisque, rainbow trout and finished it off with a slice of mocha fudge cake.

The next event of the weekend was our sorority formal on Saturday night.  We enjoyed sushi and drinks at Maiko Sushi with 19 other couples, and then went to The North Door for the event.  The venue and vendors were all perfect.  There was good music, good drinks and even a candy bar where we could make our own candy goodie bag to take with us.  We all danced the night away and had a great time!

Chocolate Chip Blondie Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 bag Valentine's Day M&Ms

Directions:

1. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl.  Add this mix to the brown sugar mix. Combine the brown sugar, vanilla, eggs and butter in a large bowl.  Stir until blended.
2. Add chocolate chips! Stir.
3. Spread the mixture into a greased 9x13 baking pan.
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes (I did 20 minutes and they were still very soft).
5. Add M&Ms to the top of the blondie cookies about 5 minutes before you pull them out of the oven.
6. For best results, refrigerate for 15-20 minutes to harden.

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's that time of the year again.

The one day where it is acceptable to be cheesy and romantic, and the one day everyone simply loves each other.  Even though my friends still make fun of me, I love celebrating Valentine's Day in every way possible.  The apartment is decorated, the chocolates are set out, the desserts are made and I am sitting here in my Valentine's pajamas... I am ready.  This year, the festivities started last night when we had our friends over to our apartment for dessert and wine.  Everyone had to pair up and bring a Valentine's dessert  that they found on Pinterest.  We also asked that everyone wear their Valentine's gear, but that didn't work out so well.


Before everyone came over, a few of us spent the afternoon baking and creating.  Brenna and I chose to make chocolate chip blondies, which neither of us had ever made before.  We didn't cook them all the way through, but they still turned out pretty good, and they were even better when paired with vanilla ice cream.  The recipe is very simple, but I will post it soon.  Cara and Paige came over to bake as well.  While Paige made some adorable pretzel buttons, Cara took a stab at making red velvet crinkle cookies, and man were they good.  Probably my favorite dessert of the night. She will be posting the recipe here soon.

Chocolate chip blondies with Valentine's M&Ms

Our creations

Cara's amazing red velvet cookies

Paige's pretzel buttons

Mel's assortment of cupcakes from Polkadots

Stacy and Jess' chocolate covered pretzels

It's February 1, Do You Know What That Means?

It means it's almost Valentine's Day- the best holiday ever created.  Maybe it's because I am hopelessly in love, or maybe it's because I grew up in a house that was always drenched in pink and red for Valentine's Day, but either way, I love Valentine's Day.  As a child, the best time of year was watching my mom tear down the Hanukkah decorations, and put up the Valentine's decorations.  The rugs and hand towels were switched out for heart shaped rugs and red towels, every door knob had a heart on it, and the front of the house always had six giant tinsel hearts (one for each door, of course).  My little brother and I were always the first kids in line to buy Valentine's for our class, in fact, I still pass out those cheesy Valentine's to all of my friends.  What a fabulous tradition- props to whoever invented those.  Every year I also brought homemade cookies-on-a-stick for my classmates.  Yes, you guessed it... Sessy made giant conversation heart cookies with sayings like "HUG ME" and "YOU'RE MY BFF."

But my favorite part of Valentine's Day was not the Valentines or the teddy bears or the cookies, but instead it was a tradition that my parents started when I was little.  Each year, before I went to school, I got to unwrap a present, and inside that present was always Valentine's pajamas.  To this day, my mom still sends me Valentine's pajamas, and I always wear them- no matter how ugly they may be (sorry, mom).

It is sad being in college and not being able to go home and see all of the Valentine's decorations.  So this year I had a bright idea, and asked my mom to bring the decorations to me.  We had so much fun hanging the decorations in my apartment, and now my roommates get to live in a love shack for the next month (they are thrilled, I promise).

Anyways, hope you all are enjoying the countdown to Valentine's Day as much as I am! ♥