Blog Every Day in January Day 12: Fun Drinks for My Friend's Birthday

Today was my friend Victoria's birthday, and since one of our favorite YouTube series is You Deserve a Drink, I figured it would be fun to create some drinks with pun-y names related to Victoria. They turned out pretty good, so I figured I would share the recipes with you!

Victoria Rosé Wine Coolers

The name for this one was easy, since her name is Victoria Rose (she distinguishes her middle name because she knows someone else with the same name). As it turns out, real Rosé wine is a little out of my price range (a lot out), I just used blush wine. Pink moscato probably could have worked, too! This drink was good in concept, but wasn't the most exciting of the three. I think this could have used some more fizz and less wine. I probably won't muddle the strawberries next time, and instead keep them frozen to keep the drink cool. The chunks were a little...grotesque. Also, I used diet strawberry kiwi sparkling water, but I'm listing in the recipe to use peach seltzer because that's what I originally wanted to use but forgot to buy. Hence the diet strawberry kiwi whatever whatever.

Ingredients
-Peach seltzer water
-Frozen Strawberries
-Pink wine of your choice

Instructions
1.) Thaw your strawberries and muddle them at the bottom of your cup OR keep them frozen to use as ice cubes (choose your own adventure!)
2.) Fill your cup about 2/3 (give or take, depending on taste) with peach seltzer
3.) Fill the cup the rest of the way with wine (assuming you have accounted for space at the top so you don't...you know...spill everywhere. How drunk are you?? Jeez.)

IF IT'S YA BIRTHDAY SHAKE SOME NOISE

This drink name is a pun on a very aggressive birthday song. Nevertheless, it was SO FREAKING GOOD. I'm serious, make this. I don't have anything else to say except for YOU SHOULD MAKE THIS.

Ingredients

-2 or more scoops of Vanilla ice cream (depending how you prefer the consistency of your milkshake)
-About a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream (or more if you really love Baileys)
-Milk (JUST A SPLASH AHH)
-About 1 tbsp of Nutella (don't go too heavy on this stuff, a little goes a long way!!)

Instructions
1.) Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend them together.
2.) That's it that's the whole recipe idk what you were expecting it's a milkshake.

Schnapp-era Zinger Shots

She's a voice performance major!!! Do you get it???? GUYS I'M HILARIOUS. Anyways, this shot was RE-DONKULOUS. While I was prepping it, the entire kitchen smelled like lemons and we 100% thought it would be disgusting, but O M G IT WAS SO GOOD. And it was like stupidly easy. We also tried an alternate version, which added orange juice to bulk up the volume and make it more like a cocktail and WOW so good. Try both!!

Ingredients (for 2 shots)

-1 1/2 shots of peach schnapps

-The juice of 1 lemon

-Lemon sugar (mix the zest of 1/2 a lemon with about 1 tbsp of sugar)

-A shaker full of ice

Directions

1.) Use the squeezed out carcass of your lemon to rim the shot glasses, then dip the shot glasses in the lemon sugar. THAT'S RIGHT, YOU'RE BEING FANCY TONIGHT.

2.) Pour the peach schnapps and lemon juice into the shaker and cover it and shake it up like that Florence and the Machine song that everyone is like obsessed with.

3.) Pour the shots into the shot glasses and enjoy!

I'm pretty impressed with myself for making these up. Like I ain't no bartender, but WHATEVER. MAYBE I SHOULD BE.

...Uhh.

Make these drinks and let me know how they turned out for you! 

September in October: A Stop in Kennett Square

So this technically happened in October, but I'm recapping the whole hiatus so I'm gonna say this counts!!

Anyways, I recently completed my high school choral practicum, which is when I went into a high school once a week and taught chorus (...that may not have needed an explanation). My placement for this practicum was at Unionville High School in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania and something that I did not realize until driving up to this practicum was that Kennett Square is a beautiful town!

We (my practicum partner Heather and I) drove right past the main road on our way to practicum, and we caught a glimpse of some of the stores and eateries. The very first time we saw it, we knew we would have to have a "ditch day" (stay in school, kids) and stop into town for lunch and window shopping. Kennett Square is a lot like Haddonfield, in the way that it looks like it has some history, a lot of local business, and tons of character.

The perfect opportunity to explore Kennett Square came a couple of weeks ago. I had just had a really rough time in practicum, and was feeling really down about myself and about my teaching. Heather suggested that since the weather was so perfect that we push our ditch day a week earlier than planned to blow off some steam, since my spirits were still down by the time we left the school. It turns out that this was a fortuitous decision, since the next week it rained on our originally planned day!

We walked up and down the main road to see where we wanted to stop for lunch, and wound up walking into Byrsa Bistro, which had a pretty impressive lunch menu. I have a feeling that if we had shown up a little later in the day we would have cringed at the prices, but the lunch menu price was just right!

We browsed the menu, and weighed our options...

Already the duck flatbread had caught my eye, and Heather was feeling pretty adventurous so we both wound up getting the same meal.

We were both really excited about it, as you can see. And I think that our excitement was pretty justified...

Oh. My. God.

This flatbread was literally to DIE FOR. I WOULD DIE FOR THIS FLATBREAD. Duck? FAVE. Gorgonzola?? FAVE. Balsamic vinegar???? !!!!!! AND FIGS AHHHHH.

It was an emotional roller coaster to say the least.

Also I ate every last bite of that salad and the rosemary potatoes. Ahmazing.

When I bit into that flatbread, it was almost as though my entire day had been erased and I had a clean state to begin again. THIS FLATBREAD WAS A SPIRITUAL REBIRTH.

....sorry, that was intense.

We spent the rest of our time window shopping, which I didn't manage to get a picture of, save one thing:

Man, people really love their roosters.

We stopped into a store that sold home furnishings and I almost splurged on $30 glass tupperware. I'm a little tempted to go back one day and get it...but I resisted this time around! I did buy ten dollars worth of fancy tea bags from the tea shop, though. So delicious!

Plus, I let my good friend Miss Delaware, otherwise known among friends as Becca, know that we were in her hometown and thinking of her! She told us to stop into Talula's for dessert, which we promptly obeyed. Another great suggestion, as I wound up buying two different desserts at once.

The minute I saw that they had macarons I snatched them up. The lady asked me what flavor I wanted and I looked at her and said "Both." like..."duh". I mean business when it comes to my macarons. These are lemon basil and lemon meringue. I also bought a pear and almond tart, which was delicious for breakfast two days in a row! 

The tart was flaky and sweet, and the pear added a nice light touch while the almond gave it an awesome nutty flavor. I'm surprised that I managed to split it into two pieces and pace myself over the course of two days...because honestly, I was tempted to eat it whole. But I don't think those macarons made it through the night...I am seriously obsessed.

It was such a lovely day to take a spontaneous trip! I mean...I don't endorse skipping class to get lunch or anything (STAY IN SCHOOL, KIDS), but this was a decision that I did not regret. Sometimes you just need to decide to have a little fun! Especially when you feel that you've been emotionally attacked by disengaged high school boys that don't understand that I CAN SEE YOU ROLLING YOUR EYES IN THE SECOND ROW but THAT'S ANOTHER POST FOR ANOTHER DAY.

Deep breaths. Duck breaths. Duck bread. Duck flatbread. Yes. Duck flatbread. That is the solution to every problem.

Paint by Numbers

It's technically still Thursday on the West Coast!  I DON'T OWE YOU PEOPLE ANY EXPLANATIONS.

All summer my friends and I have been dying to go paint pottery and drink sangria.  This summer has been kind of weird and disjointed for all of us because we all had real things going on--jobs, internships, study abroad trips, and all that other good stuff.  So find a date when we could all get together and do these two things that everyone wanted to participate in was tough.  We never really found the perfect date, but we managed to fit the two events into one pottery-painting-sangria extravaganza.

All Fired Up in Collingswood has these things called "Diva Night" which is basically like a wine and cheese hour with pottery painting.  Since none of us could go to the actual scheduled Diva Night this summer, we opted to go tonight and make our own Diva Night and bring a bottle of sangria and some cheese and crackers with us.

Ahhh yess.  Pre-made sangria, ritz crackers, and sliced colby.
A feast fit for true queens.

They set us up in the party room, since we had called ahead.

Party room, indeed,

We picked out our pieces and got to work!

My friends are pretty focused painters.

I opted to paint a mug, since the last mug I painted with my friends got knocked over while I was dying of strep throat.  I also picked this cute little bowl, because I like bowls.  I don't know why...I just...I just love bowls, OKAY??

Yummyyyy

My friend Brooke always uses really cool techniques when we go to paint pottery.  This time she did this technique where you blow into some watered down paint with a straw, and it creates bubbles.  You place your item on top of the bubbles to transfer, and after they pop this is what it looks like:

Isn't that so cool??

HOOT HOOT.  Cute cute!

Naomi was skeptical about her artistic abilities, but she managed to make this adorable owl plate using a stamp!

Meredith, Amanda, and Naomi were all pleased with their finished products.  Meredith went with stamps and sponges, and Amanda got creative and did some fun color blending.

Meredith clearly has no sympathies for Tori.

Tori agonized for a really long time over what to do with hers.  She worked down to the wire!  In the end she wound up with a really awesome bowl...

Definitely worth the stress!  I think this was one of my favorite pieces from the night.

For the mug, I made it pretty similar to the one that broke.  It's not my best work, but it definitely represents my usual level of artistic talents.

I tried to do something a little more ambitious with the bowl....

I mean, I wouldn't sell it at a craft fair or anything, but I'm pretty proud of it!

After we finished up at All Fired Up, we headed back to Amanda's house for sangria night.

I made this white peach and berry sangria that was so so so delicious.  I am a sucker for white wine.  And white sangria is basically just juice.  Delish!

Amanda and her mom made some red sangria.
Very strong, and very delicious!

Tori wanted to improve my picture.

Fun squiggly wine glasses!!

h0tt1eZ

Those apple slices were deadly!!

We asked Amanda's dad to take a picture of us, and he left us with this hilariously bad photo.  Before we could even ask him to retake it, he was out the door!

He even told us that "it looked great"

We asked Amanda's mom to take another picture for us later in the night.  This one turned out much better!

Except for Meredith.

I'm at the tail end of summer, and I feel pretty good about it.  I was really productive all summer, and I spent time with friends from home and family.  I still have a few more things to look forward to, but if I had to end my summer here I would have no regrets!

Blog Every Day in July: Day 3, A Trifle for the Fourth

I love the 4th of July.  I'm not kidding.  I'm pretty sure that I like it even more than Christmas.

I think it's because it's such a relaxing holiday.  You don't have to stress out about buying people presents, and making an extravagant feast.  Although...I do love burgers and hot dogs.  And dips.  And potato salad.  It's all low key, though.  And that's the main thing.  The 4th of July is just a day to take a break and enjoy the summer heat.

(I just reread that paragraph and I sound like a nervous contestant on the Next Food Network Star.  Jeez.  You know what??  4TH OF JULY RULES.  GRILLIN'.  CHILLIN'.  'MMURRICA.)

This summer my friends Tovah and Nick are hosting their annual 4th of July party as a potluck.  And I insisted that everything that everyone brings should be patriotic.  I'm not even kidding.

I think I may have been a little aggressive...

Anyways, I decided that bringing patriotic macarons would be too complicated, and a whole cake would be too heavy, and that brownies were just...not patriotic enough.  So I opted to make one of my favorite desserts...a nice, light, patriotic trifle.

Please note: my friend Sarah sitting in the background,
texting instead of getting out of the way.  Rude.

Here's the cast of characters: some torn up angel food cake, lemon pudding, blueberries and strawberries, and whipped cream.

*whispers*art

I got pretty flexible with the recipe, since I couldn't find any that I really loved.  I'd say that my version was a combination of this recipe and this recipe.  I made the whipped cream myself because I thought it would be a nice homemade touch, and I used a box mix for the angel food cake because I couldn't find any in the bakery aisle.  I just made sure to over-bake it a bit (which wasn't hard...angel food cake is rough, man) and then I ripped it into pieces. I also opted to use lemon pudding, even though it was neither red, white, or blue.  Mainly because I forgot that lemon pudding is yellow.  I just really love lemon pudding.  IT'S YELLOW IN HONOR OF MY ASIAN HERITAGE, OKAY??  Anyways, I used jell-o lemon pudding.

Assembling the trifle is pretty simple.

First I laid down some of the pudding on the bottom, just to give the cake something to stick to (...I don't really think it was necessary.  It's not like the cake is goin' anywhere...).

...I accidentally started the next step before taking a picture.
NOBODY IS PERFECT.

Then I put some pieces of cake over top.  And as you can see, after you put the cake in you add another layer of pudding.

After that I put down the fruit.  I love me some berries....especially blueberries.  I'm obsessed with that stuff.

Then I topped it off with whipped cream, and started it all over again with the cake (as you can see by my stellar inability to photo-document a recipe step-by-step).

And then I repeated the whole process: cake, pudding, berries, whipped cream.

Uhh ignore the messy countertop.

In order to make this trifle super patriotic, I did my best to make a flag on top of the whipped cream.  I think it turned out pretty good!  I posted the recipe down below, after the jump.

I love these bowls.  I love them so much,
I want to marry them.

The best part of making this was that I had a bunch of leftover pudding and cake.  So I did my best to stretch the last of the blueberries and I scraped out a mini-dollop's worth of whipped cream, and I made some mini-trifles for me and Sarah.  Mmmmmmm.  De-lish!

Oh yeah.  This is a flag I would definitely pledge my allegiance to.

So what are your plans for the 4th of July?  Is there any food that you are looking forward to having?  Let me know in the comments!!