Good Morning

I love mornings. I love mornings because it means the start of a new day, free of anything bad that may have happened the day before. I love mornings because I am most productive when the sun is out. When I wake up early I get the most done. I love mornings because it gives me time to myself. Most people don't like the morning as much as I do, so they sleep right through it. I hate sleeping through the morning because that means missing my most favorite part of the day. Breakfast. Breakfast is the best part of mornings and my favorite kind of food. 

{Good Morning Beautiful}

If you know me well you know how much I love the morning. On a good morning when I have extra time before class or anything else, my routine usually consists of waking up, making a cup of coffee, making breakfast, blogging or reading blogs, some time with the big man upstairs, and if I really have time, I try to squeeze in a little Kathy Lee and Hoda. 

mornings aren't complete without a cup of coffee

blogging is best when it takes place in the morning

a big bowl of warm oatmeal is the perfect addition to my morning

Good morning friends! I hope you love them as much as me!

Annie

Shake It Up

My creativity and inspiration when it comes to my blog have been pretty non-existitant recently. I am struggling to come up with new posts that I think will be interesting to readers and myself. 

I need to shake things up a bit and get my creative juices flowing again. I turned to Pinterest, tumblrs, and other blogs to try and spur my inspiration. Here's to hoping this helps...

{Bites of Inspiration}

images via my pinterest

xo annie

Bites of My Life

Last week officially felt like fall. It was so chilly everyday, but I loved it! I love this time of year! I listened to christmas music the majority of the time I was studying for my test, and even watched Elf last week.

After getting through a test, I had a little rest time to celebrate good friends birthdays, eat lots of chili, and watch some of my best friends get initiated into my sorority! Here's a little recap of my week.

-Two of my best friends and I serving up our sorority's chili in a chili cook-off. We didn't win, but we ran out in about 30 minutes, so I think that's a good sign.

-I think it's known that I am a cheese lover. Especially a fancy cheese lover. My friends and I have all been about the "cheese" cakes to celebrate with instead of birthday cakes. 

-I had the pleasure of hanging out with these 85 girls as their New Member Chair over the past 9 weeks. They are no longer new members, but now official members! I couldn't be more excited for them!

-A group of friends and I ended the weekend right last night with a little cookout! The boys provided the burgers and I made this yummy corn, avocado and tomato salad to accompany them, recipe here. We then sat around the fire while I proceeded to eat way too many roasted marshmallow. 

xo annie

Layered Hummus Dip

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, when we got to Fort Worth last Thursday, my sweet friend's mom was eager to get us whatever we needed and even fixed us this yummy snack! We had worked up an appetite after our little road trip!

It's basically a mediterranean layer dip, and you can really use whatever you have on hand. This one used hummus, chopped artichoke hearts and tomatoes, toasted pine nuts and tabbouleh.

Layered Hummus Dip
serves a crowd (embarrassingly, the 5 of us scarfed the whole thing down)

Ingredients:
10 oz container of your favorite hummus (this is mine)
Store bought or leftover homemade tabbouleh
4-5 artichoke hearts, chopped
1/3 cup cherry tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

Directions:
Toast your pine nuts over medium-low heat on the stove (watch them carefully, they toast quick). Spread the hummus evenly along the bottom of a pie pan. Distribute artichokes over the hummus. Top with an even layer of your tabbouleh. Lastly sprinkle your tomatoes and pine nuts over the top.

Serve with crackers or pita chips!

I also mentioned last week how I got a huge shipment of hummus sent to me...well a few weeks ago, Eat Well Embrace Life Hummus contacted me seeing if I would be interested in being a brand ambassador for their company. You're saying I get to eat and promote hummus? I'm in!

Basically I just get to talk about their yummy hummus a lot and use it in some of my recipes. This layered dip would be perfect to use EWEL's hummus! I'd suggest using their white bean, classic, roasted garlic or roasted pine nut flavor in making this dish! 

You can find EWEL hummus in most specialty grocery stores (If you're from around here check Sprouts!). If you are trying it for the first time, I suggest the spicy black bean or yellow lentil flavor. They are my favorites. EWEL prides themselves on using beans other than chickpeas to make their hummus. They also just came out with a line using greek yogurt which makes the product contain half the fat than regular hummus!

Annie

Bites of My Life

Usually, my "bites" posts are pictures from the past week, but this time they are only from the weekend. Only because it was the best weekend ever. Last week we were basically just trying to survive until the weekend.

Unfortunately, the weekend is now over and I have post-OU/Texas depression. Thursday all my best girlfriends and I stayed at a friend's house in Fort Worth and had an amazing mexican dinner at Joe T Garcia's. We woke up the next morning and did a big breakfast and a little shopping! Then it was off to Dallas to really start the festivities! Friday and Saturday were action-packed. Despite losing the game, the weekend still seemed like a win win. The road trip, 10 girls in a hotel room, a 7 a.m. wake-up call for a football game, fried fair food, and an exhausted Sunday was all worth it!

-Before our Mexican feast on Thursday, my friend's mom made us a little layered hummus dip snack! It was so good, I'm thinking a quick recipe post sometime this week.
-The cutest little chair I found in Anthropologie. If only it was for sale.
-The best weekend, with the best friends.
-6th row seats don't make for a bad view.
-Best part of the weekend easily could have been my Fletcher's corn dog at 10 a.m.
-After the game loss I needed a little pick me up. I had the friend pumpkin pie last year and have been holding out for it since. It is pumpkin pie filling sandwiched between two gingersnaps then deep-fried and served with whipped cream!
-The most unusual fried food we saw at the fair was the Cool Ranch Dorito Fried Pizza. So of course we tried it. It's just what it sounds like. A piece of pepperoni pizza is battered in crushed-up cool ranch Doritos then fried and served with a spicy ranch drizzled over it. Not lying, it was so good!
-After the best weekend I had the joy of coming home to study all Sunday night for a midterm I have on Tuesday. A little Panera and Christmas music eased the pain a bit.

xo annie

p.s. Happy 21st birthday to my freshman roommate and one of my best friends! Love you Claire!