New Things Monday

I like to try new things and give my opinion on how I liked the product.  I do not get paid from anything I talk about.  This is just my opinion.   :)

Today, I am featuring Quest Nutrition.  I lost 73 pounds on Medifast and I am maintaining my weight.  Medifast taught me how to read labels and what foods are best to eat as snacks.  It's important to watch sugars.  You shouldn't eat any kind of snack with more than 6g of sugars.  When you start looking at labels you will see just how much sugars etc are in the packaged foods we eat. I love Nature Valley bars but they have 12 grams of sugar.  No thanks!!  Not worth it.  Anyways, I needed something I could do as a quick go to protein.  That's why I chose Quest Bars.

I went to GNC (I got harassed by an employee trying to shove GNC products down my throat.  I get that they want to tell me about their product but I knew what I wanted and I didn't want anything else.  Leave me alone).  

I purchased 4 different quest bars.  They were buy 3 get 1 free.

Cookies and Cream- OMG MY FAVORITE BY FAR.  Sooooo good.  :)  I also got my traffic girl at work hooked on this one.  I told her about it and she picked some up and now her whole family loves them.  It's really like eating a cookies and cream cookie.  Now my BFF tried it and she did not like it.  She felt it tasted fake to her.

Double Chocolate Chunk-  It was okay.  I could take it or leave it.

Chocolate Brownie-  It was okay.  I could take it or leave it.

Chocolate Peanut Butter- I didn't like this one at all.

The other day, I ordered some more bars through the Quest Nutrition website.  I found a coupon code online and got FREE shipping on my purchase.

I bought a box of 12 of the cookies & cream bars and 2 separate bars to try.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough-  My first bite, I felt like I was eating cookie dough and then it turned to blah.  I still ate it but I'm being honest and I didn't not like it by the 3rd bite.  It made me want to whip up some real cookie dough and eat that instead.  LOL

Smores-  I love this one!  It's really good.  I let my husband taste it and his first words were "It tastes like a hotel room".  Ummmm what?  He said "You know when you first walk in a hotel room and there's that distinct smell, the bar has that essence".  LOL  Is that a good thing or bad?  I don't know.  But these bars are delish!

I might have a little obsession for the Cookies and Cream.  Nate had one and he loved it too.  He said one bar is very satisfying.  Now I gotta keep him out of my stash of bars.  Or maybe I should order more so we have enough to share.  :)

Fun Saturday with the bestie

After the seed swap we took a bit of a road trip.

We stopped off at a nursery and checked it out.  The store had lots of different things from gardening to snacks, wine and garden flags.

Next up was lunch.  We stopped in at Pancho Villa's in Culpeper.  

Huge avocados at the front.  :)

I got the buffet and K ordered enchiladas.  :)

After lunch we found a really cute gardening shop and decided to look around.

Tomatoes, apples, walnuts....the shop was filled with all sorts of cute plants and gifts.

They had seed packets....

I found the cutest garden flag and I HAD to get it.  :)  It's a farmers market flag with a old pick up truck.  I also found purple beans and squash balls.  YES!!!  2 of the seed packs I've been wanting.  I picked up some sweet tom seeds too because I love them.

My flag....

We stopped at Tractor supply and found the baby chicks.  We heard them peeping from the clothing section and made our way over.  :)

After that we went to Lowe's.  K bought an AWESOME purple pot.  

After lowes we made a target trip and dollar tree.

It was a fun day!!  :)

Seed Swap 2015

I came across an event for a seed swap from Outlaw Garden.  It had been postponed from last month because of Winter weather.  I invited my BFF to go with me and she said yes.

We got to the town of Warrenton and finally found the place.  We didn't know where to park and we didn't want to get towed.  We ended up finding a lot behind the building where it seems everyone was parking in so we did too.

We signed in and I immediately went to the adorable little cupcake table.  The baker was Haute Cakes Pastry Shop.

These cupcakes caught my eyes.  They were soooo cute and matched the seed swap perfectly.  Tomatoes, carrots and lettuce fondant decorations on some of them.  I had one with lettuce and K had one with a tomato.  :)  YUM

When we got to the seed swap it was right at the start.  Not too many people or too many seeds but more seed swappers started trickling in.  We managed to each find some seeds and make some trades.

I was happy to see Marigolds.  That was on my list.  :)

There was some plants for the taking as well.

The signs on tables told you where to put seed packs you were swapping or if you were looking for certain seeds.

Seeds....

K left some butternut squash seeds.

As we were leaving I snapped this picture of the crowd.

We went to the car and I went through my seeds.  Some of my seeds spilled in my container so we cleaned that up and organized them.  

Here's the seeds I got.  Marigolds, flowers, and sweet corn.

I found some duplicate seed packs and decided to go back in and see what else was there.  While we were in the car we saw several people go in with arms full of stuff.  I had to check it out.

There was a lot more people and seeds when I went back the second time.

There was a nice man putting a bunch of seeds in packets and labeling them.

I saw the okra seeds (bottom of pic) and knew K would probably be interested in them so I grabbed her some.

Asparagus seeds!!  I got an envelope and put some in seeds in it.

A seed swapper had also brought in some yellow jubilee tomato starters.  I grabbed a pack.  :)

Here's what I got on my second trip in.  Okra, Lavender, Indian Corn and Asparagus seeds.

When I got back in car I gave K her surprise okra seeds and she liked them.  I also gave her some of my pepper, toms, and pea seeds.  She wants to start doing some gardening.  Peas are really easy so I know she can pull those off.  :)

Here's all the seed packs I got for myself.

I didn't manage to find purple beans, or zuke/squash balls that was on my list but that's okay.

Oh....the Outlaw Garden blogger put up a thank you blog and I think I might be in one of the pictures.

The Walking Dead- Carol's Cookies

This past Sunday on 'The Walking Dead', Carol baked some cookies for the welcome party at the Alexandria Safe House.

I go back to work tomorrow and thought it would be nice to bake these up and bring in "Carol's Cookies" for my Walking Dead co-workers.

The Walking Dead posted the recipe on their facebook page.

You will need:

1/4 cup applesauce

1/4 chocolate bar (1/4 cup chocolate chips)

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup shortening (or 1/4 unsalted butter)

1 cup flour

1/8 tsp salt

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1/4 tsp homemade vanilla extract

Combine shortening or butter and the sugars until fluffy.  Mix in applesauce and vanilla.  Set aside.  In a separate bowl mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt until combined.  Slowly add dry mix to the wet mix.  Let rest for 3 to 5 minutes.  While dough is resting melt your chocolate in a pot on the stove.  Once it's melted, add to the batter and mix until all is combined.  

I did manage to get 16 cookies out of the batter.  

***If you want to bake more cookies (than a dozen) you might want to double the recipe.***

Scoop dough onto greased cookie sheet and bake.

Here's a dozen cookies ready for the oven.

Bake on 350 degrees for 11 to 13 minutes.  These cookies were ready in 13 minutes for me.

They taste like a brownie.  :)

2015 Garden Update- #12

I felt like doing some gardening this morning.  I picked up some dirt yesterday while out running errands so I could start some more seeds.  :)

I put everything out on the kitchen counter and got right to it.

I had a cucumber plant that died.  :(  I went ahead and dumped it out into a bag.

I dug through the dirt checking to see if maybe...just maybe there was a survivor.  I came across one little sprout.  :)  I carefully dug him out.

I planted him in a new pot with fresh dirt.  Fingers crossed that he makes it.  :)

I also dumped out my sunflowers that didn't grow.  Last year, my sunflowers were the first to sprout so I knew something was wrong.  Nothing was found in the dirt.  I dumped the marigolds too.  They sprouted pretty quickly last year as well.  I dug through the dirt and found baby marigold sprouts.  I replanted them as well.  (I'm out of marigold seeds)  Now let's hope that they will grow up.  :)

I saved an egg carton this morning after making breakfast.  I figured I could start some herbs or tomatoes in the carton.  I used an egg crate last year and it worked pretty well for seedlings.

I cut off the top portion of the egg carton.

Here's the little egg crate ready for dirt.

I decided on 6 basil, 6 cherry tomatoes, and 6 parsley.  I had cherry tom seeds that I saved recently from some store bought toms.  I labeled the egg crate, filled with a little dirt, seeds and then some more dirt on top.  :)

I made fries last night with some potatoes.  I noticed some potatoes were sprouting so I washed them and dried them out overnight so I could plant them this morning.

I planted them each in their own pots.

Here's my pretty fabulous happy garden.  :)

Here's Marigolds, Sunflowers and Potatoes.

My egg crate of seedlings, Beef Stake Tomatoes, Carrots, Broccoli and Eggplant.  (I redid the eggplant too since I didn't have any sprouts).

In this window are my zucchinis, cucumbers and yellow squash.

This window has peas and green beans.

I also looked through my seeds.  I'm going to my first seed swap this weekend with my BFF.  I've never been to one so I can't wait to see what it's like.  Hopefully, I will be able to swap some seeds and get some seeds I don't have.  I really want to grow zucchini balls/squash balls, little zukes, little squash and some more marigolds.