2011 Favorites
30 Dec
Hello friends! If you had to work this week, yay for making it to Friday! If you were on vacation this week, boo for vacation slowly coming to a close.
First things first, be sure to check out my About Me & What I’m Reading pages. Both were updated today (About Me, minor changes; What I’m Reading, major additions)!
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First thing this morning, I headed off to a 9:15AM spin class. Afterwards, I had a few errands to run at Target & came across something very exciting – new Chobani flavors! My jaw literally dropped because I wasn’t expecting these babies to hit shelves until the New Year! I picked up two each (Chris loves the stuff too!) of the blood orange, passion fruit, & apple cinnamon flavors & I can’t wait to give them a try!
Before heading home, I picked up a yummy breakfast comprised of a grande, skinny vanilla latte with some Starbucks perfect oatmeal on the side.
After breakfast, I got set to clean. Our apartment hadn’t had a thorough cleaning in a little while, & I wanted to make sure to get everything neat & organized before returning to work on Tuesday.
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen that I got side-tracked as I was cleaning by a very unpleasant surprise… mold!
A maintenance worker from our apartment complex came to clean everything up, but needless to say I was none-to-pleased & quite grossed out!
Since the mold fiasco extended my cleaning longer than anticipated, I never got around to eating lunch. By the time 4:00PM rolled around, I figured it made more sense to just make an early dinner.
Tonight’s dinner was another new recipe, which I modified from one I found in my new Trader Joe’s cookbook.
Onion, Fig, & Gorgonzola Personal Pizza
Serves 2
Ingredients:
- 1 tbsp. butter
- Pinch of sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
- 1 box Trader Joe’s Artisan Puff Pastry (each box contains 2 pastry sheets)
- Trader Joe’s fig butter (can be omitted)
- 1 handful of dried mission figs, chopped
- Light cream cheese (about 3 tbsp.)
- Gorgonzola cheese (about 1/4 c.)
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 400*.
- Melt the butter in a medium sauté pan, & add the onions, sugar, & salt. Cook the onions on low heat for 10-15 minutes.
- Lay out the two puff pastries on a cookie sheet & fold the edges in (about 1/2 inch).
- Cover the pastries with a light layer of fig butter.
- Add the cooked onions, chopped figs, & several dollops of cream cheese.
- Bake for 18 minutes, then add the crumbled gorgonzola.
The book presents a similar recipe as an appetizer, but I found the pastry to be very crumbly (although quite delicious!) & think it would be hard to cut it into appetizer-sized bites.
I loved the flavors in this dish! The figs & cream cheese helped to balance out the very strong taste of the gorgonzola. Next time I make this, I may add some sort of chopped nut – perhaps walnuts or pecans?
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It’s been a while since I’ve done a “Friday favorites” post (you can check out my previous ones here & here), so I thought that with 2011 coming to a close, I’d compile some of my favorite posts as a fun way to look back! Enjoy. 
- My first post
- My bachelorette brunch
- My final wedding dress fitting
- How I (attempt to) save money at the grocery store
- Cheeseburger skillet pie — I love this recipe!!
- Chicken bacon mac & cheese — another awesome recipe!
- Any of my wedding posts!
What was your favorite thing about 2011? What are you looking forward to in the New Year?
Oh no!!! Mold is no good! Hope it is all taken care of! That could be so bad for your health! Glad you found it though!
It was so gross! Maintenance came and took care of it, but it’s frustrating because it’s a nice place & we pay a lot for it!
Say what???? New flavors? I heard about the Passion fruit but I had NO idea they were coming out with more. Now I am beyond excited to seek these out.
They are all fantastic!
I know! Vacation has came to a close way too quickly! I don’t even know where it went! ….Mold?!? That is no fun to clean up! Oh no! Good thing that you found it though, now it is all taken care of and gone! You’ll be glad to have a clean house when you go back to school!
I agree; I can’t believe vacation is already (almost) over!
Yuck! I’ve never had to deal with mold, but it’s good that your situation was sorted out quickly! Have a happy & healthy New Year