Homemade Bagel

Saturday night I tried my hand at some homemade bagels. I found this recipe online and it  had excellent reviews so I gave it a try. It ended up being way easier then I had anticipated and very delicious.

 

What makes bagels different from other breads is that you boil them before you bake them. 

 These only took about an hour to make from start to finish.

 For the the recipe you can check out this link. It also gives you a tutorial for rolling them out and making them into rings.
Click Here for Bagel Recipe

This morning I also gave Pancake Souffles a try. They however did not turn out as great but they tasted like german pancakes which was pretty good.

 I added some bananas (inspiration from Brett) and a little cream cheese instead of sour cream. I would definitely do more cream cheese and probably pour the whole mixture into a skillet and pop it in the oven instead of the pancake style. 

6 egg yolks
1/3 c. buttermilk pancake mix
1/3 c. dairy sour cream
1/2 tsp. salt
6 egg whites

Beat egg yolks until thick and lemon colored. Fold in pancake mix, sour cream and salt until well blended. Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Carefully fold into yolk mixture. Drop by tablespoonfuls or more onto hot, well greased griddle until golden brown both sides. Makes 6 servings.

Week in Review

Tuesday Zach played basketball and it ended up being a tied game. Ashley and I feel like our men should have won since we got talked into giving the other team an extra point. I learned my lesson and will never succumb to peer pressure. Ashley and I were on the ball the whole time.

And that is why I don't have pictures of them playing. Score keeping is intense business.

We love pizza night. It usually ends up being our Friday dinner. And usually it is home made. Last night we had deep dish and thin crust pizza. It was so good topped off with some key lime soda.

Friday I was thoroughly inspired by forest green paired with mustard yellow. Not only was I wearing it but I thought the color combo looked great on a girl walking across campus and I think I looked pretty good next to Zach in his forest green flannel shirt. 

The Biggest House

My parents are currently taking care of what needs to be done to move out of the biggest house I have ever lived in. With all the kids moving out it is time to downsize a bit.

Even though it was the biggest house ever, it definitely had the smallest yard. 

This house is beautiful, but being the 'anti-homebody' that I am, moving has me all excited especially since I don't have to do any of the stressful hard work. 

Good luck you guys! I can't wait to see where you end up.

Fingers crossed for the one with the yard!

Montana Break

This weekend we were able to turn our 3 day weekend into a 4 and a half day weekend. As soon as class got out on Thursday we headed to lovely Montana. True, classes may have been skipped, but it was well worth the change of scenery and some family time. 

Friday we spent the day in Great Falls. After some thrift and pawn shopping we went to Chuck's for delicious Chinese food.

Don't you just love the Chinese decor with the flowery, baby blue wall paper? 

 

While we were waiting for our food this little guy came out and hung out with us for a bit. He was into the camera and seeing the pictures we were taking. I had a hard time understanding him but I don't think he spoke much english. He did know how to say "Good-Bye! Have a nice day! Thank you for coming!" because he yelled it every time some one left. It was pretty cute.

 

While we were waiting for Paige's tires to be rotated we had some native Californians tell us that we looked pretty stylish. They were right, we did look good. 

When you're an Allen how can't you?

The Best

We both enjoyed learning about our style patterns and now I know what outfits work and which ones don't so much.

I must add that Zach is one of my fashion idols and I get a lot of my ideas from him. He is such a stud.
For fashion inspiration and ideas check out the links under good reads. 

The Good

And here we are with the mastered curls! Yes, finally after all the bad hair days I had some winners and believe me, I will never go back to those too tight curls again! 

Here's to learning.

The Ugly

Have you ever had one of those days where you are looking in the mirror admiring your hair thinking you finally have achieved "the look" you have been working on all morning when you see your reflection in a classroom window and realize you so missed the boat on good hair that morning? Well that is me like every time I attempt loose curls. 

My hair is already wavy (natural hair in first pic) and so I tend to use the iron 10 min to long and end up with tight curls even after trying to brush them out. I had no idea how poorly my loose curls were looking until I saw these choice pictures. Now I know.

A Picture a Day

As of late I have been very into fashion blogs and it got me thinking about how I look. Some times I feel like I am really working an outfit, ya know? And then there are days where I hope people don't ask me if I'm feeling okay. So with the help of my lovely Zachary I got a picture of my outfit every day for a month. I did it to see what my patterns were in clothing and hair style.

This ended up being very revealing and I found out a lot about my style for better or worse. Some days worked out better than I had planned and others were complete fashion disasters. Stay tuned for the good, bad and the ugly.

Happy Valentine's Day

What a wonderful day to celebrate love! Zach gave me roses and did all the cleaning I had planned on doing after work this Saturday. I know, can you get more romantic than that? Roses and a clean home? Love it! 

We just made a weekend of it and hung out at home with pizza, a movie and our favorite T.V. shows.

I have been making everything heart shaped since Thursday, I'm sad that I have to put all the pink away now. It was like a sneak peek at spring with the pastel colors and almost 40 degree weather.

 

A little snapshot from the day our 'happily ever after' began.

Dinner in a Ball

Tonight Zach made deep fried thanksgiving dinner. He got the wonderful idea from triple Ds, 'Diners Drive-Ins and Dives'. You can check out the link for this delicious dinner idea HERE. 

 

In these balls of goodness are home made mashed potatoes, box stuffing, and leftover turkey.  We deep fried them in batter and covered them in gravy. 5 minutes later our hearts stopped.

Lovely Sunday

This Sunday was a fantastic one. We had some friends coming over for dinner so we went all out prepping for an awesome meal. Zach made amazing pulled pork sandwiches with home made coleslaw and french fries which were to die for! Then I got brave and made a sweet cherry pie. Yummy.

 

Oh yeah, and we were matching in a not so matchy, matchy way.

P.S. The Daybook is doing a THEIT gift card giveaway so if your interested in scoring 150$ for THEIT you should go check out  her blog ASAP and enter that giveaway! 

 http://tandsdaybook.blogspot.com/ 

All Time Low

Well Wednesday we hit our all time low this winter. As Zach and I left for school our computers both said it was -21 degrees outside. Later in the day we found out that with the wind chill it was -35 degrees. Brrrr.

By the time I got to class my scarf was frozen, half of the faux fur on my hood and oh yeah, my eyelashes. By the time I thawed I had black mascara running down my face.

Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed walking home in 14 degree air with the sun on my face.

T-shirt Necklace

As I was going through some of my favorite fashion blogs I happened upon this fabulous idea. The T-shirt necklace is equal parts bandanna and necklace, casual and classy, and absolutely wonderful.

I used one of Zach's old shirts he was going to get rid of to try it out.  I love pairing the gray with a bright color.

To see how it's done, as well as other cute examples, check out http://writingrainbows.blogspot.com/.