Weekend Snapshots

This weekend I...

1.Went frame hunting and successfully found all the sizes I want so I can build my gallery wall of travel photos. All my photos are printed and now it's a matter of hanging and arranging.

2. Dined at Nava Thai in Wheaton, MD. I had a craving for Thai food and in my opinion, I this place has the best thai food in MD. There's a dish they have called the Floating Market soup where the name derives from the floating markets stall in Bangkok. It reminds me of a spicier version of Pho but the soup's broth has hints of sweet, sour, spicy and salty. Not only is the noodle in a noodle dish important, but the key player in a noodle soup dish is the broth and this dish alone will make me keep coming back.

3. Was gifted my first Butter nail polish by my friend Mel. I absolutely love this vibrant shade of teal and must admit that I probably wouldn't have bought this myself because of the price tag for a nail polish ($14), so thank you dear!

4. Stopped by my parent's house to visit them as they just got back from vacationing from Turkey and Greece. My mom bought me this gorgeous mini bowl set from Turkey which I will definitely be using as dipping sauces. She knows my taste very, very well. Thank you Mom.

5. Restocked on some lip glosses from Revlon at the drugstore. I ran out of 'Shine city' (2nd from left), a neutral gloss that is the perfect shade to put over a matte lipstick color or if you just want to add some shine to your lips. I also love 'Pink Afterglow' (1st from left) because it gives just the right amount of berry color and high gloss to your lips. Some new products from Revlon I bought were from their Just Bitten line. It reminds me of a crayon and is a balm and lipstain in one. I bought the shades, 'Twilight' and 'Flame' but unsure about the Twilight color after applying it on my lips. The Flame, however, is a great pop of red for your lips.

6. On another unrelated note, please check out one of my outfit posts that is featured today on Refinery 29's article on "7 So-Smart Tricks For Styling Summer Shorts — The Chic Way" HERE!

How was your weekend?

An Oldie But a Goodie

Photos courtesy of Sung Shin

Shirt-Old Navy

Pants-H&M

Shoes-Jessica Simpson

Bracelet-Kenneth Jay Lane

Necklace-Alexis Bittar

Happy Friday everyone! When I first purchased this red pants, I immediately thought about pairing them with my beloved chambray shirt. I've worn this combination awhile back HERE with a red skirt and couldn't resist repeating it again with these red pants. One of the things I love to do with my wardrobe is to remix it again and again to get good use from it;) 

Trends are fun to dabble in but I always ask myself before buying if I'd be able to wear it again in several different ways.

It's supposed to be a beautiful, sunny weekend here in Washington, DC and I hope you enjoy it whatever you do. Thanks for stopping by=)

 

NomNom: Mini Cinnamon Rolls

Several weeks ago, my friend, who currently lives in Arizona emailed me saying that she would be in town and wanted to get together to catch up. She moved to Arizona as soon as we both graduated pharmacy school to take a job position there so those days where we would see each other every.single.day for 4 years turned scarce after graduation. We bounced back ideas on places to eat and I figured why not just invite her over my place (she hasn't seen it since I moved) and cook brunch for her. She was SUPER eager with this idea, go figure.

It's a personal thing when you invite a friend over to your home and cook for them. A lot of thought and love goes into prepping for the menu and obviously much love goes into what you're cooking. I wanted to do this for her because I appreciate her friendship. She's one of the most down to earth, kind, unfussy girls you'll ever meet and this was especially shown when I went to visit her in Arizona last year. 

My flight was over 2 hours delayed and I was starving by the time I had landed. Since I was in mid flight there was no way of letting her know that the first thing I wanted to do was eat something asap. When I landed, she somehow knew (smart girl, I tell ya) that I'd be hungry and greeted me with a hug and sandwich in hand. So thoughtful, right? It's always those acts of kindness from people that makes a mark on me. Always. There are several other acts of kindness that happened during my visit, but I'll leave those stories for my next recipe post.

 

I already had a savory dish in mind to make that morning (a fantastic quiche recipe coming soon) but needed something sweet to add to the menu. I made these extremely easy, moist, and magnificent mini cinnamon rolls before and decided to make these again because it just seemed to fit the part for brunch. Now, when I say easy, I'm talking about using store bought dough! Total time saver! All you have to do is brush the dough with glorious amounts of sugar and cinnamon and roll that baby up.

Roll then cut. Easy.

Bake them in mini muffin pans to help maintain the shape. Brilliant!!!

Eat immediately while warm. Immediately.

So the original recipe called for the icing to be made from maple syrup but when I tried to make the icing based off that recipe, the icing came out too watery. The consistency was way off even though I kept trying to add more sugar to it. So this time, I used Test Kitchen's recipe for cinnamon roll icing and hit the jackpot. Yea, baby.

Ingredients for rolls (Adapted from www.iowagirleats.com) Yields 14

1-8oz tube crescent roll dough
2 Tablespoons butter
cinnamon
brown sugar

For the icing (Adapted from America's Test Kitchen)
2 Tablespoons of buttermilk
2 Tablespoons cream cheese, softened
1 cup of confectioners' sugar

Procedure
1. Preheat oven according to crescent roll dough package directions. Layout half the dough (4 triangles) and pinch all the seams together. Flip over and pinch the seams on the back side together too.

2. Using a rolling pin, smooth the seams and roll the dough into a square about 1/4″ thick. Brush with half the butter, and sprinkle with as much cinnamon and brown sugar as you want. Roll into a log and cut into 8 pieces.

3. Place mini cinnamon rolls into a non-stick sprayed mini muffin tin. Repeat steps 1 and 2 with the other half of the crescent roll dough. Bake according to package directions. Cool about 5 minutes before glazing.

4. Meanwhile, whisk the cream cheese and buttermilk in a large bowl until thick and smooth (the mixture will look like cottage cheese at first). Sift the confectioners’ sugar over the mixture and whisk until a smooth glaze forms about 30 seconds.

5. Spoon the glaze evenly over the buns; serve immediately.

Simply Mint

Photos courtesy of Sung Shin

Shirt-J.Crew

Pants-H&M

Sunglasses-Chanel

Shoes-Vera Wang Lavender Label

Bracelet-Hermes

Rings-David Yurman, vintage

My favorite color right now is the ever popular spring '12 color, mint. I've been wearing these pants on a daily basis and I wanted the colored pants to shine through on today's outfit post by pairing it with the simplicity of a crisp white blouse. It's an easy look to achieve and you could interchange your shoes with a solid colored pump, but I couldn't resist adding leopard to the outfit;) 

My recent splurge was this Hermes cuff called the Collier de Chien. The band is made of a beautiful, smooth leather and the color was a no brainer because orange is the classic color of Hermes. It's classic, chic and edgy. I see this as an investment piece (it's been around since the 1940's) and I have no regrets on this purchase because it has proved to stand the test of time.

Readers, do you have an investment piece you have or would like to purchase?

Weekend Snapshots

This weekend I....

1. Woke up early to make brunch for a friend who was visiting from out of town. I made quiche, mini cinnamon rolls, and granola to eat with a yogurt parfait. It was a great time of catching up on life happenings on work, relationships and good ol' girl talk. I realized over the years that a good, quality friendship will never change even though distance becomes an issue as long as that strong foundation is there from the beginning and is maintained through the years.

2. Made a 5 layered dip to take to a bbq. I made this at the boy's place which was a mistake because he doesn't own a food processor!! Therefore his job was to mash the black beans and that was a sight to see.

3. Hiked through Great Falls since we couldn't last weekend due to the rain. It was a gorgeous day to be outside and apparently others thought so too because several people were barbequing and hiking through the park.

4. Ran some errands around College Park, MD and stopped by my favorite gyro place called Marathon Deli for lunch. It's a family owned Greek restaurant so you won't find it anywhere else and their gyros are as close as what you would find in Greece. The owner is also exceptionally nice and welcoming and is a fellow dog lover so him and I were conversing on the joys of owning a dog after lunch=)

5. Was introduced to the most expensive store bought ice cream by my friend. He has been raving about this ice-cream and how he's been wanting to try it after reading it on Serious Eats, so we finally stopped by Whole Foods (only certain grocery stores carry this brand) to buy some. Did I mention that's expensive?? It's $9.99 a PINT! But I have to admit the flavors are outrageously good. My favorite between the two was the Brambleberry Crisp. It's blackberry and blueberry jam mixed in with oat stresuel in a honey vanilla bean ice-cream. It was easily finished between the two of us.

How was your weekend?