(Semi) Homemade Cooking with Alliecakes

Ya’ll (I know I’m from Jersey but when I blog, I always want to say ya’ll so I’m gonna do it.. I’m just wild like that!) I have a new obsession and I need to share it with you, my lovely bloginis.

I’m totally obsessed with pizza making and I do not foresee this new obsession disappearing anytime soon!

BUT, I’m really not the suzy homemaker type so I don’t really do the totally “homemade” route… more like “semi-homemade” because well, I AM making it in my HOME so it’s at least part homemade! (at least that is MY take on the situation)   So, yes, I cheat and I buy fresh dough from the store (ok, and canned sauce) but the fun part is getting to put it all together yourself.  Here’s a shot from when Lovey & I made pizzas on Valentine’s Day.

The pizza on the left is mine – whole wheat dough, Bertolli’s vodka (!) sauce, fresh mozzerella & a little shredded mozzerella too.

Lovey’s is on the right with white dough, marinara sauce, shredded mozzerella and pepperoni!  They were delicious.

On Friday night, I decided I wanted to get a little more creative and made a BBQ Chicken Pizza and a Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Like I mentioned before I am ALL about shortcuts so I bought a rotisserie chicken at the store to use for the chicken and I loved how it worked on the pizza (I know ya’ll are loving my shortcuts haha, I could totally take over that show on the Food Network Semi-Homemade cooking w/ whatsherface)  Back to the pizzas, I was trying to make them as close to my favorite pizza place in Myrtle Beach as possible (Ultimate California Pizza – if you go to Myrtle Beach, you HAVE to go there!)

For the BBQ Chicken pizza, I used Kraft Thick & Spicy Honey Barbeque Sauce, shredded chicken, Shredded Reduced Fat Mozzerella and Shredded Monterey Jack Cheese on whole wheat pizza dough.  It was bangin, if I do say so myself.

For the buffalo chicken – this needs some more perfecting.  Lovey was worried about it being too spicy so for the sauce I  combined hot sauce (Frank’s) with Ranch dressing, which on its own tasted spicy but ended up really drying out when it was cooked.  I also tossed the chicken in the same sauce.  But again, it didn’t come out spicy enough!  So next time, I am going to try using ranch as the sauce and then making the chicken spicy with just hot sauce!  And see how that works out.  I also used a combination of mozzerella & monteray jack cheese which worked perfect.  It still came out good but next time, I’m determined to get it right!

No pictures to show for the chicken pizza’s though!

In other news, this weekend was SO fun and much needed after last week!

I went bowling with My Love & some of his friends last night and it was a blast.  I drank like 4 beers though and paid for it today.  I couldn’t believe it, I was kinda hungover today.  Really?  Ah, I guess that’s what happens when you’re almost 26, just can’t hang like I used to!

Oh and I saved the best for last…. I got the internship I interviewed for on Thursday! Woot!  It is EXACTLY the kind of experience I was looking for and I couldn’t be happier!

Anyways, happy Monday bloginis!  Got a long day ahead of me but I’m ready to take it on.

Make me smile and share your weekend with me in the comments.

Shine on.

I may disappear often from my little corner of the interwebs, but I always seem to find my way back eventually.

I truly love blogging and I miss it.  I still try to keep up with reading my favorite blogs but when you write pages upon pages of papers for school, the urge to write doesn’t sound quite as appealing as it once did.

This week has been stressful.  The last time I wrote, I talked about handling the stress of life and school so well that it was freaking me out.  And that continued for awhile but it seemed to catch up to me this week.  You see, I’m a perfectionist by nature… however, when you are taking 4 graduate classes, a 20 hour/week internship and a 10 hour/week field placement, you find yourself spread so thin that you can’t commit to any one thing 100%.  Therefore, the two papers I wrote last night only got 75% of me.  During work, I’m usually 80% there and 20% thinking of the other million things on my to-do list.  And I’m tired, guys.  Like really tired.

Did you notice I changed my blog name to “Hello, Sunshine”?  You must be thinking, “who is this girl kidding, this post isn’t  very happy and sunshine-like!”

I know!  But the new name was inspired by the desire to find the positive in everything in life.  It isn’t easy but it’s probably one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned since August.  After meeting so many people in my program who are so negative, I made a promise to myself to work to be positive.  I know its not exactly easy to stay positive especially given the amount of responsibilities and stress that are on all of us as we move through this program but I’ve learned that to change your way of thinking can make a world of difference.  I’ve even received compliments from people in my program and my supervisors about always having a smile on my face and spreading positivity.

But realistically, on the inside, I can’t always be happy.  It’s still a process learning how to deal with things when the going gets tough.  And although I’m stressed and some things in life aren’t fantastic, it could be much worse.  But finding the rays of sunshine, even on cloudy days, that’s what I’m all about.

It’s funny because at first, I didn’t know where to begin with this post.  I almost felt like I had nothing to say but now that I’ve started typing… well, it feels like I’m talking to an old friend.  And that, feels pretty amazing.

It reminds me of earlier today in my counseling class when we had to participate in mock counseling sessions.  I was in a group of three and we each took turns being the counselor, the client and the observer.  I was stressed out about what I should share when it was my turn to be the client but ultimately decided that the anxiety I was feeling deserved to be talked about.  Well, let me tell you… apparently, I’ve been keeping things bottled up these days because man, did I chatter my (mock) counselor’s ear off!  But in the end, it felt so good to get it off my chest.  I didn’t realize how much I needed to say out loud the things I’d been feeling.

Just like right now, it feels oh so good to write.

I don’t want to promise to blog consistently again because I really don’t know that I could keep that promise but damn, I missed this.  And so, I guess that’s my sunshine for the day, finding my way back to this space, realizing I have things to say and catching up with an old “friend” aka the amazing blog community, whether or not anyone is actually still reading.

p.s. I have an interview for a summer internship tomorrow so if you could send some positive vibes into the Universe for me, that’d be awesome!