New Season, New Flowers!

Another season at the Trenton Thunder brings new Monday Morning Flowers arrangements to ARM & HAMMER Park. For those that didn't follow my blog last season, we receive arrangements from Monday Morning Flowers for the women's bathrooms at the ballpark. They always do a wonderful job and give our fans beautiful and unique arrangements to enjoy each homestand.

April 11-14:

The arrangements we received on Opening Night for the first homestand were the perfect way to kick off our 20th Season. They were simple and elegant and of course featured Thunder colors! 

April 15-17:

The arrangements for the second series are bold and beautiful with fun, bright colors! 

April 26-28:

I love bird of paradise flowers, I find them elegant and beautiful. With a bird of paradise as the center, these arrangements are gorgeous paired with pussy willows, a tall lily and shorter yellow flowers. 

April 29-May 2:

The final April arrangement and also the first May were a beautiful collection of purple, white and orange flowers. 

May 6-8:

These new arrangements are absolutely breathtaking. They combine the rich colors of purple and yellow and have a little silver flare with rhinestones and silver painted pussy willows. Our fans are sure to love these arrangements this homestand. 

May 9-12:

These bright pink and yellow flowers were the perfect way to celebrate Mother's Day at the ballpark! I especially loved the silver embellishments that you can see in the up close picture. They were so elegant and beautiful. 

May 17-19:

I'm obsessed with the beautiful purple and yellow colors and loving the little birds. What a fun touch!

May 28-30:

These beautiful, colorful arrangements were the perfect last May flowers and send off from Spring to Summer. 

June 7-9:

Just as the last May arrangements were the perfect finale to Spring, these tropical arrangements were the perfect kick-off to Summer! The large tropical leaves, bamboo and bright orange and pink remind me of a paradise island. 

June 11-13:

These arrangements were very unique. They were almost like mini trees with fun polka-dot green ribbon on them. They also had fun bases with pretty purple flowers. 

BONUS:

As a farewell gift to one of our employees on her last day, we wanted to send her off with something she could plant at home. Monday Morning Flowers did an amazing job on this huge basket of beautiful hydrangeas with a fern and fun butterflies! 

June 21-23:

Sunflowers are the perfect way to make fans smile. These bright yellow arrangements were complete with butterflies and yellow ribbon.  

June 24-26:

These tall lime green felt tree branches, orange butterflies and bright purple and blue flowers were super fun.

July 4-8:

Since we had a rare 5 game series, we actually got two arrangements during 4th of July weekend. The first were beautiful white roses with silver bamboo and floral accents. The second were breathtaking bright flowers with fun, bright purple polka dot ribbon! 

Stay tuned for more awesome arrangements as the 20th Season continues...

My Food Idols

Do you ever feel connected to certain characters in movies or on tv? I often do, usually when someone has respectable eating habits. Anyone who knows me, knows I like to eat. Below are the characters I most relate to, pretty much because their my idols for their eating habits.

First up, Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation. There's no question Ron Swanson likes to eat, mainly meat.

His most famous line is probably:




While that's the most famous, I have a few other favorites.







And my new favorite:

The complete quote for this one is (off my memory so may not be word for word):
Ron "I'll have a number 8."
Waiter "That's a party platter. It serves 12 people."
Ron "I know what I'm about son."

When the food is delivered:
Waiter "And a number 8."
Ron "Alright, party time."
Leslie "You should watch him eat it, he's got it down to 4 minutes flat."

Then Ron hands the waiter his lettuce and tomato and says:
Ron "I won't be needing these"


There are so many more but these are a few highlights to prove the awesomeness of Ron's eating habits.

Next up, Joey Tribbiani from Friends. Joey is most famous for his love of sandwiches, but he just loves food in general. Below are some of Joey's food highlights.

When Joey is on a date, taking some of his food is a deal breaker. "Joey doesn't share food!"


Joey doesn't question people eating food off the ground, instead he pulls a fork out of his pocket and says "What are we having?"




When Rachel made this trifle, Joey actually liked it. "Custard, good, jam, good, beef, gooood."

http://pinterest.com/pin/198721402277354864/


Friends has the best Thanksgiving episodes, usually because they involve eating. The clip below is from one of my all time favorite episodes. I love that Joey eats an entire turkey, but also that he snacks before and wants pie after. And he understands jeans aren't the best eating pants.



Joey's love for pizza. He gets sad when pizza is ordered without him. And the Joey special? Two pizzas.




There are so many more, but let's just say Joey is my idol.

Just so it's not all about guys, there are two ladies that have my heart when it comes to eating habits, Loreli and Rory Gilmore from a favorite show of mine, Gilmore Girls. Not only do I love the way they eat, I love their addiction to coffee as well.




Lettuce essence satisfies vegetable requirements for the week.




On eating four Thanksgiving dinners in one day:

Lorelai: Rory what are we if not the world's champion eaters?
Rory: It's too much food.
Lorelai: It's not too much food. This is what we've been training for our whole lives. This is our destiny, this is our finest hour.
Rory: Or final hour.

They end up skipping rolls and then pull a "Joey" by asking for rolls at the end. Never too full for rolls!

It's been a while since I've watched Gilmore Girls, I know there are a lot of other good examples, their eating habits are featured in every episode. I'll update soon with more.

Stay tuned...

Happy St. Patrick's Day Weekend!

Where does the time go? This is definitely the busiest time of year for a girl working in baseball. So much to do to get ready for the season! I didn't find the time to do a St. Patrick's Day challenge this year. Hope everyone had a great holiday! I definitely had fun celebrating at XfinityLive in Philadelphia.

Trader Joe's Checklist

In my first blog post of 2013, I mentioned that I wanted to start making more trips to Trader Joe's and try as many Trader Joe's products as I can. I've been three times so far and I am going to try and write down everything I remember buying from there. Each time I go, I want to purchase new and different things without repeating for the most part! Of course if I really like something, I may repeat. This first one won't be exact because I may not remember everything from my first two trips which were in May and December of last year.

Dark Chocolate Edamame: If you love edamame beans as much as I do, these are the perfect mix of sweet and salty and they make a great snack.

Dark chocolate covered Blueberries: These are just as tasty as the edamame ones but more just a sweet flavor as opposed to salty/sweet.

Fruit Leathers: I bought some of each flavor. These are unsweetened natural dried fruit bars with no added sugar. They come in a variety of flavors including apricot, boysenberry, raspberry and strawberry. They're like a healthy version of a fruit roll-up. I love them.

Freshly shaved Parmesan, Romano and Asiago cheese: I bought this cheese to top a meatball sub but was able to use it for so much more including on top of a burger, to make grilled cheese, and sprinkled on top of tomato soup. The mix of 3 cheeses gives a unique flavor for anything you would put just Parmesan on.

Smoked Gouda Sliced Cheese: Smoked Gouda is my favorite cheese but it's rare to find it in sandwich slices. This has been a great addition to my normal turkey sandwiches as well as was great on top of a burger.

Fresh Lean Burgers: I did add a chipotle rub to them but these were still some of the best burgers I've ever had at home.

Multi-grain Crackers: These crackers are sweet and pair well with an earthy cheese as well as laughing cow swiss spreadables. I think they'd taste great with peanut butter as well.

Bacon-Wrapped Scallops with brown sugar: I knew I was going to love these. It's my third favorite food wrapped around my second favorite food. I wasn't a hundred percent sure about frozen ones but they turned out great.

Salted yellow tortilla chips: These were delicious and just the right amount of saltiness for tortilla chips.

Cooked Natural Applewood bacon: This bacon is delicious and super easy because it's already cooked. Just pop it in the microwave and enjoy.

Frozen artichoke hearts: Haven't eaten yet.

Herb roasted sliced turkey: This turkey was fantastic. It had such delicious herb flavors and paired well with the smoked gouda.

Ready to eat edamame: Haven't eaten yet.

Roasted garlic marinara: This was one of the best marinara sauces I've ever had. I tried it on a meatball sub as well as on pumpkin ganache and it tasted fantastic on both.

Hearts of Palm: Haven't eaten yet.

Tomato Basil Pasta Sauce: Haven't eaten yet.

Hummus Kalamata: I love olives and hummus, put them together and I'm sold.

Mild Red Salsa: This was quite tasty and went well with the salted yellow tortilla chips.

Original Hummus: Trader Joe's has a reputation for making some of the best hummus out there and while they have lots of flavor choices including the kalamata one I mentioned above, their original really shows the true quality of taste in their hummus.

Organic Virgin Coconut Oil: I've found multiple lists on Pinterest for things you can do with coconut oil. I look forward to trying them.

Frozen Breakfast Burrito: Haven't eaten yet.

Tofu Firm Organic: Haven't eaten yet.

Lip Balm Virtuoso: This is one of my favorite lip balms I've ever tried. It comes in a 3 pack for a very affordable price. It's spearmint so it tastes great and feels great on your lips.

Candied Ginger: Haven't eaten yet.

Habenero Lime Tortillas: I made some amazing shrimp tacos with these as well as some great turkey wraps.

Mini Edamame Crackers: These were tasty and make a great snack.

Italian Truffle Cheese: This cheese was very earthy. I liked it a lot and it paired well with the multi-grain crackers.

Rye Bread with caraway seeds: I love everything about rye bread. The perfect sandwich was the herb turkey and smoked gouda on this bread. Mmmm!

Beef Rolls Dog Treats: Even Chloe enjoyed the perks of Trader Joe's shopping. Every time I gave Chloe one of these, I had to smell it first. They smelled so good, like beef jerky! Chloe seemed to enjoy them too although she seems to enjoy all dog treats.

A papaya: Fresh fruit is always tasty. I even made a fancy drink out of the hollowed out papaya.

Honey Whole Wheat: Another tasty bread choice for sandwiches.

6 Days of Hearts and Hurricanes: Summary

So due to limited funds for supplies and missing 4 days for a trip, I was unable to complete my original plan for 14 Days of Hearts and Hurricanes. Instead, I had to limit it to 6 Days of Hearts and Hurricanes. This got me 3 Valentine's Day posts and 3 Mardis Gras posts so I still found it successful.

Day 1: Valentine's Day Heart Hurricane Vase
Day 2: Mardis Gras Hibiscus Hurricane
Day 3: Valentine's Day Heart Wreath
Day 4: Mardis Gras Red Beans and Rice with New Orleans-Style Shrimp
Day 5: Valentine's Day Chocolate Indulgence Martini
Day 6: Mardis Gras Kings Cake Pops

Next up will be something St. Patrick's Day themed. Last year I did 7 Days of Shamrocks. Stay tuned...

6 Days of Hearts and Hurricanes: Day 6

For day six of my 6 Days of Hearts and Hurricanes, I attempted doing a fun twist on the famous Mardi Gras dessert by making Kings Cake Pops. I have a cake pop maker but this is actually the first time I've used it. The first batch I messed up by not spraying it with cooking spray first and I also made my "cake balls" too big so they stuck and burned a little and lost their shape, total mess! Luckily I had more dough and did things right the second time around.

Supplies Needed:

Cake pop maker

Cake pop sticks

Ingredients Needed:

Cooking spray

1 can/tube of cinnamon bun dough (I got the kind with cream cheese icing)

Yellow/Gold, Green and Purple sprinkles

Step 1: Cut up the cinnamon buns in triangles and then roll them into balls. This part is a little messy so be prepared! Make sure the balls are the right size to fit nicely into the cake pop machine. 

Step 2: Heat up the machine and spray with cooking spray. Put the balls in and cook for about 3 minutes. 

Step 3: Take the balls out to cool. Once they are cool, put them on a stick and dip them in the icing that comes with the cinnamon buns. I put the icing in the microwave for 15 seconds, felt a little long, I'd recommend 10 seconds. Next dip them in the colored sprinkles, I did different colors for each pop but you could also do all three on one pop. 

The end result turned out well for these but they were very messy to make. I think next time I want cinnamon buns, I'll probably just make them the normal way. I am excited to experiment more with cake pops though now that I've actually broken in my machine. 

6 Days of Hearts and Hurricanes: Day 5

For day five of my 6 Days of Hearts and Hurricanes, I decided to try and make this Chocolate Indulgence Martini from Tablespoon.com. Mine didn't turn out quite as well as I had hoped but it still tasted good. First of all, this drink is supposed to ooze decadence and part of the way it does that is with it's visual chocolate garnishes. I wanted to use my red martini glass for Valentine's day but the colored glass hides the chocolate drizzle on the inside of the glass as well as the cookie crumb rim. Also, I used skim milk with chocolate syrup which isn't as sweet and rich as store bought chocolate milk which the recipe calls for. One more small thing, I didn't have any vanilla vodka so I flavored some regular vodka with vanilla extract. If you follow the real recipe a little better than I did and use a clear martini glass, I think you'll be very pleased! This is the perfect dessert drink for a romantic Valentine's Day Dinner or a fun girls night.

Ingredients:

Chocolate cookie crumbs (I used crushed up mini Oreos)

Chocolate syrup for drizzling

2 oz store bought chocolate milk

1 oz vanilla vodka

1 oz cream de cocoa (I only had the clear kind, the recipe didn't specify which kind to use)

Step 1: Crush up the cookies, place chocolate syrup on a small plate and sprinkle the cookies on top. Then dip the rim of a glass in the mixture. Also drizzle some chocolate syrup on the inside of the martini glass. Stick glass in freezer while mixing up the cocktail. 

Step 2: Mix milk, vodka and cream de cocoa in a cocktail shaker over ice and pour into chilled martini glass.