This weekend was such a blur! One instant, I’m sitting at my desk on Friday afternoon, and the next thing I know, I’m scrambling around Sunday night trying to finish up last minute tasks.
On Friday night, I had my company’s holiday party to attend. It was a pretty swanky event by my standards and I was happy to have the excuse to dress up. Mister E and I snacked on Asian chicken sliders that were out as an appetizer and later on in the evening I demolished a piece of cheesecake. There was a party going on out on the dance floor, but since I wasn’t brave enough to bust a move in front of my coworkers, we mostly hung out on the sidelines and chatted it up with other non-dancers.
On Saturday, I was going over to Mister E’s parents’ house for lunch, so I spent the morning baking up a storm in the kitchen so I would have goodies to bring over. I made another batch of Chocolate Peppermint Snow Caps as well as a batch of my Caramel Maple Peanut Butter Blossoms.
After returning back home from lunch, I got busy again in the kitchen, this time making sun-dried tomato olive tapenade and red velvet cupcakes. For the cupcakes, I used a box mix, but then tried to decorate them into Santa hats after seeing this pin on Pinterest. Mine didn’t turn out as great as the ones off of Pinterest since my strawberries weren’t perfectly shaped, but hopefully you can get the gist of what I was going for.
Oh, and this seemed to be the state of my kitchen for pretty much all day Saturday. I think I either need a larger kitchen or someone who would be willing to clean up after me in the kitchen. Or both.
Later that Saturday evening, I brought my tapenade and cupcakes over to Jennifer’s house for a holiday party she was throwing. Doesn’t she look like a true “hostess with the most-est”? This was her “debut” of her apartment that she recently moved into with her boyfriend and it was decorated so stylishly!
(photo courtesy of Jennifer)
On the table above were my tapenade and cupcakes, a Kahlua and walnut brie, corn and black bean dip, garlic dip, and pizzelles. Later on in the evening, more dishes found their way onto the table including more red velvet cupcakes, candy cane cookies, and a spinach dip. So much good food! The party was fantastic and it was great getting to mingle with new people.
On Sunday (yesterday), Mister E and I originally had plans to go into New York City to soak up some of the holiday festivities. But given how busy our weekend had been during the first half and also the fact that I had lots of work to get done in preparation of my upcoming Florida trip, we decided that it would probably be best if we skipped it. I was kind of bummed to be missing out on New York, but I think that it was the best decision for us to make.
Mister E and I took things pretty easy in the morning and watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation while sipping on coffee with eggnog biscotti and later on, the real deal itself, eggnog. The eggnog biscotti recipe came from Angela and turned out really well! The only change I made to the recipe was to omit the dried cranberries (and to use regular eggnog instead of vegan eggnog). Next time I make these, I would probably cut down the amount of nutmeg the recipe calls for since I found the nutmeg overpowered some of the other flavors going on.
After getting some tasks done and counting ourselves as being productive for the day, Mister E and I turned into lazy bums again and settled in to watch the Patriots-Broncos game (well, only one of us was truly watching the game). My fridge was looking pretty bare since I’m trying to empty it as much as possible before my trip to Florida, so we decided to do take-out for dinner to go along with the game. After a little debate, we finally settled on Corey’s Catsup and Mustard, which is really well known for their great burgers and sandwiches. We split the Pretzel Grilled Chicken Sandwhich along with an order of Spicy Cajun Fries and Spicy Sweet & Sour Chicken Wings. After working my way through half of the sandwich and fries, I only had room for one chicken wing, but boy, was everything good!
So as you can see, this weekend was a pretty indulgent one for me. Looking back on everything, I think the healthiest thing I ate all weekend was the strawberry off of a red velvet cupcake, and that’s not saying much. During the next few days, I’m hoping to clean up my diet a bit to help recover from this weekend and also prepare for next weekend which I’m sure will include just as much indulging. I envision lots of smoothies, salads, and soups this week to get back on track. But overall, I’m not too concerned since the holiday season really only comes around once a year, and I have much more important things to do rather than to stress over how many calories might be in a cookie. As much as I believe in healthy eating and its importance, there are just some things in life that it should never come ahead of.
I’m curious, does anyone else avoid the dance floor at company parties? How about the open bar?
This was my first company party where I had to worry about dancing. Honestly, I probably would have gotten out on the dance floor if the music was a little bit more on the conservative side. I just don’t think I would have been able to walk into the office today with much dignity if my manager had seen me shaking it to Sir Mix-a-Lot’s Baby Got Back. (They seriously played that song! At a club? Sure. At a company party? I don’t think so!) I guess I’m just a prude like that though.
As far as the open bar, I adhere to a two drink maximum while out. Again, it may be prudish of me, but I really do enjoy waking up the next morning without any embarrassment or hangovers.
