Black House say what??

Helloooooooooooo everyone!

How are you doing on this glorious Thursday?

I'm just peachy thank you!

I'm not really in the mood to chit chat today, but I am in the mood to post a ton of photographs of my food and such (when isn't that the case though? lol). So let's get this party started eh?

I absolutely LOVE fruity Teavana tea.....

Leave it to me to make a mess lol

All it needs is a big ol spoonful of honey and I'm good to go!!

I'm mildly obsessed with my Marcie..........

She is the love of my life after all.

Dawwwwwwww look at the wittle facceeee!!!!

She's too cute for colored tv.

Our apartment is coming together swimmingly......

Shar and I have managed to craft, paint, and construct just about every single piece of our apartment.

Down to the very last detail......

We painted this picture black, painted the B and M, put polka dot wrapping paper down on the chest, and painted the chest black as well!

All of the bottles photographed above were previously filled with alcohol....until we drank it all lol. I washed all of the bottles and peeled off their labels, sat them in our windowsill over polka dotted wrapping paper, and shar filled them with dead flowers. Sounds silly. Looks awesome.

Our air conditioner was a big fat eye sore in the middle of our living room so we decided to wrap it in wrapping paper, slapped a bow on top, and voila! That is until......

Our stupid kittens ripped it up. SIGH. Stupid cats.

Seeing as our entire apartment is just one giant creativity explosion you could see why we got antsy with our bed room. White walls. Tan carpet. White ceilings. BORING. Painting our wall was an awesome idea. I love being in my room now! I'm very proud of our wall :)

When I get ready to exercise like a crazy person I need motivation......

Whats better motivation than buying brand new work out clothes?

Well.....I suppose the outcome of having a rockin bod should be motivation enough.

But spending money on clothes that I'll only wear if I'm exercising doesn't hurt either lol.

It's like I have no other choice but to work out - or else it was a waste of money!

Am I right ladiesssss?

Lest us not forget all of my cool new gear......

Jump ropes

Resista bands

And my favorite - HOOLA HOOPS!!!!

Ok....maybe I was going a bit to far when I said "cool" new gear lol.

Can't even take a photo without Kiddy getting in the way.

Damn cats.

I've become the official unofficial photographer of the lunch specials at work.........

If you visit Olives Facebook page HERE every Tuesday through Saturday you will find pictures I've taken similar to the ones below of our wonderful lunch specials! Who makes the lunch specials you ask? My co worker/friend Lee Anne and I do! Lee Anne is the mastermind behind almost all of the specials. We take a look at what food we have on hand to play with, take weather into consideration, cook time, use of product, etc. bounce a few ideas off of each other, and voila! The lunch specials are born!

Throughout the lunch shift Lee Anne prepares all of the lunch specials for the dining room while I take care of other things. Until I'm fully confident in my lunch special making skills I'm comfortable brainstorming and coming up with ideas while Lee Anne cooks it all! I'm not even going to pretend like I'm a better cook than she is lol. We make an AWESOME team. We are the dream team in my eyes lol.

The two of us run the line by ourselves during lunch every Tuesday through Saturday so be sure to stop by and say hello to the two of us! We'd be more than happy to stop and chat with all of you about what we do! We love our job just about as much as we love food. Makes for a good work combination if you ask me.

Enjoy.......

Then our award winning pastry chef/baker Justin comes into play.......

I wish I had more pictures of Justins desserts to share with all of you!

But I think these few do him justice in one way or another....

HOLY YUM

I'm ready for work :)

Speaking of the lunch crew dream team.......

Lee Anne and I have decided to create a blog together.

I know what you're thinking "Really Jenna? A third blog? Do you really need three blogs?" My answer is. Yes. Yes I do. I am a lean mean blogging machine. I refuse to be stopped until it becomes my full time job.

Let me illustrate what my web sites entail, and why it is important for me to have three.....

First of all - Chronicles of a Curly Head is of course an informative blog about the cool ins and outs of the restaurant industry that the average person may not know about but can somewhat relate to. The average person being someone who isn't a part of the industry that is. Most likely you are one of these people. CCH is not only an informative blog but it's also a little piece of my life as well. You've been with me through culinary school, through my time at Disney, major milestones in my life, birthdays, holidays, etc. CCH is my baby for sure.

BlaqueMour is a joint blog between my roommate Shar and I. It's mainly a video/picture blog of the ongoing hilarity of our lives together in our very first apartment. It's not necessarily informative, nor is it enlightening, but it is amusing none the less.

Which brings us to my new blog!

Black House (the blog I will be starting with Lee Anne very soon) is looking to be utterly fabulous! We've been brainstorming for the past couple of days and I think the dream team in the kitchen is going to be a dream team blogging machine as well! We plan on making entertaining/easy to follow how-to cooking videos, updating our daily meals, talking heavily about our new found healthy living kick, our exercise progress, reviewing our experiences at neat restaurants in dayton, etc. In a nutshell it will be a healthy living blog that revolves around our love for food that will also highlight the awesome parts about the city we live in. Eventually we will be selling different food items/kitchen items through this blog that promise to be something really special. I'm not sure exactly what direction this blog is going to go in but I have a really good feeling about it! Lee Anne is just a barrel of laughs, she is a very smart girl, driven, and boy does she know a thing or two about food!

Be looking out in the next month or two for this new endeavor. I really hope I can count on yet again, your readership! I know three blogs seems like a lot to keep up with, but I'm not just one type of girl. I can't just have one outlet and be satisfied. They will each serve their own purpose and I'm sure an awesome career move will be the result of one of them!

And to think - I started this post saying I wasn't going to chit chat lol.

Who was I kidding? I'm a jabber jaw.

Let us begin.....

[[Today's music]]

THE POSTMARKS - GOODBYE

[[Today's restaurant]]

UNDERWATER RESTAURANT

"The first underwater restaurant of its kind in the world
Contemporary fusion maldivian cuisine with western and asian influences. The Ithaa Restaurant sits 15 feet below the waves of the Indian Ocean, surrounded by a coral reef and encased in clear acrylic, offering diners 270-degrees of panoramic underwater views. The restaurant is reached by a wooden walkway from the nearby over-water Sunset Grill Restaurant, and seats just 14 people for exclusive dining with a real difference."

Ithaa Underwater Restaurant Conrad Maldives Resort & Spa - Picture Gallery

[[Today's kitchen gadget]]

CUISINART SOFT - SERVE ICE CREAM MAKER

[[Today's food clip]]

THE TREATS TRUCK

[[Todays curly head]]

CORINNE BAILEY RAE

[[Today's recipe]]

One of my absolute favorite treats ever.....

Be careful with this one.

These little guys can be mighty addictive.

MINI SUGAR DONUT MUFFINS

::Ingredients before baking:

3/4 cups sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

(I usually use whole wheat flour, but it's whatev)

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup milk

(I usually use fat free, but once again, it's whatev)

1 tsp vanilla extract

::Ingredients after baking::

2 tablespoons melted butter (for dipping)

1/2 cup sugar (for rolling)

1 tablespoon cinnamon (for rolling)

::Directions::

--Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

--Grease muffin tin (large or small) with cooking/baking spray or oil.

--Cream sugar and egg in a large bowl until light and fluffy

-- In a small bowl mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg

--Combine the dry mixture slowly into the wet mixture until well blended (be careful not to over mix)

--Add in vegetable oil, milk, and vanilla extract to the wet & dry mixture.

--After this is well blended, pour into muffin tins- filling each about 3/4 full.

--Bake muffins for 10-15 minutes (check at 10- if the muffins spring back to the touch then they're ready)

::LET MUFFINS COOL::

--Melt butter in a small bowl in the microwave (30-40 seconds should suffice)

--In the meantime mix together the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl

--Once the muffins are cooled dunk the tops of them in the melted butter

-- Next- roll the buttered muffin in the cinnamon sugar mixture

And there you have it! Mini-sugar-donut-muffins!

(Goes great with a hot cup of coffee or a cold glass of milk)

Thank you so much for stopping by everyone! I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I did putting it together! As for the rest of your day - be sure to fill your body with delicious healthy food and surround yourself with positive energy people! No debbie downers allowed!

xoxoxo - Jen