Philadelphia

Greg and I took advantage of the Columbus Day weekend and went to Philadelphia to do some sightseeing. We had a lot of fun. We did a lot of walking and saw a lot of things. Of course, we went by the Liberty Bell and got some pictures with that. We also toured the East State Penitentiary, which was the first penitentiary and was were Al Capone stayed when he was locked up. It was very interesting and a little eerie.

We did the daytime tour, they offered a nighttime haunted house, which I thought would be fun, but we didn't want to worry about trying to catch a bus at night. We had enough of a time trying to figure out which bus took us where in the daytime. Parking is super expensive there, so we got a special deal-book a room for two nights, and get hotel parking for free, and we just left our car in the parking lot the entire time. We walked most places, but some we had to take a bus for and we got quite lost. The bus drivers there are really sweet though and helped us get back to our hotel.
We went to some bars both nights that we were there. According to one website I researched before the trip, Philadelphia is the "beer drinking capital". They have several local breweries and almost everything on tap was nothing we had ever heard of, so we had fun going from bar to bar trying different beers out. And of course we had to have a Philly Cheese Steak. It was good, but honestly, I like my dad's better. We also met some fun people at our hotel bar, a girl who just got out of the Navy, her sister and her dad, we had some drinks with them and really enjoyed hanging out with them our last night there.

I love going on trips, it's one of my favorite things to do and I love having a trip planned for the future so I have something to look forward to and plan for. I'm not sure where we're going to go next (I'm not counting trips to see our families over the holidays, that's not sightseeing trips) I'm thinking of Boston, Niagara Falls, or Chicago. We'll see. Check out the pictures from a our trip. You can see all of them at our Shutterfly website.

The penitentiary was especially creepy because of the cloudy day we were having.





We had to get an authentic Philly cheese steak while we were here.


Greg, drinking a local beer.

Taking a soco and lime shot. There were advertised at every bar we went to, so I thought maybe it was a local favorite.

Crunchy Italian Chicken

I've been wanting to try Panko for awhile now. I've seen it on Paula Deen, Rachel Ray, and in several cooking magazines. Panko is Japanese breadcrumbs. When I found a recipe in my Weight Watcher cookbook that called for panko, I had to try it. I goofed up and bought plain panko when the recipe called for italian, so I seasoned the panko with garlic salt, oregano, and Italian seasoning. I liked it. I tasted very similar to ordinary bread crumbs but seemed to coat the chi ken a little better and not clump up so much. I liked this recipe. Greg liked it but thought it was a little plain. Also, I skipped the step where it called for pounding the chicken, because I thought it'd be easier to just cook the chicken a little longer.

Weight Watcher Crunchy Italian Chicken
Points: 6
Servings 2

* 1/3 cup Italian-style panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)
* 1 tablespoon grated fresh Parmesan cheese
* 2 (6 ounce) skinless boneless chicken breast halves
* 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
* cooking spray
* 1 cup grape tomatoes


1. Preheat oven to 450.
2. Combine panko and Parmesan cheese in a shallow bowl; set aside
3. Place chicken between 2 sheets of heavy duty plastic wrap, and pound to 1/2 inch thickness using a meat mallet or heavy skillet. Sprinkle chicken with pepper. Dredge chicken breasts in panko mixture, pressing mixture onto chicken, if necessary.
4. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add chicken to pan, and cook 3 minutes. Coat top of chicken with cooking spray; turn and cook 3 minutes
5. Transfer chicken to baking sheet, and cover with aluminum foil. Bake at 450 for 5 to 6 minutes or until done.
6. While chicken bakes, add tomatoes to hot skillet, and cook over medium-high heat 5 minutes or until tomatoes begin to burs. Serve tomatoes over chicken.



I got this out of Weight Watchers 20 minute recipes

Songs I'm Loving Right Now

There are so many songs out now that I'm absolutely loving! I spent an embarrassing amount of time the other day on the Billboard website seeing what songs were out right now. I never listen the radio in my car, I listen to my cds, so the only way for me to find out what songs are out are to look it up. Here are some of my favorites that are out right now. I wanted to post a video of all of them, even if it wasn't an "official" video, just so you wouldn't have to go to another website to hear them, but some of the videos on youtube disabled the code to copy and paste them on your blog, so I just uploaded the lyrics video. As you can see from the videos below, I like every type of music--rap, r&b, pop, country, dance, etc.

"Meet Me Halfway" Black Eyed Peas


"Watchu Say" Jason Derulo


"Down" Jay Sean featuring Lil' Wayne


"Sweet Dreams" Beyonce
See the real video Here




"Cowboy Casanova" Carrie Underwood
See the real video here



"Love Your Love The Most" Eric Church


"Hotel Room Service" Pitbull
See the real video here


"Party In the USA" Miley Cyrus


My favorite group right now is LMFAO. I went and bought their cd and absolutely love it. I like almost every song. My favorites are "La La La", "Yes" and "Scream My Name"

Apple Festival

The weather was so beautiful this weekend. I love fall, it is my favorite time of year. I love being able to have the windows open. We took advantage of this great weather and went to an Apple Festival at Carter Mountain Apple Orchard. They had hay rides, food, crafts, wine tasting, pick your own apples, etc. The wine tasting was fun, we ended up finding some new wines that we really liked. We have several apple orchards around, so I'm going to try some new apple recipes this month. I have some homemade applesauce cooking in the crock pot right now, if it turns out good, I'll post the recipe on here. I can't wait to do more fall activities like this. Every year we go to a pumpkin patch and try to go to a corn maize. We've been doing it ever since we started living together in Tucson, when we had to drive over an hour to get to the nearest pumpkin patch.

Here's some pictures from this weekend.

Spicy Stir-Fried Chicken and Spinach

We tried this weight watcher recipe for dinner the other night and we both liked it. It used a couple of things that I have never cooked with before, like chili sauce and Chinese noodles and one ingredient that I've never heard of before--Ponzu sauce. I don't know if this is a common ingredient that most people know about, but I had never heard of it. You can find it in the Asian section of your supermarket with the soy sauce. It's a citrus soy sauce/dressing and it wasn't expensive. Despite the name, this dish wasn't very spicy, so if you like spice, try adding more chili sauce. Also, we added soy sauce to ours which added some extra flavor.

Weight Watcher Spicy Stir-Fried Chicken and Spinach
Points: 5
Servings: 4

Ingredients
* 3/4 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
* 3 tablespoons ponzu sauce (it's a citrus-y soy sauce)
* 1 tablespoon cornstarch
* 2 teaspoons chili sauce
* 1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
* 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
* cooking spray
* 2 garlic gloves, minced
* 1 8oz package presliced mushrooms
* 1 pound chicken breast, cut into 1-inch pieces
* 1 6oz package fresh baby spinach
* 1/2 cup cut green onions
* 2 cups hot cooked Chinese noodles
* 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
* chopped green onions, for garnish



1. Combine first 6 ingredients in a bowl; stir with a whisk. Set aside. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add garlic; saute 30 seconds. Add mushroom; saute 4 minutes. Remove from pan.
2. Coat pan with cooking spray; add chicken, and cook 4 to 5 minutes. Add reserved sauce mixture to pan; bring to a boil, and cook 1 minute. Reduce heat. Add spinach and green onions; cook 1 to 2 minutes or until spinach wilts. Add reserved mushroom mixture and noodles; toss gently to combine, and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Garnish with green onions, if desired, and serve immediately.





I got this recipe out of 20 Minute Recipes.

Fall TV

I was very excited for the new seasons of my favorite shows this fall. Several posts ago, I said I would post my reviews/opinions of the shows I'm watching this fall, so here it goes.

The Community- I'm not very impressed. I had high hopes for this show since it stars Joel Mchale, who I absolutely love. I watch his show, "The Soup" on E! every week and he's so funny. I was so excited when I heard he had a comedy coming to NBC this fall, but unfortunately, it's not that good. It's kinda cheesy. It's not really funny and it's a little boring. I've only seen two episodes, so I'm going to give it a little more time. I really hope it gets better.

Survivor- I love this show. I really look forward to watching this every Thursday evening. It's the only show we watch live. Most shows we tivo and watch a few days later, but not this show. We are always so excited to see what's going to happen next. This season there is a hateful jerk on there named Russell. He's an awful person and so full of himself. He's mean and is only there to make everybody miserable. He owns an oil company and has made it clear that he doesn't need the money, he's just on there to manipulate people. It's so annoying. There was another jerk on there to, Ben, but he got voted out last night. I'm not sure who I want to win the game yet. I have some people I like, Jaison, Ashley, & Mick, but it's still a little early for me to have a favorite.

The Office- I absolutely love this show and will never get tired of it. Some shows stop being funny after a couple of seasons but not this show. It's hilarious. And next week Pam & Jim get married, which I can't wait to see. They are the cutest couple ever.

How I Met Your Mother- This show is really funny. My favorite character is Barney played by Neil Patrick Harris (Dougie Howser).

Heroes- We have the first 2 episodes of this season tivo'd, we're currently watching season 3 on dvd and want to get caught up before we start watching season 4, so I don't know how this season is so far, but I'm sure it's good. I love Heroes. It's not really my type of tv show, I usually like reality shows and comedies, but there's something addicting about this show. It's so good. Plus, it's full of hot guys!

The Amazing Race- this is the first time we've ever watched this show and we've only seen 1 episode, but I think we're going to like it. The first episode was 2 hours, which is way too long for me, but other than that, it was pretty good. I like seeing how the teams treat each other when they're stressed out. Some teams are so positive and supportive and others are so hateful.

And 2 shows that I know I'm way too old to be watching but I just can't help myself.

The Hills- I haven't watched this in a couple of seasons because it was so
ridiculous. It's very staged and kinda boring, but then this season they brought back Kristin Cavelerri from Laguna Beach, so I had to watch it. I love Laguna Beach. The first episode had a lot of drama in it, so I'm hooked. I will have to watch the entire season now. Damnit.

Real World/Road Rules Challenge- I love these challenges. I cannot get enough. I've been looking forward to this one ever since the last one ended. They are so full of drama, I just can't stop watching. I've been addicted to the challenges for quite some time, so I know all the players and who they don't like, who they've dated, etc. All they do is compete during the day and drink and party at night, which has led to some great fights. I know that this show is so ridiculous and stupid and that I'm far too old to be watching it, but I just can't help it. It's one of my favorite shows!

Friday

It's "Show Us Your Life" over on Kelly's Korner. This week's theme is "Best Baby Gear". No babies for me yet, so I didn't have anything to post for this, but I love Kelly's Korner and read it every day. So, I wanted to post a link for everybody so they could go check it out. next week is "Showing off your Team, Tailgating, Etc".

Weight Watchers is going good. I lost another 2.4lbs this week. I'm very excited. I love trying all the new recipes out of my Weight Watcher's cookbooks, it makes it much easier to stick to it when I have fun things to cook. I'm so glad I started Weight Watchers before the holidays because now I feel that I'm prepared to handle all the temptation that comes with the holidays.

Well, I'm off to plan our upcoming trip to Philly. I would love to hear ideas of things to do, places to see, and restaurants to eat at.