Chelsea lately

Hi everyone! I've spent so many posts recapping my road trip that I haven't had a chance to post about anything else lately. But some exciting stuff has been happening ever since I got back:

I. A few weeks ago when I asked mom what she wanted to do for Mother's Day, she responded "Clean the house". She wasn't joking. So we spent the day sorting through our closets and getting rid of old junk, but for dinner we all sat down to a crab legs feast (my mom's favourite).

II. My parents surprised me with a brand new 2013 Honda Civic for a graduation present!!! For the past 4 years I've been driving a 1992 Dodge Shadow from my grandma, and although I love that car, it was on its last legs. The paint was coming off, there was a dent in the side, and the passenger mirror was dangling off. I swear I'm a good driver... I've just had a few unfortunate encounters with the metal poles in my old apartment's parking garage!

III. Last week I made my friend these coconut lime cupcakes with coconut lime cream cheese frosting for her birthday. I'm not usually a fan of citrus flavours in cakes (I'm a chocolate girl all the way), but these were so good.

IV. My mom and sister have gotten me hooked on Game of Thrones. I'm still on the first book, but I'm loving it so far. And I'm excited to be getting into a good series - the last good series I read was Lord of the Rings back in high school.

V. I've gotten back into making my own hummus instead of paying $3.99 for a tiny tub at the grocery store. 4 cups of smooth, garlicky hummus that's ready in 10 minutes and costs less than $1.50? Heck yes!

VI. Even though my birthday isn't until next weekend (May 25 baby!) I celebrated my birthday with my extended family on Sunday. You might remember that my mom and sister decorated my cake to look like sushi last year. This year they planned something crazy again and made me this stove-shaped cake - with three layers of delicious carrot cake and mascarpone cream cheese frosting underneath the fondant!

What are your favourite kind of cupcakes?

What are you reading right now? 

Road trip '13: Day 7

Day 7 was our last day! It had a rough start though because I had a pretty bad sleep - it was so stinking hot in our hotel room overnight. So we skipped working out again in favour of having a slow start to our morning.

After breakfast we said goodbye to Syracuse and headed to Rochester, where our first stop was Trader Joe's. Since we don't have these stores in Canada, I'm always excited to check them out when I'm in the US.

Just like my last visit though, I was a bit disappointed by how many of their products say "May contain nuts" on their labels. But I still managed to pick up a pretty good nut-free haul.

Mac & cheese, coconut cream, cookie butter, sunflower seed butter, sweet Thai chili sauce, coconut chips, dried banana, and plantain chips.

After TJ's we went to The Owl House for lunch, which is a cute restaurant we found through Urbanspoon. It was in a renovated house and we actually ate in the backyard on the patio - I felt like I was eating at someone's home!

They had really delicious iced Earl Grey tea - it made me want to start making my own iced teas at home more often!

We also split an order of their Moroccan smoked beef "jerky". It wasn't really jerky-like, but it was still really good.

And then I had the salad of my dreams: shaved Brussels sprouts, kale, lemon, olive oil, and romano aioli. This was amazing! I plan on trying to recreate it, but I doubt I could do it justice - the flavours were just so perfect.

My sister and I also split a panini with brie cheese, apple, red onion, baby arugula and Dijon mustard on sourdough bread with housemade kettle chips on the side. This was seriously good too! It was an all around good meal.

After lunch we drove to Buffalo for our last few stops at Target (for bathing suits and Champion workout wear) and Wegmans (for more food). We even bought a cooler so that we could get some refrigerated and frozen items - and by that I mostly just mean Greek yogurt. 

I decided to try out the Wegman's brand of Greek yogurt, Chobani Bites, honey Fage, vanilla coconut Oikos, and a few Chobani flavours I've never tried before. So far I'm not a big fan of the Wegman's kind, but I love the Chobani Bites!

With our car packed to the brim with groceries, our shopping loot, suitcases, pillows, gifts for dad, gum wrappers all over the floor, etc, we headed back home.

So that's the end of my recaps! But I already have plans to visit some great restaurants in the area this summer, so you'll definitely be seeing more of my foodie adventures soon. ;)

What are your favourite Trader Joe's products?

What are your favourite Greek yogurt brands?