Sunday Funday

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When it comes to Sundays it is easy to succumb to the reality that tomorrow is Monday and the work week will be back in full swing. Sunday Depression is real, and we have all felt it at one time or another. But I don't like to think that way - that would mean that Saturday is the only well appreciated day of the weekend. I work hard to appreciate my Sundays and spend them they way they should be spent: relaxing with friends, and not worrying about what tomorrow holds.

My first tip for making Sunday a special day: start it a little bit later. Yeah, maybe that shortens the day, but how great a feeling is it to have legitimately slept it one morning? I usually have trouble sleeping in anymore due to job and internship schedules. Valentine's Day started off on a good note when I woke up and saw that it was 11 a.m.. I was thrilled! Of course, waking up on Sunday may also mean allowing the post-Saturday night hangover to make itself known. While spending the whole day in bed is everyone's dream, it should not be Sunday's constant reality. Here is a handy list of tips that should help to coax you and your pounding head out from under the sheets.

Late starts mean one thing: brunch. Grab a few friends and whip up a sweet and savory meal that everyone can contribute to. You can typically find me on pancake duty! Or take the gang on the road to try out what your local restaurants have to offer. My personal favorite in Pittsburgh is Local Bar + Kitchen in South Side. Their veggie omelet and mimosas are enough to keep my friends and me seated for quite sometime. I have found some great brunch inspiration (home and away) on Pinterest: the "Breakfast, Brunch, and AM Eats" board supplied by the Casper mattress company is enough to have you dreaming of stacks of pancakes and goblets of orange juice. Seriously...you may have a moment.

Feel less guilty about the carb-y brunch and bottomless drinks by going for a walk. There are so many cool neighborhoods here in Pittsburgh so no matter where we choose to go for brunch, you can expect the surrounding area to be so full of curious stops. Plus, you spend just a little more time thinking about things that aren't Monday and e-mails.

Make sure you have all of your ducks in a row. While you shouldn't launch over the emotional precipice into Sunday Depression, you do need to make sure that everything tomorrow is good to go. To be honest, I need more practice on this one. In all actuality, I replace this step by coming home, crawling back into bed with some really comfy sweats and binge-watching Friends on Netflix. But to each her own, right?

Become Top Chef of your dinner. I love cooking - my mother jokes that I have accumulated all of these students loans getting a communication education and I am going to end up going to culinary school. While I really don't intend on doing that, I do put a lot of effort into my meals even living on a college campus. This weekend, I decided to try something in attempt to use up the chicken in my fridge. With some time, effort, and patience (difficult when you are Hungry Hungry Hippo!) I pulled some super yummy coconut chicken out of the oven. This is the recipe that I followed, though I admit to tweaking it just a bit to use up some ingredients. Instead of going with just straight coconut, I mixed in some Italian style panko as well (eyeball it, I did not measure it out).

Close out the day by opening a book. This is another one that I need to work harder on, but when I do manage to grab a book rather than my laptop I feel more rested the next morning. Wind the brain down from a great day with a mystery, fantasy, adventure, whatever you fancy! Currently, The Time In Between by Maria Duenas is on my nightstand. I aim to have lights out by midnight, since is seems that every semester I need to be awake earlier and earlier for some reason.

<3 Ashley

How do you like to spend your Sunday? Share your day!

Sunday Brunch: Sweet Potato, Spinach and Egg Breakfast Bowl

Hello, folks! Happy Monday to you.

Today I want to share a fabulous food find that I stumbled upon last week. I made this delicious and savory breakfast for myself this morning for the second time; I am in love with the sweet potato, spinach and egg breakfast bowl. The original recipe is courtesy of Mara over at M Loves M. I have actually tried quite a few of her sweeter dishes and all of them are delicious. My favorite is the blackberry clafoutis which I make with blueberry instead. The woman knows exactly what she is talking about.

There are just a few alterations that I have made myself based on my own timing and patience level. Perhaps if I had just a bit more time during my week day mornings I would prepare it as it should be in the oven. However, for time sake I do it on the stove in a skillet. The recipe below will made enough for one with maybe some extra potato depending on the size.

What you need:

1 smallish sweet potato (1/4 inch slices)
olive oil
salt + pepper
spinach
1 egg
cheese
The original called for onion, but I did not have onion at the time. Feel free to add the ingredient to your liking!

What to do:

Coat the bottom of a skillet with olive oil and heat up over medium heat. Arrange sweet potato slices around the bottom of the skillet and season with salt and pepper (I also like to sprinkle some thyme on mine)

Cook potatoes for about 4-5 minutes on each side; but keep an eye on them just in case! When potatoes are almost cooked throw in spinach and cook until it wilts. Set aside in bowl.

Prepare egg to your liking. I did sunny side up like the original recipe called for. When the egg is done lay it over top of the potato and spinach. Sprinkle with cheese. (Goat in the original; I used mozzarella).

<3 Ashley

What is your favorite savory breakfast?

Sunday (on a Monday) Brunch: Finals Edition

The last brunch of the fall semester occurred yesterday and it was just as dreamy and wonderful as all of our other get togethers. The difference? We took the brunch abroad to a restaurant rather than making it in our apartment. The reason, of course, being that it is FINALS WEEK--which is also why this post is coming to you late. None of us can barely find the motivation to make a grilled cheese let alone a fancy shmancy brunch. We decided since we were going out to find available study locations we could still have brunch and just let someone else do the cooking!

We packed backpacks with textbooks, notebooks, lecture print outs and tech and elected The Porch right on campus as receiver of our money and giver of food. Boy did they give! I ordered the "Porch Scramble" and couldn't have made a better decision. There is chicken and mushroom in that egg pile up there. So much yum! They also came with some wonderfully spiced potatoes, a homemade English muffin and a side of their HOMEMADE ketchup which also had a bit of a spice to it. Michelle ended up getting their quiche which also looked absolutely to die for. On top of the delicious meal and the wonderful company and conversation we are convinced that Pitbull was dining a few tables away--not really but this guy looked WAY too much like him. 

Now if you will excuse me, I still have one more paper to blaze through. (Prayers are being accepted)

<3 Ashley

Do you have a favorite restaurant you like to brunch at?

Sunday Brunch: Crustless Veggie Quiche

Sunday brunch is coming to you late today because, well...brunch came to us a little late today. I actually went out for breakfast this morning with my family who was visiting this weekend, and Michelle had a friend from home here as well. This is was the weekend to have visitors too! It was Light Up Night here in Pittsburgh, the Penguins played some hockey (they did lose in the shoot-out unfortunately!) and our Pitt Panthers finally pulled out a win for our last home game against Syracuse. With the determination to make brunch happen still, we elected to have brunch for dinner. After the sweetness that was the stuffed French toast last weekend we opted for savory this time around with a crustless veggie quiche.

Ingredients:
- 3 egg white
- 3 eggs
- 3/4 c skim milk
- salt & pepper
- veggies of your choosing
- spinach
- mozzarella cheese
- parmesan cheese

Step by Step:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Cook veggies (we used onion, garlic, mushroom, tomato) on the stove until tender
- In a medium bowl mix eggs, egg white, milk, salt and pepper
- Spray a pie plate and arrange veggie layer. Arrange spinach layer Sprinkle mozzarella cheese then pour egg mixture over top. Sprinkle top with parmesan.
-  Bake for 45 minutes.

As I look back on my blog content thus far, I see a lot of food. Is there anything else you guys would like to see me talk about? Not that food is a bad thing!

<3 Ashley

Are you a quiche fan? Did you have a good weekend?

Sunday Brunch: Stuffed French Toast

Look at that little piece of heaven

After talking back and forth and canceling on each other last minute for the past two weeks, Sunday brunch finally happened and the ladies reconvened to talk predominately about the disappointment that is our football team and the consistent issue that is the male population. This morning we trekked out into the cold to buy a loaf of sourdough from Panera for our stuffed French toast. I am very happy to say that it was very much a success!

There was no set recipe for this since we all wanted to stuff ours with different things. Michelle and I found happiness in cream cheese and raspberries, while Megan most definitely suggests cream cheese and bananas--never really considered that combo before! I will share the basics of what we did.

Ingredients
- 2 slices of sourdough per serving
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup skim milk
- cinnamon
- cream cheese (or peanut butter or Nutella!)
- fruit

Step by step
- Slice sourdough to the desired thickness
- In a bowl, mix eggs, milk and cinnamon
- Spread cream cheese on one side of both slices of bread, arrange fruit on one slice and make a sandwich
- Soak both sides in the egg mixture--let each side sit for a bit to soak the mixture in
- Heat oil or butter in a skillet and cook French toast approximately 30 seconds on both sides or to your liking
- Enjoy!

<3 Ashley

What do you enjoy in your stuffed French toast? 

Sunday Brunch: The Weekend We Had No Brunch

Unfortunately today did not work out for our group Sunday brunch. I will admit that it was my fault...I slept in way too late and at that point no one was too committed to making our stuffed french toast. Perhaps next week we will have more success! There are some fantastic things to talk about though:

Movin' on in: Well...not until August. The girls and I got our first off campus house! It is actually nice and homey too--unlike many of the dumpy places in South Oakland. We are meeting with the landlord tomorrow to sign the lease!

A+: Out of all of the stress and constant work that I have endured through this semester, it finally feels like it is paying off. We got our midterm papers back in History of Mass Media and guess who got a perfect score....THIS GIRL!

Let's hope that all of this is all continues into this week to make it a good one too!

<3 Ashley

What good has happened to you this week?

Welcome to Sunday Brunch

Well hello there! It is me...Ashley...from All That Glitters? Don't recognize me? I can't blame you; I have rebranded and found my way back to Blogger. After spending around three years as All That Glitters I began to feel a little bit of disconnect with the blog and everything that I put into it. However, I still wanted to blog. I get some crazy high off of blogging I guess; I just have to do it.

I decided that I wasn't All That Glitters anymore. I created ATG in the summer between high school and college and just picked a cute sounding name. This time around I wanted to name my blog something that I could connect to and reflected me in some kind of way. Sunday Brunch...who doesn't love it? Since coming to college if there is one thing I can count on it's a brunch on Sunday with my girls where we recount the events of the past week and the weekend. It is always a great time that ends up stretching from 11am until sometimes 2pm! This year we all have our own kitchens so Sunday brunch has only improved in quality now that we are making the food ourselves and experimenting with different recipes. The conversations are still interesting, hilarious and sometimes revealing. So why not name my blog after the setting of some of the best talks?!

Don't get confused, this is not a food blog (though there will probably be a ton of food on it!) In keeping with what I did with All That Glitters, it is a lifestyle blog. Expect a little bit of everything! I hope that you will join me on this new blogging journey that I am embarking on and love everything that goes into it.

<3 Ashley

Do you have Sunday brunches?

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