Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Even more reasons to love Fat Tuesday...

First off, today is actually Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras). 

Second, I emailed the Fat Tuesday corporate offices to let them know about my first blog post/review on their bar/restaurant and 190 Octane daiquiri.  And guess what...they actually responded!  I feel like often times big companies never take the time of day to recognize or show appreciation to their customers and fans.  But Fat Tuesday really surprised me.  I received an email from them thanking me for the blog post and asking me for my address so they could send me a couple free drink coupons!  We have a nice guy named Joe to thank for these little gems :).




Third, I recently tried their Mango daiquiri and it is deliiiiiiiiiissssshhhh.  Not too strong and not too sweet.  I'm not the biggest fan of the mango fruit, but offer me a Mango daiquiri from Fat Tuesday and I'm all about mangos.

Love,
Hannah


Monday, March 7, 2011

Love Little Gems CONTEST!!!!

Good morning!

A few weeks ago I put up a post about a company called CSN Stores...a place where you can get ANYTHING and EVERYTHING it seems like for your home or apartment.  Well, they contacted me and gave me a $20 Promotional Code to give out to one of my readers as a thank you for the post! So......I am going to make this into a little contest through my Facebook Fan Page.

Here are the steps to take to be elligible for the $20 Promo Code:
  1. Become a fan of my LLG Facebook Page!
That's all! haha...easy enough!  You can find my Facebook page by typing Love Little Gems Blog in your Facebook search nav.  OR, just click on the Facebook box on my blog (just shift your eyes a little to the left).

On Thursday I will randomly choose (I promise!) one of my LLG Facebook Fans to receive the promo code.  I hope you guys want to become fans of LLG on FB, if not for this little giveaway haha.  I think it's a pretty neat prize!  Here's a link to their site: http://www.csnstores.com/.

Let the games begin,
Hannah

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Aren't you glad your last name's not...

Fuchs?  Ben and I went to the Broward Mall for lunch last Wednesday, and on our way out Ben noticed an advertisement for an injury lawyer.  So if you or a friend have been injured, just call David Fuchs. He knows what to do.  Some last names are just worth a good laugh :).



Love,
Hannah

Friday, March 4, 2011

fiesta friday ~ Man-O-War Martini

Okay, so I made this one up last weekend, but trust me, you'll like it!  It's more of a beach-y drink, but I live near the beach so it works.  We called it the Man-O-War Martini because it actually looks like the Man-O-War that wash up on the sand.  I took a photo of my in-for-a-good-time masterpiece below along with a recipe for you to try it.  Let me know what you think!  I'm thinking I can make it BIG with this one.  Next thing you know, you'll be ordering it at Happy Hours across the country.  No hurt in thinking big time right?



What you need:
  • 1 part Passion Fruit Vodka
  • 1 part Blue Curacao
  • 2 parts Lemonade

Then:
Add ingredients plus ice into shaker, shake and pour :).

Cheers!
Hannah

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Banana Pound Cake

Here's another one of Ben's mom's recipes that I love to use!  I make this Banana Bread (sounds healthier than saying pound cake haha) fairly often and this year alone I have already made it three times!  Just to give you an idea of how good it is (the pictures below won't do it justice), I made it for my family for the first time about a year ago, and within a day the entire bundt cake was gone.  Since then, they've requested the banana cake over and over again.  I make a banana bread (my gamma's recipe--although it's been a while since I made that one) and banana crumb muffins (allrecipes.com recipe I tweaked) too, but for now I'm just going to post about the Banana Pound Cake since it's our most recent bake. 

This last time we made it, we decided to do muffins instead for our friends, Jessica and Steve (who are getting married 11.11.11 actually!).  Because I didn't want to take the chance of making it in a bundt pan, having it stick to the sides and presenting them with a mangled cake, muffins seemed like a much safer option. 

Here's the recipe...it's easy and the batter is just as delicious as the final cake!

Ingredients:
  • 1 box yellow cake mix
  • 1 (3 ¾ oz or so) pkg instant vanilla pudding mix
  • 4 eggs, room temperature
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • ½ cup water
  • 1 1/3 cup mashed ripe bananas (3 or 4 bananas)...(we used frozen bananas, allowed them to thaw, then mashed away)
  • ½ tsp cinnamon
  • ½ tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp vanilla




Directions:

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix until blended.  The recipe suggests beating at medium speed for 4 minutes, but we skipped that step.  Ben's arm was fast enough haha.  Below I've showed you what we did...

Dry ingredients

Adding eggs and vanilla

Stir part 1

Add mushy bananas...looks errr, nice

Mix part 2

Once all the ingredients are mixed well, pour the batter into a well greased and floured (or powdered sugar) bundt pan.  Here, we used muffin cups instead and poured batter about 3/4 full in each cup.


 
If using a bundt pan, bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour.  Once done, allow cake to cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn it onto a rack to cool completely.  We just eye-balled the muffins and took them out when the a knife came out clean from the center of a muffin.



Gone bananas,
Hannah

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Smokey Bones ~ BBQ, Birthdays and Boneisms

Two weeks ago I went to dinner with my family at Smokey Bones to celebrate Joshua's 16th birthday (unbelievable how fast he's growing up!  I feel like his voice just changed and now he's almost driving alone).  I love this restaurant not only because of their ridiculously good barbeque, but also because the one in Davie has Trivia Nights (no matter how bad you are they're still fun--Ben let's go again).  Oh and another thing is that they have a great atmosphere that's perfect for big families like mine! 

About their food: If you're looking for some good barbeque at a good price, then Smokey Bones is a gold mine.  I'm not usually a pig person (I do the turkey bacon thing and I'm really into veggies) but Smokey Bones is my exception.  Their ribs are amazing, and the meat just falls right off the bone.  And everytime I'm there I have to have their smoked turkey and/or pulled pork plus their corn bread appetizer.  They have these great platter combos where you can pick two meats and two sides, which together make the perfect sized meal plus leftover potential, so this last time I got two of my faves: smoked turkey and hand-pulled pork.  Their sides are also delicious: fries, sweet potato fries (so hard to find), coleslaw, baked beans, salad, steamed broccoli--all good.

One thing I noticed this last time we went, was their "Boneisms" which were posted throughout the restaurant.  You'll have to go for yourself to read them all, but I decided to take note of the ones they have in the women's restroom.  I was laughing so hard when I was reading them, here they are:

Bathroom "Boneisms"
  1. Restrooms are a great place to freshen up hair and makeup.  They're also a great place to go to the bathroom.
  2. Mirrors are awesome because they point out when you have food stuck in your front teeth.  Although they'd be more awesome if they had pointed it out about an hour earlier.
  3. Hovering takes a lot of skill and coordination.  Not to mention an exaggerated fear of germs. (on the inside of the stall door when I closed it)
  4. There's nothing wrong with asking the person next to you for toilet paper.  Unless you stuck your head under the stall to do so (the other stall door).
  5. When you're in the stall, hang up the call
  6. Courtesy Flush.  It's the right thing to do.
After taking pictures of the Boneisms in the bathroom so I could remember the great lines, I took a bunch of pictures of the food we had at the table.  Only three pictures turned out good enough to post!  The lack of photos is by no means an indication of their lack of food quality--food was delicious but my camera skills and the lighting in the restaurant didn't work well for my blogging purposes.


They have some of the best cornbread I've ever had, and what makes their's even better is the honey-butter spread.


Delicious full-rack of ribs Josh and I were working on, and the leftovers two days later were still just as good.  So good Ben and I ate them cold.


Mini Mixer: It comes with 9 sliders in total.  Three with shredded pork, three with shredded beef and three with bone-less buffalo wing tasting things.


The next morning, my mom and three brothers were flying out to visit Sarah and Ivana, which meant--lots of leftovers for me and Ben!  We filled to the brim three boxes of leftovers, which fed us for a day and a half.  Thanks, Mom and Dad, and thanks Josh for your birthday dinner.



Love,
The Scavenger

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Oscars - Faves and Flops

In my opinion, this past Sunday the Oscars didn't have any HUGE suprises when it cames to winners, WOWs when it came to outfits, or HAHAs when it came to humor from the hosts.  Well, I take that back a little.  There was one thing that shocked me: Anne Hathaway's incredible voice.  I'm not kidding you, I really think she sung live and it sounded amazing.  She's come a long way since The Princess Diaries--great movie and you know it.  Now back to the purpose of this post: The Red Carpet.  Some pretty, some weird, and I think I all the older stars can take some great fashion tips from the youngest star on The Red Carpet...Hailee Stenifeld.  Here are a handful of outfits I thought were worth noting:


 Amy Adams in L'Wren Scott...Pretty out of this world--pun intended.  Intergalactic vibe if you ask me.


Anne Hathaway in vintage Valentino.  I love vintage pieces that don't look over worn and musty, and this dress is far from that.  Bright red, roses, and a pretty train.


afl;skjdf*&Sdgjasd##?@


Gwyneth Paltrow in Calvin Klein.  This dress is actually silver.  I thought it was gold!  Anyway, it's not a bad dress but I posted it because of the gold/silver aspect.


Hailee Steinfeld in Marchesa.  Yay!!!!  I think she looks pretty, age appropriate and sweet all in one.  Plus she is wearing heels, and when I was 14 I'm pretty sure I couldn't walk around in heels--let alone fit my wide feet into them.  Props to her.


Halle Berry also in Marchesa.  I'm starting to think I'm a fan of this Marchesa.  While I don't like it as much as Hailee's outfit, Halle looks amazing.  A little gift-wrappish at the bottom, but gorgeous nonetheless.  Oh, and it's funny that both wore Marchesa and both their names start with H and sound very similar.  My name starts with an H. I want one... 


Hillary Swank in Gucci Premiere...eehhhhh, if seaweed were always silver, I wouldn't hate it as much when I was in the ocean.


Jennifer Lawrence in Calvin Klein.  Very simple and classic, red dress.  And according to Camille Grammar (from the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills...once married to Kelsey Grammer who went to Pine Crest.  NBD), Jennifer's stylist said nipples are in.  Interesting trend.


Mila Kunis in Elie Saab.  I've been liking her outfit choices a lot lately.  The color is beautiful against her skin tone, and the dress does a great job combining lace, tulle-looking fabric, and some sheerness.  My favorite part of the dress is hard to see here, but it looks like she is wearing a lace bra.


Natalie Portman in Rodarte.  Still making preggo look good.



Award season is pretty much over, so until next year!

Love,
Hannah

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...