Coca-Cola Freestyle

From A:

J and I went on a lunch date to Firehouse Subs today.  We were very surprised to see their new soda fountain, the Coca-Cola Freestyle.  I had never even heard of this machine, much less used it.  And considering that we visited the World of Coca-Cola less than a year ago, I feel like we should have at least known something about it.

The first thing that struck me about the machine is how little space it takes up, as well as the fact that it doesn't take up any counter space:

It also only has one dispensing nozzle in the same area as the ice dispenser:

And with 100+ flavor options, it took me a while to decide what to try.  I was especially happy to see a variety of diet, caffeine free options, which are usually very limited (if available at all).  This included Caffeine Free Diet Coke (and associated flavoring options such as raspberry, lime, vanilla, orange, and cherry), Sprite Zero and flavoring options, Minute Maid Light lemonade, various flavors of Dasani water, and several Powerade flavors:

A few mysteries about this new machine remain:

1. What does the syrup storage area look like?  There must be so many different varieties - how are they stored and how often does each option need to be replaced?

2. How did Coca-Cola decide what size syrup dispensers should be used for each soda flavor?  I would think that an option like regular Coca-Cola would outsell most of the other flavor options, but by how much?  And even if Coca-Cola uses historical demand data from older soda fountains, the addition of so many flavor options (many of them quite obscure, or even new) would make predicting demand very challenging.

3. How long until this type of machine becomes the new standard?

In summary, I was very impressed by this new machine and excited about the options it provides.  I'm not sure if this is a universal Firehouse Subs machine, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has seen one of these anywhere else.

Root Beer Cookies

From A:

One of our Christmas gifts from C and D was a root beer cookie mix from Wisconsin:

I would describe the dry ingredients as a basic sugar cookie mix.  But what makes the cookies so unique is the addition of root beer as the liquid (along with butter for crispy cookies or oil for soft cookies - we chose soft cookies).  I've never thought of using root beer in sugar cookies, but it makes delicious cookie dough (I have to confess that I licked out the bowl - yum!):

The package made a lot of cookies - 36 to be exact.  I'll be sharing some of them with my co-workers.  They'll be surprised to find out that I've deviated from my usual oatmeal chocolate chip cookies:

Here are finished cookies.  They cooked to a perfect light golden color:

These cookies get two thumbs up from J + A.  And they have inspired me to add root beer to my next batch of sugar cookies to see if I can recreate the experience.

Sweet Potato Ravioli

From A:

Last night's dinner was sweet potato ravioli.  I found the recipe online, which had been adapted from a butternut squash ravioli recipe.

Despite having a short ingredient list, this recipe turned out to be fairly labor intensive.  Luckily, since J and I cooked together, we were able to make an assembly line to reduce time in the kitchen.

Here are the ingredients:

• 1 extra-large sweet potato (we used 4 small sweet potatoes since we had them, but it made extra filling)
• 1 small onion (we only used about 1/4 of a small onion)
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese (we used grated)
• 2 tbsp dried breadcrumbs
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp water
• 1 package of won ton wrappers
• pinch of nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp of salt and pepper
• 3 tbsp butter
• fresh sage - about 2 tbsp worth (we should have used less and cut it in smaller pieces)

Here's what you do:

Cook the sweet potato at 425 degrees until tender (about 40 minutes).  
Remove it from the oven, let it cool, peel off the skin, and mash it up.

Heat oil in a small skillet on medium heat.  
Chop the onion and cook until it starts to brown slightly.

Combine in a bowl: 
potato, onion, parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, 1 egg, nutmeg, salt, pepper.

Using the other egg, make an egg wash with the egg white and 1 tsp of water.
Place a small tbsp of the mixture in the center of a won ton wrapper.

Brush some of the egg wash around the 4 edges of the won ton.
Place another won ton wrapper on top of that.  
Press the edges together.

Crimp the edges with a fork. 

Continue until all won tons are filled.

 Boil some water with a dash of salt.
Place the won tons gently into the boiling water.  
Let them boil for about 3-5 minutes until softened. 

Use a slotted spoon to carefully take each ravioli out of the pot.  
Drain on some paper towels.

Meanwhile, melt the 3 tbsp of butter in a small skillet.  
Remove from the heat and add thinly sliced sage leaves to the butter.
Pour the sage butter sauce over the ravioli and enjoy!

We both really liked the dish and agreed that making ravioli out of won ton wrappers is something we'd like to try with other types of filling.

Now we just need to figure out what to do with our leftover filling...

Greek Pasta Salad

From A:

My work lunches this week have been Greek Pasta Salad, another recipe from the "Hot Recipes in Cool Dishes" cookbook.  J thinks this pasta is disgusting because it uses two ingredients that he detests: olives and feta cheese.  However, I happen to love these ingredients, as well as the others in the dish:

• rotini pasta (I used garden delight pasta which is made with spinach, tomato, and carrot)
• quartered artichoke hearts
• halved cherry tomatoes
• feta cheese
• black olives
• greek dressing (I used italian dressing instead since I already had some)

Switching gears, while shopping over the weekend, I found two really cute sets of coordinating plates.  The first looks similar to talavera pottery, which we have several pieces of in our bedroom and bathroom.  I got a couple of smaller plates to use for organization on our bathroom shelves, plus a big plate that I used in the kitchen:

The second is a set of square black matte plates with a tan gloss design on top.  The smaller plates are on our entertainment center and the largest plate and coordinating mug are on our coffee table:

And finally in work news (sort of), I found a way for Alton Brown to make some extra cash from lawsuits if he doesn't feel like hosting cooking shows or writing cookbooks anymore.  An article in the latest Industrial Engineer magazine could be good lawsuit material if the host of "Good Eats" from the Food Network wants to sue.  Also, I blame this article for making me want to eat lunch at 10:00am:

Sunday Breakfast

From A:

Breakfast this morning is a Turkey Sausage Strata from the new "Hot Recipes in Cool Dishes" cookbook I got for Christmas.  The dish is fairly simple, calling for cubed Italian bread (I used a half loaf from Publix), eggs, milk, breakfast sausage, salt, pepper, and shredded cheese.  I made it last night to let the bread soak overnight as recommended in the recipe.

After baking this morning, here's what it looked like:

Yesterday afternoon, I had a relaxing visit to Cloud 9 Spa for a manicure.  Thanks to Chelsea and Daniel for the gift certificate they gave me for Christmas!  Although I am very partial to the nail color "Blushingham Palace," I changed things up this time and got "Argenteeny Pinkini," which ended up being a very nice shade of pink:

And as a final aside, I have to brag about the awesome shopping trip I had to Publix yesterday.  Some weeks, the stars align with Publix offering buy one, get one free deals and manufacturers offering coupons for the same products.  And since store coupons can be used in conjunction with manufacturer coupons, it makes for fantastic deals!

So on yesterday's visit I spent $35.63 and saved $51.85.  In other words, I got $87.48 worth of groceries and paid just $35.63.  However, I have to admit that $31.92 of the savings was due to getting 8 free boxes of Special K cereal, since it was a Publix buy one, get one free deal this week, and Kellogg's currently has buy one, get one free coupons available.

Okay, that's my savings rant for the day.  Hope everyone has a great Sunday!

New Years Happenings

From A:

As promised in the previous post, here are some of our New Years photos.

1. Here we are in front of the Christmas tree beautifully decorated by J's mom.  Notice the stylish new vest J gave me, as well as my new scarf and J's new sweatshirt delivered to us in Tennessee by Santa.  We must have been really, really good this year for Santa to bring us goodies in both Florida and Tennessee!

2.  Here we are with J's brother Daniel and his wife Chelsea.  It was so good to see them over the holidays, even if it was only for a few days.

3.  A change of scenery - the mantle.  J's mom and dad are in the middle.  J's dad is sporting the stylish new City Sports t-shirt that J got for him in Boston.

4.  Here we are along with J's grandparents.  They picked a beautiful day to come visit - chili with all the "fixins" (we were in Tennessee, after all) was served on the patio.  Plus, as an added bonus, an obstructed view of the Christmas tree.

5.  And finally, the most unexpected surprise of this year's gifts: the quilt made from J's childhood t-shirts.  Once we finally have a guest room, this will definitely be used in it.

It was sad to leave Tennessee and return to the daily grind, but at least the temperatures are warmer back in the sunshine state.

Post-Holiday Summary

From A:

We're back from our holiday vacation and back to normal, everyday life.  Well, except for the fact that we've had a 2-day work week since we returned mid-week.  I could go for this working 2 days and getting 5 days off thing more often!

So where have we been?  We spent New Years with J's family in Tennessee.  For the second year in a row, we were greeted by a beautiful layer of snow on the ground:

We have more photos of our visit to share once they're uploaded from our camera - so look for that on the next post!

In other news, my first day back to work wasn't as depressing as I had anticipated.  I had to make a presentation, which I hadn't looked at since Dec. 23rd, but it went really well.  The presentation was a summary of the project I used for the pilot session of a new project management course offered through our human resources department.  So I am now a certified project manager at my company - and have a certificate personally signed by the CEO, COO, and VP to prove it.  I also found out that the name I submitted in the naming contest for the new course was chosen - and I received a prize:

The name is "Preparing for Project Success."  Maybe I have a future as a headline writer after all.