A Blogger’s Blizzard

Wow, what a crazy weekend.  Where do I start?

I left Saturday to head down South to a Blogger Pizza Dinner, that may I just say, rocked to the core!  We met up at Kaitlin’s place and she greeted us with open arms, new Tostitos Artisan Chips and wine.  What’s not to love?

Katherine came with her Momma, who brought some bread and two dips…which I’m not sure what they were, but I wasn’t a fan of the red one.  Had olives in it => yuck.

But the best part of the night was the pizza!  We were totally set with toppings, sauce and dough!  Each person brought something a little bit different and since no one was designated for dessert, I made myself in charge of that!

I stood in on the gossip while the other ladies got on working with the pizza dough!

Katherine’s secret for a great pizza crust is adding olive oil to the top before adding the toppings.  She was working on a mozzarella pizza while Kaitlin and I worked on the vegan pizza.  We add just a tad of olive oil to that one.

The vegan one had pizza sauce, butternut squash, artichoke, sunflower seeds and arugula flowers!

I brought them over from my AH box and they were interesting! I added the stems, which I wasn’t sure I was supposed to, but I thought it added a nice chew to the pizza!

Kaitlin also made a salad with cucumbers, various tomatoes and greens to eat on the side.

Bloggers gotta do what we gotta do to make it work!

Pizzas out of the oven!

I had two slices originally with some salad and peanut dressing, then went back for a third piece and was totally content.  Well, other than a few handfuls of those chips because they were addictive!

We ended up making 4 more pizzas in various forms but at the end of it we busted out dessert…and lots more wine.  9 people, almost 6 bottles?  Yeah we did.

I made a PB and Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake from my all time go to cookbook by Better Homes and Gardens…

Along with some cookies that had dark chocolate chips and pb chips that I kept myself content with the night before while making them.

Having fun and laughing…

And just before the first person left we remembered we didn’t have a group picture!  Top row: Whit, Me, Katherine, Amanda, Kelley.  Bottom Row: Andy, Mark, Kaitlin.

Was such a great night!  I wish I didn’t live as far away from these fun people as I do, but I make driving sacrifices for great friends!  Afterwards we headed a bit further south to my parent’s and hit the hay.

I woke up relatively early and thought we were going to have breakfast with my brothers, but it turned into brunch but more like lunch so I snacked on some farmer’s market strawberries and a clementine mid morning…

The puppies wanted in on the blog action…

They’re secretly jealous of Honey.

And because everything was taking so long I ended up snacking on two pieces of bakery sourdough bread; one with pb and one with apple butter.

Then it was time to feast! At that point I’d munch on a few chips with homemade guac and a few Cadbury eggs but still had room for something sufficient!

I actually made waffles for everyone and since I had some bananas ready to eat I wanted to make a few with bananas…but what a fail.  Talk about sticking to the waffle maker! I ended up turning the last waffle into two pancakes, and ate one with apple butter.  So good…

We spent the afternoon chatting with my bestie, her bf and brothers while snacking on various raw veggies and more Cadbury eggs, along with an apple and two more clementines.  I think all the carbs from the night before and my morning were getting to me and all I wanted was watery things!

Alas Whit and I left in hopes of beating the traffic back to my place in the mountains, but man oh man, was that NOT the case.  It was absolute madness with the rain throughout LA and the lower valley before climbing in elevation, and that’s when it got bad.  We both got onto the last freeway and can I just say, I have never been more terrified of driving in my life.  It was sooooooooo nervewracking.

We spent most of the 20 mile drive crawling at 20-30mph and even then, it was bad.  I totally shadowed a SUV and semi most of the way, but was caught off guard at one point when they stopped…and my car didn’t.  I totally lucked out that I didn’t hit the guy in front of me, and it had me shaking to the core.

Like no joke, I was sitting there trying to breathe deep, and kept saying to myself, “It’s ok. You’re fine.  You’re almost home…”  I was so stiff by the time I got home from the road and just watching people skid off the road or get stuck had me on the verge of tears.  I’m terrified of situations like this!

We finally got home, parked on the street and got inside to comfort my cute kitty since she’d had to suffer through all the nasty wind on Saturday by herself.

We woke up to a winter wonderland this morning.

My poor little car.  It hates the snow and the fear of other cars not making it through it either.  See our prints in the snow? Yeh, we hightailed it inside last night.

I hadn’t eaten since we left my parents at around 5.30 the night before so I was totally starving this morning!  And all I wanted was something warm!  It’s freezing outside!

Oats oats oats…and lots of tea.  And now I’m snowed in and going back to sleep.  I’m still exhausted from that drive yesterday…yeesh.