It’s 4pm and I’m already excited to crawl into bed and watch Dancing With The Stars tonight. My brain is shot and I’m still trying to catch up on sleep from the weekend. I’m thinking about going for a run and maybe doing a little yoga, I need something to relax.
This morning, I had and early breakfast at Charlotte Cafe. I ordered some coffee and an English muffin.
For lunch, I made a protein pumpkin spiced shake from Advocare. I don’t follow the Advocare diet, but I’m in love with their products. When I saw the pumpkin spice, I had to get it! You can mix it with water or milk, but I decided to blend mine up with 1/2 a banana, 1 cup unsweetened almond milk, ice, and only 1/2 the packet of pumpkin space shake.
HOLY COW!
This tasted like pumpkin ice cream! I felt like I was eating a sweet dessert. It was filling and I think I just found my new favorite pumpkin product!
Since it’s Monday, (and I don’t want to do my homework right now) I’m going to fill you in on my weekend!
More of my prints came! 🙂 I have more on the way too. They are going up once my office is complete.
Thursday, I had a salad at Ruby Tuesday’s for lunch. I’m obsessed with their salad bar – especially the croutons.
Friday night was all about celebrating my mom’s new job.
My parents and I headed to Portofinos. This was my parents first time trying out our favorite restaurant.
We started with the sampler tray. It had mozzarella sticks, calamari, bruchetta, and stuffed clams.
They had the surf n turf on the special’s menu still so I ordered it; so did my parents! It’s one of the best meals ever! Steak, garlic potatoes, and lobster! The crunchy fried things on top are fried scallions.
We ordered espresso and tiramisu for dessert. I’ve never been a huge tiramisu person.
Saturday morning after I packaged up some items from the collection, I made a little yogurt and cereal bowl with fresh strawberries. The cereal is vanilla Nature’s Path Organic.
I decided to have a little get-together with all of our friends for the Saturday football games. I was really excited because one of my friends from high school, who just moved to Charlotte, was stopping by.
I made my mama’s cheeseball recipe.
I was going to make tons of wings, but I wanted to make it easy so I just ordered 200 wings from Mac’s Speed Shop. They have the best wings because they are grilled instead of fried.
I bought half spicy buffalo and the other half honey chipotle barbecue. If you’re looking for a great place to get wings in Charlotte, (especially for parities) I recommend Mac’s. They have several locations.
We filled the kitchen table with food.
I made the little smokies with bacon and veggies with hummus
To kick off the football season, I bought some mini pumpkin cupcakes. Tis’ the season to be pumpkin!
How cute are these little football sugar cookies? They were delicious dipped in coffee. We went through so many cups of coffee this weekend. We all started making coffee with cream and whiskey.
We also picked up pizzas. We were afraid we’d run out of food with everyone coming over. I guess there is a method to cooking frozen/store bought pizza. I usually just pop it in the oven at 350, but that wasn’t good enough. My friend heats the oven to 535 (I didn’t even know a simple oven could get that high) and then pops the pizza in for about 15 minutes. This method is truly a game changer. The crust tasted like brick oven and was so crispy. The cheese was chewy and I could tell the difference. He also doesn’t cook it on a pan. Once it’s done, he scoops it out of the oven with a baking sheet.
We had a great game day! Both Notre Dame & Iowa won!
But we don’t root for the same NFL teams…that’s for sure! We headed uptown to the stadium Sunday morning with some friends to tailgate for the Panther’s game.
We had appetizers at Draught. I was disappointed because they only had a game-day menu. Last time I went I had a their blueberry goat cheese walnut salad with honey shallot dressing and I was so excited to have it again. I understand why they do the game day menu though; they get crazy busy.
We went with the trio dip instead. It had hummus, pimento cheese, and Tzatziki with fried pita chips.
We left the stadium around 12:30 because I wanted to see the Lions play.
During the halftime, I took advantage of the guys! You can find that post here!
These fun shirts came today and are now available with free shipping on my site!
Patty says
Taralynn.
Where do you get your prints?
emily says
brochette mean that it’s a skewered food 🙂 you must’ve gotten your words a little tangled
Mallori says
That Iowa game was amazing!!! My college team is Kentucky (we aren’t too great), but it was amazing watching Iowa against Pitt, congrats!
Jen Frick says
Always love your weekend recaps! And pumpkin recipes of course 🙂 You always have the best spread – the hubs and I will have to use that pizza method trick and let you know how it works for us. I swear I get hungry every time I read your blog and of course this happens at 9 at night lol! I’m watching DWTS right now – who’s your favorite so far?!
Jen | http://www.lettersandpearls.com
Jillian says
Ruby Tuesdays really do make the best croutons. Yum! Also, I’ll have to try out that pizza trick. I love a good, crispy crust.
Melanie says
My weekend looked very similar! Lots of good food and football. My fav college team (Michigan) won, so I was pretty happy 🙂 I wish the Lions could have gotten the W!
And I definitely need to try the pumpkin spice shake! Sounds so good. Are those football cookies homemade or store bought?! They’re so cute!
Brooke says
We live right next to Portofinos by Ayrsley, but have never been. We will have to check it out because that looks so good! Have you been to the Piedmont social house yet??
Taralynn McNitt says
I’ve been to that Portofinos and its amazing. You really should check it out. Their house dressing, homemade bread, and soups are amazing. I haven’t been to the Piedmont social house yet!
Kristin says
I love the Netflix tshirt! Although I’m pretty sure it would result in me just having a netflix marathon all day, ha!
Taralynn McNitt says
Thats what its for!
cait says
You always seem to have the best time during fall/football season! For years my fiances roommates were lucky enough to eat my attempts at your recipes during game day haha
Cant wait to visit Charlotte in 2 weeks and see the beauty for myself!
Hope school is going well so far for you!
Taralynn McNitt says
You’ll LOVE Charlotte! What are you coming here for?
cait says
My fiance and i are looking at apartments and areas around the city for after we get married in april!
Also its my birthday weekend (oct 9th) and i turn 25 so we are excited to explore the restaurants and night life 🙂
Fana says
You are a game day goddess! I need to take some tips from you. What is that mound on the cracker platter though?
Taralynn McNitt says
That’s a cheese ball!:) So delicious.