Coffeecake + Shopping + Cowfish

Another weekend, another baking adventure.

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I’m a little cookied-out, so I decided to try something new and different – a quick 10-minute-prep coffeecake from the Holiday Baking issue of Cook’s Illustrated. I found the recipe online here (click), but you either have to sign up for a 14 day free trial or be a member to view it.

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It took me a bit longer than 10 minutes to measure out all the ingredients and get them mixed up, but the recipe was definitely quick and easy.

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The longest part was the baking time – 45 minutes.

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It was worth it.

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I decided to sprinkle powdered sugar on top of my coffeecake so it looked more like the traditional coffeecake I’m used to seeing.

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Not bad for “10 minutes” of work, eh?

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Nommmmm!

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After brunch, I had a bloggie shopping date with Teri, who was in town for a blogger dinner we were doing later. We met up at Crate and Barrel to shop for blog goodies and Dirty Santa gifts. I mean…what blogger wouldn’t want something from C&B??!!

I think we could have spent all day there – they have so much fun stuff to look at there.

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Can you believe my scarf matched this living room set? lol I normally don’t like dark furniture, but I love this set.

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Check out this cozy armchair for 2. Teri totally needs this in her house!

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Teri and I shopped our hearts out. I had so much FUN! We found some cute stuff for our gifts and some great stuff to take home, including a couple matching things. 😉

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Next, headed over to our restaurant for the night, The Cowfish, early. The Cowfish is a newly opened restaurant in town that features a unique mix of burgers and sushi. They even have “Burgushi” – a combo of the two.

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Too bad they couldn’t pick us all up in this!

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There were tons of food bloggers at our bloggie dinner outing. Teri did a fabulous job organizing everything. We had blog friends visiting from Greensboro, Winston Salem, and of course we had local Charlotte bloggers, too. We also got a friendly welcome from the restaurant’s owner and some appetizer samplers on the house. Woohoo!

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It was so cold outside, I opted for some hot tea. I got a brown rice flavored tea.

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I didn’t snap photos of the individual appetizers, but here’s some of my sampler – ahi tuna nachos, edamame, deconstructed crab ragoons in the form of crab dip. They were all quite tasty…even the ahi tuna, which I’m normally too scared to order. I’m not a big raw food/undercooked food kind of person. There’s something about the texture that drives me crazy normally, but I liked the ahi nacho.

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Between appetizers and entrees, we did a Dirty Santa Christmas gift exchange. I got some cute cocktail napkins from Tanya.

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I wanted to order the bento box (with sushi, a mini burger, and sides) at the restaurant, but after they gave us appetizers that covered a few of the items included in the bento boxes, I decided to try something different. Teri and I both wanted sushi AND burgers, so we split an appetizer of sliders and a sushi roll.

We got the Firecracker roll, which was super hot thanks to (what we think was) a sprinkling of cayenne pepper on top. Phew! Spicy! It had that burning-lip/tongue thing going on…In a good way. Yum! This roll was way more adventurous than I usually try, but I was glad I did – it was wonderful!

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And we also split the mini burgers of the week – Mimi and Pops – burgers with homemade pimento cheese and blue corn tortilla strips. The burger was totally amazing, and the pimento cheese really added a lot of flavor. This burger is definitely worth trying if you ever stop in.

I really wanted to get the apple pie wontons but I was way too full after all the apps and yummy eats.

Big thanks to Teri for organizing and to The Cowfish for being so hospitable. 🙂

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I had to take off a wee bit early from the food blogger dinner to make my Zumba company’s holiday party. I came in just in time to do the last gift exchange for their game of Dirty Santa and ended up with a bottle of wine. Score!

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And then I braved the SNOW (snow? ALREADY??) for a 40 minute drive home. Phew! I’m safely home now and hoping we don’t lose power from this winter storm passing through.

PS My legs are SOO tight from yesterday’s 5k! Guess I need to practice, eh? 😉

Any tips for how to prevent stiff legs or what to do to help recoop?

23 thoughts on “Coffeecake + Shopping + Cowfish”

  1. What a fun day! I love gift exchanges!!
    For your tight legs, sometimes it helps to run it out/warm up your muscles then stretch again. Also, foam rolling is GREAT. I used the foam roller all the time during marathon training to help after long runs! Hope this helps 🙂

    Reply
  2. That couch you are sitting on in C&B is the one we have here in Virginia! Just a different color. 🙂 It is the most comfortable couch in the world. I love Teri – so jealous of your fun day.

    Reply
  3. Foam roll for sure! My gym has one luckily, but I ended up buying one to use at home.

    And that baking experiment looks like a huge success! Coffee Cake always reminds me of the camp I went to when I was little..it was the Sunday breakfast treat.

    Reply

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