Hippity Hop!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter! Even though I?m Jewish, my mom?s best friend (really, she?s like my aunt) has had us over for Easter every year for the last, oh?forever! I can?t remember an Easter when we didn?t all get together, hunt for plastic eggs, eat amazing food (usually the first cook-out of the year), and way too much chocolate. This year was no different!

We all met at my mom?s best friend?s house, and were greeted by the familiar scent of the grill heating up! There was a delicious appetizer that my mom brought called ?green pea guacamole.? I?ll be making this very soon, so you?ll get pics and the recipe then.

Each of us were handed an empty basket, and we went out and searched for Easter eggs! The most fun was helping Sophie (the 4-year-old) find eggs and fill her basket. Each egg was filled with something?some candy, some stickers, some change, and some cash! Adam and I ended up with about $3.

After we came inside, we sat down to eat, and the table was filled with AMAZING food! (See Eo, told you the pictures were great!)

Each and every one of these dishes were just as delicious as they looked! The salmon is a recipe that my mom and her friend have been making for years, and it just SCREAMS Spring. It was amazing to have bright colors on my plate besides the obligatory sweet potato? and finally! GOOD tomatoes! (Can you tell that I?m thrilled it?s getting warmer out?)

After that delicious dessert plate, there may or may not (ok, there were) a couple small chocolates consumed? and I?m quite full! Thanks for yet another wonderful Easter!

As promised, Adam wrote a review of the Philadelphia cream cheese flavors that we received from Tastespotting:

If you read Mara’s post on the 8th you would have seen that Tastespotting sent us samples of two new flavors of Philadelphia cream cheese. The new flavors were Tomato Basil and Spinach Artichoke.  They were also kind enough to send us Triscuit and Sociables crackers to put the cream cheese on.

First of all, the reason I am writing this review is because of the two of us I am a self-proclaimed cream cheese connoisseur. All my life I have always loved the typical bagel and cream cheese. So, my first reaction when we received the package where ?where the hell are the bagels?”  However, since we had no bagels I decided I had no choice but to put the cream cheese on the crackers. Both flavors were good, but on crackers I would say I preferred the spinach artichoke flavor the most. If I had a nice asiago cheese bagel I would have preferred the tomato basil. The spinach artichoke flavor felt more like a dip than it did a cream cheese you would shmear on your bagel. I did have the opposite opinion for the tomato basil cream cheese. While I would not like the tomato basil cream cheese on my typical egg bagel it would tastevery good on a more decadent bagel such as the asiago cheese bagel I mentioned before.

All in all they are great flavors, however, being that I am someone currently trying to lose weight I would say I would not purchase these products. They are very tasty and if I had a great metabolism I would eat all the cream cheese I could. But, for someone fighting with their weight I do not feel that the flavor is that fantastic to warrant the amount of calories and fat that are consumed when enjoying this product on your favorite carbohydrate packed cracker or bagel.

Thanks Adam! I did my own tasting of the cream cheeses, but they were such a treat that I was pretty much lost in how decadent they tasted, rather than if they were good or not.

It was quite an exhausting day, and I’m ready to relax and have NO major events for  an entire week! It’s almost a relief to be able to eat only my own food for a while. Have a great night, and hope you all had an amazing Easter holiday!

OH! Be sure to check out my brand new Amazon store featuring some of my favorite things under the (you guessed it!) “My Favorite Things” page above.