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Raspberry Meringue Pie

Recently, I had a Downton Abbey get-together with a few friends. I’ve been watching with one friend who has just started because I love the series so much, I don’t mind to watch it all again! And because I recently got the Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook, I wanted to turn a simple Downton Abbey viewing into a food-included party! There were a few things on the menu: cucumber sandwiches, egg salad tea sandwiches, a beautiful salad, tea (of course), and raspberry meringue pie. The others will be coming as a recipe to Hungry and Fit soon, but for now, let’s start with the Raspberry Meringue Pie. 

This pie has a wonderful tartness that comes from pure beautiful raspberries co-mingled with the small meringue atop it. I’m really not a fan of super sweet pies, so the tart ones are my favorite (see: my mum’s rhubarb pie). I shouldn’t say exactly how much of this pie I ate, but it was more than one serving. This pie brings the dessert to you without all the sugar-y sweetness you’ll find in most pies. I had a lot of help from Jamie (our resident guest chef) on this one. Let’s dig in.

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Fit’s Bachelorette Camping Trip in Pictures

Three of my great friends, Dani, Jamie, and Robyn, organized a bachelorette trip for us to go camping! It was everything I needed: relaxing, active, and stress-free. It was so nice to escape the madness of prepping for the wedding and hike, go to the beach, and laugh. We even saw whales…TWICE! If that’s not a good omen, I’m not sure what is. Dani’s pictures are also sprinkled in here (they’re the nice ones and the group shots). Enjoy!

Bags packed!

Bags packed!

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Happy St Patrick’s Day!

Top o’ the mornin’ to ya!

Alana getting into cooking/cleaning mode

Alana getting into cooking/cleaning mode


Yesterday we had the privilege of celebrating one of our favorite Americanized and distorted holidays. This year we were lucky enough to have it fall on a Sunday, so we decided to hold a little celebration since we are so far from our homes. I’ll try to make this brief because I’m still pretty full.
Kittens hoping for some scraps

Kittens hoping for some scraps

We woke up early and headed to do a few chores. Target for prescriptions, King Soopers for groceries, Marshall’s for another large pot, and Sprouts for produce. We already had corned beef from the day before. Five pounds of it… for three omnivores and four vegetarians. Whoops.
Our grocery trip

Our grocery trip

We cleaned the house and I threw the mixture of corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes (not telling you the secret recipe) around 11:00 a.m. We started eating at 3:30 p.m. Alana made a very good Irish soda bread with her friend’s mom’s authentic recipe AND a spinach-feta pie-like dish. We also had some good Irish cheddar cheese, jack, and cranberry goat cheese with matzoh. That’s right… straight from Jerusalem.
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Our tunes for the day…

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For drink, we were provided with George Killian’s irish Red, a nice refreshing light tasting beer to compliment the dishes. (I know nothing about beer.) Afterwards, I made vanilla Bailey’s milkshakes for dessert. We Skyped with family, chatted and caught up with one another, and gave the kittens tons of attention. All in all it was a very fun time together. Thanks to everyone for coming and everyone that celebrated this holiday the right way!

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remnants of milkshake

remnants of milkshake

Kitchen hit by tornado

Kitchen hit by tornado

Even after a feast like this one, stay hungry and fit!
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And After the Presidential Debates…

I’m still sticking with my man Barack, and it’s not because I think he’s an amazing presidential candidate… it’s because I would vote for whoever has the best chance of making sure Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan do not win. If it was someone from the Green or an Independent party, that would work fine with me… just not those two. I’m not voting based on who I think can turn around the economy. In this post, I’m not even going to get into depth about political agendas, policies, plans and all that complicated stuff that just breeds lies and unfulfilled promises.

Official photographic portrait of US President...

Official photographic portrait of US President Barack Obama (born 4 August 1961; assumed office 20 January 2009) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I simply cannot vote for a narcissistic liar and a narcissistic liar who cannot relate to the majority of the population of the United States. I don’t mind that Paul Ryan has a normal degree from a so-so institution of higher education. Actually, it’s the only thing that I like about him. I don’t like his pictures of him posing with his backwards hat and poorly built arms. I don’t like the fact that he lied about his marathon time (I believe he said it took him about 3 hours when it was realistically around 4.) If he lies about that, I don’t trust anything he says, so I would clearly never vote for him.

As for Romney, I simply cannot stand the guy. He has no concept of human rights and equality. There is a separation of church and state in this country and he is a religiously-driven man. He claims that he recognizes all religions and the religious freedom in this country, but then immediately says we are all children of the same God. He claims that he wants to give better job equality to women, but won’t let them decide whether they can control their own bodies all of the time. And don’t get me started on his view of gay rights. His smile is fake and evil, he doesn’t care at all about the middle class, and just wants to keep his riches rolling in so he can afford to send his 18 grand children to college. He has no concept of foreign policy, which unfortunately wasn’t highlighted enough last night. I wrote two of my theses on diplomacy and conflict resolution, and the man has no grasp of diplomacy. It’s ridiculous how many people he can offend in one debate. How many tens of millions… hundreds of millions… a billion people he can offend in one debate. And he just lies about way too much. Lie after lie after lie.

Mitt Romney - Caricature

Romney

So I don’t care how many accurate statistics relating to the economy he throws out. He doesn’t know anything about struggle. We were nearly living on credit cards, almost dead broke, struggling to find and keep jobs, and we see Obama and we still see change and hope. And while I doubt Mitt actually wants to help us, his plans could help the economy, but they might make it worse. And I would never throw my morals and values away for the small chance that his hidden agenda might lower the price of gas. That is not worth it. I will not let gays be denied their rights, women be denied their choices, and good people be denied the opportunity to continue helping other people, just so I can pay a buck less at the pump. That’s not worth it. Sorry Mitt, someone like me would never vote for someone like you.

But really, Barack was right when he called you out on the military. Are you trying to compensate for a lack of security? You might have thought your privileges growing up made you the best, but in the world stage, you’ll need a lot more than that.

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