Return to Amici Italian Lovin’ Oven

Remember my visit last week to Amici, a new restaurant here in Rock Hill?

Well, I went back again tonight.  I enjoyed it so much last week that I brought Sadie and Ryan with me!  As luck would have it, about a week ago there was a daily deal, so we had a $30 gift certificate that I purchased for $15!

I am still amazed at how Amici was transformed from a Movie Gallery into this very cool place!  The atmosphere is warm and inviting!

(I really like the open kitchen!)

And by the way, Amici Italian Lovin’ Oven is locally owned.  It is NOT connected with any other Amici restaurants.

We started with the spinach dip with flat bread…

… and it was sooooo good.  Hot and melty cheese and bread?  Yes, please! (My pictures don’t do this food justice… dim lighting…)

Tonight I decided to try the Margherita Pizza. 

LOVED this pizza.  I am a huge fan of thin-crust pizza and this crust was crispy and very thin!  PERFECT!  You never know when you order Margherita Pizza if it’s really going to be a Margherita pizza with tomato slices and fresh basil… but this WAS.

By the way, we had 2 entrees, plus Sadie’s Kid’s meal (spaghetti) and an appetizer for under $30.  Not bad at all!  (And with our coupon, it was only $15!  Yay!)

If you’re local, definitely stop and check them out. 

An “Out of this World” Day

Happy Hump Day to all my reader-friends!!!  Thank you so much for visiting tonight!  I’m going to go back in time tonight… I’d like to tell you about my “Out-of-this-World” day on Monday.

I was really excited to get to school on Monday morning because it was shuttle launch day!  Did any of you watch the launch?  I streamed the video live on my computer from the NASA web site…

…but when it was time for the actual “blast-off,” I ran down the hall to watch it with one of the science classes at my school.  It was really cool to be able to watch it live. 

It really made me think back to my second grade class and how we watched the Challenger take off.  The excitement was HUGE because Christa McAuliffe, a teacher, was going to do a live broadcast from outer space.  What a terrible tragedy. 

So… something else big happened on Monday, too.  Every so often, I submit a food photo to Food Gawkers, a website that features photos taken by food bloggers.  Usually, I get a rejection.  My main issues were usually due to poor lighting, and you may remember that I built a lightbox to help with that. 

Well, on Monday morning, I woke up and checked my email and found that… one of my photos was accepted!  I was thrilled.  All day  long, my photo was featured on the Food Gawker site.

Here’s my photo that was accepted:

“Noodle Bowl”

I really must give the credit to my friend Diana, because she’s the one who got me started making these Noodle Bowls!

Ok, friends… I hope you’re all having a fantastic week!  I’ve got another post coming soon… because we made a return visit to Amici Italian Lovin’ Oven tonight and it was delish!  Stay tuned to see what I got this time!

Storm Clean-Up, Carowinds, and Easy Eating

How was your weekend?  Ours was full of food and family time.  Two of my favorite things!

Remember the big storm from last week?  Well, yesterday ended up being “clean-up day.”  Ryan had borrowed a chain saw and was ready to be cutting limbs all day, but during the midmorning hours, my neighbor texted me that she was sending “her tree man” over when he finished with her yard.  Talk about an unexpected present!  Unfortunately, our tree in the front yard was too damaged to save, so we had to cut it down.  But our trees in the back yard only needed pruning.  Take a look at the pile of branches/leaves in front of our house!

Wild, huh?  Boy, does the city have their work cut out for them!  Every house on our street has a pile of branches as big as this one! 

Last night we enjoyed noodle bowls with edamame, broccoli, and chicken. 

I love making this.  It’s just as good as ordering Chinese takeout, but way healthier!

Today, we decided the weather was perfect for a quick afternoon trip to Carowinds. 

 

No big Roller Coasters for us today… just the kiddie rides.  Ryan and I are planning an “adult day” at Carowinds soon, though.  It’s fun to go ride all the scary rides!

I’m really looking forward to summer vacation starting soon.  I am looking forward to having more time to cook (and clean!).  Tonight I was able to cook one of my favorite meals: chili.  I made a nice big pot so that we could have leftovers this week.  :)  I used a version of this recipe, but I used fresh onion tonight, and I added extra Cayenne Pepper. 

I know soups and chilis are more “winter meals,” but I love them just as much in the summer!  I’m weird, I know!

Goodnight, all!  Have a great week!

Balle Balle!

Last night, I had the most unique experience! You guys all know how much Zumba I am always doing, and I love it.  But last night, instead of spending the evening doing Latin-inspired dancing… I spent the evening doing Indian-inspired dancing!

This was truly an aqmazing experience.  The dance-fitness company that I have been training with hosted a Masala Bhangra Master Class with Sarina Jain!  Now, a few weeks ago, I had never heard of Masala Bhangra OR Sarina.  However, when I heard that she was coming, I started doing some research.  Sarina Jain is the creator of this Indian-inspired dance-fitness style and company.  It incorporates movements from Bhangra and Bollywood into a very high-energy and FUN workout! 

Photo from http://www.masaladance.com/

We were lucky to not only get to participate in a Master Class, but to have the owner and creator there to teach us!  In her introduction, Sarina told us how she lost her father to a heart attack, and how that experience opened her eyes to the need to bring exercise to the Indian people.  Masala Bhangra deeply reflects the Indian culture.

Click here to learn more about Masala Bhangra!

Here’s a great action shot of the entire group during the class.  My friend Diana took this amazing photo!  Isn’t it awesome?  Can you find me in it?  I am in the right portion.  I am wearing all black.

Here is our group after the workout!  (We looked prettier BEFORE the workout.  It was a REAL workout!)

(Thanks to my friend Erica for this photo!)

So… what do you do after a Masala Bhangra workout?  You go eat Indian Food!  This was truly a night of firsts for me, as I have NEVER eaten in an Indian Restaurant!

Diana was our food guru.  She worked some kind of magic and the restaurant kept bringing us all kinds of goodies, like fresh naan!

 

My favorite things were the Chana Masala (top left), Chilli Chicken (middle), and that green veggie dumpling thing at the top. 

So it was a complete cultural experience and a very fun night!  I am looking forward to Sarina’s return in August!

Amici Italian Lovin’ Oven

So after the ordeal with the thunderstorms and all the power outages… it was time for a night with the girls. 

On Thursday, I headed to Oakland Baptist to teach Zumba and found that they were having electrical issues AND the air conditioner was not working correctly.  Oof.  So let’s just say that we were all VERY sweaty when it was all over.  No post-workout sauna visit needed!  After a few minutes of conversation with another fellow instructor, I was off for a girls’ dinner at a relatively new restaurant in Rock Hill: Amici Italian-Lovin Oven.  I promise, that is the real name!

Amici popped up in a shopping center close to our house around Christmastime, but we just haven’t been able to try it out. 

Luckily, Kate brought baby Ryan, so we had fun making funny faces at him and passing him around!

Meredith and Kate

Angie and Baby Ryan, Mandy P, and Me (Isn’t it sad that I am gross and sweaty at every get-together???)

We started with the shrimp and crab dip with flat bread.  This was delicious!  It had a melted cheese topping and it was really rich and tasty!  And there were whole shrimp in there!

I was really torn between getting pizza and pasta.  In the end, I got pasta because I felt like we’ve had pizza a good bit lately.  I decided on Baked Spaghetti.

It was also delicious.  By the time we got finished… someone was getting sleepy!

I would definitely go back to Amici again!  It had a nice atmosphere and you’d never know it used to be a video rental store!  AND… lucky me… I have a Groupon saved for Amici… so I can go back with Ryan and Sadie!  :)

Next up… an Indian-Themed Evening!

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night...

Hello, all!  We've had an interesting spring here in the Upstate of South Carolina.  Storms, galore!  Is it just me, or does it seem like these thunderstorms are way more severe than normal? We've had golf-ball-sized hail several times already, and tornado threats...

Tuesday night, all of us here at the Confessions household went to bed at our usual times.  It seemed like any other night.  Possibility of rain, maybe a thunderstorm... we were actually under a Severe Thunderstorm Watch, which I usually don't worry too much about.  I usually pay more attention when we have a warning.

Around 1:00 a.m., we were awakened by a CRAZY storm!  I have never seen wind and lightning like we saw that night.  And this storm went ON and ON and ON!  Usually severe thunderstorms come in quickly and then go away quickly.  But not this one!  I am not exaggerating when I say that it was like that for at least thirty minutes! 

In the morning, we walked out to find that almost every house on our street had a tree down. 

You can't see it, but on the other side of our neighbors' white truck, there is another huge tree on the ground.

Notice the dirt in the street?  That was from the flooding. 

You can also just barely see a tree laying across the road.

Front view of our house

Our tree in our front yard was struck by lightning, we think, because we can see burn marks where it split.  We have many huge limbs in the back yard.  Trees are in the road and some people even ended up with trees on their cars or homes.  We were blessed that we did not have any home or car damage.  We did lose power for almost 24 hours. 

I do not deal well with a no-air-conditioning situation, so Ryan and I packed our bags and headed to his parents' house!  We stopped off for a quick dinner at McAlister's after finished up with a Zumba class and then headed to our temporary home. 

COLD iced tea!

Club

Potato Salad

Luckily our power came back on around 10 p.m. last night, so we'll have a cool home to sleep in tonight.

All of this has made me really think about all of the folks in Raleigh and Alabama, who suffered so much worse and have so much more damage.  It was hard to live for one day without power... and most of that day I was at work.  So my thoughts are definitely with alf those who have faced such hardships from all the severe storms and tornadoes!