Girls Night In- Success!

Last night, I stayed at a coworker/friend's house.  We were expecting a massive snow storm and she lives closer to work, so it made sense to stay over in case we still had to go into work.  We made it a full on girls night in!  There were 4 of us total, Amanda (the house owner and a friend from high school, it's such a small world) made us an amazing dinner!

We started out with meatballs and crostini's for appetizers.  The recipe for the crostini's is from the show, Extra Virgin, sadly I couldn't find it on their website.  But it was prosciutto and mozzarella melted on crostini's then drizzled in a brown butter and sage sauce, my mouth is still watering just thinking about it.  Then we had a gluten free lasagna, and we finished up with nutella creme brulee... drool!!!  It was all amaze-balls!  She is an amazing cook and I learn so much from her. 

Once we had food in our bellies it was time to get our drink on!  We had this delicious cocktail, which I'll call the Italian cookie, I've posted the recipe at the end of this post, try it, you'll love it!  She also introduced us to the "Dr. Pepper," which is literally just Coke and a shot or 2 of Amaretto.  Plus we had Pumpkin Martinis- equal parts vodka and pumpkin liquor, you can't go wrong!

With cocktails flowing we were ready for some full on girl time!  We played the Sex and the City Board Game and enjoyed a few hours of girl talk, which included bitching about our significant others/husbands, work, and life in general.  We then moved on to karaoke, did you know that there are karaoke stations through on demand with optimum?  If you didn't and you love karaoke, check it out!  After Amanda's boyfriend came home, we pulled out the rock band and jammed with that for a while and eventually Shannon's husband showed up to bring her home but he stayed and we all chatted for another hour or so.  When it was all said and done, it was just after midnight, A3 (the third Amanda in our office, hence her nickname) and Shannon went home, and I had a good buzz going, so I crashed in the spare bedroom.

(a collage I stole from Shannon's instragram,

if you're interest, you can find more pics on my instagram feed.)

It was a hugely successful night!  These 3 women have become some of my closest confidants (besides my best friend) over the last couple of months, I feel like I can tell them anything and they'll give me their honest opinion.  I'm so lucky to be working with them and be able to call them my friends.  It's been a long time since I had a girls night, I didn't realize how much I needed that.  A chance to kick back, relax, eat and drink to my hearts content can do wonders for the soul.  I feel much more at peace now about my decision to leave Jim and while I'm sad that I'll be moving away from them, I know that I'll always be able to come back to NJ and hang out, and they better get their butts down to PA for trips into Philly.

Italian Cookie Cocktail:

Ingredients:
1 bottle Amaretto
1 large can of pineapple juice
1 cup vodka
nutmeg and cinnamon to taste

Instructions:
Pour it all into a pitcher with ice, stir, and pour.  It's that simple!!!



Have you had a girls night in recently?  What's your favorite thing to do with your besties?