This and that.

Every week I remark to anyone with a functioning ear "I can't believe it's (fill in the date!)" I think it began January 31 and has continued. Seriously, where has the year gone? It's almost July.

We really need a vacation. So if you have any ideas about where to go for a week's time I'd love to hear them. Right now my top picks are Savannah, New Orleans, Julian (a little more local), or somewhere I can fall off the grid and hopefully have a mojito. I have seriously dragged my feet updating my passport post marriage so suggestions need to stay in the US.

Last weekend I had a whirlwind Father's Day celebration, akin to Mother's Day. I do think it's smart doing it back to back, but there are drawbacks. The first being that I am a bonehead and bought a fridge without an ice maker because I didn't think we had the connection. Well we do and it just dangles, taunting me each time we have to refill our ghetto tray. Secondly, I am taller than my fridge, which makes engineering storage for parties of 18 rather tricky. But, we get 'er done. Having my mom's side over was really fun, and of course we got to give everyone a house tour. Good times had by all. My mom left her camera and I tried to steal the photos on it, but alas, I do not have the same USB cord.

Sunday night I had my in-laws over for Father's Day part II. Again, good times had by all. I don't know what family gatherings were like before Mason was around. Clearly we just sat around staring at each other quietly over dinner.

In honor of these visits I made a "quick stop" at Home Depot for potting soil. Yeah right. The produce aisle is the new hardware store is the new garden section. $40 later with herbs, succulents, and flowers in tow, I headed home. Yeah I probably spent too much but I can say that basil may have just been bumped as favorite herb to mint. I'm putting that fragrant little herb in everything, especially lemonade. See mojito craving above.

Speaking of plants, I also bought a great arrangement of peonies at Trader Joe's. It's the simple things in life. I have no photo as it's been so crazy and they are now dying, but they were a gorgeous shade of magenta and really brightened the living room.

A few other firsts-we had our friends Virginia and Shawn over for dinner Tuesday night. Virginia is pregnant and vegan which made for a challenge in dinner plans-however, a challenge I wanted to take on. We feasted on artichoke and bean crostini (Parmesan ok'd by V, and I kept some crostini sans proscuitto), tofurkey sausages with hummus, bell peppers, onions, on pita bread, as well as a garden and fruit salad. Shawn made silken tofu mud pie. Pretty tasty and most of all, good time had by all.

Last night Scott went to his first yoga class with me. There were times I could not look at him because I knew I would snort-not because of anything he was doing, but rather what the teacher was asking us to do. This particular teacher utilizes some interesting breathing techniques to say the least. His favorite part-being able to stretch his shoulders and reach his hands around his back and touch his fingers, on both sides, whereas I am unable to do it on my right.

Now as the week ends we have plans to celebrate Rob and Kerri's birthday this weekend and I'm off to Ashley's baby shower on Sunday. Seriously, it's almost July???

Another Domestic Saturday

This past Saturday, another baking fire was lit and off I went trying some new recipes for Scott's family birthday barbecue. I planned to bring the S'more Pie but after talking to Scott, decided to try something new. It was a bit too rich for him so my plan was to try two new fruit desserts-no chocolate.

The first: Nectarine and Marscapone Gingersnap Tart
This was painfully simple and got great reviews-even from the birthday boy who can be very anti-dessert. It was my first (but definitely not last) time making a gingersnap crust-a nice change from your generic graham. The spiciness paired nicely with the tart mix of cheese.

I forgot to take a before we cut the tart shot. C'est la vie-it was enjoyed.
There is a good picture of it on the author's recipe site.

The second: Strawberry Summer Pie
Houston, we have an oops. I had made the tart in the pan that I would have preferred to make this cake in and didn't want to use a pie plate or cake round because I wanted to bring it in a cute dish. Image is everything right? I thought I had a brilliant idea to put it in a bundt pan but as I was putting it in the oven, my error glared me in the face. You FLIP bundt cakes-and this cake is meant to be beautiful on the top. Not an end of the word baking fiasco, I would just have an upsidown upsidown (I think?) strawberry cake. But then I couldn't get it out of the pan so it came out it chunks and pieced it together to take to the party. I don't think anyone noticed but it did lack in appearance ratings. Still, tasty cake, super easy. Only modification I made was to use buttermilk instead of regular milk.

Same story as above.

I use the weekends as my time to prepare a more glamorous dinner for Scott and I because he's fabulous, I'm fabulous and we should always be fabulous. (That's be being Ina. Currently we don't have Broadway directors coming over for dinner-just us, and I find us to be fabulous. It's good for the self-esteem.) This Saturday, I decided to try a few Giada recipes I'd seen her make for a DeLaurentiis family dinner: Vegetable Chow Mein and Orange and Pineapple Beef.


The recipe was certainly not hard, but about an hour of prep time. The good news is you can make the beef and put it in the oven and during that time, prepare the sauce and chow mein-so it's a good use of time, albeit too long for a weeknight dinner. It turned out well, I may even try it with chicken next time because the sauce really made the beef stand out. The chow mein was quasi-improvised as Fresh & Easy didn't have chow mein noodles-but Vietnamese noodles, which I think were a find stand in.

Winner winner Chinese dinner!