Today was not only Resurrection Sunday, but Beau's birthday!
So we celebrated with Donna and Morgan and ate our hearts out! Sauteed brussels sprouts, bone-in ribeyes from a local butcher shop and gorgonzola gnocchi dolce which is positively sinful!
Happy birthday sweetie! I love you more than ice cream, being warm and margaritas! You're the love of my life!
So on Thursday right before I left for Disney, and I mean right before I left. (Imagine, I’m leaving at 12:00 because Beau is picking me up and at 11:45 my boss sits me down.) My boss tells me that I’m no longer working in that building and that I’m moving over to our corporate building to do project management: financial closeout. What?!?!
I had so many questions, but none could be answered other than report to some lady on Monday at 7:30. I couldn’t even pack up my desk. I went back over on Monday to do that.
Well, as you know, it’s now Wednesday and I’ve been here since Monday at 7:30. The last few days have been somewhat chaotic with having little direction and others having to get some stuff done because it’s “hot” so I’m off and on with learning some stuff and trying some new things.
Overall, I’m thrilled to be here. I’m sad to leave those that I’ve come to love over at my other building, but excited for the new opportunity here. I’m already learning a lot and getting to try new things. I’m thankful they put here and we’ll see what comes of it!
Dad, Chris, Justin and I are currently sitting at the College of Charleston baseball field freezing our tooshes off! But we're having a good time!
Go Bulldogs!
Go Cougars!
I had two blood oranges sitting in my fruit basket screaming at me, "Please use me!"
Blood Orange Meringue Pie is what I made and it was delicious. Yes, I'm supposed to be giving up dessert but I had to taste a bite since this was my new creation. Really, I just had a bite.
Can you see that there is a tinge of green right under the meringue? I have no idea what that is about. Everyone ignored it and ate happily. :)
“I feel a recipe is only a theme, which an intelligent cook can play each time with a variation.”
~ Madame Benoit
I made Chicken Pesto Pizza last night for dinner. I tried my hand at yet another pizza crust recipe. It still didn’t turn out like it should have-it didn’t rise. But I didn’t let it defeat me. I still rolled that dough out and thought “thin crust!” So it was fine, but not great. What was great was the rest of the pizza. The recipe called for pesto, grilled chicken, fresh mozzarella and sun-dried tomatoes. I adapted it a bit with the mozzarella I had on hand and added some sliced, cooked leeks leftover from another dinner. The leeks were delicious and pesto is so flavorful. Beau and I both loved it and felt ever better about the fact that it was homemade. Yum!
A couple of weekends ago, Beau and I had a date night and ended up at Brixx for pizza. I swear I think Beau and I have more fun than any other couple out there. And here’s me, having a great time laughing with the love of my life. Sillyness is fun and everything is more fun when you’re mouth is wide open. J
Friday night we went bowling. Mt Pleasant’s bowling alley is definitely the nicest I’ve been in. As you can see, we had leather couches to sit on! Much better than those plastic spinning chairs I grew up with. We had a super time of dancing and bowling and hanging out. Here’s me taking a break from bowling. I worked really hard to get that ball right down the center… Who wants to go next?
I’ve been craving Bolognese for at least a week now and I had to make it on Saturday or I was going to go insane! Insane! We had Morgan and Donna over to join us for the deliciousness! Morgan brought the Chianti and Donna brought the garlic bread and cannolis! Everything was spot on, I’ve got to say! It was a great night of laughing and eating and drinking.
Beau and I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal and every Saturday they write an “Off Duty” section that has fashion advice, book reviews and delicious recipes! Beau and I thought it would be fun to make whatever recipes they have in there. We thought it would take me out of my comfort zone as far as cooking skills and it help us both to try new things.
So we eagerly run out to the drive-way on Saturday mornings to open the paper and see what recipes they’re giving us! That determines our dinner for Sunday night. This weekend? There were three recipes and we chose one: Leek Risotto with Pecorino Romano.
We grilled up some NY Strip, to which Beau made it a perfect medium-rare. I cooked up the risotto and roasted Brussels sprouts. Oh yum!
Leek Risotto with Pecorino Romano
2 ½ T olive oil
3 T butter
1 large Spanish onion, diced
Salt, to taste
1 ½ c Arborio rice
2 c white wine
6 c chicken broth
2 leeks, white and light greens parts only, sliced 1/8-inch thick
½ c freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese
Boil the chicken broth in a saucepan. Then bring it down to a simmer until it’s needed.
Melt 1 ½ T olive and 1 T butter over medium-low heat in a large pan. Add the diced onion and let is soften, about 5 minutes. Once the onion has softened, add the rice. Let this toast two minutes, while stirring and add the white wine. Let this cook down until the wine has almost evaporated. Add salt to taste.
Turn the heat up to medium-high and add the chicken broth in, 2 cups at a time. Stir continuously letting the rice soak up the chicken broth. Continue doing this until all of the chicken broth is incorporated and the rice is al dente.
While the chicken broth is cooking into the rice, melt 1 T butter in a small pan with 1 T olive oil. Add the sliced leeks and cook down over medium-low heat.
Once the rice is al dente and the chicken broth is mostly absorbed, add the leeks and stir to combine. Remove the pan from the heat and add in the Pecorino-Romano and additional salt as needed. Eat and enjoy!
*Be careful. This makes a lot. I halved the recipe and it was more than enough for us last night. In fact, we’ll be having it again tonight with fish!
Argos fell asleep on the couch the other night (not a surprise) with his tongue out. While sleeping, his tongue dried out and he was unable to get it back in his mouth for the longest time. It made us laugh.
This is Kent. I work with him. He recommended we try his favorite sandwich, peanut butter, bacon and pickle sandwich. So us girls put our resources together and brought in the ingredients to try that sandwich. And it was surprisingly very good! You should try it!
Any other funky sandwiches we should try?
Beau and I celebrated our two-year anniversary yesterday!
Both of us worked yesterday but Beau picked me up from work with flowers and took me to lunch. How sweet is he?
After work we studied for a mid-term we have today while walking through the park and then headed out to John’s Island for dinner at Wild Olive. I had been before and kept talking it up to Beau. He loves Italian food!
And it was everything I said it was. So delicious! Here’s what we had:
Appetizer:
Cream of Mushroom Soup with Parmesan Croutons
Littleneck Clams in a Spicy Caper sauce with Grilled Ciabatta Bread
Primi:
Pappardelle with Pancetta and Mushrooms
Agliotolle with Ricotta and Chicken Lemon-Chive Butter
Secondi:
Marsala with Mashed Potatoes and Brussels Sprouts
Dessert:
Tiramisu
Venetian Apple Cake with Vanilla Gelato, Bourbon Caramel and Pralines
Is your mouth watering? Mine is doing it all over again! It was so, so good. I’m already looking forward to returning to that place!
Overall, we had a wonderful evening recounting where were on our wedding at different times and what a great day it was. We can’t believe two years has already passed. It has certainly gone by too quick! But it’s been wonderful and I know that I love the hubster more today than I did on that wonderful day that we said “I do”.
Here’s to many more anniversaries and loving you more each year honey!
Mom and I were invited to a family friend’s baby shower on Saturday. It was a really nice shower with a lot of my mom’s old friends. Great food too! Chicken Salad on Croissants, a delicious salad, cantaloupe and shrimp and grits! Everything was delicious and Krista got a lot of really cute things for her daughter, Savannah Leigh Clark.
I’m so over winter. After being cold all weekend and unable to get warm, I am ready for some warm weather.
I’m ready for spring and summer. I’m ready for what I consider warm and what I think the rest of this country would consider hot. I no longer want to have goose bumps. I want to wear sundresses and sit on my back porch in the sunlight. I want to grill outside with the hubster and enjoy the clean warm air. Oooh, I can taste it now. March is so much closer than February. For that I’m thankful. But wow, get here soon warm weather. I need you. Bad.
