I won't bore you with the details.
OK, I will (that's the point of this blog, right?)
Food, Food, Food!
I've been doing a lot of cooking (a lot for ME) lately.
I made a REALLY good (REALLY rich) dessert -- Butter Brickle Frozen Dessert. (If you haven't tried any recipes from the blog From Valerie's Kitchen, you REALLY should!
For this recipe, I even purchased a new pan to add to my repertoire.
Behold the springform pan!
Behold the springform pan that's from T.J. Maxx for $9.99 AND it's a Calphalon. Woo hoo!
And as crazy as this is, it NEVER occurred to me that you can make a rolling pin out of anything -- even a can of broth! (Thanks to Valerie for that little tip!)
Here's the bottom layer/crust ready to be baked.
Here's the brickle portion of our lovely dessert ready to be baked:
And in my humble opinion, here's the best part (anything that involved Cool Whip is the best part, right?)
Here are some pics of the finished product!
(And it even came out of the springform pan relatively easily!)
I know I didn't really describe what the dessert is made of, but it's just a whole lot of yum. Graham crackers. Nuts. Cool Whip. Butterscotch caramel topping. Wipe the drool off the screen and check out the link to the recipe above!
I don't have any photos, but I tried out a new pork chop recipe -- Parmesan Crusted Pork Chops from the Contented Wife blog. They were really good - a nice departure from plain old pan fried pork chops. (Here's a picture from her blog):
I tried out meal planning. I've seen posts about it before on various blogs and on Pinterest, but after reading a post from one of my fave bloggers, Kristan, at Confessions of a Cookbook Queen, I decided to take the plunge. She had a handy dandy meal planner/grocery list printout, which I found helpful.
Here was the first attempt:
For just a little extra work on a Sunday (when we do grocery shopping), it saved a lot of headaches/running around during the week. Regrettably, I haven't done it since (yesterday was nuts), but I will definitely do again the following week.
I've also created an old fashioned recipe binder. While it's good to pin recipes on Pinterest and good to snap a pic of one from a magazine with your phone, I need to have one that I can read without having to reload/take the phone out of sleep mode, etc... So, I took myself to Walmart, got a pretty binder and voila.
Speaking of food, let's talk about Weight Watchers and my status. I personally think this picture sums it up:
Moving right along...
Crafty McCrafterson
I wanted to put something above John's & my bed since we moved in (which was seven-ish years ago? My memory stinks.)
I've bought several things and had several Pinterest/non-Pinterest inspired ideas and they've all gone by the wayside. After reading The Nesting Place (whose subtitle is more important than the main title, in my opinion -- "It Doesn't Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful), I decided to get off my butt and just go with the latest idea that I found and loved. It's in the works, but here are some clues:
New Glasses
I got new glasses a few weeks ago and I LOVE them. (Probably because I hated my previous pair so.much.) I find picking out glasses akin to buying a new car...sort of. First, glasses are ridiculously expensive (not as expensive as a car, but not far behind....) Second, I feel like the optician/car salesperson is waiting with baited breath to see how much I'll spend. When I was at my appointment a few weeks ago and I told the optician I would be buying my contacts online, her lack of interest in my choosing glasses greatly diminished.
In the end, I choose the pair of frames that I liked (not the ones that were necessarily at the height of current optical fashion) and I'm happy with them. (They're purple. Again. Of course.)
Anniversary
John and I celebrated our 11th anniversary on September 13th. Eleven years of wedded bliss! (I am one lucky lady. :) We went to a new/local Mexican restaurant, En Fuego, in Ipswich, MA. It was good (not great, but good.)
We had some lovely cocktails:
John presented me with these beautiful stacking rings:
(Please no criticism of my cuticles...lol.) They're a bit too small and that's why they're not all the way on my finger, so we're exchanging them for a larger size. I love them! He definitely had me beat with the gifts. His words: "Just admit defeat." (He's a much better gift giver than I am!)
As it was our 11th anniversary and steel is the gift for 11 years (as in, "you need nerves of steel to be married to me for 11 years :), I gave him an ice bucket (we don't have one -- imagine that!) with a bottle of sangria and a bottle of rose.
This past Saturday we went out for our "real" anniversary dinner to another local restaurant (one that's been around a lot longer), The Beverly Depot. It's pretty cool as it's actually the old depot/train station and the commuter rail goes by. I had ginger scallion swordfish (which was awesome) and John had prime rib.
We took this selfie before we left:
TV
I've been watching a few shows feverishly (or as feverishly as I can with the busy schedule):
The Great Food Truck Race
I binge watched the first four episodes of this season On Demand (which I missed live) and have been watching on Sunday nights live. Eh. I'm not that wedded to any of the teams this go around, but I still think it's fun to see what locations they go to and what the local food specialties are.
Call the Midwife
I'm currently watching Season 3 (the newest season) and will be sad when I'm done because I'll have to wait until next year for Season 4!
The Paradise
This is the latest addition to my TV watching repertoire. I needed something I could watch on my Kindle via Netflix and I found this BBC series. I'm only a few episodes in and it's only two seasons, so this should be a quick one. It's about the rise of the department store in the late 1800's in London. It's not nearly as good as Call the Midwife, but it makes 30 minutes go by on the treadmill!
Eagles Concert
I bought John tickets to the Eagles concert for Father's Day and we went last Monday night. It was GREAT! It was the "History of the Eagles," so they actually played songs that I knew (vs. a band going on tour to play songs from their new album that no one's ever heard.)
I took the commuter rail from work to Boston.
The concert was at the TD Garden, where the Celtics and Bruins play, so it was cool to see the banners.
Here's a pre-concert selfie. Great of John, fakey smile/double chin on me.
Aloha!
I took this little gem out of the library a few weeks ago:
I've been doing a lot of vacation daydreaming lately and John and I had mentioned that we wanted Hawaii to be one of our next vacations, so I consulted the ever-reliable Fodor. (In case you're not aware, I'm somewhat of a travel guide geek. I LOVE to soak in as much information as I can ahead of time prior to arriving at the destination.)
A few people I'd asked about Hawaii had said we would definitely not want to go to Oahu (too crowded, too much traffic, commercialized, etc...), however, we both want to see Pearl Harbor and Waikiki. So, in a perfect world, we'd go to Oahu first and do these things and then based on my reading, we'd be best suited to the Big Island, Maui, or Kauai. (This will be a LONG vacation!). I just happened to glance at the index and noticed an entry for "bodysurfing!" John LOVES to bodysurf. These three islands have great bodysurfing. Kauai, of the three, seems to be the most unspoiled and I think the one I'd enjoy the most. But...Maui sounds great, too. Decisions, decisions! Any readers have any opinions to share?
That'll do it for now. Thanks for reading (if you lasted this long!)
