Birthday Bash

Celebration of birthday month continued this weekend as we were lucky enough to have all of Andy's family join us here in Birmingham. 

But before I get to the birthday celebration from Saturday night, I have to say that Big Top was a great success! My whole family went, even Xan, which made it really special. He did a wonderful job despite the huge crowd, and he seemed to really enjoy it. Andy's mom, sister, and her boyfriend (Carter) also came which meant a lot to both of us. There was a HUGE turnout, and Andy I came home with a gift certificate to GianMarco's which we can't wait to use! Lots of fun was had, and hopefully lots of money raised for Glenwood!

Now back to Saturday night....Andy cooked this beauty on the Green Egg...

Thanks to Billy and Lyl for bringing the tenderloin from Derk's in Montgomery. Unfortunately, we haven't managed to find as good of a meat source here in Birmingham. If anyone knows of a good one, please let us know!

And we drank a little of this while we waited on the meat to cook...

And the finished product....(Andy thinks it was the best one yet, but I have to say they have all been delicious)

To go with the meat, I cooked green beans and the individual potato gratins...

 I wanted to get a shot of the whole group at the table, but Andy snapped this so quick that not everyone was looking. Oh well, hopefully you get the idea at least.

 And for the best part of all (right, Karen?), we had Strawberry Cake from Ashley Mac's for dessert. Ashley Mac's caters lunch for Andy's office a lot during tax season, so he discovered the cake a few years ago. Knowing I would love it, he bought me one for my first birthday that we were living in Birmingham. It has been one of my absolute favorites ever since!

And after dinner, this crew was kind enough to do all the dishes!!

Unfortunately, Evan was already asleep by the time we ate dinner but here are a few pictures of him with his Uncle Andy this morning...

Thanks to everyone for coming!! We had a great time and hope we can do it again soon.

Slow-Cooker White Bean Soup With Andouille and Collards

This may come as a shocker to most who know me, but Wednesday night I tried this recipe. Beans are not usually my thing nor are collards for that matter, but for some reason the recipe caught my eye. Maybe it was the 1/2 lb of Andouille we had sitting in fridge. Anyway, it was delicious and so easy!

(Picture is compliments of RealSimple.com as I didn't get the camera out just to photograph the slow cooker...)

I have rarely used our slow cooker - in all, maybe 3 times since we got married. I have to say though, it was really nice after a long day at the office to come in to dinner being pretty much ready. One thing I must admit though, Andy actually deserves credit for "cooking" most of this. Trying to be on top of things, I had cut up the onions and celery the night before and laid out all the ingredients. Literally all I had to do in the morning was dump them in, and push power on. Well, somehow I managed to walk out of the house without even thinking about it! Around 10, I realized what I had done, but Andy so graciously offered to start it for me over lunch. He kind of missed the note that if you were cooking for 7 to 8 hours though, then it should be on Low. So, ours cooked on high for 8 hours, but it still tasted great. The beans were just a little mushy....

A New Addition to the Kitchen

Through the kitchen renovation, we ended up with some extra space at our bar. Previously, we had room for just 2 bar stools, but now there is room for 3. We had bought some inexpensive bar stools from Bed, Bath, and Beyond when we first moved in and while they served their purpose for a good 2 and half years, they were starting to get a little (ok maybe a lot) wobbly. So rather than just buying another one to match, the Parkers were generous enough to give us a whole new set of bar stools for Christmas. 

After much deliberation, we decided on this style:

Andy actually first noticed a similar style at Whole Foods a month or so ago. After some in depth online research, he found a site where we could make them our own!

 (Excuse my mess in the background while I was cooking)

So, what do you think? I think they bring a more modern touch to help tie into the new kitchen, and they are really much more comfortable than our old ones. 

Of course we had to try them out tonight while we ate dinner!

And just in case you were curious what was on our plates, it was a new recipe from Real Simple. Chili rubbed pork tenderloin with a sweet potato hash. I added a salad too with a lemon vinaigrette dressing I made up a while ago. Here is the recipe roughly...

Lemon Vinaigrette

juice of 1 lemon

2 TBL rice wine vinegar

salt

pepper

3 (ish) TBL extra virgin olive oil (I use a nicer one for salad dressings, and a more inexpensive one for cooking when you won't actually taste the oil.)

Whisk the first 4 ingredients together, then gradually add the olive oil while whisking. Simple enough!

Happy Monday!

I'm Still Here

My apologies (to the few of you reading this) for my lack of posting over the last few week. I was in sunny windy, cold Bermuda for most of the week for work. Trust me when I say that it is not quite as glamorous as it sounds. It would be a lot more fun if Andy could come with me, and we could stay over an extra day or two. Maybe one year I will get to make the trip outside of tax season!

This weekend, my mom and I went to Atlanta to shop while Andy was fishing with some guys in Louisiana. Thanks to Hotwire, we had a great deal at the Intercontinental which was very nice! We made it just in time for dinner on Friday night at Sotto Sotto, which I had read about in Southern Living a while back. I had this wonderful duck ragu on papperdelle pasta, and I took half of it back to the hotel because the portion was HUGE. So, I put it in the mini bar fridge, but then when I went to take it out this morning when we were leaving, it was gone! I had my mind set on eating it for dinner too - bummer. Not to mention that housekeeping didn't through away the empty water cup sitting on the beside table. Why would you throw away my leftovers which I had put in the fridge?? I guess next time I will know to leave a note.

Anyway, moving on...we had a fun weekend shopping and just being together. We both managed to find a few cute things to buy like this little number which was a great deal at Nordstroms:

We also were lucky enough to have lunch with this lovely lady:

Fran, thanks so much for joining us and sorry to keep you waiting! It was so fun to see you, and I hope you will come home for a visit soon. David joined us for dinner on Saturday night at Canoe, which was a fun surprise too! Being the chef he is (and I can only pretend to imitate), he took the pictures of the food so I don't have any to share. 

Overall it was a great weekend away and a really special time to spend with my mom. Thanks to my dad too for sharing her with me for the weekend! 

The good news is that I'm in town all this week, so I will try to be better about posting. I'm excited to be back in the kitchen too!

Andy Earns a Fleur De Lis*

Technically Andy earned a Fleur De Lis for this dish a while back, but since I just got around to ironing some on his apron this week I figured he deserved some congratulations. (If you don't know what I'm referring to, read Andy's guest blog entry about grilling...)

Friday night we decided to cook in and celebrate Valentines knowing I would be out of town on the actual day. Inspired by our trip to New Orleans, Andy wanted to cook Andouille Crusted Fish with a Meuinere Sauce over a Brabant Potato Hash (he does the fish and I do the hash). I give him all the credit for dreaming up the recipe though because he is much more creative than I am! The fish is really just seared on one side then flipped in topped with a mixture of diced andouille sausage and bread crumbs and finished in the oven.

Andy of course had to capture all of the Cajun ingredients going in...

And the andouille simmering away...

The brabant potato hash is simple too (Andy just likes elaborate names). It is diced potatoes roasted in olive oil and salt, tossed with sauteed onion, garlic, and bell pepper. 

No pictures of the meniure sauce, but it is a mixture of worstershire sauce (Lea and Perrins of course), butter, bay leaf, lemon, and a splash of cream. Here's how the final dish turned out:

We had some potato hash leftover, so this is what I created for breakfast the next day...

(Don't be deceived, I do not usually cook breakfast like this! It is typically cereal or frozen waffles around this house.)

I'm headed out of town tomorrow for most of the week, but maybe Andy will make a guest blogging appearance in my absence....

Happy Valentines Day tomorrow!

Milk

When we were at the beach over New Years, my dad introduced us to the most amazing thing - local organic milk. I know, you are thinking milk, really? How exciting can that be? Well, consider yourself warned because this stuff will change the way you think about milk! 

The milk comes out of Slocomb, AL and is pasteurized at a very low temperature in order to maintain the good bacteria which can actually help you digest the milk. Supposedly some people who are lactose intolerant are even able to drink it because it contains the natural bacteria and enzymes needed to help with digestion.

As a side note, I had always been puzzled by the fact that most organic milk you see at the store has an expiration date of more than a month away while normal milk is only good for 10 days. It somehow seemed counterintuitive that "organic" would have more preservatives.

Anyways, back to this milk...the taste is unbelievable! It's thick and rich and just tastes like milk should. So much better than cream in coffee! They don't have different grades like 2%, 1%, skim, etc, but because it is so rich, you really end up using less. They even sell a chocolate milk which tastes like a milkshake I promise.

So where can you buy this amazing milk?? Well, here in Birmingham they have it at Whole Foods and Piggly Wiggly. Montgomery even has it at the health food store and it is supposed to coming at the new Earth Fare too. The only drawback is that it is a little more expensive than normal milk at $3.50/half gallon (which is why we still consider it a special treat around Manhattan).

You can visit their website to learn more if I haven't already bored you to death on the subject.

And just in case you didn't realize it already, I'm a huge dork when it comes to stuff like this!

A few more pictures...

My mom just emailed me a few pictures off of her camera from our weekend in NOLA so I thought I would share...

Unwrapping presents in the room...pardon my mess in the background

And just because I know Andy will LOVE this solo shot...

Like our cooler? (Chilling the wine in the trash can...)

NOLA

Andy I and ventured to New Orleans for the weekend to celebrate my birthday with my parents. Getting there on Friday was not the most pleasant experience (3 hour delay!), but after we arrived it was a perfect weekend! I did take a few pictures (with the blog in mind), but my mom took some more so hopefully I can add a few of those later.

When we landed on Friday, we went straight to Galatoire's to meet my parents, who had been patiently waiting since our 8:30 reservation. The kitchen supposedly closed at 10, but they were nice enough to put an order in for us so that our food was waiting when we walked in at 10:30. Certainly not the most "relaxing" meal, but we were just glad to be there! After dinner, we walked around the Quarter for a little bit and ended up sitting in the piano bar at Pat O'Briens for a while. Andy and I had been in Pat O'Briens before but not in the piano bar, and it was really fun! (The pre-made Hurricanes stacked up behind the bar on the other hand did not look so appealing....)

On Saturday, Andy and my dad went ice fishing while Mom and I shopped. The guys almost froze to death but luckily caught a few redfish in the end. Being the fair weather fisher(wo)man I am, I think I made the right choice to take a pass on this fishing trip! Mom and I ate lunch at Lilette and had a wonderful meal. I didn't take any pictures, but we shared some raw oysters (tiny ones, my favorite), Duck Confit, and their take on a Lobster Roll. It was all delicious and a fun atmosphere. After lunch, we shopped around Magazine Street and Canal Place. I found one dress, but Mom had some great luck! 

Saturday night we celebrated my birthday with dinner at Mila. 

I had read about MiLa on Chowhound a year or 2 ago, so I was really excited to have a chance to try it out. It certainly did not disappoint! They have a big focus on "farm to table" cooking, so everything was really fresh. I think Andy is already tired of hearing me talk about how much I enjoyed this meal. It is one of my top 10 meals in the last year for sure! Everything on the menu sounded delicious, making it really difficult to choose! Here's what I had though:

Barbecue Lobster to start (I think this was my favorite dish of the entire trip)

Seared Scallops with a Satsuma Glaze and Bok Choy - this didn't really catch my eye initially, but the waiter really recommended it so I decided to give it a try. Well worth it!  

Chocolate Peanut Butter Torte for Dessert - So rich but so worth it. Glad that Andy was nice enough to share it with me!

Sunday morning, we walked around Jackson Square for a while and unfortunately could not resist the beignets at Cafe Du Monde. While walking around after our beignets (trying to make room in our stomachs for brunch), we came across this little outfit which Andy was very tempted to buy for Baby Evan...

We continued our weekend of gluttony with brunch at Coquette. The Bloody Marys (along with pretty much everything else) were delicious! I think we were all starting to feel a little uncomfortably full at this point, but we still enjoyed the meal. The restaurant had a great atmosphere mixed with modern touches in a traditional setting, and I would love to go back on an empty stomach some time! Dad got into the picture thing and snapped a few for us: 

Here are my roasted oysters...

Andy's Gumbo, which was really different than a typical gumbo. It was made with shrimp and pork stock with pulled duck and greens...

Dad's Fried Quail on top of mini bibb lettuce stacks - with some Benton's Bacon (can't go wrong with anything that has Benton's bacon on it) to garnish...

If you are still reading at this point, thanks for sticking with me! 

Overall it was a wonderful weekend and birthday, and I am so thankful to Andy and my parents for making it such a special trip. Thanks to everyone else who called, emailed, and texted too! I felt very loved. 

Happy Birthday Molly!

I hope that you have a wonderful birthday! I couldn't imagine another person that I would rather share a birthday with. I hope you have a fabulous day and do something fun to celebrate. I'm so thankful to have you as a sister in law, and this picture captures your sweet heart so well to me...

Even though we aren't together today, I can't wait to celebrate together in person with the whole Parker crew at the end of the month! Delaying the celebration just means we get to celebrate birthday month, right?

PS to Molly - As I was looking back at pictures for this post, I came across a classic from Tri Delt formal my senior year / your freshman year when "the sink broke" that I was very tempted to use but thought better of it in the end...

A Good Week

While it has been a pretty regular week around here, it has been a great one because I've been home all week! I've been trying to dig out at work after being out of the office for two weeks, but I feel like I'm finally making a little progress (at least I'm checking  things off my to do list which is always a good feeling). At home, it has been fun to be back in the kitchen. Monday night I cooked the shrimp we had gotten at Snapper Grabbers over the weekend. The recipe is from Robert's in Charleston, and it is SUPER easy. Basically, the shrimp marinate for an hour in olive oil, soy sauce, honey, lemon juice, garlic, and Old Bay seasoning then bake for 10 minutes. The best part is sopping up the sauce with bread at the end!

Tuesday night, Iberia Bank hosted a party for the Glenwood Board and Junior Board as they are the main sponsor of the Night Under the Big Top event this year. For anyone who doesn't know, Glenwood provides services to both children and adults with autism, so it is obviously a cause that is really important to us. A Night Under the Big Top is the big fundraiser put on by the Junior Board, and it is a blast! This year it will be at The Club on Friday, February 25th and will feature casino games, silent auction, a band, etc. I know a lot of our family and friends are already planning to attend, but we would love to get as many people as possible to come! Andy is selling tickets if anyone needs one...

Tonight I tried out another new recipe from the Peace Meals cookbook. Start to finish it was less than 30 minutes, which is a huge plus for a weeknight in this house. Best of all, Andy was a big fan!

And that is about all of our excitement for the week, BUT stay tuned because I have some fun blog material coming soon!