Safe

Just a quick post to say we are very thankful to be safe and sound here on Manhattan Street! We spent the evening glued to the tv, but in the end we managed to avoid all of the tornados. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those affected!

PS - glad Bryant Denny made it through! Click on the link below to see how close it came....

http://www.twitvid.com/4W6PU

We're Back!

Not to worry, I haven't given up blogging (at least not yet). I have to say it was actually very encouraging that a few people asked when a new post was coming...thanks to those of you who actually read!

We had a WONDERFUL long weekend at the beach. Sadly, I didn't take a single picture! My mom took a few though and has promised to email some, so I will post a few when I get them. In the meantime, here is a brief recap...

Andy did a lot of this:

He had 2 good days on the water with some of his buddies that live in Florida. They went looking for Cobia but ended up finding a bunch of Jacks instead (and saw a few tarpon). This is one of the smaller ones he caught, but he hasn't downloaded the pictures from the second day yet. Still a pretty fish though!

Meanwhile, (when I was trapped on the phone/behind my laptop for work) I did a lot of reading! I finished the last few chapters of this:

And then decided that I needed a little bit of lighter beach reading so read this:

And this:

So what should I download to my Kindle next?? I'm open to suggestions!

Other than reading and fishing, we had a great time just visiting with family and of course eating lots of good food! Sorry I didn't take any pictures. We ate lots of delicious guacamole. I will have to post my recipe (if you can call it that) soon! 

On our way home, we stopped in Montgomery for a few hours to celebrate Evan's first birthday a little bit early. That deserves a post of its own though! It was so fun to have a little time to catch up with Andy's family too though.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

Burgers!

Our weekend was off to a great start Friday night when Andy got an email saying he didn't need to come in to the office Saturday! We celebrated by sleeping in Saturday morning before heading to Tuscaloosa for the A-Day game. Despite being a little bit chilly, we had a great time watching the scrimmage with my parents and aunt and uncle. I have to say I wasn't terribly impressed by our team though. I'm hoping they were holding all the good plays back so that the opponents watching on tv wouldn't get a head start on formulating a game plan. It will certainly be interesting to see who will be our starting quarterback come fall!! 

Sadly I didn't take any pictures in T-town....but luckily Andy snapped a few of our dinner so this post won't be entirely bare. We didn't get back to Birmingham until 6:30 or 7, so we just decided to grill burgers. Before starting on dinner we sat on the porch and drank some margaritas (to start getting our minds in beach mode for later this week!)

For dinner, we just grilled burgers and some veggies. Nothing too fancy or original, but Andy did take this quick picture to show you how absolutely tall/massive the burgers were!

Why is it that it is so difficult to buy hamburger meat for 2? There is never a package much below a pound. Andy insisted that it wasn't really enough for 3 burgers though, so we just had 2 big ones. I won't complain. They were delicious.

"Scrimp" Pasta

So I asked Andy for a little help in naming this blog post and the only response I got was "scrimp." Really?? But I'm lacking all creativity right now, so I'm just going with it.

Moving on, for dinner tonight I made a "Scrimp" and Sausage Pasta. It started with an inspiration from Bon Appetit, but it could certainly just evolve into whatever you have in your kitchen.

No worries that is not grease from the sausage bubbling up! It is actually juice from the jar of banana peppers. It may sound a little strange, but it gave a great vinegary taste to the sauce.

Here's a very rough interpretation of the recipe:

Shrimp and Sausage Pasta

(serves 3-4)

EVOO

1/2 lb spicy italian sausage squeezed out of casing (I used chicken sausage)

1/4 cup chopped shallot

1-2 cloves garlic

1/2 cup of banana peppers

1/2 cup of juice from a jar of banana peppers

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 smoked paprika

pinch of cayenne pepper

1/2 jar marinara sauce

large splash of cream

3/4 lb large shrimp, peeled

8 oz pasta

grated parmesan cheese

basil for garnish

1. Heat olive oil (1 turn of the pan) over medium high heat in a large pot. Cook sausage until browned (4-5 minutes), stirring and crumbling as it cooks. 

2. Add shallot, garlic, banana peppers (with juice) and spices and cook for another 4-5 minutes.

3. Add marinara, cream, and shrimp and cook 5-7 minutes until shrimp are cooked through.

4. Meanwhile, cook pasta according to directions on package.

5. Drain pasta then dump in the sauce with a handful of parmesan cheese and mix together. Serve topped with parmesan and chopped basil.

This is what Andy called his "artistic" angle...maybe not my best side!

The finished product

In other news, we are anxiously counting down the final days of tax season around here. We should be down to 1, but apparently tomorrow is some obscure holiday only celebrated in DC which means tax day is Monday. The end is in sight though, which means we are headed to the beach next week! I think this guy might be a little excited...

Oh yeah, and we will be taking this with us....

Shish-Ka-Bob, Shish-Ka-BLOG

Carolyn took the night off from blogging tonight, so I decided to fill in. Sorry I know its not the same, but she actually helped with everything but the grill so its still really her cooking. Im more of a photo kinda of blogger, so here ya go, Shish-Ka-Bobs on the Green Egg:

Chicken, Tomatoes, Onions, Peppers = delicious

Yes, Bubbly on a Tuesday night (and on the back deck)!

Finished!

I promise Carolyn will be back in full force soon, recipes and all!

- Andy

Happy Weekend!

After what felt like a really long week at work, Andy and I were excited to enjoy a quiet Friday night at home! The weather was perfect so we sat on the porch for a while and snacked on some cheese while we caught up on the day. (The only thing not so perfect was the pollen that has attacked our porch which I desperately need to clean!) Dinner was a team effort with Andy handling the pork chops on the grill and me handling the sides. Sticking with what we already had on hand, I made some sauteed spinach and polenta.

I'm always amazed that this much spinach cooks down to so little!

For the spinach, I cooked it in boiling water for a minute then soaked in a ice bath to stop the cooking. After the spinach cooled, I drained the water off. Then, I heated some olive oil over medium heat and added 2 smashed garlic cloves and some red pepper flakes and cooked for 2-3 minutes. Once the garlic started to brown, I added the spinach and some toasted almond slivers and cooked for 2-3 minutes longer. Then I simply squeezed some lemon juice on top. It was kind of an experiment, but we thought it turned out great!

Nothing too exciting or different about the polenta so I didn't take any pictures of it along the way. Here is the final plate - check out Andy's perfect crisscross marks from the grill!

Don't worry, neither of us could finish all the pork. They were massive pieces of meat, but I'm sure we will enjoy the leftovers! 

And this was our rough inspiration from Frank Stitt. How'd we do?

Finally, in interest of full disclosure and just in case I've tricked anyone into thinking I'm some master chef, I had to show a picture of my dinner failure.

What is it you ask...well, it was supposed to be a Tomato Chutney Aioli to put on the pork chops. One slight problem, it never thickened! Oh well....they were still delicious without it!

Happy Weekend!

Happy Birthday Lyl!

I'm cutting it close I know, but just wanted to be one of the last to say Happy Birthday to Lyl today!

(Yes that picture is circa 2002 but sadly it was the only one I could find of the 3 of us without too much digging!)

My Attempts at Gardening

I will be the first to say that I do not have the greenest of thumbs, and honestly "gardening" just really hasn't appealed to me. Of course I love to admire someone else's well groomed garden, but there just always seem to be other things I would rather do with my time. I do like the idea of having fresh produce to cook with though, so this weekend I planted a few vegetables in our little garden.

Last year we got off to a little bit of a late start (ummm May??) and took on the challenge of starting from seeds. I have to say that I was pretty proud we actually were able to harvest anything off of those plants. We ended up with a bunch of okra (after initially thinking we had grown world record size orka, we quickly realized that no it just gets really hard and stalky unless you harvest it daily and should be picked at no longer than 3-4 inches), a few bell peppers, and some tomatoes that never seemed to turn red.

This year I went with some basil, thyme, squash, cucumbers, and 2 different kinds of tomatoes. Fingers crossed we will actually some something we can eat in a few months!

And despite my brown thumb, we do have a few other things blooming in our yard (probably just a thanks to the previous homeowner, but at least we haven't killed them!). 

We actually planted a few azalea bushes last year too. Funny enough, this is the sole bloom we have seen:

And because I am constantly amazed at how the hydrangea plant manages to grow back on the exact same stalks that looked so dead and brown just a month ago, I took a picture of it as well (not a very good one though, sorry)

Switching gears, I had to show you a picture of the cake pops that our friend Natalie made and brought by this afternoon.

Are they not so cute? And they taste even better!

Thanks Natalie!