Meal Plan Monday - Week 5

We had a really good weekend, of course it went too fast and was filled with too much work, but we had some fun stuff thrown in as well! Friday's chili cook-off for the wine club was a ton of fun, and we made the white chicken chili from the cooking class, which was a big hit. My sister and brother in law joined us as well which was also a lot of fun. Saturday was all work (I actually had to leave the party at 10 Friday night for a call and then work the rest of the night), but Sunday I put in some time and a couple of conference calls in the morning, but then the boys parents came over for a little bite for lunch and to see the house, they had not been here since early October, and then we headed out to see "The Marvelous Wonderettes" at the local Playhouse. It was a wonderful show, we all loved it. After the show, we headed to dinner at a Minneapolis landmark, Murray's Steakhouse, Home of the Butter knife Steak, so delicious. The boys parents had never been, it was his mom's birthday, so it was the perfect place to take them, and something to cross off of her bucket list. After dinner it was back to our house for some delicious carrot birthday cake and the Betty White Hallmark movie, Blue Valentine. What a great way to end the evening.

This week we have some plans, but I am also looking forward to maybe taking a step back from work, and enjoying some quiet nights at home, and then some plans towards the end of the week.

Monday
Plans - Home with a couple of Red Box flicks, Wall Street 2 and The Social Network
Dinner - Chicken Parm (recipe later this week) with pasta and broccolini, leftover carrot birthday cake

Tuesday
Plans - I have a surprise for the boy, more to come later this week, in case he is reading
Dinner - Out

Wednesday
Plans - Home, more movies maybe?
Dinner - Leftovers

Thursday
Plans - Home, laundry, finish my office
Dinner - Leftovers (this week I am all about cleaning out the fridge

Friday
Plans - Winter White Tasting at sister J's
Dinner - I need to look to find an appetizer

Saturday
Plans - Fourth Annual Mink Night
Dinner - Pazzaluna with the girls

Sunday
Plans - The Opera
Dinner - Out

Winter Grilling Cooking Class at The Kitchen Window

One of the Christmas gifts that I gave to the boy was a winter grilling cooking class at The Kitchen Window in Uptown. I think this was a gift for me too, but one of the biggest gifts I can give lately is time, and this was something just for the two of us (and the rest of the class). It was so much fun, the instructors were amazing and the food was heavenly. We learned a lot, had a great meal and took home some great recipes.

It was probably about -8 and went down as the night went on, a GREAT night for grilling. . . and we were told this was going to be our classroom. . . .

Those are three different sizes of the green egg, have you ever grilled with one? We learned a lot about them, and of course they put our gas grill to shame. All of the grills we cooked with were different and used different types of wood or wood chips. There was even a smoker.

This was the classroom I preferred for the evening. With a glass of wine. .  .now that is my kind of classroom setting. We had a great group at our table, we were the "Snow" team.

It was a great class, they would explain the course, and then bring out the ingredients and the recipe and we would whip it up. Every course was finished on a different grill. We started with a simple ham sandwich with, are you ready for this, mustard butter. I LOVE mustard, every kind of mustard and all they did a mustard BUTTER. Just mixing some softened butter and mustard together and spread on the roll, along with some smoke uncured ham. It was SO good. It was actually Aguave Brined Fresh Ham. But, seriously, it was delicious.

Our next course was prepping the Smoked White Chicken Chili. Oh this was good. We are hosting a chili cook-off with our wine group on Saturday, this will definite be our chili. We won't be finishing it on the grill due to the fact that we don't have a smoker grill (even though I am sure we could figure something out) our grill currently looks like this,

But back to the Smoked White Chicken Chili. Num. This was almost everyone's favorite. Roasted chicken, roasted poblano peppers, grilled corn on the cob, tomatillos. Excellent mixture. They also taught us a new rub for the chicken, 1 C. Mayonaise, 2 garlic cloves, 2 t. kosher salt, 1 t. ancho pepper, 1 t. chipotle pepper, 1/2 t. cayenne and the zest of one lemon. Mix it all together and rub it under the skin. SO good. And I had never heard of putting mayonnaise on as a "wet" rub.

Our next dish our favorite, Beer Braised Short Ribs. OH MY! These were SO good. Of course I needed to know where you could purchase ribs that looked like that, I had never seen them in the store. Of course you can't. And you can't even order them. No Costco or Sam's Club. I was pretty bummed about this until the chef told me he bought them at Restaurant Warehouse and my friend L, who was over for dinner Friday night, has a card for Restaurant Warehouse. . .I will be going with her when they get back from Vancouver, and these will be on our menu plan for later in February.

Our next dish was Grilled Lasagna with Smoked Marinara Sauce. I loved this, and will definitely be giving this one a try. I love lasagna but my tried and true recipe has been a bit of a bore as of late and I think this will be a great mix to the repertoire.

Last, but not least, dessert. How could we not grill dessert. Grilled Cherry Cobbler, another winner in our book. This was delicious. With a dollop of vanilla ice cream, a great finish. This was a wonderful class, wonderful food, and I definitely want to do a class again, I can't wait actually! Sitting down to eat it all together, was of course the best part!

Recipe of the Week! Baked Eggs

My friend here posted this inspiration recipe, by the way, she is an amazing cook and just overall inspiration. She is one of those "does it all" women. The boy and I used to go out for brunch all the time at my old house, we had some great brunch spots and always had friends that wanted to head out to brunch. It has been a LONG time since we have actually headed to brunch, but I have been making egg bakes and such on Sunday which we have been enjoying. But after my friend inspired me, and the boy gave me these great ramekins from Crate and Barrel for Christmas, I figured what a great way to break them in.

I sprayed them just in case, and then in went a slice of ham. We didn't have any tomatoes, had used those on Friday, but I did have some fresh rosemary, thyme and chives. So I snipped those up. I decided to crack two eggs in each, top with my fresh herbs, some salt and pepper and some freshly grated, parmesan. Served with toast, what a great breakfast that stuck with both of us all day.  They were delicious and I am so looking forward to making them again!

Menu from Friday Dinner with Friends and Recipes

This past Friday we had friends L & J over for dinner, it happened to be one of the coldest nights of the year, but it was nice and warm and cozy for dinner. I hemmed and hawed about what to make. We had been to dinner at L & J's a couple of times in the past couple of months. L is a fabulous cook and has put together some wonderful menus and picked out some great recipes from all kinds of sources.

Upon their arrival we started with some cheese, salami, crackers and marcona almonds, with a little wine for the girls and beer for the boys.

I started with a little salad, romaine, tomato, crispy onion, green onion and a wonderful homemade Parmesan dressing which is local to our grocery store.

I found the entree recipe for the Horseradish Crusted Roast Beef, here it was really good, the only thing I would have done differently would be to cook it not as long because we all like our roast beef more on the rare side. It was very good and very tasty. Along with it I just wanted to do a veggie and potato. I found this great recipe for Asparagus with Mushroom Cream Sauce, we all agreed that this was a great way to make asparagus, num, I will totally make this again. Lastly, I wanted to put a little spin and dress up some potatoes. How about some Parmesan Roasted Potatoes from Real Simple. Oh my goodness were these delicious!

For dessert I just picked out four different small little cake pastries at our grocery store. They have some amazing pastries, I had a really hard time choosing, but it was great because we took a bite, and passed, took a bite and passed and got to try all four! I loved them though, very delish. We have done this a couple of times, especially with my parents which is so much fun.

All in all it was wonderful and very relaxing evening with some great friends, who left on Sunday for a three week vacation to Vancouver, CA. The sad part is, they are also doing some location scouting and job hunting. I am excited for them, but would definitely miss them!

Meal Plan Monday - Week 4

This past weekend was the first weekend in months and months that I took the whole weekend off from work and just checked out. I did not check or return emails, no calls, no work at all (after 11:00 pm Friday anyway). I had Summit duty on Saturday morning and was able to re-stock our beer supply. We also finished painting my office, put up blinds, hung curtains and got the furniture put back in place. It is not "quite" done. We have a couple of finishing items left, but I am really happy with the way that it turned out. It makes some a big difference in here and I love working from home in my office. I have only been spending about 2 days a week in the office lately, so having a good home work environment is pretty important to me. This week is a mish mash until we get to the weekend, but it is shaping up something like this!

Monday
Plans - Errands with sister J.
Dinner - Boneless pork chops, red and green pepper saute with mushrooms and zucchini, white rice

Tuesday
Plans - Home
Dinner - Black Bean and Ham soup that I was going to make a couple of weeks ago

Wednesday
Plans - Sister J dropping off Max so that we can doggie sit for a long weekend. She is going to FL until Tuesday, lucky duck!
Dinner - Out to dinner with Sister J

Thursday
Plans - Happy Hour with co-workers Worked late
Dinner - Dinner out with co-workers Ordered pizza

Friday
Plans - Shop for Chili cook off We screwed up, tonight is the Chili cook-off. . . .
Dinner - Probably a frozen pizza. . . Chili

Saturday
Plans - Chili Cook off and wines of Chile get together with the Twin Cities Wine Enthusiasts Now we have a free day and night :)
Dinner - Chili (duh?) I will post our recipe from our cooking class soon! Who knows!

Sunday
Plans - Taking the boys parents to a matinee play, dinner and back to our house for birthday cake!
Dinner - Murray's Steak house, cannot wait!

For more meal plans and recipes, check out the Orgjunkie.

House Update - Jilly's Office and Master Bath

So we finally found pictures that we love for the master bath. I found these at Home Goods a couple of days before Christmas. I wasn't even looking for them, of course that is when you find something! I love the colors.

So now we have moved onto the January project, my office. And I love the color we have picked out, Behr Antique Pearl and the closets and trim have been painted white and I am loving it so far (we are no where near done yet, but hopefully the boy will get another wall knocked out tonight), but what I am really questioning now and could use your help with, is the accent color. Right now it is green, and I have a ton of green accessories, but now I am kind of thinking of going with a gray accent. I want to accent the doors like this from Centsational Girl, this is where my inspiration came from, 

and I was going to accent my doors with the green, but now that this is on the walls, and I can see it, I am thinking a gray, what do you guys think? This is what the doors and wall look like now,

I do have a ton of green accents and accessories, but I also know with a little paint anything is possible. . .and I don't mind a little treasure hunting. Would love some input. My plan is to take and add the accent color to the closet doors. . . just need to decide between this green (Martha Stewart Beach Grass which is what we used in the 1/2 bath)

or a nice gray which I haven't quite found yet. . . .
Here are some of my green accent pieces which need to be replaced or changed. . .
My lampshade on my desk

My bulletin board

My lamps

And then I have a super cute tissue cover, wastepaper basket and bucket for my magazines (you have to picture this in Green).

I also have a ton of green and pink boxes and magazine holders, but I also know that I can cover and fix those as well should I need to. What do you think, a nice soft gray, or a bold bright green?

Meal Plan Monday - Week 3

We did a pretty good job of sticking to our meal plan last week, and the Penne Gorganzola with Grilled Chicken, has to be one of the best dinners I have ever had, definitely in my top five, I loved it. I will be going back to this website on a regular basis to check out more recipes. Last week was a very stressful week of work for me. I was so hoping to have had an end in sight to this project, but not yet, and the bad news is, my big project for 2011, is already behind schedule due to this. We have had to set aside so many plans and adjust our schedule a ton, but, it is what it is.

My sister and her family came over last night to celebrate G & G's birthday's since we couldn't go to them. I feel sorta cheated since the majority of the time I was on conference calls, but we had some pizza, cake and of course presents. The kids loved their gifts and the cake, from a local bakery Wuollet was DELISH!

Here is the plan for the week. . .  subject to change based on work, but no surprise there. For breakfast we have grapefruit, yogurt, frozen waffles, toast, clementines and blueberries. For lunches, leftovers, pasta, lasagna, soups. So we are pretty set on breakfast and lunches.

Monday
Plans - supposed to have the day off, but it is a work day, at least I am home!
Dinner - the boy brought home a recipe from work, one of his co-workers gave him that he thought sounded good. We had taco meat in the freezer, bottom of the bag crushed tortilla chips left to use, so I thought it sounded good! Taco Casserole

Tuesday
Plans - I have a JLM board meeting that I am going to try to make it to, so it will be dinner on the go. The boy also is finishing painting my office (more to come on that) and also needs to go up to his house in order to get it listed for rent.
Dinner - Soup, sandwich, taco? Whatever is convenient.

Wednesday
Plans - JLM Committee meeting
Dinner - Mozza Mia, a new restaurant at 50th and France, can't wait to try it!

Thursday
Plans - Cooking Class (this was a Christmas gift that I gave to the boy, I am SO excited!)
Dinner - this is the schedule for the class, NUM!, It is called Winter Grilling, first up is Smoked White Chicken Chile, Grilled Lasagna with Garlic Cheese Bread, Beer Braised Short Ribs, Agave Brined Fresh Ham and Smoked Cherry Cobbler. I think it sounds fabulous!

Friday
Plans - Friends L & J for dinner
Dinner - Menu to come, still working through some of the details

Saturday
Plans - Summit duty in the morning, finish up my office (I will need YOUR help on this!)
Dinner - Not sure yet. . . .but I am craving Salmon We tried a new place (to us) Lone Spur Grill while we were out getting more paint and such.

Sunday
Plans - Breakfast at Tiffany's brunch showing Finished working on my office
Dinner - Crockpot Beef Roast (I did see the recipe for this, but I need to go back and find it now)Used a Groupon and enjoyed a very relaxing and very delicious dinner at Lord Fletchers while watching Broomball

So, not a ton of recipes, but if you are looking for more, check out the Orgjunkie.

Cabin Fever

So, about this time of year, I really start to think I have S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder). I would rather not leave the house, it is so cold. I don't have much motivation, it is so cold. And I start to wonder if Spring will ever get here again and bring some color to this white world. In light of that, I thought maybe I would try to add one thing to my ta-da list every day to switch things up a bit. Here are some  ideas.

• Start a project — I need to make some cards and invitations, I just found my stamps again.
• Bake cookies or muffins, maybe a quick bread. I am not a big baker, so I think this would be good for me.
• Curl up with a good book, or my nook and a cup of cocoa.
• Plan what I am going to plant in the spring, and decide where and when. Start a gardening journal maybe.
• Do something my old photos, scan and organize. .
• Meet a friend for lunch or invite them over.
• Experiment with a new recipe on a weekly basis.
• Work through the DVD series of Mad Men.
• Go through the drawer of old recipes.
• Start organizing….one space or room at a time.
• Take an online course.
• Play uplifting music.
• Start a fitness program.
• Buy fresh colorful flowers.
• Hang a birdfeeder and watch its visitors.
• Invite my niece and nephews for a slumber party. 

Winter Sales

There are so many great after Christmas and Winter sales going on, it almost makes you wonder why you bought anything before the holidays!

I have been thinking ahead to next year, we do a cookie exchange with family friends every year, and I am always looking for ways to wrap up or deliver my cookies. I found these at Traylor Papers and I just think they are so cute!

A while back we were given a Mystery Dinner Party kit, it is a wine one. I have never been to one, nor do I know a lot about them, but I thought it would be something fun to shake up the winter doldrums. I bought these invitations in anticipation. I think they will be a lot of fun to tie in. Now I just have to dig out the kit, assign roles and pick a date.

I also found a coat that I had been looking for. I think this one will keep me nice and toasty. It had been $285 marked down to $99, can't beat that!

I also hit up the Lands End Canvas Sale and I just love what came in the mail! Here is what I am wearing today. . .

Great deals out there. . . .

Home Goals '11

Last week I posted my 11 in '11, but one of the longest and toughest goals to achieve is going to be #6, which is really 12 goals in itself. But I wanted to break down each one of these so that I have a better idea of how we can feasibly achieve this one.

January

My Office
Here is what needs to be done and the supplies that are needed
Trim painted - have paint
Closet doors painted and trimmed out - have paint
Walls painted - Antique Pearl - have paint
Blinds hung - purchased from Lowe's
Curtain rods hung - purchased from Lowe's
Curtains hung - purchased from Target
Chairs covered - materials bought, just not sure how to do it
Mirrors painted and hung - paint - done
New light fixture - still looking for this. . . 
Shelf hung
Three plate shelves hung

*I think this is achievable this month, as long as we can find the time to do it.

February
Guest Bathroom - we found a couple of pictures back in September to use as our inspiration for colors, so this room should go pretty quickly.

Cabinet painted - have paint
Mirror hung - have mirror
Light fixture changed (this was done by dad)
New faucet - purchased
New towels
New bath accessories
Paint (still need to finalize the color and purchase)
Paint trim and door - have paint
Shower curtain
Bath rug
Window Curtain - purchased material - need to figure out how to make it into a curtain
Hang pictures - purchased

March
Guest Bedroom - this one is going to be trickier because we haven't thought about this one to much and right now it is just a dumping ground for anything that we can't figure out where it should go.

Clean out and organize my clothes that are all over the place in there
Purchase box spring and mattress (need to decide if I can have this converted to a queen or do we go double)
Need to choose color - paint
Curtains
Curtain rods
Paint Trim - have paint
Line drawers
Alarm clock
Bedside table
Pictures for walls

Items in Italics are still left to do. . . .

This is only the first three months, but hey, you gotta start somewhere!

Meal Plan Monday - Week 2

Well, I didn't completely stick to our plan last week, but at the same time, we didn't do too badly and we only ate out once, and that was my goal. I am going to try for the same again this week as well. There were a couple of things that I didn't get to last week, that I will make for this week. We still have a ton of leftovers for lunch too which is nice. I also made another egg bake on Sunday for brunch for us, and we have really enjoyed having it for breakfast all week.

Monday
Plans - Home
Dinner - Penne Gorganzola with Grilled Chicken that I didn't make from last week This was SO SO SO good!

Tuesday
Plans - Tuesday Night Supper Club
Dinner - Not sure. Our friends L & J have started this, and just invite random people and we bring something to drink and they provide dinner.

Wednesday
Plans - Home
Dinner - Soup and Sandwiches

Thursday
Plans - Home
Dinner - Pork Chops with apples and mashed potatoes Leftovers


Friday
Plans - Home
Dinner - Sammy's Pizza that we have in the freezer

Saturday
Plans - MN RollergirlsWork :(
Dinner - Out in St. Paul somewhere Late lunch out with the boy, popcorn and a movie at home later.

Sunday
Plans - Most likely out to the boys parents Work :( My sister and her family came over to celebrate G & G's birthday's
Dinner - Not sure if I will bring dinner or not. Pizza from Target deli (terrible) cake!

For more meal plans, check out the orgjunkie.com

Movie Review "Country Strong"

So I decided to leave some work unfinished and head out to see the movie screening of "Country Strong". I had been looking forward to this movie for a while and have had the soundtrack on my iTunes for a few weeks now.

I really enjoyed the music and the cast was really good. Leighton Meester had a surprising very good voice. And I thought Gwyneth Paltrow did a great job. Tim McGraw definitely played a guy that you didn't really like, but he did a great job of playing that not so nice guy.

There were some great scenes in the movie. One of my favorite scenes was a duet that was sung with Leighton Meester and  Garrett Hedlund, "Give in to Me", but on the album is it sung by Faith Hill. Don't get me wrong, I love Faith, but it was SO good in the movie! It is in theaters today, and I loved it, check it out.

Things I am Digging

I have to carry a work phone now as well. I have had it for well over a month. I don't know the phone number, don't know how to work the darn thing, and still need to update my work signature with the number so that work people stop calling my personal number. BUT, the fun thing is, I get to learn how a BlackBerry works, and I get to buy new accessories! Like this one. . .

 

This is somewhere that I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to visit. I cannot wait to see what Rachel Ashwell decides to do with this place. . .  One the website it says that The Ranch by Rachel Ashwell is undergoing renovations. How fun. I cannot wait to see what she decides to do with it. 

I am looking for a new Winter coat. I bought a black one last year. BIG mistake. Being blond. It shows everything. I think I need a camel and I think these mittens would be PERFECT. Love them!

This is a lot like Fitbot that I had referenced earlier in a Digging post, but here is an alternative. Phillips Direct tracks your daily activity and provides a personal fitness coach. This has a buy one, get one 1/2 off deal going on as well. I think this might be a great thing for the boy and I to look into.

How great are these Kangaroo Water bottles? They have a compartment in the bottom where you can put your keys, chap stick, id, whatever it might be. LOVE this idea!

This is something I have read about, but I don't know anyone who has one, but I am really curious about them. If you know anyone who has tried this, I would be really curious. But I am thinking it would really help me to ensure that I am getting the pictures off of my camera. The eye-fi cards come in two sizes 4GIG and 8GIG and allow you to upload pictures via hot spots. What do you think?

I was looking at getting a new external hard drive, and one of my goals for this year is to be better organized. I think that this would help, an external HD that you can access from anywhere. And it would also give me the ability to be more productive if I am not at home or in the office. I had read about Pogoplug a while back, but now this is on my must list. I am thinking the Pogoplugpro, what do you think?

I think one of these would be a ton of fun! It reminds me of the old Polaroid cameras, but this is a Fujifilm Instax mini film camera. How much fun would one of these be at a party? We had to scrap our housewarming party due to my uncle passing away, and no annual holiday party due to work constraints, so I am thinking a Mardi Gras or Chinese New Year Party and I think this would be a great party favor!

We will frequently bring a bottle of wine with us to friends homes as a hostess gift. I saw these personalized photo gift tags from the cardstore a while back and thought that they would be perfect to add to a bottle of wine. How cute, now I just need to find a good picture to use!

Decorating for the Holidays

This post comes a little late, but I am sure there is no big surprise there. Realistically, the tree was not even decorated until Christmas Eve, and my mom told me a few times to just relax and understand that this year is unique, and next year everything will be in a different place and I just need to go with the flow. Here is what we kind of haphazardly slapped together this year. You will notice I don't think I have one picture of the dining room table, we didn't use it but I did set it. . . once. This is the eat in kitchen table, and I threw together the centerpiece. Which was promptly eaten by two adorable little twins.

The Scottie dog plates and bowls are a new addition this year. I found them after Christmas at Home Goods last year, I just love them. I only found two bowls though, and six small plates. I found where I can order them online, so I am thinking I will order 4 more bowls for next year.

I found the inspiration for this somewhere else, I can't remember where, but I thought it would be pretty simple to put together and would look nice on the buffet. It was pretty easy to put together.

I found the boot at Home Goods with my niece after Thanksgiving. Shiny sparkly, love it. 

The Reindeer is from Home Goods after Christmas last year. 

 I wanted to do something down the railing, but I wasn't sure what. Found the garland and the berries at Michael's and thought it would work. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out.

 This is in our entryway. The mirror we had, not really sure from where. The boy painted it, but I am not sure of the color yet. I think it depends on how we decide to do the entryway. The little telephone table and bench I just love it.  This is from an estate sale and he redid it. I thought the basket would be a great place to keep Christmas cards as they came in. It worked out pretty well. I wanted a mirror here because the coat closet is there with our hats in it, and I usually need to check things out once I put a hat on.

 This is one of the builtins next to the fireplace and big rock wall that I am not loving, but we are not sure what to do with yet. We don't have a mantle, so it was nice to at least have the builtins. I am sure this will be completely different come next year.

 This is the one to the left of the rock wall.

My dad said I should find something called rice lights with white cords, he thought that might look better. I also thought maybe some of that fake snow would look good too. 

 Love my Snowbabies. Someone said that they think they look creepy. I think they are too CUTE!

 This will always be one of my favorites. Santa's coat and pants are pink and green. And I just love the little girl. I will always remember buying this at an estate sale with my mom right when I moved into my own place in Minneapolis.

 This is another one of my favorite things. The boy and I found this at an estate sale and I just fell in love with this piece. Someone definitely made this, and each part  is so intricate.

Here is the entryway to the house. I love having luminaries. I found these in the dollar section at Target this year. So fun and festive.

 My mom brought the sled to me, I added the skates, so sweet.

 I have no idea where this piece is going. We might try it down in the basement, not sure yet. But since we didn't have a mantle this year, it held our stockings.

 I love the pom poms on the bottom of the little tablecloth.

 This is on a little table that we had brought from the boys house and it was put here in the bay window of the eat in kitchen area, and it just kind of stayed. I had this tree that I had picked up after Christmas last year at Target for 90% off, I think I paid .49. Same with the little garland.

 I thought this was a good place to hang my Christmas aprons in the kitchen.

 I wish I would have had time to have posted this little tour before Christmas but there just did not seem to be enough time. We really did enjoy Christmas in our new home, and we are looking forward to 2011 here as well! Can't wait to get to some of these projects. Now it is on to decorating for January!