Mark's Dirty 30 (+5)

Kels' bf Mark turns the big 3-5 this week. In honor of his oldness, they had a bunch of us over to celebrate at their new place. Tons of fun people and yummy snacks and drinks always makes for a fun night, and his shindig didn't disappoint.

Got a couple photos but apparently I'm not the best blog planner as I completely forgot to snap one of the birthday boy. Oops. I guess there's always next year...

Happy birthday, Mark!

By the looks on their faces, you'd think it was a surprise party in their honor.

My girlies minus Sara (come back home soon, lady!).

My, we are a colorful bunch, aren't we?

New Recipe - #11

Ever since I had the vodka cream pasta at Assaggio's recently, I've been craving it. This week, we took a stab at re-creating it on our own. Ingredients included: penne pasta, tomato sauce, vodka, pancetta, green onions, heavy cream, and peas (which we added; they weren't in the Assaggio's version). Overall it turned out really well! I would probably skip the peas next time (they're not my fave) but it was delish nonetheless.

In addition, we made brussel sprouts as our side dish. It was our first time ever making these and they turned out awesome with a little olive oil, lemon juice, butter, salt, and pepper. Can't wait to make these guys again.

Jenny's Rating: 3-1/2 Stars

Corey's Rating: 3 Stars

New Recipe - #10

Since we loved the ease and convenience of the Crock-Pot earlier in the week, we decided to tackle our second Crock-Pot meal: Wild Mushroom Beef Stew (minus the mushrooms, since Corey doesn't like them!).

It was good, especially since neither of us have had stew in years, but next time we'll probably add more red wine (which is not called for), more Worcestershire sauce and salt. Our Crock-Pot cookbook has tons of other stews so we'll actually probably try one of those for comparison next time.

Jenny's Rating: 2-1/2 stars

Corey's Rating: 3 stars

Recipe

- 1-1/2 - 2 lbs. beef stew meet, cut into 1-inch cubes
- 1/8 cup flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1-1/2 cups beef broth
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 4 shiitake mushrooms, sliced
- 2 medium carrots, sliced
- 2 medium potatoes, diced
- 1 small white onion, chopped
- 1 stalk celery, sliced

1. Put beef in Crock-Pot. Mix together flour, salt and pepper and pour over meat; stir to coat each piece of meat with flour. Add remaining ingredients and stir to mix well.

2. Cover and cook on low 10-12 hours or on high 4 hours or until done. Stir stew before serving.

New Recipe - #9

My BFF Kels recently moved in with her bf and in the process, realized they had an extra crock pot. We've always wanted one but never bought one since we don't really have a lot of extra storage space our place. We keep hearing graet things about these handy kitchen tools, especially from people who have busy schedules like ours,so we decided we better take Kels up on her offer to take the spare one off her hands. We were able to find a storage spot for it --- not the most traditional (i.e. in a wicker chest at the foot of our guest bed) but a home nonetheless.

Today we decided to take the crock pot for a spin for the first time. Not only did it provide us with a super easy and yummy meal, it gave us a chance to try out a new recipe:

Campbell's Nacho Chicken & Rice Wraps
- 2 cans Campbell's Cheddar Cheese Soup
- 1 cup water
- 2 cups chunky salsa
- 1-1/4 cups uncooked regular long-grain white rice
- 2 pounds boneless chicken breasts, cubed
- 10 flour tortillas

1. Mix soup, water, salsa, rice and chicken in the crock pot. Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours or high for 4-5 hours or until done.

2. Spoon about 1 cup rice mixture into tortilla; fold tortilla around filling.

Jenny's Rating: 3 Stars
Corey's Rating: 2 1/2 Stars

Happy Birthday Pops!

To celebrate my dad's birthday, the fam (parents, grandma, Scott, his gf Anya) gathered at our place this weekend for a variety of birthday festivities: dinner, candles & cake, and, of course, presents!

Dinner was at Sopranos followed by a supersized red velvet cupcake cake and presents, which included a new Eddie Bauer waterproof hardshell and a Wii.

Happy birthday to the World's Best Dad! Thanks for being such a great friend, supporter, listener, and running buddy!

Here are a few photos from the weekend; the rest are on Corey's Flickr site.

56 candles likely would have caused our smoke alarm to go off, so we stuck with a nice, small number - 5 - to represent each decade.

Best dad ever!

A Lovely Lazy Sunday

Every Sunday, I take on the Golden Garden stairs but today, Roxy joined me in place of her usual Sunday morning walk through the nearby park. I don't think she's ever zoomed up so many stairs as quickly as she did today, or run so many stairs while pulling me along with her. As a reward for her hard work, she had a chance to play at the dog park in the middle of our last set of stairs and surprisingly, still had energy left to run around with all the big dogs.

After our hard workout this morning, we all spent much of the day on the couch enjoying all things Oscar (i.e. the red carpet, the awards ceremony and best of all, my fave actress Sandra Bullock winning Best Actress in a Leading Role for The Blind Side).

I have to say - a day spent relaxing on the couch with my cute little family might just be my favorite way to spend a Sunday.

All clean after washing away the fun of the dog park.