Wet Weekend

I just tried to make up for an entire weekend’s worth of crap eating by whipping up a batch of gazpacho. That works, right? But truthfully, I love gazpacho. It involves so many of my favorite things: cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions, vinegar, soup. The new issue of Bon Appetit showed up in the mail on Friday and that’s where I found the recipe. This one is a little different that gazpachos I’ve made in the past; it doesn’t contain any bell peppers, and you add a couple tablespoons of mayo which gives it a nice creaminess.

This is one of those recipes that Brian won’t eat. Which is fine. More for me.

Back to the weekend…

-FRIDAY-

My practical exam went well. I prepared entricot with bordelaise, couscous, and sauteed swiss chard. The hard part was the sauce, and luckily it turned out fine. It involves a lot of reducing (“by 90%”, “by 50%”) and sometimes I’m really bad at eyeballing that. My instructor thought that the couscous and chard were a little underseasoned- which is interesting because I sauteed crushed red pepper and garlic in olive oil before adding the chard, and my mouth was on FIRE. Just goes to show you…

After class I met my mom at Subway for lunch then headed out to Firewheel for a little Old Navy (and Pier 1, and Barnes & Noble) shopping. Not too much damage- just a couple of tank tops, a tray and a magazine. For dinner we met Lauren and Robert and a few of their friends at Matt’s in Lakewood. No photo, but I had chicken enchiladas with verde sauce. Then we came home and watched the Sex and the City movie. Brian is a saint.

-SATURDAY-

I woke up kind of early, which was weird. We headed to Barbec’s for breakfast. In case you don’t live around here, Barbec’s is kind of a dive near White Rock Lake- but they serve the world’s most amazing beer biscuits. Seriously, it’s like eating cake.

I used to hate going there, but since Dallas went smoke-free it’s been a MUCH better experience. I ordered the Garden Platter with egg beaters. Basically just a pile of hashbrowns with chopped onions, bell peppers, tomatoes and cheese and a side of eggs.

The rest of the day was spent visiting Home Depot to price plantation shutters, Target, doing yard work (Brian), and the Jillian Michael’s Shred video (me). Late in the afternoon we got the most intense storm, and it rained off and on all night long. Brian’s sister and brother-in-law had tickets to the Dave Matthews concert, and they brought over our nieces to hang out while they attended the show. We ended up taking them to Buca di Beppo for dinner. Kind of random, but we had a coupon. That place is so kitsch. They take you through the kitchen before seating, which Kara loved. The food is, ummm, okay. Huge portions so you have to share everything.

We split a salad:

And the chicken parmesan with a side of pasta:

Afterwards Kara wanted to go to Pokey O’s. I’m not sure if I’ve written about this place or not, but it’s an ice cream shop near SMU that serves homemade cookies and Blue Bell ice cream- so you can make your own ice cream sandwiches. The sandwiches are a little too intense for me… I usually end up with a sugar cookie alongside a scoop of rainbow sherbet.

Then we went home. Brian and Kara played Mario Kart:

We tried to watch some show on Disney featuring the Jonas Brothers, but the storm was raging and our satellite kept going out. We did manage to get a few smiles out of Samantha:

She and Chloe were BFF’s. Samantha kept reaching for Chloe and patting her, and Chloe kept sticking her nose in Samantha’s ear. It was a nice little arrangement they had going on.

-SUNDAY-

Here was our entire day: Slept entirely too late, Brian made chocolate chip pancakes, laid on the couch and watched two hours of Cribs, switched over to the Mavs (Brian watched, I worked on an assignment), stayed in our PJ’s until 6, changed out of PJ’s, headed to Newflower for groceries (where we ran into my brother and Laura) and dinner fixings, changed our minds on the way home and grabbed burgers at Fat Daddy’s instead.

Pancakes:

And turkey burger:

We’re going to try to get up early for a walk, so I’m off to bed! Hope you guys had a great weekend. The semester is coming to a close (woohoo) and I have a feeling this could be an exciting week!

-SURVEY-

What do you consider the most annoying song ever?

I should probably explain… we’re currently watching Family Guy and it’s the Bird is the Word episode. Last time this was on I couldn’t get that song out of my head for a week. If You Seek Amy and that new Black Eyed Peas song (the one with wailing Fergie) are climbing that list, too.