Thursday, August 20, 2009

A Summer's Worth of Food

We have been cooking up a storm this summer (maybe literally, Hurricane Bill is heading our way!) and have been pretty good about taking pictures but I am terrible about posting them. The good thing about waiting so long, though, is that I can post it all at once. Take a trip through our summer in Mema's kitchen :)

The first thing we had to do was clear out all of Mema's expired food. This is only a small part of what we threw out and some of it was a few years past the expiration date. To be fair, they don't cook much but we had to make room for food that wouldn't kill us.

Our first big attempt was at Alton Brown's French Toast. We were watching "Good Eats" one night when he made the most incredible looking (and complicated) French Toast I'd ever seen. We're suckers for trying new things (and taking trips to Publix daily) so we gave it a whirl. We documented the entirety of making these bad boys but the final product is the most beautiful. This bad boy was deeeee-licious!
We have also been following a friends' cooking blog - Vintage Victuals. This girl has some of the best recipes ever and is also a fabulous photographer. Just looking at her food pictures makes me drool! She posted a recipe for Emergency Chocolate Cake that we just had to try - it was everything I was dreaming of, and then some. Quick, easy, chocolaty, delicious. We had to buy a lot of the ingredients (see: first picture) but any normal kitchen would already have them, which makes it even better!

After that chocolate cake desire was fed, we moved on to chocolate cupcakes. Cake mix is always BOGO at Publix so I have a ton that we needed to start eating. And eating we did. David cooked up 2 dozen cupcakes that we polished off in just a few days. And I once caught him eating 4 in a row!
Eventually we decided to go on a slightly healthier kick. One of the things I miss most about being in Athens is my Dad's grilling - he makes the BEST hamburgers but he can grill just about everything, and I love grilled squash. When I saw it at the store, I bought way more than I should have and we just tossed it with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and grilled it on George Foreman. It is AMAZING!
Our success with the yellow squash got me curious about other produce...so when I saw a Chayote at the store, I got excited. This is the UGLIEST fruit/vegetable thing I have ever seen. So I bought it. It kind of looks like a wrinkly Pear from the side but the bottom has big disgusting lips that resemble an old person without their false teeth in.

We had no idea what to do with it but after a little research, I learned that it is firmer than a squash (with a consistancy similar to an apple), pretty bland and takes on the flavor of anything it's with. We decided to go big on flavor and sliced it up and then covered the pieces in butter, minced garlic, italian seasoning and mozarella cheese. Here's the result:

I have no idea if that's what you're supposed to do with it, but I believe that EVERYTHING tastes good when it's covered in butter, garlic and cheese and this was no exception. I don't know if it is something I'd eat on a regular basis but it was quite delicious and I like to pretend that it's healthy since there is a fruit/vegetable in there somewhere.

And most recently, David attempted the Deen Brothers' Red Potato and Green Bean Sautee. Don't look at that website though - their picture puts ours to shame. Anyways, it was delicious - I'm lucky to live with such a good chef! I love green vegetables and those little red potatos are fabulous. We tried them roasted with carrots and pearl onions too. YUM!

Paula Deen's making macaroni and cheese and peach cobber on TV, the sun is setting over the ocean and it's dinnertime. This is the life!

Monday, August 17, 2009

Reviews

Since finishing up at Disney and moving to the beach, our summer has been pretty lazy. We spend a lot of time playing tennis, playing wii, and of course going to the pool and the beach. Neither the pool nor the beach are very fabulous without a good book so I have been cranking through them - plus we have a library in our building and Goodwill sells them for $1.50. Sweet!

Lately I've read "Love in the Time of Cholera," "Memoirs of a Geisha," "The Shack," various Jodi Picoult books, a little David Sedaris, part of "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan and a weird book about conjoined twins. I really love reading but...

the other day we took a trip to Wal Mart and I was rooting through the $5 movie bin when I found "Memoirs of a Geisha!" Hooray! Of course, the movie is never as good as the book, and even at over 2 hours this movie managed to leave out large chunks of the novel, but it was pretty decent.

So last night we decided to try the movie thing again. We have a bunch of dvds that neither of us have ever seen so we decided to watch "Signs." Now I understand why neither of us have ever seen it.

Review: WORST MOVIE EVER. Actually the only movie that may be worse is "Cabin Fever." But they're both pretty awful. The terribly predictable plot and awful acting reminded me of "Facing the Giants" but at least that has a nice, happy message (and a cameo by Mark Richt) - "Signs" has no excuse. Mel Gibson, what were you thinking?!

On a brighter note, we rented "Taken" from the $1 rental thing at Publix the other night and gave it a thumbs up.

Have you seen a good movie lately (that we can rent, because I'm not paying $10 to go to the theatre)? I can't gamble on movies anymore!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Tweet Tweet!

So I've decided to start pretending to be techy and join twitter. I really have no idea what you do with it, but if you want to know all of the dumb things I do all day, who am I to stop you?

Seriously though, I am working on helping out Tate Investments with their marketing and social media, so if I expect them, or anyone else, to think that I am capable of getting them into cyberspace, I've got to jump in myself. Be my friend or follow me or stalk me or do whatever you do with Twitter!

Friday, August 7, 2009

Hello Again!

It has been a long time since I've updated this bad boy, but there has been a lot going on. Here are some of the high points (kind of in chronological order):

1. We went to lunch at Havana Hideout. We are "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" junkies and when it was featured on the show and we realized it was in our 'hood, we just had to try it. They make fabulous Cuban food and even though we had a hard time handling some of heat (apparently Cubans are into spice. We're not.), our food was deeeelicious!

2. David's mom and brother, Brent, came to visit us! We had a really fun week of eating out (A LOT - we love eating. Can you tell?!), spending time at the pool/beach and playing uno. I learned that I am pretty good at the first 2 of those, but not so hot at the latter. Oh well.

3. I got a job! David and I have both been looking for part-time jobs so we can still enjoy our little indefinite beach vacation and I found a fabulous job as a receptionist at the local Aveda salon. It smells delicious and is super relaxing, which is a long-shot from my time at Disney. I started yesterday so today was my 2nd day - so far, so good! I'm also still helping out with marketing for Tate Investments so I'm feeling busy again and I like it.

4. My parents decided to come visit for Fall Break in October. I'm pretty pumped about seeing them again without the craziness of wedding planning!

5. David started blogging again! His new addresss is: http://davidbeachblog.blogger.com so check it out.

We love living on the beach. The end.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Shark Week

Note to self: When living at the beach, Shark Week on the Discovery Channel may not be the best entertainment. Bring on the pool!