Greer's Visit and E's Birthday Dinner

Of course it wasn't just Greer who visited, we certainly enjoyed seeing Maura and Mike, but CQ was most interested in his 10 month old cousin.

Dealing with nap schedules of two little ones made getting out on adventures a little more difficult, but we did manage to go on some nice neighborhood walks.  And had lots of play time indoors.  And as we told them, there will be more visits over the years and we need to save some outings for then. :o)

Greer spent time with pets for the first time: our cat Winnie and E's dog Briley.

My parents hosted a birthday dinner for E on Wednesday.  It was amazing - beef tenderloin and all kinds of other yummy food!

And I picked up a Dessert Designs cake for E - sour cream pound cake, just like at our wedding.

Yummy!

We had a great time visiting and reminisced about memorable birthday gifts over the years. (oh, book on manners...)

That's Mark's Dad Jeff and his lady friend Pat on the left below.

Unfortunately the next day Greer got a little bit sick.  She even got to meet Charlie's pediatrician. 

Mike made us some killer grilled cheese sandwiches when we got back from the doctor.

Here she is feeling slightly better the next morning. Actually I think the flash on the camera wasn't helping.

What a cute little family! (plus cutie Charlie!) We are so very glad they came for a visit. 

Early Christmas Dinner

Since we moved to Nashville we've been getting together with my parents and sister most Sundays for a family dinner. This is always put on by my parents. But since we'll be spending Christmas with Pat's family, Pat and I decided we wanted to host my family for a holiday dinner. Last night Mom, Dad, E, and Mark came to join us for supper. We cooked something new - duck! We had crescent rolls, asparagus roll ups, mashed potatoes, pan seared duck, and blueberry chutney to go on top of the duck. We love duck but had never tried cooking it before. Yesterday morning Pat went on a wild goose chase, or rather, a duck hunt. ha! He ended up with 4 duck breasts.  This is what they looked like after Pat scored them.

And here we are sporting our matching aprons.  These were a Christmas present from my parents a couple years ago. :) 

Here is the duck all cooked.  We saved the excess fat from the pan to use for future cooking.  Duck fat potatoes sound pretty good to me.  Alton Brown calls duck fat culinary gold.  I didn't get a picture of the chutney I mentioned, but it was great.  It was made with 2 cups of brown sugar, some red and white wine vinegar, 4 cups blueberries, 1 lemon juiced, 1 cup minced onion, some freshly grated ginger, and green peppercorns. 

Here we are about to eat on our fine china! (for the first time) 

Here we are after the great meal, before exchanging gifts and having my Mom's chocolate pecan pie. 

It was so nice to have them over for a great meal.  We have a lot to learn as far as hosting meals, but you have to start somewhere and we are learning from the best (my parents and Pat's parents). 

Saturday Shopping

Lanier and I met up yesterday morning at the mall. Mostly just to hang out and catch up, but also for a little Christmas shopping. I know some people would call this last minute shopping, but I consider Christmas Eve to be last minute. :) Shopping here in Tennessee is sooo much easier than shopping in New Jersey. Once time last year I went to the Garden State Plaza and seriously spent 45 minutes just trying to find a parking spot. Not that I was trying to find a really close parking spot, just any parking spot at all. It was so frustrating and then the mall was packed. Here it's so much easier and we found a great bench for Charlie to have his mid shop bottle. He had clearly kicked back and was having a good day. (my only complaint of shopping here is the high tax.  But I guess no income tax makes up for it...)

An hour or two after I got home, our friends Tom and Shelley came over with a complete meal.  All we had to do was throw on a few slabs of ribs on the Big Green Egg.  They were smoking while we watched the Indiana basketball game, where we beat Notre Dame.

Charlie was wearing his IU jersey again since it brought us luck last weekend. 

What's Charlie smiling at?  It's Shelley making him giggle at the other end of the table. :)

Since we'd had some drinks we decided to spend $1 on the BreathalEyes ap on my iPhone.  I believe a couple guys I went to high school with came up with this.  As their video states, it is for entertainment purposes only, but it takes different photos of your eyes to estimate your Blood Alcohol Level.

The results were questionable and there is definitely human error involved, but either way we had fun with it.

Today I got an exciting email with this at the top:

We saw Michael Bublé sing on Saturday Night Live last night and he's also appeared on some recent morning shows singing some Christmas songs.  Thank you Pat for my new Michael Bublé Christmas album on iTunes!  I can't wait to listen to it tonight! Pat also let me sleep in this morning while he took Charlie grocery shopping.  We had a great neighborhood walk and it's been a great day so far.  xoxo

Cousins

Now, if you know me at all, you know I have a large family.  :o)  Wednesday evening we got together with my Dad's cousin's son JD.  I hadn't seen him since I was a kid, so it was great to catch up while he's in Nashville for a convention at Opryland.  JD and his brother Mitch are the last ___s (fill in my maiden name). 

 (one more - 3 in a row on the self timer)

Mom and Dad fixed a great dinner of steak and mushrooms, confetti rice, buttered croissants, grilled asparagus, and dessert of cherry cobbler with ice cream.  Yum! 

Grocery

I found it somewhat difficult grocery shopping with Charlie as a baby...put his car seat in the shopping cart and there is no room for groceries, push his stroller and you can only buy a few items that fit underneath.  Carrying him in our Ergo baby carrier is what I had started doing, either that or try to shop alone when Pat was home with Charlie.  I like getting Charlie out though, so while Pat was studying yesterday, off to Kroger we went.  Now that CQ can sit up, he has now sat in the cart twice.  It's so darn cute and I was glad I still had my camera in my purse from the wedding.

 "Give me your coupons, I want to eat them all"

And since those pictures are from the grocery, I can now segway nicely into something I cooked last night for the first time.  :o) 
Twice Baked Potatoes!  Yum.  I know they are simple to make but I didn't know exactly how to do it, so in case there is someone who has never made them...here are the basics:

I washed 6 potatoes and put them on a baking pan and baked them for about an hour at 400 degrees.

I let them cool a little bit and then cut them in half.  I used a spoon and scooped out the potato, leaving a little on the skins to keep them somewhat sturdy.

I put all the scooped out potato in a mixing bowl with some butter, sour cream, cheddar cheese, and even some leftover cream cheese.  Also season salt and pepper.

I used my potato masher to get it all nice and mixed together.

And back it went into the potato skins.  We obviously had to sample the filling to make sure it was alright before that step.  :)  Then I added some extra cheese on top and then baked them for about 15 minutes on 350 degrees. 

 Very tasty and warm for a chilly fall evening.

Sunday Dinner

On Saturday we went to a great concert at the Franklin Theatre, just south of Nashville with Sarah and Matthew. The theatre was built in 1937 and recently underwent a renovation. It was really nice and we thoroughly enjoyed a little country music from the husband and wife duo Joey and Rory.   Mom and Dad had gotten the tickets because it was a benefit concert for Saddle Up, where my Mom volunteers.

Charlie enjoyed some quality Aunt time while my sister Elizabeth babysat!  Thanks E!  When we got home from the show Pat put a pork butt on the Big Green Egg around  11PM or so. 

I had seen these sliced potatoes on Pinterest and wanted to try them.  I basically cut them thinly 3/4s of the way down and stuffed them with a little garlic and gave them a nice coating in butter.  They were pretty good but not amazing.

But this Orzo Salad was pretty amazing.  My Aunt Carole had made it several weeks ago and I loved it.  I based it loosely off Ina Garten's recipe here, but did not use eggplant or roast my veggies.  

It's orzo, red onion, red/green/yellow pepper, toasted pine nuts, green onions, diced feta cheese, and is dressed with the juice of two lemons, olive oil, and salt and pepper.

It made for a delicious dinner and excellent leftovers.

Pecan Chicken

I made a quick and tasty chicken dish the other night.  I saw it on Claire Robinson's Five Ingredient Fix show.  Recipe here.  I first ground up some pecans in my new coffee grinder and then mixed in some panko bread crumbs.  The chicken was marinating in buttermilk about an hour at this point.

Then the chicken is coated in the pecan/breadcrumb mixture and gets a "shallow fry" in vegetable oil.  So not deep fried, but it still has that nice and crispy fried taste.

 Golden brown!

Served up with some wild rice and a mozzarella and tomato salad (yes, not a true veggie, but oh well)

I used some balsamic and also a fancy olive oil Elizabeth brought us back from Argentina.

The chicken was very good and juicy but I am not sure how much I could taste the pecans...but, it was quick and easy so I'd do it again.