strawberries in paris

Surprisingly Silly Schwa

Shall we do this? Shall I actually do a real blog post about food??? I thought my crazy afternoon at work was going to leave me in a funk tonight, but really, there are too many good things going on in my life to let work bring down my day. The theme I have brought home from this week is that I really enjoy having long meals with lots of laughing. It really is what is going to sustain my life. Laughing with the ones I love. So here, this Friday night many weeks ago, Gina, Jon, April and I had a good night laughing and eating crazy food.

Schwa is unlike any restaurant I have ever been to and probably an experience that can never be duplicated! The place is crazy, like cray cray for real. From checking out Yelp, we knew to get our own drinks for the evening and also knew its good to bring some beers for the kitchen, so that we did! Go for the jump to see lots more details and pictures!

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Party Hardy Friday

People people!!! I have not had many written words on this blog in awhile. They just weren’t coming to me. This week I slowly got out of my funk by one-buying a new mac book pro and watching ALL of the episodes of Downton Abbey and then also having free time to bake some cake, sew some cording, frost said cake and have fun nail painting time. This pretty good week will culminate tonight into a GREAT 30TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION FOR ERICA! Happy Birthday my Erica!!!! Love you SO.

Pretty good looking cake right?? I hope it is moist and delicious tonight!! Recipe from here, with advice from Miss Beth.

I also went crazy with glitter nail polish. Clearly my life cannot have too much glitter. I almost dropped dead from happiness when I saw pink Essie glitter nail polish called a Cut Above at Wally world.

And I have now entered the world of Instagram. I am OBSESSED. Hope my followers don’t get annoyed with my daily posts! So I have yet to write about Schwa from Chicago and some cooking I did while I was there. But fear not! I will get to it. But for now, I think I might delve into a new blog content, one where I talk about music, fashion, whatever. I am excited to not just talk about food. So I leave you with my two new favorite songs.

That man’s eyes are to die for.

The slow motion in this one is rather fun.

Happy Friday Folks!

Wordless Wednesday: Nice Evening for a Run

Wordless Wednesday: Lilly time in Bellport, NY

A Tortilla Española with Shallots and Truffle Oil

Happy late Tuesday friends. Actually my Monday and Tuesday did not start off happy AT ALL because of the Ravens loss and because of a very hectic time right now at work. But do you know what made me happy recently? Eating this potato omelet for dinner last week!

And did you also know that February is Potato Lover’s Month! Well here is a recipe that you should probably try to make if you are so inclined. I fell in love with this dish in Spain and even got an authentic recipe from an amazing cook in Spain and then got offered an opportunity to remake it on my own and publish it over at the Idaho Potatoes website!

Yup, these potatoes come from Idaho. I’ve been to Idaho once, it was beautiful out there.  So I love this recipe, it takes only about 5 ingredients and a half an hour. A better version of a Claire Robinson Fix Ingredient Fix or Rachel Ray 30 minute meal.

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Lemon, Sausage, & Chard Lasgana for Friday’s with Friends

Ahh Friday’s with friends. Friday’s with Friends are the best!!!!! Last Friday I was with Bethany, Kelly, and Sister Laurita and we feasted on this dish and then went boogeying at Lith Hall. Tonight, this Purple Friday night, I will be with Gina in Chicago to celebrate her 30th birthday at Schwa. Next Friday night I will be with Jana and Howie in Long Island! Presumably the weekend after that I will be back with B, K and L. The Friday after that I will be in Pottstown, PA with Megan (and will have a visit to Steph and Rich)! And the weekend after that will be in Alexandria, VA with Erica to celebrate her 30th birthday!! SO MANY FRIDAYS WITH FRIENDS I COULD SQUEAL!!!  I was remarking today that the girlfriends in my life bring me so much joy it really is staggering. Thank you my girlfriends, you are the loves of my life.

And what other women are the lights of my life? Or at least the amusements of each day? Four bloggers, two of which I would have never have brought up on here, lest people think I was cray-cray. (You already know I am cray-cray and thats why you love me. ) Well since I know a wedding in my life is way far out, I don’t regret boasting my love for these blogs: A Practical Wedding, East Side Bride, YoungHouseLove, and A Cup of Jo.  APW has provided alot of advice for me and women I love, East Side Bride is hilarious and very informative for all womanly things (case in point: #boobsweek), YHL is a 50% woman team with Sherry who is very amusing to read and is a wonderwoman when it comes to DIY, and a Cup of Jo just has fun, funny and lovely things to read about. All of these women are witty, they are smart, they are beautiful people that I would love to have as friends. Lucky for me, all of my girlfriends are definitely all of those adjectives, but because most of my BFFs don’t write me daily amusements, I go to those four blogs, every day. Check them out if you are bored one day. So how does this tie into lasagna?? Well I was browsing the archives of A Cup of Jo and saw this recipe. I figured I could incorporate some Tofurky to make it vegetarian and that I could also prepare it before arriving to Bethany’s house so we could eat in 30 minutes or less! Go check it out!!!

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New Year’s Tamales

Woooooot. How was that first Monday of work for ya’ll? Mine was a doozy. I have a feeling this year is going to be full of hard work and lots of hard exercising. But I am up for the challenge!!!! And this is evident by the 5 hour long cooking challenge I took on last Monday. I made tamales people!!!!!! And I took two of them to Abuelita’s this past Saturday and she proclaimed them very good.

How bout that skill??? I am fully turning into the future awesome Mexican grandma that I want to become someday.  So my roommate, her sister, and friends from church all settled down in our cozy family room to spend the day watching Jim Carrey movies. It was great and so was our meal. So go for the jump to see more of this process and the delicious poblano, spinach and queso fresco rice dish I made to accompany our meal.

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First meal in Barcelona at ca L’Estevet

And boom! We were in Barcelona. The flight was easy and the cab driver lady that took us to the hotel was kinda crazy but we arrived and our hotel was just as snazzy as the last. Thank you Uncle Kevin! From my researching I had found three options for dinner in Barcelona. This is the only one we actually went to! And I have now confirmed that we are good at spotting good restaurants just wandering around town – (here’s looking at you Marfi!)

So this place was the most authentic little Barcelona bistro that we went to… it was actually really fun. Go check it out below!

Continue Reading First meal in Barcelona at ca L’Estevet…