Dinner « strawberries in paris

Foggy Friday in Frederick

March 23, 2012 at 8:45 am | Posted in Dinner, Entertainment, Travels | 3 Comments

Check out these eery pictures around my town!! I was motivated to get up early and walk to the post office this morning before work and then I decided to walk around downtown for awhile. Love relaxed Friday mornings!! This week was full of workouts, some sewing, some cooking and some baking. Basically all I need to be happy after work! Need to cut down on the snacking though… please God give me strength to do that…

This weekend will have lots of good times with my best girl Erica. Her fella Mike will be making us dinner tonight and then we will have fun frosting up some Irish themed cupcakes (recipe here). Tomorrow we will be having a jolly good time in the rain showers while listening to some awesome music at Shamrock Fest! This video is of one of my favorite Irish songs from the Pogues. While we won’t be seeing them, surely some good tunes will come from IceWagon Flu and the Dropkick Murphy’s!

Hope you all have a great weekend as well Go for the jump to see one more foggy picture and a quick pantry meal I made for dinner!

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Wordless Wednesday: A Happy Productive Weekend

March 21, 2012 at 7:41 am | Posted in Dinner | 1 Comment

Strawberries in Paris is Four!

March 18, 2012 at 8:00 am | Posted in Dinner | 6 Comments

It literally boggles my mind that I have been going strong with this blog for FOUR years (that’s as long as college!). I am so proud of the creativity I have developed along the way, how this blog has blossomed and that my friends and family following has stayed with me all this time!

I’m looking to start a new lease in my life right now. I want to be a strong independent woman who will be able to take care of herself (of course with some help from family and friends) but without a man. I want to start my 30′s as a smart responsible woman with her sh*t together. I gotta start taking care of myself better!!! So we will see how that is reflected on the blog soon (who knows where it will take me! – wellll God knows!)

So I leave you with some perspective shots…

Thank you readers for reading and commenting and supporting. And thank you blog for existing these past four years so I could chart this wild ride.

Green Friday and Feasting with Familia

March 16, 2012 at 3:02 pm | Posted in Appetizer, Dinner, Entertainment | Leave a comment

Happy early St Patrick’s Day Ya’ll! There will certainly be some Guinness pints in my future tomorrow with the cookbook club crew. Next weekend will complete the green celebrations with some awesome cupcakes in store with Erica and the Shamrock Festival. Can’t wait to listen to Icewagon Flu and Dropkick Murphy’s! But for now, I have minty green nails….

And I’ve been jamming to Two Door Cinema Crew alot this week.

So this past weekend I did alot of cooking at Abuelita’s. Marfi was in town from Denver for a bridal shower and so we alllll got together for a big dinner on Sunday. I am so happy my usually rowdy social schedule was clear so I could do a lot of cooking for grandma and make tamales!!! We had a great poblano & chorizo appetizer, asado de plaza with frijoles, the tamales, and green cupcakes and brownies and ice cream for dessert. Did I ever tell you my familia likes to eat? Well we do!!! And it made a good amount of leftovers so that was awesome. Go for the jump to see some more dinner pictures!

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Wordless Wednesday: Weekend with mi Familia

March 14, 2012 at 7:25 am | Posted in Dinner, Entertainment | 1 Comment

Greek food for the Chemists

March 6, 2012 at 9:16 pm | Posted in Dinner | 2 Comments

It had been a very long while since the Frederick lady chemists had gotten together. Kendra suggested we make a meal at her house and so off we went onto the food network site and came up with this Rachel Ray recipe! I know, I know… But since what we would be making, I had made riffs on in the past from Ina and other greek recipes, I knew this one would turn out good.

I was lazy and forgot the fancy camera, so iPhone 4S it was! And some instagram just to up the ante. So we had greek meatballs with a yogurt tzatziki sauce, a feta, lemon and dill orzo salad and some sauteed kale. The pasta salad, kale, and yogurt sauce turned out awesome, but I think the meatballs could have been improved upon. Go check out some more pictures!

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In like a lion….

March 2, 2012 at 7:00 am | Posted in Dinner, Entertainment, Travels | 2 Comments

This week went by very fast! Much faster than last week… who knows why about that. I kept myself busy with a bit of exercising, finalizing lots of loose ends at work, but lots of reading. Lots and lots of reading. I got to enjoy the leftovers from said chicken dinner and mentally feast on these two books. First up was Blood, Bones & Butter. I think I found the recommendation for this book in Food and Wine magazine a month ago. I was so happy to find it at my local Frederick library. And after starting it on Monday, I finished it by Wednesday morning! The chef chronicles her crazy childhood, an even crazier teenage years and an awesome trip that leads her to open up her own restaurant in NYC. She also marries an Italian and the chapters of her describing lavish Italian feasts in the summer in Italy made by little old grandmothers was just awesome. Pick it up if you are so inclined, lots of good food “porn” and she is a great writer. The next one I started is Steve Job’s biography, loaned to me by Abuelito. That one, if you haven’t seen it, is a pretty large volume, so I’m betting it takes me a week! We will see!

So last night I made an awesome greek meal with my favorite ladies from Frederick, Virginia and Kendra! I took some iPhone photos, so wait for those next week and apparently I am being treated to a nice dinner tonight by the fellow in the lovely state of Virginia, so that should be a great time!

I have a cute outfit picked out for tonight and it matches with my sparkly kind of nautical looking nails.

I leave you with these two songs. First one just makes me want to go dancing.

Next one just makes me want to fall in love.

A Dinner for Two

March 1, 2012 at 5:39 pm | Posted in Appetizer, Cookbooks, Dinner, Entertainment | 5 Comments

People!!! I roasted a chicken!! Yeah that’s not so thrilling or surprising if you really think about it. But it made one hell of a pan sauce and pan sauces aren’t an everyday occurrence in my life, so that was pretty thrilling. I went to Ina for this recipe. It makes me smile because Ina was the first one I turned to when I started really cooking for other people. So thanks Ina, you have been one good constant in my life. So how crazy is it that it is already March?!?!? This year is cruising on along and that is very fun. And how crazy is it that this is my 500th post?? WOW.

From all my 10 or so years of dating, I know one good way into a man’s heart is with good cooking. So I set out to make a heartwarming delicious meal and that was confirmed with many declarations of how delicious it was.

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Wordless Wednesday: Good times with Good Friends

February 29, 2012 at 8:44 am | Posted in Dinner, Entertainment | 2 Comments

Feasting on Friday

February 24, 2012 at 7:47 am | Posted in Dinner, Entertainment, Pinterest | 7 Comments

Happy Friday my friends. This Friday starts with much anticipation of a feast I am making tonight for this new fellow I am fond of. I’m making a grand roast chicken and a delicious chocolate souffle for dessert. Cross your fingers no kitchen disasters come my way tonight!

This week was pretty easy in comparison to nearly every other one of this new year. I got back to basics in my evenings and it has given me much solace. The season finale of Downton Abbey started off the week with a bang. I am so enthralled with that show! So much so that I took to watching Downton Tabby in order to maintain my “fix” for that show. Yes I admit it, I need to go through detox! I also got in a couple of evening runs, a good strengthening workout with Kendra, and I started and finished this book. An amazing story of the life of a woman in China in the 1830′s. Fascinating! Next week I hope to blog about said feast and start another book and get that sewing machine cracking again and have one or two dinners with my amiga Erica who will be in town!! Oh and continue the no snacking effort which succeeded pretty well this week, you see, I just bought this dress for Lilly’s 1st birthday party and I am determined to look smashing in it!

But for now I leave you with two songs I am currently addicted to… this one is pretty, hopeful and has good energy.