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Weekend Shenanigans

Oh, hey there Monday! You sure did come quickly! This weekend was one of those where there were a lot of things I could have gone to, but chose just a few to not overwhelm myself. Let’s just jump right in, shall we?

Friday after work I met up with Chris at World of Beer. Monday Night Brewing was having an event there with three of their beers on tap and they were giving out free swag and such. I tweeted a picture from the MCB account and the guy from the brewery walked around trying to figure out where the picture had come from. He was really nice and gave us some swag.

When we were ready to go home, we ordered a pizza to go from Little Italy. It is new to the five points area and it is hands down the BEST pizza I have had in Birmingham! It is the only “real” pizza as far as I am concerned. Highly recommend you locals try it out, I am a pizza snob and don’t usually go throwing out words like the best!

Saturday – Chris was having some friends over Saturday afternoon/evening to play video games so I stayed in Saturday morning to get the cleaning done. We also headed to Target to pick up some snacks for them. While we were there I scored some great clearance items!

I mean check out this calender!!!! I am going to hang it in my cube at work to bring a little color to the area. And dogs make me smile, especially sassy ones that say “If I were dating myself, I would give myself a cookie everyday and it would be adorable.” Um, yes!!

Those KitchenAid towels were $1.78 from $5.99. Score! We then headed to Red Robbin for lunch. There aren’t many good places to choose from in Trussville, so when in doubt…grab a burger. I ordered the Blue Ribbon. I love blue cheese burgers!

When we got back home, we hung some more things up in the basement and then I got ready to leave for my dinner date with Laura and B.

We met up at Melt and I have been wanting to try their Greek salad since the first time I was there, and so I finally ordered it. Check out the presentation! The toppings along with some pasta salad come in a mason jar in the middle of the bowl. So cool. It was delicious!!!

We chatted for awhile and had a great time. After dinner I came home and started a new book, number 19 in the series and went to bed around 11 pm (like a bad-ass) while the boys were playing games in the basement.

Sunday we did our meal planning and grocery shopping. We also hung out with my sister in law for a little bit. In the afternoon we watched some movies on TV. We haven’t done that in forever! We watched part of the last Matrix, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, and American Pie Wedding. It was fabulous!

And like that, the weekend had come and gone and I didn’t get nearly as much done as I wanted to! You know, like fix my header, get some posts typed up, read more of my book, get some organizing done. Such is life, am I right? I hope everyone has a great week! Unlike most of you, I have to work today 🙁 The real estate world does not care about MLK day. Boo!

January 19, 2015 by Nadine

foodie, recipe

Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo

I love pasta. Love it! And while this recipe is not the healthiest one out there, it sure is delicious! Sometimes when I make fettuccine alfredo, the sauce doesn’t turn out quite perfect if I am just throwing stuff together. It seems when I measure out the exact amounts below though, it is perfect every time!

If you are trying to be good and want a lighter/skinnier version, you can do that here.

What You Need

1 Package of Whole Wheat Fettuccine or Linguine Noodles

2 shredded chicken breasts (I use the breasts from a rotisserie chicken (#lazy) or you could boil two chicken breasts)

1 cup of heavy cream

1 stick of butter

2 cups of grated cheese (I prefer Italian blend)

pepper to taste

What You Do

1. Cook noodles according to package

2. In a saucepan over medium heat, warm the butter and cream and season with pepper.

3. Add the shredded chicken to the sauce mix to warm up.

4. Place one cup of the cheese in a bottom of a bowl.

5. Add noodles to the bowl.

6. Pour sauce/chicken mixture over the noodles.

7. Toss and add the rest of the cheese.

Serve immediately! This one tends to get cool quickly.

I like to add a little crushed red pepper to mine to spice it up, but Chris likes his without.

Enjoy!

January 13, 2015 by Nadine

foodie, recipe

Pork Medallions with Pancetta and Fennel

I don’t mind cooking, I really don’t. In fact, I actually enjoy it more often than not. There are just certain meals though that take a bit more planning, time and patience. This is one of those meals. Pork Medallions with Pancetta and Fennel is one of our favorite meals and I try to make it at least once or twice a year. It is not the healthiest meal, but it is a delicious one!

*Note – I used two packages of pork and two packages of pancetta to have left overs, you can cut this in half if you only want one meal –

What You Need

pork- cut into one inch pieces – I used two packages. I prefer to buy the thinnest cut that I can find. Boneless and skinless.

pancetta sliced into small pieces- I purchased two packages of this. Usually it is located in the deli refrigerator at the store where the special cheeses are. You can also find this at the deli counter if it is not pre-packaged at your grocery store.

fennel – This can be found in the produce aisle. I have never seen it at Target but Whole Foods and Publix almost always have it.

onion – I slice about 1/4 of an onion into very thin pieces for flavoring

1 cup heavy whipping cream

4 tbsp lemon juice

2 cloves garlic

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 to 1/2 cup flour

pinch of black pepper

pinch of salt

What You Do

I like to go ahead and get everything prepped/chopped up front. These might seem like a lot of steps, but some take much less time than others!

1. Cut up your pork into one inch pieces and lay them out on wax paper.

2. Cover the pork that is laid out with wax paper and use a meal mallet (on the flat side, duh!) to flatten the pork into medallions.

3. Combine flour, salt and pepper in a shallow bowl. Now coat pork with the flour mixture.

4. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium high heat, cook half of the pork at a time. Remove all pork when done.

5. In same skillet cook pancetta until crisp. Add fennel, onion and garlic and cook for another 5 minutes.

6. Add lemon juice and heavy cream and bring to a boil.

7. Return meat to the pan, mix and heat until sauce is slightly thickened and heated through.

Enjoy! I usually serve this with homemade mashed potatoes and green beans.

Tip – Don’t know what fennel is? Sometimes it is hard to ask for help because people have no clue what it is! It is a bulb type veggie and looks like this:

That is about one bulb (to me) and I just cut up some pieces of the “stick” part and also use some pieces of the leafy looking part as well. It really has a delicious flavor with foods.

January 6, 2015 by Nadine

foodie, friday favorites

Friday Favorites

Favorite Song:Fly Over States – Jason Aldean – I couldn’t help but be totally cheesy while in the air this week looking down at all the farms and sparse housing in certain areas. In all my years, I have driven through lots of states: Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, New York, and Canada. I am here to tell you that all those states had their fair share of little towns and spare housing areas. It truly is beautiful when you think about it.

Favorite Meal:Wednesday evening we ate at Bull & Bear at our hotel (Waldork Astoria on Disney Property.) It was a four course meal that spanned over three hours and it was delicious!!!! My first course was corn soup, second was Caesar salad, third was filet mignon with family style sides of macaroni and cheese with bacon, asparagus, creamed corn, and mashed potatoes. The forth course was creme brulee. It came out still flaming. Holy yum. Unfortunately, I have zero pictures because I was surrounded by people in my company and I didn’t want to be that girl. None of them know about my blog!

Favorite Moment: Thursday evening, after dinner at the Napa Room at Disney Contemporary Hotel, we got to watch the fireworks show and see the castle. This is the closest I have come to actually being at Disney so far, and I will take what I can get. The night was a special Halloween show, so it was supposed to be a little better than their normal show with 360 degree fireworks around the park. Basically, I really just want to come back down here with Chris and have the whole Disney experience!!!!!

Favorite Funnies:

Yep.

ha true

yeeees!

October 10, 2014 by Nadine

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