I love weekends.

I saw this image on Pinterest the other day, and it made me happy. 

As much as I love social media, I can understand how it can cause depression in some people. I follow people with amazing social lives & the coolest careers known to mankind. I don't have either of those things. For the most part I'm good with that, but I'm human and every so often I wish I had tons of friends and a job that sparked envy in strangers. 

This little image made me realize it's okay not to have an exciting life, as long as I'm happy with the one I have. And I am. I love my life, and even though Graham & I aren't the most exciting couple in the world, I wouldn't change it for anything. 

You guys know what's crazy? As much as I love sushi, we had our first sushi dinner in Virginia on Friday night. We moved here the last week of July... It's going to take time to discover restaurants we love as much as we loved our spots in Little Rock, and I think I'm so scared of being disappointed by a restaurant, I'd rather not give them a chance. We chose Kero Sushi in Yorktown, and the sushi was excellent.  More on that later. 

Graham is testing for a promotion on Wednesday, so he's been studying non-stop lately. While he studied, I spent my Friday night drinking wine and working on a puzzle of Boston. 

Saturday, we headed to the Home & Garden show in Richmond so I could FINALLY meet John & Sherry from Young House Love! They didn't come to Little Rock during their book tour last year. The closest they got was Dallas, which was six hours away! So, I was definitely going to make the hour drive to Richmond to meet my fantasy BFF's & get my copy of their book signed =)

We arrived in Richmond early and stopped by Homegoods, Hobby Lobby & Whole Foods before going to the convention center. Stopping in Whole Foods of course means getting some macaroni & cheese from their hot bar. Speaking of Whole Foods, I found out the other day that one is opening 1.8 miles from my apartment in Spring 2015. We will have this stuff for dinner every night... And vegan chocolate chip cookies for dessert. I'm not vegan, but those cookies are amazing!

We got to the home show, and while the show itself was disappointing, John & Sherry were every bit as adorable and charming as I was expecting. Graham kept noticing similarities between us and them. It totally sealed my belief that we should be friends with them. And Hermione should be friends with Burger.

So excited to meet them! I went completely star struck and forgot how to talk. Graham was very cool though. He complemented them on the built-in's in their new nursery while I stammered and blushed. 

All throughout Virginia, they have these cute LOVE signs at rest stops. We've passed this one a few times, and finally stopped for a picture. Luckily there was a nice lady there taking photos of it, and she took a few for us. 

We got home that night, and Graham went back to his studying, and I returned to my puzzle. A 1,000 piece puzzle, and when we finished we were missing three pieces. I wanted to curl up into a ball & cry. 

And for dinner we had epic homemade tomato soup & pesto grilled cheese sandwiches.

We had leftovers for dinner tonight. I took my sandwich to the next level by adding slices of tomato. I used to love adding tomato to my grilled cheeses when I was a kid, and this was so, SO good! The sandwich had a Caprese salad feel to it, with the mozzarella, tomato and basil pesto.

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! 

Spice things up!

I cook dinner about 5-6 nights a week. Sometimes it's a complicated, Sunday dinner type meal that has me in the kitchen for hours and hours. But most nights I keep it simple: a sauteed protein & vegetables. 

My step dad used to tease me about how often I cooked chicken. In my opinion, chicken gets a bad rep as being boring. It can be boring if you don't season it well, but so can anything. In my opinion, the most important thing in a kitchen is a well stocked spice cabinet.

Honestly, I have more spices than I probably need. I have a jar of jerk seasoning that I've used exactly one time, and a can of Old Bay that I've used maybe twice. But other than those, I use spices a LOT when I'm cooking and I'm always looking for delicious new varieties to try. 

The tall jars contain things I use frequently, and use a lot of. Like cumin. And my beloved rosemary and basil sea salt. I love using mason jars for my spices. The opening is large enough for even my largest spoon. I started using these when I redid my pantry last year, and I haven't looked back since. Not to mention, the wide mouth also makes refilling them really easy. 

But of all the spices that I have, I have three that are my "go-to". I use one (or more) of these three seasonings for every meal I make. 

My all time favorite it this rosemary basil sea salt. I found this at TJ Maxx last year. I had always been hesitant about buying food items there, but it was in date and I was intrigued, so I bought a jar. 

The next day I went back and bought the other three jars that they had. And then two more jars at another store. #obsessed

This stuff is amazing. It's great on chicken, fish or pork. And it's excellent on vegetables. I usually sprinkle this on zucchini when I'm sauteeing it, or broccoli before I roast it. I really can't get enough of it. 

(Since I'm not opening these three until the current one is empty, I keep them in the freezer to help with freshness.)

The Montreal Steak seasoning is a great, versatile blend. It's perfect for everything, considering it's coarse salt, pepper, onion & garlic. I use this for a thick crust on steaks, but I also use it on chicken, fish or anytime a recipe calls for salt & pepper but I'm too lazy to grind it myself. I've been known to just shake the jar a few times into spaghetti sauces or pots of chili. For the past 7-8 years, I've always had a jar of this in my spice cabinet. 

I love salt, and use more than I should, but they do have a low sodium version, and a spicy version. Both are really good.

Lastly, my newest favorite is the Tailgater's blend from the Spice & Tea Exchange. I bought a small packet of it at the store in Bentonville, Arkansas and I was so happy that there was a store in Williamsburg. This stuff is awesome on chicken & pork and on roasted potatoes.

So, there you go. Delicious dinners don't have to be complicated or require specialty ingredients. Just try a few seasoning blends or spices, find flavors you & your family love and go crazy =)

Grilled Blueberry Muffins

We went to Orlando for our honeymoon, and on the way home we stopped by this little restaurant called Shaker's. We started our breakfast with an appetizer: a grilled blueberry muffin. 

This muffin was incredible. 

I bought a pint of fresh blueberries from a local farm and made my favorite muffins. They were good as is, but that night for dessert I decided to recreate that amazing dish I had in Orlando. 

It's not a recipe, it's just a method. There's several ways you can do this. You can butter the muffin itself, or just melt the butter in the skillet. That method worked the best for me. 

So here's what you do: 

1. Get a muffin and cut it in half. 
2. Melt 1 T. of butter in a skillet over medium-high heat.
3. Place the muffin in, cut side down and leave it alone for 2-3 minutes. 

Enjoy! Since it was my dessert, I served it with ice cream. But it was completely AMAZING on it's own. 

Blanchard Springs Caverns & really good food!

I hate seeing perfect weekends come to an end. And this was such a good one!

It started off perfect, with an EPIC breakfast! Scrambled eggs with herb butter, Petit Jean bacon, toast with homemade strawberry jam from Holland Bottom Farms, and homemade hash browns (I'll share the recipe later!). This breakfast was SO good. Not the healthiest thing ever, but oh my gosh it was good!

After breakfast, we had to try and lure the cat our from under the bed...

And then we were off! Two hours of absolutely nothing!

After a two hour drive, we finally reached our destination: Blanchard Springs Caverns.

They have three tours that you can do: the dripstone, the discovery & the wild cave tour. We did the discovery tour, and it was wonderful. It was about 1.2 miles and took about 1.5 hours from start to finish. Our tour guide was really nice, very informative and passionate about what she did. I wish I would have taken more pictures, but I didn't bring a real camera, only my iPhone. I doubt pictures would have done it justice anyways. It was absolutely beautiful and completely amazing. It's hard to believe that everything we saw was created naturally over time.

They said that they don't have an advertising budget, and most of their visitors are word of mouth. So if you read this, and you're in Arkansas, take a day trip to go check out the caves, you won't regret it!

After we left the caves, we were starved and headed to a local restaurant for lunch: JoJo's Catfish Wharf. The little town we were in was small, but had so many cute places to stop at. This place was in a pretty area. There were pastures on one side, and the White River on the other. They weren't busy, so we were seated quickly. We had just missed their lunch specials, but we both ordered catfish anyways. It was served with a green tomato relish, pinto beans and a big basket of hush puppies to share.

Not too long after they brought out the hush puppies and the sides, they brought our lunches.

Everything we had was delicious. Everything needed a little more salt, but everything had great flavor. The fish had a very light breading, and was perfectly moist & flaky. The fries were some of the best I've ever had: perfectly crisp on the outside, soft on the inside. The relish was vinegary, spicy and quite good.

All in all, everything was absolutely delicious, and if you're ever in the area, you should definitely stop by!



We were both so hungry after the caves, we left before looking at the springs, so after lunch we headed back. The water was so beautiful. This was the most water we've seen gushing out of or over something in Arkansas. It made me wish we had taken Hermione, because she would have loved splashing around in the creek.

Sunday was spent doing stuff around the house and more delicious food! We started with more bacon, homemade waffles, and blueberries from Holland Bottom Farms.

Graham and I don't have kids, but he's the best fur dad our pets could ask for, so I let him decide what we would have for dinner. He picked steak, asparagus & mashed potatoes. We grilled the asparagus and it was amazing. The mashed potatoes were perfect as well. Lots of cheese was mixed in, and they were topped with crumbled bacon & basil.

Hope all the dad's out there have had a wonderful day!

Road trip to Dallas!

I spent the weekend of my 30th birthday away from the heat & humidity of Arkansas, and in the heat & humidity of Texas.

Graham and I had an absolutely wonderful weekend. We shopped way too much, we ate way too much, and we had so much fun.

If the rest of my 30th year is as wonderful as the weekend was, it's going to be an amazing year!

I was barely out of Little Rock when I saw a billboard for Dunkin' Donuts. Their strawberry frosted is my FAVORITE, so I drove about 15 miles out of my way so I could indulge in one...

Hiking, Eating, Kittens & Puppies in Backpacks.

It's been a while since I've posted... nearly a month! Not a lot to report here, though. Graham is on a horrible shift, so we're just trying to enjoy our (very minimal) time together. I do need to do a little recap on our trip to Chicago (two months ago! Gosh, time flies...) and the cruise my mom & I took a few weeks ago. I'll do those soon.

I'll start catching up with a post about this weekend. Do you ever have a weekend that is just so awesome that you never want it to end? This was one of those.

Saturday morning started with loading Hermione up and heading off to Petit Jean for the day. We're not serious hikers by any means, but Hermione LOVES being outside and taking long walks with us and I like to take her on different routes to keep her interested & engaged. Not to mention it's a good way for us to spend time together doing something active and not spending any money (we looked at our spending yesterday, and saying it's out of control is putting it nicely). Petit Jean is only about an hour and a half away and it was an absolutely GORGEOUS day to spend outside.

The views aren't the same as the one's we're used to in NC, but it was still so pretty. But anyways. We strapped Hermione in her new backpack, and headed out. We walked the Seven Hollows Trail. The map says it's 4.5 miles, but it ended up being about 5.29. Our pace was slow, but that's okay. We talked, we let the dog sniff & splash in streams and just generally enjoyed our time together.

 

And yes, Hermione is wearing a backpack. She is not very well behaved when walking. She's easily distracted and that can get annoying. I wanted to get her a backpack over the summer, because none of my walking shorts have pockets and I was tired of cramming everything I need down my sports bra during our walks. When Graham got home, this was no longer a problem because his shorts/pants have plenty of pockets. Anyways, I read on Cesar Millan's website that putting a backpack on your dog can help when walking because it gives them a job, so they're more focused on their job & not as easily distracted.

Dogs love having jobs, and if they’re focused on walking and carrying, they are much less likely to chase squirrels or bicyclists. There’s nothing more therapeutic for a dog than having a job to do, and carrying a backpack is that job.

– Cesar Millan

It worked pretty well. She wasn't nearly as distracted as she was when we've gone hiking in the past, and she pretty much stayed right in front of us and walked in a straight line the whole time. Cesar has his own brand of backpack (of course), but we bought this one: Kyjen Outward Hound Backpack
and we were really pleased with it. There are two large pockets on each side, which we filled with liter sized bottles of Aquafina and a collapsible water bowl, some doggy waste bags, and there was plenty of room for treats, food, whatever. The straps are adustible, and it was easy to get her in & out of. They come in four sizes. Hermione is around 55 lbs, and we bought the large. I'm not sure if the little bit of extra weight helped wear her out, but she was one tired girl by the time we were done =) She slept almost the entire way home.

I was pretty exhausted myself once we got home, and took a quick nap before dinner. It's a good thing we burnt so many calories on our hike, because we were very indulgent at dinner. We tried Capers for the first time. I've passed this place so many times, but have never actually ate there. I'm glad we finally made it, because everything was great!




The atmosphere was nice and understated. There are two dining areas, and we ate on the side that had a fireplace. It was fairly quiet for a Saturday night, but that never bothers me. I like being able to enjoy my time with Graham without the frustration that comes with long waits. Capers is affiliated with Cajun's Wharf, and that place has about a 45 minute wait on Saturdays, so this was quite nice.
The service was excellent, and the food was even better. We started with a half bottle of Pinot Grigio and a stuffed artichoke: "A succulent Artichoke from the Mid Coastal region of California filled with a savory blend of Mushrooms and herb treated Bread Crumbs. Then, topped with Lump Crab and Parmesan and glazed in the broiler. Served on a pool of our signature Crawfish Cream Sauce."

  This was excellent, but a bit of a waste. The filling was delicious, the cream sauce was delicious, but it was hard to eat. The inside leaves were tender, soft and perfectly edible, but the other leaves were hard and tough. Once we ran out of inner leaves (which were soft and edible, but not the best vessel for the filling), we just ate the remaining filling with our forks. I think this would be much better if it was served with bread. Then you could layer the filling and a slice of the artichoke on the bread, or just use the bread if you didn't feel like dealing with the tough leaves.

Graham had the walleye ("Parmesan-encrusted Walleye. Pan Sauteed and presented on a pool of Crawfish Tails, Mushrooms, and Cajun Cream Sauce, accompanied with creamy White Cheddar Cheese Grits."), which I didn't get a chance to take a photo of, but it was excellent. The sauce had a bit of a kick to it, and the fish was huge, and very flavorful. My only problem here was that the fish was completely drenched in sauce. Since the sauce was good, it turned out okay, but I'd maybe order it on the side.

I ordered one of their specials. It was red snapper with a red pepper remoulade & two shrimp served beside the white cheddar grits. My fish was excellent. The grits were excellent. But my fish was also covered in sauce. While Graham's was light, mine was heavy & overpowering. It tasted kind of like a tarter sauce with red peppers, I scraped it off and ate the fish by itself. The grits however, were some of the best I've ever had. They were thick and creamy and had fantastic flavor.

We ended our meal with a slice of key lime pie, which was some of the best either of us had ever had, It had a layer of chocolate in between the lime custard and the crust, and was topped with whipped cream and drizzled with more chocolate. It was completely delicious and the chocolate was a really nice, surprise addition. Our waitress said most people either love the addition of the chocolate or hate it. We loved it.

And Sunday was lovely, because we hung out at home all day. We played with our pets, Graham watched his team  (the Carolina Panthers) get beat by the Cowboys, and I spent the day creating wonderful things in the kitchen. We had (our favorite) chicken & dumplings for dinner, and a homemade apple pie for dessert (I'll share the recipe soon!).

 

And since I haven't posted in a while, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this. Just in case I haven't, I'd like for you to meet Charlotte. We found her hiding under Graham's truck on a rainy Saturday a few weeks ago. Graham was instantly smitten, and we decided to keep her. I just hope she was homeless, and not some four year old little girl's beloved pet...

 

 

She hates Hermione, but her & Buddy loooooove each other.

Have a good week, everyone!