Our temperatures have been stunning the last couple days.  The heat is gone and its been replaced by 80 degree days and temps in the high 50’s at night – perfect sleeping weather. Open-mouthed smile

Friday’s I grill at my office – my store had carne asada on sale for $2.99 a pound.  Usually its already marinated, but this time it wasn’t.  I googled some marinating recipes and stumbled upon this one – while everyone knows I can handle the heat, I cut back on the chipotles, so while this wasn’t spicy, it was super flavorful.

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And being the nice office Chef that I am, I brought my cast iron skillet and cooked up some peppers and . . . ONIONS!  Although when we were cleaning up I only used half the onion and I threw the rest out – I thought one of my co-workers was going to faint because she loves them so much – oh well!

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It was a perfect day to eat outside on our office patio too – I found the stand umbrellas so that made it much more pleasant.

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I also made cilantro lime rice, crock pot refried beans and homemade tortilla chips – my store sells yellow corn tortillas for .39 cents for a package of 10 – so I quarter the tortillas and deep fry them – 40 chips for .39 cents sure does beat the $4 bag of Tostitos!

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Everyone licked their plate clean so that is a good sign!  It’s a nice way to eat up two hours between prepping, cooking and eating.  The only thing missing was the Corona with lime or margaritas! Martini glass

Hannah came into town to watch six kids today – all day!  Three families are doing some sort of event in Chicago from noon to six – and three of the six kids have baseball this morning so she started babysitting at the baseball park at 8:30 this morning and will probably babysit until at least 8:00 tonight – some nice $$!

I picked her and her boyfriend up and we went to Friday’s for dinner.  We had a coupon for a free appetizer, and you can’t go to Friday’s without getting the fried green beans – it counts as a vegetable, right? Winking smile

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I got something new on the menu –

Mediterranean Chicken Skewers: Grilled in a lemon-garlic sauce and served with a tzatziki cucumber yogurt sauce on the side. Served with jasmine rice pilaf, fresh vegetable medley and grilled pita.

This was so good – the chicken was juicy and tender, the veggies were crisp tender.  Hannah and I ended up getting the same thing.

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It was nice to see them!  I came home and Tony and I caught up on our DVR – turns out Friday night we tape a lot of stuff and I was in bed by 11:30 – nice!

I am going to be cooking up a storm this weekend for a friend of mine.  She was just in the hospital for a week, and she and her husband have three small boys under the age of six.  I think I am going to make a boat load of crunchy tacos, some mac n cheese and some banana chocolate chip muffins to drop off at her house tomorrow.

I also need to organize my fridge/pantry/freezer – without Hannah, I don’t keep up on the organizational stuff as much as she did! 

I plan on getting to the gym today too, although its so nice out I may hit up the trails by house – but some exercise will take place today. Open-mouthed smile

Any plans for your weekend?  Hope the weather is nice where you are!  I found this on pinterest – love it!

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