In my dreams I have a beautiful garden. I wake up early to tend to it, the dew dripping off the leaves as I reach down and pluck perfect tomatoes, peppers and zucchini. I make homemade pasta sauce, salsa and zucchini bread with my bounty.
Turns out I have a black thumb though. Plants and gardens come to my house to die. It is nice to dream though! 
Another wonderful weekend has come to an end. Saturday Tony and I decided to hit up our local restaurant for pizza and a beer for lunch after grocery shopping. I love Summer Shandy!
I have a tip for you guys. Don’t drink beer and pizza for lunch and then attempt to do Insanity later in the day. Gah. I felt sluggish at best and probably exerted 80% of energy doing the workout.
I finished it, but it wasn’t pretty!
Saturday night we ended up eating late and hung outside while we grilled listening to 8 Track – if you haven’t downloaded that app you should. It has hundreds of thousands of playlists and you can sort it by mood – 70s, working out, etc.
What let us stay outside? This bug spray. Holy cow the mosquitos are in full force because of all the rain we had. Tony sprayed this on Friday and I sprayed it again on Saturday and the mosquitos stayed away.
I wasn’t hungry until I started to smell the chicken cook and I brought out some snacks – celery, dill dip, some cheese and grapes.
Tony and I love grilled whole chicken. It’s usually fairly inexpensive, and the leftovers are always put to good use. But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve grilled a chicken, only to bring it inside and have the chicken raw by the legs and wings.
So we ended up butterflying the chicken and we’ve never looked back. Simply cut out the back bone and lay flat – it usually only takes about 45 minutes to cook and it’s done perfect every time.
It’s actually called spatchcock – here is a video on how to do it. My brother and sister are probably throwing up in their mouths watching this video because they can’t do any meat with bones – such a shame because it’s so good. I don’t cut it in half though.
I also melt a tablespoon of butter and brush the chicken with butter. And this time I also added sliced lemon underneath the skin of the breast. We also cook the chicken on cookie rack on a cast iron skillet so that the chicken cooks evenly and any fat drips in the pan, not on the coals.
This was so good – and the leftovers were made into Renee’s Lemon Orzo Soup for lunch today.
Saturday I woke up at 10:30! Yesterday I was up at 7:30 ready to go. While I don’t mind having a lazy day I can’t do two lazy days in a row. I fixed all my SIL’s food for the week by 9:30 and then headed out to our local farmers market.
I ended up buying green beans, blueberries and string cheese. I only had a slice of toast before I went – for some reason I wasn’t hungry yesterday. I ran a couple other errands and came home and made Tony lunch, but I didn’t want to eat anything before working out – it felt much better and I was able to give it 110%.
I ended up eating a Chobani after working out.
After my SIL left I showered and Tony and I went to see Despicable Me 2 – such a great movie! There are certain movies Tony and I deem movie theater worthy, and that was one of them. But holy smokes – the matinee price? $8.50! We bought a medium popcorn and I smuggled in a bottle of water and pop for us. Had we bought drinks it would have cost us $25 to see the movie!
But by the time we got home, my hunger was alive and well! I made steak tacos and stove top refried beans. I pretty much ate the whole plate!
We thought we could go without turning on the air, but it was just too humid last night. Our last electric bill was only $58 so I can’t complain – it’s the middle of July and we’ve only turned on the central air a handful of times.
Alright, it’s time to throw my shit together for the day – it’s sunny out and I don’t think we have any rain forecasted until Friday so I will hit the pool at lunch today. tonight is Month 2 – Day 10 of Insanity – Max Interval Plyo – I think that’s the one with all the pushups! 
Question of the Day: What was the highlight of your weekend?
Make it a great day!
65 comments, girl you are popular. And Tony doesn’t listen to 80s music? When was he born: in the prehistoric age? How can someone not like 80’s music, it’s the best era LOL
Highlight of my weekend? BBQ with friends on Saturday night.
Yep, he was born in 1960, I was born in 1968 – so he prefers 70s music (no disco!) to 80s music. I try to sneak them in every once in a while though when we are sitting outside! 😀
Okay I forgive him a little because I like 70’s music almost as much at 80’s music 🙂
I can’t wait to see Dispicable Me 2. The first one was so funny! Love that speaker for your iPod–perfect for the porch. I just bought a teeny tiny one for our patio this past week. Love having music outdoors!
We do too – except Tony won’t listen to any 80s music – wtf??!! 😀
A few things:
1. Your opening words made me laugh out loud – I am the SAME way. My herbs just shrivel up no matter what i do.
2. Your farmers market pics are LOVELY….!
3. I can’t imagine going on a long walk after pizza and beer, let alone doing one of your crazy workouts. I am IMPRESSED!
Ha – thanks Courtney – glad I am not the only one that can’t grow for shit!
We love our whole grilled chicken too! We call is State Fair Chicken because it smells like the chicken on a spit (@ Wisco State Fair). I cook mine on the Weber, with a drip pan and hot coals around the pan. Rub the chicken with a little oil, put apple, lemon/orange and onion in the cavity. Season outside of chicken with whatever you like. Put on the grill, cover and forget about it for 1.5-2 hours. Done perfectly every time – no turning, no peeking, no nothing! It cooks and sort of smokes at the same time. OK, enough, Sorry I got all crazy with my chicken recipe! Oh, and I feel bad for people that are afraid of meat on bones – it’s so good!
Love the detail Lynne! We have to get a better smoker that’s electric – our other one didn’t hold the temp too well and stuff came out either way too smokey, or not smokey enough. I know, people who can’t do bones are missing out!
That taco plate looks so good! I had a great time this weekend with my aunt who was visiting from out of state. I didn’t do any cooking though – I think we ate every meal out! 🙂
Sometimes its nice to step away from the kitchen, isn’t it?!
We love grilling a whole chicken, too. Have you ever done it beer can style? It’s wonderful. We’ve taken it a step farther and used lemon pepper seasoning and lemonade…oh man, it’s the bomb!
Lemonade?? That sounds interesting – I am going to have to get details from you!
You said you prepared your SIL food for the week? Are you catering for her? I must have missed the story behind it. I kill all my plants too- I dream of lush gardens and if I don’t kill it the deer eat it, so sad:(
The mosquitos are our state bird here in VA and yeah with all the rain they are carrying away small children! I need to spatchcock again, it’s been a while- good idea and whole chickens are so much cheaper, all we have been buying lately is the thighs- all I can afford.
The highlight of my weekend was Dryden, my oldest coming home from camp and his brother’s fiddle concert. Life is good!
My SIL is on Weight Watchers, so I prepare point friendly meals for her lunches. She pays me $25 a week and comes over on Sundays to pick them up – its a win/win! 😀 I love money and love to cook! 😀
I’m a plant killer too, Biz. Hate it. I just forget to water them! Kinda scary but I think I’ll do better with a baby. lol Your chicken does look so perfect! I’ve never grilled a whole chicken but it must be so much cheaper than buying the pre-cut up pieces. I really want your Mexican plate right now.
If it makes you feel any better V, Hannah turned out just fine with my black thumb! Can’t wait to “meet” Joshua in December! You look beautiful pregnant!
LOL, that does make me feel better! 🙂 Thank you so much, I feel beautiful pregnant too! It’s like, man, this was what I was waiting for. 🙂
Biz I have a question…I was gonna make pizza dough with dill leaves mixed in, what would you call that dough?
Duh, DILDO!!
Bwah! I should check the comments more often to see what other kind of shenanigans you and Tony get up to. 🙂
I love spatchcocked chicken but it’s something MAK isn’t terribly comfortable grilling. We usually do beer can chicken, and we have a “fancy” wire holder that I bought years ago.
The highlight of my weekend was my son’s baseball team winning their games. They have played every day since Thursday, and we play again tonight! They are all getting a little tired at this point, and we are running out of pitchers, so it’s going to get interesting from here on out!
I didn’t work out at all this weekend, but I am going tonight after the game. I told MAK that if he has to shove me out the door and lock it behind me, that’s what he has to do. I’m goin’, I’m goin’!! 🙂
Yep, I remember those end of season games where if you kept winning you kept playing night after night. I think we had Subway sandwiches four nights in a row when Hannah was in 8th grade!
Pizza, beer and working out definitely do not go together 🙂 I love the photo of Tony. The highlight of my weekend was the Dbacks game for sure.
I loved seeing the pictures on Instagram!