Wonderful Weekend!

What a difference the weekend was since I didn’t have to work at the restaurant Saturday night.  I was happy that my schedule and Hannah’s worked out so we could get together for lunch on Saturday for lunch and thrifting.  I hadn’t seen her for over six weeks!  We ended up going to Wok n Fire – we sat and talked and ate for nearly two hours!  We started out with these tandori chicken wraps in naan that were delicious, we split the vegetable egg rolls, and I ended up getting the Thai curry tofu with mixed veggies and brown rice.  I was so full I only had a few bites and had the leftovers for lunch yesterday.

I found a few cute tops, some new socks and Hannah found that “That shit is cray” sweatshirt.  She was totally going to buy it, but there wasn’t a tag on it.  The rules of this thrift store is that if the tag is missing, you can’t buy it, and they won’t retag it until the next day.  Bummer!

Saturday night was wonderful.  Tony and I sat outside, listened to music and had some wine (well, he had his beer!) and just relaxed while our turkey breast cooked.  OMG, that turkey breast?  Amazeballs.  I put Greek seasoning on it, and had sliced lemons underneath the skin.  I pulled it off the grill at 155 and let it rest 20 minutes before slicing – so juicy!  I also like that picture of my wine glass with the reflection of the trees in it.

Since it was just my Mom and Tony for Easter Sunday, we decided against getting a giant ham.  We both have had a jones for this Italian Sunday Gravy that I first made in January of 2009!  But I realized that I had left my crock pot at work.  I figured a Dutch oven would work just as well.  I just put all the meat, the tomato puree, red wine, garlic, tomato paste in all at the same time, after browning each meat.  I nestled the browned meat in the sauce, and baked that with a lid on for four hours in my oven at 225 degrees.   I pulled all the meat out and chopped it up and added it back into the sauce.  On Easter Sunday, I just brought it back to a simmer and let it cook down for another hour.

I couldn’t find the noodles I wanted at the store.  Since this is such a robust sauce, I wanted a fairly wide noodle.  So I decided to make my own!  This could not be easier – no longer do I try to put the flour on my counter, make a well and try to incorporate the eggs.  Invariably, one of the sides of my mound of flour will collapse and I try to catch the eggs as they try to roll off my counter.  I just threw everything into my food processor.

Homemade Pasta Dough

• 3.5 cups flour
• 4 eggs
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4-8 tablespoons of water

Put everything but the water in the food processor – adding 1 tablespoon of water at a time, keep adding the water until the dough pulls from the side of your food processor bowl.  I used 6 tablespoons for mine.

Let the dough rest for 30 minutes.  Divide the dough into four sections.  Roll out to desired consistency – I wanted mine pretty thin – it puffs up when it cooks so it’s best to go thinner than what you think it should be.  No fancy pasta roller required – I just used my rolling pin and my pizza cutter to cut the dough.  This literally only takes 2-3 minutes to cook.  I am going to experiment to see if I can just make the dough and cook it immediately – not sure what the resting part does since there isn’t any yeast or anything like that.

I think my Mom had a good time.  I always put pictures of me and my Mom on Facebook and let my brother and sister know that I am her favorite, since she spends most of the holidays with me – ha!

So the Queen of Maintenance is right on track.  I am sure next week I’ll be down –.2!   And seriously, I need to make an appointment to get a pedicure before flip flop season is in full force!

I had no problem getting in my 10,000 steps yesterday.  However, over the weekend my Fitbit wouldn’t go to the next screen.  It was Sunday when I noticed it, and I never synced up on Saturday so when I had Tony pull the battery out, I lost all that info – oh well, it’s working again so that’s all that matters.  I also have more Fitbit friends – Rachel and her husband Dave!  If you want to be Fitbit friends, just leave a comment and I’ll send you an email invite.  It does actually motivate me to see how many steps other people have.  I will still never catch up to Fran or Kim!

Time to get this show on the road.  We have a client coming in the office, so I need to dress up today – haven’t had to do that in a long time – I normally wear jeans to work every day.  Happy Tuesday – make it a great day!