Weekend Recap & Menu Wednesday & Thoughts on The Bachelor

I'm really going to try to do better at doing my weekend recap posts on Mon. (or Tues. if Mon is a holiday) instead of later in the week. It just feels weird doing a weekend recap in the middle of the week! It also feels weird to do a Menu Monday post on Wednesday :)

On Fri. Peter and I took full advantage of the nice, spring-like weather in the DC-area (temps in the 70s!) and took a walk at the college campus where he works and the nearby neighborhood where we used to live. All of the college students were out and about enjoying the weather too; there was really kind of a street-party vibe going on. We gave up trying to count how many frat house barbecues we passed :) We were hoping that some college students would invite us to share their hamburgers and hot dogs but no luck so we headed home for pizza and a movie. We watched Eat Pray Love. Cinematography=gorgeous. Acting/Storyline/Etc.=mediocre. I remembered from reading the book that Elizabeth Gilbert certainly had a way with words but that overall I thought the book was a bit on the self-indulgent side, and I felt the same about the movie. Sat. was a lazy morning with a yummy breakfast of biscuits and honey and then we ran some errands that we had been needing to do for awhile. Peter got two pairs of new sneakers, and I got a bike! My bike was stolen last year (apparently a rite of passage when you live in the DC-area), and I really missed riding last spring and fall. Now I'm fully prepared to tackle those trails when the first signs of spring come (so excited for that!) :) Getting home from the mall was quite an adventure on Sat. because there were brush fires in our area!!! It was an extremely windy day, and a fire that started at some kind of factory ended up burning acres and acres of land. The smoke was so bad that the police had to close I-95 for awhile. Needless to say, traffic was horrible, and Peter and I had to be creative taking back roads home. After that, Peter took me out to eat (in the opposite direction of the fires!) for our belated Valentine's Day. Deep Creek Restaurant and Marina was terrific! We both love seafood, and our meals (he had scallops, I had crab) were fantastic. We had a table looking out onto the water, and a group of swans (?!) decided to swim by while we were eating which was fun to see. Sun. was church, lunch with friends (we went to a Vietnamese noodle place which was a new experience for me, and I loved it!), a grocery store and library run, and then talking to our families and relaxing. Mon. was a holiday for me, and I stayed home the entire day and cleaned like a crazy woman! Maybe it was spring fever or something, but I really went to town and was exhausted that night. I also almost finished organizing my recipe cuttings into binders. I've had a drawer full of recipe cuttings for about five years now and it was getting out of control (meaning the drawer was overflowing and I couldn't find anything in there!) so I finally decided to do something about it. P can't tease me any more about taking 3 years to find a recipe :)

Speaking of recipes, I tried one new recipe last week that I think deserves a shout out: Bacon Pierogi Bake

(image from Cooking Light)

Potato dumplings and cheese in cream sauce baked and topped with bacon, tomatoes, and green onions. Yum! Low in calories, fat, etc. and quick to prepare and easy on the budget. Even better! Peter didn't think that he liked pierogis, but he liked this and I'll definitely be making this again.

I don't really have a good transition into speaking about The Bachelor so I'm just going to jump in. I'm SO glad that Michelle was given the heave-ho last week!!! I was worried that she was going to be kept for the drama factor, but, thankfully, no. I really think that she thought she was going to win with all of her shenanigans and couldn't believe that her scheming didn't pay off when Brad didn't hand her a rose. Not sad to see her go at all! I was sad, though, to see Shawntel leave this week. She seemed so nice and genuine, and I really admired her for having such a different occupation. I'm rooting for Ashley now, even though I like Emily too :) I loved the hometown visits this week, and Ashley's family is too cute for words!

(image from ABC.com)

Can't wait to see the finale!!!

Weekend Recap

So no Menu Monday (or Tuesday) this week because P and I subsisted on frozen meals last week :( We were out of town last weekend so I wasn't able to go to the grocery store and I didn't have time (or the will!) to go after work so we depleted the hoard of frozen dinner items that I keep on hand for just such occasions. I did make homemade banana walnut muffins, though, on Fri. night for Sat. morning's breakfast so I'm not a completely bad wife :) A friend passed along the best banana muffin recipe to me last year, and I think I make a batch every two months at least.  You can find the recipe at All Recipes. The streusel topping is what really makes them fab!

(image from All Recipes)

Fri. night we were super tired so we stayed in and I made the muffins and then did my nails while we watched some random nature program (until the wolves started hunting and eating some defenseless animal - I can't stand to watch animals being hurt even if I know it's just the circle of life and such). Sat. I volunteered for the Junior League at the MLK Library in DC. I learned a lot about the Adaptive Services division which offers so many great services to the blind and deaf in the city. And I volunteered with a great group of girls so we had a lot of fun chatting while working :) I finally made it to the grocery store that night, and - let me tell you - it was packed out! I've never seen a grocery store so busy - not even before snow!!! I guess people were stocking up for Superbowl parties, and some of the shelves were bare. I found some of the apparently popular Superbowl food choices kind of funny. Frozen waffles? Seriously - there were like two boxes of frozen waffles left! Celery? No celery to be had in the store. Canned black-eyed peas? Hmm ... Sun. we went to church and then one of our friends, who is Chinese, invited us to lunch to celebrate the Chinese New Year (Happy Year of the Rabbit!). She is an incredible cook so P and I never turn down an opportunity to eat at her house! We lounged at home the rest of the afternoon and then went to a Superbowl party at our friends' house. So much good food! I didn't have to cook all day :) We had a fun time watching the game (Hooray for the Packers!) and talking. My friend's four-year-old son was sitting with me on the couch and was asking me all kinds of questions about the game. I've never felt so knowledgeable about football in my life! I was saying things like, "The green guys have to take the football from the yellow guys and run with it down to the end of the field" and he seemed pretty impressed :) I hope his daddy can correct any misinformation that I might have imparted to him!

Before I end - I have to say that I will be very disappointed if Brad ends up with Michelle on The Bachelor. I think that Nina summed up my feelings about Michelle well in her post today. I didn't know she had a daughter until I read Nina's post (I've just been able to watch bits and pieces of this season)! Yikes! I can't imagine having a mother like that.