Happy Birthday to Bradley!! 

Now that we're both 24 I'm not a "cougar" anymore!

St. Paddy's Day Edition: Shepherds Pie and Waking Ned Devine

First of all, I apologize for the lack of posting this week but here is one that will hopefully make up for it. 

As you all know, St. Patrick’s Day was this week. Despite the fact that my last name is about as Irish as it gets I’m only somewhere between 25-50% but who cares? We’re all Irish on St. Patty ‘s Day. The crowded bar scene isn’t something I like to do often let alone on one of the biggest drinking days of year. However, I still wanted to be festive and celebrate the little bit of Irish heritage. What's a gal to do? We opted for a quiet night with Brad feasting on some homemade shepherds pie and watching Waking Ned Devine. 

I had never made shepherds pie before and actually had no idea how many ingredients and steps were involved so it was an interesting adventure for Brad and me. After work we picked up everything we needed and came home to get started. I don’t think we even started eating until after 9:00PM which is unheard of for us. Regardless when it was finally ready, it was pretty delicious!

Much to Brad's dismay, I had actually never seen Waking Ned Devine. After a Netflix and Comcast On Demand search, we found it and I LOVED IT! It was such a feel good, cute, funny movie and I was so happy that we watched it. I highly recommend it if you haven't already seen it. After the movie was over, we decided that we would make this our St. Paddy's Day tradition because we had such a great night :) 

How did you celebrate St. Patrick's Day?

If you aren't Irish, how do you celebrate your heritage?

Pancakes don't have to be pretty to taste delicious

Not going to lie, I typically make my pancakes straight out the Bisquick box with a little added cinnamon and brown sugar when I'm feeling fancy. Much to my dismay I realized this morning that we were all out. I broke out my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and found a recipe for Buttermilk Pancakes (also found here). Fortunately I had all the required ingredients in the kitchen so I decided to make them scratch with a few extras: cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar and vanilla extract.

I'm not a huge fan of measuring things and that becomes all the more difficult when you wing it and add things all willy nilly so I just hoped for the best. The consistancy was a little thick so I did add a few tablespoons of milk to thin it out. Fortunately for my sake (and Brad's) they were delicious. You may not have guessed that based off the photo below but TRUST ME... they were great!

Do you like to experiment with classic recipes?

Jam Packed Schedule? I Think Not.

While most people love making weekend plans in advance and look forward to those plans for days, I myself am the opposite. I love having a weekend where I have nothing to do, however, few and far between they are. Not only can I choose to just bum it on the couch with my dog but I can also wake up and do WHATEVER I want.

For example, this weekend’s only plan is to attend a family birthday party on Saturday evening. This leaves me with oodles of uncommitted time to do whatever I please in the moment. Last night consisted of testing out the new grill (thanks to Jackie and Joe) by making some steak and mixed veggies. Unfortunately I didn’t snap any pictures but let’s just say it was delicious. Fortunately, there was only one mishap and that was taking off the steaks too early. After popping them back on for a few minutes they were delicious and good to go! Promptly after dinner, the boyfriend and I watched some episodes of The Office on Netflix and passed out around 9:30. Awesome night, right? I know I thought so too.

 Saturday: Woke up around 6:30 (thank you, Mable) and drank my weight in coffee all while doing laundry and some general sprucing. Around 9:00 Bradford work up (thank you again, Mable). After some chocolate chip pancakes and a little walking, Mable made her first debut off the leash in a nearby park. To my relief, she came back when I called her and didn’t get a hold of any birds (not for a lack of trying). Now as I’m blogging, she’s snoring away on her favorite couch. How cute?

If she could talk, I'm guessing she would be saying " WTF Mom? Atleast turn the flash off."

 And yes, this all happened before noon on a Saturday.

Are you an early riser on weekends?

Do you prefer to make advance plans or leave your schedule open?