Four Months To Go!

This is what was delivered to my inbox today.

Or as the countdown ticker proclaims on our wedding website, 122 days.  Yikes. I think I'm officially allowed to freak out about getting everything done in time for the wedding at Day 100.

Green Acres Is The Place To Be

Andrew and I are becoming quite the domestic homemakers. Needless to say, we've been spending the past couple of weeks at Lowes (on top of the countless trips that Andrew had already been making). But this was the first time we headed into the Garden section. Here's a shot of one our shopping carts below. That's right ONE of our shopping carts. We ended up needing two to haul all the plants that we had picked out.

Arriving home, while Andrew was puttering in the yard, I had all our new plants lined up on the ledge ready to go:

The little section we had selected for the plants was occupied by a large bushy thing with purple flowers. It had a certain charm (despite all the bees crawling all over it) but we decided it had to go:

We believe that big plant was sage based on the shape and smell of the leaves (plus a marker we found buried in the dirt), so I picked a few leaves and froze them before we uprooted the bush.

In its place, lots of young seedlings waiting to grow us tons of yummy things to eat (that's how I like to picture it).  I got a little carried away in the aisles of Lowe's and ended up picking strawberry and blackberry plants, and what I believed to be a fig bush. When we got home and actually read up on figs, we realized it was actually a tree that can grow up to ten feet tall and wide. Whoops!

Andrew did a great job of uprooting the unruly sage plant and tilling the dirt with our handy dandy garden claw:

With a lot of digging and potting soil, I transferred all the plants to their new home. There isn't much open space in our backyard that isn't devoted to Andrew's grass growing project or paved, but I like the fact that I can see how far my plants have progressed during the day when I come home from work each day.  Joining the plants I mentioned above, I also added a few varieties of tomatoes, one red pepper plant, one yellow pepper plant and one cucumber plant. I also sprinkled some wildflower and carrot seeds that we had received free with Andrew's grapevine purchase in some open patches:

That's our new garden upfront, with Andrew's grapevines around the corner to the right, and our deck overlooking it all:

A week later, it's amazing to see the plants' progress already. They look healthier, taller and have multiple new leaves. As I keep telling everyone, I will be thrilled even if only one of these plants bears something edible this summer.

Five Guys Burgers And Fries

In the past year, I feel like I've noticed Five Guys Burgers and Fries popping up all over MA. After a long day of running errands last weekend and realizing that our favorite Thai restaurant was closed, Andrew and I decided to check out their Dedham location.

First thing I liked about the place that it had a straightforward menu that focused simply on types of burgers, hotdogs and fries, along with a wide variety of toppings.

Second thing that Andrew and I both liked were the free peanuts to snack on while you waited for your order to be cooked:

Andrew went with a regular sized bacon cheeseburger - while he's happy to have received the burger in the picture, his final verdict was that it was a bit too greasy:

As for me, I went with the little bacon cheeseburger. The patty was roughly the same size as a McDonald's patty, which I actually like since I don't like a huge amount of meat (yes, I know I'm weird like that). The patty seemed hand-shaped, and while I appreciate the effort that went into it, I didn't feel like the burger was anything special:

The fries were the biggest disappointment. They come in two flavors, so Andrew went with the regular and I went with the Cajun flavor.

For seasoned fries, I could barely taste the seasoning. Plus, they were a bit too thick and non-crunchy for my tastes. On the plus side, the regular size of fries came with enough to share with another person. Literally, Andrew and I didn't finish our orders of fries, which has never happened before. Also, I liked the fact that they had malt vinegar in bottles available to use at your table for a dipping sauce for the fries.

Overall, while I can appreciate what they were trying to do with the place (fast food joint that tries to be a cut above with fresh ground beef for their burgers and a board that lists the farm in the US that provides the potatoes for their fries), I just wasn't a big fan of what I ended up eating.

A Good Sign...

Rainbows have become our lucky omens of sorts. We saw one on the night we celebrated our engagement and we saw one tonight (one of the largest I've seen outside Hawaii) after we picked out the tuxes for all the men (groomsmen, ushers, dads and uncle/officiant) at Men's Wearhouse:

As we're about to hit the four-month mark, I'm hoping this means nice weather for our wedding day!  A girl can hope.

Did Someone Say Dessert?

Was the dessert table at the Memorial Day BBQ worth its own post? If you know me, definitely yes!!

There was a lot of yummy things to choose from, including a homemade strawberry pie covered with whipped cream on the left, magic bars on the lower right and two types of cupcakes:

One of the neighbors brought over "corn on the cob cupcakes", inspired by one of my favorite cupcake decorating books, Hello Cupcake! (Flashback: the boxer cupcakes were inspired by the book, and I copied the shark and the turkey cupcakes exactly):

My lovely cousins Andrew and Andrea (usher and bridesmaid respectively) showed no fear at diving into the treats:

My dessert contribution, based on a request from Tom who had seen this post, was Vanilla Oreo Cupcakes. Using a doctored cake mix, I was very pleased at the texture and the rounded domes of this batch:

With Andrew serving as my hand model, here's an inside look at the cupcakes so you can fully appreciate the oreo bottom, chunks of cookie scattered throughout the batter, and thick cream cheese frosting. Best enjoyed in a swimsuit next to the pool:

Memorial Day Weekend 2010

Ignore the fact that I'm writing this way after Memorial Day Weekend, and focus instead on the fact that I wish we were still enjoying the holiday!

Sunday morning was a busy morning for me. In addition to using my handy dandy pineapple slicer for sangria and making a dessert (more to come on that later),I made a Greek pasta salad that was loaded with yummy, colorful things:

Then it was time to head over to Andrew's parents' place in Plymouth. One of the first things I noticed was Charlotte's homemade sign warning visitors to keep A.J. in the house:

Then it was time to join the crowd poolside to bask in the lovely warm weather:

The water was a balmy 75 degrees (Tom claimed, the warmest ever for Memorial Day weekend) so Andrew, Phu and Amy ventured into the water to play with Andrew's cousins Madison and Meghan (not pictured):

There were even some fierce games of bocce played on the sidelines (which ended quickly once a set of balls rolled into a patch of plants that looked suspiciously like poison ivy):

Then it was chow time - Tom was busy grilling hotdogs, linguica, and chicken, and also made his famous beans as well as a new recipe for "sloppy linguica":

Paul, Jen and Pete arrived just in time to join us in eating the delicious food:

The rest of the time was spent lounging poolside, as demonstrated by Amy and her shadow, Meghan:

What BBQ would be complete without the neighbor's cat stuck waaaaay up high in a tree next to the pool?

Come to think of it, I hope that poor cat made it down. It was still stuck in the tree when we left around 8 p.m.

Easy Does It

It figures that it would take five months and Memorial Day weekend to finally test out a Christmas gift from Andrew - the Pineapple Easy Slicer by VacuVin, apparently a company in the Netherlands. Andrew purchased it in a much more convenient location - Williams-Sonoma. Here it is facing its opponent, a ripe pineapple.

I have to admit that I had my skepticism on whether it would work as well as promised. It came in one piece, was fairly lightweight and didn't seem like a worthy opponent for the tough and prickly pineapple.

All you have to do is slice the top off the pineapple and center the slicer over the core of the pineapple:

My puny little arms had no problem twisting the slicer through the pineapple in a clockwise motion. It literally took less than a minute to twist to the bottome of the pineapple:

One quick tug and the edible part of the pineapple slid right out:

Leaving the core and an intact pineapple shell that could be used as decorative container (if so inspired, mine went straight into the trash):

The twisting process did generate some juice, which went straight into a pitcher of sangria I was making, along with some chunks of pineapple.

The verdict? The Dutch are awesome and clever, and I will be eating fresh pineapple more often.

Wrapping Up the Rest of the Day

After a busy morning of moving Phu in, we headed back to his old place (still home to Amy and Pete) to wait for his parents to arrive. While we were all hungry for brunch, I know Andrew was pleasantly distracted by Sydney, the adorable pup that Phu was pet-sitting. While Andrew is the one grinning in this shot...

...it's clear to see that Sydney is enjoying the attention as well!

After brunch, we had enough time to go home, shower, change, bake for a Memorial Day BBQ on Sunday (in my case) and head out to a Red Sox game at Fenway:

I couldn't think of a better way to end the day than enjoying balmy weather, a cold beer and a Sox win!

Memorial Weekend Moving Day

Almost three months after our big moving day weekend, it was time to put the muscles to work to help Phu move into his brand new studio apartment in Cambridge. Thankfully, there was no rain on this moving day!

One of the first things to go was his big screen TV, which thankfully was a flat panel and light enough to be carried down the stairs:

Phu's girlfriend Magali also served as free labor and hustled one of Phu's many bikes (the kid owns like five of them) outside:

While I thought Phu had a pretty full bedroom, along with belongings scattered around the apartment, turns out all his possesions fit nicely into the back of my car and a rented U-Haul truck. You can tell these things belong to Phu because of the plants:

The two biggest plants went into the back of the U-Haul. Did I mention that he had actually moved a bulk of his plants the day before? You'll see what I mean further down in this post.

It was time to say goodbye to the apartment in Brookline...

...and hello to a brand new apartment in a gorgeous building:

I loved all the green spaces around the building, including large patches of beautiful purple flowers complete with benches to take in the view:

Walking into the apartment, it's all stark white walls until you hit the massive wall of windows that faces Phu's new kitchen and dining/living room. I think his plants add the right touch of home and life to his new new space:

Here's his beautiful new kitchen (adjacent to the windows) with stainless steel appliances and granite counters:

A surprisingly roomy bathroom:

And the studio bedroom that is not quite a studio, since there is a half wall separating it from the kitchen/living room space:

It was exciting to check out Phu's new apartment and the whole moving-in process only took a few hours.  We ended up toasting his new place with the strawberry lemonade served in solo cups.

The unpacking process may take a little longer, but I think Phu will find much to be happy about in his new digs. Congrats Phu on being a homeowner!

Best Strawberry Lemonade Ever

For some reason, inspired by the warm weather and the long stretch of weekend ahead of me, I decided fresh squeezed lemonade was just the thing to make as a treat for Phu's moving day.

I had never made lemonade from scratch before and it was pretty much as simple as you would think for a recipe that only has three ingredients (plus one that I added).  However, there were a few tricks I picked up courtesy of the comments section on Allrecipes.

Best Lemonade Ever

Ingredients

1 3/4 cup white sugar

8 cups water

1 1/2 cups lemon juice (I used six lemons)

First tip is to soak the lemons in hot water for ten minutes to help soften them up. Once you are ready to start squeezing, be sure to roll them on a countertop to prepare them for juicing.

The other tip is to create a simple syrup with the sugar and one cup of the water.  Combine both ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring to make sure all the sugar dissolves.  Creating the syrup rather than adding the sugar directly to the lemonade ensures that there is no grittiness from lingering sugar granules. Cool the syrup to room temperature before adding to your lemonade mixture (mine was sufficiently cool at 30 minutes).

Next, let the juicing commence. I used a simple $1 hand juicer that I had picked up at Ikea. After squeezing the lemon simply with my fist to get all the juice out, I followed that up with hand juicer to ensure I got every bit of juice and pulp from the lemons:

It was a tad bit messy but it certainly did the trick, and it actually didn't take too long:

This was the amount of lemon juice that I got from six lemons, minus one half that I used to create decorative lemon slices:

On a last minute whim, I sliced half a pint of strawberries, muddled them, and threw them into the lemonade jug to create strawberry lemonade:

A few hours later, the flavors had a chance to soak in and the ice cubes I added kept it nice and chilled. Truly a recipe that lived up to its name!