Friday Night Fish Fry & Last Nights Dinner & What I Wore

One of things this Wanna-be Southern Belle actually misses about the North and wishes the South had more of, is Friday night fish frys. Growing up my family used to always go out to different taverns, inn, or pubs on Friday nights to get a crunchy, juicy, overlapping your plate fish fry! I was craving just that this past Friday night so Hunter and I attempted to recreate it at home.

The fish and Sundays flank stank defrosting

Hunter wanted to use a fry basket and we don't have one...so he built one :) We didn't even end up using it but the boy had fun building anyways I'm sure!

We can't fry anything with out slices up some onions and throwing them in the oil at the end...its just too good and too easy!

Friday night fish fry!

And this was Last Nights Dinner...flanks steak with a mushroom sauce, baby bokchoy, and cauliflower.

Other than eating we also got to see this handsome fellow this weekend!

We hung out with our dear friends the Marellis and Thornes on Saturday and Sunday enjoyed the 70 degree Carolina blue skies while running errands. We made a Micheal's trip for some craft projects I'm wanting to do, and also picked up a full length mirror so I can start taking pictures and documenting what I wear. Of course just like with our dinners if any of you gain knowledge or outfit ideas that's wonderful and a total added bonus! But there are so many times that I love a particular outfit I've worn and I never end up wearing it again because I've forgotten what I put together! So just as this little blog does for our dinners it will now track my outfits and for me it will be great reference and who knows...might even be funny to look back in 2yrs and say "I can't believe I wore that" :)

Hunter hasn't put up the full length mirror yet so excuse the picture...but to start it out here's what I wore on Saturday!

Sweatshirt J-Crew, Trouser jeans David Kahn, pearls with sweatshirt & jeans = Wanna-BE! :)

Boden Bliss

As if I wasn't craving spring already....Congratulations Boden on your fabulous spring line and advertising campaign! In the past I have tossed your catalog to the wasteside but this year .... you have officially won over my checkbook!

Charlotte Weddings Magazine

Our weddings is in the current issue of Charlotte Weddings Magazine! It's a small spread but non the less exciting to open a printed publication and see little ole us :) You can check out the exact article and pictures that are in the Magazine, online HERE!!!

image credit: Kristin Vining Photography

Addicted, Obssesed need an Intervention

from my canon rebel T2i, Picnik editing and this sweet face!

Our trip to Poughkeepsie

What a great weekend Hunter and I had at my brother and sister-in-laws house. Joe is my middle brother, married to Jenny and they have a 1yr old sweet baby girl...my god daughter Riley! Thank you Joe and Jenny for taking the time to fit us into your busy lives, planning meals for us, and even an ugly sweater party!

Saturday morning they always take Riley to The Little Gym so with us being there we got to tag along. It was super cute seeing Riley participate in the different circle time activities run around to play on all the different equipment they have. Hunter and will definitely look into seeing if Charlotte has something similar once we have a child. And of course I took full advantage (all weekend actually) of a great opportunity to practice my photography skills on a cute little subject (other than Jake)! :)






After Little Gym we headed to Goodwill to find some ugly sweaters. With much success it was back home for some party prep work in the kitchen. I help Jenny prepare a couple things and learned some great new party recipes that can be made ahead of time, refrigerated, and then just popped in the oven right before party time! (I posted the recipes below). The party was lots of fun with some intense flip cup. Jenny took home the award for ugliest sweater :)

Sunday was Hunter and I's idea of a perfect Sunday. Food, football, relaxing, and playing with Riley allll day! Plus, the golden globes to top it all off!
It's a time and money commitment to keep in close touch with our families that we live so far away from, but one Hunter and I will always put first! We got to learn Riley's schedule, hear some of her first words, and take a peek into some of my brothers family weekend activities. All of this made us leave feeling much closer to them despite our distance and that is worth all the time and money in the world!

Next stop the beautiful city of Charleston, SC in May for a vacation with Hunter's sister Carter, her husband Chad and our niece Reagan. A whole week of fun in the sun and oyster shooters! Then hopefully sometime this summer its off to California to visit my oldest brother Matt, sister in law Katy and our other two nieces Madison and Emma. Niece anyone? :)

Jenny's Recipes
Baked Ziti - you can make huge tin casserole dishes of this for large gatherings!
15oz Ricotta
Mozzarella
parmesan cheese
1 box penne pasta
2 tbsp parsley
1 can spagetti sauce
-Mix rigotta, parsley, and cooked pasta. Layer sauce, pasta mixture, and parm/mozz cheeses, repeat! Place in fridge until ready to bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes!
Turkey Blue cheese Meatballs
4 garlic cloves
1 onion
1 lb ground turkey
3 tbsp blue cheese
1/2 cup bread crumbs
3 egg whites
1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp parsley
1 tbsp italian seasoning
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp chili powder
-Mix all the ingredients together, roll into balls and place in a small (mini muffin) tin. Cover and refrigerate til ready to bake. Then bake right in the muffin tin 400 degrees for 25 minutes.
Cream Cheese Salsa dip - trust me this is sooooooooooooo good!!!
Cream cheese
Salsa
Chedder or mexican shredded cheese
-Layer in a casserole dish cream cheese on the bottom, then salsa, then top with shredded cheese and bake. Serve as a dip with tortilla chips, yum!!! WAY better than with sourcream and we are sourcream lovers.
They also made a pot roast in their crockpot for sundays dinner and didn't do this but in the past have for when guest come and it's a great make ahead breakfast that you can refigerate and bake right before your guests wake up. Make them think you've been up since 7am slaving for them :)
Pot Roast
salt and pepper the roast
2 onions cup into larger chuncks
2/3 cup catsup
2/3 cup water
1 tbsp worcheshire
2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
bag of baby carrots
-Throw it all in a crockpot!!! :)
Charleston Breakfast Casserole
12 slices of bacon
1/4 cup melted butter
1 cup croutons
3 potatoes
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
8 eggs
2 cups milk
1/2 bell pepper
1 tbsp mustard
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
crumbled sausage
salt + pepper
- Cook bacon and saute sausage, spary 9/13 inch casserole dish and layer croutons and potatoes on the bottom of it. Drizzle with butter and cheese.
- Whisk eggs, combine milk, peppers, mustard, salt/pepper, onion, and garlic powder.
- Pour this over croutons mixture and sprinkle with bacon and sausage on the top.
- Bake 325 for 40 minutes.

Charlotte Poughkeepsied in her Pants!

Hunter and I are jet planing it this afternoon from Charlotte to Poughkeepsie, NY to visit my brother, sister-in-law and sweet niece Riley!
We're leaving Charlotte, to go to Poughkeepsie, and in the movie Sex and the City the character Charlotte Poughkeepsied in her pants. Strange. The coincidence, not me :)

Hope you all have a great weekend, 3-day weekend for those Bankers like Hunter and I :)

Jumping Jack Jake

Seem's like the only thing keeping me occupied these days is our dog Jake. Could be worse things I suppose :) We certainly aren't the "no ball throwing in the house" kind of family....exact opposite actually. We throw it from the living room to the office and Jake anxiously waits for it from behind the couch! We have THE cutest dog in the world :)

I DID IT!!!

I figured out how to post larger pictures!!! It has to do with uploading pics through photobucket instead of the blogger image loader and I had to change the template I was using. There you have it followers...enjoy larger pictures!!! :)

Ice Ice Baby

Yesterday was snow, today is Ice. Different, yet similar in A way that it means another day off work for me to take pictures and explore my new camera. So far, I've been tackling IOS and AEB/exposure comp. I read that if you are taking pictures of food on white dishes sometimes the colors of the food aren't as vibrant. You can move up your AEB/exposure comp setting from zero to +1 or higher and it makes the colors of the food pop more off of the white plate. For IOS, I had my camera set on the middle speed of 1600. Last night, I did some research and came across a good article that showed different pictures at different IOS speeds. It was making a point that a higher IOS speed at night can often times act as a flash and brighten your picture. Although you have to be careful because if you go too high, say 6800 or even to the 12000 it can make a picture pixelated. None the less, Jake and I just got in from a little play time outside where I took the same picture of different things moving around my IOS speed anywhere from 200 to 3200 and then the AEB/exposure comp from 0 to +1 or even 2 (but 2 is not good especially in daylight! I have sooooo much to learn and its all very confusing yet fun! I haven't even started to tackle shutter speed or aperture! eeeeek!

I know a few of you out there have DSLR cameras so if your interested I came across this little blog post (um, yeah ignore the blog's title :/) in my googling research that helped explain the basics of what these words IOS, aperture, and shutter speed even mean! I still have plans to read the instruction manual that came with the camera, but last night it put me to sleep :) It's much more fun to learn like this....







Now I'm off to iron some clothes and bake something. I could get use to this SAHW (stay at home wife) thing. TaTa!