Double Weekend Update

I realized that I have just gotten 2 weekends behind again in my posts, and before I post about the most recent things going on in our world, I feel compelled to share about the past 2 weekends first.

The 1st weekend (2 weeks ago - Nov. 16th) David and I didn't have anything planned. It was nice to just be home and relax together, but after a day of that, we were ready to go and do something. One thing we like to do occasionally is go to open houses in the area. But not just any open houses - the ones that are really big, and uniquely designed. Most of the time the real estate companies will post the open houses available to tour on Sundays on their websites. David found one in a nearby city that sat on 43.5 acres, had a barn, a pond, a greenhouse, an infinity pool with hot tub and fountain, and was overlooking a river. The house was about 5,000 sqf (with only 2 real bedrooms!), and pretty looking from the outside. It was very ornately decorated on the inside, but very odd as well. I think if I had to name this property, I would title it the "Pepto Pink Property". Seriously, the lady that owned the house was OBSESSED with PINK! I could just tell you that and let you picture it in your head, but I don't think your mental image would really do it justice. This place was REALLY PINK!! Not just like a can of pink paint exploded in the whole house, but painstakingly detailed with all different shades of pink and faux finished to look like pink wood grain too. This was intentional!! I think it was the oddest house I have ever seen in my life. Here are some pictures to show you what I mean.

The next weekend involved pink too, but definitely not THAT much pink! This past weekend was just about pink nails :) My good friend, Allanna and I made plans to have lunch together at her new house and then pamper ourselves at the SPA! We both got manicures and pedicures. I got a dark shade of pink on my toes and a lighter shade on my fingers, and she got bright red on both to be festive for the holidays. The spa that we went to is brand new in Greensboro and it is a really nice, simple day spa. It's called Sorella Day Spa, and offers services not just for nails, but facials and full body spa treatments including massages and wraps etc... Allanna and I just experienced the nail services, but both were very luxurious. I was impressed with their excellent customer service. While the actual "spa treatments" of the manicure and pedicure were very pampering and relaxing, the polish job on my fingernails didn't turn out quite as well. First of all, the lady administering my services didn't speak english and I think she used the top coat as the base and the base coat as the top, so the polish bubbled up on all my fingers. That wasn't that big of a deal, but she had also painted a couple of nails thicker than the others, so they took longer to dry and consequently I smudged them badly. So badly, in fact, that I decided to go back the next day and see if they could at least just fix those badly smudged nails. The most impressive part about my return visit is that they not only fixed the smudged nails, but also repainted ALL my fingernails (so that I didn't have the bubbles in the polish any more) AND repainted both my big toe nails that had also gotten smudged some. Plus when I tried to offer an extra tip for a different girl taking the time to practically redo the paint job on all my nails, she refused to accept it. She also encouraged me to let Allanna know that if any of her nails smudged she would redo them for her as well for no charge. I thought the whole experience was very pleasant and professional and I would definitely go back another time.

Still Baking...What has gotten into me?!?

As I write this I have already baked 2 more loaves of Banana Bread since the 1st one in the post below -1 plain with nuts and 1 with nuts AND chocolate chips...mmmm. Again, they didn't last long, but since they turned out so well, I decided to branch out and try some other different kinds of bread. So while David went out of town for a couple of days, I secretly called his mom and had her give me the recipe for his absolute FAVORITE bread ever, Plum Bread. I know it doesn't sound all that wonderful, but honestly, the plums come from baby food, and you really don't even taste them. To me it was closer to a spice bread or even Amish/friendship bread. Anyway, while he was gone, I bought all the ingredients (although I couldn't find plain baby food plums anywhere, so I had to use a combo of apples and plums - but that's really ok) then I made the bread, and only tasted 1 slice before he had almost all the rest of it. Amazing, the whole loaf didn't even last a full 3 days in our house! I knew I should have made 2 like the recipe called for instead of trying halve the recipe so that we didn't have too much. But oh, well, I guess I'll just have to make it again. Anyway, without further ado, I know you are all sitting on the edge of your seats waiting to see what this AMAZING recipe is, so here it is...

PLUM BREAD

2 SMALL JARS PLUM BABY FOOD (or any other fruity flavor you like)
2 CUPS SUGAR
2 CUPS SELF RISING FLOUR
3 EGGS
1 CUP WESSON OIL
1/2 TSP EACH CLOVES & NUTMEG
1 TSP EACH ALLSPICE & CINNAMON

MIX SUGAR & OIL, ADD EGGS, ADD FLOUR, ADD SPICES ADD PLUMS BAKE 1 HOUR 10 MIN AT 350

(MAKES 2 LOAVES, OR ONE BUNDT PAN)

Now that I have successfully made Banana Bread and Plum Bread, my next bread adventure is going to be Pumpkin Bread (recipe courtesy of my friend, Rachel). I plan to make this one next week and bring it to our Thanksgiving dinner. I'll let you know how it turned out and post the recipe after Thanksgiving.

Me, baking?!? What's the occasion?

Well, there isn't one. I was just given several bananas today, and I can only eat so many. Usually in the summer I like to peel them, wrap them in tin foil and freeze the over ripe ones to use in smoothies. Mmmm... But it's not great smoothie weather to me now, so I thought I'd try my hand at making banana bread. Now, those of you who know me well, know that I have never baked any type of bread ever in my life, so of course I didn't have a bread loaf pan or half the ingredients, but I did have bananas, so I thought I'd go out on a limb and give it a try.


I found the recipe on myrecipes.com. It looked less complicated than the other ones I'd looked at and it was "lite" so I thought that was a plus. I printed out the recipe, went to the store to get the pan and ingredients I needed, and commenced baking after going to vote (where there was no line at all) and to yoga class. Oh, and 1 more thing, I read the reviews too and added a little more banana and a tsp of vanilla as suggested on one of the comments. I also had mentioned to someone (who's been to cooking school) that I was going to make this banana bread and he gave me a secret little tip. I'll share it with you... He said to add a tiny pinch of pepper to the dry ingredients and mix it up well before adding it to the wet ingredients. The pepper will enhance the good flavors in the bread and make the flavor burst in your mouth - but be careful you don't use a big pinch, just a tiny pinch. He also suggested adding a little apple sauce to the banana mixture (use the 2 bananas and and the apple sauce to make up a whole cup). Also you could substitute Splenda for the sugar if you want to make it even more low-fat. (but I didn't do that this time)

Here's the recipe I used (including my additions) if you want to try it. It was actually pretty easy (time consuming, but not too hard) and good too.

Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1 (8-ounce) package fat-free cream cheese
1 cup mashed ripe banana (about 2 medium bananas plus a little apple sauce)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs
2 cups reduced-fat baking mix (such as Bisquick - with a tiny pinch of pepper)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Cooking spray

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.
Place sugar and cream cheese in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add banana and eggs; beat until well blended. Add the baking mix and walnuts, and stir just until moist.
Pour batter into a 9-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray; bake at 350° for 45 minutes. Tent bread with foil, and bake an additional 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Nutritional Information
Calories: 161 (24% from fat)
Fat: 4.3g (sat 0.8g,mono 0.6g,poly 1.9g)
Protein: 4.6g
Carbohydrates: 26.7g
Fiber: 0.7g
Cholesterol: 28mg
Iron: 0.8mg
Sodium: 260mg
Calcium: 49mg

Yield
16 servings (serving size: 1 slice)

(Taken from Cooking Light, MAY 2003)

Well, I'm off to enjoy another slice of fresh, homemade (by me!!) banana bread. Happy fall baking, everyone!

Edited on 11/5/08 to add that I gave this recipe to a friend of mine yesterday and she made this last night too. She didn't add the apple sauce like I did, but used a 3rd banana instead, and she made it sugar free with Splenda, as well as cholesterol free with better 'n eggs instead of real eggs. I tasted a little of it this morning, and although it was different tasting than mine, it was really good too!

Last two October weekends catch-up and 50th post!

Well, it's hard to believe that it's been over a year before I reached my 50th post. My goal this year is definitely to post more. I have had several random blog posts formulated in my head, but I really didn't think they were that "blog-worthy", so I haven't written them. And really the last 2 weekends in October were not all that "blog-worthy" either, but I felt like I had neglected my blog for too long, so it was time for a post, even if it's not all that exciting.

So I'll start with the 2nd to last weekend in October. On Friday October 24th David was invited to play in a charity pro-am golf tournament to raise money for the Triad Youth Golf Foundation (TYGF). He used to be involved in the foundation, teaching classes and giving lessons back when he worked as a Pro Golf Instructor. So it was nice for him to get to see all of the guys he used to work with again. He was paired up with Robert, his old college coach and former employer, and 2 other amateurs. They played pretty well. I'll let you go to his blog to read about all the details. But the end result is they finished fourth and still got a little prize for that. After the tournament, they had an awards dinner and silent auction for the golfers and families. So I joined David for that. The dinner wasn't anything special, but it was nice to meet his old coach and some of the people he used to spend a good bit of time with in the past. The awards were mostly for the kids that are a part of the TYGF, but they also gave out the 1st-4th place prizes before all that started. The prize David got was a $25 gift card to a nice local restaurant, The Village Tavern. Since we didn't have any plans for that Saturday, we decided we would have a "date night" and use the gift card. The dinner was really nice. We skipped the appetizers and just got two entrees and split a dessert. Afterwards we stopped by the video store to rent a movie, then went home to enjoy the rest of our "date night".

Oh this is worth mentioning - sorry I forgot on the day, but in between that weekend and the next, we celebrated my mother's birthday! David, Mom and Dad and I went out to O'Charlie's for dinner and a birthday celebration on Wednesday night (October 29th - her birthday). We had another good dinner and a great time.

Finally on to this past weekend. Again it wasn't all that exciting, but we did have a fun, relaxing weekend. On Friday evening (Halloween) I didn't want to be home in case kids came to the house trick-or-treating. I know, that's mean...but I didn't know how many (if any) would come and I didn't want to buy candy and then have to just eat it ourselves if no one came. So we planned to stay out all night. That evening we went shopping near the mall, then on to dinner at Bonefish Grill. We don't normally spend a lot of time on that side of town, so it had been a LONG while since we had been there for dinner. We left completely full and didn't even "technically" have a meal. We both got a cup of their spicy corn chowder with lump crab meat, and then split the best appetizer on the menu, the coconut fried shrimp with a tangy sweet citrus dipping sauce. And we finished that off with Creme Brulee for dessert. Mmmmm... After that we did a little more shopping, then on to the $2.50 movies for a hilarious comedy. We got in around 11pm...Mission accomplished! We both stayed out of the house the whole evening and had a great time!
Saturday morning I slept in. It was the 1st time in while that I was able to do that and it felt GREAT! Then I got up and went to the gym with David. We stayed around the house some, went shopping in town again, and then out to dinner at our favorite little Mexican restaurant. Like I said, nothing too exciting, but just a fun and relaxing weekend. I need some of those every once in a while. Now on to another busy, productive week...

A Couple of Appends

Due to a new post by my husband (after I already posted mine) and a suggestion to expound on the last paragraph of my last post, I decided to post some appends. One main reason I wanted to append is so I could add a link to David's blog from his perspective of the Seafood Invitational. Now his blog is very golf oriented, so he is really just giving a review of and recounting the golf tournament from his experience, so if you are interested in reading about that, click here.

The other reason is that since I had felt that the original post was already getting too long, I basically just cut it off and didn't expound on the last few hours that we were in Morehead City.

First of all, I want to thank my WONDERFUL mother-in-law, Jane, and her husband, Everett for allowing us all to stay in their beautiful and picturesque home on the sound. And then thank them once again for taking us out to dinner so that we could get on the road with full bellies and not have to stop and buy gas station junk food.

Now the part that I need to expound on is the actual dinner. They did not take us to just any old pizza joint on the way out of town, but rather took us to a very nice place that is special to us in many ways. It's a little, fancy, authentic Italian restaurant on the main road in Morehead City called Pizzuti's. We both love Italian food, and not only does this place have great food, but a great atmosphere too along with fond memories for us. You see, Pizzuti's, in it's old location on Atlantic Beach, was the site of our wedding reception nearly 4 years ago. The restaurant owner, Gloria, was amazing that day. She not only let us use her entire resturant as the venue for our reception, but she also did all the decorating, catering, and even made the cake!
Last Sunday was the first time we have seen her since our wedding, so that was very special to us. The new restaurant is beautiful, but it's really the old building that will always be nostalgic to us.
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to add in this appending post becuase I had packed the camera by this time, but you will just have to take my word for it (or go here and check out the site and other reviews), that it's an excellent place for some authentic Italian food down at the coast when you're ready for something other than fresh seafood.

NC Seafood Festival

This past weekend, David, my mom and dad and I all went down to the beach for the 22nd annual Seafood Festival. David's mom was out of town, so we all stayed at her house. The Seafood Festival is the 2nd largest festival in North Carolina behind the State Fair. This is actually the 1st one I've ever been to and David and I have been together for 6 years now (including dating). But for some reason we just never made it down there on that weekend.


The main reason we went this time was because David had signed up to play in the Seafood Invitational Golf Tournament. This is the 1st time he has ever been able to play in this golf tournament too because until recently he has had professional golfer status, and this tournament was only for amateurs. Since sometime early this summer, when he got his amateur status back, David has been able to play in more tournaments than he ever has since I've known him. I'm glad he gets the opportunity now to do something he loves. So all that was to say that the reason we all went this year to the Seafood Festival was for David to play in this particular tournament.

It was a packed weekend for all of us. David knew that he would be spending most of the days at the golf course, so he suggested we bring along someone else for me to hang out with and go to the festival during the day while he was unavailable. It worked out great that my parents were available and wanted to go. David went down on Thursday evening and was able to play in a skins golf game (where each hole is counted as a "separate game" and prize $ can be won for the person who wins the hole) He played one hole exceptionally well, and won $50.00!

My parents and I came down Friday afternoon, just in time for me to get ready and go to the hors d'oeuvres and seafood social for golfers and their significant others. It was nice and the food was good, but just not quite enough to fill us up. However, we did get to meet a few other people our age and make friends.

After we left the country club, David and I went over to the 1st night of the Seafood Festival to walk around and listen to the bands. The main band that played that night was an 80's music band called The Breakfast Club. They were actually really good and the 80's music was fun.

The next day David had to leave the house early for his tee time, so my parents and I slept in a little and then mom and I spent special girl time together on the beach, sitting in low chairs with the waves washing over our feet and legs. We did try to get in, but it was too cold to go past our thighs. We went back to the house for lunch and that afternoon did some shopping in Beaufort and Atlantic Beach. We had decided to steer clear of the festival on this day as it is the busiest day to go and my dad isn't too fond of very large crowds.

Then that evening David and I had another special event for the golfers and guests at the country club. This time it was an outdoor fish fry. We enjoyed the food and socializing before heading off to the Seafood festival in the evening again. This time they were having beach music and fireworks and we were meeting up with David's dad and brother. We stayed for a couple of hours and then headed home. (There really wasn't as much to see at night as during the day as I would find out the following day)

Sunday morning we all got up early and met David's dad and brother and his girlfriend and her daughter for breakfast before they hit the road. David had a later tee time, so he was able to be with us this time. My parents and I left before he did so we could head over to the festival and catch the 1st tour of the Navy ship docked in the harbor. One of the attractions of the festival this year were a few military ships that you could tour. They had a HUGE Navy ship, and a very tiny (compared to the Navy ship) Coast Guard boat, and belive it or not, an Army boat. I know what you're thinking, the Army doesn't have boats, it's the military on land! Yeah, that's what I thought too. But, I learned something new. The Army does in deed have boats to transport troops, food, supplies, etc... And there are actually military men and women that are stationed on the boats verses on land.

My parents and I toured the Navy ship and the Army boat before catching a tram to the main part of the Seafood Festival. The tour was very interesting. Here are some pictures I took of, on, and from both of the boats. As soon as we got to the main road the festival was on, we stopped at the first tent we saw selling seafood to eat lunch. The 3 of us split a plate of Mahi Mahi and some Aligator nuggets (not really that good, but you have to try something new, right?) After refueling our bodies and rehydrating, we walked along the street dodging people in every direction and poping into every tent that looked interesting. Dad soon tired of looking at all the merchant's wares and went ahead to visit our family friend, Grady, who lives in the nursing home right on the waterfront. Mom and I continued our browsing and shopping and joined him for about 1/2 an hour of visiting. It was actually nice to get into the air conditioning for a while.
This little stand is where David used to work as a kid, so I just had to get a picture of it.
When we left Grady's place, we walked into a tent right outside of his nursing home called the Chef's tent. They were talking all about shellfish and gave out samples of steamed clams and clam chowder...mmmm...oh, and we also got free Pepsi, just when we were starting to get a little parched again - perfect timing. By this time I was ready to find something sweet - I've gotta have something sweet after having salty. It's just a fact of life :) So we came across a booth selling frozen cheesecake on a stick dipped in real milk chocolate, and had to have some. Now that was delicious! It was definitely the culinary highlight of the festival - but the fish was good too. (I have to add that in since it was a festival about seafood)

While we were still savoring the chocolately cheesecake, we happened upon an interesting little hat stand. The title caught my attention - "Crushable Hats" and then also the part about "stays on in up to 40 mph" They were such cute straw hats, and so practical that we just all had to get one for the beach, boats, anywhere we would be outside. Here's me and my dad in our new hats.

We made our way back to the tram stop to take us back to the car, and I snapped this picture while we were walking by this famous restaurant. It was just such a great photo op, I couldn't pass it up.

Once we were back at the house, we rested and cleaned up a little. Then my parents headed home. A few hours later, David returned from the golf course, bearing the evidence of his win - a wooden duck (as well as a $250.00 gift certificate to the CC pro shop) - but this was not just any wooden duck. It was a hand crafted, authentic Core Sound decoy used for hunting that is worth hundreds of dollars as well. Now, if you know us at all, you know we care nothing for hunting, but I guess David is just going to keep it as his trophy.

Anyway, I took these above sunset pictures, and we finished up the evening when David's mom and her husband returned and took us out to dinner on our way out of town. As we were driving back home, I was thinking back on the trip and how we managed to squeeze so many activities into one trip. It was a full but fun weekend.

Happy Anniversary...

To my BLOG!!! It's hard to believe that it's been a year of blog posting for me now - not an extremely consistent year, I must confess, but a year none the less. I haven't even blogged as many as one post a week, but I definitely have posted more than once a month, so that's good. It averages out to a little more than 3 times a month. But that's not what's important. The important thing is that I have hit a major milestone, and I have stuck with it for a whole year now, and I intend to continue with it for more years to come and hopefully post more than 46 times in 1 year :) However, I have a really good feeling about this upcoming year and I'm sure there will be lots of great events to blog about as I continue my journey...