What's For Dinner Wednesday: Tequila Shrimp

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• White onion, minced
• Garlic
• Salt
• Uncooked shrimp, peeled & de-veined
• 1/2 cup tequila
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
• Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions:

• Heat oil on medium heat, cook onion and garlic until translucent.
• Add shrimp and cook until pink. Remove pan from heat, add tequila. Return to heat and cook until alcohol has evaporated and shrimp are fully cooked.
• Remove from heat and add lime juice. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

This shrimp is so versatile that it can be paired with a variety of sides. I have usually gone with brown rice or orzo. A few slices of avocado also brightens it up.  The recipe itself is very simple and takes almost no time to prepare. And one more note, if you can, I would recommend buying shrimp already peeled and de-veined, definitely worth the extra dollars to not have to mess with that.
   

*Original recipe courtesy of www.chow.com.

Feel Good Friday: Blessed

There is always some magazine article telling women and men what they are doing wrong in their marriages or relationships and how they should fix it. Basically, a battle of the sexes diatribe.  Ryan and I do read these articles with a huge handful of salt, have a good laughing battle of wills ourselves, and then just chalk it up to nonsense.

In these articles, I see a recurring theme of how women "resent" their man because they can't seem to get him to do any sort of housework without nagging, and it makes me appreciate that I have a man who is not like any husband that these articles are referring to.

So, I wanted to end the week on an upbeat note and focus on the positive instead of the negative. 

I am blessed to have a husband, who:

• not only knows how to do a load of laundry, but will actually do it just because some of his clothes are high maintenance and I shouldn't be responsible for that;
• will willingly load/unload the dishwasher without being asked;
• who knows how to cook and wants to cook to give me a break sometimes;
• in spite of having our own spending money, still wants to spoil me;
• doesn't expect me to do all the housework just because we are now in more traditional marriage roles than we were previously;
• who knows how to say thank you, and does so, often.

What are you blessed to have in your partner?

Monday Mania: Tough Question

I have been getting this question a lot since we've moved out to Arizona: what has been the toughest adjustment?

It's been mainly two things for me.

First and foremost, is having to establish a new group of friends. The first time Ryan went out of town on business, I remember texting my friend in Atlanta, "Okay, NOW I am lonely" because I didn't have anyone to hang out with while he was gone. And since I'm not working full-time, I don't have an automatic potential friend-pool through a job. I have really had to step out of my comfort zone and seek out local women's groups to get out of the house on my own and around some estrogen. It's totally like being the new kid in school half way through the year.

The second is that I just don't know my way around this town like I did Atlanta.  Traffic in Atlanta is the pits, and I could always whip up a backup route or shortcut in the blink of an eye. Here, not so much. I just can't see the layout in my head for a quick alternate way to anywhere if I need to yet. Thankfully, this town is set up on a grid system, so that I can play chance and eventually hit a street that is recognizable to me that will get me to where I need. Which leads me to being very dependent on Google Maps and GPS. Very rare was it that I had to consult Google Maps for directions, but now, I literally have to check before I leave the house and then make sure that I have my GPS with me.

If you've ever had to move to a completely new city after living in one place for quite awhile, what was your toughest adjustment?

IRONMAN 3

This is what my rock star brother did yesterday:

I spent a lot of the afternoon and night tracking him throughout the race and trying to catch him on the live stream feed, but that one didn't work out so well. It is truly amazing how connected we all can be with technology these days.

But, needless to say, I am one PROUD sister!! 

This was his 3rd IRONMAN competition and certainly not his last. According to his previous races, it looks like that he scored some PR times.

He is a total inspiration in dedication to achieving your goals. This is what makes all those practices and early mornings worth it.

Congratulations, Kevin!

My equally awesome parents went with him, as they have been with him for all his full IRONMAN races, to New Zealand to cheer him on.  They will be stopping by for a visit on their way back home. Can't wait to see them!

What's for Dinner Wednesday: Tilapia with Pesto and Roasted Tomatoes

**Main recipe courtesy of www.closetcooking.com**

Shopping/ingredient list:

• 2 tilapia fillets (or however many you want)
• Pesto (2 tablespoons)
• Lemon (peel and juice)
• Garlic (4 cloves)  
• Grape tomatoes (1 container)
• Olive oil (I like to use extra virgin olive oil)
• Salt and pepper  

Directions: 

• Preheat oven to 425°.
• Toss tomatoes with oil, garlic, salt, and pepper.
• Roast tomatoes in oven for 10-15 minutes.
• Mix lemon juice with pesto.
• Cut the rind into slices.
• Season fish with salt and pepper on both sides.
• Set the slices on top of the tomatoes and place the fish on top.
• Spread the pesto onto fish.
• Bake the fish for 10-15 minutes. 

Serve with whatever sides you want, but I usually go for brown rice and steamed broccoli.

 
 

Let's Go Roma! and then Let's Go Homa!

Our whirlwind European tour was drawing to a close and our last stop was Roma.

We took a commuter train that lasted about 3 hours. Apparently, we passed through some beautiful Italian countryside, as in Under the Tuscan Sun, Italian vineyard beautiful, but we didn't get to see it. The windows for our seats were completely covered by an advertisement. Fail. So, I just had to occupy myself with the beverage cart that brought copious amounts of espresso and wine.

When we arrived into the city, we made our way to the hotel, checked in, and then set out to find, what else? Lunch! I love that eating in Europe is not rushed. Two hour meals are not unusual and could be considered on the shorter end of meal times. You get to sit, relax, and ENJOY the company and the food. After lunch, we wandered around the city for a bit and then went back to the hotel for a little siesta before dinner.

The next morning Ryan took me on the walking tour of Rome. We hit the Colosseum, Circo Massimo (Circus Maximus), Forum Boarium, Capitoline Hill, the Forum ruins, and Il Vittoriano. There are also several aquaduct ruins and just fascinating historical buildings that are amazing. We also happened along an apartment/dormitory complex that looked like it was going through some major excavations. What happened was that the complex was wanting to expand, but when they went to break ground, they found some more ancient ruins and now had to excavate instead of building. I joked to Ryan that Italians are probably so used to this happening that when it does, they get upset because there will be a delay in productivity. But if something like this were to happen in the States, we would be over the moon.

The walking tour didn't take very long so on the way back we stopped at a cute little restaurant that was decorated in Cracker Barrel style in that it was all kitschy. A great atmosphere with the wait staff breaking into song every now and then, and they gave us a free eggplant starter that was yummy! Another thing about eating in Europe, everything is so fresh. I noticed that the menus will indicate if an item is made from a frozen product. We could definitely tell that the pizza and pasta that we had that day was fresh dough and fresh pasta. After lunch, we trekked over to the Fontana di Trevi. I threw in the requisite coin and off we went to get away from the enormous crowd of tourists. We stopped for an afternoon gelato and wine. Once again, we stopped for a siesta before dinner. Our last dinner in Roma was stupendous. We were plied with several complimentary starters and my main course was a penne vodka dish that was made table side. Molto bene! Unfortunately, and I do mean unfortunately, with all the starters that were provided, I did not have it in me to indulge in the dessert cart.  Both Ryan and I settled for a cappuccino and caffé corretto. A very enjoyable end to our time in Roma and Europe.

So the trip home. On the plus side, we made all of our flights. The bad side, we had to do what I call the Home Alone sprint for each of our connections. We had a connection in NYC and Atlanta. The connection in NYC would have been fine had our flight from Roma not been over an hour late, nor had we had to wait 45 minutes for our luggage to come through just to recheck it again. Thankfully, both Ryan and I have global entry that allowed us to bypass the hours long line at customs. Thankfully, a Delta counter agent let us cut through the security line (where we saw Penn Jillette, of Penn and Teller fame, waiting in line just like the commoners). We knew the connection in Atlanta would be a little dicey as we only had 40 minutes between flights, and we were arriving in E terminal and departing from B terminal, but yet again, we were late leaving NYC, so again, we ran from the gate to the train and from the train to the gate. And then we were home.

What an amazing, amazing trip! I had a grand ol' time and can't wait to go back! Thanks to Ryan for taking me on this trip of a lifetime!

Milano- and not Alyssa or the cookie.

Our time in Paris had come to a close, and we were off to Milano. We decided to be adventurous and take an overnight train. After navigating through the train station, we finally made it into our private car and were pleasantly surprised when the train attendent came by and gave us some goodies (toiletries, slippers, bottles of water, etc).  

During our trip planning, we (and by we, I mean Ryan) read that the dining car can get pretty crazy, so we decided to not mess with it and stopped by a grocery store and stocked up on bread, cheese, and vino. When we were all settled in, and the train was on its way, we started a movie and broke into our grocery store goodies. At some point during the night, we passed through the Alps, but it was too dark to really see anything. We pulled into the Milano Centrale at 5:30. In. The. Morning. Let me just say, that 5:30 am in Milano in December, it's dark and it's cold. As in there was snow on the ground cold. Luckily, our hotel was only a few blocks away, so we trudged on. Did I mention that check-in time was 2:00 pm? The desk clerk let us leave our bags and advised us to check back around noon to see and maybe our room would be ready early, depending if the current occupants checked-out early. Back out into the darkness and cold we went.

Almost 7 hours to kill and absolutely nowhere to go. Nothing was open, and we had no idea of when things would start to open. We headed back to the train station and bought a day pass for the metro. We went down to the Duomo and Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. The Christmas lights were still on and the piazza was completely deserted, so it did make for some great picture taking. We wandered down into the Galleria and saw all the high end shops that would have been fun to go into had it not been so early o' thirty. Finally, shops were starting to open, and we ducked into a small café for coffee and pastries, which perked us up a little bit. 

Fast forward a few hours of more aimless wandering and metro riding and window shopping, we decided to take a chance to see if our room was ready, even though it wasn't quite noon yet, and it was! Praise jeebus. And then we napped.

Roused and ready to go, our only plans for the night was to see Da Vinci's Last Supper painting. After meeting up with our tour group, we took a tour of Castello Sforzesco. Although not in use now, it is home to some great art, including some wall sketches from Da Vinci as he worked on another fresco, and antiquities.

The Last Supper was ah-may-zing(!) and in pretty good shape for not being a fresco, but simply a wall mural and for being nearly destroyed by bombers during WWII. Of course no pictures were allowed, pretty much nothing was allowed outside of breathing, and that probably would have been restricted if it were possible. It was neat to find out that the painting is in the dining hall of the monastery, so way back when, the monks got to be in its presence for meals. Only groups of 20-25 people are allowed in at a time and only for 15 minutes at a time. It was truly a humbling experience to be in the presence of something that I have known about for almost my entire life. Of course, I went all Dan Brown and examined it for the hidden clues listed in the book.

After the tour, we made our way back to the hotel to wash up and then headed out for pre-dinner drinks and then found a small restaurant for dinner. The one thing that I really liked about eating in Europe was that the tax and tip is already built into the price. So for our dinner: 2 waters, a bottle of wine, a pizza, a pasta dish, 2 gelatos, 1 cappuccino, 1 caffé corretto (espresso with grappa) was 37 euro flat. 

 And that was our Milano adventure. Lesson learned? Book the hotel for the night before so that we have somewhere to sleep when we get in at 5:30 in the morning. Next stop- Roma!

 

Le Tour de Europa 2012- Intro and Paris

This amazing trip came about when Hubs was trying to get on at a conference in Paris. He promised me, however, that no matter what, we would be going. It was just a matter of who would be paying for said trip. He also sweetened the deal by asking if there was anywhere else that I would be interested in going. Well, duh. I think the question was more where do I not want to go. Taking into consideration that it would be dead winter when we traveled, we decided to head for Italy. This is what our trip would look like: TUS-ATL-CDG. Overnight train to Milano. Commuter train to Roma. And then FCO-JFK-ATL-TUS.

TUS-ATL:

•  Nothing out of the ordinary, just left at the butt-crack of dawn.

ATL-CDG:

•  Short layover in ATL- thank goodness for status that let us into the Delta Skylounge
• Was it terrible of me to answer a lady who asked if I spoke Spanish, that no hablo español?
• No joke- I was excited to be on a plane for the next 7 hours.  

Finally, Paris:

• We actually landed an hour earlier than anticipated, again at the butt-crack of dawn. (Sidenote: CDG is a seriously weird airport. Nothing about the layout makes sense, and I will take my cue from Hubs and be thankful that we did not have to fly out of there). We made our way to the metro station and arrived very early to Ryan's friends' apartment and promptly woke them up out of bed. Apologies to Pierre-Arnaud and Constance. They were very gracious and plied us with coffee and fresh croissants and chocolate pastries. 
• Weather was dicey; we had to carry an umbrella with us everywhere.
• Got acquainted with vin chaud (mulled spiced wine) and just vin in general with every meal.
• Food, food, food. Incredible, amazing, would move there just for the food itself.
• Experienced Avenue des Champs-Élysées and Avenue Montaigne. Avenue Montaigne seemed to be a little bit higher end, and I was informed that had the shopkeepers actually seen us coming out of the metro station, we probably would not have been allowed inside. I did enjoy being offered champagne when we went inside Dior. Both husband and I came home with little souvenirs from this delightful little avenue.
• Got my fill of my favorite Impressionist artist, Monet, and many others.
• Introduced to the Raclette- which I expound on here.
• Introduced to Parisian dining in general- which goes long and late, but very enjoyable.
• Finally got to meet all of Ryan's Parisian friends. I had met a couple already, but had yet to meet everyone. It's a very good thing that they were wanting to practice their English.
• Visited all the touristy must-sees: Arc de Triomphe,
  Place de la Bastille, La Basilique du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre, Moulin Rouge, and Notre Dame. We saw the Eiffel Tower, but did not take a special trip to it.
• I was proud of myself that I could figure out the metro system. It actually makes sense and runs on time. Who knew that a subway system could run efficiently after growing up on MARTA. We never waited more than 5 minutes for a train. Although, it was weird to me that at each stop, if you wanted on or off, you had to open the doors yourself on the older trains.
• I definitely busted out the Asian photographer by taking pictures of everything on the camera AND the iPhone.
• Extremely grateful that Hubs has a pretty advanced working knowledge of French. It allowed us and will allow us to not be trapped into the tourist areas when we go back.  

We had a grand old time here, and I know it will not be the last time we visit. 

  
  Next stop: Milano.

The Raclette

I am currently trying to put together a post for the amazing trip to France and Italy that Hubs and I took last month. In the meantime, I will share one of the things that I absolutely fell in love with: the Raclette. 

Hubs and I were invited to two dinner parties by his Parisian friends and both dinners involved this magnificent device. My reputation must have preceded me because everyone was so excited that they had planned a dinner party for us that centered around cheese. So, basically each person has their own little dish, and they put any combination of cheese inside and the slide it inside the heated plates. On top is a grill that you can use for the meats, veggies, or whatever that is accompanying the cheese. So when the cheese is melted to your desire, you take your little dish out and pour it or scrape it out (the word raclette is derived from the French term racler-to scrape) over your food. If one was to do it properly, you would actually heat the cheese itself and then scrape the melted portion from the non-melted portion. It's very similar to fondue, but I liked it better because not everyone is forced to eat the same cheese as everyone else. You get to be creative. Also, it's simple to do with just two people.

I loved it so much that I bought one when I got home. Thanks to Amazon for pricematching with Wal-Mart.com.