Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Saturday = Productive

I was very productive this Saturday.  This pleased me as I have not been very productive as of late.  These are the tasks I accomplished:
1.  Grocery Shopping-
I was having friends over for a dinner party Saturday night, so I needed to shop for that as well as for food for the week. I absolutely LOVE grocery shopping, so this was a welcome part of my Saturday.
2.  Kenrick's-
If you have never been to www.kenricks.com Kenrick's meat market you are missing out.  It is a combination old fashioned butcher shop, deli and BBQ joint all rolled into one.  They have tons of deli options, about 10 different kinds of bratwurst, fresh meat and CHEAP filets wrapped in bacon.  I got some deli meat for the week, some filets and some chicken.  Oh and some meat sticks.  I can never say no to meat sticks.  SCORE.
3.  Lowe's-
My bookshelf handy work
I planned on putting some shelves up today and I KNOW I had purchased brackets for them before, but had apparently misplaced them.  I ran to Lowe's to buy more and also bought some lightbulbs and a cool nightlight which is LED with dusk/dawn functionality (who knew nightlights got so fancy)
4. Bookshelves-
I have this large area in our upstairs hallway that was made for book shelves.  I have lived in this house for just over 2 1/2 years now, and I have never gotten around to putting shelves up.  I finally motivated myself to do it this Saturday and am very pleased with the results.  I still have some work to do (obviously), but putting up the trim to finish this off should be an easy task.  I am pretty proud of myself.  


Schlafly AIPA
5. Schlafly-
After all of the activity, I was rather hungry, I went to Schlafly (www.schlafly.com/)to watch the Olympics and have a sandwich and a beer.  I love Schlafly.  They have great food for a brewery, it is clean, comfy and you have about 10-12 craft beer options.  I settled in and ordered their AIPA, which is yummy.  Slightly bitter, hoppy, fully bodied and delightful.  Pretty high alcohol content, so I stuck to one.  I ordered the prime rib sandwich, which is shaved prime rib, cheese and pickled curry onions on a roll.  This used to be MUCH better than it is now simply due to the bread.  They moved to this god awful cibatta nonsense that falls apart.  Stay away or ask for a different roll.  We also got the blue cheese and bacon mussels.  The mussels at Schlafly seem expensive (think $17 for an order) but you get enough for a small family.  I would stick with the Thai ones or the old standard wine/butter/shallot ones as you couldn't even taste the bacon or the blue cheese. They were still yummy. 
6.  Cooking-
As I mentioned earlier, I was having friends over that evening for dinner party-so I had a lot of cooking/preparation to do.  I love to cook, so this was hardly a chore.  The menu consisted of:
Caprese Salad
Tomato and Basil Bruschetta
Thai Lettuce Wraps
Blue Cheese, Green Onion and Tomato Pasta

I think out of all of this, the lettuce wraps were probably my favorite.  Everything else I make quite often, so there was really no challenge.  The lettuce wraps turned out super yummy (recipe below)

Thai Lettuce Wraps:
    1 lb ground turkey or ground pork
    2 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced
    4 garlic cloves, minced
    1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced thin
    1 cup shredded cabbage and carrot coleslaw mix (coleslaw mix without dressing) or the broccoli slaw you can find at Trader Joe's or Schnucks (I used that)
    3 green onions, sliced at an angle
    1/2 cup plum sauce (you have to find good stuff-at an global grocery like the one in Kirkwood or Jay's on Grand)
    2 cups fresh basil leaves
    1 tablespoon fish sauce (you might need more than this-so I would add the 1 tablespoon and taste-if it doesn't taste thai enough-add additional slowly)
   Enough butter lettuce or bibb lettuce leaves for the 1lb of pork/turkey
    1/2  cucumber, seeded and  chopped
Juice of 1 lime

For the ginger, garlic, red pepper-I just used a food processor and pulsed until it was finely chopped.

Directions: 1 Heat a large non stick skillet over high until hot. 2 Cook until meat is done stirring constantly. 3 Toss in the ginger, garlic, bell pepper, cabbage/carrot mix and green onions. 4 Stir-fry another two minutes. 5 Add the plum sauce and toss for one minute, then add the basil. 6 Drizzle in fish sauce and turn to coat evenly. 7 Pour into a bowl. Add lime juice and stir to coat  8 Place small heaps of mixture onto a 1 or 2 leaf thick piece of lettuce. 9 Sprinkle cucumber over it and fold to eat like a taco.
My kitchen post apocalypse

Everyone was bringing an appetizer, wine or beer as well.

7.  Dinner Party-
Everyone came over between 7:30 and 8 (except one couple who shall remain nameless-haha)  They really can't help it because they have kids and such, but I like to give them a hard time regardless.  We drank wine, ate food, sang songs, watched baseball and had a genuine blast.  You know your party was a success when your kitchen looks like the picture on the right the next morning (and the fact you didn't want to clean it up the night before!).

Overall an amazing Saturday!

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