WIAW: A week of dinners

Every Wednesday, my friend Jenn at Pea & Crayons has a “What I Ate Wednesday” party.  Have you visited her site?  Jenn is super positive, a total sweetheart, and is a dietitian totally focused on providing easy and healthy yet FUN food ideas.  I don’t always participate in her WIAW party, because I don’t like to do so unless I have some good photos.

However, this week I found the motherload when I looked through my phone’s photos from last week.  Apparently last week was a much more interesting week for me and Ryan.  Maybe that’s because I dubbed it “Ryan Week,” as a thank-you to him for all his amazingly selfless help during the weeks leading up to my first craft fair.

So without further ado, I present to you:

Dinner Time at The Borrowed Abode:

Camera Phone Style

Tuesday night I hit up the asian grocery store after work, then raced home to try out Jenn’s recipe for Crispy Baked Shrimp Wontons.  I used crab instead, which tasted great, and I didn’t have any olive oil spray, so I didn’t get the nice even crisp-ness that Jenn gets, but I’ll try it again.  I also attempted what you’d call “Fresh Garden Rolls” at a Thai restaurant – it’s shrimp, carrots, cabbage, bean sprouts, and basil, all rolled up in rice paper spring roll wrappers.  They were tasty, but between rolling them up and folding all the little crab wontons, dinner prep took me over an hour. I guess I need more practice.

Thursday night Ryan took me to Wolftrap, the gorgeous outdoor music venue in our town, to see Bill Cosby.  We go every year; the guy’s still a total riot.  I say that his show is better than any marriage counseling you’d ever receive from a therapist.  He puts things in perspective. 🙂 Anyway, we had lawn tickets (the cheapest and most fun kind of tickets!) and so we had a picnic before the show.  Cheese, prosciutto, and baguettes.  Perfection!  And I got to use my new cheese cutting board that I won in a giveaway at Samantha’s blog.

I also snapped a photo of the venue itself, because the cedar wood architecture is just fabulous.

Friday night we went out to our neighborhood sushi joint, Yirasai Sushi.  If you’re in the area and want awesome sushi, delicious cooked Japanese food, and super friendly service, this is your spot.  My current favorite is the Salmon and the Mackerel sushi.  Yum.

Saturday morning I hit up the farmer’s market first thing, snagging a ton of produce in my reusable produce bags (coming soon to my online shop!)  They easily transition from shopping to storage, keeping lettuce and other veggies nice and fresh in the fridge, so I couldn’t resist snapping this shot.  I get so excited in the summer and fall, when I return home from the market and pile my fresh, local produce into the fridge.

Saturday night Ryan and I took it easy.  I whipped up some so-simple-it’s-scary Blue Cheese Burgers.  Want the recipe?  It’s so easy:  Take a pound of free-range ground beef and put it in a bowl.  Crumble a block of good blue cheese into it, then smash it all together with your hands until it’s well blended.  Form the mixture into 4 patties.  Let sit for at least 30 min, the longer the better.  Brush with olive oil, and grill until cooked.

Yeah, that’s all I use – ground beef and blue cheese.  No additives, no egg, no nothin’.  The burgers hold together just fine, and take only moments to make.

We also grilled up some leftover hotdogs and my farmer’s market asparagus.  Perfection.  The pup in the background may or may not have helped us finish our hot dogs.

Then we proceeded to sit by the fire pit, burning some of the downed branches from the winter storms, and reading our books.  For about 3 hours. It was awesome.  I haven’t relaxed that much in the last month.

Waiting for a shop update? Ryan and I tried to figure out what was wrong with the website last night, and had no luck.  I want to do a nice, neat week of shop launch giveaways, so let’s plan to do that next week, ok?  The shop will be fixed by then, even if I have to pay top dollar to do so.  I’m tired of waiting!!