The Adams Family

This past weekend we headed down to Charleston & stayed with my old roommate Megan & her boyfriend Cameron (& sweet pup Brady) for my friend Jenny's wedding to Dan. It was such a sweet wedding & had so many personalized touches from friends donating their time & talents to bake cupcakes, sew table linens & the ring pillow & making her hairpiece. I was incredibly honored to be a honorary bridesmaid & even though we got a little rain it was still a beautiful day. Here is to a long & happy life for the new Adams family!


The weekend started at Husk on Friday for the Bridal Luncheon.

It was followed up that evening with the rehearsal dinner at High Cotton with the BEST Maid of Honor speech I have ever seen, don't worry I videoed it & even put it on here. We also went out to Brick for some late night fun after the dinner.

MOH Speech:

Then it was time for the big day! They got married at the First Baptist Church in Downtown Charleston followed by a reception at Founder's Hall.

A big group of us went back to Megan & Cameron's after the wedding where a little beer pong was played & they all were sweet enough to help Tim ring in his 29th birthday. He decided to faceplant into the cake for reasons unknown although it was a highlight of the night.

Finally I'll leave you all with Jenny's "Wiggin' Out" themed bachelorette party. Unfortunately I had another wedding in NC that weekend and couldn't be there in person but did want to make sure I had a presence so I shipped myself down to Myrtle Beach for the weekend.

In a Pickle

I love some pickled red onions and with some pork tacos I planned on making for dinner on Tuesday I thought these could be a fantastic topper!

First I used my OXO handheld mandolin to slice 2 red onions very thinly.

Once all were sliced I then separated the rings out.

I boiled a pot of water & quickly blanched the onions moving them into an ice bath to stop them from cooking any further after.

 

Next, in a pot I added in 1 1/2 cups of White Vinegar with 1/2 cup of sugar, 2 slices of fresh ginger, 5 whole cloves, 1 bay leaf, a cinnamon stick and a dash of red pepper flakes.

While it was starting to heat up I drained the ice bath from the onions and let the water drip out from them.

Once the mixture came up to a full boil I let it go for about a minute.

After the minute was up I turned the burner down & let the mixture simmer for 5 minutes.

Once the 5 minutes was up, I went ahead and added it all into a plastic bowl (don't use metal, it can end up making everything taste funny, something to do with reacting to the vinegar) and placed it in the fridge where it should keep for about a few weeks!

 

Here are the results, crunchy, tart & delicious!

Sunday Dinner, Part Dos

Here are all of the veggies we had with our dinner Sunday. With some edits I'll be doing all of these again!

I'll do the one I forgot to take pictures of first :)

Caprese Salad

First I put about a cup of balsamic vinegar on the stove to reduce, I brought it to a boil and let it reduce by half whisking the entire time (technically the whisking was Tim's job). Once it was reduced I pulled it off the heat and let it cool a bit. While Tim was whisking away I was cutting a container (all but 1/4c) of cherry tomatoes in half and slicing up a ball (is that is what its called?) of mozzarella to be the same size as the tomatoes. I drizzled them with some olive oil, added in some salt and pepper and poured on the balsamic reduction. After chiffonading (SAT word) the basil I added it in and mixed it all up. Here is the final result!

Baked Parmesan Tomatoes

First I sliced up two tomatoes into six slices and placed them into a greased casserole dish. I salted, peppered and garlic powdered them before drizzling with olive oil.

I stacked on about a tablespoon of grated parmesan cheese and added some basil before placing them into the oven with the chicken for about 15 minutes (at 475). I think next time I may mix the parmesan with a bit of mayo (its my inner Paula speaking) before placing on the tomatoes but they were still pretty good as is.

Stuffed Zucchini

First we washed the zucchini & chopped the ends off before slicing them in half.

Tim then scooped out the insides making sure not to get too close to the edges or the bottom and placed them into a greased casserole dish.

I chopped up the insides of the zucchini and mixed it with a 1/4 cup of chopped cherry tomatoes, 1/4 tsp of curry powder, 2 tbsp of sour cream, 1/4 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of thyme and a little bit of pepper. I think next time I'll up it to 1/2 tsp of curry powder and throw in a few red pepper flakes to give it a little kick.

I spooned the mixture back into the zucchini boats and topped it with parmesan cheese. I placed it into the 475 degree oven with the chicken for about 20 minutes. Here is the final product!

It was all pretty delicious and will be a repeat down the road!

Sunday Dinner, Part Uno

Ok, so technically its Monday, but here is what I made for dinner last night when Tim's brother, his wife & their 1 year old daughter came to dinner. We've planned out this week so that we can use leftovers for the lunch the next day and I'm really excited about my lunch today! Saturday included a big trip to Trader Joe's for the marjority of our food & Whole Foods for anything we couldn't find at Trader Joe's.

Tonight ended up actually being a combination of 2 meals we had planned for this week as we were asked to go to dinner at a friend's house on Wednesday. That actually worked out pretty well as I think we all would've been pretty hungry still had we just had the original meal I planned! The Bright boys know how to put down some food....

First up, Lemon Rosemary Roasted Chicken with Red Skinned Potatoes

First I washed the potatoes, super important step since you don't know who/what has touched them before you.

 

Next I chopped the potatoes, and half of an onion, drizzled about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and zested a lemon over them.

I chopped up about a tablespoon & a half of rosemary and mixed it all together

I placed it all in the bottom of my roasting pan & placed the rack on top.

Next I prepped the ingredients to stuff the chicken. I quartered the remaining half of the onion, halved 2 lemons & pulled out the rest of the pack of Rosemary I had purchased.

I stuffed as much of it as I could into the chicken (all but one lemon) and squeezed the remaining lemon onto the potatoes and the top of the chicken. (If this is your first time working with a whole chicken, please be sure to pull out the bag of giblets :) )

This was placed into a 475 degree oven for an hour and here is the final product! Just make sure to remove all of the insides before carving it.

The final potatoes & onions, delish!