Weekly Wrap-Up!

Guess what?  I was informed that I won yet another item from a contest.  This time it was a fancy cooking pot!  I will take pictures when it arrives in the mail.  Yay!


Precap (jump to):

• Eats:  Homemade Italian dinner, The Counter, Greek food, Michael's on Naples, La Tavolata
• Sights:  Fabric stash cataloging, Figs!, Jam session, American Ranch Filipino Market

Friday

We had dinner with a bunch of friends, to say goodbye to a friend who now lives abroad and was leaving.  I brought Prosecco, and the lovely host had Chicken Cacciatore and Spumoni.  I may have had two helpings of the Spumoni...

The plates and tablecloth were from our friend's Italian grandmother.  Cute, right?

Saturday

We had a housewarming later that day, but I wanted to keep working on cataloging my fabric stash.  You might have seen this picture already on Instagram!

Luckily, my guy helped me by typing out the measurements as I called them out.  I bribed him with his favorite childhood cartoon on Netflix while he worked.  :)

Before the party, we had to eat something quick, so we grabbed a bite at The Counter and built our own burgers.  We both got bison burgers on wheat buns, but much different toppings.  He had brie cheese, garlic aioli, corn salsa, peppers, and onions.  I got tzatziki, bell peppers, caramelized onions, tomatoes, red onions, and pepper jack cheese.

This was a housewarming for a younger guy, so I thought it would be appropriate to etch some more beer steins with his initials.  Not my fanciest work, and I forgot to take pictures of it after I was done.  Luckily, he loved it and I snapped this on our way out!

Sunday

At Friday's dinner party, the hostess gave me the first ripe fig from her tree, which she had offered up to everyone.  I had JUST made some goat cheese and fig tarts (which I will share later), so I still had a few of my storebought ones left.  Take a look at the difference!

Storebought is on the left.

She told me that she would be giving away more because she wasn't a fan of fresh figs and their "guts."  I can see why now!  Hers are way more juicy and "gut-filled!"

My guy and I also had a little jam session because he's such a fan of playing on the piano with a duet partner.  Although I play the piano (which you learned about here), it's kind of hard to do so when you only have one.  Therefore, I pulled out some fun kids toys.  :)

From my Instagram feed!

Later, we went out for Greek food with my visiting crazy aunt for dinner.

For those of you who are convinced that I only eat amazing meals out, these are a couple of pictuers to show you that some of them are just "eh."

Monday

To make up for that dinner, we took my aunt to Michael's on Naples before she left for back home.

My dad brought a bottle of wine and we shared a mushroom flatbread.  I ordered some amazing seafood to start!

My sister had the ricotta-stuffed squash blossoms, which she never turns down!  For dinner, she had gnocchi and I had mezzaluna stuffed with duck neck.

Tuesday

I played the nice daughter and took care of my mom for the next couple of days because she had a minor medical procedure on Monday.  Nothing major, but she needed some help at home, since she was experiencing some dizziness on-and-off afterwards.

Since she missed dinner with the family the day before, I took her to La Tavolata.  Yep, that's Italian two nights in a row!  The food is just so much simpler, homier, and (in my opinion) more satisfying.

Afterwards, we went to the nearby Asian store American Ranch to buy some goodies!  You know how I love my Asian markets!

Take a look at some of these unusual veggies.  I'm going to pickle some of the radishes I bought in the top left picture.  Bittermelon (yuck!) on the top right, long beans on the bottom right, and plantains on the bottom left.  Definitely items that you don't see every day!

The jarred goods here are amazing!  They have all kinds of sweet products like coconut strings, coconut gels, sweetened garbanzo beans, sweet white beans, jackfruit, palm seeds, and so many others.  Filipinos use them to make halo-halo, which apparently you can also buy in a jar!  Ube, the purple taro root, is also another of my favorites, although it is an unusual color!

There is also a prepared foods section with pastries of all sorts and boxes of huge mangoes.  You could spend a week sampling all of the different foods that they have.

By the way, I thought that this was an odd find in the kitchen goods section, until my mom told me that it is used to grind items into a paste.  I'm guessing that the curved handle would be easier to use than a regular mortar and pestle!

Well, since I was juggling so much this week, I ended up slowing down on the blogging front.  Hopefully you guys are still with me!  I promise that I have fun new projects to share in the coming weeks, including the Stitch Once, Rip Twice Refashioning the 1960's challenge!