Debbie’s Birthday

We headed up to Rochester last weekend to celebrate my sister’s 21+ birthday.  I only had to work for about 3 hours on Friday morning, and we were able to get on the road by 10AM, with Pinot & Melanie in tow.  The ride up was great fun – wegmans subs and grape pies and driving by the ski slopes of bristol mountain.  We were able to get some QT in with Debbie on Friday (and Pinot with Snowball) before heading home to watch the debate – after stopping for a Wegmans run of course.  My mom got home right at the tail end of the debate.  A nice low key night.  Saturday we ran a couple of errands before heading over to Debbie’s birthday party.  I made punch, and Melanie & Matt did a great job with all of the cooking.  The party was fun – and after the majority of folks left, we got to take turn driving my sisters 1964 Mercury Park Lane in Bittersweet pink, which was the awesome.  While Pinot went home with Nana, Nick and I headed out to Champps sports bar in Eastview mall to watch the VA Tech/Nebraska game, which was frustrating and exhilerating to watch, all at once.  Got stopped at a sobriety checkpoint on the way home, which was funny b/c Nick was driving, and he didn’t remember the name of the mall we went to watch the game, or the name of the sports bar/restaurant.  Got home just fine (go ahead sir!) and headed to bed before the drive home today.  Actually, today started out cute with  my mom saying “stay in bed as long as possible, it’s miserable out” – very drizzly – but then she wore her nebraska shirt under her suit to work which was adorable.  We got out of the ROC fairly early – well, early enough to make it to Catocin Mountain Orchard Farm Market about 45 min from our house in MD, so we were able to pick up a few jars of Nick’s favorite peanut butter AND some concord grapes.  And other assorted produce, I love farmers markets.  Cashew is glad to have us home

Golfing in Shenandoah

Minges organized a lovely golf outing to celebrate Javed’s 30th in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia last Sat-Sun.  Wasn’t too bad getting up and out of the house, all things considered, and we even had the house cleaned up from NJ’s birthday par-tay to boot.    It was my first time golfing, which I enjoyed, but I can see how it can be stressful to be a newcomer if we weren’t playing best ball!  My hands were excited that they didn’t get torn up like they do at the driving range, Bertha was a friend to Nick and I – and Nick, cute Nick that he is, has quite a powerful arm.  The golf carts were fun too – really wanted to have golf cart races!

Ate waaaaaay too much this past weekend (what else is new, coming off a summer of traveling constantly) so need to get the food stuffs into gear for really before winter, but the VA outing was quite fun. Got home, and while Nick worked on some slides, I painted the living and dining rooms.  Yep.  Call us motivated or something.

Nick Rutar’s 29th Birthday Bash Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run Race For The Cure – John Cusack Appreciation Night

Nick’s birthday started four days early (on Monday of this week) because I just couldn’t wait to let him have Rock Band 2, which has the most awesomest song list ever.  It’s been a crazy week and I haven’t had a chance to drum away with it yet, but Nick has and it is most excellent.

Tuesday – oh the fun that was Tuesday – people had started to reply to the evite and it seemed that the majority of folks were voting for movie night, making the plan for Friday officially John Cusack Appreciation Night!  And I got to thinking about cake.  Originally I was going to bake this big fancy cake….but time didn’t really permit, and Nick doesn’t really like traditional cake anyway.  He likes cheesecake (which we’ve already had twice in September) and….my favorite, ice cream cake!  So, I found a local carvel and went in to discuss cakes.  Turns out that you can email images and have them put onto the cake, so we did just that – I picked up the cake on my way home today and am still really excited about it

Usually we take each other out to dinner for birthdays, and this year is no exception, but the timing was tricky because we’re celebrating Javed’s birthday early this weekend, and birthday proper Friday night is going to be John Cusack night (of course).  This left, essentially, Thursday night.  Nick picked ‘a new Thai place’ so we headed over to the Kentlands to check out Thai Thainium.  Food was good, atmosphere was good.  Came home from dinner and got my bake on – I think I was channeling third grade last night because I wanted to make something for Nick to bring in to school on birthday proper to share with his group (class- ha ).  Random as it was, I made cupcakes in ice cream cones.  They were interesting – good, but different.  (Super easy – flat bottom cones, chocolate cake mix, 1.25 cups water, 0.33 cups oil, 3 eggs; fill 2/3 full and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes; let cool before frosting.)

Nick said he knew I was adventuresome when he married me, and the cones reinforced that!  But it turns out that they were a hit with the research group, so we’ll see how they go over tonight at the fiesta.  (Funny that we’re having ice cream in the form of a cake, and cake in ice cream cones!)  By the time that the cones were done, cooled and frosted – tah dah!  It was midnight, so the real birthday started!  Not wanting to wait for the afternoon, NJ opened his last present – a new tennis racket.

Looking forward to movie night tonight!

Nats game!

Monday night, it took all of my willpower – possibly all of Nick’s willpower too, but he didn’t show it because he was motivating me to want to go – anyway, after the trip home from NE, we had tickets to the Nats/Mets game in DC, won from the bocce flair contest earlier this summer.    It was our first time at the new stadium – loved it, from the scoreboard to the relish wheel.  And the nats won to boot!  Good stuff

Back!

We are back from a whirlwind weekend – who would have thought that 5 days could go by so quickly?  We got a lot in, between the 40th celebration party & dinner, family portraits, seeing two neices for the 2nd time , chevy chase vacation cat escapades, visits with coop & kids, watermelon days, sioux city trips and family tree data entry.   It’s been a crazy first day home, considering it started at 2:30AM – but more on that later.  Christmas vacation, please come soon!

Link to slideshow, since it won’t embed…

40 Years

Happy Happy Anniversary to Louie & Merry Lou!   In honor of 40 years together, here are two of my favorite shots from their wedding album

Time Flies

6 years together!  Our first official ‘date’ that we established was a date in the middle of dinner at NECI on Church Street before heading out to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding in the theater was on 9/11/02 -  though we had a few weeks of build up leading up to that time.

Thinking of all of the things that have happened since that ‘first’ night and now, I wouldn’t trade a minute of it – I just feel so lucky and excited for many more years to come with my one and only NJR

In honor of our pseudo anniversary – funny how marriage anniversary trumps dating anniversary – here is our first picture together, taken back @ Nick’s house in Vermont, sometime in September 2003.

Marbled-Chocolate Banana Bread

A thank you for Mehul & Liz for helping out with Pinot & Cashew this weekend – I was excited about the batter of this bread, I think it is going to be quite good!  Recipe below:

Marbled-Chocolate Banana Bread
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Recipe By: Cooking Light, SEPTEMBER 2003
Serving Size: 16
Yield: 1 loaf

Ingredients:

2  cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2  teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1.5 cups mashed ripe banana, about 3 bananas
1/2 cup egg substitute
1/3 cup plain low fat yogurt
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
cooking spray

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350∞.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.

Place sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute). Add banana, egg substitute, and yogurt; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist.

Place chocolate chips in a medium microwave-safe bowl, and microwave at HIGH 1 minute or until almost melted, stirring until smooth. Cool slightly. Add 1 cup batter to chocolate, stirring until well combined. Spoon chocolate batter alternately with plain batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Swirl batters together using a knife. Bake at 350∞ for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Notes:

I used 1 egg instead of the egg substitute.  Used 3.5 smaller bananas, margarine instead of butter, and vanilla low fat yogurt instead of plain.

Nutritional Information:

Per serving (without my substitutions):
CALORIES 183(23% from fat); FAT 4.7g (sat 2.8g,mono 1.4g,poly 0.2g); PROTEIN 3.1g; CHOLESTEROL 8mg; CALCIUM 18mg; SODIUM 180mg; FIBER 1.3g; IRON 1.1mg; CARBOHYDRATE 33.4g

Rose Cake

I was excited to use my new rose cake pan to make a cake for Patterson as a thank you for watching Pinot for us at the end of this week.    Recipe below.

Rose Cake
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Recipe By: Williams-Sonoma: Flo Braker, Author, Sweet Miniatures (Chronicle Books, 2000)
Serving Size: 16
Yield: 1 cake

Ingredients:

2.75 cups cake flour, I used All Purpose
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
16 tablespoons unsalted butter, I used 8T unsalted butter and 8T margarine
6  ounces cream cheese
2.5 cups granulated sugar
5 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons finely grated lime zest
5 tablespoons confectioners sugar, plus more as needed
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice, plus more as needed
1 teaspoon fresh lime juice

Directions:

Have all the ingredients at room temperature.  Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 325.  Thoroughly grease and four a rose cake pan.

To make the cake, over a sheet of wax paper, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.  In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater, beat the butter and cream cheese on medium speed until creamy and smooth, 30-40 seconds.  Gradually add the granulated sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl.  Increase the speed to medium-high and add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl.  Then beat in the vanilla and lime juice.  Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture in three additions, beating each addition until just incorporated; stop the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl.  Using a rubber spatula, stir in the lime zest.  Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, making the sides about 1″ higher than the center.  Bake until the cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 65-70 minutes.

Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let the cake cool upright in the pan for 15 minutes.  Set the rack over a sheet of waxed paper, invert the pan onto the rack and lift off the pan.

To make the lime glaze, in a small bowl, stir together the confectioners’ sugar and lime juice until smooth.  Using a pastry brush, brush a thin coating of glaze over the warm cake.  The glaze should be thin enough so that a transparent film covers the cake.  If it is too thick, add more lime juice 1t at a time; if it is too thin, add more confectioners’ sugar.  Let the cake cool completely before serving.

What we are looking forward to this week….