Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Tart Frozen Yogurt

We have a favorite place here in Charlotte that sells tart frozen yogurt but last week we discovered that Trader Joe's carries some of their own. It's a lot cheaper too!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Another Great Soup

Last week I made this soup with a little inspiration from our sous chef Patrick at work. He made a Thai Carrot soup but I wasn't crazy about some things he tossed in. So here is what I threw into mine!
I started with sauteing an onion, 4 stalks celery, bag of carrots, ginger, couple cloves garlic and 4 potatoes. All were peeled and diced. I then added two cans of chicken broth and simmered until all the vegetables were soft.
Next I pureed everything in the blender and dumped it back in the pot. The finishing touches included 1 can coconut milk, a bit of curry powder and salt & pepper.

My husband thought I needed some action shots.



Serve with a crusty whole grain bread! Ummm!

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Farmers Market Review

So we've been in search of a really good farmers market here in Charlotte. The paper is really good about having lists of pick your own farms and farmers markets. The first one we visited was the Matthews farmers market. We went two Saturday's ago and got there an hour after they opened. As we walked around we didn't find anything that great except for local goat cheese, tomatoes and a lot of greens. One of the volunteers informed us that you have to get there at 7 AM to get things like strawberries, wild mushrooms and eggs. It was a little disappointing but we've been continuing our search.

Matthews Farmers Market




One neat thing about the Matthews market was a cooking demonstration from a local chef using the foods at the market.

This past Saturday we went to the Kings Street farmers market. It was amazing! Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me so I didn't get any pictures. They had a lot of produce, eggs, plants, and baked goods.

I purchased these mint and oregano plants and all the stuff in the next picture for $20...We'll definitely be going back. Also another good thing about this market is that they're open on Tuesday, Friday & Saturday so I go on my way home from work!

Saturday, May 15, 2010

I Love VW's

So I found this event last week and HAD to go. I fully intend to own a VW bus at some point. I'm going to be that weird mom who drives around in a hippy bus or some old restored wagon. Anyway here are some of the buses & a few VW lovers that drove their beetles.












14th

Every 14th of the month we either cook something exciting or go out. If we had the money we'd go out once a week to checkout one of the many great restaurants in Charlotte. Since we don't have the money we set aside enough to do something special once a month and the 14th seemed ideal since it's our anniversary.


Last night we had grilled vegetable kabobs, Dijon herbed salmon, and citrus herb cous cous. Everything except the cous cous was courtesy of Trader Joe's. We also snagged a great bottle of wine to complete our meal. Great dinner!

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Friday, May 7, 2010

Great Magazine


I was introduced to this magazine by my sister in-law at it is amazing! All kinds of great tips, recipes and neat articles. It also has no advertisements! This is on my magazine subscription wish list...check it out.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Last Week

I survived and quickly remembered how much I hated working 12 hour days at 119 Chops. Our house looked like a mess all week and the clothes piled up really high next to our dresser.
Unfortunately before our week ended Nathan got laid off from his job on Thursday :(. It was a major blow that we weren't expecting but we're excited to see where God will have him next.

Friday night after I worked from 5 to5 I went home took a shower and we jumped on the bike and headed back down to work for the concert. Our restaurant was giving out tickets so I snagged two. There are perks to working at a restaurant; free beer and food!. It was a great free date and a nice night out.

I did have my interview on Saturday that went really well but I did not get the job :( Boohoo.

So I'm still working here...
...too bad the people that own/run the restaurant aren't as cute as the outside.

This is the wine bar next to our restaurant

And the Piedmont Town Center where the concert was held.