Friday Favorites: citrus sweets, weekend reads & my favorite thing I'm not doing this weeken
favorite weekend read: my sweet brother, on HIS birthday, bought me The Magnolia Story because he knew I've been wanting to read it. I started it last night and I'm already almost halfway through. It's an easy read and it will make you literally laugh out loud (the opening pages tell the story of when Chip surprised Joanna with a dilapidated houseboat!) My brother is a keeper...and single! Start lining up ladies!!
favorite BBQ dish: There's a lot of Valentine's Day menu ideas floating around but here is my vote for a BBQ appetizer for your beau: oysters cooked on the BBQ for 2 minutes until the shells open (then cooked for another 3 minutes if you like them cooked), top with garlic + butter + herbs + parmesan + 1 more minute on the grill! Eat these while you BBQ your main dish!
favorite snack: Super Bowl may be over but that doesn't mean you can't eat the big game's best snacks all year around.... helllllllllo loaded nachos.
favorite new attempt: A few weeks ago I got the food grinder attachment, but all I've tried to make is fresh beef burgers. This weekend I'm trying homemade chorizo... with any luck Chase is having chorizo breakfast burritos tomorrow!
favorite sweet citrus treat: Our lemon tree is OVERFLOWING with lemons... so I'm trying a couple different lemon bar recipes to find my favorite. Chase isn't a big fan of citrus desserts so I guess that means more for me...!
favorite thing I'm NOT doing this weekend: oh. my. god. For six, (SIX!) weeks we've been working on the dreaded hillside project. The hillside in our backyard was so overgrown, neither Chase nor I had ever even been up there (and we've lived here almost two years!) The bushes were thick and most likely infested with rodents/snakes/spiders/other creatures I don't want to know exist. Chase got a chainsaw for Christmas so at 7AM on New Years' Day (our neighbors loved this I'm sure....) he started chopping down trees. For six weekends straight, we chopped, cut, dragged the remnants to a pile taller than our roof and turned it all into mulch. In the process, we found a gate, a fence, and a treehouse we didn't even know was there, ha! Last Saturday night we finished the project by spreading out the mulch all over the yard. Below is me on Day 1... smiling on the outside, crying on the inside...cheers to not using the word "mulch" this weekend!
