They're rare, but sometimes the weekend shapes up to be the perfect blend of the necessary stuff and the fun stuff. This weekend definitely qualified as such.
Errands and such: We got the last few holiday returns completed and I made one large grocery run to get us through the weekend. I also caught up on all of the laundry and straigtened up the house a bit. Boring, but needed.
Reading: Finished
Will Grayson, Will Grayson, thanks to
Jessica who has organized an
ARC Tour of the book amongst a group of us book nerds. I'll be doing a guest post on her blog about the book soon, but the short version is that it's awesome and I haven't laughed that hard while reading in a long time.
Cooking: OMG, we ate
really well this weekend. And I'm not even including the impromtu breakfast I threw together Sunday morning. I'm really trying to get more mileage out of my fun cookbooks, so I'm making a point to make at least one "fancy" meal a weekend. This weekend, though, I eeked out two!
First up, T-Bone Fiorentina with Sauteed Spinach from
Mario Batali Italian Grill. I couldn't find the huge 3" T-bone steak that is called for, but we made due with a smaller steak instead. I unfortunately over-salted the meat a bit (still edible, but not perfect), but the spinach was fabulous. We both agreed that we need to try it all again with the correct cut of beef.
For dessert, I tried out my new mini chocolate fondue pot and we had a little fondue spread. Simple, but yummy.
The second dinner was the Chicken Pot Pie from the
Ad Hoc at Home cookbook. This was a much more labor-intensive meal than the roasted chicken I made earlier this month - the pie crust and bechamel sauce are both from scratch and each vegetable is cooked individually before being added to the pie - but it's so worth all the time and effort.
This was AH-MAZ-ING! And Jim whole-heartedly agrees. He had a whole bowl of it and then went back for seconds. We were thrilled that there were leftovers the next day.
If you have this cookbook, set aside a day and make this dish - you can thank me later. ;)
Working out: Took a circuit class and a step class - both taught by the owner of my gym, who I just love. The circuit class was a zoo, like folks actually had to be turned away, but it was still a lot of fun. I'm getting my exercise groove back and it feels really good.
Sewing: I finally used my new cutting table and it was like the angels came out singing. ;) It makes this whole sewing thing that much more enjoyable and I was thrilled to be able to spend a large part of my weekend in my sewing room*. I finished two skirts (one just needed a hem), cut out some sleep shorts and got about halfway through a cardi-wrap for a friend's mom. More detailed posts once I have pictures of stuff to share.
If only every weekend could be as fun and relaxing as this one....
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*
Nanette had asked me for pictures of my sewing room and I will share them as soon as I finish getting myself organized. Right now I have no good place for my fabric stash - which has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few months - so it's all just in piles on the floor. So ugly. I plan on getting it in check later this month and then I'll post pics. :)
