Meatless Monday

Although you will never hear me refer to it as such because it causes immediate grumbling from the spouse.  So I just make it and don't refer to the presence or absence of meat.  And it's not always on Monday so as to throw him off!  In all honesty, I do try and cook a meatless meal once a week for our health and wallets.  Since I recently had a little bicycle accident that caused a severely strained elbow I had to give in to my stubborn nurse side and take some higher octane pain meds.  As any nurse knows, said pain meds can cause a "back-up" of sorts, if you catch my drift.  So, meatless was even a better idea as this meal was both healthful and fiberful.

Here is the recipe for Rachael Ray's delicious Spaghetti Squash with Marinara recipe.  Start with a spaghetti squash or two, I used just one as there were only two of us to feed, I did make the full sauce recipe and will have it on pasta (whole wheat, high fiber of course!) later this week.  Split in half and scoop out the gunk.  Then roast cut side down, that's it, no seasoning, oil, nothing.

Then get started on the sauce.  The recipe calls for steeping some saffron in chicken broth.  While I did use saffron I realize that it is rather pricey and sometimes hard to find.  I think the flavor is worth it but I also think that the sauce would still be yummy with just plain chicken broth.  The sauce itself is easy (well, if you have two fully functioning arms, otherwise chopping is somewhat challenging) and full of veggie goodness.

Once the squash is very tender all you do is shred the squash with a fork right in it's own skin

Dress it with a little melted butter and shredded Parmesan (which you don't feel guilty about since the rest of the meal is so low in calories and high in nutrients!), then top with marinara and a little more cheese.  Ta-Da!

We both left the table full and satisfied and there wasn't a single grumble from my spouse regarding the lack of meat, and if he was thinking it he smartly kept it to himself.  He's lucky his injured wife cooked dinner at all.  I really do salute you, Spaghetti squash, you definitely redeem the squash family after my traumatizing childhood loathing of squash.  I would even eat you plain! 

On an unrelated note, I want to send a big congratulations to my sister-in-law for securing her first RN position!  Way to go Jube!!!

New Jersey Recap

Five lovely nephew-filled days!  Oh, and brother, sister-in-law, and Father filled as well (I promise I love you guys just as much!)  We had a great time and I am always so impressed with all the new tricks the boys have learned as well as how they are developing in to such unique and special humans. 

Day one we arrived and enjoyed some quality time reacquainting, it didn't take long!

I totally got beat by a 5 year old

We enjoyed some of my brothers delicious grilled pizza as I complained about sustaining a mosquito bite within 1 hour of arrival (I had not gotten a single one this summer, reason # 503 that I love CO) but I agreed that I would take being snacked on over ridiculous humidity, and the weather was perfect.  Can't win 'em all.  (Speaking of winning, I did get to watch my Green Bay Packers beat the Bears while in the company of this Bears fan family!)

The next day Nephew the First had to go to school so we enjoyed a day of shopping at the great outlets they have close by as well as a delightful lunch out.  Then, my sister-in-law and I ditched the boys to continue my quest for dress to wear to an upcoming wedding (and we were successful, I love shopping with her!).  It also happened to be 1st Nephew's 1/2 birthday (yes, we are one of those families) so we celebrated accordingly:

We rode bikes

Had a half-cake

Gave Tantie snuggles

And got a totally awesome gift from his parents

Half birthdays are great! 

As we entered the weekend we continued to spend wonderful quality time together which included lots of bike rides, book reading, and beer drinking (that was with my brother of course, not the nephews).  We spent Saturday evening in a lovely town called New Hope, PA.  There actually were two cute little towns separated by the Delaware river and you could cross a bridge between them, we chose to spend our time on the PA side. 

We found a delightful brewpub called Triumph brewing that not only had very solid, delicious beer, but their food was really yummy too, even better when we learned that 90% of the ingredients used were from local suppliers.  My kind of place!!  We also found an amazing gourmet caramel corn shop that made some creative and delicious concoctions.  I was definitely charmed by this little town and hope to return.  The night ended with some euchre and and lots of laughter. 

We wrapped up our trip by learning the family secret to my Grandma's salsa.  I have never witnessed canning before so was very pleased to learn this dying art.

And, it being Sunday and all, we got some football-watching in

It was a lovely visit and, as always, too short.  I cherish these times and love hearing the name "Tantie" from these sweet boys who I love so much.  I learned that my lap is happiest when overflowing with nephews

They Say It's Your Birthday!

Du-na-na-na-na-na, it's my birthday too yeah!  Someone turned 30 today!!!  I'm glad Eric gets to test to waters of this milestone first.  Although the more it looms, the less it bugs me.  Hopefully I'll be too busy to notice when my time comes.  So what was in the big box you ask?  It was official, regulation-size, Green Bay Packers colors, corn hole boxes.  We played a bit this weekend but definitely need to brush up on the skills we mastered in college!  Still no news on the camera front so I think we'll break down and buy one this week as I must have one to take pics of my adorable nephews during my upcoming trip.

We didn't do too much celebrating today as we sure did enough this past weekend.  Eric also continues to fight the cold that I so lovingly brought home from work.  Out of all the meals or restaurants he could have picked today he chose his favorite place for deep dish pizza.  Oh, well, no cooking and they delivered.  And we enjoyed some birthday brownies as well.   As promised here are some stolen photos from the Phish show weekend extravaganza

Night 2, the not-as-cool bus

We are super pumped for some good music!!

The way cooler bus

Feathers make it easy to find your people in a crowd!

It took 9 years but I think he finally made a Phish fan out of me.  Happy 30th birthday Babe, I'm excited to see what this next decade has in store for us and I love you more with each adventure.

Phun, Phriends, and Phish

This past weekend we crammed about as much fun as possible in to a few short days.  It started on Friday when I got off work, headed straight for the store to pick up a couple weekend commodities then home for a quick costume change and to begin our weekend of Phish shows.  Before I get to much farther in this post I have some very sad news.  I lost my camera on Friday night :(  So the photos will be limited to what I can steal from others that were there.  Anyways, back to happier things.  We have felt so blessed these past few years to expand our circle of friends out here in CO.  A couple that we recently became better acquainted with lives only down the block from us and played a crucial role in the fun this weekend.  After everyone's out of town guests arrived for  the phestivities we were a group of 15-20 so it made sense to try and arrange transportation to and from Denver each night so we could sleep in our own beds at night and also not worry about hotels, camping, cabs, etc.  So, our aforementioned friends graciously coordinated a party bus to drive us down and back each night.  It worked perfectly, we had a home base at their house and all got to have a great time.

So, back to Friday, we started with a BBQ at afore mentioned Phish home base that included delicious burgers from a cow that had been mooing the day before.  Um, tasty.  We enjoyed some adult beverages and then hopped on our chariot.  The bus we rode down Friday was owned by a local guy who often transported for New Belgium parties.  Instead of seats in the last half of the bus there were couches.  On the back panel near the emergency exit there was a sign saying "Mobility Aid" where a handle used to be,  with  a can crusher mounted on the wall in its place.  The traffic was horrendous getting down to Denver so all of our bladders were thankful when we finally reached the arena.  The show that night was terrific.  In fact, it was also very creative.  As the set list progressed some of our more creative friends had already idenitfied that the first letter in each song title was shaping up to spell out the name of a well-known song, with a funny title.  And what do you know, they ended the show with the song they had spelled!  The band had been known to do fun and different things such as playing a whole show with songs that start with the letter "S".  It makes going to more than one night of the same band worth it.

Okay, so, a good time was had by all, we made it back safe and sound.  I realized after I got off the bus that we were missing not only my camera but Eric's iPhone too.  We were struggling for sure but in our defence we had been up since 0445 that morning!  Bus driver John reported the next day that he did indeed have an iphone, no camera though.  Saturday we drug ourselves out of bed before noon and headed down to Old Town to share in the joy that is Tour de Fat.  Our friend, Mark was visiting from WI so this was even more necessary.  Again, very sad that I don't have photographic evidence of the creativity of this town.  This festival is put on by New Belgium Brewing and it's all about Bikes, Bands, and Beers, as well as finding your whimisical side.  Everyone turns up in costumes and rides in a bike parade that ends in a big party.  My favorite group costume was eight ladies dressed as reindeer pulling Santa in his sleigh with their bikes.  I also saw a group of perfectly executed Troll Dolls.  Unfortunately we couldn't stay long as we had another Phish bus to catch.  The 2nd night was just as fun, though the set list did not spell anything.  Here's a photo someone else took:

We're on a bus!

Eric's oldest friend, Mark, from WI says "Hey, I'm on a bus too!"

 I wish I had more photos to share, I even got dragged down to 2nd row for a song or two so I would have gotten some good ones.  Maybe once our photographer friend that was with us posts his photos I'll steal some!

My Phish tour was done after 2 shows,  We spent Sunday at a pool party then most everyone went down for night 3.  I stayed in and tackled the laundry mountain and got good sleep in order to work on Monday, no three-day weekend for this nurse!  We had such a good time and I look forward to more shows next year.  Eric is talking Phish east coast tour but I think 2 nights close to home is enough for this gal.

 Happy Summer's End to you!   I hope all of you out there had a delightful Labor Day weekend and are ending your summer feeling as if it was jammed-pack with fun, I know ours was.  And it was WAAYYYY too hot, so I, for one, and super ready for Fall, football, and cooler weather.