Caprese Pasta

If I had to pick one food to eat for the rest of my life, it would be pasta.  There are so many varieties, so many things I can do with it.  I can have it hot or cold, long or short, stuffed or non-stuffed.  The options are endless!

Despite the many, many, ways I can eat pasta, I sometimes forget to shake it up.  I get in a rut with my favorites.  Currently I’m in a rut with Caprese pasta.  It’s so fresh and light and perfect for this time of year.

Ingredients:

Pasta (short cuts work best, so pick your favorite!)

Fresh mozzarella

Fresh tomato

Fresh basil

Olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Boil the water and cook the pasta until it is al dente.  Drain and set aside (either back in the cooking pan to save on dishes later or in a serving dish).

While the water is boiling, chop up a very ripe tomato (you can use a just ripe tomato and it works fine, but very ripe tends to be juicier and you don’t risk wasting the tomato!) and toss it into a  sauté pan with a little bit of warm olive oil and salt.  Let the tomato chunks cook up a bit in the oil and then turn the heat off.  Basically you are making a very basic tomato sauce so you want to let the tomatoes get a little mushy so you get some liquid in the pan (a mix of the tomato guts and the oil).

While the tomatoes are cooking, cut the fresh mozzarella into bite-sized chunks and set aside. Chop the basil into bite-sized pieces as well (if you leave the basil leaf whole, well, that’s a whole lot of basil in one bite!).

At this point, everything should be cooked so you just need to assemble.  Pour the tomatoes over the pasta and toss.  Then add the basil and the mozzarella and toss again.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

This dish could not be simpler to make and could not be tastier.  It’s an absolutely yummy dish and the best part is that it is super quick to make, so it’s a great option for a night when you don’t really feel like cooking.

May 19

I thought that today I’d take a little trip back in time to the May 19th’s of years past.

May 19, 2006.  4 years ago: My first date with Boo.  He drove 40 minutes back to school just to take me out to dinner and a movie.  For the record, we went to Olive Garden (I had the mushroom ravioli) and then we saw Mission Impossible 3.  We didn’t get together though until the following February.

(our first picture ever, just a few weeks before our first date!)

May 19, 2007.  3 years ago: Senior week, a week to be remembered.  If only I could.  (Just kidding Mom and Dad, I totally remember stuff that happened during senior week.  Promise.  Mostly.)

Back door bar tour with my lovely neighbor Jenna and her bf at the time, Drew.

May 19, 2008. 2 years ago: I was a working girl, just getting accustomed to my new job in NYC.  And I wrote this post about my bird troubles.

May 19, 2009.  1 year ago: The Today Show baby!  One year ago today I was the “big bust” model in a segment about dressing your body type.  Here’s the recap.

(image is a still from the video clip listed in the recap)

May 19, 2010. Today: A new baby niece was born today!!  Boo’s step-sister gave birth to her 3rd child today!  Welcome to the world baby girl!  You picked a good day to be born (if you ask me!).  Congrats to mama and daddy!

A thought on Iron Man 2 (and don’t worry, it totally won’t spoil anything)

Okay, so this weekend Boo’s brother and fiancee came down to visit and we went to see Iron Man 2.  Personally, I liked the movie.  I always like a movie where stuff blows up so there was that.  Robert Downey Jr. was kind of hilarious.  ScarJo was surprisingly adept at kicking butt while maintain perfectly coiffed curls.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that, overall, I enjoyed it.

And then I saw this:

image via here.

Do you all notice how orange his palms are?  Apparently Justin Hammer has more than just Iron Man to worry about as it seems he had a run-in with a bad bottle of tanning lotion.  But that is the type of thing that someone is supposed to catch!  Someone on set is supposed to have that job.  The person whose sole responsibility it is to make sure that the actors are wearing the same jewelry from day to day of filming and to make sure that the makeup team extended the gash on the arm all the way to the wrist if that was how long the gash was in the previous scenes, etc.  It should be that same person’s job to make sure that the actors don’t look like Jersey Shore extras.  It’s only in this scene that his hands are that color.  I don’t know if his orange palms have some significance to the plot or not but my goodness–I could barely concentrate on what he was saying during this scene.  All I could think about was the fact that someone should have scrubbed that man down before they filmed that scene because his palms are glaringly orange!

So, in summary, go see Iron Man 2.  It was a really good movie.  And when you see Hammer sit down at that table, just avert your eyes to avoid the orange.

Mrs. G’s Guacamole

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I thought today would be the day that I post my insanely easy and unbelievably delicious guacamole recipe.

Ingredients:

Avocado (1 makes enough for me and Boo with a little extra, so keep that in mind when doubling, etc.)

Salsa

Lime juice

Salt

Pepper

Garlic powder

Directions:

I meant what I said about this being easy.  It’s like embarrassingly simple but all of my friends and family asked for the recipe!  To start, scoop the avocado out of its shell and into a bowl.  Is it called a shell?  Skin?  Whatever, get the edible part out!  Scoop with a spoon but then mush it down with a fork.  Add a little salsa to the bowl.  The salsa is there to add a little liquid which helps smooth out the guacamole but it also adds a little flavor and crunch, so anything from mild to spicy, chunky or not will work.  It’s all about what you like.  After you mix the salsa and avocado together add a few squirts of lime juice plus salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste.

That’s it!

See, embarrassingly easy, right?  But it looks really impressive and is just as yummy as the stuff restaurants are charging you $11 a bowl to order!

And so it begins…

Wedding season is here my friends.

Thankfully, all of my work in that arena is done.  Well, almost done.  Because I just realized that I’ve been married for 6 months and have never actually given you guys a wedding recap.  A lot of you have seen the pictures on Facebook already but I’m still going to give you a bit of a recap over here.  And I’m going to start with my shower.

A sweet friend of mine from school is getting married in June.  When I found out she was engaged, my first thought was “YAY!” followed quickly by “She can’t be getting married! She’s just a baby!”  Of course, she’s actually 22, so not a baby at all!  I’m so excited for her to get married b/c she is in the same position that Boo and I were in, long distance for the whole relationship, and I am so excited for her to actually be with her guy all the time!  It’s absolutely the best feeling, that countdown to the wedding, when you realize that all of the traveling back and forth just to spend 2 days with each other is finally over.

The invitation to her shower went out last week.  Her mom is throwing the shower for her and has decided it should be a “silly/embarrassing gifts” type of shower.  So on the same fancy paper as the invitation is the following information:

Height

Weight

Bra size

Panty size

T-shirt size

Now, if I were her, my mother would have been dead meat.  Because honestly?  What bride wants her weight broadcast to all of her friends?  Or her bra size announced to all of her mother’s friends.  I understand the logic behind this, of course, but a subtle “if you need sizes, feel free to contact me” type of message at the bottom of the invitation would have been a little less…intrusive.  But of course I still think it’s a bit awkward to combine the showers.  I mean, had I gotten lingerie from my mother’s friends I probably would have died.  Literally.

For my own wedding, my mother’s good friend had a shower for me.  She hosted and my mother’s friends (all of whom I’ve met, which is not the case in this upcoming shower.  That could make the “embarrassing” gifts even more awkward!) were in attendance.  This was the shower where I got the grown up gifts, a coffee maker, a cake plate, an amazing cupcake gift set.

My second shower was just for me and my bridesmaids (and an added bonus of my future SIL for dinner!).  We started the day with champagne (as a warm up) and then headed off to tea (with our own private room).  This was the shower that was all about the silly/embarrassing gifts.  I’m sure you know the type ;)

After tea we went to TJ Maxx/Home Goods (b/c what perfectly girly day doesn’t include shopping?!) and then we had a little more champagne and got ready for the bachelorette party portion of the day!  We went downtown and had dinner at Dolce (it was restaurant week, which made it even better!) and then went out in Manyunk.  It was such a blast–even though a lot of people kept congratulating me on my 21st birthday (despite my crown and sash CLEARLY reading “bachelorette”)!

Oh, and you’ll notice that my hands and neck are bright pink?  Apparently my beads bled a little bit!  (Hence why I am down to just one strand of beads in this pic!)  Brides: THIS is why you NEVER plan a bachelorette party immediately before the wedding.  I was a bit rosy for a few days afterward!

la

P.S. If you saw some old posts pop up in your readers, please ignore!  I was doing a little maintenance and some old posts seemed to repost!