I Couldn't Live Without....Pasta! (weekly line-up)

It's been quite a while since I've posted, but I saw this new weekly line-up hosted by a friend of mine at Pursuit of Pink and thought I'd give it a shot!

Every week, at least once, my family has pasta in some way, shape or form. Not only is it sometimes the main feature of a meal, I also use it to reinvent leftovers all the time! Here are a few ideas for pasta that I've made over the past few weeks:

• Spaghetti w/ Tomato Sauce and Leftover Pot Roast (essentially a ragu)
• Shrimp Scampi w/ linguini (white wine, lemon, butter, basil, YUM!)
• Baked Leftover Pasta (add extra cheese and some milk or cream)
• Mac & Cheese (homemade or boxed) w/ broccoli or butternut squash or spiced up with pickled jalapenos
• Spaghetti al Melone from Giada De Laurentiis
• Linguini Shrimp Fra Diavolo w/ Rao's brand Fra Diavolo Sauce

No surprise that my one year old daughter loves pasta. But what IS a surprise is that she'll eat it almost no matter what sauce is on it. The biggest surprise was that she scarfed down the scampi!!!

What are some ways you like to incorporate pasta into your meal?

My Week in Reflection - Aug 10, 2014

As always, I'm excited for this week, but had such an amazing week last week that I wanted to reflect a bit. 

1. Dinner #1: A friend came over for dinner (take-out from our favorite delivery Thai, Chao Phra Ya) and washed her car here, because she lives downtown in DC where washing your own car is kind of a pain. 

2. Dinner #2: Two friends come over and we had "Sunday Gravy" which is the Italian American tradition...usually on Sundays (duh). I made a tomato sauce with italian sausage, meatballs, and some sort of meat with a bone (I used a marrow bone from the farmers market). Then I cooked it ALL DAY in a slow cooker. It was so delicious and had that umami flavor you can only get from cooking something like that with meat for so long. Plus, you throw everything in a pot (more or less) and you just let it cook. Not much work involved.

I served the pasta with the sauce (no meat) first for the Primi Piati (first course). Then the meat separately as a second course (or you are lazy like me and serve it like the picture illustrated below). The sauce freezes beautifully, but I bet if you freeze the meat it would completely fall apart because it's so tender. I vote eat the meat in the next couple days, and freeze the leftover sauce.

Here's a Cook's Illustrated page that explains more along with their picture:

http://recipes.cooksillustrated.com/stews-recipes/italian/pork/hearty-italian-meat-sauce-sunday-gravy-recipe/ 

3. Peach Picking: I went with a friend to Stribling Orchard to pick peaches and a few of their first available apples. So delicious! And my daughter seemed to enjoy it. The drive, not so much (but she's teething...can't really blame her!). 

4. Band Camp: It's that time of year again! I went in on Thursday to Stonewall to teach...not just the guard but the entire band! I taught the guard for about 1.5 hours and then taught the entire band how to jazz run! The whole thing was entertaining because I had my 7 month old daughter with me, and this is the first rehearsal she's been to now that she doesn't sleep 24/7 (I brought her when she was between 1 and 2 months old to teach Stonewall in the winter). I'll start working on a post about how to teach jazz runs to non-dancers!

5. Hershey Park: My dad retired in June and instead of a party, he took the family to Hershey for the weekend!! It was such great fun to stay at a lovely hotel, enjoy the amusement park, hang out at the hotel pool, and eat tons of food and, of course, chocolate. We actually enjoyed the park Friday night AND Saturday because you get to go in Friday night if you're staying at the hotel with a Saturday ticket AND you get to go in 1 hour early Saturday. We also ate delicious BBQ on our way in on Friday at Shakedown BBQ. If you're ever in town, we highly recommend it! And if you see a Reese's Funnel Cake, GET IT! 

My Week Ahead - July 27, 2014

I've known for a while that I need to start regular postings but haven't figured out until now something I could keep up with on a weekly basis (at a minimum!). I was reading High Five for Friday on Pursuit of Pink and got an idea. She recaps her week every Friday and I love the idea, but of course, that's her thing!! Instead, on Sunday night or Monday morning I often think about the week in front of me. Mondays typically are no fun for most people, but these days they don't seem to bother me so much, so I'm hoping these will be fun and exciting posts, not "woah is me" Monday posts.

1.  Play Dates and Friends: We're starting off the week with a play date with my little one's boyfriend (he's a whole 2 months older!! the scandal....). I've started to realize that now that my daughter is getting much more interactive, she needs kids her own age to play with. That, and it's a great excuse to stay connected to my friends. 

2. Performances: I have two days a week off (I work part-time) and on one of those days this week, I may be heading to see a children's performance with my sister-in-law and her three kids, and her sister and nephew! My daughter's only 6 months old, so I may not get to stay the whole time, and chances are she won't be that interested/entertained, but it'll be fun nonetheless! Check out their website if you have kids.

3. Travel: My team at work travels to OH this week. While I love traveling with them, I'm sitting this one out so I can stay home with my little one a bit more...plus, then I don't have to rearrange childcare again! The biggest disappointment in skipping the trip? Missing out on seeing my good friend Sean (right)...

...and missing out on Dublin Pub's famous Pub Fries (below)! Imagine a white wine cheese sauce, spring onions, bacon, cheese.....

4. Work: Another team member is joining the project I'm leading. This project has allowed me to manage a team of 2 individuals, and now we're at 3! Small wins. And on Monday I take on another leadership coaching client! I'm loving helping people in terms of leadership development on such a personal level.

5. Farmers Market: Now that we're nearing the end of the summer, I finally made it to the farmers market around the corner from my house 2 weeks ago. I fully intend to go back and get myself some BBQ (food truck), fresh veggies, and one of the fancy popsicles (flavors like hibiscus raspberry). If I don't make it, I'll be kicking myself come fall when the farmers markets all start to fizzle away. Last time I went I bought their fresh picked lobster, flown in the night before from Maine by Lobster Maine-ia! I turned it into our own lobster rolls with fresh corn and a tomato-cucumber salad all from the farmers market. Delish!

What does your week have in store for you?

Couponing: Safeway Freebies!

I haven't couponed much since our little one was born, but I had to share my success today! I planned out my trip to Safeway and got the following items free or extremely cheap! Most of these ideas came from the Coupon King of Washington DC. 

  My Savings  

4 tubes of Colgate toothpaste ($0.99/tube)

2 pk 1-lb grass-fed ground beef ($5)

2 packs of 4-roll Angel Soft ($0.99 / pack)
+ 2 $0.55/1 coupons (doubled up to $0.99)
FREE (but they are the teeniest rolls you've ever seen)

6 pouches of Plum Organics Baby Food ($0.67 - $1.50)
+ 2 $0.50/1 coupons + 4 BOGO Free at $1.99 each**
FREE

** Yes, she took 6 coupons when she should have taken 4 and she gave me $1.99 off when they should ave been $1.50. I told her and she shrugged....I tried to do the right thing!!