The weekend summarized

Happy Monday all, is it just me or did this weekend fly by way too quickly?  Friday night was a pretty uneventful one for me, I stayed home watching Friday Night Lights, which is by far one of the most underrated shows on TV in my opinion.  I love it, and am so happy it is back for another season.

I had a hair appointment down in the city at 11 am on Saturday, so I was up bright and early to go for a jog.  Yup you read that right, I went out for a nice 2 mile run/walk on Saturday morning.  It actually went pretty well until about 18 minutes in, when my knee started to hurt so I walked the rest of the way home.  Definitely frustrating because I feel like after 6 weeks of physical therapy I should be making more progress than I am.  I can’t run without pain for any longer than I could 3 months ago, and I don’t know why I’m not getting better.

My afternoon in the city was fun, I love my new haircut.  It’s finally growing out from when I chopped it off into a bob, so I asked my hairdresser to add some long layers, and angles so that it had more shape and wasn’t all one length.  It looks much healthier now.  I also did a little shopping and got my mom a dress from Ann Taylor, and a cute dress for myself.  Any time I’m in the city for a hair cut, I always go to the same restaurant for lunch.  Pietro’s on 17th and Walnut, it has the best brick oven pizza ever!  I almost didn’t go because I was alone and don’t like eating alone, but there were tables open outside so I sat down and sucked it up.  I’m glad I did because the pizza as usual, did not disappoint.

Plus a delicious Hoegarden to accompany my pizza.  When I got home from the city, I had the delightful surprise of discovering that my cat was missing.  The windows in my sister’s room are skylights and have no screens, and Pumpkin likes to climb out onto the roof  if they are open.  Well my mom opened them on Saturday not thinking about the cat, and off she went.  I noticed that our neighbors had their sky lights open also, so I figured Pumpkin had probably crossed the roof and climbed into their house (she has done this before).  Luckily, she was there very confused and wandering around their third floor.  Silly cat.

Saturday night my sister and I hung out at home and had a few drinks, nothing too exciting, we didn’t want to feel awful for the Mother’s Day bbq at our house the next day.  The bbq was a lot of fun, I love when we have holidays at our house and I don’t have to travel.  We had tons of good food, and lots and lots of alcohol.  I made sangria and it was a huge hit!

1 lemon; 1 apple; 1 orange; 1 lime; 1 pear (all or any combination)

2 cups Capt. Morgan spiced Rum; 1/2 cup white sugar; 1/3 cup peach schnapps; 1 bottle Blackberry Merlot -chilled (I used the Arbor Mist brand but whatever you can find will work); 1 cup orange juice

Cut all fruit into pieces and put into a large pitcher.  Then add 1/2 cup sugar and 2 cups rum.  Chill for 2 hours.  Before adding the rest of the ingredients, lightly crush all fruit to release the flavors.  Then add merlot, orange juice and peach schnapps.

Look how fancy I am in my apron so that I didn’t ruin my white pants while making the Sangria.

Haha total geek.

There was so much food that I didn’t get pics of everything, but here are some of my favorites.

A roast for sandwiches

Pigs in a Blanket

Some yummy dip

And here’s a picture of me and my family on Mother’s Day.

Family

Yes, I am freakishly tall compared to my mom and sister.  I don’t know where i came from.  It was a lovely weekend filled with lots of yummy food, and fun times!  I hope you all have a great Monday, and had a nice weekend as well.

Philly Foodie Meet-up!

Let me just say, Philadelphia is pretty lucky to have such an amazing looking group of food bloggers.  Everyone last night was even prettier in person than they look on their blog, and just as nice.  Thanks again to Sabrina and Leslie for organizing it!  I rushed home from work and squeezed in a quick 30 min workout with my Yogalosophy DVD before I had to start getting ready.

I felt like I was getting ready for a date, haha, I showered, shaved my legs, straightened my hair, um don’t tell my bf that I’m pretty sure I haven’t done those things for his visits in a while.  Oh wait he reads this doesn’t he… oh well.  My drive into the city was relatively painless and traffic free, which was surprising since the Flyers were playing a home playoff game last night, but hey whatever, worked for me.

The dinner was held at Garces Trading Comapny, located at 1111 Locust St.

One side of the menu features a selection of various cheese and accompanying garnishes, and the other ala cart items to order as your main course.

I think we all took over 30 minutes to look at the menu and decide what to order, haha.  First things first though, a few glasses of delicious red wine.

Here’s one of the tables of pretty girls.  From left to right, April and Stephanie, Melissa and Dasha, Leslie and Sabrina, Lisa and Me, and Emily at the end.  I wish I could have had the opportunity to talk to the other table more, next time!  After we ordered, some delicious bread and olive oil were delivered to our table.

Sabrina ordered these delicious baby asparagus bites, and I managed to snag one.  Normally I don’t like artichokes unless they are also accompanied by spinach and cheese and in dip form, but these were good.

For my meal, I ordered the Margarita Pizza, and it was amazing.  I typically like a thinner crust, and this was almost like my flat-bread pizza that I make at home!

Um, I ate every bite, haha.  It was that good.  Sadly, after dinner I realized it was almost 10 pm, and I still had a 30 min drive back to suburbia ahead of me, and had to leave :(.  I’m pretty sure we all could have sat and talked for hours more!

Emily and Me

Lisa and blog reader Heather

blog reader Melissa and Leslie

Group shot photo stolen from Leslie, thanks!  It’s Stephanie, Me, Melissa, Leslie, Lisa, Dasha, Heather, Sabrina, and April.

Such a fun night, and I even missed Lost for these ladies, so you know it was important!  I did however, just catch up on last nights Glee and LOVED the Madonna episode.  I kind of want to watch again, but I’m afraid I might get up and start dancing like a fool in my office.  That is not appropriate for 9 am.

Happy Wednesday everyone, we’re halfway through the week!

While the BF is napping

Hello!  The boyfriend is currently napping, so I’m taking this opportunity to take a hit of my addiction.  We have been on the go since early this morning and the old man just can’t hang with me :).  I wanted to take full advantage of the warm weather yesterday, since I knew it was supposed to cool off for Saturday and Sunday, so I’ll give you three guesses where Alex and I went for drinks and dinner.  Yup, that’s right Cheeseburger in Paradise.  I just love, love, love it there when it’s nice out.  We sat outside and finished our meal right before the skies opened up, perfect timing!

Always in the market for a bargain, the bf ordered a bucket of beers and I ordered my customary Blackberry Sangria.

We (OK I) ordered six of the Dragon Fire buffalo wings as an appetizer,  and omg they were so good.  They were just the right amount of spicy mixed with sweet, I loved them!

Um, I may have eaten five to the bf’s one, hehe.  Main course was my usual Jerk Chicken Wrap with grilled chicken instead of fried.

I ate half of both the french fries and the wrap.  The other halves are waiting for me to devour them at some other point this weekend :).   Seeing as Cheeseburger is in the name of the restaurant, the bf went ahead and ordered the Beach Burger, which is just a cheeseburger with pickles, tomato, lettuce, and American cheese.

I was jealous of his burger, but my wrap was equally as good.  After dinner we came home and drank a ton, and I mean a ton of Lionshead Light Lager (wooooo for PA brewed beer!) and watched SNL episodes on demand.  It was a perfect Friday evening.

We spent all of today in the city, first at the zoo, and then playing tourists in the rest of Philadelphia.  You’ll hear more about all that tomorrow ;).  I think we are going to head out for some Mexican in a little bit, fingers crossed, so I’ll talk to ya’ll tomorrow!

I hope everyone is having a fantastic Saturday so far!