I'm such a slacker!

So the weekend got REALLY busy and I haven't blogged AT ALL! I'm afraid I'll get out of the habit, so I'll just fill in some blanks about the last few days and start right on track tomorrow!

Thursday I got a visit from my long-time friend from elementary and high school, Alice, and her boyfriend Shawn. They got here before I got out of work. We grilled the last steaks we had in the freezer and had some grilled potatoes/broccoli/mushrooms and grilled corn. We topped it off with some Mothership Wit. I don't think Alice was much of a fan, but the rest of us enjoyed it! We found out that Shawn also used to skate, and knew alot of the same people as Lucas did back in the day, and they were like long lost friends. I'm really glad they got along as great as they did! Next it was off to House of Blues for a Rancid show! It was even better than last year, I think! We stayed through the Rise Against set, which I was NOT impressed with, nor was I impressed with the sold out show full of sweaty, slimy, stinky guys. Guess I'm getting old.

The next day I worked a bit, then we hit the beach for a bit before the storms came. Look at the awesome picture my sister got of the clouds coming in on the beach:



We went home that night and did nothing, we were so tired from the night before. Dinner was an organic pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, zuchinni and mushrooms.

Saturday we invited my sister and her kids, and our friend Ryan for some dinner, beers and Wii. We grilled some turkey sausages and made a macaroni salad. I was disappointed that we couldn't get the organic pasta at Bilo - but I'll remember that for next time! We played Wii until the wee hours and finally went to sleep - LATE!

Sunday brought a day of cooking, as is becoming the norm. I made Rocky, our best man from our wedding, a batch of the mac&cheese that he loves, and added some bacon for him. The bread this week was cheating a bit. Nathan requested plain old white bread machine bread (which we sliced and toasted tonight and it's delicious!) I also made some peanut butter cookies (also cheated-pillsbury ready made Simply Peanut Butter cookies). We had the New York Style pizzas again, and I have to say, the first night we had them, I enjoyed them much more! I think freezing the dough was not the best idea!

Back to work today, and it was a long one! Tonight we just had turkey burgers and leftover macaroni salad...maybe we'll get more interesting tomorrow - it's not as easy when the kids are home!!

A little Rancid to take you out.....good night!

Mashed potatoes are good......

Especially when they're stuffed inside of a baked potato! Tonight we had twice baked potatoes with a mushroom, onion, jalapeno and bacon topping, and grilled zucchini and squash on the side.

I bought GIANT baking potatoes, microwaved them, scooped them, mixed the scoopings with some sour cream, milk, butter and salt and pepper and replaced the potato into it's shell. In the oven at 350 for 20 minutes and voila, twice baked potatoes! With about 4 minutes to go I added a few shreds of monterey jack cheese to melt on top. In the meantime I made a blend of veggies for a topping, and fried some bacon to crumble on top. The veggie topping started with some garlic and crushed red pepper browned in some olive oil. Add chopped portobello mushroom, red onion, jalapenos from the garden, a little bit of chicken stock and a little bit of cream and you get a saucy, spicy, veggie topping. We sliced and grilled the zucchini and squash for about ten minutes. It was all delicious, as always!!



We topped dinner off with a Sam Adams Summer Ale. It's as good as it looks!

Not much else to say about today. I'm pretty wiped out after the last couple of crazy days at work. I think I'm going to settle in and watch the end of the season premiere of Hell's Kitchen, and call it a night!!