lately; pictures w/ captions

pita pizza. i put my homemade tomato sauce on and topped it with parmesan, cheddar, and hot sauce. uh huh. i like it hotttt!

stonyfield plain yogurt with maple syrup and strawberries.

veggie sandwich on fresh local pumpernickel bread.

my darling.

spent time with my momma. we sit the same with the lean and all.

roasted some poblano peppers and regular peppers, topped one with ricotta cheese and the other with goat. and fancied it up with saffron cilantro rice, and garlic and onion black beans.

lovin our deck. come on weather! i love these beautiful plants that attract butterflies. i hope that i can keep them alive without a green thumb.

i made some olive tapenade. (i finely chopped kalamata olives, capers, lemon juice, olive oil, pepper, garlic, roasted red pepper, fresh thyme, oregano, and chives.)

wednesday fun day

for this week matt and i decided on our day off together to make it super effing special. it seems like lately all we do is laundry and sit around and watch tv on our day off.. which in essence is totally fine, but we needed something different this wednesday. i wrote out a list and we didn't make any commitments or put any time constraint on anything on purpose so that there was no stress involved. it turned out great :)

•  first we woke up early(  at 9 :D ) we went and got coffee and sat outside. we set up the table with newspaper and got our pumpkins and started cleaning them out. matt actually ended up doing all the artwork on the pumpkins. i'm just not an artist these days. i've got to give all the credit to him. he did awesomeee!

pretty cool right? an elephant and a bat :)

• of course i ended up saving the seeds. we cleaned them off(not overly), let them dry overnight, and today i baked two different kinds up. i melted some butter and added salt and pepper to one batch. for the other i used butter, garlic powder, salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and red pepper flakes. they are sooo yummy. all you do is put them in the oven on 275 for maybe 30 minutes.... it depends on how crispy you like them and also on your oven. i didn't keep track of time, i just kept checking on them as soon as they starting having color. you can store them in an airtight container for up to a week... but i don't think they'll last that long :) 

• after all the pumpkin madness we headed over to the green gourmet for some lunch. my dad recommended this place to me so i thought it would be nice to try something new out. it's really sweet inside. they have a ton of prepared fresh foods like chicken meatballs and eggplant parm sitting in its own skin :) it was all super beautiful. they have an oogave fountain soda machine with agave sweetener that are yummy and have free refills. i rarely drink soda(maybe once every few months) so it was a treat for sure. i had the ginger ale and the watermelon cream.

i ordered the baked falafel wrap. it was oh so filling and good. matt wanted the buffalo burger but they were all out so he just got a regular old burger. it tasted like it was full of grill flavor. and for a drink he got the fresh made juice that had cucumber, lime juice, mint, and apple in it.

• after lunch we went to matt's mom and hung out with her and her doggie. it was nice catching up :)...
•  thennnn we went to whole foods. our lovely one month outing. i told matt if i had a car i'd be there more often, but i guess it's good because i'd be out of money all the time.... 
• we went home after whole foods to drop off our groceries, take a breather, change and headed out to play some tennis...
• after tennis, we went to la bamba for some margaritas. that place is just so good and just what i love every so often. 

• we got home a bit late... around 9... for dinner we pan seared some swordfish (that we got fresh from the delray green market) with blackened seasonings and sauteed some broccoli and called it a dinner. we didn't need much, those margaritas were filling... and of course the 2 baskets of chips and salsa. 

• after dinner we watched a movie called cyrus which was pretty cute and slightly funny. :) definitely enjoyed it. the only thing we didn't do on the list was go to the driving range and i didn't practice driving(which is a-ok). friggen great day!

the end

hot chip

what a good song.

little kids stuff

 
yesterday i managed to steal matt away before he had to head off to work to go west to bedner's. we grabbed chrystalyn and headed over. it was pretty busy since the kids were off of school. we had to park along the street a little far away and a man on a john deer cart picked us up and took us over to the corn maze. it was pretty cute. the last time i did this was when i lived in baltimore. i love corn mazes and pumpkin patches. this is the kind of stuff that excites me about october and halloween. not the usual stuff everyone else loves. i'm not a fan of dressing up. it actually freaks me out when someone asks what i'm going to be. i never know, and i never really want to. so... instead of all that excitement most people have, mine goes to picking out a pumpkin with a nice long stem and cutting it open to take out the seeds so i can bake them. it's not even about the carving for me!







on our short ride to the corn maze. look at our excitement.

the corn for the maze was quite short. i think it would've been a lot more fun if we were... say, 5? haha. we tried to get lost but gave up fast.

perfectly beautiful day.

we just had to pose. or i made her pose, either way.

YEAH YEAH, it's sunny. i just wanted all 3 of us in the photo. :) 

        

 purchases :) baby pumpkin for decoration, some delicious all natural sparking apple juice and our biggin pumpkins. can't wait to carve them and bake their seeeeds!

delray green market

                     

           this morning i ventured over a few blocks to the delray green market. the first thing i felt was pure happiness. it reminded me so much of the farmers market along the vltava river in prague. like this one, it was small and the vendors had similar things to buy. i was wishing matt was by my side instead of at work to help me pick things out, but i managed. i think the one thing that put me in a sort of shock was that i could speak to everyone in english. whenever we visited he farmers market in prague we felt really nervous about how to buy things. it was always us just pointing and trying our best to get what we wanted.

there was fresh pasta.... i opted for the asian orzo because i adore orzo. ( sesame, lemon ginger, cayenne pepper, and chive and garlic parsley.) mmm i can't wait to cook it!

there were so many things that i wanted... the fresh fish looked amazing... i hear such good things about the local delray eggs, and i tried some amazing fresh mozzarella. next time i'll get all of that!

they had gorgeous loose leaf teas and loose spices. it smelled heavenly.

we ran into our friend roxanne... she was holding this adorable bag with her little plant.

i bought this :) which i love... it's going to attract butterflies.

what i ended up geting- dill pickles! orzo, multi grain bread from the old school bakery, gala apples, a pepper, and a sicilian eggplant. tonite i'm going to make some eggplant burgers!  


i'm looking forward to going back. you should check it out and support our locals :) 

this is ridiculous

 watched this on ellen... ridiculous

another cute video meeting nicki 

new things

we got a bigger couch. the smaller one just wasn't cutting it. we spent 20 minutes on our porch trying to shove this thing through our doorway(which is abnormally small). we didn't think it would fit but it finally it made it inside.... i'm not looking forward to when we move. "apartment for rent- couch included".

i FINALLY got to this! i spent 2 hours after work lastnite reorganizing and cleaning our guest room. it wasn't the most inviting before, but now there's a fouton couch that opens up into a bed for when people want to visit(ahem- EMILY and PAOLA). and kisa loves her new corner.

we have an eclectic collection of things. i tried to work it out as best as possible with the little space that we have. it looks a lot better... now we just need some rugs.... the most expensive thing, ugh.

i love purple potatoes. they're sooo beautiful. lately i've just been fryin them up with onions, peppers, a hot pepper, garlic and i scramble and egg or two and add some cheese... sour cream and hot sauce are my bonus. an insanely filling breakfast.

i love baking spaghetti squash. tons and tons of parmesan cheese. thanks alica :)

beach has been super windy lately 

tried makin some gazpacho but it didn't turn out as planned. please, don't process peppers... and flash cook the tomatoes and peel them before you process them. 

christalyn and i were craving fried pickles...

had cheese and wine nite with us 4 neighbor girls. i want this to happen once a week. best dinner.

i made parmesan crisps.... all you do is grate some fresh parm and patty them on parchment paper on a baking sheet. pop 'em in a 350' oven til golden (6-7 mins). thanks ina garten!

matt and i headed to oktoberfest on sunday...

we shared a dog with sauerkraut, potato pancakes, and.. i ate the giant pickle on my own. we had a few german beers and enjoyed ourselves. might've pretended to be in europe cause we miss it so much.

after oktoberfest we went to sweet water for some drinks and this delicious in house made mozz! mmm!

i love my brother