And Auburn makes three

One of my goals is to visit three new towns/cities every year. Yesterday we escaped to Auburn for a fun football filled day.
We rode down to Auburn with Matt and Melissa (and their puppy Mandy) and spent most of the day on campus. Doug (Tom's co-worker) and his wife are big Auburn fans and host a tailgate at every home game.

From left to right, Melissa, Matt, us, Melanie, and Doug

And we got to hang out with Nate. Unfortunately, cellular service sucked on campus - so we couldn't get hold of Mikrish, who was also in Auburn.

I have to say, Auburn fans are very nice and welcoming. Except for the corn dog taunting, which I still don't get. Apparently, LSU fans smell like corn dogs. That's not very offensive since corn dogs are yummy.

We scored awesome tickets for really cheap. We had a great view of the field and the LSU section and had mostly nice Auburn neighbors.

The LSU band

Half time show

After the game, the LSU band hung back and played the Alma Mater

After checking the weather, I decided to go with comfy rather than cute (since it was supposed to be in the low 50s with wind). Well, can you tell that we were still hot at the end of the game? Maybe it was the adrenaline from the narrow win.

After the game, we spent the night at Melissa's parents house where I proceeded to be a puppy magnet and get puppy kisses all over from Mandy and the resident puppy, Molly. Dog pictures from Melissa's blog.

Mandy

Molly

With Chapel Hill and Fairbanks, Auburn makes three (can you tell the pun? LSU dropped in the rankings to #3 after their narrow win against an unranked team while Oregon won against a ranked team and jumped to #2).  
We got back to Birmingham this morning and proceeded to do nothing, except water the plants and do a mini harvest. The red pepper got its color hanging out on the kitchen counter while we were gone.

Hmm... I probably should tackle this laundry pile today.

We're coco-nuts for CoCo

Our lab is unique, we discuss science, troubleshoot each others experiments, and plan crafts. We have equipment that are named after Shrek characters, or other names such as Toddlers and Tiaras, Honey Boo Boo (except when it doesn't work, then it is called Honey Doo Doo), and of course we have nicknames. 

Yesterday was Corenna's birthday, and we're coco-nuts for CoCo!

Coconut cupcakes with special frosting

Tasty Tuesday

We've been busy in the kitchen lately.
After making pickled jalapenos a few weeks back, Tom made jalapeno infused vodka. We still have plenty of peppers, including a variety that we are calling a hybrid. Jelly? Maybe.
Onto the cooking:
I tried an eggplant and chicken lasagna (eggplant slices instead of lasagna noodles).

I've been craving broccoli cheddar soup and decided to make my own. Except that I didn't have potatoes like the recipe called, instead I had one sweet potato. It started with a roux and chicken stock in which I cooked the veggies, and once they were tender, the immersion blender came out. Finished with a small amount of shredded cheese (since it was thick enough), and topped with some grilled chicken and green onions.

And when I didn't want to cook, I finally broke out the Hamburger Helper, Stroganoff, except that I didn't have ground beef. Instead, I used cooked beer brats from our freezer and tomatoes from the garden. Topped with a few basil leaves.

And when I still didn't want to cook, Tom took over and made turkey nachos with refried beans, onions, banana peppers from the garden, and topped with Mexican cheese. Leftover meat went into soft taco shells and onto the Foreman for Quesadillas. 

Onto my sweet tooth Tom's lab meeting treat:
Tom presented lab meeting two Fridays ago. On Thursday night while he was in lab until the late hours of the night, I decided that this mathematical equations looked good: Wine + Pinterest + Tom's lab meeting = Mini Oreo Cheesecakes.

The Pinterest recipe made a little over 24 cheesecakes, one tray for Tom's lab and one for mine :)
One more treat but I can't tell until tomorrow afternoon :)

September Crafts

 Updated our football board to include Texas A&M and Missouri to the SEC (this picture was taken before Week 2 of college football)

The wreath of the month.  Can you tell that we love football?
Kelly said it perfectly, we are not a house divided, but rather a house united.
I may not want to change it for October but it may get a few orange and black streaks and something Halloween-ish.

New earrings. I get in trouble when I go to Hobby Lobby to get one thing and wander around all the aisles. Maybe wedding bling?

I love our moss initials and wanted an L to complete our monogram. I found a map of Wisconsin (we had picked it up from a visitor's center back in 2010.. wait 2010? Time flies). The bottom corner of the L shows La Crosse. Waiting for it to dry, then maybe some more mod podge, fix the wrinkles, and it will be ready for display or maybe I'll add some more details. 

Wordless Wednesday

Tasty Tuesday

I harvested most of our peppers and tomatoes before I left for Alaska and in the fridge they went.

When we got back, Tom picked a few more and we made pickled jalapenos. These are very spicy, so spicy that even I couldn't eat them. Maybe they need to pickle for another week.

It's looking as if we will have at least one more good harvest of peppers. We want to make jalapeno vodka for bloody mary's and if we have enough maybe a pepper jelly.

I also made a basil pesto on Saturday. I used some as the dressing for orzo pasta with almonds and topped with goat cheese crumbles. Served with chicken, mushroom, tomatoes, asparagus, and poblano peppers ragou.

 
For Labor Day, Tom decided that grilled steaks were in order. Served with the usual accompaniments of mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, lettuce and tomatoes.

Disclaimer, I couldn't eat that big serving of meat. Tasty leftovers? yes please!

Finally, we had bananas that were overripe, so I whipped up a batch of banana pancakes last night. After they cooled, I froze them and on a morning of running behind, pop one in the toaster (ours has a frozen setting) and voila, breakfast on the go! 

Happy Labor Day!

For September, I'm
Excited:  about craft nights and football weekends
Worried: the amount of work I have to get accomplished in the next three weeks
Watching: Football, Masterchef, Hotel Hell, Hell's Kitchen, Time Machine chefs
Reading: I am on the list for book club, this month it's a false dawn
Listening to: nothing in particular
Creating:  football board, September wreath
Cooking: pesto, orzo, veggies
Loving: the garden 
Hoping: that the residency stuff is fine
Looking forward to: Thanskgiving?

Sunny Sunday

First, Happy Birthday to Tom's mom, Laurie and her dad, Grandpa Gass. It was so nice to spend time with you in Alaska. Isn't it neat when a child and parent share a birthday (my mom and sister have the same birthday). While we're on the topic of birthdays, happy (belated) birthday to my dad. We were thinking of you all the way from Alaska!

We were glad to come back and see that our garden hadn't completely died. Yes there were some casualties. I spend a chunk of yesterday pruning the plants, removing dead ones, and cleaning the balcony. Here are updated pictures:

Two of our pepper plants, Tall one with the hot banana peppers, other one has jalapeno peppers

 Our other two pepper plants, both jalapeno peppers

This tomato plant has decided that the roof is its territory. We are waiting on about four clusters

 Nice surprise when we came back from our trip!

Marigolds - we were worried that it was on its last leg, but were surprised by more blooms when we came back

 Yum! Waiting a few more days before these are harvested

Our mint has been very prolific, we have plans to make a mint infused vodka and a coconut mint chutney, a Mauritian favorite.

A new addition to our garden - even though it's in our kitchen. I have been craving basil pesto and saw this basil plant at the store. An impulse buy that I hope will pay off :)














Okay, now here is the link to the Alaska pictures :)

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10101612549839225.3095043.23413201&type=1&l=4d059bed6d

Week(s) recap

Has it been two weeks already?
Two weekends ago, we got the bread maker out and used it to make pizza dough for some homemade pizza.

Last week, I was in North Carolina for a workshop. My friend and co-mentor Jennifer showed me around her Alma mater of UNC. It was fun hearing stories from her college years, meeting her friends, and eating and drinking at her favorite spots. One of the things that I was really excited about was a Late Blossom, whose main ingredient is lychee, my favorite fruit. Unfortunately, you can only find canned lychees in the US, but I will take that any day over none :)

I got back on Friday with a cold, so the weekend was spent recovering. I did manage to meet up with Zak for part of his farewell night, joining the group at Dreamland's only, as the rest of them continued on for drinks at the Summit and a movie.

Earlier this week, I also got a stomach bug or maybe I was reacting to the medicine I had been taking. But on the bright side, our garden has been producing some veggies. We are looking forward to the jalapeno peppers to being ready. I already have the pickling recipe. We are also enjoying the rain this week. I love waking up to rain or sipping tea while watching the rain. Plus, it makes it cooler and I bet the plants are enjoying a nice break from the summer heat.

After talking with Laurie, it finally hit me that it will be a bit cooler in Alaska and the dress that I was planning on wearing to the wedding might not be warm enough. So yesterday I went on a bargain shopping spree and found a nice purple dress. Later that day, Tom and I went to the mall to find him a purple tie. We are weirdly cute in that we try to coordinate my dress and his tie when we play dress up. Afterwards, we had an impromptu dinner date at Billy's. I had the Absolute Stress cocktail, which was very relaxing. We sat in a nice nook and watched the rain as we enjoyed our food. If you've never had fried olives, please try them at Billy's. They were yummy!

My parents also hosted my sister's engagement party back home yesterday. According to their reports, it went without a hitch. I wish I could be there. They have set their wedding date for August 2013. This means that we'll be heading there at that time (and will have our Mauritian wedding then too). We hope that family and friends will be able to join us. 

Today is a day of chores.

I hope your weekend is going well!

Week in recap

As I mentioned in my previous post, we submitted the green card residency application. This was a bit of an ordeal between having passport pictures taken, having a medical exam done by a civil surgeon (can't use your regular doctor, and it's not covered by insurance, but I'm glad to report that I have all the immunizations needed for my age group but do not have tuberculosis, syphillis, a mental disorder, or a drug abuse problem), filling out several forms, and reading even more pages of instructions. I have to say that the International office at UAB was very helpful. If everything goes well, I'll be getting a travel card in the next six weeks, which means that I can travel internationally again. Then in about four months, Tom and I will have to go to Atlanta for an interview where the interviewer will ask questions to make sure that our wedding is not a sham.
Okay, other things happening this past week:
Garden: we have one fully grown jalapeno pepper! Finally! We have a few baby peppers that we are monitoring. We are waiting for about10 grape tomatoes to ripen. Our Marigolds (started from seeds) are officially dead. Tom will have to keep up with the watering schedule.
We have a new wreath:
Beads on the left, Mauritian Flag;  beads on the right, USA's flag.

The lab went to lunch with Jennifer for her birthday. We had a somewhat of a surprise dessert session afterwards (strawberry cupcakes and peanut butter pie).
Dessert/eating out + a pinched sciatic nerve = no exercise = weighing scale disaster
Work picked up quite considerably as in the span of two days, we found out that I had to analyze ~1000 patient samples and since I'm out next week at UNC, I'll have about 10 days to run them! yikes!
We are trying to make a catering decision for the wedding reception. We haven't found one place that has the best of everything. For example, Dreamland's meat is unmatched to Jim n Nicks, but JnN has the better sides. Dreamland also has a killer banana pudding. We might have to get creative. 
And finally, we have kicked off Zak's going away parties. Zak is leaving Birmingham for Boston, where he'll start law school at Northeastern. There are so many unanswered questions: what will happen at Thanksgiving? Or any holiday party? What about football season? Who will be Tom's partner in crime for Fourth of July shenanigans? One thing is for sure, we will miss you! Last night, we went to On Tap in Hoover for pregame drinks, and then to Regions Park to watch the Barons Baseball game.

I had ice cream served in a baseball hat cup - I chose the A's because it was the least offensive to the guys (Tom hates the Yankees while Zak is a fan, wasn't sure about the Orioles, and both Tom and Zak hate the Cubs, White Sox, and Phillies).

It was also Pyro-palooza. The show was put on by the same guys who do our fourth of July fireworks show over the mountain.

Look at them with their matching red polos! We will miss you Zak!