Catching Up

Lots to re-cap since the last post.  Life just got really busy - funny, it has a way of doing that sometimes.

First off, I conquered my fear of cooking with milk.  I have made custards and creams many times before, but for some reason have had this stupid fear of making sauces with milk.  Whatever.  I got over that one by making Anthony Bourdain's roti de porc au lait.  The sauce was out of this world.  Only thing I screwed up on was failing to give the pork loin roast enough of a sear before roasting it. 

Too bad computers don't transmit aromas.

Next, I (finally) hosted Dinner Divas the first week of February.  Ended up serving Anthony Bourdain's mignons de porc a' l'ail for the main course with Pioneer Woman's mashed potatoes and Karen's roasted broccoli as side dishes.  Made a triple-layer chocolate mousse for dessert. 

This is the aftermath of the mousse preparation.

Sadly, I was so stressed about Dinner Divas and so busy preparing that I forgot to take pictures of the food and table that night! Pretty bummed about that one.
However, while getting ready to host Dinner Divas I did find a couple of really cute items at Target...

Fabulous kitchen towels by Dwell

Fun kitty slippers...

that Ajax just had to check out.

Dinner Divas completely wiped me out, so later that week I ended up making my Mom's all-time "Go-To Meal" - TACOS!!!!  HEB had a deal where you had to buy 2 one pound packages of meat and you got everything else for the meal free.  Have I mentioned lately just how much I adore HEB?!?!

Growing up, we had this meal about once a week!

One of my favorite things about weekends is the fact that there is time to really cook a breakfast.  I try to do an egg dish one day and something sweet the other weekend day.  Today was obviously not egg day...

Lemon Poppyseed Quickbread w/ lemon glaze, served with lemon butter

I decided to make Pioneer Woman's Perfect Pot Roast for dinner tonight.  I had made it one other time last month and R and I both thought it was phenomenal!  It's perfect for a weekend since it take about 4 hours. 

The prep work

All ready to go in to the oven...

and now it's time to wait.  And wait.  And wait.

So worth the long wait.

Luckily, I had stashed some of PW's mashed potatoes (leftover from Dinner Divas) in the freezer.  I just thawed those and served them alongside the meat and veggies.  Dinner was delicious and there were plenty of leftovers to pack up in our new lunch boxes for tomorrow!  Mine is pink and R's is blue. 

I'm now a huge fan of Laptop Lunches... check them out.  Their slogan is "bento-ware for everywhere".  R and I learned about bento boxes while watching this past season's 'The Next Iron Chef'.  More posts to follow soon about them...