This Past Weekend...

Friday:
Brian and I had a relaxing yet accomplished weekend. On Friday evening we got behind the stove once again to crank out a masterpiece of a dinner…ahem…a mediocre dinner. All you will get is a picture of the cover of the magazine where the recipe lived (until I tore out the page):

It wasn’t horrible but it wasn’t great either. It was just one of those meals you make but don’t intend to make again. In case you want to make it here is the recipe:

12 ounces of fettuccine
3 ounces of pancetta
1 1/4 lbs of asparagus (trimmed and cut)
2 cups of frozen peas (not thawed)
1 bunch of green onions (dark green parts separated from other)
2 garlic cloves
½ cup finely grated parmesan cheese
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
3 tbls extra-virgin olive oil
3 tbls fresh lemon juice
1 tbls lemon peel
¼ cup fresh Italian parsley
¼ cup thinly sliced fresh basil

Cook pasta until tender but still firm to bite. Drain, reserve ½ cup pasta cooking liquid. Return pasta to pot. Meanwhile, cook pancetta in large skillet over medium heat until crisp. With a slotted spoon transfer pancetta to paper towels to drain. Pour off all but 1 tsp of drippings from skillet. Add asparagus to drippings in skillet. Sauté 3 minutes. Add peas, pale green part of onion and garlic – sauté until all veggie’s are tender. About 2 minutes and remove from heat. Add vegetable mixture, ¼ cup pasta cooking liquid, dark green parts of onion, ½ cup of parmesan, cream, olive oil, lemon juice, lemon peel, half of parsley and half of basil to pasta. Toss adding more cooking liquid by the tbls if needed. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to large bowl and sprinkle pancetta, remaining parsley and basil over pasta. You can also add additional parmesan cheese. Serve! Bon Appetit!

We also made dessert – mini lemon tarts. We followed the directions to the T but unfortunately our tarts turned out to be mostly crust so they weren’t very good. We also lined the mini muffin pan with mini muffin liners (this is a no go for next time). I will make this again to give it another shot. A couple of things I will do different: 1) No muffin liners and 2) Don’t use all of the dough in the pan (that the recipe calls for). Here is the recipe for the mini lemon tarts:

Crust:
2 (3oz) pkgs. Cream cheese softened
¾ cup of butter, softened
2 cups all-purpose flour

Blend ingredients together well. Press small amounts of dough into miniature muffin tins.

Filling:
2 cups sugar
1 tbls flour
1 tbls cornmeal
2 eggs, beaten
¼ cup butter, melted
¼ cup milk
¼ cup lemon juice plus rind of lemons, grated

Toss sugar, flour and cornmeal lightly with fork. Add other ingredients. Beat by hand until smooth. Pour into tart shells. Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes. Allow to cool. Remove from tins and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Makes 24 miniature tarts.

One of these days I will get fancy with the blog (when I have time to figure the ins and outs of it) and put all the recipes off to the side for a one stop shop for anyone who is interested in our recipes we are cooking.

Saturday:
Gladly, I did not have to work on Saturday. Which was a very nice surprise – I slept in to a whooping 9:00 AM. When I don’t have to work on the weekends anymore I would like to make a habit of sleeping in. I will shoot for 10:00 AM but who I am kidding. I will be happy to sleep in until 9:00 AM or 9:30 AM. I miss sleeping in so much! Enough of my complaining! Moving on - after a while Brian came over and we decided to grab some lunch (there is a gross lunch story that I can’t bring myself to type out without gagging – so if you want to know that story Brian will have to tell you). So after lunch we decided to start our wedding registries! Yay for getting something wedding related done. I feel like I have been such a slacker - I haven’t had a chance to do wedding stuff in so long. We had such a great time enjoying the day together and deciding what items we would want/need after we get married. Let me just say, I knew that Bed, Bath and Beyond had a lot of stuff but goodness; after a while I just wanted to say, “I will take one of everything”. K. Thanks. Seriously though they have a ton of stuff! We would stand there trying to decide what colors we wanted in our house after we get married. We made some decisions but we will probably change our minds somewhat before the wedding gets here. I am just glad they let you edit (add and take off) as much as you want.

Sunday:
We finished off the weekend with me working at Publix Sunday AM. Sunday afternoon I went to David’s Bridal to buy my bridesmaid dress for Tracey’s wedding this coming September. I can’t wait. I know her wedding will be so beautiful and so much FUN! Afterwards Brian and I dropped in to Men’s Warehouse to look at some tuxes before heading over to his parent’s house for dinner. It was a jam packed day but we enjoyed it. We hope everyone had a wonderful weekend as well.