The Princess & The Pea

Hello again! Have you all recovered form your weekends and the Monday blues? Did you get up to anything fun? We had a brilliant weekend!

First up, we had our fairytale new mattress of joy delivered on Friday. Our old mattress from the UK had collapsed on Hubby's side so he had taken to sleeping in the spare bed, but I found the spare mattress too hard so I was still sleeping in the old bed :-( I wont lie, part of me did enjoy the few nights I had with a whole bed to myself, but we were very happy when the new mattress arrived! And oh! What a mattress?!



We got a Sealy Posturepedic pillow top mattress and it is the comfiest bed I have ever slept in in  my entire life! On the downside though, it is twice as deep as our old mattress which makes it look quite ridiculous on our wee bed, and none of the sheets fit properly, but I don't care!! I loves it!!! :-)



On Friday night we had a long overdue catch up with Vera & Leo and their beautiful baby daughter. This was the first of my planned dinner parties of the year and I spent ages trying to decide what to make. I settled on a couple of things that I had tried before - asparagus wrapped in prosciutto and phyllo pastry for an appetiser, followed by grilled chicken with a mushroom and wild rice pilaf and roast veggies. This was the second time I had tried the pilaf and it was much improved! I totally forgot to get pics of these for you, but I will definitely be making them again so you'll just have to wait for next time!

The highlight of the meal was the dessert. Ive never really made desserts before - back in the UK they always came from Marks & Spencer - and was a bit intimidated by most of the recipes I was finding, until I came across Jamie Oliver's cheat pavlova. It looked fairly simple and rather impressive so I gave it a go and was very glad that I did!!

Other culinary highlights of the weekend included my new favourite brunch - a fry up of potatoes, asparagus, mushrooms, red bell peppers and topped off with a poached egg - yum! We even threw in some crisped up leftover prosciutto - double yum!!

Saturday dinner ended up being a surprisingly delicious Asian edamame and shrimps noodles. I say "surprisingly" as our food processor failed to puree the ginger down properly so it was all lumpy, and I forgot to reserve some of the noodle water so the dish was a little drier than it should have been, but I really enjoyed it and it will be making future appearances on our menu!



Saturday night found us back at the Grapevine wine bar in Willow Glen, but unfortunately there was a band playing and they were the worst band I have ever heard!! They proceeded to murder many classic rock songs at obscenely loud volumes to the point where it was more comfortable to sit outside wrapped up in coats and gloves than to suffer the noise inside! The wine, snacks, and service was as wonderful as ever, though, and we still had a fantastic, if chilly, night!

Well, that sums up our weekend. Hubby is off work this week so hopefully I'll have some adventures to share with you, culinary or otherwise. The main thing on the agenda for today, though, is to get some new bloody sheets ....!!!! Laters x

Stuff 'n' nonsense

Greetings!! What's new in your part of the world? We haven't been having too many adventures, but I would like to tell you about our new favourite wine bar, Grapevine in Willow Glen. We ventured down with the usual suspects (you know who you are!!) on Saturday night and loved it so much we were back there on Tuesday! They have a really good selection of wine and speciality beers, and a truly scrumptious appetiser menu. The ham and Gouda grilled cheese sandwiches, and prosciutto, cheese and arugula flat breads will definitely keep us coming back for more!!

We also got our Vegas trip booked - woohoo!! :-) We were planning a longer road trip there but Hubby will be very busy at work so we are going to fly there Wednesday night and come back Saturday afternoon - that should be just enough time to pickle our livers without destroying them completely!! Thanks to everyone who has suggested restaurants and things to do - I think we have enough recommendations to see us through at least another 5 trips!

I got round to making one of my new recipes that i've been meaning to try for a while last night, and I can confidently say that spicy basil chicken has gone straight in to my top 5 recipes - hurrah!! I made the sesame rice as suggested, but I used white rice as we were too hungry to wait for brown to cook, and it came out a bit soggy but the flavours were really yummy and went well with the chicken.

This will be a good meal to make when our friends Greeny and Nadine get here for their visit (19 more sleeps - squeeeeee!!) as Nadine doesn't eat meat, and it would be very easy and equally delicious made with shrimp.

Well, now I shall go back to contemplating the gym. I went on Tuesday and did a couple of new upper body exercises but have shocked some new muscles in my arms and chest in to life, and dear god they are sore!! I only got 3 or 4 hours sleep last night as no matter how I lay something was hurting just enough to keep me awake :-( Maybe I'll skip the gym today and get some exercise walking around the mall instead .... ;-)

Laters ..... x