Cocktail Party

I'm not sure if I've told you this before, but I love entertaining. I know, I know. Big surprise there.

So, I invited some friends over and we decided to make a few fancy snacks. I made crostini with tomatoes tossed in extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar and seasoned with fresh garlic and basil, and also some baked provolone with walnuts and oregano, which we then ate over toasted crostini.

But the star of the party was the bar. I made some simple syrup and infused various flavors, including raspberry, mint, cinnamon and lemon zest.

Everyone experimented making drinks by picking something to muddle in the bottom of the glass, then a simple syrup, a liquor, and loooots of shaved ice. We ended up with some fun combinations. 

Drinks we tried include: blackberry-mint-vodka, mint-lemon-tequila, raspberry-cinnamon-amaretto and rasperry-mint-raspberry flavored vodka. It was kind of hard to mess up, pretty much every combination was delicious.

It was a fun theme for a party, I'll definitely have to try it again some time, and branch out with my simple syrup flavors. Brandon and I are finishing out our evening watching the Olympic opening ceremonies.

Have a lovely weekend!!

Catching Up

I have been absolutely BURIED with schoolwork recently. I had my thesis proposal (it was accepted!) and I was just too stressed to worry about anything else. But now that it's behind me, I'm ready to get back to doing fun stuff on the weekends, taking photos, and telling you all about it! In the meantime, here's what I found on my camera from the last month:

Brandon built a play structure for our cat Quorra. She started climbing on it before he even finished, and now she LOVES it. 

Rewarding good behavior. 

Finishing the top level. 

Teaching her that it's safe. 

You mean... its all for me??

In my state of stress, I splurged on a new outfit. It was a bit pricey by my standards, so I had to make sure it was versatile... 

I was very pleased with the results.

Brandon made some fancy chicken kiev. He chopped the butter into little sticks and stuck it in the freezer with herbs. Then, after pounding the chicken flat, he rolled it up with the butter in the middle, breaded it and fried it in the cast iron skillet. It was delish! I don't normally like chicken, but Brandon always manages to make something really creative with it. 

On the side, we had quinoa and some amazing spinach salad with toasted apples and shallots.

Brandon made some insanely loaded burgers with avocado spread and spring mix, amongst many other things. He felt like a mad genius by the end.....

Drunk with burger power.

My friend Aparna came over and we baked some pies. She loves sweets, but never learned to bake, so I said we could do some baking projects together. Turns out: she's a natural!

That's it for now! Sorry for the hiatus, I'll try and post more regularly now that things have calmed down in lab. Famous last words, right? ;-)

Stacy and Eric Visited!

A LOT of stuff has happened since my last post. I didn't get photos of it all, but I will do a compilation "catching up" post soon. In the meantime, I want to talk about our friends coming to visit!!

Stacy and Eric are some of my closest friends from college. They got married while we were roommates, and now they have a baby on the way! I just *had* to get some girl time in with Stacy before her life was taken over by diapers and bottles. And experiencing Eric's exuberant craziness after a two-year break was certainly... refreshing. But also we wanted to show them a little of San Antonio before we move away next year! Here's the photo dump:

 Chillin' at the apartment.

Poolside. 

We didn't realize we had the camera on blue filter, but for pool photos, it kinda works anyway. 

At the Cove. I think Eric is doing a dance? 

 Alamo.

Riverwalk ice cream. 

Chillin on the riverwalk. 

Lulu's chicken-fried steak. Not sure why we're pouting... 

Lulu's massive cinnamon bun.

We also got in a lot of just relaxing around the house, catching up and chatting. It was a GREAT visit and I direly needed the chance to relax. In a day or so, I'll do a photo-dump entry to show you all the OTHER stuff we've been up to lately. ^_^