It's 5 o'clock Somewhere

The Jimmy Buffett concert was on Tuesday and we had such a great time! We had about 15 people over to our house for a preparty. Mom let me borrow all of her Buffett decorations, so here is what I did:

For food we tried to relate everything to Buffett. We had:

Fruit kabobs and a margarita fruit dip served in a coconut (Margaritaville and Coconut Telegraph)

Crackers and shrimp dip in a volcano shape (Volcano)

Taco Pinwheels (Nautical Wheelers)

Chips and Peach/Mango Salsa (Last Mango in Paris)

5 layer mexican dip (It's 5 O'clock somewhere)

Cheeseburgers (Cheeseburger in Paradise)

We also had Crab Meltaways and brownies but I couldn't figure out how to fit those into the theme.

It was BYOB but we had glasses from our cruise that people could use for their "Boat Drinks."

In the afternoon, after a drink or two ....


Towards the end of the night, after many drinks!

You can see the rest of the pictures at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lafletcher80/JimmyBuffett

Another success!

Tonight I made Blue Cheese-Stuffed Burgers for Jason and we invited my mom over as well. I made 3 burgers instead of 4 and used a little more blue cheese. They were really good! I'm just now getting to where I like blue cheese and these were great. It's another "make again recipe."




Blue Cheese-Stuffed Burgers

Cooking spray
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 pound ground round
3 tablespoons dry breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons water
1 egg white, lightly beaten
1/4 cup (1 ounce) crumbled blue cheese

Coat a small nonstick skillet with cooking spray; place over medium heat until hot. Add onion; saute 5 minutes or until tender. Remove from heat; let cool. Combine onion, beef, breadcrumbs, water, and egg white in a large bowl; stir well. Divide mixture into 8 equal portions, shaping into 1/2-inch-thick patties. Spoon 1 tablespoon cheese into the center of 4 patties; top with remaining patties. Press edges together to seal.

Prepare grill. Place patties on grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 4 minutes on each side or until done.

Food Blog

So apparently a pretty popular thing to do now is to have a "food blog." It seems to be mostly women my age, recently married, who are experimenting with cooking. They try out a new recipe, take a picture, and post about it in their blog. I'm not going to do an entire blog for it, but once a week I'm going to try out a new recipe and see how it goes. Tonight mom and Patrick came over to help taste test it! We had Chicken with Goat Cheese and Sun-Dried Tomato Sauce. (Found it on another blog - Annie's Eats.) Also had mashed potatoes and a squash/onion/red pepper mix of veggies. The chicken was really good and was voted a definite "make again" by everyone!



Chicken with Goat Cheese and Sun-Dried Tomato Sauce
Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts, pounded thin
1 tbsp. olive oil
¼ cup white wine
½ cup chicken broth
2 tbsp. sun-dried tomatoes, chopped (and drained, if packed in oil)
2 oz. herbed goat cheese
salt and pepper

Directions:
Sprinkle chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Heat skillet over medium-high heat and add oil. When oil is hot, add chicken breasts. Cook through, about 6-8 minutes per side, depending on the thickness. Set aside and keep warm.

In the same skillet, add the wine. Cook over medium-high heat until reduced by half, being sure to scrape up the browned bits from the chicken. Add the chicken broth and reduce that by about half too. Add the sun-dried tomatoes and heat through.

Remove skillet from heat and stir in the goat cheese. Top the chicken breasts with sauce and serve.

**For 4 of us, I doubled the recipe.**

Kenny Chesney concert

At the last minute yesterday Jason & I got tickets to the sold out Kenny Chesney concert. If you ask Jason he'll probably have a different review, but I thought it was fantastic! Rarely is there a concert when I know (or am somewhat familiar with) every song played. Pat Green and Sugarland opened and both were pretty good. The worst part was when we left - we even tried cutting out before the encore was over and it still took us 2 hours to get out of the parking lot - ridiculous! I think we were the last ones in the entire complex to get out of there. Ugh.

Can you tell Jason was a little bored at some points during the night?

Nashville!

Mom, Karen, and I went to Nashville, TN this past weekend. We got there Friday night and went over to the Gaylord Opryland Resort, ate at the Jack Daniel's Saloon, and then walked around and saw the Grand Ole Opry. On Saturday we got up and went to see the Parthenon, and then toured the Belle Meade Plantation. Then we spent a few hours shopping at Opry Mills and that night went out on the town. We started at the Cadillac Ranch where we ate and watched a live band. Then we went to the Wild Horse Saloon. We had a few drinks, ate some fried pickles, and watched the line dancing. It's gotten alot more complicated since I was last there!

Downtown date

We decided to go downtown this afternoon and play tourists. We walked around and went to Monument Circle - neither of us can remember ever actually walking around the circle and couldn't believe some of the statues. (See the bears in chains???) Then we ate outside at Rock Bottom Brewery - it was so good!





We still haven't figured out why Indianapolis decided to have "moving sculptures." We think actual tourists probably figure they're new "walk/don't walk" signs - wonder if they've caused any near accidents?


We couldn't decide which of the "self portrait" pictures we liked better, so you get to see both. :)

Tea Party

For Nikki's going away party (she and Tyler will be living in Phoenix, Arizona now) we had a tea party! It was at The Ruby Pear in Noblesville. (www.therubypear.com) It's an old Victorian house and you can rent out little rooms for your tea party. We had tea, little tea sandwiches, cookies, scones, and a chocolate covered strawberry. Before we left we put on some of the fancy hats there and got our picture taken. It was Jen, Megan, Anna, me, Misty, Chrissi, Gavin (Megan and Allen's son), and Nikki. Such a great time!

Rock the Mullet

Jason and I had our "Rock the Mullet" party today and it was a success! It was a redneck/hillbilly/white trash themed party. Our first guests arrived at 2pm and the last left at 10pm - all in all I think we had 40 people show up. And yet somehow I've still got the energy to update the blog! (Hint: if you click on a picture you can see it bigger.)

I don't have many pictures of our food, but here was our menu:
Appetizers & Munchies - Pigs in a blanket, White Castle burgers, chips, dip, crackers and spray cheese, cheetos, funyons, and pork rinds.
Main - hot dogs, brats, potato salad, baked beans, macaroni and cheese
Dessert - Twinkees/Ding Dongs Cake, Jello mold, Spiked Watermelon (and wow, was that a pain to do!), Rice Krispy treats, Dirt pudding, Oreo cookies, and Fig Newtons. We tried to find Moon Pies but didn't have much luck.
Drinks - Jello shots, beer, Boone's Farm, soda, lemonade, and orange drink

Decorations - to start with, the front of our house - complete with a snowman, bunny rabbit, yard ornaments and a clothes line with some granny panties from Goodwill. The flower pots on the front porch were in tires, and we replaced our bench with some plastic chairs and a cooler. Oh, and Keystone beer sign on the front door.



In the backyard we put a tent up and had some parrot lights dangling from it. Also see the trashcan we set out - on the other side of that is the lawn mower we decided to leave out as well.


This is just a nice picture of the deck because I don't think I've actually posted one yet. It's 20'x24' and Jason & his dad built it this past fall. My mom and I put in the lattice work and did the landscaping - now we just need the bushes to grow!


This is the awesome bar that Kyle built for us! The keg is to the left of it - we decided to be a tiny bit klassier than originally planned and went with Coors Light instead of Keystone, Natty Light, or Pabst Blue Ribbon.


Baby pool with the rest of the beverages - soda, lemonade, and 9 different flavors of Boone's Farm (and would you believe that those aren't even all that they make?!?


Glider chairs with a big bowl of cheetos. The "centerpieces" are little vienna sausage cans with red carnations "planted" in them.


Main table. The centerpieces on this one were SPAM cans with carnations. This is also where one of the Keystone Light wind chimes was hanging.


What are you supposed to be looking for in this picture?? The twinkee and ding dong cake sitting on the table. Oh, and the White Castle box in the lower right corner.


The cornhole boards! We got them as a wedding present but both were all white. I painted them with the IU and Purdue symbols this week.


And now for some of the costumes! I'd like to point out Jason's rat tail - he was quite proud of it!


Jeff, Kerry, & Brooklyn - what a cute family!


Kevin and then his wife Beth - both with a few black teeth.


Katie and Brandon - aka K-Fed and Brittany Spears.


And my favorite - Chrissi!


I've got quite a few other pictures but it's time to hit the sack! I'll probably post more later!

Happy Easter!

We had Easter lunch/dinner at our house this year. It was Jason & I, my mom, Patrick, Karen, Stephanie (one of Karen's friends from law school - she lived too far away to go to her home for Easter), Roland, Susan, and Matt.

We had cole slaw, deviled eggs, broccoli casserole, creamy mashed potato bake, macaroni & cheese, ham, and peach cobbler for dessert. It was a combination of each family's favorites.


On the table I used a pale green tablecloth, and then mom and I deciphered Martha Stewart's instructions and turned the napkins into bunny ears! The basket in the middle of the table held the rolls.


Lastly, this is a picture of the fun new drink container that I have! There is an inside tube that holds the ice, so it keeps the drink cold, without watering it down.