Date Night: Dinner & a Movie

Since getting married, Brian and I have had a Date Night every week. For us this involves dinner (either out or a nice dinner in) and usually a show. Thanks to my job at an arts nonprofit I get tickets to lots of shows either free or heavily discounted. In the past few weeks we've been to the Symphony twice, seen a couple fantastic musicals, a horrid play, and last night we attended a showing of our local Film Festival. It was, appropriately, a collection of short films titled "Date Night."

Since this was a work-night Date Night, dinner had to be on the table pretty fast to make it to our movie. For a fast dinner, I always make a plan and cook ahead. So, we decided on pizza and I planned accordingly:

For toppings, roasted red bell peppers were in the freezer, a jar of caramelized onions in the fridge. (My secret weapon. You know, if I were a kitchen super hero -- which I kinda am.) We bought sausage and mozzarella during our regular grocery trip this past weekend. On Wednesday night I threw together my favorite pizza dough, spiked with olive oil and white wine and let it sit in the fridge overnight. I also opened a large can of crushed tomatoes, minced 3 large cloves of garlic and let them reduce and thicken on the stove top, for a super-easy red sauce. On Thursday morning I pulled out the pizza dough to let it rise all day.

Fast forward to Date Night! When I get home from work and know I'm going to baking something relatively soon, I turn the oven on the minute I walk in our back door to the kitchen, before I've hung up my keys, shrugged off my coat and kissed my husband hello. Because everything was prepped, we opened wine (red for Brian, white for me), and he crumbled and cooked sausage on the stove top while I rolled out the pizza dough. Within 15 minutes the oven was blaring hot, the pizza was topped and we were good to go. We stood around and chatted while the pizza baked, then sat down at a cleared off dining table with candles lit and gave thanks for all the many blessings in our lives -- then dug into hot, delicious pizza!

The rest of the night was a success- the films were a mix between funny, adorable, tear-jerking and downright bad. We stopped for frozen custard on the way home (Mint chip for Brian, rocky road for me.)

As newlyweds, it seems like a no-brainer that we would go out all the time, laugh together, smooch inappropriately in public, etc. But we're kinda homebodies and now that we're living together, there's nothing we like more than snuggling up on our comfy couch (aka Sunday Movie Night). So to balance all the couch snuggling, we force ourselves to get a little dressed up, leave the house and hold hands in public, over drinks or ice cream (or frankly, both). We both want kids, sooner rather than later, so we're consciously taking time to enjoy this pre-children part of our lives. We're grateful for how much fun we have together.

Required Reading - 1

Since getting married and moving to a different part of the city, I've renewed my love for the local library. I currently have 8 books checked out, with 1 more cookbook waiting to be picked up. I thought I'd start a list of which books make me carry them around in my purse, looking for spare moments to turn a page.


My Berlin Kitchen is a new kitchen memoir written by Luisa Weiss, the clever author behind the blog The Wednesday Chef. I love reading memoirs that incorporate recipes and this has to be the best one I've read lately. Luisa writes about her childhood, lived between Berlin and Boston, in a way that makes you want to take every plane ride with her. Once I started this book I couldn't put it down. I sat in the kitchen on a Thursday night, stirring stew and reading. I stole ten minutes in bed in the morning before making myself get up. I can't wait to put her spicy mexican meatballs on my to-cook list next week, the perfect antidote to the cold weather that's officially settled in.



For "chick-lit," Mary Kay Andrews is my favorite, hands down. Her books are always set in the South, packed with interesting women and full of juicy twists & turns. Spring Fever was slightly slow in taking off, but soon I couldn't put it down. If you're new to her books, congrats! There's a dozen or so for you to catch up on. I envy you.


Jen Lancaster is the queen of the humorous memior. Her latest book, now that she's tucked into the quiet suburbs, far away from the Logan Square neighborhood, rife with crime and other juice gossip, might have been boring. It's not. I was sitting in bed, giggling to myself for nights on end (or so it seemed to my poor husband, trying to sleep. He asked what was so funny. He's now reading it.)

Those are my favorites from the past couple weeks. (I read fast.) Thankfully I've got a score of new library books just waiting for me at home...

September Hits and Misses

I've started keeping a dinner journal, ala Dinner: A Love Story, so picking out hits and misses is relatively easy- my notes either say "ehhh" or "yum! again!"

Hits:

One of the fantastic wedding gifts we got was a breadmaker. I've found a couple recipes that I like, but the one I love are these easy garlic dinner rolls. I've made them 3 times in a week. I add a good shake of rosemary for a garlic-rosemary twist. We've eaten them with salmon & pasta, and stew with friends and tonight with glazed ham.

Haiti Bloggers 2012. Jen Hatmaker, the writer of "7," a book/project I'll explain in its own post, is going to Haiti this week with a number of other bloggers. Our family will be praying that their trip is safe and harmonious. They'll be blogging all week about the trip, the link above has their posts. I've developed a soft spot in my heart for Haiti since my Uncle Tom recently made a trip there to work on building a school. A couple weeks ago Brian and I started sponsoring a 4 year old boy in Haiti through Compassion International.

This grilled pork tenderloin, glazed with molasses and bourbon. It didn't last long in our house!

These fake facebook quarterback conversations are priceless, and the sequel.


Misses:

A chicken-veggie-pasta soup. I cooked all the pasta in the big pot of soup. That was dumb and it just turned mushy over time. Next time, just hit up each batch with it's own tiny serving of pasta.

Rolls that I won't even link too, but I was at my parent's house and without a couple crucial ingredients for the garlic-rosemary rolls. I tried a new recipe and they were horrid. We're completely spoiled for all other dinner rolls now.

The fact that it is now still dark when the alarm goes off. Boo.

Newlywed Life

There isn't much of an excuse for missing the better part of a year, and how I wish I had captured that year better. Not long after February, there was talk of getting married and a trip to scout rings with a girlfriend. A month later, a proposal fittingly in a kitchen, a story to be told later. Four months later, the wedding, an event that obviously deserves its own post. And now, neatly tied up in one short paragraph, we're newlyweds, living in our beautiful, two bedroom, top floor of a duplex across from the local middle school. The whirlwind summer is over and we're solidly into fall. Our living room windows line up with the tops of the trees and the leaves are harvest gold and pumpkin orange. It's become a fun, busy life grounded in the comfort of coming home to each other every night. We also eat really well. But before I get into the meals, just a few tidbits of life I'd enjoy remembering someday:

The wink of my double circle of diamonds on my left hand
B pulling me out of bed in the mornings, resorting to tickeling if necessary
The quiet of the apartment when he's out teaching
Breakfast, reading to each other interesting bits from our magazines:
B- Discover, Wood, Sports Illustrated
A- Southern Living, Our State, Garden & Gun
My breakfast constantly changes
He consistantly eats peanut butter and apricot jelly toast
Lots of cuddling
Lots of talk about our future children
Episodes of The Office to wind down at night
Lots of football all weekend
Lots of smiles