How Does Your Garden Grow?: BnB '14 the Summer Edition

Let's lighten things up, shall we? Many fun things have happened that I haven't shared. Let me recap one very fun week I had in June. It was Booze & Beads 2014 (minus the beads, but we thought about them)! It was time for T2's yearly visit.

We started our week together by opening a box her mom had sent the prior week with instructions to wait to open. She knew what was inside. It was an awesome box of lovely handmade items including this quilt! We also got an assortment of beautiful kitchen towels.

If you can't tell, this is a BACON themed quilt

We had an entire week planned with shopping and gardening, eating and drinking. We had rain every other day with at least one good old fashioned thunderstorm with some pretty amazing lightning. Overall, it was an incredible week.

We started the week by shopping locally and had wild success at finding way too many ridiculously cute clothes. That rarely happens for both of us, so that was even more amazing. We never made it to the waterpark with the world's tallest slide, but that's OK. It hadn't opened yet anyway and there's always next year. I wonder if we will have the guts to do it...

Here's what we ate for breakfast:

Puffy Pancake!

Breakfast sammich

Here's what we ate for lunch:

Naan pizza (pretty self explanatory on this dish)

We had lunch at Blanc Bottles & Burgers, like we have had a few times in the past. Except this year, when we arrived to our destination, we realized... it's closed. They moved. That should have been our clue to change it up, but we sought them out.

I took a great picture of my burger:

At least it LOOKED good

Overall we were disappointed in this place. Why?

I make a better Pickle Martini according to pickle-martini-aficionado Tullybird.
My burger had very little bottom bun which meant that by the time I was half way through eating my burger, the other half I was trying to hold onto went to mush and disintegrated in my hand so I ended up eating it upside down like an open faced sandwich.
Cold/old onion rings (which happen to be photogenic). At least the sweet potato fries were fresh because they initially brought me the WRONG fries. (Uhhh, no, I don't like your truffle oil-bomb fries.)
The waiter was clueless about the coupon I had.
It was BLOODY HOT in there.
No martini/drink menu--WTF?

Time to find a new place--which I happen to have picked out already!

Here's what we ate for dinner:

We had steaks, tomato/basil/mozzarella salad, smashed taters, and asparagus from the garden.


Mmmmm, beef

Mexican Lasagna
Mix all of your favorite burrito ingredients together such as:

Seasoned ground meat
Refried beans
Corn
Green chili's
Black olives
Grilled onions

Mix it all together and layer it between tortilla shells (flour or corn) with taco/enchilada sauce and cheese, then repeat the layers like a lasagna. Cook until heated through (350 for 30-40 min).

Enjoy with your favorite tasty beverage, such as a cream soda and chocolate vodka. Or not, like if you enjoyed one too many Bahama Mama's the night before (not judging).

Tasty to the 10th degree

We had magical stuffed burgers. This BBQ sauce smothered burger was hugging a hot juicy load of blue cheese and grilled onions:

I highly recommend stuffing your burgers with blue cheese

I would have taken a picture of the middle of my burger, but my hands were kind of messy with oozing cheese and grease. You'll just have to make one for yourself.

We also had this for dinner:

RRRRrrrrribs!!! Very tasty ribs

Tullybird cooked us dinner! She found a fabulous recipe which I've already made again (with grilled onions and blue cheese), it was that good.

Put on a burrito with scrambled egg for breakfast the next day and enjoy the leftovers

Tullybird said that she wanted to play pinball, so we had a few pinball players over. I knew if we didn't have a night designated for it, we would probably never venture to the basement. Fortunately, my evil plan worked. We played pinball for several fun hours.

We served pulled pork, coleslaw, baked beans, and Rotel/Velveeta cheesy dip. It was yummy. Someone decided to eat it all together. I have to admit, it was pretty (but I'm a boundaries kind of eater).

Garbage sink nachos, anyone?

Pinball night!

And then there was this with the pulled pork:

Chimichangas and guacamole

Here's what we drank.

Most importantly, here are some of the tastiest beverages consumed that week. I know you've been waiting for this list.

We had Bahama Mama's. I may have loved them a little too much. You can find a boatload of recipes on Pinterest.

Warning: these might be too tasty

While building electronic kits for Todd, we had Pickle Martinis which I had planned for months....

Pickle Martinis

Pickle Vodka*
Pickle juice
Spicy pickle relish

Place in a shaker with crushed ice and do a little jig. Strain into a martini glass, garnish with a pickle, and sip.

*2 months prior to indulging, cover drained spicy pickles with vodka in a mason jar. Screw on the lid and place in the fridge. Wait patiently.

Personally, I choked. I couldn't handle the spice. So that left more for her. I'm a giver like that.

I'm really glad SHE liked them!

Adult Strawberry Lemonade

3 parts Moscato wine (white or pink)
3 parts Lemonade
1 part Strawberry rum (or Dragon Berry which is a combination of strawberry and dragon berries, whatever those are)

I'm not a white or pink wine fan, but let me just tell you how stinkin' good this combination is!

Try it, and then come back and thank me.

Orange You Happy

Orange Float Malibu Rum (seriously, if you've never had this and even remotely like orange, you must try this stuff)
White Moscato wine
Ginger ale
Pineapple OJ
Apricot nectar

I don't remember ratios, but you can basically go by the relation of the container sizes in the picture. Mix some, try it, adjust to your liking. I liked it juuuust fine!

Didn't even have this one planned!

And now for the most whacky experiment of the week...

Cucumber Jalapeno Margaritas

1 Frozen cucumber (cubed)
A small chunk of frozen chipotle in adobo sauce (drained before freezing)
Tequila (3 parts)
Triple Sec (1 part)
Squeeze of fresh lime
Ice

Mix it all in a blender and enjoy the burn!

Grape Margaritas

A bunch of frozen red grapes
Tequila (3 parts)
Triple Sec (1 part)
Chambord (or raspberry liquor) (1 part)
Squeeze of fresh lime
Ice

Mix it all in a blender and blend, blend, blend. Keep blending so all the grape skins are pulverized. This could entice you to put that fancy shmancy super-expensive blender on your Christmas list next holiday season. Cause you know you wouldn't have to blend this long... Sip and enjoy the sweetness!

Cucumber Jalapeno Margaritas and Grape Margaritas (guess which one was mine?)

I would have to say the margarita experiment was a success. She loved hers. I loved mine. She's savory, I'm sweet. Just means I get to experiment more!

At the end of the week, we were tired from having so much fun...