Wedding Wednesday! - I'm on the move!

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As the countdown to the wedding continues, I am beginning to get the fitness and "slenderize" bug.  Like most brides out there, I want to look and feel the best I can on my wedding day.   With 5 1/2 months til the wedding (crazy!) I have become proactive to to reach this goal by becoming more active and making better food decisions.  

Become More Active: It has been a while since I last purchased a pair of shoes that had laces or required socks, so it's more than an understatement to say that getting a new pair of shoes was a MUST.  To be honest, buying running shoes isn't quite as fun as buying a pair of heels, but I felt a tinge of pride knowing I was on my way to getting into shape.

 With a friend, my new shoes and I have officially taken the first few steps to reaching my fitness and "wedding body"goal.  So far we have only gone walking a couple of times (4 1/2 miles each time!), but unlike Zoomba, I think my afternoon walks will be a fitness regimen I will stick with.  :)

Make Good Food Decisions:  I know that in order to reach their wedding body goal some people will cleanse and other try fad diets, but I have taken a different (more realistic) approach: I don't deprive myself of anything, but just make better choices.  

What exactly do I mean by this?  

I still love to eat onion rings, cupcakes, and pasta, but as often as possible, I just try to make healthy choices so that I don't feel guilty when I do want to splurge. 

What are a few of my healthy food choices?

Well, I try to eat breakfast everyday, and choose fat free yogurt with fruit over pastries.  When deciding what to get eat for lunch, I often (not always) choose salad rather than a burger or if I do choose the burger, I opt for a salad rather than french fries.  When getting snackie in the afternoon, I try my best avoid the office candy jar by choosing a high fiber cereal or granola.  And, when going out to eat, I try to portion out my food so I don't eat 2 or 3 servings of food.  These changes have not been easy but so far so good.  

Strawberry Pie!

The Mister strained his back at work the other week so I decided I'd bake him a pie to make things a little better (and to eliminate another item from my Thirty Before 30).   I baked a fresh strawberry pie (with help from my favorite sous chef, the Mister) using Ina Garten's "Perfect Pie Crust" and a strawberry pie recipe I found on allrecipes.com.  

Ingredients (crust):

12 tablespoons very cold unsalted butter

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt 

1 tablespoon sugar

1/3 cup very cold vegetable shortening

6 to 8 tablespoons (about 1/2 cup) ice water

 We rolled the dough using my newest kitchen gadget, my French rolling pin!

 The rolled dough was rolled over the pie pan and fitted.

 I tried to make the crust pretty, like the pre-made crusts I usually buy from the store.

 I poked some air holes to let the crust breathe while baking.

We didn't have pie weights so I filled the foil lined crust with the glass beads we usually use for our flower vases.

The Barefoot Contessa pie crust recipe isn't written for blind baking so I followed the baking instructions I found for another pie crust recipe:

Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes 

Bake the crust at 400 degrees for 15 minutes

Remove from the oven 

Lower the oven temperature to 350, and bake for an additional 8-10 minutes (I ended up baking the crust for about 15 minutes)

While the crust was chilling, baking, and chilling again we worked on the pie filling.

Ingredients:

1 quart fresh strawberries

1 cup white sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch 

3/4 cup water

 Placed half of the strawberries into the cooled pie crust.

 We put the other half of the strawberries in a food processor and placed it in a saucepan with the other ingredients.  I decided to add a gelatin mixture (1 1/2 teaspoon and 3 tablespoon iced water) to the saucepan so the finished pie would be easier to cut, hold its shape, and the wouldn't be a big mess in the pan when just a couple pieces are left.

Voila!
Unfortunately we had to wait a few hours for the pie to set and cool.  It was beyond delish!

 I only have one pie pan so we had to think of what to do with the extra pie crust dough... we made an A&G creation: "pie snackers!" The Mister rolled the dough and cut them into circles, then we buttered them lightly and filled them with some goodies from around the kitchen: blackberries, strawberries, bananas, dark chocolate, Reese's peanut butter cups, and a cinnamon sugar mix.

 Yum yum yum!

I miss my Furry friend

It is healthy and honorable to weep at the loss of someone we love. Healthy because such a passion must be released.  Honorable because it is respectful to admit the importance of people who have loved and supported us... people whose footprints cannot ever be matched.  
Maya Angelou

Tobi's Story

After looking through a dog book that a friend had I decided I wanted a Shiba Inu.  Known to be smart, clean, independent, relatively quiet (unless threatened), alert, and good natured, I thought that a Shiba would be the perfect addition to our family.  I sold the idea to the parentals.

One morning, months after talking to my parents about "needing" a Shiba, I was awoken to "Do you want a big or small present?"
Me: BIG!
M&D: Okay go into the living room to get your present.
I wasn't sure if this was just a ploy to get me out of bed (I was known for easily sleeping 12-13 hours on a free weekend) but hey, I was intrigued!  When I made it out to the living room there was a large kennel filled with dog food, water and food bowls, blankets, towels, and toys.  I was still sleepy and now very confused.
M&D: Do you want the small present?
Me: YES!
They handed me a large envelope filled with papers.  OMG! Puppy papers!
M&D: How fast can you get ready so we can pick him up?
I think I was half way back up the hallway before I could respond.  I was known for taking a while to get ready, but on that particular day I was ready in about five minutes and ended up waiting for M&D! I remember the car ride to pick up my puppy seeming to be the longest ride ever (in actuality it was probably about 20 minutes)!

Tobi and I instantly bonded.  He was cutest little fur ball I had ever seen!  He had super soft and fluffy fur, big eyes, little ears that didn't quite point upward yet, a curly tail, and the sharpest little teeth!  It was love at first sight.
Every time we came home Tobi would greet us with a whole bunch of excitement as well as a ball or a toy.  He used to sit near me or in the hallway as I practiced the violin or did my homework.  On occasion he gave me "the signal" (little bite/nip) when he disapproved of a date.  And late at night when everyone was asleep, he used to listen to me as I told him my deepest secrets, about my crushes, the things that happened to me during the day, and all the things I promised I wouldn't tell to anyone else at school (cause sometimes you need to tell someone).

The addition of Furry, as I sometimes called him, was one of the best things that happened to our family.   While he tested our patience at times, he loved us, was extremely good natured, made us laugh and smile, helped us to meet our neighbors, watched the house while we were out, on occasion woke us up with a wet and slimy ball,  and what I am most grateful for, he brought our family together when we needed it most.

I love you, To, and I miss you so much. XO

From Farmers' Market to Beef Bourguignon!

Ever since I saw the movie Julie and Julia I have wanted to make Beef Bourguignon (and start a blog), so with our findings from our adventure at the farmers' market we decided to make my J&J inspired dinner.  After reading recipe reviews however, I decided to make Ina Garten's (who happens to be my Julia Child for many meals) beef bourguignon; upon reading the comments we decided to cook it for 3 hours.  

Cubed beef, seasoned with salt and pepper.

Baby carrots substituted for regular carrots, a personal preference. 

 The onions from the farmers' market.

 The Hamakua Mushrooms.

 Flambe! Oooh!

Large egg noodles 

 Toasted bread with a homemade roasted garlic butter. 

The 3 hour wait was well worth it! Dinner was delish!  

Shopping at the Farmers' Market

The Mister and I were one of hundreds of people who packed into a parking lot at KCC (Kapiolani Community College) to shop and eat their way through the Saturday Farmers' Market.   We had been wanting to go to this farmers' market for a while now, and I'm happy to say, it was totally worth the wait.     Not only did it make me happy to be buying fresh produce, it was nice to know that we were supporting local growers.  

These Hamakua Mushrooms were amazing, even after being chopped and cooked, the mushrooms did not cook down; they maintained their shape and firmness, and had a very distinct (but not overpowering) taste.  

 Fresh bread is always a winner!

Fresh salad greens. 

 Sweet onions.

 I couldn't resist the beignets!

Wedding Wednesday - Uplighting

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Up-lighting is a great and relatively inexpensively way to enhance the ambiance of the room in an elegant way. Up-lighting can be placed on a floor to shine up columns or walls, or behind plants, and can even be used to give the illusion that a room is taller than it actually is.  The Mister and I plan to use up-lighting throughout the rooms of our reception to set the scene lounge-vibe for our wedding!  Here are a few of our favorite looks!

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Tea Time

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The Tea Party was a success! 

I was so happy that after all of my planning, everyone enjoyed had a lovely Mothers' Day with their moms (and daughters)!  Getting together over tea was a great way to catch up with everyone, laugh, and enjoy delicious spread! I am very hopeful that Mothers' Day Tea will become a tradition and that even more people will be be able to attend next year!  

We had tea here, at the Veranda of the Kahala Hotel

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I had the Wedding Imperial Tea: a golden Assam with hints of chocolate and caramel

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On fine, Bernardaud china we enjoyed freshly baked scones, clotted cream, pineapple and coconut preserves, savory tea sandwiches, pastries, confections and cookies.

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The savory items included a California Club, Curry and Radish Cupcake, Salmon Open Face Sandwich, and a Cauliflower and Truffle Quiche.

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Mother and Me enjoying tea! 

Not only was tea a beautiful way to spend Mothers' Day it also crossed another item off of my Thirty Before 30!!!