Sunday Meal Planning #6

Hope everyone had a great weekend!  Here's what's on the menu for this week.

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 Sunday: Ale and Cheddar Soup

Monday: Left overs

Tuesday: Garlic Basil Shrimp Pizza with mixed green salads

Wednesday: Pioneer Woman's Chicken Parmigiana

Thursday: Left Overs

Five on Friday

Friday is finally here!  I cannot wait for another weekend chock-full of home projects.  It's been so much fun working on our new house.  Today I'm linking up with April, Darci, Natasha, and Christina to share the top five things that getting me through this Friday afternoon. 

{one.} This weekend's big project is making our dining room table.  We've been wanting a farm table for our dining room, and thought we would buy one from a guy we found on Craigslist.  His prices were decent, about $500 for the table and two benches. I recently ran across Christina's post about making their own table, and T and I are going to attempt making ours this weekend.  If all goes as planned we will be spending under $150. Wish us luck!

Christina's Table

{two.} I finally got a DSLR for Christmas this year and I have really been enjoying it, but I've been scared that I'm going to lose the lens cap cover.  I just bought a lens cap keeper that should protect it from getting lost. Can't wait to test it out.

{three.} I've been on a pretty serious clothes buying hiatus recently since there have been so many things to buy for the house.  I was in TJ Maxx recently and found these Elliott Lucca cuties in the clearance section.  Coral leather, snake print, and tassels?  Done.  (please excuse the fugly office carpet in the background)

{four.} Our bedside tables finally came in last night!  I've been loving these mirrored bedside tables from Target for years, and I finally had a reason to purchase them.  Our new bedroom is much smaller than our apartment bedroom was, so we're having to get rid of some of our bigger furniture and trade it out for smaller stuff.   These are 14" wide which is the perfect size for the space. They look so good flanking each side of the bed.

{five.} It's Restaurant Week in South Carolina!  I love restaurant week because it gives T and I the opportunity to check out some of the places that are typically not in our budget.  We'll be visiting one or maybe even two restaurants this weekend. Check out my Intsagram @thereedyreview to see where we end up.

Coffee Cup Brownies

I try not to keep too many sweets around our house, just so I won't be tempted to eat them. I'm all about the out of sight out of mind theory.  Last night after dinner I was craving something sweet, and I just couldn't shake it.  I scoured through our cabinets to find something...anything.  I remembered that I've been seeing a few recipes lately for coffee cup brownies, so I looked up a recipe on Pinterest.  I found this recipe, and surprisingly had all of the ingredients.  They are so simple, and cook in 90 seconds.  I topped each brownie with some Heath Bits that I had in the pantry for a little extra crunch.

While they weren't as tasty as the real deal, they definitely did the trick.  They were warm, chocolatey, and had a cakey consistency.  I think they'd be even better topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Who am I kidding, what dessert isn't better when its served a la mode?

The New York Butcher Shoppe

Although T and I have neglected using our kitchen recently, we have been getting a lot of use out of our grill. Living in a third floor apartment, we rarely grilled out.  Now that we have the opportunity to, we've taken advantage of it a lot- even if it is freezing outside.

This Saturday T and I picked up two steaks from the New York Butcher Shoppe on Augusta Road.   At $17.99/lb our rib eyes weren't cheap, but boy were they tasty.  We had them seasoned with their house Montreal seasoning, and that's all they needed.   Check out these beauties in all their marbleized goodness.

We grilled them up and served them with my favorite wedge salads, find the recipe for them here.  I love these salads because they have a balsamic glaze in addition to the creamy dressing on top.  We popped open a bottle of Bordeaux that we bought on our second anniversary of dating.   T and I have been buying bottles of wine for our anniversary gifts since we started dating, and now that we're married we open one each year.  We waited until we got in our new house to open this year's bottle, because we knew it would be even more special. It was a perfect Saturday night meal!

There are two locations in Greenville for the New York Butcher Shoppe, and I suggest you check them out,  2222 Augusta Road and 2131 Woodruff Road.   We will be back for sure!

Sunday Meal Planning #5

After moving into our new house, celebrating Christmas, and ringing in the New Year I think we have finally gotten back to some sense of normalcy in our house.  I've had so much going on in my personal life with buying our house, not to mention December was one of the busiest months I have had at my job- ever.

We have this great big new kitchen, and I feel like I've barely even used it.  Other than throwing a frozen pizza in the oven or maybe heating up some soup on the stove top, we haven't made many real meals yet.  So this week I am finally getting back to my Sunday meal planning routine, and I couldn't be more excited.  Here's what we've got on the menu.

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Sunday: Chicken and Lime Soup

Monday: Left Overs

Tuesday: Fish Tagine over Basmati Rice

Wednesday: Skinny Buffalo Wings and Wedge Salads

Thursday: Left Overs

Hope y'all have a wonderful week!

Five On Friday: New Year's Resolutions

It's Friday!  This week has been an interesting one.  Having New Year's Eve fall in the middle of the week really threw me off of my routine.  Yesterday I finally sat down and did some goal setting for 2014.  There is so much to look forward to this year, so making my resolutions was quite fun. Although this is a little different that the typical Five On Fridays that I share, I decided to share my five resolutions for 2014 because, well, the thought of accomplishing these five things this year is getting me really excited!

1. Learn more about my city- I feel like I've already learned a lot in the past three years, but I know there is so much more to learn about Greenville.  We had to do some serious budgeting in late 2013 since we were saving every penny to buy our house.  Because of this I haven't been to any new restaurants recently. I can't wait to get back to my routine of trying new places and reviewing them.
2. Make our house a home-T and I have already put a lot of work into our new abode, but there is still so much more that needs to be done.  Everyday I look forward to coming home and digging into something new that evening.  We spend almost every night doing something for the house, and I'm just loving how it is all coming together. Last night we hung curtains and finally got some things on the walls, and this weekend we plan to paint our dining room.
3. Save and pay off debt- Earlier this year T and I took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University course.  We learned a lot, and it has drastically changed how we look at and spend our money.  This year we are going to concentrate on paying off T's student loans and my car.  Our goal is to have no debt other than our mortgage...and eventually no mortgage at all.
4. Get a dog- Well this is just a fun one.  T and I have been wanting a dog for so long, but it just wasn't practical to have one in our 3rd floor apartment.  Now that we have a fenced in backyard I cannot wait to adopt a sweet little canine companion.
5. De-clutter- We are still in the process of moving, and we are just starting to realize how much stuff we actually have.  The two of us have acquired a lot in the last several years, and it is time to part with it.  There are so many things that we need to throw away, give away, or sell.

Have a great weekend! 

New Year's Eve 2013

This year for New Year's Eve my friends all decided to throw our own party.  We realized that every year we pay some restaurant or hotel gobs of money for a party, so why not just throw our own?  We pooled all of our money together and had it catered, and supplied alcohol for everyone.  Our friend Caroline's parents were so generous and let us use their house for the evening.  They have this great outdoor porch with a fireplace and heaters that was perfect for the night. 

I loved getting to spend the night ringing in the new year with my closest friends.   We played beer Olympics earlier in the evening, and watched lots of football.  Later on we brought out the party hats, fake mustaches, and noisemakers- that's when it got interesting.

Cheers to 2014!