Dance Party and Staycation

Two things. First - a selection of video from a few days ago - it's a long one - but watch it all to get the full effect. The degeneration and weirdness in the family is nearly disturbing...

(Had some problems with the video - hoping to edit and repost soon - sorry!)

Secondly, Steph and I have been having a wonderful staycation. The twins are with my parents. The big girls are rotating through Steph's family. And what are we doing with all this free time? We are so adults now. Check out what we've been doing:

Friday I was off, so I rode into work with Steph for the morning. After her work, we were up in West Chester so we went to IKEA to get our second DVD tower. Wandered around a little bit looking at couches.

Then we got lunch at Pappadeaux - oh so good. Love the crawfish etouffee...and oh that dirty rice...

Then up to Jungle Jim's to get a bunch of ingredients for our homemade Indian Feast. Wandered around up there too looking for cool stuff.

Then went to Macy's to get me some clothes that fit. I can now officially fit comfortably in 38s and SOME Large size shirts.

Came home and hung out. Started making our paneer. Didn't end up needing to eat dinner at all - watched Olympic opening ceremonies.

Saturday, got up and went to Gravy for breakfast.

On the way home, stopped at Kohl's and Kroger for a few extra things we needed.

Got home, and started frying things. We fried our paneer - went well. We attempted to fry our Indian Frybread from this summer - didn't work so well. Ended up with gooey doughballs. But really, how bad can fried bread be? Cooked up some meat samosa filling. DeLISH!!! Finally, Steph made a stellar chocolate dessert.

I worked out then did some prep work in the kitchen. Steph came up and we started reorganizing the kitchen - long overdue.

Then the cooking began for real. We fried the samosas. We made saag panner and chicken makhani. We threw in some jasmine rice. And the result:


Now, I know what you're thinking - all this food for 2 people? Well, yeah. We froze some, we will eat some more today. Deal with it. It's our staycation.

Man, this was good stuff. The saag wasn't QUITE right...a little too bitter, that one will need work...and too spicy for saag. The makhani was outstanding - honestly better than at our local place. The samosas tasted like the real thing, except for the wonton wrappers. Anyone know where to get premade samosa wrappers? Just fabulous. Steph's dessert was great as well.

Finished organizing the kitchen (including me bringing 7 huge bins of stuff up from the garage) and by that time it was time for bed.

Today, we are making bananas foster for BREAKFAST - how cool is that? I have a concert this afternoon, and we're going to the Green Plantain for dinner. What a way to spend a weekend.

This was originally supposed to be a weekend at Paw Paw's Landing down in Central Kentucky - our traditional winter getaway. Financially it just wasn't feasible this time around. Then we found a pretty inexpensive place in Gatlinburg...but then we realized that we really couldn't afford that either. So we decided to just stay home. And it's been wonderful. We've had every bit as good a time here as we would have out and about...but for a fraction of the cost. Hooray for home!

Matt