Roux

I am not usually a take-an-hour-and-go-out-to-lunch kinda girl at work.  I am the girl who brings a sandwich and yogurt and takes a quick 30 minute lunch break at my desk while I surf news sites/blogs/etc on the internet.  Fascinating, I know, but it allows me to head home 30 minutes earlier than I would otherwise, which is a big deal to me since I have a 40 minute commute each way.  Plus it's much cheaper!

About once a month I venture out with the rest of the office for birthday lunches which is always fun, and once every blue moon I have a lunch meeting like yesterday. Since I went to college close to where I work, I know nearly every restaurant around there (even if I don't ever eat out anymore).  However, I was introduced to a new restaurant today that I plan on going back again for sure!

It's called Roux in the Old Cloverdale neighborhood (close to where I went to college) of Montgomery.  It looked pretty swanky from the outside so I was skeptical, but the food was delicious!  I had been craving some chicken salad all week, so I decided to try theirs and it was delicious!  Not a lot of fluff (no fruit, not a lot of celery) and the pita chips they served with it were phenomenal.  I could have eaten 2 plates of them.  I ordered a chopped salad to go with it and apparently I did not read the menu too closely because I was expecting a wedge-style salad with balsamic dressing, but they brought out a pile of chopped veggie that looked like they'd been dumped straight out of a can of Veg-ALL.  You know what I'm talking about:

Blech.....or so I thought. What was actually on my plate consisted of green beans, corn, carrots and tomatoes, shaved parmesan, and basil aioli in a balsamic vinaigrette.  It was delicious. I am pretty sure that if veggies tasted like that all the time I would have torn them up as a child instead of avoiding them like the plague.

When we were done they brought out a dessert menu and one of the girls I was with got all excited about one of their dishes, a Banana Pudding Cheesecake.  Upon closer inspection of the dessert menu I saw that the recipe had been featured in Southern Living magazine, which means is sinfully good!  It did not disappoint! And it was served in a super cute mini-mason jar!

You know you want some! Maybe I will have to start getting out of the office for lunch more often!  May be not =)

Weekend Recap: River Trip 2.0

This was my view on a glorious Easter morning.  Pretty hard to beat, right?  

Yes, we did go back to the river again this weekend, but it was not as nearly as long of a trip this time.  Eric had to cook fish for a rehearsal dinner on Friday so I was lef tto my own devices and spent a pleasant evening watching Say Yes to the Dress and redesigning my blog...you like?  I am quite a novice at blog design but I'm learning.  I think if I could go back to school I'd go into web design.  I've done a little bit of web editing at work and I really like it.  Maybe it can be my second career someday.....

Anywho.  Saturday I got up and did some work.  Not house work or yard work, work work.  I usually never bring anything home with me but I am working like a crazy person on this grant.  I just really hope that all of this work pays off in the long run.  

Saturday afternoon we took the puppy dogs to the river.  Since they did not get to come with us last weekend we decided to take this with us this time.  They had a BLAST!  They were hilarious!  Even my momma's boy inside-loving dog, Peanut went romping through the water on the sand bars.  Hawk of course spent every second possible playing, and when it was time for bed he plopped himself down in the middle of the bed and we had to push him down to the bottom of the bed so we could get in.  

We managed to get a little cat fishing in, on trot-lines and bush-hooks. I can't wait until we get to eat some of them! 

We ate well, of course.  Steak was on the menu this weekend =) 

Catfish weren't the only fish biting this weekend.  We caught a bass and and a Grinnell on the trot line.  

Pulling out the hook that the fish swallowed. Apparently he wanted to be caught.

This is what we saw when we got back to the camp from checking the hooks.  Nice to know someone was waiting up for us =)

A beautiful night sky on the river.

This is what happens when a puppy dog plays all day long. 

Helping dad take care of business.

So I know what you're thinking....where are the fish? No worries we kept them and pics are coming!  I promise!

A Moment in Time

I made it though the week! Barely.  It may have been the longest week on record for me, and I even brought some work home with me this weekend....ugh.  Hopefully it will all be worth it in the long run.  In the midst of my crazy week I was coming down the parking deck stairs one morning and looked out the window and saw the site above.  Not gonna lie, I was mesmerized.  I stood there for a minute just staring. Luckily I get to work early so I was not bombarded by people coming down the stairs (not like a lot of people take them anyway--it actually shocks me to see how many people take the elevator ONE floor, but that's another rant for another day). I really needed a moment to clear my head and this certainly took care of it.

I know this is totally random, but I was looking at my flowers this week and noticed that colors of my roses on my rose bushes have changed. I used to have a yellow rose bush and a dark pink rose bush growing on the same arch, and I have apparently inadvertently bred a new rose.  It's yellow with pink speckles!  There are several of them on the vine and I think they are just gorgeous! I am sure rose purists would be astonished but I think they look neat!

Camping Weekend at the River

I'm still here! I have been completely slacking this week, I know!  But it has been a crazy busy week at work (we are working on a new grant that has a very quick turnaround) so I have been staying late and by the time I get home and do everything I need to do I am barely in bed before 10:30.

I have spent most of my evenings this week catching up on the laundry (story of my life).  We spent the entire weekend at the river camping with friends (ok I came back to the house to sleep, but I never stayed for more than 5 or 6 hours to sleep). It was an absolute blast!

Of course we were going to eat well while we were down there.  Friday night Eric grilled burgers and hot dogs [and a few shrimp for me since it's Lent =)] and they were fantastic!  Saturday morning we did pancakes, eggs and sausage on the griddle. Believe it or not the food only got better Saturday night when we did fajitas on the griddle.  Moe's has nothing on us!  Between Eric's meat cooking abilities and my homemade pico de gallo, we could run our own Mexican/Tex-Mex restaurant.  Sunday morning was a repeat breakfast of deliciousness!  It's hard to believe that we could top all of the food week cooked this weekend, but Sunday dinner did. When we got done at the river we ran home to let the puppies out and we headed back to Sarris (that place we went when my dad was here a few weeks ago) for some steak.  It was just as good as it was the first time.

That's what I call a good time!  

Of course we had to have s'mores!  We may have had to wait out a springtime thunderstorm at 10:00pm, but it was soooooo worth it!

The boys put out a trot-line and some bush-hooks (like a trot-line, but instead of tying the hooks all together on one line they are tied to low hanging tree branches on the bank) to check periodically over the weekend.  They caught some big ole catfish that I can't wait to have for dinner!

 The fisherman and his catch!

It was an absolutely beautiful day on Sunday, so we decided to hang around the river for a while.  We spent the day on one of the sandbars on the river, and on the way back we came across some stripes schooling, or so we thought.  Of course Eric could not help himself so we had to stop and let him try to catch one.  Turns out they were carp.  And they weren't schooling (to eat), they were spawning.  It was one of the craziest things I had ever seen.  For about 300 yards down the river we'd see these groups of splashes all over the place.  We stayed and fished for a good 45 mins and finally got bored and left.  There's no telling how long they'd been there or how long they were there when we left.  But there will be lots of baby carp born in that section of the river whenever those eggs hatch!

 Me and one of the carp I caught! We ended up throwing all of them back when we caught them.

As long of a weekend as it was I would do it again in a heartbeat!  It was sooooo much fun!  I just wish I'd had another day off to recover!  I am hoping that we can do it again sometime this summer--but over a 3 day weekend this time!