Peaches

Miles bought a huge bag of peaches last week at the farmer's market...and then forgot to eat them. So last night, in an effort not to let them all go to waste, I made a peach cobbler. After a quick google, I found this recipe and followed it fairly closely, just adding a little more flour to the mix.

Not to toot my own horn (since all I did was follow a recipe) but toot, toot. It was dee-licious. 

The cinnamon nutmeg-y smell that filled the house was just one more thing that gets me excited for fall.  


Oh, an that book I mentioned in my last post? It really is keeping me up, reading, way past my bed time. So good.

Tasting Like Home

Miles and I ate at Bombay Palace on Sunday. It was Miles' second go with Indian food, the first time didn't turn out too well, so we gave it a few years, and tried again. This time he loved it!! I'm so happy that he liked it, I've been seriously craving Indian food for a while now. My family used to eat it all the time in Hong Kong and I can't believe how long its been since I had some chicken tikka masala, naan, and aloo gobi. I took one bite, and it tasted like home...when home was Hong Kong and my life was very different. It was strange to be transported back to such a distinct, different time in my life while sitting across the table from my husband. Strange in the best, bittersweet way possible. But for now, we've found our Indian go-to in Nashville and I am one happy girl!

First Cookout

We bought a grill over labor day weekend, because thats just what you do, right? We had Miles' mom and best friend over for our first cook out--not too many people in case Miles ended up being a terrible grill master (he wasn't). Matty brought one of my greatest weaknesses, cheese dip, and I snacked on that like nobody's business. We had delicious corn, burgers, jalapeño dogs, fresh watermelon, salad, homemade fries and good company. Here's to many more cookouts in our future--hopefully soon with a fire pit for my other weakness, s'mores!

 Rowan also enjoyed being the cutest center of attention, obvi.

 I can already tell that finally having a grill has changed the way we think about meals. Miles wants to make dinner every night--hallelujah! And I'm so excited to think of all the yummy grilled veggies we're going to have this fall!

Summer Salad

Source: recipegirl.com via Bethany on Pinterest

I made this salad last night for dinner, sans the chicken, and using arugula instead of spinach. LET ME TELL YOU: new favorite salad, fa sho'. The goat cheese, pine nuts and super easy homemade dijon vinaigrette? SO tasty. I had seconds...and then thirds right out of the salad bowl. And I'm having it for lunch again today. Probably an early lunch, now that I've started thinking about it.

On Another Note...

Miles has been working a lot of six day weeks, which leaves me Saturday mornings to get a lot of chores and errands done. Not because he wouldn't do them, or help me, I would just rather have them all done by the time he gets off for his day and a half weekend. To maximize fun times. 

But another thing I love about Saturday mornings/early afternoons with just myself as company, is that I get to eat whatever I want. Which normally is a big bowl of kale (for lunch)(gross, never for breakfast). I accidentally burnt Miles out on kale this fall and now feel bad when I make it for dinner. Because really I'm just making it for myself. Double portions of course.

So, Saturday=kaleday.

You can go ahead and imagine Handel's Hallelujah chorus playing in the background.

Bluegrass Brunch

On Saturday, Miles and I slept way in to 9:30 (8:30, Nashy time), tried to find decent Saturday morning cartoons to watch, failed, and went to a late brunch at Bluegrass Grill. We almost decided to leave about three times during the super long wait for seats. At one point I even called out to Miles to come back when he was almost a block away walking back to the car. Looking back, I can't figure out why were we so dramatic.. But you know what they say about hindsight. Its super obvious why you would wait for an hour and a half to eat when you have the memory of the most delicious brunch of your life. Thats what they say. Even if we didn't completely love, love, Chattanooga, we would go back just to eat at Bluegrass Grill again. 

As always with brunch, we ordered too much food. I'm surprised we even had the patience to wait 2 seconds to take pictures of our yummies. Bluegrass Grill, can you move into our kitchen?

Weekend Getaway

Our Chattanooga weekend was so incredibly wonderful. Miles and I kind of had a hunch that we needed some time away for just the two of us, but we had no idea how refreshing it would actually be. It was the first time we've been away together, alone, without friends or family as company. Except our honeymoon, dur. We rested, we had great conversations, we were carefree, we spent way too much money (I guess I was wrong about thinking we'd be safe from that), we ate delicious foods, walked around forever, went to the aquarium, took our time...it was beyond perfect. And I couldn't have wished for more beautiful weather. I even took a screenshot of the weather on my phone to remember exactly how perfect it felt. The best 63 degrees of your life.

Miles has decided that we need to go on weekend trips every weekend. We'll have to find a more reasonable/affordable alternative, but we will definitely plan to get away more often. We took a ton of pictures, so I'll have to weed through them and spread them out over a few posts. Expect the aquarium post to have an obnoxious amount of fishy pics.

I ended up having to work last Friday morning instead of having the whole day off, so we didn't get into Chattanooga until around 4. Just in time to check in... and take a nap. I love naps. Have I shared this before? Naps are the best. And I've started to rub off on Miles when it comes to loving them. We stayed at The Chattanoogan and really liked it. Our room was, unfortunately, on the way to the pool, and surrounded by rooms full of happy, loud kiddos on either side. But that was the only thing we would've changed. And it was kind of out of our hands. Well, Miles would've wanted there to be robes in the closet and for the actual hotel building to be from the 30s. But you can't have it all, bud. I love the blackout curtains that most (all?) hotels have now. You know what they're perfect for? Naps. 

The bathroom was lit in such a way that would make anyone look red carpet fabulously gorgeous. Which was so amazing while I was getting ready, and a rude awakening when I passed my first reality check mirror. I went from "I'm simply glowing!", to "oh, nope".

We ate at Tony's in the art district, per a new blogging/we've met in real life a million years ago friend's suggestion. And it was delicious. And in such a fun area. We walked around forever after dinner and loved everything about the sculptures, the houses, the little hilly streets... Then later on, we walked a block or two over to Urban Stack, where we ate last time we were in Chattanooga, for drinks and late night conversations. Twas a wonderful start to our weekend.

And Part Deux

I count this whole weekend as our Valentine's 2.0. Miles was off work and so we were able to spend so much time together. After doing tons of laundry, washing what felt like all of our pots, pans, glasses, dishes and silverware, vacuuming up a storm, finally doing some legit grocery shopping, and making our bed for the first time in weeks, we dated it up. 

For late giftings, Miles bought me a blender, and I bought him the second season of Bored to Death. Honestly, we each kind of picked out something we wanted for life in general, not thinking about v-day, and much later on decided that they were actually gifts. No guilt, best kind. We watched the first disc of the aforementioned series and then went to our favorite little Italian restaurant. Where we would've spent wayy too much money if it weren't for our lovely Groupon. I'm talking appetizers, pizzas, and desserts. Not just any dessert. Warm Nutella bread pudding. I died. Miles did not. Apparently he doesn't like Nutella? I only learned that after I had ordered it. 

Miles made delicious waffles and we enjoyed a leisurely morning before church. The giant snowflakes proved to be distracting during church. But who would complain of such a distraction? We ate lunch at Sloco, where we had the most delicious sandwiches of our lives. Then we ate Sushi at PM with Miles' mom right after Sloco because he forgot to tell me we were actually supposed to have lunch with her.

Then we all went to see Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close..Where do I even begin with that movie? It was honestly one of the most wonderful movies I've ever seen. Ever! I loved reading the book years ago, and I really want to read it again now. But I feel like I'm telling everyone that they need to go see it ASAP. Because I am. Because you should. Yes, as always, there are things in the book that of course aren't in the movie, but I don't even know how they would include all the little Oscar-isms in the movie. I still think they did an amazing job with the movie. I sat with tears of pure joy clouding my eyes, or tears of complete sadness streaming down my cheeks the entire movie. It's such a beautiful story of self discovery, grief, loss, growth, love...everything. Watch it. 

I fell in love all over again with "the renter" (Max Von Sydow was perfect) 

and the oxymoron wars

Please can I watch it again, right now? Like...right now? What's that? I have to work? Bummer.

pictures found here, and here

Dinner Adventure

That rhymes, right?

Last night, I made roasted acorn squash with wild rice. I loved it, Boo ate about half of his and apologized for not wanting anymore. I mean, really, I don't know why I thought he would like it. My man's favorite food is ground beef. I love him. But, wow. So I'll just stick with this recipe on nights when he's out. And probably use less apple cider vinegar next time. Punchin' me in the taste buds, like woah.

I found the recipe via pintrest, but you can find it here and try itttt (scroll down).

Date the Husband

On Saturday, Miles and I went to The Smiling Elephant for our early 3 month anniversary date since they're closed on Sundays, which was our actual anniversary. One day off. Not too shabby. But seriously people, the food here is the stuff of dreams. I've finally found a delicious Tom Kha soup. I feel like I could eat it at any given time of my life..and probably crave it just as much. They gave us two spoons. I was not prepared to share. But I did. I did. 

Whattahunkydate.