Ryan wants the Green Jacket

Well, it's Ryan's favorite weekend of the year: Master's week. Four days of golf, 24 hours of television coverage, betting pools, twitter being refreshed constantly, and the golf channel logo causing burn-in on our television. I, on the other hand, am bored out of my mind, and will probably go see Jurassic Park 3D by myself tonight.  Watching golf is one of the most boring things for me, and I always fall asleep when it's on.

Last week dinner started with chicken and gravy, a recipe from the Wegman's Menu magazine. I thought it was delicious. I made it with roasted red potatoes and put some of the gravy over them. It was a wonderful start to the week.


Tuesday I made Thai shrimp cakes. The recipe called for unsweetened flaked coconut, but it was impossible to find in the stores, so I just omitted it. It was still really good, but I don't really like coconut anyway.

Wednesday we made chicken and artichoke pizza, and I remembered to take a picture of it. We had a can of sundried tomato spread in our pantry that moved from South Carolina with us, and we decided to use it on the pizza. This makes a great leftover lunch too, which was perfect for me. 

 Thursday we had another recipe from Wegmans, citrus soy salmon. Ryan loves salmon and said it was very good and the salmon was cooked perfectly. I just really liked the sauce. It was a pre-made sauce, and I normally don't like buying them, but it was cheap and I realized that by the time I bought all the ingredients it needed, it would have been way more expensive. Thanks again, Wegmans.

Friday we essentially did the same recipe as last night but with cod. And roasted red pepper sauce, again a Wegmans recipe. I made mashed potatoes and used the rest of the gravy from Monday with it. 

Saturday and Sunday we had dinner with my parents and Ryan's parents, respectively. Then on Monday we had leftovers my mom gave us from Saturday. That thing that looks like a smiling rock on my plate is actually a sweet potato roll, and it was very tasty. 

 Tuesday we had orecchitte with turkey sausage and broccoli. It was very easy to make, and it was good, but I personally think it had a little too much white wine vinegar in it, and needed more garlic. Of course I thought I took a picture but I either deleted it or my memory is terrible. On to Wednesday! I made Latin baked chicken. This did not sound spicy at all. The marinade was lime juice, soy sauce, honey, and adobo chiles in sauce. Bake for 20 minutes, and enjoy. I thought I was going to breathe fire after eating just one piece of it. I seriously only could eat 4 bites before I was crying uncontrollably from the heat. Ryan managed a couple more bites than I did but it still was a major failure. We both ate a bunch of couscous and peas. By 9pm I was hungry (obviously) so I went to bed instead of eating. Scratch this one from future menus!

 Thursday night I was hesitant to cook the planned menu because it was "Ceasar Salad with Spicy Shrimp," and after the previous night's fiasco, I was pretty hungry. But as it turned out, it was not that spicy. I was kind of light handed with the chili powder though. Those are homemade "croutons" too, tortillas with chili powder, salt, and pepper, and baked for about 10 minutes. I had to buy about 50 tortillas though so I'm going to sprinkle some with cinnamon and sugar and make chips out of them later this weekend. The salad recipe also called for homemade ceasar dressing, but since we already had a bottle of low fat stuff in our refrigerator and I did not feel like buying all the stuff to make the dressing (ex: anchovy filets), I used what I had. This picture is the salad pre-dressing.

Friday I had a "bald beaver" party (you try to figure out what that is) so I had dinner there and Ryan was on his own. I still don't know what he had. Tonight I am making flank steak with Sriracha (we must be on a spicy kick). We had some free time this afternoon so we went to a local restaurant wholesaler where Ryan picked out this gem: 

Guess what we're having for dinner for the next 2 weeks?

We also went to see Jurassic Park 3D. ***Happy Dance**** I had just turned 6 when Jurassic Park came out the first time twenty years ago, so I never saw it in a movie theater. At the time, my brother, who was only 4, loved Dinosaurs. And since his name was Timmy as well, this movie was totally up his alley. My Grandmother bought the movie on VHS for him the day it came out, and that night, my mother sat Tim down on the couch and explained it might be scary. So that scene when the t-rex eats the car, and the lawyer, comes, and my brother is cheering. I, on the other hand, am hiding behind the couch, literally peeing my pants. Literally. 

Well, JP has become one of my favorite movies now. Ask any of my friends. I love it. In Clemson, we played the Jurassic Park drinking game. I even had the JP theme played at my wedding ceremony. Definitely not a "traditional bride" move. So when I heard it was being re-released, I knew I had to see it. It was my first 3D movie, and it was pretty cool, aside from having to wear those glasses the entire movie. I didn't pee my pants when the t-rex jumped off the screen and roared this time. And I must say, the sound in the theater made the movie so much better. The best 3D part was when the raptor jumped up to try to bite Lex's leg when she fell through the ceiling. I mean, I really though that thing was a-comin' through the screen. Some day, if I ever have a kid, I'm totally showing them JP. For a movie that came out in 1993, the visual effects and anamatronics were quite astounding. But I'll probably wait until they're a little older than 4, or even 6, to show it to them. But hey mom, don't worry, I still turned out OK. You may want to check on Tim, though. 

 My movie ticket and cool specs. Totally going in the scrapbook.