Soup's On!

A friend of mine wanted this recipe, so I figured if I was going to type it up to send it to her, I might as well share it here!

The Ultimate French Onion Soup
This is a Tyler Florence Recipe

Ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, plus 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick), softened
4 onions, sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 bay leaf
2 fresh thyme sprigs
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1 cup red wine
3 tablespoons all-purpose flower
2 quarts beef broth (I use low sodium)
1 baguette, sliced
1/2 pound grated Gruyere cheese (sometimes I substitute Swiss)
chopped fresh chives, for garnish

Melt the stick of butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, bay leaf, thyme, and salt and pepper and cook until the onions are very soft and caramelized, about 25 minutes. Add the wine, bring to a boil, reduce the heat , and simmer until the wine has evaporated and the onions are dry, about 5 minutes. Discard the bay leaf and the thyme sprigs. Dust the onions with the flour and give them a stir. Turn the heat down to medium-low so the flour doesn't burn, and cook for 10 minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. Now add the beef broth, bring the soup back to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

When you're ready to eat, preheat the broiler. Arrange the baguette slices on a baking sheet in a single layer and brush with the softened butter. Sprinkle the slices with the cheese and broil until bubbly and golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes. (It takes my broiler about a minte, so be careful!)

Ladle the soup into bowls and float some of the cheese croutons on top. Garnish with chives.

Pants on the ground, pants on the ground...

I think Simon is right, this song could be a hit...
Even little Tucker peeked his head up to take a look (I had read Cavaliers like to watch tv...so far Idol is his favorite...although he did go a little crazy after watching The Bachelor and hearing the girls continuously say OH MY GOD!)

Catching Up...

Well, a lot has happened since the Cinco de Mayo post...

I'm going to try to be more dedicated this year and update the blog more frequently...

Let's see...
we bought a house in the Park District in October...

we got married....

I have to show a picture of our awesome wedding cake...
I knew what I wanted it to look like in April, and Tara of Lewis Jones Pastry Shoppe did an outstanding job!

Remember my post about the "Running of the Brides"...well, here's the dress..

we had a fabulous honeymoon in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic...

And, to start off the new year we got a sweet puppy dog (just don't tell him he's a dog) named Tucker. He's a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and he's the love of our lives. You can become a fan of Tucker's on facebook (you know you want to), by clicking on this link

Yes, our blog will probably start being all about him! :)

We also hosted a New Year's Eve pajama party!

I hope 2010 brings everyone as much joy and happiness as 2009 brought for us!

Happy Belated Cinco de Mayo from the Bunco Babes!

This month's bunco had a Cinco de Mayo theme and was hosted by the lovely Vonda!

I am pretty sure that Coop and Amy G. thought they were the only ones in the picture, but we see who squeezed in at the last minute!

We also learned the Hoedown Throwdown, thanks to Coop! (I wish I had pictures of us learning this dance!) Now, I just need to perfect my moves for the wedding!

Chris' Graduation

This past Friday, my mom and I drove to St. Pete, FL for my cousin, Chris' graduation.

The weather was gorgeous Saturday and Sunday, but today it poured, and it's supposed to continue this trend for the rest of our stay. Ugh! Today we took a family trip to IKEA...if you've ever been to an IKEA store, you will not be shocked when I tell you we were there for 4 hours!

Meanwhile, back to graduation...

(me, Uncle Richard, Chris, Aunt Linda, & my mom)

As you probably are too, I was quite mesmerized by this one guy's regalia of goods he wore around his neck, so I conned my cousin into taking a picture with him so I could get in the picture, too. He's going to the University of Florida on an athletic scholarship to play football, so maybe one day he'll be wearing hundreds around his neck instead of singles.

Congratulations, Chris!

Baskin Robbins...

Our friends Jason and Claire Elrod recently opened Baskin Robbins at the Landings last week. Mike and I have been busy scooping ice cream (my scooping muscles hurt) to help them out. Please come by and try some ice cream...we'll be there Friday and Saturday night to earn some more volunteer hours! :)

The Running of the Brides

As many of you know, I was waiting to buy a wedding gown at the Running of the Brides at Filene's Basement. Or, as Angel likes to call it, Pandemonium 2009. Here's a "play-by-play" recount of those 18 hours....

Stephanie, Angel, and I left Columbus around 7:00 PM Thursday and headed toward Atlanta. We arrived at Filene's around 9:00 PM and set up camp. Our camp consisted of camping chairs, sleeping bags, and blankets...After about 30 minutes of sitting we realized we should get some sleep, so Angel devised a plan to setting up the sleeping bags etc...There were probably about 100 people in line when we got there.

Now, keep in mind, sleeping on the sidewalks in Buckhead was in no-way glamorous. It was about 40 degrees outside, with an occasional gust of wind. We were kept awake most of the night by some obnoxious jerk who liked to sing loudly, and yell random things throughout the night...not sure how much Jack Daniels, he drank, but I'm sure it was quite a bit. When it was time to go in, he held onto Angel's backpack, so she was able to shove him around a little bit as payback (but it still wasn't enough!) We slept off and on, but by about 5:00 security was getting everyone up and had us move our stuff to the car so we could start getting in a more organized line.

My mom and aunt joined us in line around 7:00 AM Friday morning, and by this time, the line grew to about 1,500 and wrapped around the building and into the parking garage.

At 8:00 they started the countdown and we quickly ran in and grabbed as many dresses as we could.

The store had over 2,300 dresses...

It only took 60 seconds and the racks were stripped bare.

Then, the swapping began....around 9:00 I was getting frustrated, so we went to Target for a bit to devise a new plan and grab a coke.

(can you tell at this point, they had about "had it" with me!)

When we went back, the dresses were getting back to the racks, so we went through them again.

If you look toward the bottom left of this next picture, you can see mom and Angel.

We had about 10 and found some girls who were about my size, so we all started trading...well, long story short...I HAVE A DRESS THAT I LOVE! Don't ask what it looks like...you'll have to come to the wedding to find out...but, I will say, it looks like a "Mercer" dress. Woohoo!

I would recommend this sale to anyone...while I don't think it's necessary to camp out, it added to the experience! By the way, check out our outfits...everyone at the "running" loved them!