Happy 4th!

By Request...

The red/starred nail is called a "party nail" per the nail girl at the salon.  

Polished

Erica is at the nail salon with the girls today. 4th of July nails are happening.

Kansas City

I (Erica) am in KC for work for the rest of the week. I played tour guide for one of my coworkers tonight.

We ate at the Peanut (sorry, Chris!), drove down Ward Parkway to The Plaza, and then headed downtown to Union Station and Liberty Memorial. On the way back, I drove by my old house.

Neighbor Nuisance

This is our "detract from the neighbor's ugly fence" project a year later.  The fence has been upgraded to "rustic" in our opinion.

But, just down the way is a new neighbor nuisance.

We have zero faith in the renter/neighbor doing any weeding.  So, my little helper and I decided to take matters into our own hands.

So. much. better.  This area used to be totally covered in ivy, here's to hoping it fills in again someday.

Brown Butter Pineapple Sage Sauce

Chris grilled chicken and asparagus and Erica made pasta with this awesome butter sage sauce last night.  We used our Pineapple Sage, but the fresh lemon was the real star.

Double the recipe for a pound of pasta.

Ingredients
Pasta, of choice
4 tablespoons butter
8 sage leaves
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Directions

While your pasta cooks, melt butter in a 12 to 14-inch saute pan and continue cooking until golden brown color ("noisette") appears in the thinnest liquid of the butter. Add sage leaves and remove from heat. Add lemon juice and set aside. Drain the pasta, but leaving some cooking water, and gently pour into saute pan and return to heat. Add the cheese, toss to coat and serve immediately.

Read more at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/mario-batali/butter-and-sage-sauce-recipe/index.html?oc=linkback

Ina's Lemon Bars

Baking up some lemon bars this morning for a Father's Day breakfast with Grandpa Hale!

Ingredients

For the crust:
1/2 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups flour
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

For the filling:
6 extra-large eggs at room temperature
3 cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons grated lemon zest (4 to 6 lemons)
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup flour
Confectioners' sugar, for dusting
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

For the crust, cream the butter and sugar until light in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Combine the flour and salt and, with the mixer on low, add to the butter until just mixed. Dump the dough onto a well-floured board and gather into a ball. Flatten the dough with floured hands and press it into a 9 by 13 by 2-inch baking sheet, building up a 1/2-inch edge on all sides. Chill.

Bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes, until very lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack. Leave the oven on.

For the filling, whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and flour. Pour over the crust and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the filling is set. Let cool to room temperature.

Cut into triangles and dust with confectioners' sugar.

Read more at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/lemon-bars-recipe/index.html?oc=linkback

A Dog's Life

E wine

Grilled apricot glazed pork chops, vino, and the pooch on the front patio for dinner tonight.

Happy Father's Day!

Our roses are finally in full bloom just for the occasion.

Picnic Serenade

Makeshift Shakespeare stopped by our picnic spot before play time. We are seeing A Midsummer Night's Dream tonight at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival.

What is this?

The white flowering plant. The branches are covered in little white flowers with little to no leaves. Chris says he saw thorns on it.

Nap Time

She can hardly keep her eyes open.

Another Hell Strip

We took an evening walk this week and found this. Kinda cool.

What the Hell Strip

A "hell strip" is the grass between the street and the sidewalk.  They are notorious for tough growing conditions and when you water them, you are also usually watering the street and sidewalk

In the last couple weeks, Chris has been talking about removing the grass from our hell strip and putting in rocks and plants.  Erica is not so sure it will look good with the house.  So, we took a walk around our neighborhood to scope out some examples.

I think we both like the variations with the large rocks.  Large rocks and maybe some ground cover, sedum, or succulents.  

What do you think?

Hell Yes.

Hell Yes. Except for the Fairies.

Hell Yes (but not our favorite).

Hell No.

All Shiny and New

Zoey is looking and smelling 100% better after a nice bath and clipping this morning.

Wild Woman

The cone is off and Zoey is ready to party! Or eat weeds. Whatever.

Ca-Bo

We dined at Casa Bonita tonight to celebrate our friend Amy's birthday.  It's a big Mexican restaurant with Cliff Divers, Gorilla's, Black Bart's Cave and all you can eat Sopapilla's.  South Park also did an episode on it.

Simple Syrup

We planted Chocolate Mint and Pineapple Sage this year.  Tonight I made simple syrups out of them.

1 Cup Sugar

1 Cup Water

Herbs

Put everything on the stove on medium heat.  Heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture boils.  Boil for 60 seconds. Let cool.

Strain the herbs out of the syrup and into a clean container.  Store in the refrigerator.

The Mint syrup is my favorite - it definitely smells choco-minty, although the flavor is mostly mint.  The Pineapple Sage is good, but is just mostly sweet.  The plant itself smells like delicious pineapple, so a little disappointed it didn't come through on the flavor.

On a side note, the sage is supposed to bloom beautiful red blooms later this summer and the blossoms are edible.  Looking forward to this (as long as I can keep them alive through the heat of summer).

After drinking sparkling water non-stop in Italy, we bought a Sodastream which we are loving.  We make mostly plain "sparkles".  I added a couple Tablespoons of mint syrup to my glass of sparkles tonight and it was delicious.

A Hot Mess

Zoey still rockin' the grunge look a week later.