food & furniture (part 1)

First, a quick recap on the past couple weeks: Strider and I are totally loving married life and basically spend all our time working, watching movies, and being silly at home. Weekly meal planning is going well and I'm happy to report that we've only resorted to frozen pizza once since the wedding (due to unexpectedly working late). I mean, look at this guy – does he seems well-fed and happy or what? The tasty dish (other than my hubby, that is): pesto pasta with shrimp and sautéed mushrooms. Super easy and super YUM!

We also hosted our first dinner party as a married couple with some friends from Starbucks. I got super fancy with the menu: cesar salad, garlic french bread, sautéed mushrooms, and Julia Child's lobster quiche. For dessert...vanilla bean panna cotta with lemon curd and fresh blackberries – all homemade. Holla!

Per my inner Martha, I set our card table up with a linen tablecloth, real napkins, and yes, even my new wedding-gift napkin rings. So snazzy! A vintage blue mason jar of fresh daisies added the perfect touch to distract our guests from the fact that we were eating at a card table in the living room (thank you, tiny sometimes-frustrating apartment), or at least I hope so. And yes, I was just dumb enough to forget to take a picture of the beautiful spread. Ugg. 

To make up for my lack of responsible blogger-photo-taking, here's another quick, healthy dinner idea.
Check out this slightly adapted WW Greek Beef & Mushroom Pizza:

Ingredients:

1 (10 oz) pre-baked wheat pizza crust

2 tsp olive oil

1 small onion, minced

1 tomato, chopped

1/2 lb lean ground beef

1 tsp cinnamon

parsley/thyme/oregano/salt/pepper to taste

4 oz mushrooms, chopped

shredded mozzarella & parmesan

- Preheat oven to 400F

- In a frying pan, cook the onion in the olive oil till tender (about 3 min)

- Add beef and cook till browned through

- Stir in tomato and assorted seasonings

- Spread the mixture over the crust, add mushrooms and cheese

- Bake about 15 minutes or until crust is slightly crisp

Also...very exciting news on the furniture front with some refinishing projects on the horizon. Pictures to come and opinions will be needed. Hint - Strider gave me absolutely the world's best wedding present!!!

For now, I'm heading home to wash dishes and snuggle up with another cookbook and a pad of sticky notes.

Note: There's a reason an entire job category exists for food stylists...but I am not one. Food photos on ASftB are straight from my tiny, badly lit kitchen. Apologies if they aren't great, but I promise the recipes are tasty!