February Wine Down Wednesday

Let's Catch Up! February Wine Down Wednesday

February went by fast. Like a blur.

Now it is March and my day lillies are poking through the ground, and even though it is currently 19 degrees out, mentally I am feeling that we are getting closer to warm weather. Because I am sooooooo ready.

Nashville Getaway

Justin had a work lab in Nashville one weekend this month, and thanks to the cold and rainy weather we had in Feb, my first outdoor meet was canceled and we made a little weekend out of it! I had my first Nashville Hot Chicken experience  (which was just fried chicken tenders in which I got the "mild" sauce on the side....and by mild sauce, they really mean you need to call the fire department hot sauce. It's ok, I prefer honey mustard anyways 😉 ) and grabbed some delicious breakfast crepes on the way home. 

However, by far the best part was going to Restoration Hardware and drooling over luxury furniture for an hour. They have a stunning restaurant on the first floor where we quickly found out that you can buy a glass of wine at their wine/coffee bar in the back and happily walk around the store shopping. They are smart because Justin left saying

"I spent $30 on two glasses of wine and left trying to think how spending $12,000 on a leather couch is a good deal!" 

Currently still laughing so hard at that. It really was such a nice couch. But it better be at that price!

We will definitely be making another trip to RH next time we are there! Then we went to cheer on our CATS during dinner where they promptly beat Tennessee. Not that that made things any sweeter, but I walked out cheering the C-A-T-S chant 😉 Sweet sweet victory!

Recipe Testing / Recipe Fails / Kitchen Disaster

There have been many many recipes tested this month in prep for getting ahead until June. When I film/shoot recipes, I like to do anywhere from 4-6 in a day and batch work. With my schedule that is the easiest way for me to get things done. When the recipes are shot I can move on to other tasks such as editing pictures, videos, writing recipes, etc, and just get more efficient work done that way.

Last Sunday was that day for me. Justin was out of town and hunkered down to try and get as much done as I could. Here is just a little glimpse into what my kitchen looks like during the process......

Now if I could have an elf come do the 3 loads of dishes I had that day (or any day at times) that would be the best part of all!

And with a dirty kitchen came many recipe FAILS this month. The worst being a cake that I tried that bake for almost an hour and a half and was still raw in the middle and pretty much exploded all over the oven when baking. Justin said it still tasted good....love his sweetheart...but we all know a raw and excessively moist cake is not going to be presentable. 😉

But no fear, I figured it out and a fully baked delicious recipe is coming your way in the coming weeks!

And then there is this.

If you don't know, my No Bake Cookies are pretty much my track team’s mascot for 5 years running now. In a bribe with one of my runners last week, I made 2 batches of them for the end of the week if he was successful in not asking me what we were doing for practice as soon as I walked in every day. I am happy to report it 100% worked in my favor and he as well of the rest of the team.

After I ruined 2 batches before getting the next 2 right

< insert eye roll >

A recipe I know like the back of my hand, but somehow thought I needed to boil the mixture for 5 minutes and not 1 MINUTE. ugh. I eventually figured out what I was doing wrong and all was well from that point on.

RIP sad dry, crumbly no bakes.

So I will leave you with this. How I have been writing recipes or editing pictures some mornings with my assistant close by my side

Happy March Y'all!