Skinny Vanilla

I’ve been told that pimento cheese is a “southern” thing. This is so alarming to me. You mean to tell me other regions don’t know what this is all about? CRYING SHAME.

You can make it as simple or as complex as you like. This is my favorite recipe. I won’t insult you with photos to show how I shredded the cheese and stirred it all together. (It’s that easy.) You can, of course, eat it with crackers or between two slices of bread, or (one of my favorites) slathered on the piece of bread that tops off a BLT. Pimento Cheese BLT is where it’s at.

Ingredients

2 cups shredded extra-sharp Cheddar cheese
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1 (4 ounce) jar diced pimento, drained
salt and black pepper to taste

Directions

Place the Cheddar cheese, cream cheese, mayonnaise, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, onion powder and pimento into the large bowl of a mixer. Beat at medium speed, with paddle if possible, until thoroughly combined. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.

I found a recipe for Shrimp Fried Rice in Bon Appetit’s March issue. I couldn’t wait to try it out. I highly reccomend making this–it was great as an entree, but it would be equally good without the shrimp alongside chicken.

The Sunday after their wedding was Mother’s Day. I made reservations at one of my favorite Atlanta Brunch spots, Rosebud. It was probably the first mother’s day in a long time that my mom was with all her children.

Rosebud and The Family Dog are across the street from eachother and owned by the same people. I love the name of this one though. It brings up such warm fuzzy feelings!  
I kind of love this outfit. Skirt:  JCrew; Sweater: Cropped Nanette Lepore; Wedges: Target, most comfortable shoes ever.
Coco had been so cramped up in the hotel room most of the weekend that we decided to take her to the park on the way home. Peidmont Park has the best view.

Of course we take Coco to the dog park and she hangs out with people the whole time.

June’s Bon Appetit came in on Saturday and I couldn’t wait to try out this recipe. So by Sunday afternoon, I had already become obsessed with this one. I used to love ramen noodles, so it didn’t take a lot of convincing for me to decide I should give it a go.

Continuing my posts on the wedding festivities, Friday we had the bridal luncheon and the rehearsal dinner. I managed to get a total of one photo from the luncheon. See below: My sister-in-law, Angela, and darling Niece/Goddaughter, Molly.

And here are my rehearsal dinner photos. It was great fun, although I think it’s safe to say it’s not a rehearsal dinner without some drama. In this case, bread drama. Picture it: A starving MaryJane asks for bread like 15 times (just kidding, four times) and never got any! They literally never brought me bread! I finally talked the groom into going to ask for some himself! Anyway.

Love her Alice + Olivia number.

I wore a Tracy Reese I bought from BHLDN over Christmas break for this very occassion.

My darling Toms and Molly

Saturday was such a blast. I started out the morning with an adorably cozy chihuahua in a big comfy bed and a bit of champagne.

I was in charge of doing lots of hair and makeup. Mine:

I’ve started doing makeup for weddings now, professionally I should say, so I was more than happy to lend a hand this weekend. I was so pleased when my little Molly came to sit at my chair.

I LOVED my bridesmaid’s dress. It was another BHLDN beauty. The belt and earrings were gifts from the bride from Anthropologie.

The bride and groom’s first look. I loved peeping in to see this. It’s so cute to see the groom’s face when he first sees his bride.

I don’t have many pictures once the party started, but luckily you can always count on some to turn up on Facebook.
 
We partied into the wee hours of the morning. And then the next morning we all hopped on the couch together and giggled about all the funny stories from the night before. It’s one of my favorite past times.

I’ve been such a bad little blogger lately. My last blog post was two weeks ago! I’ve had a lot going on personally (we’ll get into that perhaps next week) and was out of town last weekend for my brother’s wedding. We had the best weekend. Thursday night Danielle and Patrick invited everyone to their house for a whiskey tasting. It started out all mature and then as the crowd thinned out, the dance party began. We polished off all the whiskey and then broke into the stash of champagne for the bridal luncheon the next day. I had to call my mom the next morning and ask her to pick up some champagne on her way over! I had a million pictures, so I’ll try to be selective here. Also, I think we Vined about 20 videos of that night. Gotta love a Good Ole Fashioned Dance Party.

Shirt: Jcrew, On sale now
Skirt: Another of my mom’s originals. I’m obsessed with these skirts. I think I’ll end up with one in every color.  

We don’t have a Trader Joe’s in Birmingham, so I try to go every time I’m in Atlanta. It’s such a fun place to get different foods. Not that lentils are different–they were just in a cute bag and we all know how I feel about soup. (I love soup.) So I Googled and found a pretty simple looking one from Alton Brown. I love his recipes. They are usually fail-proof. This recipe was incredible. I added a full container of baby spinach and it really added a lot. This soup was bursting with flavor and tasted very meat-y and hearty despite being veggie. It made  6-8 servings and is filling with “good” calories. (A big bowl is about 375 calories.)

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped carrot
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 pound lentils, picked and rinsed
1 cup peeled and chopped tomatoes
2 quarts chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground toasted cumin
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground grains of paradise (Finally got to make use of these again!)
**I added a full container of baby spinach.
Directions
Place the olive oil into a large 6-quart Dutch (ahem, French) oven and set over medium heat. Once hot, add the onion, carrot, celery and salt and sweat until the onions are translucent, approximately 6 to 7 minutes. Add the lentils, tomatoes, broth, coriander, cumin and grains of paradise and stir to combine. Increase the heat to high and bring just to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook at a low simmer until the lentils are tender, approximately 45 minutes.

The lovely Grains of Paradise. I’m not really sure what the deal is with these. I just had them in my spice cabinet and was excited when I saw that the recipe called for them.

I spent the last weekend buried somewhere in Georgia for Danielle’s bachelorette party. The lake was amazing. We took a quick boat ride to the Ritz Carlton on the lake. I wish I had more pictures from there but things got pretty out of control quickly so the camera was the last thing on anyone’s mind.

The weekend was so much fun and it was a blast spending one of D’s last weekends away as a single lady.

We threw a little family wedding shower for my brother and his fiancee a couple of weekends ago. The weather was beautiful and the food was delicious. My contribution were the French Tuiles and the Zucchini and Goat Cheese Tarts. And fruit salad but that doesn’t count.

I love this outfit. It was so fun to wear.
Skirt: BHLDN
Top: JCrew
Shoes: Vera Wang Lavender from last year
Sunglasses: Prada

I can’t take the least bit of credit for these. My husband found the recipe and made it completely on his own, but there are no words to describe these wings. Just kidding–There are: Delicious, amazing, incredible, awesome, unfathomable…

Anyway. They are good. And worth all the work. So these wings are from a restaurant called Pok Pok in Portland and they’re in New York now too. After he found the recipe, he discovered they were also on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, which is such an awesomely bad show.

Let’s get started. I wish I knew how good these were going to turn out so I could have better documented the directions. The sauce is… unreal. If I had a first born son, I would trade him for another batch of these wings.

Pok Pok Wings
Vietnamese fish sauce wings adapted from Andy Ricker’s recipe at his Portland restaurant.
Servings: 2

Ingredients:
2 lbs buffalo wings, trimmed
1/2 cup fish sauce
1/2 cup sugar
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup water
1 cup corn starch
1 qt canola oil
1/2 cup fish sauce
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1+ tbsp sriracha
1/2 lemon, juiced
2 cloves garlic (chopped/fried)
1 tbsp cilantro, chopped
Preparation:
Place chicken wings in a large ziploc bag.
Mince 2 cloves of garlic, mix in a small bowl with salt by hand, and pour in 1/2 cup of water. Whisk well and let sit for several minutes. Strain into ziploc.
Whisk 1/2 cup fish sauce and 1/2 cup sugar together. Pour mixture into ziploc with wings and rub well.
Leave refrigerated for at least 6 hours, up to overnight.
Directions:
Remove wings from ziploc and pat dry. Let rest to room temperature.
Add canola oil to large pot and heat to 250 degrees.
Rough-chop garlic and use a small strainer to dip into the hot oil. Fry for 8-10 minutes until light brown. Remove and set aside.
Whisk 1/2 cup fish sauce, 1/2 cup sugar, sriracha, lemon juice and 1/2 cup water into small saucepan on medium heat. Reduce slowly.
Batter wings in cornstarch and fry in batches for 8-10 minutes. Remove and set onto paper towels.
Continue reducing sauce until it is a thin caramel syrup. Keep on low heat or it will solidify.
Increase oil temperature to 350 and fry wings again for 4-5 minutes until barely turning brown. Remove and pat dry with paper towels.
Add wings to a large mixing bowl, pour in sauce, and crushed fried garlic. Toss until well-coated.
Serve with white rice and carrot shavings. Top with chopped cilantro.