the weekend was busy as i had suspected it would be. it was fun and tiring as usual.
friday evening mom came by to get some more stuff for shannon to take off to school. dad was at a cross country meet and shannon was at work, so mom had no dinner plans. thus when we invited her to stay for home made fried chicken and biscuits, she could hardly turn us down. who would be able to turn that down?
saturday morning bryan and i headed out to mom and dad's to say goodbye to shannon before they trekked across the state to move her into her new apartment at school. she had the rental van packed very orderly and to the brim. they managed to fit everything which was good. shannon was pretty excited to move into the apartment, even though she's on a 3rd floor walk up and had lots of furniture and other heavy items. luckily, a superman-strength shot putter lives in her complex, and he was able to carry all the heavy stuff up the stairs without a problem.
after we left mom and dad's, we headed out to the super amigo hispanic grocery in waukesha. oh boy that was fun. we had decided to make tamales to bring to my uncle frank's sunday cookout, so we picked up a bunch of tomatillos to make a salsa
verde. then we had a lot of fun in the meat department. they had what was listed as "rib eye" - but as it was uncut, it was prime rib. so we got a 12 lb prime rib for $3.69/lb. what a steal. it was a very lovely looking piece of beef, and for that price, katie may be able to afford prime rib for her wedding!
bryan sliced that up into some very fine looking rib eyes. 17 rib eyes, to be exact. mom says to just let her know when to come over. she figures showing up at our house around dinner time just about any day is a good bet.
we also got 4 skirt steaks, 4 lbs of pork stew meat, and 2 racks of ribs the length of my arm and i swear nearly as wide as my stomach (no comments from the peanut gallery, please). all in all not a bad trip.
saturday night i went to go see maggie's new house, and have dinner. it is such a cute old house! i am so excited for her. we went and had a quick dinner at casa del rio, then spent a few hours gabbing. i didn't even realize how long we had been chatting until bryan called me at 9:15pm to see what we were up to. :) maggie and i can always find something to talk about, apparently.
bryan also roasted a pork roast and prepared the tomatillo salsa, so that it would
all be ready for tamale rolling on sunday. that morning, he prepared the masa dough and allowed it to chill for awhile. we worked together to get them all stuffed, rolled, and tied. that made the entire process run much smoother and much faster.
in went the roast pork, some fresh diced
tomatoes, and the salsa. so delicious and not even steamed! we ended up with close to 30 tamales. it turns out i must have the abuela gene, because i was able to get those gorgeous little suckers tied and into the steamer in no time.
they turned out so incredibly scrumptious! they were a huge hit at the pool party. i made my much loved pico to bring along as well. the party itself was lots of fun as well. the weather was very nice, though i did hide in the shade the entire time to avoid wilting entirely. lots of yummy mexican snacks. i pretty much sat and snacked all afternoon. what can i say, i can't resist taco dip. after the tamale's and aunt mo's enchiladas though, i was too stuffed for cake. we took cake home for later that night.
we watched the movie
sunshine, which is a decidedly strange movie. i'm not 100% sure how i feel about it. it was nearly sci-fi but not quite. bryan pointed out a lot of similarities between it and
the black hole.
cillian murphy was quite good in it, but i love him, so maybe my opinion is tainted.
sunday, we tried to get an untrimmed brisket from
rupena's, but they didn't have any. so we bought a pork shoulder instead, and smoked that in the pit at mom and dad's on monday. we served that up for dinner there, along with some roasted corn from the
west allis farmer's market (which we managed to roast right on top of the metal roof of the smoker), and a cold beet salad (beets, fennel, clementines, olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper). the pork was positivly incredible. and now we have a smoked pork bone to freeze for split pea soup once the weather cools a bit more. i had made chocolate chip cookies so that served for dessert. we tried to sit outside after dinner, but even with tiki torches and OFF lamps, i was still getting bitten by mosquitos so we had to move the discussion inside. we made it home in time to lay on the couch and watch oliver kick before the need to be in bed became overwhelming.
as part of the tamale prep, bryan made a batch of his famous chicken stock (also known as chicken jelly due to the lovely viscosity of it), so with that we plan on making a chicken soup on friday. hopefully the weather agrees and becomes a little more fall-like, which would make the soup perfect.
indian summer fest starts this weekend, so we're going to hit that up with mom on friday evening. i haven't been in ages, probably since grade school. i am looking forward to having some fry bread though, that's for sure.
i've emailed the child care provider we met with last week to see about enrolling oliver. after talking with a few, we really feel she is our best bet. we can look and interview forever, and while we may find others as good as her, we won't find any better. i am excited to have this all set up, and with someone we feel so comfortable and happy leaving oliver with. bryan wants to start out having her watch him part time; he is hoping he can watch him while he works. we'll see how that works out - i don't think he realizes how much time ollie will take up! :)
my plans for today include napping after work and getting to bed early. i know you're jealous of my exciting life.
saturday, oliver and i spent the morning playing around the house, passing the time until we had to get our little butts to the airport to pick daddy up. i had wanted to make a big hunk of meat to welcome bryan home after his business trip. i had an oven roast; a beef round sirloin tip. i wanted to do something different, so i made bavarian beef. i browned the meat in the dutch oven, and added sliced onions. i deglazed with beer, then added beef stock, tomato paste, white 
vinegar, ginger, cinnamon, sugar, a bay leaf, and garlic. i let this simmer for about 2 hours; it came out pretty darn tender. i whisked in margarine at the end to give the sauce that lovely sheen and buerre texture (yes, i miss butter). i served this sliced thinly over egg noodles with buttered peas. it was quite yummy! next time, i think i would use a different beer (it was too light), less tomato sauce, and more ginger, and perhaps garnish with parsley.
sunday, we took it easy and hung out around the house (see ollie chillin' on the left there). i had bryan make me chicken with tomatillo sauce. he pan fried the chicken in the cast iron, and simmered with the tomatillo sauce. he served it over fried potatoes. simple and delish. he had made this before; in the oven with beer and stock. the flavor between the 2 preparations was different; the oven baked was more carmelized, while sunday's was more fresh. both were good. i just can't get enough of that tomatillo sauce!
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