gooooo dawgs!

since we were rained in today we couldn't go to a dawg game watching party so we stayed in with our dog to cheer on the dawgs. that's a lot of dawgs in one sentence!

so excited that football season is here, i only wish we lived closer to athens!

meatless meals

i'm not the biggest meat eater and could go without it on most days (beside Chick-Fil-A of course :) but i never thought that joe would join me in this. surprisingly i've sneaked in meatless meals, and he even suggests them from time to time.

this pasta dish became a staple for us this summer. pasta, goat cheese, and basil oil...what more could you want? we made variations including this one here with angel hair and tomatoes. i like to think of it as adult macaroni and cheese :)

this couscous recipe joe picked out and made and it was delicious. a great flavor combination and i would have never thought to combine cumin and cilantro to balance each other out. this one got compliments from both of our coworkers when we took leftovers.

we are trying to make more meatless meals for both nutritional and monetary reasons. it's also a great way to try new recipes we otherwise wouldn't have thought of!

i left my heart in san francisco...

well at least a part of it. san francisco stole a piece of my heart before i even visited. maybe it was full house, maybe it was iconic pictures of the golden gate bridge, whatever it was it was on my must see places to visit! i've been able to go three times now, including a week last summer, and every time i go i fall more in love. i think living in new orleans has made me appreciate cities with unique character and san fran has that!

this time it was for work so i didn't get tons of free time but i did get to explore and enjoy a few things i'd never done before like:

the japanese tea garden in golden gate park. i love golden gate park and was pleasantly surprised by this serene little alcove tucked away in the middle. it was perfect sipping jasmine tea on a cool day in august (only in san fran!)

sf moma. there was an excellent french exhibit filled with matisse and picasso (pre-cubism) and i enjoyed an amazing piece of velvet cake with chocolate ganache (featured on the food networks best thing i ever ate) accompanied by slow drip blue bottle coffee at the cafe in the sculpture garden on the roof.

uc berkeley. two days of my training was in berkeley and i enjoyed getting to know this eclectic college town. cal's campus is beautiful!

while walking around downtown berkeley i found a hello kitty yogurt shop, i'll admit this was a highlight of my day.

although my training was long i enjoyed getting to enjoy fall temperatures for a week, enjoy several delicious restaurants, and even seen friends and family. san fran is quickly becoming my second favorite us city, too bad it's so far away from the south :)

we made two years

i'm not sure if it's the same as when referring to a birthday in new orleans lingo but i think it is, so i'll say we made two years. on seven eleven joe and i celebrated two years of marriage. i can honestly say the second year was harder than the first, but much sweeter in many ways. i can't think of anyone else in the world i'd want to "make" all my days with.

he planned a special anniversary surprise day which was such a treat because he's never done this before! i'll admit i'm one of the worst people to surprise because i ask so many questions and usually figure things out, but this time it worked! he used groupons and living socials for much of the day and planned out a relaxed and enjoyable day filled with us.

coffee at one of our favorite spots

lunch at il posto with fresh squeezed lemonade and bruschetta grilled cheese

my first massage. probably the first time ever (except the beach) i just relaxed for a whole hour.

i came home to be sweet cupcakes

followed by a stroll in the city park sculpture garden. a nola hidden treasure!

ending the evening with a delicious dinner at the restaurant we ate at the night we got engaged.

the pièce de résistance that happened on a different day (after being re-scheduled 3 times due to rain!) an aerial tour of new orleans. this was one of the coolest things i've ever done and made me feel like i was on an episode of the bachelorette :)

a lovely day i will cherish the memories of. here's to many more years in the making.

BON APPÉTIT

so i failed at monday meals, who was i kidding? but i still want to share recipes that we use because to me there is nothing better than a kitchen tested (by a commoner like me) recipe.

my mom passed along her love of magazines to me, which comes in handy when i'm home because she passes down the magazines themselves. someone gave her a copy of this month's bon appetit which i immediately fell in love with, but thats a post for another day.

this month's issue features gwyneth paltrow who besides being breathtakingly beautiful and artistically talented decided to write a cookbook. she includes fresh, seasonal ingredients and mixes things up with things you wouldn't think of putting together (peaches and adobo sauce) and things you (and by that i mean i) wouldn't dream of eating (anchovies). in an attempt to branch out, in blind recipe faith i've already purchased the ingredients for several recipes included in the article.

you can read the full article here and by the end you will feel like you and gwyneth are bff's sipping wine in her london kitchen as you cook.

last week we tried the grilled chicken with peach bbq sauce and according to my husband who rates all of our meals for fun "it was one of the best things we've cooked." i think it is the sweet and spicy combo, not to mention a good excuse to use some of the delicious ga peaches we brought back, that seals the deal.

please excuse the gross iphone quality picture below. gwyneth serves hers with corn and mixed greens salad, we chose a brussels sprouts recipe we like and the recipe on the back of the coucous box. she also uses a real grill and we had to settle for the george foreman because we were out of lighter fluid. i look forward to making it again on the "real" grill! the chicken has to marinate for 20 min but other than that this is an easy weeknight meal that is a fun twist on traditional bbq chicken.

i'll most certainly have to follow up with a post on the pasta including anchovies, i'm a little scared!

third times a charm

our (being the futrells) dearest family friends have had three special weddings in less than two years. all three siblings have gotten engaged and married, to wonderful people i might add, and we've had the pleasure of being involved with each one. it should also be made known that this family gave hours and hours of service to us for my wedding. that's just how we roll, we help.

so for carly's wedding my mom and i stepped up one last time to do flowers. carly chose vibrant pink peonies for her bridesmaids, delicate white flowers for herself, and gorgeous gladiolas and orchids for the arrangements. carly's bouquet also included lily of the valley, which was part of kate middleton's bouquet, as a tribute to andrew her husband who is from england. if i do say so myself hers was just as pretty as kate's!

i'll let the pictures below tell the story, it was a lot of work, well worth it to celebrate a dear friend i've known most of her life:

from clipping greenery and filling up the back of my trusty old explorer i had in highschool, to crashing on the floor with lacey it was all worth it! the arrangements complimented carly's vision and wedding colors so well.

she was an absolutely stunning bride as you can see and her sister (my longest best) was the matron of honor. the wedding was also special because i got to meet corinne's (my other best) boyfriend 2 days before he became her fiance. so many things to celebrate!

and all of the flowers could not have been done without my wonderful mother who designed, ordered, cut, trimmed, clipped, carried, filled, and poured her heart into the project. i am only a lowly assistant.

for beautiful photos and recap of the day check out chupp photography who just happens to carly and erin's brother and his wife. can we say one talented family?!

if april showers bring may flowers, then what do may flowers bring?

may flowers bring finals, snoballs, house guests, and crawfish.

spring was an absolute blur (that sounds like the best excuse i can come up with for not blogging, i know it's not a good one :)

between full time jobs, teaching, taking finals, administering and grading finals, setting up our house and having people staying with us almost every weekend since we moved in there have been few moments of down time!

when we did get a break we spent it outside because spring in new orleans is the most beautiful season, eating loads and loads of crawfish, and enjoying our friends and family.

summer is a nice time in the dunaway house because we are both at work without "kids," the mister without 4-10 year olds and me without tulane students so we get to ride to work together, come home early, and i get to work out at the gym without waiting 30 min for an elliptical, its the little things!