Fancy Dinner + Fancy Friends

My boss called me into his office a few weeks ago and told me that in appreciation for a project I was working on they wanted me to go out to a nice dinner on the company's dime. If there are two things I like it's food and spending other people's money! 

We decided to take some friends along to help us spend that chunk of change. Who better than our awesome roommates Heather and Ryan. Ryan is an old friend of ours from Santa Barbara and he and his wife got married last summer. Through a series of events they ended up in the Boston area for a few months without a place to stay so we had them move into our spare room. It has been such a blast to have them around! We all watch Spongebob Squarepants together on Saturday mornings, Heather is teaching us all about pharmacology school and we have found a slew of hilarious YouTube videos with them.

After searching for a fancy enough restaurant we decided on Laurie's 9:09 in Wakefield. We all ordered whatever we wanted. Heather and I remarked that we normally scan the menu for one of the lowest price points but it felt so liberating to do the opposite of that!

Heather's Filet Mignon

Sarah's Ribeye, steak fries and creamed corn

The Dr.'s Ribeye, baker and asparagus

Ryan took his challenge to eat the most expensive thing he wanted very seriously. Just look at the concentration on his face as the waiter tied on his lobster bib.

This thing was stuffed with all kinds of sea creatures! I don't think Ryan realized how much work it is to eat a lobster and at one point a chunk of shell went flying across the restaurant to another table. We all just looked away and pretended it didn't happen. We're fancy like that.

We finished off our night with a big slice of tres leches cake. I would have a picture of it but we scarfed it down before I got the chance. It was goooood!

In the end we managed to spend every penny of our budget and stuff ourselves silly which is always a sign of a great evening right?

All American Apple Pi{e}

I love apple pie. When I lived in Hawaii I remember being the most homesick when I talked to my dad one evening as they were about to cut into a big apple pie in the back yard, watching the sun go down. Not many things say summer like an apple pie. 

I also love that I am married to a math genius whose favorite number is 3.14. When March 14 comes around it means pi{e} at our house. 

I made the pie crust the night before and forgot to take any pictures but I will still include the recipe. I believe this is my great grandma's recipe. This crust comes out so flaky and light, I have tried a ton of other recipes but I always come back to this one. It's perfect.

Pie Crust

5 Cups flour

2 Cups Crisco shortening

2 tsp salt

Cut these together with a pastry cutter until the mixture has the texture of coarse corn meal with small pea size chunks of shortening hanging out in there.

In a 1 cup measure whip together:

1 egg

1 Tab white vinegar

Fill the cup with ICE cold water

Pour over the flour/shortening mixture and toss together with a fork until it just begins to come together. Divide the dough and wrap in plastic wrap.

This will make 4-5 crusts so half the recipe if you are making one double crust pie like I did. 

You will also need some Granny Smith apples. I have tried other kinds but I like the tartness of Granny Smith's and I like that they hold up nicely when they bake. I usually use 8 large apples

 Peel up the apples

 Then slice them up, not paper thin, not super thick. Technical, I know.

Then drop a few on the floor, you know, for good luck...

 Then gather up the rest of the things you will need:

For the filling I use

8 Large Granny Smith apples
1/4-1/2 Cup flour
1/2-2/4 Cup white sugar
1 tsp-ish cinnamon
1 Tab lemon juice
Toss them all together and taste an apple or two to see if it needs more sugar or cinnamon.

The next step is to roll out your dough. Now, I had mine in the fridge over night so I pulled it out and let it rest on the counter while I was peeling and slicing my apples. If you make the crust the same day as the pie you will want to make it first and let it sit in the fridge while you do the apples. Confused yet?

I don't know any better way to roll out pie crusts or biscuits (recipe here) than on a pastry cloth. You can see how well loved mine is. It's the best!

 Roll it nice and big and then place it carefully in the pie plate. I cut the edges off of mine on the bottom crust when the plate has a nice wide rim.

Now pour the apples right in there

Roll out the the top crust, pop it on top, trim the edges and give them a nice crimp

With a sharp paring knife carve out the letter Pi on top (or some other kind of vent)

Throw that sucker in the oven at 350* for around an hour

Then just bask in it's glory. Ooooh Aaaahh!

We took our Pi{e} to some new friends' house to celebrate the day with them. You know when you meet someone new and you just know instantly that you are going to be great friends. Yeah, these people were like that. It's intimidating to make new friends sometimes but these guys were great to hang out with!

I didn't get any pictures last night but this morning I did eat a nice slice for breakfast. Is there anything that beats pie for breakfast?

Let me know if you end up making this pie or if you have any questions, I would love to see how it yours turns out!

Reasons I Can't Run {or walk} a Ragnar

My ward is putting together a team for the Cape Cod Ragnar and they really want me to join up with them. They want me to join so much that they offered to let me walk. Now, don't get me wrong I would love to go along on this adventure, bond with the ladies in my ward and see a few new sights along the way but I do not have any interest in running. Ever. At all. For any reason. I can do about 20 minutes on the elliptical at my apartment's gym but I do not want to run/walk 11.4 miles of this race.

I am not sure how to tell them no but here are a list of excuses I am working on:

1. This is basically me working out:

2. Registration is $110. This may not seem like very much but it doesn't include gas, food, workout clothes, shoes, socks that won't give me blisters etc. I foresee this costing me about $200 in reality. $200=£119 or €146 which brings me to my next couple of points.

3. We will be leaving for Europe exactly one week after the Ragnar. I have a list a mile long (get it) of things I want to do and buy while I am there and I would rather spend my money on a caricature of myself in front of the Eiffel Tower than running. This just seems like an obvious one to me.

4. I am already asking for 2 whole weeks off of work (see number 3) and I don't know how much my boss will love if I ask for another day off just a week before I disappear to France. These copies won't make themselves!
Did I mention that my boss' wife is the one trying to convince me to join the team? Luckily my boss thinks running a Ragnar is just as insane as I do.

5. I will most likely have to run walk by myself in the middle of the night. As much as being attacked by a rabid possum seems like all my dreams coming true, I think I could do without it. Hasn't anyone seen the Teen Girl Squad episode on Homestarrunner.com where the girl gets possum'd? Um, no thanks.

6. I hate to run. I calculated that it would take me over 3 hours to do my legs of the race. I would gladly ballroom dance for 3 hours or strap on the old toe shoes and do barre work and turns for 3 hours but running? Yuck.

In all truth it does seem like it could be a really fun weekend if it weren't for the running. The team has been wearing me down for months now but I just don't think it's going to happen.