Barnsley II

This weekend was our second annual Barnsley Gardens retreat with Andrew's law firm! They treated us to another weekend of food, fun, and lawyerly bonding. We got back from Adairsville this afternoon and are now recovering. ;)

We left on Friday afternoon and (surprisingly) didn't hit too much traffic. (Actually, traffic going into town was worse -- everyone was trying to make it to Turner Field for the opening of Chipper's last regular season weekend at home!) Our suite in this cute cabin may have been comparable in size to our apartment...

It was really nice, and I loved the decor! We had dinner reservations Friday night at the Rice House, which we followed up with some good times at the hospitality cabin. I know better than to take any pictures there! We got to bed way too late a little bit later than usual...but we rallied Saturday morning for a fun day of spa-going, napping, skeet shooting, and Georgia-game watching at the Barnsley Beer Garden. I was a bad wife and made us leave the cabin with six or so minutes left in the Georgia game so we could make it to our scheduled firm reception and dinner on time.

The other die-hard Georgia fans made the better (obvious?) choice and finished out the game before joining us. Oops... But go Dawgs! After dinner, Andrew chose to go another round in the hospitality cabin while I chose to head for the giant fluffy bed in our cabin. I was okay with that. ;)

Then this morning, we slept in a little before heading down to the breakfast buffet. (I feel compelled to say that our lack of sleep plus no lack of fun, all surrounded by an unbelievable level of humidity, did not equal us looking our best...)

Last year, we had dinner at the ruins on the grounds. They were so pretty at dusk, but we missed the museum and exploring since we were just there for dinner. So that was something we wanted to do this time before leaving.

 

Thanks to Ann at the museum for giving us the full rundown on the Barnsley family and their interesting history! You can read a little bit about them here.

 

The "must-see" in the museum is the famous blood stain on the floor--leftover from when one Barnsley descendant (Preston Saylor a.k.a. boxer K.O. Dugan) killed his brother (Harry) in the house.

Scandalous!

After we toured the museum, we went out to the backyard to see the perennial gardens. We also walked down to the horse stables and through the lower gardens to the Barnsley family cemetery.

Eventually, we found our way back to the open meadow and headed to the car for the short ride back to Atlanta. Here's to Barnsley Gardens Retreat II!

No Menu Monday

Well, hello! It's Monday again, huh? :) I haven't been in the cooking mood the last couple of weeks, so I've just been using some easy, go-to recipes. And this week, I just pulled up an old Menu Monday (and accompanying grocery list) and plan to repeat it entirely. I think I'm just protesting the transition from summer to fall...ready to go full force into soups, stews, and casseroles! Yum!

This was an interesting recipe we tried a couple of weeks ago: Roasted Garlic Pasta "Salad." It was more like a warm sauced pasta than a salad, and you use low-fat ricotta flavored with a head of roasted garlic for a delicious, healthier creamy sauce. I think it would be good with any kind of veggies! The recipe is here.

I also haven't blogged much about our activities or weekends lately. That's because we've been pretty boring low-key, which is a good thing...because we're heading into a solid month of booked weekends. All good and fun things, though, so we're excited! Andrew did brighten up my week last week with a special delivery of roses, two pints of High Road Craft, and a new magazine! "Just because." So I think that's worth blogging. ;)

Anyway, just thought I'd check in to the ole blog! We can't believe it's almost October...can you?

Aw, Shucks (Clean Ears Everytime)

Andrew saw this YouTube video posted somewhere or another. In it, the adorable Mr. Ken teaches you how to get silk-free corn on the cob using only the microwave and a knife. There are 7+ million people who have already watched this video, but we thought we should share it in case you're not one of them. Because it worked! Exactly like Mr. Ken said it would.

1. Place your ears (of corn) in the microwave, with husks still on.

2. Microwave 4 minutes per ear. (We did two ears for 8 minutes.)

3. Remove the ears, using an Ove Glove or potholders, and place on a cutting board.

4. At the stem end, go up about a kernel-length and use a sharp knife to cut all the way through the husks and ear. 

5. Hold the ear of corn up by the silky end and shake it. Your silk-free ear of corn will fall right out!

We used Mr. Ken's method for this tortellini and tomato salad recipe. It required corn off the cob, and if you've ever cut fresh corn off the cob...you know that left-behind silks are super annoying. I think we only had to pull one stray silk off of one of the ears we did. So thanks, Mr. Ken!

Southern Living Tortellini & Tomato Salad

Serves 6

Ingredients:
18oz refrigerated cheese tortellini

2 cups small tomatoes (such as grape), halved

1 cup fresh corn kernels, cooked

1/2 cup scallions, thinly sliced

1/2 cup fresh basil, coarsely chopped

For the dressing:

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup fresh Parmesan, grated

3 Tbs fresh lemon juice

2 garlic cloves

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1/2 tsp salt

1. Cook tortellini according to package directions. Drain and place in a large serving dish.

2. Add the tomatoes, corn, scallions, and basil to the serving dish.

3. In a small blender or food processor, process all dressing ingredients until smooth.

4. Pour the dressing over the serving dish and toss everything to coat. Season with salt and pepper.

Yum!

Menu Monday

Tortellini & Tomato Salad
{I will share this dish in another post, because it was not only good...but also comes with a nifty cooking tip!}
We ended up with an abundance of leftovers last week. It's sort of difficult to make pulled pork for two! Anyway, that means that we only needed to come up with two dishes for this week, and one of those makes abundant leftovers. But I'm not complaining. ;)

This Week's Menu:
PW's Chicken Tortilla Soup with Cheese Quesadillas
Roasted Garlic Pasta Salad* (Andrew voted to add pancetta to this!)
*If it's served warm, is it technically pasta salad?

More than a Menu

Hope you had a happy Labor Day weekend! We spent ours not laboring (except for some necessary laundry and grocery shopping). Hurricane Isaac did not arrive as expected on my actual birthday, but we still went ahead with our plan to have my birthday dinner over the weekend. Andrew took me to Horseradish Grill up near Chastain Park on Saturday night. Neither of us had been there before and we don't spend much time in that part of town, so it sort of felt like we were on vacation. (...is that sad? Or do you know what I mean?)

 
They had a cute garden out front, and it's just a classic restaurant inside (and on the menu). I say that because I guess we are so used to the restaurants in Midtown that are so "city"/trendy...but sometimes you want plain ole good American food. HG provided that, although the best thing we had was probably the dessert -- Kentucky oatmeal spice cake with caramel ice cream!

In the valet line... I think I embarrassed us with this one. ("Are yall in line? Didn't know if you were waitin' for a car or just takin' pictures." And sorry - my arm is just not quite long enough to avoid the monster shoulder effect in these self-taken shots...)
On Sunday we ventured to Lenox to check out the new Vineyard Vines store! If you are a VV fan, you should definitely make a trip. It is so pretty, and they have all the preppy merchandise you could ever want! Plus, how cute are the shopping bags?

Andrew had great shopping karma at Lenox, and I did not. (I might have been more patient if there weren't a jillion people there. Just walking through the place was like being in a pinball machine.) Unfortunately for Andrew, the girls at one of the stores told me that the particular item I was looking for was available at Atlantic Station. So that meant only one thing...more shopping on Monday!

But that gave us an opportunity to try out another new restaurant -- Yard House (edited because Yard & Haus was a store in Statesboro!) at Atlantic Station. It was huge inside! The menu was also massive, and we ended up with moo shu egg rolls, a BBQ chicken salad, a Cuban roast pork dip, a Fat Tire, and a blackberry pear cider. Totally goes together, right? It was a little expensive for lunch, but I think we'll go back!

After I finally had too much some shopping success, we got some groceries and headed home to round out the long weekend. (We actually ended up spending most of the afternoon-evening-night on ancestry.com. But that's another story for another day...) We were sad to see the long weekend go, but at least we only had to menu plan for a short week!

This Week's Menu:

Tortellini & Tomato Salad

Southwest Chicken Salad (Grilled chicken, black beans, tomato, avocado, etc.)

Bowtie Lasagna

Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Dijon Slaw, Chips & Quickles

Grilled Chicken Sausage and Peaches with Mustard Green Beans

This was a super easy "semi-homemade" dinner from last week. We didn't bother making actual skewers, and the sausages and peaches were just fine grilled separately. A surprisingly good combo! 

{Recipe Here}

It's time to tee it up...

...BETWEEN THE HEDGES!

Happy gameday, everybody! And...Goooooo Dawgs!