Easter Sunday

Christopher and I had a fun Easter Sunday. We continued our tradition of having Easter breakfast at home with the little boys. The pups got a wet breakfast and we had our traditional smoked polish sausage with homemade hash browns. Delicious. 

The Easter bunny also came to our house. He hid Christopher's basket but he left me a scavenger hunt with lots of fun riddles. We must have been good this year ;) After finding our baskets, we went to Easter Sunday mass at St. Mark's and braved the SNOW! Go figure we would have a white Easter and not Christmas!

 We then met the Leutze clan for Easter Brunch at Rizzo's Banchetti's. The food was scrumptious but the company was even better.

We then had dinner with the Musialowski's. Dinner was absolutely fantastic. We had an Easter ham, turkey breast, cheesy potatoes, veggies, dinner rolls, etc. We were so full after both delicious meals. Jonathan was home and my mom and the Kolesnick's joined us this year too. It was an excellent day!

Friday Lenten Meal Idea

Alright so I know that Lent is official over and I am behind on updating my blog, but I thought I would still share a good meal idea for a meat-less Friday lunch/dinner. It is sometimes hard for us to think outside the fish box when it comes to Friday meals during Lent. This past Good Friday, we cooked up some Buffalo "Chicken" zucchini boats and they turned out fantastic!

Buffalo "Chicken" Zucchini Boats
Makes 2 servings (4 "boats)

2 medium zucchini's, halved lengthwise with the middles scooped out
salt & pepper
Olive Oil
Blend of mozzarella & cheddar cheeses (about 1 cup total)
2 Morningstar Buffalo Chik Patties (these are veggie patties sold in the Frozen goods section)
Extra hot sauce of choice, I used Wegman's Buffalo Hot Sauce

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. On a foil lined baking sheet, place the halves of zucchini with the scooped out section facing up. Brush each of the halves with a little bit of olive oil and season with salt & pepper to taste. Bake just the zucchini for about 30 minutes. When the zucchini is almost done, cook the Morningstar patties for about 1 minute. Dice up the patties into bite sized pieces. When the zucchini is finished cooking, sprinkle a little bit of the cheese into the scooped out middle. Then top with the cut up patties, a little more hot sauce (if you choose) and then sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Place the stuffed zucchini bake into the oven for about 5-7 more minutes or until the cheese is melted.

Then enjoy! As you can see I almost did not get a picture because we ate these pretty quickly after coming out of the oven. They were delicious. I gather you could do this for "chicken" parm (using any veggie style patty), "taco" boats, etc.

Annual Broadway Market Trip

Each Easter season we have a traditional, similar to so many other WNY families, to head to the Broadway Market to get our Easter sausage, flowers and other treats.

We had a nice trip this year and got our smoked polish sausage for Easter morning breakfast. Our favorite stand is Camelia's to get our meats. We must have it at the right time because we had only a short wait to be served!

It is always fun to walk around, people watch and take in all of the delicious smells.

Wonderful Weekend

This past weekend was so much fun and very productive. Friday night Christopher and I had a little date night. I have been craving the Pizza Hut pizza with the triple cheese - cheese topping, stuffed crust and the asiago on top of the crust. So he indulged me and we had dinner there. Perfect Friday dinner in Lent AND it was everything I could have hoped for and then some. But you all know that I am a cheesy chick. Then we went to the golf dome and played miniature golf. Christopher was incredible and got 3 hole in 1's!!! Needless to say he beat me, but only by three :) I am so ready for warmer weather to get outside and play the real thing!

We then relaxed and watched some TV in bed. Christopher left very early Saturday morning with his Dad to visit J and go see Canisius BBall play in the MAAC Tournament. They had a great time but unfortunately Canisius lost to Monmouth. Next year guys!

I on the other hand had a wonderfully productive day AND got to see one of my very close friends Reese. We had lunch together and I made a dairy free cheesy potato recipe. It was one of our favorite dinners we made when we were in college. Yes - we made cheesy potatoes into a main dish. It was so great to see her and catch up. Looking forward to our next girls date soon.

I was pretty pooped by dinner time, so leftover pizza it was! The pups and I then snuggled and watched some TV and had a glass of wine. Sunday was another productive day! I missed Christopher, but man do I get a lot done without him distracting me.

He left Kingston earlier than expected and was home for dinner! It was so great to re-cap the weekend together and I made him his favorite Mini Taco cups. Looking forward to the week ahead!

Today's Lenten Reflection

I really liked this morning's Lenten reflection and I thought I would share it with you.

Noticing God's Presence - Henri J.M.  Nouwen

"Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known." (Jeremiah 33:3)

Every encounter in life involves the spiritual discipline of seeing God in others and making known to others what we have seen. Since our seeing is only partial, we also need other people who will help us to see. Through each encounter, we will come to see more clearly. Everyone is a different refraction of the same love of God, the same light of the world, coming to us. We need a contemplative discipline for seeing this light. If I have discovered God as the center of my being, then the God in me recognizes God in the world. We also then recognize the demons at work in us and the world. The demons are always close, trying to conquer us. The spiritual life requires a constant and vigilant deepening and enlivening of the presence of God in our hearts.

Jesus, help me be more attentive to God's hidden presence in others. 

Fun Weekend

Last weekend we had the perfect combo of busy, fun and relaxing. Friday night we met Christopher's parents for a fish fry at Papa Jake's. Boy it was packed! At 5:30, we waited about 40 minutes for a table! But that was okay because we had a lot of catch up on and enjoyed some drinks at the bar. The fish fry was incredible and we could all see why there is such a long wait. And...by 7:30 they were all sold out of fish! Definitely Lent in Buffalo!

Saturday morning I worked on updating my etsy site and listing and ran errands, got my oil changed in my car and meal prepped a little for the week. Then we - all four of us - went over to my parent's house for some lunch, a visit and to show Dad how to use his new tablet! I am so proud of my Dad for trying to learn how to use it. He has never used a computer before and did a great job learning to use the tablet. The pups had a blast playing with Buddy and running around.

Saturday night we had a Netflix marathon of House of Cards - to catch up on Season 2. Yep - we are very behind - no spoilers! This week we are going to start on the newly released Season 3.

Sunday we had church, where we saw some friends and caught up with a former teacher of Christopher's - Fr Tom. I worked on some new merchandise for Ellegant Decor and Christopher is finishing up one of his refinishing projects for a friend of ours. It was a very productive weekend.

Then Sunday night, I played around with one of our families favorite and classic recipes - Cheesy Potatoes! I will have to post the recipe I used, but we swapped out the potatoes for zucchini and the sour cream for Greek yogurt and also added chicken. It came out delicious and even Christopher enjoyed it. It is also very similar to a recipe that one of my best friends Reese created too. I am loving making hearty bakes and casseroles - it has been way too cold out.

First Friday of Lent

For the first Friday of Lent, Christopher surprised me and made dinner. Ooo lala! He made a homemade fish fry and french fries. They were delicious and satisfied my craving for a fish fry, because we certainly were not going to go out in the sub zero weather.

In trying to fulfill my lenten promise, I have started to organize small areas, but that have a large impact. The first area I tackled was our side counter in the kitchen. This is usually our dumping area for the mail, lunch pails, laptop bags, anything we are holding, miscellaneous pantry items, etc. It was so nice to go through and put everything area in its right place. The key to this though is trying to keep it clutter free! It is a good exercise to really understand what we are receiving in the mail - can we stop some of the offers? the catalogs? Can we reduce waste?

I think this weekend I will tackle our two "junk" drawers. Wish me luck!