It was a good weekend.

So I wouldn't necessarily say that I am failing blogging 101 but I am getting a D, which quite honestly brings back memories of my high school days. See the reason I am doing so poorly thus far is that I had a weekend that should have been photographed, I cooked, I crafted, I had visitors... it was all photo worthy and blogging worthy.... and yet? nothing. Not a single picture. Well I do have pictures of Allison and her girlfriends that came over, I guess I can include a couple of those for filler. I had fun hosting these girls and made some good food for them (that is where I should I have taken the pictures, although since I didn't take pictures I will link one of the recipes).

I made the Bang Bang shrimp, mojo potatoes, (copy cat recipe from Shakey's pizza) and my newly famous (made the recipe up all by myself) chicken wings. Shoot they are so good I feel like I should wear a tight t-shirt with an owl on it when I make them! It was nice to entertain and fun to have all this energy around the house. These girls are sweet and have taken my girl in and been very good to her since we moved here and I am glad she has them.

Before the girls came over Chris and I drove out to Fredricksburg (about 30 or 40 minutes from home) and explored a little. We found an awesome restaurant, called Firebird Grill. We haven't had a lot of luck here in VA with finding good places to eat so we were really happy to find this place.

Today the girls went home, we cleaned up and kind of just hung around the house. I got a sign started for a friend of mine. (I sure hope she likes it) Then we had our first California visitor! Woo hoo! She and Chris used to work together years ago and her daughter went to Kindergarten with Gianna. She moved to Pennsylvania (which who knew was only 2 hours from here? I mean I guess most people do but I sure didn't) so it was nice to have someone to commiserate with. Someone who understands what we are going through and pretty much has the same feelings.

If any of my readers tries to make the Bang Bang shrimp from the recipe linked above let me know what you think. It is also a copycat recipe from a restaurant out here called Bonefish Grill. I have made them a few times and they are always a big hit.

Hey wait a minute!!! Guess what? I can include the recipe for the mojo potatoes, because I already took pictures of the process LAST time I made them! Woo hoo! I think that just brought my blogging grade up to a C.

Ingredients-

3 or 4 russet potatoes sliced into 1/4" thick slices

whole milk or heavy cream for dredging

a cup and a 1/2 of flour

about a tsp of your favorite all purpose seasoning, like Lawry's or Emerils

and a lot of oil. (yep that is the exact measurement you will need, alot)

(bare with me people, I don't measure anything. Ever. I promise if you stick with me these will come out delicious!

First lay all your slices out on a cookie sheet and season them a little with salt and pepper and a little of the seasoning salt

the dredge them a few at a time in the milk and then in the flour (you can't tell from this picture but the flour mixture has more of the seasoning in it too, probably a tsp or so and maybe some garlic salt. If you look to the left you will see that I lined a cookie sheet with foil and laid out the already covered slices (very neatly I might add).

then you just start frying those babies up in small batches as shown. As they come out of the frying pan I lay them on a paper towel lined cookie sheet to drain a little of the oil off. Since this process is sort of time consuming once I have a good amount of them done I put them in the oven to keep warm. Once they are all done I sprinkle them with salt and serve with ketchup, sour cream or ranch for dipping. 

This is what they look like when they are all done. Yum! Enjoy!