Yo-Yo Ma Concert

While staying in New Haven, CT, we were able to get in on a free, yes free, Yo-Yo Ma concert. He was performing with the Silk Road Ensemble and it was great! We were coming from playing at a wedding about an hour away and made it in time for the last 45 minutes or so. The weather was rainy and the night dreary, but not in downtown New Haven! Hundreds (maybe thousands) flocked out on The Green for the the concert, braving the elements. We snapped a few pictures to remind ourselves of the amazing music we heard that night.

The performance was part of an Arts Festival that was being held that week.

There were about 10 or 12 musicians playing all different kinds of instruments- some I had never seen or heard of!

Mo's Midtown, Hartford's Best Breakfast

These past few weeks have blown by. Lots of traveling and no internet makes for a very boring blog...until catch-up time!!! I have lots of pictures and stories that I'll separate into different posts. So let's see...I'll start with Hartford's Best Breakfast, a close by diner that we ate at on our last day in Hartford. We had heard about it from a lot of people that it was actually very good (we pass by it almost every day on our way to school and work) for a tiny little joint. Mo's Midtown, it's called and run by a family. We were served drinks by the grandma, food by the son, and paid the bill to the daughter. And I suppose the father and some uncles were cooking and prepping. (Who knows, I could be making all of this relative stuff up, but that's what it seemed like to me. Can anyone else verify this?)

Even though it was a rainy day, and we went fairly early, the place was packed and we waited about 15 minutes for a table. (worth it, though)

                                         The little joint....very "Drivers, Din-ins and Drives-esq"

My breakfast: bacon, home fries, feta omelet, whole wheat toast and summer berry pancakes. 

The omelet was feathery light (which is perhaps not my favorite texture for eggs) but very good none the less!

The pancakes were out of this world!!! Whole wheat with wheat germ! Soooo good! I thought they would taste 

grainy, weird, and perhaps even a little "off," but they were better than any homemade or ihop pancake I've ever 

had!

I can't wait to go back and try more things off their menu. But I will have to. 

Anniversary Dinner

Last week was our 1-year anniversary! Wow, does time fly! I think we only realized we were coming close to a year of marriage a couple days before our anniversary. To celebrate we, went out to have a greek dinner at a restaurant in New Haven, CT called Istanbul Cafe.  I had been craving lamb (my all-time favorite meat) and this place was perfect to subdue my craving.

I loved the tables- they all had these moroccan tiles with bright blues, reds, and yellows!

My entree- 5 lamb tips with rice pilaf, salad and roasted veggies. mmmmmmm.....

Karl's entree- lamb kabobs with rice pilaf, salad and roasted veggies.

Our table- we also had a traditional lemonade called "Limonata" which is a traditional drink made from mashing ENTIRE lemons to a pulp, straining them and thinning it with water. I thought it yielded a much stronger lemon flavor than regular lemonade.

The cafe! Inside it was so beautiful! Covered with intricate fabrics and lounges with pillows and bright colors. 

Us at home after dinner. We actually found a piece of our wedding cake that someone must have kept for us. It was quite a surprise to look in the freezer and find a container labeled "Karl and Jessica's Wedding Cake." I'd have to admit, it tasted pretty bad, but it was fun to find!

That's it for now, but look for a new post coming soon on some things I've been working on for my etsy shop!

Pasta Aglio e Olio

If you read my last post, you know I got a heavy duty garlic press for my birthday. I decided to put it to good use and make aglio e olio. The recipe I use comes from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Which, may I add, is the most valuable cookbook you will ever add to your collection. 

Aglio e Olio is a simple and fast dish and although the ingredients are few and simple, the flavors are surprisingly big. You want to start with a pot of boiling and salted water and cook your linguine until al dente (reserving 1/2 cup of the water). The rest of the recipe is as follows:

So you start with 12 minced cloves of garlic, 11 of which you put in a skillet with 2 TB of olive oil. The key is to cook it over medium-low heat until it's golden and sticky, about 15 or 20 minutes.  Any higher fire and the garlic will burn and get a bitter taste. 

All the ingredients besides the pasta: red pepper flakes(1/4 tsp), chopped parsley(1/3 cup), lemon juice (2 TBS), garlic (12 cloves), and salt (dash or so).

After the garlic has cooked down and is golden and sticky, remove it from the heat and add in the rest of the ingredients. Then toss it with the linguine and add any reserved pasta water if necessary.

What are some of your favorite pasta recipes? 

Birthday Celebration, catch-up-style

As many of you know, the past month has been super busy for us. Not as busy perhaps as those of you who have multiple kids (or kids period), but busy none the less. We moved out of our apartment last week and the preparations for that kept us quite busy. As well as the 44 private violin/viola lessons I've given in the last two weeks. That and a bit of this and that kept us on our toes and exhausted. I'm starting to get the feeling that's what most adults feel for the majority of their lives. If that's the case, I think I can totally deal with it as long as there's good food, music and company thrown in the mix. Anyhow that is so off track. My birthday was almost a month ago and I managed to snap some pictures of the very special day, complete with flowers from my studly hubs:

Here are my birthday flowers in a vase a made at MICA three years ago. And for the record, these flowers lasted over 3  1/2 weeks! I had to throw them out when we moved, but they were still flourishing  at the time.

Karl made a deliciously fluffy cheese omelet. 

I even pulled out  these too cute paper napkins from Norway for the special brunch.

The brunch Karl made for me: omelet, cinnamon buns, bananas and grapefruit. Yum! On the table you can also see my gift (well, it's wrapped): an awesome heavy duty garlic press! (See how I used it in the post to follow)

Us full of the yummy brunch! (Notice the nice earrings my mom got me for my birthday)

For dinner we went out to a Mediterranean restaurant called Arugula. Everything we had was delicious, delicious, delicious!  For my entree I had pumpkin and ricotta stuffed ravioli with toasted filberts on a bed of....arugula!

Karl had the 1/2 roasted chicken with wild rice and ratatouille. That also was incredibly good.

For dessert we had the stuffed filo with banana and  chocolate filling. 

So that was my birthday- the short and sweet version. Probably two of my favorite birthday gifts was the "karlmark" card (from Karl of  course) and the box of goodies from my mom. What are some favorite gifts that you have received?

Winner and Trip to The American Art Museum

Well, this week has been a busy one to say the least! We have started packing and our apartment looks....well, bare and messy. I think we're up to 34 boxes packed. And even though it's a lot of work, I'm enjoying the process and am excited for summer to be underway. We'll head out to Minnesota to visit Karl's family and then to a music festival for about a month...But enough about that!

I am very excited to announce the winner of the giveaway: Moriah of Josiah's Nest! She will be winning this handcrafted flower necklace.

Recently, we took a trip to the American Art Museum in New Britain, CT. On Saturday mornings between 10-12 it's free and we were more than happy to take advantage of that. Set in a residential neighborhood, it's quite startling to see the modern building:

A large wall designed from disposable paper and plastic cups- each one separately secured on to the wall. (there was a tv showing slides of the mounting process)

A close up of the green section (my favorite color!)

I believe I am about 25 cups tall!

The museum also contained paintings....from the neck down it's female...

I loved this painting! The water in this picture looks like it's actually wet. I love the crest of the wave.

A marvelous glass works piece.

He looked SO real! 

Of course the museum had a lot of these patriotic themed ones, which I also love!

So that was our little trip! Quite fun for a rainy Saturday morning.

Birthday Giveaway!

To celebrate my 25th birthday, I'm doing my first giveaway! I'm hoping to get more followers and  business in my etsy shop (found here: FifteenevergreenOnEtsy). I had meant to post this on Monday, but haven't been able to find the time to actually take the pictures, load them and post them. My excuse is that we don't have internet in our apartment. (That's right, or any TV. Or text messaging on our phones. We save our money and buy Chipotle Burritos instead ;) )

Last week I spent some time making new products for my etsy shop. The giveaway necklace is one of them. Like it?

The grey flowers are made of a wool/felt blend, and the red flower (as well as the red centers) are merino wool from upcycled Banana Republic material.

All three flowers are mounted on a silver clasp chain.

So here's how to enter the giveaway: 

1. Follow this blog and leave a comment

For additional entries:

2. Tweet it

3. Share it with your friends on facebook

4. Share it with your readers on your blog

The giveaway starts today and ends in 1 week on Wednesday, May 11th at midnight. I'll select a winner using a random selector website and announce it on Friday, yes Friday May 13th. (something good should happen on that day!) Just make sure you leave an email address so I can contact you if you win. Also, leave separate comments if you tweet, facebook or blog about it!

Let the fun begin!