DATE NIGHT 8/16

This date night, Laura made black bean and sweet potato enchiladas, complete with enchilada sauce from scratch, and an avocado cream to put on top. (And it was free from all animal products!) It was delicious, fresh, and filling- just one enchilada had us satisfied. We also had a small amount of chocolate non-dairy ice cream made with almond milk, which was also delicious.

We then walked to DI to just browse, but of course, came back with 4 plastic bags worth of stuff. We got drapes for our sliding glass door in the kitchen, 3 baskets for fruit and other storage, 5 picture frames to put up, a t shirt for Matt, a cool National Park book from the 1960's for Laura, and a version of Trivial Pursuit called Celestial Pursuit, with all LDS questions. This all sounds like a lot...and it was, but it only came to $18.00.

Laura then worked on decorating and organizing, while Matt decided to cut his hair himself. Laura felt this was a bad idea, but she lets Matt make his own decisions. 30 minutes in, she goes to check on him. It is very uneven and Laura is getting concerned. She suggests just stopping for the night and paying 5 dollars to get it cut tomorrow so he doesn't ruin it further. He refuses. She leaves. 15 minutes later, Laura hears a scream coming from the bathroom, and the word "No" uttered repeatedly. She walks over,  but already knows what has happened. Turned out Matt forgot to put the 4 inch plastic guard on the razor, so he cut nearly all the hair off in one spot. Laura refrained from saying, "told you so," even though she did, in fact, tell him so. Matt kept saying all night, "What am I doing to do, Laura?" But all he can do is wait for it to grow...

TODAY

Today at work, Laura's been....

Reading this book...

doing this Rosetta Stone demo...

cause she just loves this cute Korean guy.

WHAT'S COOKING

Matt and I have always loved to cook (and eat!) Add that to also having our own home, with new dishes, and discovering that Chopped is free on Amazon Prime, we have now started to enjoy taking pictures of our food. Just with an iPhone, so you know, no photography prizes will be found here...

 Matt made an amazing tomato and fresh basil soup from scratch...served with one eyed jack (Laura's specialty) and a few strawberries for a Saturday brunch.

 Matt saw this recipe for Cuban Black Beans on Reddit of all places and has been wanting to make them ever since. Laura was skeptical, but they were absolutely delicious. We ate them with rice and some spiced chicken thighs, and plan on making them many more times.

Not a great picture, but Laura's homemade chunky guacamole with a Cuban black bean quesadilla that we shared after church one Sunday...

Even though we love to eat, we try to eat small portions and Matt is often going on runs (sometimes Laura goes too, but she really prefers spin classes and doesn't have a gym pass anymore.) After reading parts of The China Study, a gift from Laura's best friend from high school Amelia, we are toying with the idea of going vegan for a month. We want to eat a diet of more plant based foods. We already don't eat too much meat, but adjusting to life without dairy products would be more difficult. We want to do all things in moderation, and we don't intend on living our lives strictly and never indulging. But the health benefits of a lifestyle that focuses on plant based whole foods just can't be disputed. We think a month of eating vegan would give us a kickstart in eating more this way than we already do, and help us learn recipes and find even more things we love that are the most beneficial for our bodies. After the month, we think we would still have dairy and meats occasionally and in small portions, but consciously build our diet on plant based and whole foods daily. But who knows until we get there!

BLACK SHEEP REVIEW

Matt and I have always consulted Yelp when choosing where to eat, and we did this especially on our honeymoon in Seattle. We never go to a place with less that 4 stars and usually only places have a fair amount of reviews. However, when we researched Yelp more thoroughly, we were disappointed that it may not be as accurate as it could be. (Here and here) We then got the idea of rating places on our own just for fun, and posting about it on our blog with our date nights and other recipes we make. So, here is our first review.

Matt: Grilled Quail

A duo of quail marinated in a mixture of traditional Navajo spices, grilled and served with cotija-roasted potatoes, spinach, and a spicy mole sauce. 

Two birds, spinach, potatoes and sauce. 
First, I loved the birds. Never got over the quails. I was intrigued the whole time by these miniature chicken. It was just different enough from a chicken in size and texture that it felt unique. Tender and juicy too. I couldn't really tell too much of the birds' natural flavor because of all the marination and sauce. Overall it was great. I was kept intrigued by this different bird. It reminded me when we used to have boiled quail eggs as little kids. Also reminded me of how me and Lee always talked of trapping some of the quails we saw by our apartment. 

Most impressive was the sauce. It really brought everything together into something cohesive. The menu talked about traditional Navajo spices and a spicy mole sauce. Didn't really get that, as the sauce was more sweet/nutty than spicy, somehow familiar but different. It was on the tip of my tongue the whole time. That tease sorta added to the intrigue. 

Overall, the dish was a fulfilling exploration. Unique and thought provoking. I don't know if I'd get it again though. And I love the artwork! 4.5/5

source

Laura: Navajo Taco Trio

Three tapas style Navajo tacos, The Black Sheep Pinto served with pinto beans that have been slow cooked in pork au jus, an adobo puree, and a ranchero salsa. The Red Chile Beef with olives and cotija cheese. The Green Chile Pork with cilantro. All with menonita cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, crema and onions.

I loved the concept of this dish and style of this dish. While all utilized the same formula of a frybread as a base loaded with a protein and toppings, the flavors were all surprisingly unique, yet complementary. I was very impressed with the wide variety of flavors they were able to bring out in all of them. 

The Black Sheep Pinto beans had an especially complex flavor; a great balance of spicy, sweet, and savory elements. The Red Chile Beef was the most similar to a typical Navajo taco from a street cart or fair, but of course a step above in quality. I would have to say the Green Chile Pork was my favorite of the three. It was the spiciest, which I loved, but not so much that the heat overpowered the other flavors. It also was the most simply topped, adding only cilantro to the list of standard toppings, of menonita cheese, lettuce, crema, tomatoes, and onions. I liked this because it really highlighted the green chile and pork, and let it speak for itself without adding too much noise. It was a rich, satisfying dish and I couldn't finish it all. 

However, since Black Sheep tries to provide a very fine dining experience, and all plates are 20 dollars plus, I think the presentation could have been a little cleaner. The toppings were fairly haphazardly placed on top, especially on the Red Chile Beef, and it just looked sloppy. (Picture above is not of my actual dish). Overall, I would give this dish 4.5 out of 5 stars.

For the rest of our date night, we strolled around downtown Provo for a bit. We then walked over to Smiths to get an Alpine Milk Chocolate Rittersport. (Laura has been craving milk chocolate lately, when usually she prefers dark, so this was noteworthy.) We have determined that Rittersport is having a supply chain problem on the Wasatch Front however, because all the places that usually carry them are out of stock. It's a travesty. So we setteled for a Lindt and Sprungli Extra Creamy Milk Chocolate bar. Matt ended up preferring it, but Laura still misses her Rittersports. We ended the evening watching some episodes of Chopped All Stars Tournament on Amazon Prime, because it's free, and why not?

DATE NIGHT 7/26 & 8/2

There are many more things we need to update on...but I want to make sure I record our Friday night date nights before I forget!

Our first Friday night date night as a married couple, (7/26/13), we decided to make a bolognese sauce together from scratch. We served it over fettuccine and had a spinach salad on the side. Laura loved it, since she always likes bolognese, and Matt was surprised at how good it was too. Our pictures really don't do it justice. We love cooking together and plan to do it a lot for date nights, as it's cheap and fun.

We then headed over to target to buy some things for our apartment, using our gift cards we got as wedding presents (thanks everyone!) We got a microwave, a knife set, a shower curtain liner, and some other things. We spent the rest of the evening trying to organize and get our home together. 

Last Friday night (8/2/13), we started our date night by jogging on the provo river trail. We stopped at some parks and enjoyed exploring our neighborhood and surrounding area more. Since our house is so close to the river, we plan on taking a lot more walks and runs on it while we live here.

By the time we got home, we were so hungry we didn't feel like spending the time to cook a thai curry like we planned, so we took some frozen tortellini we had, and Matt whipped up some nice tomato sauce and spinach salad to go with it. We then accidentally fell asleep on the couch after dinner because we were just so exhausted. Earlier in the week Laura saw on Facebook that Red Mango, a frozen yogurt place, was having a free yogurt day on the 2nd, so we had been planning on that all week. We woke up disoriented from our nap, and headed out for our free yogurt. Laura loved their peanut butter frozen yogurt, and we got some  free coupons to use the next time we go for date night.

To end the evening, we watched Capote, which we both really liked and were impressed with. Laura had been wanting to watch it for awhile since Philip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal of Capote won him Best Actor, and Matt was on board. In the first few minutes, Matt was saying how much he liked it. We both ended up really enjoying it- there is of course more we could say about it, but suffice it to say: it was really well done.