Hello friends! I haven’t done a weekend recap in ages, so I figured today might be a good time!
Matt’s parents were in town for a visit this past weekend, which was great. They were here for Riese’s year-end dance performance, which was on Sunday morning.
The grandparents arrived around dinner on Friday evening; For convenience, I got us a chicken dinner to go (roast chicken + hash browns + a baguette + some veggies) from the Del Ray Cafe, which worked out really well.
On Saturday morning we went to the Del Ray Farmer’s Market for fruit and other fun items before heading to the playground with lattes and breakfast tacos (from Rubia’s, where Stomping Ground used to be) in tow.
For lunch I had a simple bowl of grain salad with arugula, some leftover orzo from earlier in the week, feta, leftover chicken and a super lemony homemade vinaigrette. It was light and refreshing!
On Saturday night we had a fun adventure: we tried our pizza oven!
It was gifted to us by my parents a long time ago and we haven’t had the proper opportunity to try it yet, but since Matt’s parents were in town we decided it was a good time to give it a try.
The pizza oven (that’s this one – Amazon affiliate link FYI) is gas powered, so we hooked it up to a propane tank like we would a grill. It gets insanely hot — up to 950 degrees Fahrenheit (maximum) — and can bake a pizza in 60 seconds.
It took a few tries to figure out how to get the best results. For our first try, we used flour to keep the dough from sticking to the pizza peel and pizza stone…
But very quickly it turned out that flour didn’t work very well and we really needed cornmeal (it’s much coarser and therefore works better than regular flour), which unfortunately we didn’t have.
Luckily I did a little research and read that the parchment paper we had is a good substitute for cornmeal, so we used that on our second try…
This worked great for getting the pizza in the oven and onto the brick, but then we realized that—well—since the pizza oven was MUCH hotter than a regular oven, the parchment paper immediately burst into flames. Oops!
The good news is that the parchment paper underneath the pizza was perfectly fine (just not the bits that were outside of the pizza dough), so we finally figured it out in round 3 and cut the parchment paper exactly to the size of the pizza before cutting it put in the oven.
Success!! (Finally – ha.) It was difficult to figure out the right temperature and thickness of the pizza to get the best results – if the pizza was a little too thick, the outside would burn before the inside was fully crispy/cooked.
But eventually we found out and the pizza was pretty tasty!
The children were also enthusiastic. (As did Millee, Matt’s parents’ dog – she was dying to have a taste!)
On Sunday morning I went to an early yoga class and then we all went to watch Riese do her big end of year dance performance! She took part in a Creative Movement dance class this year and it was so much fun to see her on stage. She had the best time ever and it was adorable to see the other classes perform as well.
After the dance performance, we went with Riese along with my parents (who also came to the show) and Matt’s parents to Old Town Alexandria for lunch. Wes was at home with a babysitter because we knew he wouldn’t be able to get through an hour of performances and lunch without losing his mind or freaking out!
We had fun exploring the waterfront on the way to and from our car to the Virtue Feed and Grain restaurant.
I had the seared tuna salad which unfortunately wasn’t great – it was completely drowning in the dressing (Asian flavored – would have been nice in much smaller amounts) and the tuna itself was so salty. meh Disappointing as always, love this place! Oh well. The others enjoyed their meals!
We were sad to say goodbye to Matt’s parents when we got home from lunch. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing at home – tidying up, bathing the kids, etc.
For dinner we gathered all the leftovers that interested us.
I had a concoction with the leftover chicken, some leftover rice and lentil mixture, black beans, green beans and some sautéed mushrooms and spinach (left over from pizza night – I just sautéed them in some olive oil).
The kids love the rice and lentil mix (it’s a Whole Foods 90-second microwave mix) so they had those, plus some beans and fruit. Simple and easy!
We still have leftover chicken so this week I’m going to make a batch of my Cranberry Chicken Salad with Walnuts to eat… I’m tired of bowls of grains now as I ate one for lunch yesterday!
This one featured barley, chicken, diced celery, arugula, feta, and another homemade lemon vinaigrette (similar to my Lemon Balsamic Vinaigrette but with apple cider vinegar instead of balsamic vinegar).
One last pic from the weekend – so Friday morning – I was cleaning out our pantry and it felt SO GOOD. Anyone else love organizing and tidying up? I have to be in the right mood and have enough energy, but once I’m in the zone I love it.
I wish I had gotten a before picture, but here is the after picture! Our pantry was a total mess and it felt so good to be able to throw out a few things, organize everything a lot better and also vacuum and wipe out the pull out drawers.
Now snacks are where the kids can reach, glass containers like pasta sauce are high up where Wes can’t reach, things are organized by theme, etc. Hizzah! It makes me happy every time I open the closet now!
I’ve been struggling with organizing lately – last week I tackled some of the other kitchen drawers we use a lot that were a mess, and the week before I gave away some kids stuff (clothes and toys). are no longer used) and my office is tidy and organized.
I’m hoping to keep the momentum going as our bedroom closet could use some attention next, but I’ve put that off as it’s going to be a really big project!
Anyway – I hope you’re having a great day my friends! See you back here on Friday for some recipe inspiration.