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Hello!

I was planning on telling you all about my dinner party on Tuesday and sharing some of the recipes I used (which were all great), but I am in Grand Haven and 1. I don't have the book with the recipes and 2. I don't have my card reader! I know... So unprepared.

We did have a lot of fun though! I made zucchini bread, brownies and asparagus pasta. The zucchini bread was easy and delicious! It had cinnamon and brown sugar, mmmm. The pasta was kind of like an asparagus pesto. I blended the asparagus up with pine nuts, lemon zest and a few other things. It turned out delicious. Chelsea brought her awesome cornbread muffins, Matt brought salad fixings and bread and spices, and Ashley and Isaac brought wine. We ate at my new awesome dining table and it passed the test.

Isaac claimed his stool in the yard (really the base to a cement bird bath), Gracie climbed and scooted down the stairs too many times to count, and in general everyone was fairly impressed with our planting and the cleanliness of the house. Which really was an impressive thing, since we finally deep cleaned it!

I wish I had the photos to go along with this, though I don't have any of my friends... But, there are a few that Chelsea took on her Flickr. Thanks, Chels!

I do have one recipe that I made up, and that is my recipe for french-pressed iced coffee. Let me tell you, it was delicious. I would've brewed it in my electric brewer, except I only had coffee ground for the press. I'm glad it happened that way, too. I used Starbucks' Kenya blend, because it's free for me, it's my favorite coffee that they offer, and my manager told me it makes a damn good iced coffee. All of those reasons are good enough for me! If you don't have a french press, that's fine, but it probably won't have as much of the lemony tang that Kenya has when it's pressed.

I don't know if this really counts as a recipe, but here you go:

Ingredients:

Some coffee

Something with which to brew it

No matter how you brew it, do exactly what you usually would, except put twice as much coffee in. Brew enough coffee to fill your pitcher of choice about halfway. Because the press makes stronger coffee anyway, I put about 8 cups' worth of coffee in and between 5 and 6 cups of water. It turned out perfect. I did this twice to have enough to fill half of my pitcher. Once it's all brewed and in the pitcher, fill it to the top with ice. Ta-da!

Delicious natural sweetener

Ingredients:

1 cup regular white sugar

1 cup fancy brown rock sugar

2 cups water

Boil it all until all of the sugar is dissolved. Wait for it to cool, pour it into a nice big mason jar and it will keep in the fridge forever.

The fancy rock sugar makes the syrup a nice root beer color and gives it that yummy taste. This way, you don't have to wait for the sugar to dissolve in your iced beverage of choice.

Enjoy your weekend!!

We're on our way up to my parents' cottage, where there is no internet. I plan to make jewelry, read and relax.

What are you up to this weekend?