Weekends. Why are they so short?

Had a fantastic weekend that was far too short.  My husband's birthday was on Sunday so I deemed it to be his birthday weekend.  Fortunately, the weather also cooperated with us and it was gorgeous Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Friday night I prepared dinner of steamed mussels in white wine sauce, a field green salad with champagne vinaigrette and crusty garlic bread.  I also made an appetizer of a goat cheese gratin, which is the one of the easiest and tastiest apps ever (recipe below).  We had a bottle of rose and some white wine as well. I set up our table on our outdoor patio with a nice tablecloth, flowers and place settings and we dined al fresco.  It was a lovely evening and we stayed up late drinking wine and talking.

Mussel Dinner set-up

Goat cheese gratin appetizer and rose

Great French rose

The Legend of Beggar Vance showed up, aka, our dog, Fly

Saturday we slept in, had coffee and then I went off for a pedicure and some retail therapy at the mall.  I used my gift certificates that I received for my birthday and bought 2 new dresses, a blouse at Banana Republic and some makeup at Nordstrom.  I also bought Steve's birthday presents - some men's products from Kiehl's and a gift card to J.Crew.  I took him out to dinner to Salum, one of our favorite restaurants in Dallas where we had an excellent meal of steak, salad and we split a piece of chocolate tart, which was to die for - I love dark, bitter chocolate.

Pedicure

Remnants of chocolate tarte

Sunday was more sleeping in and I made us a light breakfast of egg white scramble with peppers and cheese.  We then ran up to the grocery store to get stuff for dinner.  We saw that they had live crawdads in so we got a pound of mud bugs to boil up for later.  It was kind of weird having them sitting in a bag in our sink all day - you could hear them moving every time we walked in the kitchen.

Live crawdads for later

We then did our neighborhood's home tour, which was nice.  I love getting decorating and remodeling ideas from other people's homes.  Our neighborhood in East Dallas is one of the older ones in the city.  It's called Hollywood Heights and most of the homes were built in the late 1920's and early 1930's.  The area has a really interesting history.  It was originally an old dairy farm and was bought by a developer after World War One who was from California (thus the name Hollywood which was his development company).  He was inspired by the architecture he saw in Europe so most of the homes are built in what is called a high tudor style.  Most of the homes look like little English cottages with high pitched roofs, gables and decorative details.  The entire area is also a protected conservation district.  Our home was built in the 1930's and it's still a work in progress.  We've done a lot of remodeling already but have plenty more to do which is why I love seeing what other people have done.  Living in an older home is challenging - apparently no one had more than 2 pairs of pants and 2 shirts back in the 1930's and closet and storage space is a big issue.  It's amazing what people can coax out of these homes though.  I got a ton of great ideas and have some new projects in mind.

Home tour brochure

Example of 1920's Tudor style home in our neighborhood

Loved this chevron tile design in one home's master bath

We saw this tacked to a telephone pole in our neighborhood
I guess someone has a sense of humor!

Following the home tour, we walked to our neighborhood park where they were having a small art fair and food trucks.  Had an amazing bahn mi sandwich.  The rest of the afternoon was laundry, margaritas on the patio and then a shrimp and crawfish boil, which was great.  I was so sad when the alarm went off this morning.

Art Fair and Food Trucks in our neighborhood park

Bahn Mi from Nammi Food Truck

Fly didn't want the weekend to end either

Goat Cheese Gratin Appetizer
Log of Plain Goat Cheese
Canned Plain Tomato Sauce
8 to10 Cured black olives (the wrinkly kind)
Thyme sprigs (5 or 6)
salt/pepper

Turn oven on to 400 degrees.  In a small gratin dish crumble the goat cheese and press it into the dish so that the bottom is completed covered.  Spoon tomato sauce over the goat cheese (usually 7 or 8 spoonfuls works for me) but leave a small border of exposed goat cheese around the edge.  Remove pits from olives and spread olive open so that it will lay flat - place olives randomly over the goat cheese and tomato sauce.  Remove thyme from sprigs and sprinkle all over the dish.  Sprinkle a little salt and pepper over the dish.  Cook in the oven for about 15-20 minutes until browned on the edges and bubbling.  Serve with crackers or crostini.  This goes really well with rose or white wine.