SUNDAY COOKING FOR WEEKDAY LUNCHES

I love to cook on Sundays.  I find that it's a great way to wind down from the weekend and also prepare for the week ahead.  I’ve gotten in the habit of bringing my lunch to work because if my food choice has already been made, I’m less likely to go out and eat something I shouldn’t, especially right now when I am really trying to watch everything I put in my mouth.

My mother is an eclectic chef and while she isn’t professionally trained, you would never know the difference.  Her food is amazing and will please any pallet: Southern, Spanish, Greek, etc.  My latest craving from her kitchen is a Tibeten soup packed with healthy ingredients.  It is filling, flavorful, low in fat and a perfect lunch in the middle of a freezing Colorado February.  It’s also incredibly easy to make.

She learned this recipe from a monk named Jamjung who was traveling through Oregon several years ago with about 15 other monks.  She hosted them at her home while they were touring the US and a fabulous friendship has since evolved.  She now knows a variety of Tibeten recipes and on occasion, does an incredible spread. 

Soup Ingredients:

½ - ¾ Lbs. Beef – preferably tri-tip

2 Tbs. Olive Oil

1 Large Onion

2 Cloves Garlic

1 ½ tbs Fresh Ginger

1 Large Jalapeno

1 Large Tomato

1 Bunch of Spinach

¾ Lbs. Daikon Radish

Salt & Pepper to taste

Heat ½ of the olive oil in a large stockpot.  Rough chop the onion, fine chop the garlic, ginger and jalapeno and put in the pot on a medium heat.  Sautee for about 10 minutes or until the onion turns clear.  Chop the tomato and beef into small cubes and add the tomato to the onion mix on the stove.    Let the vegetables cook together on medium heat for another 10 minutes.  Remove from pan.  In the empty pot add meat, generously salt and pepper and cook until browned.   Put the vegetables back in to the pot and stir in between 1-2 quarts of water.  Cover and simmer for 1 hour.  Add salt to taste.

While this is cooking, peel and slice the dakion radish and set aside.   Rinse spinach, remove stems and rough chop.  

After one hour, add daikon radish and continue to simmer.  

After a ½ hour, turn off the heat, add spinach and cover. 

Sibeh Topping

1 Large Tomato

1 Large Jalapeno

1/8 Cup Red Pepper Flakes

2 Cloves Garlic

1 Cup water

1 Bunch Cilantro

Now for the best part.  Sibeh is a topping – similar to a dipping sauce.  Place chopped tomato, chopped jalapeno, red pepper flakes, garlic and water in a food processor.   

Top with cilantro (stems removed).  

Blend for about a minute or until smooth.

To serve, put soup into a bowl and top with Sibeh and a few sprigs of Cilantro.  The Sibeh is pretty spicy, so use in moderation.  My mother reminded me that the Tibetens would include fettuccine pasta but since I’m trying to avoid carbs, I leave this out J  

Enjoy!

DETAILS DETAILS DETAILS

Jimmy has an obsession with the University of Kentucky Wildcats.  He is one of those fans who paces, yells, pumps his fist multiple times in the air, reads recruitment blogs and watches games on a laptop mini screen when they aren’t televised in Colorado.  His heart pounds so fast, I’m sometimes worried it might stop completely.  Basketball is his thing and while it can get a bit excessive, I’m happy to step aside and watch him enjoy it.  When I found Garters by Kristi on Etsy, I not only found my garter, but also my something blue! 

Kristi makes sports themed garters for every team you could imagine.  The U of K version has a little gold basketball in the center and while a bit tacky and totally over the top, perfect for the die-hard in my life.  Kristi provides two, one for tossing and one to keep.  Though I’m not sure Jimmy will allow whoever the lucky guy is to catch it, keep it.  He’s devoted. 

I love personalizing the must-haves in our wedding.  Tradition is important to me and throwing in twists here and there to make it representative of us has allowed for many “A-Ha!” moments. 

Kristi's garters can be found at: www.gartersbykristi.com 

SAVE THE DATES

Steve Cyborski is a total genius in my humble opinion.  His artwork is inspired, unique and has a flair of vintage design.  His objective?  To provide aesthetically sound and functional creations which execute each client’s purpose.  I love it.  Steve lives in Lake Tahoe and worked with Jimmy and I at the Lake Tahoe Brewing Company.  Originally from Chicago, he relocated to the North Shore and has been there ever since. 

I knew I wanted to use an engagement photo for our Save-The-Date and for them be in the form of a postcard.  I spent a lot of time on Etsy looking through various shops and drew my inspiration from Beyond Design.  I immediately thought of Steve to create and print these.  I emailed him two of our engagement photos and what I got back was perfection.  I was so excited to mail these out, I literally sat on the living room floor the day after his box arrived and hand addressed all of them.  I took several mini breaks for some hand massages from Jimmy and I’m pretty sure I still have a sharpie indention on my right hand.   This was really the first big thing I had done for the wedding and I felt that planning was underway.  I was thrilled.

Check out Steve's website at: www.allyancedesign.com

PHOTOGRAPHER? CHECK!

I discovered the Style Me Pretty website almost the second we got engaged, which has an abundance of wedding information.  I found a directory called The Little Black Book, which was able to guide me towards the best wedding vendors in Colorado.  At the time, this website was really my saving grace.  I wasn’t super familiar with Colorado, having only lived here for a year and this helped narrow down who I wanted to meet with.   First up?  Photographer.  I scoured websites and blogs for HOURS.  It drove Jimmy absolutely crazy because half the time I was in tears at the beauty of these captured moments.  Happy tears of course, but this was obviously an emotional period for me!   Two months and four meetings later (I cheated), I was ecstatic to find Julie Afflerbaugh. 

Based out of Boulder, Julie has an infectious smile and an extremely warm personality.  She has the ability to make you feel completely at ease in her presence.  Her style?  Artistic and spontaneous.   "The energy in my photographs comes from the relationship I build with my clients.  Because we have fun and grow comfortable with each other, the photographs are more natural and real."

This shines through in her work because she makes clients feel at ease, obviously making for better shots.  She is incredibly talented and I’m so excited to have her photograph our wedding!  We met Julie in Vail almost a year before our wedding day to take engagement pictures.  The weather was perfect and even Jimmy enjoyed himself!  We had a blast.

Check out Julie's website at: www.julieafflerbaugh.com

DESTINATION WEDDINGS

The thing about having a destination wedding is that its highly unlikely guests will know anything about the area they are traveling to.  It’s really the bride and groom’s responsibility to provide as much information up front so people who are attending can make educated decisions on how to spend their time.  For many, this might be their one vacation of the year so you want to make it as easy as possible.  This requires some extra thinking and planning but your guests will be very appreciative in the long run. 

In our case, many people have never even been to Colorado so I wanted them to have a resource they could check out when questions came up.  A website is the best way to do this because you can house all the information in one place and continually encourage guests to refer back to the site rather than playing travel agent. 

Our website has the basics: how we met, the proposal story, etc.  but I also include transportation information from Denver International Airport, directions to/from our ceremony and reception location along with details about weekend events.  I added several links to Vail specific sites so guests can plan their trip without having to do a whole lot of extra research.  

We decided to for-go traditional programs in an effort to save money and be more environmentally friendly.  Our website has photos of the wedding party and information about our relationship to each person.   We also added pictures and stories about our parents, which was a great way to personalize the site and accredit them for all they have done for us.

Website options are endless.  After much research, I decided to go with Wedsite because the templates were like nothing I’ve seen before and I loved the layout.  Some other favorites include: Wedding Paper Diva’s and Wedding Jo Jo.  But really, there are SO many to choose from, a majority of which are free!

Check out www.wedsite.com , www.weddingjojo.com and www.weddingpaperdivas.com 

PERFECT LITTLE THINGS

For me, a wedding color pallet screams bridesmaid dresses.   I have worn my fair share of these poofy little numbers so I decided from the get-go that I would choose from J.Crew.  The appealing thing about going this route is there are a number of different styles to select within each fabric category so each lady has the option to pick what would look best on her body type: strapless, halter or straps.  The not-so-appealing part is that there are only eight stores across the entire US where you can try on actual samples.

I worked with one of J.Crew’s wedding specialists and requested a fabric swatch of almost each color, from each line.  She finally had to cut me off but I felt like I had a good foundation to start. J One of the things I tried to keep in mind was my setting.  I am getting married in the mountains, in spring so I wanted to make sure whatever I chose would compliment our surroundings.  I must have changed my mind 18 times but after driving myself crazy, I finally I sat down and wrote the email to my girls.  And I even hit send. 

I decided to go with graphite and light chartreuse silk chiffon dresses because I thought the contrast would be fun and the bouquets would end up tying everything together.  The yellow is pretty bright - so bright that I almost had the girls return them - but in the end I stuck with my gut, as every bride should do.  The best asset, according to my future sister-in-law, is that the Juliet dress (shown in light chartreuse) has pockets!  

Up next?  The bridesmaid gift.  I have 8 bridesmaids and they are comprised of a really amazing group of women, which meant I wanted to do something extra special.  I scoured Etsy looking for the perfect accessory, saving nearly 100 favorites to my account.   I was searching for something that would accent the colors and bring them together even when bouquets weren’t there to do so.  Featured on Style Me Pretty, I found Amanda at Untamed Petals.   She had made headbands for this absolutely GORGEOUS wedding and I knew instantly that was what I wanted.  Headbands were a little risky but if she could somehow turn these flowery bits of heaven into a belt, I was sold.  SHE DID and I’m now anxiously awaiting their arrival!  I sent her color swatches of each tone (my favorite benefit to J.Crew) so she could match the fabric and use both.  I’m so excited!  Finding that perfect thing is always such a relief!
And seriously... aren't they beautiful?!

Check out Amanda's blog at: www.untamedpetals.blogspot.com and her Etsy shop: Untamed Petals.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Jimmy and I knew we had to get married in the mountains, mainly because we met in Lake Tahoe and wanted to incorporate that history into our wedding day.  We briefly toyed with the idea of Kentucky or Lake Tahoe but decided that Colorado was a central location and since our guests were literally coming from coast to coast, somewhere in the Rocky Mountains would best suit us.  We took to I-70 on a Saturday morning in February with a map and a list of locations.  After a quick stop at our local coffee shop, we were on our way and 3 hours later we had found our dream location.

Donovan Pavilion is owned by the city of Vail and has an undeniable charm.  This mountain lodge sits on the West end of town and allows clients to bring in all their own vendors – a great way to save some $$.  We wanted a site that could host both the ceremony and reception and we were also looking to really showcase the scenery.  Vail creek runs past the back patio so guests can hear the sound of water when they are outside.  There is also a huge fire pit, creating fabulous mountain ambiance.  Our minds were instantly set!

Once a location is determined, brides are really able to start planning.  For me, the venue made all the difference as I could picture set-up, colors that would be prominent in May and core elements I wanted to include.   It was such a relief to finally start narrowing down my ideas!