OK….lets think….what is going on in your life that you’re excited to share, Liz?

UM….?

Truth is, there’s really not much going on that I feel motivated to tell you guys about. Lately I’ve been feeling in a bit of a standstill. Work is the same, my relationships are the same, weekends are the same…I’m craving something different!

Don’t get me wrong, life is great, but it’s just feeling a little monotonous lately. I don’t get excited about the things I used to. I’m feeling like I need to evolve in some way. Quarter life crisis?

This weekend for example, I met up with two of my girlfriends to attend the Taste of Lincoln street festival, historically my favorite summer fest. We knew a friend working a tent who could get us drinks, it was a beautiful night and a good band was playing. Sounds like a great time, right?

In the middle of the party, one of my friends and I were yelling at each other over the music, drinking our luke-warm beer, watching intoxicated people act stupid when we both realized that what used to be a highlight of our summers was now just…sort of…boring.

It’s official. I need to switch up my routine and start doing some new things! What I enjoyed two years ago just isn’t cutting it anymore. Now I just have to figure out what WILL be fun and get my friends to agree with me!

How do you guys shake things up when you’re feeling in a rut?

When rummaging through our fridge of meat, I decided to break us out of our normal meat routine and make some gorgeous veal chops we picked up from the Farmer’s Market recently.

I am a big fan of adding extra flavor to meats with a rub. I put Luke to work with our mortar and pestle grinding up three garlic cloves, olive oil, pepper and some cayenne pepper.

I rubbed the garlic paste into both sides of the chops and then pan seared thems in olive oil (heated until smoking) for three minutes on both sides

After searing, I put the chops on a plate and covered with foil. I added some beef stock and scraped up all the seared-on pieces from the bottom of the pan.

Despite not really liking mushrooms, I was craving a mushroom-cream sauce. What can I say? I’m an odd bird. I added some cipollini mushrooms, heavy cream and pepper to the liquid in the pan. To thicken it a little, I added some hazelnut flour (because we try to avoid white flour,) but any type will work.

I know the above doesn’t really give much guidance on the sauce, but you should just eyeball it all to your taste.

I let the sauce simmer 2-3 minutes to cook the mushrooms and then returned the chops to the sauce, covered and simmered another 5-7 minutes. You’ll want to spoon some of the sauce onto the chops throughout the cooking process.

I really like the combination of the tender veal with the creamy, savory sauce. They compliment each other very well.

To add to the inventiveness of the meal, I decided to try a NEW vegetable for a side: Radicchio. This hard-to-pronounce vegetable has a slightly bitter flavor that works really well with a salty counterpart. This is what it looks like at the store:

Kind of like red cabbage, but smaller.

I found a recipe in a cookbook at home for pancetta-wrapped radicchio that looks delicious and easy. To make it, just cut the head into wedges, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and wrap with a piece of pancetta or bacon.

Throw the pan into a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until the pancetta is crispy and the radicchio is soft. Drizzle with some balsamic vinegar and what you get is this crazy-yummy “vegetable” side dish.

All in all, I’d say mother nature did us a favor bringing the storms so we’d be forced to stay in town and go on some culinary explorations!

We’re going to Cedar Point this weekend!!

Land of the tallest, scariest and ridiculously fun roller coasters in the world (not to mention some AMAZING people watching, elephant ears and water rides to boot). I’m giddy with excitement!

Hope you all have an exhilarating weekend too. :)

My colleague, friend and former guest writer, Thi recently shot her engagement session with the Talented Becky Hill of Becky Hill Photography and I adore how their photos turned out! You can really see their personalities shine through with the locations, props and smiles.

Aren’t they an adorable couple? I can’t wait to see their wedding pictures when they get hitched this fall. Check out their full engagement session here.

Oh, and I love that yellow dress, Thi!

One way Luke and I are different is in our desire to socialize.

Luke would be perfectly happy to stay home all weekend and relax, while I feel the urge to go out and spend time with friends. Luke has a small group of friends he’s really close to, while I have a larger network of people I try to keep up with.

The problem is, living in a city like Chicago (where half of my hometown migrated to after college) means I have A LOT of friends to hang out with (I know, tough problem, huh!). Most times I love having so many options of things to do and people to see, but occasionally I start feeling stretched too thin.

With busy jobs, relationships, vacations ect its becoming nearly impossible to get all my friends together in one place, which makes it hard to maintain meaningful relationships with EVERYONE.

I’m starting to feel like I’m foregoing  strong relationships with my closest friends to be “sort of” friends with a lot of people.

What do you think, is it better to be friends with a lot of people or have a close-knit group of core friends?

How do you keep up with the network of people who are important to you?

I am a HUGE ribs fan. We eat them at least once a month in the summer following my dad’s technique for slow braising and then char-grilling. There really isn’t a more flavorful, tender piece of meat in my book.

Luke woke up early on Saturday and picked up two gorgeous racks of pork ribs at the farmer’s market. This is a good 5 lbs of ribs, which embarrassingly enough, we finished between three of us!

I like my ribs spicy, so I made a great rub that added some zing then spread it all over the uncooked ribs.

Here’s the rub recipe adapted from a paleo blog I read:

- 3 Tbsp paprika
- 1 Tbsp onion powder
- 1 Tbsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- lots of fresh ground pepper
- 2 tblsp olive oil

I put the rubbed ribs in the fridge to let the flavors sit while I made some homemade BBQ sauce. I can’t stand how sweet store-bought BBQ sauce is, so I decided to make a sugar-free sauce myself from a recipe I found on Son of Grok, another paleo blog I follow.

This sauce is super simple and tastes amazing. There’s so much depth and spiciness to it and it has a thick texture to really coat whatever meat you use it with.

To make it, just combine all the ingredients below and simmer for 25 minutes until thick.

Ingredients:
- 1 6oz can tomato paste (preferable organic)
- 1 to 1.5 cups of beef stock (look for low or no salt added)
- 3 Cloves Garlic minced
- .5 of an onion minced
- 2 tablespoons dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 2 tablespoons chili powder

Yum! This sauce has quickly become a staple in our fridge. I highly recommend you try it out.

So now that my ribs are rubbed and sauced, I placed them on a 1 inch deep cookie sheet and wrapped them in foil.

Then I baked them in a 325 degree oven for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, until the bones are clearly showing. I love this method of cooking ribs because the meat gets so incredibly tender and the house smells amazing.

To finish them off, Luke fired up the grill to medium/high heat and charred the ribs for 5-7 minutes.

I served the ribs with spicy green beans (cayenne pepper) and sweet potato fries.

This was an AWESOME meal to end the weekend. My mouth it watering just thinking about it!

I joke that Luke tricked me into falling for him. See, the first year we were together he didn’t travel once. I thought I had a great guy who would always be around whenever I wanted to hang out.

That was until he smacked me with the news that he was put on a job in….TEL AVIV, ISRAEL and would be gone for two months straight. Waaaaa??? Say it isn’t so!

I was really worried about what would happen to our relationship while he was gone, but it ended up being a good thing because it forced us to evaluate how we felt about each other and talk about how committed we wanted to be to our relationship.

Luckily we both felt the same way and decided to stay together while he was gone. Right before he left, we said “I love you” for the first time.

While it can be hard when Luke is gone traveling for work, it’s helped me become independent and more sociable with friends. I know how important it is for me to maintain interests and hobbies to keep me busy and happy while he’s away.

I think maintaining a full life with friends and activities, some of which we share and some we do alone, is what makes us both happy and ultimately attracted to each other. I think our friends appreciate that we’re not tied to each other all the time too. Sometimes you just need to hang with the girls!

Of course, when he walks in the door on Friday I’ll have a weeks worth of hugs saved up for him. :)

How do you guys maintain your independence in relationships?

This weekend Luke had to work, so I had a lot of time to spend with my friends and witness the many awkward ways men in Chicago hit on them. I can appreciate how hard it can be for a guy to approach a pretty girl, but some of their tactics were just downright rude.

For example, on Friday night a guy was clearly checking out my tall, blonde friend. However, instead of talking to her, he hit on another girl in our group and did everything possible to make sure the one he was really interested in saw.

The little game he was playing was SO OBVIOUS it was sad…and incredibly rude to the girl who he ultimately ended up using for attention.

On the totally opposite scale, on Saturday while at the pool, my friend spotted a cute guy. They clearly were attracted to each other by the smiles and eye contact that ensued.

Instead of beating around the bush, the guy confidently came over to our group, approached my friend and said “Sorry if this is a little awkward, but I wanted to come introduce myself to you.”

A++!!

They exchanged numbers and the guy got two big thumbs up from our group of girls.

So guys, what’s the lesson here? You’ll likely get much farther with that pretty girl if you act normal, confident and NICE. There’s a time and place for game playing, but in general we see right through it.

Ladies- what’s the worst way you’ve ever been hit on? How would you like to be approached by a guy?

While my poor husband is stuck working all weekend, I’m planning to hit up the pool a lot, watch some fireworks and of course make some delicious grub. I just love all the red, white and blue themed recipes I’ve come across…

I found these adorable red, white and blue cupcakes over at Tidy Mom blog.

These “pretzel sparklers” would be a bit hit with kids, I’d bet.

For the adults? I’m digging this fourth of July cocktail.

I love this american fruit-flag! It would be delish with some fresh farmer’s market berries.

Photo credit: http://www.rd.com

Of course, it doesn’t get much more all-american than a good old hot dog!

I’m planning on baking my second-ever cheesecake since my last one turned out so yummy. This time it will be a classic New York cheesecake decorated with some patriotic berries.

Photo credit: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com

Photo credit http://www.bonappetit.com

How are you guys planning to celebrate? What foods are you most looking forward to eating?

The concept of selling my dress seemed like a no-brainer to me since the darn thing was EXPENSIVE and I will never wear it again, but I was taken aback at the responses my friends/family had to the idea.

Them: What do you MEAN you may sell your dress!?!?

Me: I mean, I may sell my dress.

Them: Doesn’t it have sentimental value to you?

Me: It DID but now, taking up room in my minimal closet space, it’s more an annoyance.

Them: What if your daughter wants to wear it?”

Me: A) By the time I have daughters getting married, wedding dresses will probably be in black with a 60 ft train.

or

Me: B) Based on Luke and mys massive heights, our daughters will be 6’4 and would never fit into my dress.

:)

In all honesty though, selling wedding dresses has become a hot trend. It’s a great way for former-brides to recoup some $$ from that dress they wore for 12 hours and it lets other brides, who may not have budget for an expensive dress, feel beautiful on their day for less.

I’m still not 100% going to sell it though, as many people have told me that a wedding dress can end up having a lot of sentimental value to the bride, her family and eventually her daughters. I think I’m going to wait and see if I get any nibbles and then go from there.

About My Dress

So if you’re in the market, or know someone who is, my dress is a gorgeous french, alencon lace gown. It’s by the french designer Cymbeline and is called “Agadir,” and has been professionally cleaned with no flaws. (better photos coming)

It’s a street size 6 to 4 and I was just at 6′  with heels when I wore it. I’ll even throw in a matching floor-length veil. Asking price is $1,800 (44% discount off store price).

Email my at abattylife@gmail.com if you’re interested!