A Few of my Favorite Websites...

I have kind of become addicted to some of these websites lately, so I'll share them.  Most of them you have probably heard of, but if not they're ones I check every day.  Post Secret is this website that people can mail in any kind of confession or truth about themselves that they want, anonymously, on a postcard.  Its kind of weird but interesting:

Some of the postcards are really funny and light, and others are intense.  Its just interesting.

Now on to shopping!  I have sort of become addicted to Groupon and Living Social.  These guys offer a deal each day.  There is an IPhone app or you can go to the website.  Its everything from museum admissions to hair salons to movie tickets to restaurants.  You kind of never know what you're going to get.  Its a different coupon for each city, and its good to check the cities other than the one you live in, because sometimes the coupons work anywhere.  Yesterday on Groupon for Memphis was a $75 worth of services for $35 at the place I get my hair cut so I got that!  You just sign up with your email address.  I LOVE coupons so I love these websites!

The other two websites that I love that I have to give Summer Tyson credit for are Gilt and Jetsetter.  They are owned by the same people, but Gilt is clothes and home and Jetsetter is travel.  I haven't bought anything through these yet, but they are fancy schmancy and fun just to look at.  I'll buy something soon I'm sure.  Gilt has sort of like Sample Sales from Citizens of Humanity and Kate Spade and some fancy designer stuff that is still too expensive even at 60 or 70 percent of the cost, but fun to look at!  Jetsetter has amazing five star resorts all over the US and the world for usually about half off the regular nightly rate.  The funny thing about these websites is that you sign up, then they make you wait until they "have room for you to join", then you get an e-mail invite a few days later inviting you to join.  So far no one I know has been turned down yet!  Not sure what's up with that, but it is fun to window shop on these websites and I'm sure I'll buy something soon! Oh and if you click on the Jetsetter link above and sign up this week you get a $25 credit toward a purchase.

Last but not least is Restaurant.com.  Here you can buy gift certificates to restaurants at a discounted rate.  There are some important things to know about it before you buy, but still a really good deal.  Enter in your zip code and go through the list and pick out restaurants, then read the rules for the gift certificate.  Usually its a $25 gift certificate for $15.  The important part to know is usually you have to spend a minimum of $35 and tip on the original total.  So just make sure you buy the gift certificates with that in mind.  BUT the MOST IMPORTANT part is that when you check out, they always have a coupon code to enter to get you anything from 60%-90% off and this is when it becomes a really good deal.  You can either google "Restaurant.com coupon code" at the time you are buying it, and one of the coupon code websites like RetailMeNot will have the code for that time, or if you sign up on the restaurant.com website, they will send you e-mails with the coupon codes every week.  So with the codes, the $25 gift certificate ends up being around $2.  Hard to believe I know, but we use it all the time!! 

Back to RetailMeNot, any time I buy anything online I google the coupon code for whatever store it is.  You can usually find a coupon code for at least free shipping for most online stores.  Like if I am ordering something from JCrew, I google "JCrew Coupon code" before I check out and about 25% of the time I find something to save a little money.  RetailMeNot is a good place to look for coupon codes because they keep it very current and let people rank whether the code worked or not so you can see the percentage that the particular code worked for people.  Ok enough!  Enjoy!

Music Monday: Miranda Lambert- The House that Built Me

Well this is another one I've got to give Brian credit for.  He heard it on the radio and came home and downloaded it, and I love it.  The song is so good and her voice is awesome.  I'm not a huge country fan, but this is a good song.  So here you have it:

Smile for a Lifetime, Dinner with Sarah and Josh, Sunday Funday at Shelby Farms!

We had a fun non-traveling (almost) weekend in Memphis.  On Friday, we drove to Jonesboro to a fundraiser for Smile for a Lifetime at Dr. Burris' house.  It was a great chance to see some friends from dental school and get together for a great cause.  Their house is perfect for entertaining and we had a great time and ate some delicious food!  On the ride to Jonesboro the sunset was so pretty I had to take a picture. 

 Brian and Matt Carlisle

Andrea Carlisle and Emily Gairhan

Clark and Summer Tyson and me and Brian...I kind of match the table cloth

Jennifer Steele and Emily Gairhan

Summer, Kendall Jones and Me...I sort of look pregnant in this one:



On Saturday we watched football all day.  The Tennessee game was a nailbiter and if it wasn't for the UAB kicker missing 5 field goals we would have lost!  Then the Arkansas Alabama game was alllllmooostttt a great upset.  For dinner we went to Sweetgrass with Sarah and Josh and their fun friends from college, Scott and Courtney.  We passed the House of Mews and spent some time checking out all the crazy cats:

Sarah showed us some killer dance moves at Celtic Crossing: 


Today we took the doggies out to Shelby Farms off leash area for dogs and they had a blast.  Ayla is slowly getting better about being scared of big dogs.  Coco gets outside in the great wide open and turns into a wild woman!

Destin with John and Amy, Knoxville for the Florida game...I'm Catching up on Blogging!

Weekend before last, Brian and I headed down to Destin for one last beach weekend because I had a day off.  John and Amy, our friends from New Orleans, drove in to meet us.  Jennifer was down in Destin with dental school friends so we had fun hanging out with them too.  We had a nice, relaxing weekend and enjoyed some awesome weather.  Amy made us turkey sandwiches with bacon and avocado to eat on the beach and they were so yummy I'm addicted.  Here are some pics from our beach weekend:

We had an awesome dinner at Louis Louis, the new restaurant owned by the same people that own the Red Bar.  Same menu, same cool atmosphere, closer to Sandestin.  We give it two thumbs up!
For some reason, a girl at Rum Runners later that night thought Jennifer was a bachelorette and gave her a tiara and ring.  We're still not really sure why, but I think this picture of Jenn is super:

Last weekend, we headed to Knoxville for the Tennessee Florida game.  I did not take enough pictures.  We stayed with The Tara Kelley and Steve and had a fun time even though the game was sad.  Steve brought out the Jorts flag again this year in honor of the Florida fans and it was a hit as always:

And a shot of the field.  Like I said, I dropped the ball on the pictures this weekend.  Got to see Tara and Alicia and Mike D and Amelia and McKernan and crowd, but we just needed more time!

Cocodot

I read about this "Evite"-ish website on my friend Amelia Daniel's blog about forever ago and it looked so cute, but I didn't have any invites I needed to send so I forgot about it for a while.  I thought about it today and looked back into Amelia's archives to find the website and it is sooooo cute!  It is called Cocodot.  It has all of these really cute invites that you can use as Evites, but the really cool thing is that you can save the invite as a picture and make your own!  They even have these super cute Lilly ones:

I haven't made my invitation yet but I am super excited about the possibilities with this website.  LOVE IT!

Memphis Eats: Dinner at Iris, Finally!

We heard about Iris before we even moved back to Memphis, and I think we've called every weekend at the last minute trying to eat there, and they've been booked every time.  We finally got in Tuesday night, and it was packed!  On a Tuesday!  That is nuts for Memphis.  It was great.  We drove up and it felt like New Orleans.  Its in a small house in Overton Square and has a neighborhood feel to it.  There are a few outdoor tables, and you walk inside to a packed house.  It really felt just like some of our favorite New Orleans restaurants, and for good reason. The chef, Kelly English, is from southern Louisiana and trained under John Besh (who has some awesome restaurants in New Orleans like August and Luke).  Anyway, dinner was awesome.

I started out with the sweet corn griddle cakes with crab ravigote.  They were amazing.  It was like a mix of a crepe and a corn pancake with layers of crab in the middle.  So so good.

I took the pictures with my Iphone so not that great.  For dinner, I had the flank steak.  It had a great flavor and was served with some spicy rice.

Again, kind of hard to see, but it was thin slices of flank steak with a side of rice tucked into this green cone. Not sure what the green was, so I didn't eat the outside!  Brian had the "surf and turf" new york strip stuffed with fried oysters and blue cheese.  It was delicious but very very big and filling. 

For dessert, we had the creme brulee that was coffee flavored with beignets on the side. It was an awesome combination.

Overall it was an awesome meal and the restaurant has great ambience- it felt so much like a New Orleans neighborhood restaurant it felt like we were there!  It is definitely a big, fancy meal and not the type a place you would go every week (unless you had a really big food budget!), but so worth going for a special occasion or if someone else is paying :)  We have the 3M rep, Scott Stumpf, to thank for treating us to this awesome dinner and being able to get the table in the first place.  Apparently his mom is somehow related to the bass player for Wilco and is friends with the chef's mom.  Scott's mom hooked the chef up with front row Wilco tickets, so the chef hooked Scott up with a table!  And we got to enjoy the awesome food.  We will definitely be back.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Last night I cooked!  I'm going to try to get on a cooking kick.  We'll see how that goes since tonight we're eating at Iris.  oops.  Anyway, I made Classic Chicken Tetrazzini from September's Southern Living and it was delicious!  So I thought I'd share the recipe and some pics.  Here's the recipe:

Classic Chicken Tetrazzini (click on this link for the actual recipe to print)
This is the full recipe, but I split it in half and it was enough for 2 with leftovers.

1.5 (8 oz) packages vermicelli rice (I used Chicken Rice a Roni and cooked it without adding the flavor pack)
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 cups milk
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 Tbsp. chicken bouillon granule
1 tsp. seasoned pepper
2 cups freshly grated parmesan cheese, divided
4 cups diced cooked chicken
1 (6 oz) jar sliced mushrooms, drained
3/4cup slivered almonds

Boil the chicken.  I split the recipe so I used 3 chicken breasts and that ended up being about 2 cups, so for the full recipe, use 6. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare pasta acoording to package directions. 

I made the Rice-A-Roni according to the directions on the back and left out the chicken seasoning pack.

While the rice is cooking, melt butter in a dutch oven over low heat.  I used our fabulous red Le Creuset dutch oven that was a wonderful wedding gift from Michelle Drinkard!  Go ahead and measure out the flour, milk, wine, bouillon, pepper, and 1 cup parmesan cheese because you have to do some continuous stirring once you start.  Once the butter is melted, whisk in 1 cup of flour until smooth. It should look like this:  

Next, gradually whisk in milk and wine:

Cook this over medium heat, whisking constantly, 8 to 10 minutes until mixture is thickened and bubbly:

Next, whisk in the bouillon granules, seasoned pepper, and 1 cup parmesan cheese.

Congrats, you just made Mornay sauce from scratch!!  Remove it from the heat.  Your chicken should be finished boiling now and the rice should be finished.  Drain the chicken and shred or dice it.  Drain your jar of mushrooms and add them to the sauce.  Next add your cooked rice and chicken.

Spoon the mixture lightly into a greased 13x9 inch baking dish.  Sprinkle the slivered almonds over the top (the almonds were yummy on top so I'd add extra).  Then sprinkle on the remaining 1 cup of parmesan cheese.  Tada!  Bake it at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.  It came out looking like this:

It was delicious!  Probably not the most healthy meal ever, but very good.  Southern living says it "freezes beautifully".  We had it with a salad with mandarin oranges and feta cheese with balsamic vinegarette dressing.  Yum!