weekend review

So, this happened this weekend:

We didn't intend to celebrate Valentine's Day early, but when Kent and I stopped at Harris Teeter for dessert after dinner on Saturday night, I couldn't resist the steal of a deal on this cake. I won't kid myself into thinking I need a reason to buy a cake (i.e. the costco cake from this past November...to welcome us to Baltimore?), but I decided that it's close enough to the actual day to justify celebratory dessert. Themed dessert is a serious weakness of mine.

We had the usual quiet weekend. Erica was supposed to visit us, but Nemo stranded her in New York. We stayed in on Friday night and watched our latest netflix obsessions, alternating between Downton Abbey and House of Cards. Both shows are quite good. I coaxed Kent into watching Downton with me, but he's more of a passive viewer, reading a book while it's on. Oh well. 

I used Saturday morning to run some errands. I ventured to the suburbs to pick up some supplies for food styling at Hobby Lobby. I got lost on the way, of course, and finding my way around Hobby Lobby was no walk in the park, so the outing took longer than expected. I hit the gym early afternoon to do my typical elliptical workout for an hour. I've finally gotten used to the weird movement of this machine, so I'm enjoying it more than when we first moved in. I try to reach 9 miles whenever I go on the elliptical- I'm not sure how that translates to actual mileage, but it's always a challenge. 

We dined at a new restaurant called Metropolitan on Saturday night. It's located in the cute area of Federal Hill, which is right next to our neighborhood. We started the meal with fried goat cheese. Balls of goat cheese and pine nuts are wrapped in potato, fried, drizzled with a balsamic glaze, and served with toasted baguettes- simply delicious.

I normally don't consider salad to be an entree, but the Ladykiller salad sounded too good to pass up. Jumpo lump crab and shrimp are served over roasted vegetables, white cheddar, parmesan, olives, bacon, and hard boiled eggs in a sesame ginger vinaigrette. I was very happy with this choice, but I wish I had known about the banana peppers beforehand. My wine did little to neutralize the fire in my mouth.

Kent ordered a salad as well. His had marinated steak strips tossed with cucumbers and tomatoes in a Japanese ginger dressing. It was quite delicious too.

We popped into Harris Teeter once getting home and purchased the aforementioned cake. We consumed it in its entirety while watching more Netflix. Netflix marathon weekends are very common in the Jaggers' house, but at least we're getting our money's worth out of the subscription.

Today was another casual day. I spent a large part of the day baking and photographing red velvet whoopie pies, which I'll feature early this coming week. I initially wanted to run outside because the sun finally made an appearance, but it's still too cold for my southern blood. I ran 6 miles on the treadmill instead. My treadmill tracks the time elapsed by flashing the percentage completed every 6 minutes, so I like to increase by .2 mph with each flash. I ran 6 miles in about 45 minutes, which is a lot faster than outdoor running, but I was still happy with my time. Kent pulled himself away from House of Cards to squeeze in a workout as well. I have no idea what he does in the gym, so I don't have much to comment on that. I do, however, think he feels pretty accomplished that he finished the entire first season in one week. Our Netflix marathons are no joke.

Our Sunday night TV line up is fairly intense now that Walking Dead is back. HBO's Girls has been hysterical so far and so on point with addressing issues that plague twenty-somethings. Shameless is another top contender. I wish Jimmy Steve would just come clean to Fiona already. I plan to read more of my new book, The Happiness Project, until my shows air later.

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Stay tuned for a couple Valentine's treats to post this week :)