Weekend in Review

Despite the fact that the gloomy, rainy weather tempted me to sit on the couch all day in pajamas and watch TV, I was actually quite successful in having another productive weekend!  After an afternoon date in town on Saturday I found I had some free time before the stores closed so I hit up Central Market again and stocked up on more goodies.  I stored it all away when I got home to be used with abandon the next day and instead devoted my Saturday night to some more DIY projects (ok, not exactly a wild and crazy Saturday night, but I did go out on Friday night AND I had a date Saturday, so I'm not a total dud...)

This one was inspired by all of the painted rhinestone necklaces I've been seeing online.  I spotted the original rhinestone version of this baby on etsy and knew immediately that I could have a field day with that awesome chevron pattern, which is so of-the-moment in the design world.  I never would have worn the original rhinestone version (too glitzy for me), and to be honest I didn't really know how wearable the "after" would be, but now that's it's done I'm kind of loving it...

And I FINALLY got around to making my belt!  My iphone camera wasn't in top-form in my 12:30 am apartment lighting situation, so sorry for the crappy photo.  But I'm loving the way my belt turned out!  And it looks really close to the original on the left, no?  After I finished those two projects, I got some major cleaning done and then called it a night.

Sunday started off with one of my awesome Central Market purchases from Saturday: duck eggs!  While being able to use quail eggs as my chicken egg substitute is awesome, they're kind of ridiculously small, so I was excited to see a half dozen carton of duck eggs sitting in the egg display at the store.  They're actually a little bigger than chicken eggs, so baking with them would be so much easier on me.  I scrambled one up for breakfast with some sauteed onions and shitake mushrooms - yum.  Only problem: turns out I'm sensitive to duck eggs too.  I've been fighting off a headache ALL DAY today - a clear sign of an egg reaction. Bummer.  At least I still have the quail eggs, though...

I spent the rest of my Sunday running errands and going on a MAJOR cooking spree.  I made a lot of stuff including that recipe for carrot marmalade I've been wanting to try, a big batch of pesto, some parmesan polenta (not great on its own, but fantastic when paired with some super delicious broiled salmon, asparagus, and fresh pesto!), and I also tried my hand at pickling for the first time!  I made some bread and butter pickles from this recipe and I also tried pickling some radishes.  I haven't tried them yet as they're supposed to sit for 24 hours, so I'll see how they turned out tonight!

(top image from here)