So I know I promised to write about day two of my dream weekend in my next post, buuuuut I lied.

Well, I got hungry. And really distracted. And then really panicked because I wasted so much time being hungry and distracted. So therefore, that made me lie.

Either way you want to slice it, truth is I can’t stop looking at BBQ/picnic recipes this Memorial Day weekend. Matt and I don’t have any big plans, as we’re lying low until our big Seattle trip next month (oh yea, and the marathon/half marathon thing), but we may take a day trip to a nearby beach.

Orrrrr we might have a BBQ! We just learned that some family members will be passing through town, so that got me thinking that maybe on the day that we don’t go to the beach (I love how tacking on just one more day to the weekend allows you to say things like that) we can throw a little shindig in our courtyard. After all, we are celebrating our pool opening, our 2nd year being in DC and, most importantly, honoring our veterans and our soldiers. Which means mama has every excuse to make crazy amounts of burgers, salsa, tortilla chips, popsicles and then fill the freezer with all sorts of jargaritas!

Here are a few recipes on my Memorial Day Weekend wish list:

1) Homemade hard lemonade  from My Fudo

2) Salt and Lime Tortilla Chips with Strawberry Avocado Salsa from Peas and Thank You

3) Sweet Corn and Roasted Jalepeno Hummus from How Sweet It Is

3) Buffalo Turkey Burgers from Bev Cooks

4) Grilled Vegetables with Basil Pecan Pesto from The Meaning of Pie

5) Strawberry Shortcake Rice Krispie Treats from Sweet Treats and More

6)  Red, White and Blueberry Yogurt Pops from Back to Her Roots

So now, can you blame me for drooling over these recipes instead of writing what I promised?

Cheers to the brave men and women (including my father-in-law, MG Izzo!) who serve and protect our beloved country so we can enjoy a relaxing Memorial Day weekend! Stay safe and soak up all three days with good friends and good food.

On Sunday, we went strawberry picking. Which means for 3 hours, it was perfectly acceptable for me to:

- Blast all my favorite country songs and sing them all at the top of my lungs with the all the car windows down.

- Put my bare feet on the dash and wave both my hands out of the sunroof. (Just be happy I didn’t actually stand up and dance in the sunroof, junior prom style.)

- Buy the biggest cardboard container the farm had, even though Matt advised me not to. (He knew damn well that if I bought the biggest container, I was going to fill the biggest container…yeilding more strawberries that we would ever know what to do with and costing a lot of money that he would rather be doing every thing else with.) Happy wife = happy life.

- Get down on my hands and knees and crawl through every row on the strawberry field, and yelling various renditions of “yeaaaa buddy!” or “hellloooo beautifulllll” every time I found bright red patches of strawberry bliss.

- Eat one strawberry for every five strawberries picked. Okay, maybe every three. Or two. I thought of my mom, when she used to tell me “they’re going to weigh you on the way in and then again on the way out!” during our frequent “U-Pick” summer days. Thank goodness they didn’t.

- Beam with pride at Matt, who made it his personal mission to seek out the rows that had yet to be discovered by us wanna-be farmers. I had a feeling he was starting to like the idea of us owning a farm out in the country, sitting on a porch swing and eating baskets of just-picked fruit from our 300-acre backyard.

this is me, “beaming with pride.” and basically just so freakin’ happy.

…until he got hungry and decided that although he had probably eaten all the strawberries he picked, that he needed Chipotle, ASAP.

- (Despite his hunger pains) Do one last walk through each row to make sure I found all the strawberries that NEEDED to be in our over-flowing container.

- Have very selective hearing as Matt yelling across the field for me. “What was that? We need MORE berries? I WOULDN’T be happy with the amount we have? The container ISN’T full? Got it – I’LL GO CHECK THE NEXT FIELD!”

- Tell Matt to stand in line and pay for the strawberries while I go check out the mason jar prices asparagus and sweet onions for sale in the barn.

- Buy one too many homemade salted caramels even though I definitely have two cavities crying for mercy in the back of my mouth. I’ll call the dentist tomorrow, swear it.

- Talk about everything I was going to make with my new strawberry treasure trove (including this, this and this. Oh and these!) but to allow no self-control while eating at least half the container of berries on the ride home.

- Split the other half later that night with a bowl full of melted chocolate & two glasses of Bully Hill wine. (New rule: this needs to be a Sunday night tradition.)

- Announce at 10 p.m. that we simply didn’t pick enough and that we would just have to go back and get more next weekend.

All in all – amazing day, at least for me. But while we aren’t heading back to Butler’s Orchard pick more this weekend, I am going to spend half my Saturday on a different farm! My friend Jessie (who is an old farmer soul like me) and I are volunteering at Arcadia Farm in Alexandria, and we could not be more excited. Well, I could be more excited if I could only find cute garden gloves.

On that note – Matt could also not be more excited about this Arcadia Farm volunteer work, as he finally gets a day off from dealing with me, my BFF Mother Nature and my “perfectly acceptable behavior.”

Have a great weekend!

Happy Friday!

Fridays…a day for ease, laughter, afternoon Starbucks trips, bright red cropped jeans (yay for casual Fridays) and G. Love’s “Cold Beverages” on blast. And actual cold beverages…magaritas to be exact. Especially when you just happen to have mason jars full of them in your freezer. Can’t get any colder than that!

As I told you about our family’s Seis de Mayo tradition (posted on Siete de Mayo, of course), I mentioned that this year, I made fresh strawberry jargaritas.

Yes, jargaritas. When I first saw this idea a few weeks ago Bluebonnets and Brownies, my head almost exploded. If I hadn’t already compiled a seven mile long list of ways to use mason jars (a sample listed here), here comes the most RIDICULOUSLY incredible/delicious/alcohol-infused idea that caused me literally yell “OH MY FREAKIN’ GOSHHHH” and then hug (and kiss) the nearest jar I could find.

You wish I was joking.

Want to know what is a joke? The fact that liquor stores don’t open in Virginia until 1 p.m. on Sunday. I just don’t get it. Like, I understand the whole “Sunday” thing – church, family, rest, etc… but if someone wants to drink before 1 p.m., they are going to find a way to drink before 1 p.m.

Except us. We were in line outside the store at 12:53. Wasn’t my finest moment, but for the sake of Seis de Mayo and margaritas, it had to happen.

Want to know what else had to happen? Googling “best cheap tequila for margaritas” in the tequila aisle once the doors opened. Just as with the dresses I fell in love with last week, I couldn’t find a line in our budget spreadsheet for “ballin’ out on Patron.” 1800 tequila got 4 stars out of 5 on cocktails.com. Sold!

Once we got home, I went to work on the simple syrup, strawberry chopping and matching-jam-jar-lid finding. “You Know You Collect Too Many Mason Jars When…” you have three huge Ziploc bags full of various lid sizes. (I also was rapping “Cold Beverages” and chanting “stick it in the freezer, stick it in the freezer stick it in the freeeeeeeeeeeeee-zerrrr”) Again, you wish I was joking.

I don’t – look at how cute these little guys are! Perfect for a Seis de Mayo picnic, a Seis de Mayo dinner…

and a well-deserved Siete de Mayo hangover.

Fresh Strawberry Jargaritas
Recipe adapted from How Sweet It Is, “jargarita” inspired by Bluebonnets and Brownies. 

Makes one jargarita, but is easily doubled, tripled…quadrupled, etc.

Ingredients:

• 3 ounces strawberry simple syrup – recipe below
• 2 ounces lime juice (I used one whole lime for each marg – er, “jarg” I made)
• 2 ounces tequila
• lime wedges and fresh strawberry slices for garnishing
• jam jars with lids – or regular glasses if you’re not weird like me

Directions:

Mix strawberry simple syrup, lime juice and tequila in cocktail shaker. Shake for 30 seconds and pour into mason jar [Note: If not planning to freeze or chill,  fill glasses with ice before pouring. If you are freezing/chilling, no need for ice!] Drop in fresh strawberry slices and lime wedges, if desired. If freezing, screw on jar lids and put jars in freezer for at least 30-45 minutes. (I have to admit, I was way too impatient and took them out after 20. They weren’t frozen, but they were very cold and frankly, that was all I needed at the moment.)

If not freezing, drink immediately!

Strawberry simple syrup: Combine equal parts sugar and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and let sugar dissolve, then turn off heat and let cool completely. Once cooled, combine 1 cup simply syrup + 1 1/2 cups slices strawberries in a blender and blend until combined.

I plan on trying this simple syrup combo with blueberries, peaches, mangos and raspberries. So big ups to Jessica at How Sweet It Is for this fantabulous idea!

Yep…it’s going to be a great weekend.