Hi there! While I was off in Turks and Caicos, Matt took the kids up to Pittsburgh; once I got home I flew up to meet them there and spend a few days before all driving home together.
Besides hanging out with Matt’s parents and a bunch of friends that live up in Sewickley area (outside Pittsburgh), we also had some really yummy meals!
If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile you know that my father-in-law loves to cook, and we do not mind benefitting from this. 🙂
First up: a surf + turf night in honor of Matt’s birthday, which is actually tomorrow but we celebrated early since we were together!
Isn’t that grilled salmon gorgeous? He always grills it on a cedar plank and puts lemons on top, plus some mustard and I believe a little maple syrup. So good.
As for the steak (per Matt’s request, as it was his birthday dinner!), Matt and my father-in-law decided to try a sous vide “reverse sear” method, where they cooked the steak via sous vide, then quickly seared it on the grill at the end. I guess another approach is the regular sear method where you sear it first!
I don’t really know any more details than that as I’ve never tried the sous vide approach myself, but here are some pictures of the process. 🙂
Sealing up the steak in a sous vide bag with some butter and herbs:
Ready to go in its bath!
Bath time:
Prosecco with a blackberry in it while the cooking happened (isn’t their backyard lovely? It’s so lush and green):
It wasn’t too crazy hot so we got to eat outside, which was nice.
Here’s the feast!
Everyone got steak (in addition to the sous vide steak, there was also a grilled steak in the mix – Matt had a much larger piece than I did!), salmon, corn, zucchini grilled with parmesan, and sweet potato with cinnamon butter.
Super delicious and fresh summery meal!
The whole gang:
Wes decided he really liked corn on the cob, so that was nice to entertain him for awhile! He’s not the easiest dinner companion these days. 😉
After dinner (and after Wes went to bed), we got the fire pit going and had some s’mores. Yummy way to cap off the meal!
Matt had a lot of birthday celebrations over the weekend – the night before our family dinner, we had a big group dinner out with a bunch of friends for Matt’s birthday, followed by a bar outing.
We went to a restaurant called Andora that Matt and I went to once before years ago. It’s good and they have a nice and big outdoor area, too!
Shared appetizers – seared tuna, bread with dipping oil, fried shrimp (very yummy):
For my entree I had the crab cake. The crab cake was quite good, but the rice on the side was super bland.
We obviously had to embarrass Matt with a candle and very loud “happy birthday” song. 😉
I wish we had remembered to get a picture of the whole group (there were 12 of us), but here is one of Matt and our friend Jack with a slice of chocolate mousse cake!
A couple other food highlights from the long weekend spent up there included some veggie-packed lunch salads:
A brunch feast:
Grilled pork chops with a corn and tomato succotash, sautéed Swiss chard, and tomato mozzarella and basil – this was another yummy and super summery meal:
And we also had a delicious dinner out at the club my in-laws belong to, but Wes was kind of a hot mess and so we all spent a decent portion of the dinner following him around while he tried to jump into the pool (and then had various tantrums when we stopped him), or, while inside, climbed up and down stairs for ages… good times.
My meal was really yummy, though – a farro and veggie dish with Thai peanut sauce that I topped with seared salmon. It was so good. Wish I’d gotten a pic!
Oh and yes, he had pants on and a cute outfit before this picture, but he got a little wet in said baby pool so this was the random backup outfit from the diaper bag. Whatever works!
As far as fitness, Matt and I got out for two short runs together which was a nice treat!
I always love running in Sewickley – so many nice tree-lined roads with creeks, etc.
We even saw a fawn – so cute.
I also made it out to a hot yoga class one morning while Wes was napping and Riese was out at a morning art camp.
Salt Power Yoga in town is my fave to go to whenever we visit. I always leave outrageously sweaty and feeling really wrung out in a good way.
I was sad my visit to Sewickley was so short this year – we always have fun visiting there in the summer, and Riese especially loves going to the pool. But it was also nice to get home and back into a more normal routine this week!
I’ve got one more trip next week and then that’s the last of our travel until Thanksgiving – I’m going to a culinary workshop of sorts for dietitians on a nearby farm.
I’m really excited – it should be a lot of fun AND I get a ton of continuing education credits (which I need to keep my RD credential – I’m up for renewal next year) which is awesome as usually I get them traveling to conferences but I haven’t been able to do any of that since 2019!
I’ll be sure to share a recap once I’m back – stay tuned.
