yum

Last night was awesome, we had officially celebrated our anniversary this past weekend out for an intimate dinner with my betsie and her husband and got the private wine room, oooh romantic, but better than that, we could talk about innapropirate topics and no one could hear us!!! But last night, it was what we wanted it to be.  It was us and our kids, looking at them laughing, remembering and picturing our future with one more this year!

I didn't really have some grandiose plan for the day, but thought a nice dinner would be good.  I decided to make risotto, scallops and asparagus at, oh ya know about 230 in the afternoon!  So, I picked up and dropped off three of my friends kids and then took Audrey and my bestie's daughter Emmerson to Kowalskis to get needed supplies.  It was 4pm people....I ran around that store like a crazed lunatic and let the girls pick out desert!  Which they did happily, waiting to eat that said desert, they weren't so happy about.

We rushed home and due to the 50 degree day out, unheard of in January the kids wanted to go to the park behind our house, so they all ran there and Nolan and I began creating.  First up was Punch Pizza for an appetizer.  I had prepared the dough a few days before and had extra balls in the fridge (stop it that sounds awful!), perfect, simple and delicious...can't believe they put the recipe online but they did!  I tried to link it here, but can't for some bizarre reason, just google punch pizza recipe and it will come up from Kare 11 website.  Anyway, it was delicious.....and ready to eat by 5pm....listen even I was patting myself on the back for a 30 minute turn around on that gooey goodness!

 The kids still at the park I started on the risotto....I used epicurious.com bacon pea risotto recipe, it's my favorite, I left out the peas as my hubby can't stand em, but it is really good with them too!  If you have never made risotto you wouldn't know that you can't leave it, you have to slowly add fluid, a 1/4 cup and stir over and over for 8 cups, it takes about 20 minutes, which is a long time of stirring, but why I got the scallops because they cook in 5.  And when that risotto is a creamy goodness and there is zero cream in it, the stirring is so worth it, trust me!  So, the asparagus didn't look good at the store at all, so I went with green beans instead and they were just as delicious.  I seared the scallops in 1/2 butter 1/2 oil combo with sea salt only and they were amazing.   You may be thinking did your kids eat that?? NO, my kiddos, who I am too greedy to share this deliciousness with, ate their chicken nuggets and green bean dinner and were happy as can be!  They just wanted the desert that Audrey picked out, chocolate cake!

We had dinner served at 530, thanks to my bestie who was at the park with the kids until 520 and Nolan who was having fun ripping apart the kids scholastic book order forms, (they didn't think it was so cool) oops!  Anyway. It was delicious, perfect and fun....And I love nothing more than a spontaneous decision to take a risk and go out on a limb to pull something off in record time and it all works!  We then settled in to watch our favorite show, Parenthood cuddled on the couch, a perfect ending to a beautiful celebration :)  Thanks for all the congrats and well wishes, so fun to share all of this with our friends and family!  Now go cook something delicious it's so rewarding! :)