Banana bread french toast

 

I made mom's banana bread again yesterday so today I wanted to try banana bread French toast! Just cut a couple slices of banana bread. In a separate bowl mix together a little bit of cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg, one egg, 1/8 cup of milk and whisk. Pour mixture in a shallow dish and coat both sides of the banana bread with mixture. Put the bread in the frying pan on medium heat and flip when the bottom side is slightly brown. Other side should brown in a minute or 2 more.

Serve with syrup!

The first Groark Girl Wedding

It was a blast!  The photographers said they have never seen so many people dancing.  

The ceremony and reception were held at Las Campanas, a country club about 20 miles outside of Santa Fe.  The scenery is beautiful with mountains (and a fire) in the background.  The ceremony had an earthy officiant that I thought was very fitting for the setting.  We were sending our love everywhere...haha. 

The reception was in an enclosed outdoor adobe patio that had windows cut out.  It was absolutely beautiful.  The tables we sat at were long wooden tables with wooden benches.  The food was delicious, but I must admit, the hanging frames took people away from the food for a bit so we could all take fantastic photos with the props Kelly made for the wedding.  

The weather was perfect as once the sun goes down, it cools off.  Erin and Keith, your wedding was a rockin' time.  I'm glad Mr. Vain could be played, but let's not forget the dance off either or the 21 year old flower girl...best wedding ever.  

New Mexico: Margaritas and Sopapillas

As soon as we arrived in Santa Fe, we were starving. So we headed on over to the plaza area and walked around a bit looking for a place for a really good margarita.  I'm sure there are tons of great places there, but Erin suggested Coyote Cafe to us as we could sit on the roof patio.  Kevin ordered some pork tacos (pictured above) that were delicious and I had chips and guacamole.  We both had margaritas, but I tried the prickly pear margarita - my new fav margarita and Kelly's new favorite color: Prickly Pear Margarita.  They are DELICIOUS!

Not so many hours later, we ate again.  We all met up (well, 22 of us met up) at Tomasitas.  It had great Mexican/New Mexican food to choose from and sopapillas came with each of the entrees.  Sopapillas are a light fluffy almost biscuit like (but not as heavy) food that you smother with honey and eat right up.  I miss sopapillas so much in Chicago (but I'll have to head back on over to Abiqui Cafe on Belmont to get another one).  Tomasitas was very good and relatively inexpensive.  No prickly pear margaritas offered there though :(.

My favorite meal of the trip, however, was at Hotel La Fonda right in the plaza.  Erin, Kelly, Jaime, Kevin and I went to the restaurant (i can't remember the name...ergh!), and had lunch.  It has beautiful stained glass small squares that make up the one side of the wall, and skylights that let in the light.  I ordered the red snapper tacos...to die for.  Best fish tacos I've ever had.  If any of you make the trip to New Mexico, these are a must try.  Kevin had a steak with asparagus and arugula salad.

 

Now onto the unhealthy.  Kevin and I ate at Marble Brewery which actually brings in pizzas from the pizza place next door.  The Brewery has outdoor seating that looks down on the plaza.  We ended up spotting Erin and Nicole and everyone came up to join us for a few beers.  We ordered a pepperoni, garlic, truffle oil, pizza with alfredo sauce.  It was SOOO good.  But Kevin was not a fan of the huge garlic cloves all over the pizza.  I said, "Garlic is so good for you though."  His reply was "so are friends and we're not going to have any after eating this."

Two mornings in Santa Fe, we walked over to Whole Foods behind our hotel.  They have GREAT breakfast food including Raspberry Donuts and French Toast with Mascarpone Cheese.  I need to start walking over to the Whole Foods on School and Ashland on Saturdays and Sundays for breakfast. 

We also went hiking up Atalya Mountain.  It was a great hike of about 9 miles and took us about 4.5 hours.  The ski basin hiking trails were closed on Monday because of the fires in Santa Fe, but luckily the REI guy told us that Atalya Mountain was open.  We felt accomplished rather than just wandering around the plaza again.   

After our hike, we went and saw the Loretto Chapel that has had scientists and mathematicians from all over try to figure out how this guy built the staircase there.  The story is that the nuns prayed for 7 days to figure out how to get a staircase from the ground floor up to a choir loft.  Everyone told them it couldn't be done.  Then on the 7th day, a man named Joseph showed up and built the staircase.  The wood is all from the Middle East and there are no nails holding it.  There are also 33 stairs which I guess was how old Jesus was when he died.  

And after the chapel, we cleaned up and went to dinner at The Shed.  We heard from multiple people that it was the best mexican food in Santa Fe.  To be honest, I thought it was just ok.  Their drinks were incredibly strong, and unfortunately, they don't serve sopapillas, but GARLIC BREAD.  Weird, huh?  I had a cheese enchilada and a taco and it was good, but nothing special.  Aunt Cece and Mary, you didn't miss much! But they did have Prickly Pear Margaritas!

 

Note to whoever travels to Santa Fe: Don't take a cab.  They are so expensive.  4 miles = $25!  We went and saw Green Lantern the last night we were there and it cost us $50 roundtrip for the cab, plus $30 at the movies.  Expensive movie!

The Rail Runner was super easy to travel to the airport from Santa Fe.  It drops you off in downtown Albuquerque and there's a bus that takes you from the train to the airport.  It's also $7 per person, I'd say that was the cheapest part of the trip.  Santa Fe is an expensive town, but beautiful.