Send off...

Sunday was Wayne's last day home before having to head back to Arkansas. We had a great weekend, though =) Friday we lounged and were generally lazy. Saturday we checked out Trader Joe's and went to one of our favorite markets. Trader Joe's was a bit of a disappointment. After reading about it on so many blogs, I was really excited to see this place. Maybe ours is a smaller store? I'm not sure.. but there wasn't too much of a variety of uncommon items. I did score some vanilla beans and a tiny bottle of saffron though! So that was cool. I've learned about so many products from reading all of these blogs, things that make me drool.. so when we hit Miles Farm Market and I really looked through all of their gourmet items, I was surprised and tickled pink to find quite a few items I've been reading about! Mainly, a nice selection of Stonewall Kitchen goodies, Valrhona chocolate (party on!) and San Marzano tomatoes (which no grocery store near me carries) - so it was a great day of foodie treasure finds =) Sunday morning was spent scouring the city for the best buy on a Dyson "Animal" vacuum. Yep we finally broke down and paid the big bucks for a freakin vacuum. Chloe, although Mommie's girl, has blown me away with the hair she sheds. My gawd. I've never owned a larger breed dog.. that sheds. And. Sheds. My lil Bissel would literally use it's attachment hose to hold on to the inside of the closet making me force it out to try and keep up with Chloe's shedding. Poor lil guy. So we decided to retire him and buy the big gun. Now.. I'd like to say right off the bat that it was money well spent, as it picked up hordes and hordes of hair like a charm.. but still, for that kinda money? It really should make me dinner and do my laundry as well. I wanted to make Wayne one more home cooked meal before he had to go to the airport and I wanted it to be something he could take and snack on during his trip annnddd it didn't hurt if it was a brunch type meal, because I want to contribute something to Weekend Cookbook Challenge and I figured I wouldn't have an opportunity for Easter brunch this year. Although I find Giada De Laurentiis' mouth freakishly huge - almost to the point where I can't watch her - I do like her cooking =) I chose to make her Mini Fritattas with a side of Miles Farm Market's honey cured bacon and Great Harvest's Apple Pie bread, lightly spread with butter and cinnamon sugar and then grilled. The frittatas were fabulous. They puffed up beautifully, were perfectly seasoned and had a really creamy texture. The bacon was a nice compliment as it was both savory and sweet and the apple pie bread was warm and gooey, yet crispy from the cinnamon sugar coating. Yum! Mini Frittatas courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis Recipe can be found here Mini Frittatas My only changes were I halved the recipe, used a regular size muffin tin, diced the ham into little cubes and subbed baby spinach in lieu of the parsley.