Weekend Foodie Warriors- Take 48!

Hello hello, again, Foodie Friends 🙂 Hope you had a great sunny weekend! For this edition of Foodie Adventures, we threw a surprise 30th anniversary dinner, spent Sunday morning in downtown Greenville, and made eggplant shrimp pasta with mom!

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This weekend was a whirlwind! Friday night consisted of shopping and final details for a surprise in the making for Jamie’s parents. These two have been married for 30 years this month, and we wanted to celebrate their big milestone with something very special.

Jamie and his brother thought that a homemade dinner out with their favorite, closest knit family and friends would be a COVID safe way to celebrate and still enjoy the occasion.

We were lucky to be able to rent out an intimate space downtown with a gourmet kitchen that we were able to use too! We had recently bought a new Miyabi knife at a super great deal and were excited to use it out.

On the menu included Tomato and Basil Bruschetta for appetizers, Jamie’s brother’s (almost) famous smoked Boston butts, maple bacon roasted Brussels sprouts, Coleslaw, and Sweet potato casserole with walnuts.

Check out our new cheese knife! 🧀 It’s not just punny, the holes in the knife prevent the cheese from sticking to the knife when you cut into it. We chose a rosemary olive oil bread for this bruschetta, and dried out the bread until it was crispy in the oven before adding the tomato mixture.

The only things we didn’t take pictures of was dessert! Jamie and I made chocolate chip cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting swirls (and a shimmer of silver luster dust for *pizzazz*✨🧁🍫).

The surprise went off without a hitch! It was so exciting to be able to help cook and put together this awesome dinner for such deserving people. They are both so sweet and hard working and it was so nice to be able to give them a relaxing night off.

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It had been a couple weeks since we had had brunch at Tupelo Honey Cafe and pancakes were calling our name! After the day of cooking we had on Saturday, we woke up and wanted nothing to do with the kitchen for once in our lives. 😂

The weather was so gorgeous, we decided to take a stroll downtown for the first time since COVID-19 hit. It was the first day it wasn’t murderously muggy outside, and with a cool breeze and 75*F, it was perfect for a walk together.

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From custom spice blends to peppers from around the world, this store had almost everything! We loved the cool teas, fancy sugars, and crazy peppers they had. We’ll definitely stop by next time we run low on loose-leaf tea or need a sweet option to add to our next baked creation.

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Let me tell you, I’ve never been here before, but they made HUGE FANS out of us!! The lady that welcomed us in and had us try the different oils and vinegars in such fantastical combinations made your taste buds dance. 💃🏻

Roasted garlic rapeseed oil with lime infused vinegar, Tuscany blend small batch olive oil with white wine infused vinegar, and basil olive oil with raspberry rosé vinegar made the gears in our heads turn with the marinades, salad dressings, and combinations we could create with this awesome array of options.

I swear to you all I spent a good 20 minutes just staring at flavors and trying to pick one! 😍😂 We finally ended up with the roasted garlic rapeseed oil, as its super velvet-y mouth-feel and stronger garlic flavor would play well with the dishes and cuisines we love to cook.

When you buy an oil or vinegar with a bottle, once you finish up the original bottle, you can bring it back and they’ll refill it for you! Swipe through to see us exploring the rest of the store:

Chef Veera Gaul is the owner of this shop, and she’s a fellow foodie – and a #greenvilleblogger too! Check out her Instagram here to follow her & show her some love. 💜 Once COVID-19 calms down, they’d love to start re-doing cooking classes at the store as well, which we told them we’d happily come back for. Definitely check this place out if you haven’t already! 😁🙌

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Sometimes, we really don’t know what to make in the house. We had “a little bit of something and a whole lot of nothing”, as my grandma liked to say. This time, however, we had a cool idea to use up some extra eggplants we had on hand to make a roasted garlic eggplant sauce (similar to a Baba ghanoush, if you know about that Mediterranean dish).

We started out with farm fresh veggies from our local farmers market, including the eggplants we had in the fridge we needed to use up. We oven roasted a couple heads of garlic, some onions, and mushrooms, for added flavor and texture. Don’t those roasted garlic heads look delish?? 🧄 Lastly are the roasted eggplants, which I know don’t look super great now but just you wait.

Once the peppers, eggplants, and garlic were roasted, we peeled or squished it out into a bowl before adding spices and combining it all together. We got to break out Mom’s new handheld immersion blender for this one (we took a video but it didn’t make the final cut). Next was cooking the shrimp with the cooked veggies, and combining everything together! Threw a little white wine And lemon juice in with the shrimp for good measure.

We added some cheese and pasta to finish this off and viola! This was such a cool dish to put together, and I hadn’t thought about using this combination before, so it was definitely fun to experiment with.

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So how was your weekend Foodie Friends? What’s your favorite local spot to get special ingredients? Sound out in the comments below to let us know your suggestions of what dishes to make or places we should visit next. As always, feel free to like, comment, & share 🤗