Only the Good Notes

A Hugh toon and a shower

my very own "Hugh toon" by @gapingvoid!

I cannot believe it’s been 10 days since we’ve last updated! I cooked three amazing new recipes last week (all thanks to Pinterest, of course ;) ) which I have pictures of and every intention to post; just haven’t gotten there yet. But I will!

My work has really picked up recently, and we’ve been spending a lot more time outdoors with Shiloh since spring summer decided to make a bold, early entrance back in to our lives. So we’re good; just busy.

As you can see in the photo above, I was shocked and honored to learn that our very favorite artist, Hugh MacLeod (a.k.a. @gapingvoid) drew a customized “Hugh toon” just for me! Many many thanks to our dear friend Michael Long for that!! We have a “Hugh wall” in our living room with three of his prints and plan to add significantly to our collection. We have both been using his cartoons on our blogs and business cards for years; long before we even met!

A long-time family friend is throwing a bridal shower for me in May. We are keeping it very small; mainly family and a couple of close girlfriends. The shower will be near my parents’ house on Treasure Island, FL, so Todd’s parents will come over from Orlando for the weekend so that his mom can join us at the shower, and we can all enjoy spending some family time together before the wedding.

It’s shaping up to be a very nice weekend…we’ll also be celebrating Todd’s birthday, his mother’s birthday, his parents’ anniversary (49 years!), and Mother’s Day. Really really nice to be able to do all of that together.

Our top 10 favorite (modified-for-us) recipes of 2011

cartoon by Hugh MacLeod

Todd and I looked back over the year and all the recipes we’ve made…about half of the recipes we’ve discovered this year, and the rest we’d made before.

These are listed in no particular order (it would be impossible to rank them!) — more than half are vegetarian, and all of them are gluten-free as I’ve posted them or notated.

Enjoy!!

Roasted vegetable lasagna (v)

Tater tot breakfast casserole

Spinach pie (v)

Stephanie’s taboule (v)

Paula’s world-famous football dip

Homemade hamburger helper

Taco soup

Asparagus risotto (v)

Christmas fettuccine (v) *be sure to use a gluten-free pasta if needed! we use New Harvest linguini, which is made from quinoa.

Roasted parmesan broccoli (v)