Hi guys! As you know from Friday’s blog post, we spent the second part of last week and the weekend up in Sewickley, PA, outside Pittsburgh, visiting Matt’s family. Part of the reason we went up there this specific weekend was because Matt had his annual guy’s canoe/camping trip, which is near Pittsburgh, so on Friday morning he headed off for the woods/river and Riese and I stuck around and hung out with Matt’s parents! On Friday evening, my in laws, Riese, and I all went out to an early dinner – they have a create your own pasta bar night at their club which turned out to be perfect for Riese because we were able to have them make her a tiny plate of stuff to taste. She was REALLY into the meatballs – I broke them into small pieces for her – guess I need to make some meatballs for her to snack on at home! What’s your favorite meatball recipe that also includes some veggies? 🙂
As for me, I had a glass of Prosecco, a salad, and my own pasta creation! Pasta + meatballs + spinach + mushrooms + garlic + broccoli + tomato sauce. Hit the spot!
On Saturday, Matt’s parents were busy so Riese and I had some adventures on our own! We took a nice long stroll around the neighborhoods near town…
And then met up with our friends Jack and Megan (who used to live in DC but moved to Pittsburgh a few years ago) and their son to wander around the (adorable) farmer’s market in downtown Sewickley!
When we got home, Riese and I had some farmer’s market finds for lunch. There was a cool “Greens and Grains” vendor where I picked up beet apple salad, a really yummy lemon basil hummus (eaten with unpictured crackers), and a kale salad. Riese enjoyed some beets, a little hummus, avocado, and some pulled pork that was for later that evening. She LOVED the pulled pork – Riese is quite the carnivore apparently!
We spent the afternoon hanging out around the house and watching the action – my father in law was getting ready for a big BBQ we were hosting for friends that evening! He was smoking pork to make homemade pulled pork and also using his sous vide cooker to slow cook ribs (which he finished off on the grill). Impressive! (If you’re interested in learning more about sous vide cooking, I talked about it some in this post!)
Matt arrived back from his big camping/canoeing adventure just in time to shower and get changed for the party. So kind of his parents to host a bunch of our friends for dinner! We made sure it was early because everyone has kids, and there was quite the spread! For appetizers, we had a cheese plate (please note the nod to my “feta makes it betta” shirt from my old t-shirt shop):
And homemade deviled eggs (loved the pickle addition on top):
Plus some hummus and pita, and a homemade tzatziki sauce!
As for the main event, we had pulled pork, ribs, mac and cheese, a tomato mozzarella salad, and an assortment of homemade sauces (vinegar-based and tomato-based)!
It was sooo good. A huge thank you to Matt’s dad for making us such a delicious feast!
Here’s the whole gang (minus a couple friends who came after this picture was taken!) – fun to see everyone!
I’m running out the door for an appointment so will be back tomorrow to recap the rest of the trip/drive home – have a good one friends!
