Lazy Weekend Love

Don't you just love a lazy weekend?  After a few busy weekends in a row (and a few equally busy workweeks), it was nice for Alex and me to have a weekend with basically nothing planned.  Our warm weather is back, but so are some serious thunderstorms so we did a lot of staying in this weekend and I was pretty okay with that.  Here's a sampling of our weekend in photos...

I've been on a bit of a spring cleaning/organizing/redecorating spree lately and we just got this rug for our bedroom, which I am pretty much in love with. Here's a sneak preview-- I'll have further details later as the redecorating continues.

In conjunction with buying a new rug we also decided we need to be spending less money by not going out to eat for every single meal of the weekend. That makes no sense, I know. So we stayed in for dinner and a movie on Friday night (although we did run down to the French Market for some straciatella and frutti di bosco gelato) and on Saturday morning I made brunch. Check out my cinnamon pear french toast below:

Cinnamon Pear French Toast

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbs. butter
• dash of salt
  
• 2 Bartlett pears, thinly sliced
• 1 Tbs. granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon, divided
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 Tbs. honey
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• cooking spray
• 6 slices of wheat bread (I used the really good kind from our grocery store bakery)
• powdered sugar, to taste

Melt butter on medium heat in a skillet. Add pears and dash of salt to the pan and saute until the pears have softened slightly, about 5 minutes. Add granulated sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon to the pears and stir to combine. Let the mixture cook for an additional 5-10 minutes until pears have cooked down and the sauce has thickened.

In a medium shallow bowl (I like to use a glass pie plate) add the remaining 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, egg, milk, honey, vanilla and whisk to combine. Add sliced bread to the egg mixture making sure to coat both sides. I like to let the bread sit in the egg mixture for 2-3 minutes to make sure it has been thoroughly soaked. Meanwhile, heat another skillet over medium-high heat and coat with cooking spray. Add bread to the pan and cook until the bottom of the slice is golden brown, about 3-5 minutes. Flip each slice and continue to cook until the other side is golden as well. Repeat with remaining slices. Arrange the french toast on plates and sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar. Serve with the cinnamon pears and enjoy.

On Saturday night we met up with our friends Nick and Tara in Wicker Park for a late dinner. Wicker Park is a neighborhood that Alex and I haven't spent too much time in, but this is our third visit in the past month-- not a bad start to our goal of seeing more of the city! We decided to finally try The Southern, known for their southern comfort food and mac and cheese which was pretty amazing. I also had a fab cocktail that I am dying to recreate this summer-- it's called the Dixie Cup (cute!): Gin, St. Germain, muddled strawberries, lemon juice, topped with champagne. Yum!

Sunday was possibly the laziest day of all. I did drag my marathon runner husband out to help me buy new running shoes, which made us feel moderately productive. However, I also had to bribe him with lunch. We ended up trying a new place called Barcito, which is basically the bar connected to Tavernita, a new Spanish-style restaurant in River North. Barcito is all open to the outside so we did get to enjoy some tapas and the good weather before the rain rolled in.

 Hope you all had a fun and restful weekend as well!