Labor Day Weekend...Woohoo!

I'm sooooo glad to have a long weekend. On top of which, now that it's September, I can look forward to my vacation at the end of the month. Again...woohoo!

We've had a pretty quiet weekend so far. We drove to Paducah yesterday to go to World Market. This may be the coolest store ever. They have things from everywhere! Our favorite part, though, is the food section. They have food from around the world. Candy, spices, sauces, wines, beers, cookies, olives, etc, etc. We bought a few different things. I got some polenta mix. There's a specific recipe that I bought this for. You can buy it at Wal-Mart in a tube, but that wasn't very good, so I bought the mix. Mark got his usual ginger something. This time it was Ginger Altoids. I didn't know they even made those. He likes them alot. Then Mark bought some jerk seasoning...I'm not sure what we'll use that for yet, but it'll probably involve pork, knowing him. Then we bought beer. We're having a few people over tonight. Not really a party, just a small gathering. So we decided we'd make it a beer tasting. They had a Beer Around the World sampler pack, so we got that and then they have individual bottles so you can put together your own sampler. So we made up a 6-pack of our own. It should be neat. I'll list some of the countries these beers are from: Czech Republic, France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, England, Scotland, Ireland, China, Jamaica, Belize, and Brazil. I think that's it. They had Murphy's Red which I remember from Seanache (or however you spell that Irish restaurant that used to be in dowtown Nashville). Anyway...should be fun. Maybe I'll get some pictures to post. Right now, I need to go finish getting ready.

But before I go...I went grocery shopping yesterday too, and since we enjoy sharing receipts and food. This is the perfect combination of both. I try to plan out a menu before I shop, but this hasn't been happening lately. I did manage to do it this time though, so here's what we're having in no particular date order. Salmon patties (not salmon from a can (yuck!), but salmon from a pouch (without all the bones and yuckiness)) with a spinach salad, pork tenderloin (again) which Mark plans to cut into medallions and bake with rice, pork chops (I'm not sure how were cooking those yet), and Chicken Enchilada Casserole (recipe from my Southern Living Cooking Light book). The casserole is a little time consuming to make, but it reheats well, so we usually get a few days out of it. Of course I bought vegetables to go with each meal, I usually pick the vegetables when I start cooking. We had burritos last night, which I thought turned out pretty well. And that...is my menu for the week. I'm not sure what we're having tonight, but we're supposed to eat before everyone gets here, so I'd better be figuring it out. Must go make myself presentable....