Engaged & Underage - Wait, I'm 26!

So, it's been like a month and a half since I last blogged. I've gotta do better. But anyway, our little family had a nice Mother's Day this year. First, my mom and Josh's dad came to our house for lunch. I made "Crawfish Monica" with bread & salad, and my mom brought strawberry pie with almond crust that she had made. After that, the four of us went to the Sunday matinee of "The Foreigner" at The Pocket Theatre. Josh designed and helped build the set, and it looked GREAT. The play was entertaining as well. Later that evening, I was laying in bed and I asked Josh to bring me some water. So he brought me a glass of water with an engagement ring in it. Ha! I was like "Are you really proposing?" (He's been faking me out lately.)



I had seen the ring previously, but I was not allowed to try it on. So I was super excited when it fit perfectly. Well, it is the tiniest bit snug, but hey, at least it won't fall off. I think it will fit even better once I have lost the last few pounds I want to shed. It was Josh's Grandma's engagement ring before it was mine, and it's so perfect. I feel extremely lucky to have it. Josh and his Grandma were very close, and she was a very classy lady. (Unfortunately, she passed away about the time Josh and I started dating.)

So I'm engaged. We haven't set an exact date, but the wedding will take place roughly a year from now. It's going to be a crawfish boil on his dad's farm in Fordyce, with a ceremony thrown in somewhere. (As casual an affair as I can get away with.)

So anyway, here are some pics from "The Foreigner". (I think it looks like a Broadway set personally...)





Josh carved those stones above the fireplace out of foam then painted them. The "wood" beams are cut out of foam as well. And now for some close-ups of dead animals that adorn the set...









It's funny because Josh grew up in a house that looks just like this set. He was able to borrow most of the set decorations (including the animals) from his dad's actual home in Fordyce.



And I had to throw in one with The Klan. This play is so funny to me. The man who played Owen Musser did a fantastic job, but I so wanted to see Seth Wylie in that role. I hope I get to see him play it some day. Anyway, when Josh's dad came down on Sunday he brought us a big bag of carrots from his vegetable garden, so Josh was like "You should make a roast with those carrots," so I did. It was my first time to make a roast with potatoes and carrots. Usually, I skip the vegetables and just do mashed potatoes on the side. I didn't think I liked cooked carrots, but I actually liked these.



The raw ingredients (minus the gravy mixture)



4 1/2 hours later



Plated up

I'm going to share the recipe I used because it's good and it's easy:

Ingredients:
1 (3- to 4-lb) eye-of-round roast
1 large onion, sliced into wedges
6 medium carrots, cut into 2-inch pieces
6 small red potatoes, quartered
1 (10 3/4-oz) can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup water
1 (2-oz) pouch onion soup and recipe mix
2 garlic cloves, minced

Prep:
Place roast in a lightly greased Dutch oven, and top with onion, carrots, and potatoes. Stir together soup and next 3 ingredients; pour over roast.

Bake, tightly covered, at 325 for 3 hours and 30 minutes or until tender. Remove from oven and let stand, covered, for 1 hour.

Note: Before placing the lid on top of the Dutch oven, cover it with a double layer of aluminum foil. An eye-of-round roast has far less fat than a chuck roast, but when tightly covered and slowly baked with moist heat, is every bit as delicious.

This particular roast was more like 2 1/2 lbs. (I couldn't find the right size.) Sometimes I use a pouch of brown gravy mix instead of the onion soup mix. It's pretty much the same result.