Sassy in the South: Alabama Originals

Last night seemed like the perfect night to work on two of my favorite things: crafting and cooking. So, I started out the evening by putting the finishing touches on my burlap Alabama wreath. In case you didn't know, Alabama football is huge in the Lyles' household and since this season will be our first one together as married couple- I want to make sure that our house is ready come August 31st. After I finished gluing the bow and cutting away any tattered edges, I worked on another wreath for some of our dear friends, The Powells. It was fashioned after one that I made for our home and I couldn't have been happier to make another for someone else to enjoy! This past year I have found that wreath making is something that I love to do and I have made 5 for our home already. There's only one problem...we need more doors to hang them!

After the wreath making extravaganza was at an end, I pulled out our new ice cream maker that my mom gave me for my birthday this year. Since we bought Chilton County peaches and Alabama honey (made locally in the Jefferson County area) at Pepper Place this past Saturday, I decided to make peach frozen yogurt. It was quite simple and only called for three ingredients: peaches, Greek yogurt, and honey. You can find the recipe here.

Tonight we did something a little out of the norm. We had a date night in the middle of the week! This week is Birmingham Restaurant Week and 40 local restaurants are celebrating by offering prix fixe menus and drink specials. Tonight was the third annual Wine-ol-ogy, a Birmingham Restaurant Week wine and food event at the Wine Loft of Birmingham. The featured winery was Rush Wines- a small, Birmingham based distributor of limited-production wineries from independently owned wineries from around the world. As we walked in the door we were given an empty wine glass and greeted my Garner Rush himself. We were also given a card to fill out with our opinions and reviews of each wine we sampled. All of the wines were flavorful, but not too heavy and the food they were paired with couldn't have been more perfect (quail wrapped in bacon, crab with cranberry white cheddar, fresh pumpernickel, etc). After we tasted all of the wines and wrote down our descriptions of them, we turned in our review cards for an additional glass of wine of our own choosing. I chose the Rush Wine Ol' Red while John chose a glass of their sparkling.