dinner with the dukes

Yesterday was an absolutely amazing day.  Right after I hit publish on Sunday's blog post (in which I declared I was going to skip my run), I decided I had time, didn't care that it was freezing and way too icy out and hit the road for a 10 mile run.  The run was pretty good - a little windy on the 2nd half, but I managed to finish with a respectable 8:41 pace.  (My long run pace is supposed to be around 9:30ish, but I can never make myself slow down enough...seriously, I've tried.)

We then headed up to Iowa City, I had volunteer training for Girls on the Run and Nic was going to run some errands and catch a bit of the Packers/Bears game at our favorite pub.  We arrived a bit early, so swung by Starbucks for a quick pick-me-up - you never know how fun/loooong trainings are going to be.

Training wasn't bad at all and I am really excited to have the opportunity to volunteer for such a great organization.  Like I've said before, Diana and I will be coaching at the same school with the same group of girls (different days) with two other ladies.  The head coach is a sophomore at the University and the other assistant is a teacher (I think, she wasn't there).

We received our curriculum for the entire season, learned what to do if a girl's tooth is knocked out (put it in milk!) and did a mock session complete with spirit awards.  Er...yeah, spirit awards.  Complete with spirit fingers and everything.  We'll see how that goes. :)

After training we headed over to Diana and John's to make Paella Valenciana.  Oh my gosh oh my gosh you guys, this dish was to die for.  We were all ooohhing and aaahhhing while we devoured it.  But before we ate it, we had to make it.

Everyone had a role and contributed towards the dish (impressed Maddie?).

Oh wait - before I would let anyone start cooking, I demanded we open a bottle of wine.







Our lovely hosts for the evening.

OK - now it's time to cook!  Diana and I did prepare most of the meal, but delegated the most dangerous part to Nic and John - skinning the piping hot roasted red peppers.



The dish was really quite simple to put together, just took a bit longer to prep everything.  Maybe it was because we spent too much time on trying to create the photo on Rachel Ray's chicken stock box...?



Not even close.

While we cooked we snacked on a lovely cheese and cracker tray put together by John as well as chips and salsa.





It was quite an international meal!  We even included some Mexican Chorizo just to spice things up a little bit.



Once we finally got everything cooking away in the pan, we whipped out a game of Bananagrams.  (impressed Maddie?)



I normally shy away from scrabble type games, but there was no getting out of it. So I embraced my inner crap I suck at this game and only ever spell 4 letter words and rolled with it.



I practically fell out of my chair when I saw Nic's first word.  Reptiles.  I mean come on!  We normally rock the 4 letter words together!  We think Nic won with the board below plus a few words - but did challenge his use of the word "Fu."  We then challenged the dictionary John used as it was published in 1975 and was clearly out of date.









John for sure won the award for the "dirtiest" board.



And I pulled out a board any first grader would be proud of!  I mean look at all the 4 letter animal references!!



Just as soon as we ran out of tiles, the timer sounded and the paella was ready.  Believe me, once we saw this...we dug right in.



Hello lover.



I was back in Spain with my first bite.



Simply delicious.  We were all quite impressed with how it turned out.  We followed the recipe almost to the t, only making a few changes:

• used all boneless skinless chicken thighs
• doubled the choizo and used Mexican style
• doubled the peas
• used all shrimp and no mussels or clams

We weren't too sure about the chorizo when we added it to the dish...  There must be quite a difference between Spanish chorizo and Mexican chorizo.  We couldn't slice it as it was more of a paste.  But it worked and absolutely melted into the dish while cooking and provided a great background kick.

I would make this dish again and again. We all gave the dish two thumbs up. John really like it.



The wine continued to flow while John prepared dessert for all of us.







Girl scout thin mint ice cream.  See - I told you it was a truly international dinner!



Such a fun night.

We ended the night with a little Girls on the Run fashion show and showed the guys a few of the spirit/energy awards that we do at the end of each coaching session.





The lawn mower is one of the favorites.



And I guess superstar never goes out of style.



We will be coaching for 11 weeks and wrap up the season with the Girls on the Run 5K.

Our next cooking adventure with John and Diana will be held on Superbowl Sunday.


Any ideas/suggestions for what to cook?