The Great Austin Hamburger Quest - Opal Devine's

I swear we don't just eat all the time. Food is just all I blog about apparently.

Next up on our quest-o-burgers; Opal Devine's. We'd never been before, for burgers or otherwise, but I'd heard good things and we live suuuuper close to one. It's an American food kinda place with an excellent selection of adult beverages, and a killer patio.

Brendon got the Bandera Burger (fried onions, bacon, pepper jack, and bbq) and I built my own (pickles, mayo, fried egg, and cheddar)! Now for the deets:

Burger:
Pretty damn good. Thick handmade patty. Our favorite part was the plethora (Brendon's word) of toppings. I got a fried egg on mine! They have tons of toppings and bun choices. They also have a black bean burger that I was tempted to try, but a veggie burger with an egg on it just seems weird. The buns were delish. I got regular white and Brendon had a jalapeno cheddar bun. This place makes a damn good burger y'all.

Sides:
I am a huge fan of a place that has side options that are not fried. I am not nuts about fried food. I got black beans, but they also had veggies (!) and mac and cheese (!!) among other things. Brendon loooooves fries and he approved of these. They were loaded up with pepper, in a good way. He said they were "da bomb.com". My beans were yummy too!

Atmosphere:
Badass patio. I love me a good patio. This place is right on South Congress but you feel like you're miles away. It's up on a hill so all you see are trees! I loved loved loved the patio. I'm sure it's not so awesome when it's 105 degrees out, but they have misters everywhere so it's probably not too bad!

Value:
Pretty good! Mondays are buy one get one half off on burgers. Also they have a legit happy hour, plus half price apps. Happy hour + patio? Yes please. We got a couple margaritas and they were on point and cheap. And I'm a picky lady when it comes to margs.

Bonus:
Aside from the phenomenal patio? There's a strip club next door. Plus or minus, take it as you will. Thighs and fries anyone? (< Brendon responsible for that query, obviously)

Overall, this place is awesome. Good food and an excellent place to chill. One of our new hangouts I'm sure. Aaaaand it beat out Dan's Hamburgers, sorry Dan!

Little escape

Life has been kind of gross lately. Not really gross, but just real busy and not in a fun way. I've been so worn out lately with work and Brendon's been going nonstop with school. It's just tiring.  But yesterday we escaped down to New Braunfels to my dad's for the day and it was really great. And much needed. We relaxed and just hung out away from everything. I wish we were able to do that more often. There's just something so relaxing to be at home out in the woods. Even with all the crazy animals. There are some insane baby chicks in the chicken coop these days. And these guys were a riot, as usual:

My dad is building this barn by hand, no big deal. He drew up the plans for it and everything. You see where I get this need to make things from?? It's genetic! Retirement = lots of time for projects. Also, retirement = this:

Wild mountain man. Check out that hair/beard combo! Most excellent.

Brendon and I are in need of a vacation. Like a real vacation, a decent chunk of time away from everything. We've been scheming and I think we've decided on a little road trip to New Mexico. Our road trip to Arkansas last year was just so awesome. It was so spontaneous and one of the best and most fun vacations we've had. I've a hankering to do it again, but this time we'll head west. We need to set some dates so I can start counting down the days. I need that light at the end of the tunnel!

The Great Austin Hamburger Quest - Dan's Hamburgers

Introducing, the Great Austin Hamburger Quest! Or the GAHQ if you will. I'd love it if you pronounced it that like Gak, that weird jello-eqsue puddy stuff Nickelodeon came out with in the 90's. You know what I'm talking about. Floam too, y'all.

ANYWAYS, Brendon and I have been planning on doing this for a while, but never had the time to get our shiz together. Brendon is a burger fanatic. He LOVES burgers. His grooms cake was, a burger. Long story short, he's a fan. I think burgers are good too, just not to the extreme he does. So a few months ago I pitched the idea of hitting up all the best burger joints in Austin, trying them out, and finding our favorites. And blogging our thoughts. Brendon was on board of course, eating burgers is all he needed to hear. Thus, the Great Austin Hamburger Quest was born.

(On a side note, Austinites, yes, we've been to Hopdoddy. Yes, it is the bomb and our favorite so far. We are trying to find other great burger places, but we will include Hopdoddy in this quest-o-burgers.)

Our first stop on the GAHQ was Dan's Hamburgers at Manchaca and 35. I reached out to Facebook for good burger joint suggestions, and Dan's came up. I'd never been, and Brendon had only been to Fran's. Back story time! Dan and Fran were married and owned a chain of burger joints here in Austin. They split up and Dan's Hamburgers belonged to Dan and Fran's Hamburgers belonged to Fran. Fran's just shut down I believe, at least the one in South Austin, so that's kinda sad. Dan's is still kickin' though.

We've got five categories of comparison for burger joints. Burger, sides, atmosphere, value, and bonus (any extra tidbits of awesome/not awesomeness.

Burger:
We both got a medium sized hickory burger, which is basically a burger with bbq sauce. Really good bbq sauce. I thought it was great, and it was extra fresh. Brendon thought that the bun could use some improvement and he wanted more topping choices, but the burger itself was seasoned well. And the cheese was probably just American but it was melted into some sort of queso perfection. Oh and did I mention the sauce? The sauce was the boss.

Sides:
They had more than just french fries which is saying something for a burger place! They had regular fries, curly, and onion rings. We got curly fries, but I saw a plate of onion rings and got food envy real bad. They looked amazing. The curly fries were your average curly fry variety, a la Arby's. But they were super fresh and I approved! We split the large size, but they also have a small.

Atmosphere:
This is one of those order up front and they call your name when it's ready places. Very dated and a little grungy, but I liked it. Even though you know a gazillion people had been in and out of that place (I'm pretty sure it was a Pizza Hut previously) everything was kept clean which is a HUGE thing for me. I have problems with dirty places. Brendon says it has a "good old boys feel". Not sure what that means, but there you have it.

Value:
This place is real cheap! Totally an excellent value. Our two medium (and that medium is the perfect size) cheeseburgers and large side of curly fries was like $11. Super affordable and definitely worth it. Quality food for fast food price.

Bonus:
We got to meet Dan's sweet grandson! He was working the register and was super friendly. Bonus, bonus, bonus, we LOVE nice people. He spoke highly of the place and seemed very proud to be to there. Family owned and operated, for realsies. Way to go Dan's grandson, you won our hearts (and tummies) over.

Thanks for the burger Dan! I was seriously impressed. I was not expecting it to be much of anything, I mean the outside of the building isn't doing it any favors, but it was pretty damn good. That bbq sauce man... put it on everything!

Not sure where our next stop will be. I'm looking forward to it though. We had a blast comparing notes and pretending we were little burger connoisseurs. Any suggestions for future burgers are highly appreciated! They don't even have to be specifically burger joints, just a place to get a good burger! Our only limitations are that it's local(ish) and they serve burgers. QUEST ON!

52 weeks of baking: 16 - banana chocolate chip cupcakes

In an attempt to get some ideas on things to bake, I reached out to the ol' Facebook. My friend Amanda suggested these banana chocolate chip cupcakes (with chocolate chips added) and this cream cheese icing. Bananas and chocolate are a pretty unbeatable combination. Kind of like orange and chocolate. Or raspberries and chocolate. ANYTHING and chocolate really.

These babies came out good! I kind of improvised on the recipe a bit. I was out of regular sugar (WHAT) so I subbed in some brown sugar. I threw the icing together by taste, I ended up using less cream cheese and more powdered sugar than the recipe called for. I also halved it because I only had 12 cupcakes to ice, and I'm glad I did because there was a ton left over. I can't imagine how much I'd have if I did the full thing!



If I made these again I think I would just skip the icing and top them with some more chocolate chips. I have come to the conclusion that I may be over cream cheese icing (I can hear you all gasping). I've used it A LOT lately, and I'm just kind of done with it. Don't get me wrong, it's delicious, but I'm just craving something a little sweeter and lighter to top my baked goodies. Like whipped creamish. Mmmm... whipped cream.

This husband of mine however, cannot get enough cream cheese icing. It's his favorite. He approves of these cupcakes.

Bored and in the mood for food? Check out my previous weeks of baking!

Purple princess dress

Why yes, the title of this post is PURPLE princess dress contrary to how blue this dress looks in these pictures. I promise it's purple. Like really purple. The evening lighting is no bueno for documenting actual colors I guess. Just take my word for it y'all. Or there's a picture on instagram.

This dress was a lot of fun to make, I used this Simplicity pattern. On the topic of color, originally it was supposed to be this badass salmon/coral fabric, but as the sales associate was rolling it out I noticed it had big ol' stripes of what looked like dirty water stains all over it. Homegirl tried to tell my that it was a pattern! I was like, girl. I know a stain when I see one. So I ended up with the same fabric in purple, sans stains. It's a poplin similar to the little blue dress I just made, just slightly lighter weight. More cotton than polyester. Sewing with poplin is so lovely!

I had a couple hiccups making this dress. Well one big hiccup. It ended up a couple sizes too big, which is ridiculous because I followed the measurements on the pattern and then went down a size. So there was hella post-construction construction on this bad boy to make it fit properly. But it ended up just fine (after a lot of seam ripping) and fits like a glove. I dubbed it the princess dress because, doesn't it look like something a princess would wear?? The neckline and sleeves are my favorite.

I mean, how cute is that sleeve?? I love it! Also, the back scoops relatively low, which is fun! Definitely unlike any thing else in my closet.

I swear to the Cullens I am not a vampire. The twilight (HA, yes, pun intended) just accentuates the fact that I have basically no pigment in my skin these days. Now that it is getting warmer (except for the past two days which have been stupid cold, what the heck Texas?) maybe I'll look towards the sun every now and then.

 
So welcome to my wardrobe little purple princess dress! You were super fun to make and I love you. I'm already planning on making another version. The variations of this pattern are pretty... variant? Little changes to the neckline and sleeves turn it into a completely different dress. Can't wait for round two!

And here's my cute and very sweet husband, who took a break from studying to snap of few pictures of my dress. Thanks boo, you're adorable.