Generations Birthday Brunch

I love getting my friends together for my birthday and I'm always looking for something different to do. I have had a Brewer's playoff party, Monday Night Football (Packers vs. Vikings) bar party, Badgers Game Party (sensing a sports theme), Brewery tour, bonfire on a frigid night, and sushi dinner to name a few.

27th Birthday at my apartment during the Brewers Playoff games.

28th Birthday at Sporties for the MNF Packers V. Vikings Game

29th Birthday at Milwaukee Brewing Company with the 2 birthday boys!

30th Birthday party at New Berlin Ale House for a Badgers Game

This year I went completely different and with my birthday falling on a Sunday morning, decided on brunch. I hemmed and hawed between a few spots in downtown and decided that Generations at Five Points was going to be the best. So I put in my reservation and sent out the invites.


I started the morning with a walk for the Bryon Riesch Paralysis Foundation at Carroll University. I ran this last year, but knowing my brunch was after, I decided a walk with some good friends would be a nice way to start the day.

I met Bryon Riesch in my work with the Waukesha County Fair and have come to know more about the great work of the Foundation. He is a great guy that is bringing much needed attention to the necessary research for paralysis. His walk in Waukesha is gaining more runners each year.

So my friend Tiffany and I did the walk and then headed back to her house to get ready before brunch.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, (and here) Generations at Five Points is a tapas restaurant in downtown Waukesha. They have a great wine list, creative martinis and wonderful small plates. I suggest 3 - 4 small plates per two people (These delicious dishes are meant to be shared).

Fairly recently, they added Sunday brunch, but that is not served tapas style. In the past, my friend and I have ordered an "appetizer" to the breakfast and then one plate a piece. Our past experiences left us with very happy bellies.

Eggs Benedict - always a great choice

Banana Bread French Toast with Strawberry Sauce and Whipped Cream

Generations reserved my group an area in the back of the restaurant. They have booth benches along the walls and pushed tables and chairs together to make a nice area for my group. We looked over the menu which has a little bit of everything on it for brunch and waited for drinks.

I was able to see some friends that I don't see as often and even found out my niece will be in the same school with my friend's baby in a few years. They are best friends already!

Checking out an older man already - Avery is such a flirt!

I noticed a slight delay in getting drinks to our table but our server was very courteous and kept checking back on us when she could. The Bloody Mary's come with a mini grilled cheese on it - how unique and fancy. I'm not a bloody mary fan but I do like their mimosas and it was just as good as I remembered from last time.
 
The food did take a bit to come from the kitchen, but when we were served, everyone thought it was very tasty and nicely plated. I'm glad I chose Generations, and I think I may have drummed up some new business for the restaurant.

I'm very excited for their pub to open soon and I'm curious about the food they will be serving there. I already know it's going to be creative and delicious because everything I have had at Generations has been really great.

100 Happy Days: Week 4 & 5

I got a little behind on posting so I did two weeks+ at one time to get you all caught up in my happiness. I hope maybe this has influenced you to at least look for the happinesses in every day life. I am really focusing on those and not the negative things. What good is it to dwell on that when you can smile and be happy?!

Here are Weeks 1, 2 & 3. 

Day 23:

Running has been going well for me lately. A little nagging knee thing is happening so I am taking more days off but my time/mile is getting closer to where I want to be!

Day 24:

Here is where my geeky side comes out because I completely and totally loved the #PRSMS at Marquette. Learning that the Brewers use one gal to run multiple social media sites for the team really surprised me but made me happy too! One gal can do it all!

Day 25: 

Eat all the pumpking things! I love pumpkin and the all of these rock. Ok the Reese's is just thrown in for it's shape but you can't beat sweet & salty at the same time! :)

Day 26: 

Again I went to Lapham with a friend and did some pretty hardcore running. My knee definitely felt it after this one. But seeing these beautiful deer that didn't spook too much when we were near was really awesome! I hope to make it to Lapham this week and get some great pics of the fall leaves!

Day 27: 

 My friend Caroline invited my mom and I and another friend and her mom to her church's annual Mother/Daughter Banquet. It was a wonderful time where the men of the church waited on us for dinner. Many laughs were shared and we all really enjoyed ourselves.

Day 28: 

I forgot to post yesterday's happy. Spending time with friends new and old and celebrating birthdays!!! ‪#‎100happydays‬ ‪#‎day28‬

Bonus photo - I didn't post a picture of the day but found this after the fact. Beers were large, lines were long, but we all had fun. 

Day 29:

Spent the afternoon with my mom watching the Packers win, hemming up some of my pants and making Banana Blueberry bread. We each got a loaf and it was so tasty!

Day 30: 

Started a new book - a recommendation from Lauren Conrad (she knows what I like to read and we never even met). So far this one is pretty good. An almost 20-year-old finds out she has a decade left of site and decides to change her life plan to do all she can while she can still see. 

Day 31: 

Fall is here and I made my favorite fall soup - Butternut Squash/Apple soup. Sooooo good! 

Day 32 & 33:

I didn't post yesterday, but this is what made my last two days happy. Meeting up with friends and trying new places! ‪#‎100happydays‬ ‪#‎day32‬ &‪#‎day33‬ 😀

 Day 34: 

I love pumpkin beer. I bought so much last year that I actually had some leftover to drink again at the start of this year's season. I can't drink them in the summer because they are too heavy but it's all I want to drink from September to March :)  This was an excellent one and I may need to find more of it. Woodman's has had the best selection so far. 

Day 35: 

Saturday was a bummer weather day and so I decided to spend it cleaning and cooking. I made a broccoli cheese soup (with Gouda!), Roasted squash and sweet potato soup, gryo meat in the crockpot and pasta with pesto sauce. I have a fridge full of food now so I don't have to worry about what to make this week for meals. 

Day 36:

 My niece & nephew are my world and I got to spend a lot of the day with them. Alex is growing into such a smart little man asking all sorts of questions and helping me back cookies by counting out the Reese's for on top. We might have eaten a few. And Maddie is my little sweetheart sharing big smiles and belly laughs with me all afternoon. 

#100HappyDays

Football Party on a Budget

My friends and I love to get together to support our teams (Brewers, Packers & Badgers) with tailgates and parties. Its easy to tailgate before a Brewer game because tickets are reasonable and the team plays locally. Badger & Packer tickets are not as easy to come by because all games are sold out (Packers are sold out for my entire lifetime!) so you have to buy online at inflated prices and the stadiums are hours away.

For the first Packers game of the season, my friends hosted a get-together at their house and did a taco night and asked everyone to bring something to go with the tacos.  I decided to make my friend's salsa that I had had the weekend prior. I toned down the spice quite a bit in my version but everyone really liked it because it's so fresh! (Find the recipe at the bottom of this posting.)

Other sides included this cucumber tomato salad and puppy chow!

Recipe at the bottom of this post

Leinenkugel's came out with a new fall variety pack of shandy beers and I decided to give it a try. The Old Fashioned Shandy doesn't taste like a beer at all, more of a Southern Comfort Old Fashioned. It took me two tries to decide that this was ok.

The other flavors are a Cranberry Ginger Shandy that reminds me a little of a Moscow Mule and a Harvest Patch Shandy that resembled a pumpkin beer but more sweet.

We ate and and drank and watched the Green & Gold do their best against the World Champion Seattle Seahawks. They put in a valiant effort but didn't come out the winner.

Every year, our favorite wine sales rep from Fox Run Sentry Liquor (RIP!) invites us to a tailgate at Miller Park. He supplies the meat and tickets and just asks us to come with a side and enjoy the game with him. This gigantic taco salad hit the spot for us and kept us busy while the brats were cooking away.

I made a new recipe of Cake Batter Rice Krispie Treat cups. They were such a hit, most ate these before they ate the rest of the tailgate goodies.

The seats were on the 2nd level of Miller Park and gave us a great view of all the action, including the famous Racing Sausage Race (congrats Chorizo!). The Brewers put in a valiant effort but couldn't hold on to bring us a win in the end. The team really crumbled in September this year and didn't even make the playoffs when they were the best team in baseball for the majority of the season. That's ok - I'll still cheer on my Brew Crew boys!

Ok - now onto the party that I threw for the Thursday night Packers game against our forever rivals - the Minnesota Vikings. These are always well debated games so I thought I would get everyone together at my place and cheer our boys on.

I'm on a tighter budget so I thought long and hard about a way to throw a party with great food, for a low price.

Drum roll please.......Baked Potato Bar.

I shopped for almost everything at Woodman's and put out the whole smorgasbord for under $20 and had leftovers.

10 lb. Bag of Potatoes - 1.69
Chives - cut from my garden
Stadium Cheese - $2.50
Fresh Broccoli - $1.00
Green Onion - $.69
Ranch - $2.00
Sour Cream - $1.29
Bacon Bits - $2.39
Shredded Cheese - $2.09
Butter - $1.50
Cheese & Sausage - $3.00

The chili was provided by a friend that came to the party - Wendy's chili - a perfect addition for the tater bar.

I had never done a mass quantity of potatoes in the oven before and most recipes said 45 mins - 1 hour for the potatoes. NOTE:When you are cooking 10 decent sized potatoes at the same time, they will take almost double that time. I just kept setting the timer for another 15 minutes and then would give them a poke until I felt they were done. They turned out perfectly!

I put a little olive oil on each piece of foil, then sprinkled a little salt on it, wrapped the foil around each one tightly and put them on a pan.

The tater bar was a huge success and I have a few potatoes and toppings leftover to enjoy this week. This definitely helped me save money and provide my friends a great dinner they could customize to their own taste. My friend also brought some cookies that I didn't take a picture of (FAIL) but they were pumpkin spice and delicious (WIN). They tasted like FALL - YUMMY! 

My friend brought McKenzie's Black Cherry Hard Cider for me to try and it was delicious! My cousin told me they have a pumpkin too that she loves so I will have to get some of that as well to enjoy this Fall. But definitely in moderation. Each bottle is 200 calories! Yikes!

The Green and Gold boys dominated the Vikings and brought in a huge win which makes a lot of us feel a lot better about the season, now that we have more wins than losses on our side.

 Recipes

Salsa -
3 Tomatoes, diced no seeds
1 Green Pepper, diced
1/2 White Onion, diced
4 Green Onions, diced
1 can Black Beans, rinsed
2 Tbsp. lime juice or to taste
1/4 cup fresh cilantro - chopped
Sprinkling of salt
1 Tbsp Crushed Garlic
Poblano Pepper, diced, no seeds (You can use any pepper if you want it hotter)


Creamy Cucumber Salad -
2 - 3 cucumbers - peeled and chopped
3 medium sized tomatoes - chopped
1 green pepper  - chopped
1/2 cup light Miracle Whip (could do 1/4 Miracle Whip & 1/4 Mayo too)
Stir all ingredients together and refrigerate for a few hours. Best served the day it's made.