Muscles and Mussels

What a weekend! I celebrated my Bachelorette party with my favorite gals by spending the weekend in Horseshoe Bay going on wine tours in Fredericksburg and eating chalupas... (that's a different story).

My Maid and Matron of Honor, aka my sisters, through a "Nauty-cal" themed party complete with inappropriate decor and a whole lot of wine.

It's a bachelorette party... I'm not going to say too much about what went on. What I will say is that I wish the weekend didn't fly by so quickly!

Monday night, J and I made a meal out of our new "Two in the Kitchen" cookbook we received as a gift at our Couples Shower. I was so excited to make this because J and I love mussels! I honestly thought it'd be more complicated than it was. I'm glad it wasn't because the night I made it, I was so exhausted and did not want to stand around the kitchen too long.

I picked up about a 1 lb of live mussels at HEB for about $5. Not too bad, I guess. They certainly were fresh and tasted amazing. The original recipe calls for shallots instead of onions, and Belgian ale instead of Heineken, but I had too many onions and couldn't find the ale so that's why I chose to use those instead.

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp of butter
1/4 Cup of finely chopped onions
1/2 Tsp chopped fresh thyme
3/4 Cup of Heineken Lite
1 Lb of mussels, scrubbed well
1 1/2 Tsp of Dijon mustard
2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
Salt and ground pepper

Steps:

In a large pot, melt the butter medium-high heat. Add the shallots and sauté until soft. About 4 minutes.
Add the garlic and time and cook for 1 minute longer.
Add the Heineken (or whatever beer you're using) and bring to boil.

4. Add the mussels, cover and cook, stirring occasionally until the mussels open. The mussels take around 6 to 8 minutes to open, however mine opened up in about 4 minutes.