Blue Apron

Ryan and I continually kept seeing ads for meal/recipe ingredient boxes you could order and debated about ordering one for a long time. I am someone who loves to have variety in their diet and have different dinners to keep things interesting whereas my husband could have baked chicken, steak, or lean hamburger meat, and vegetables for every meal without complaint. My slight need for variety has gotten worse with pregnancy too! If I eat too much of anything over a extended period of time I tend to develop a small aversion to it and not want anything to do with it. The longest lasting being bananas, I haven't had those in about three months and I used to have one nearly every day for breakfast! After talking about it, and continually getting mail offers for small discounts, we decided to give it a go for both the sake of my stomach and him listening to me pester!

Our first order arrived last Thursday with all of the ingredients we needed to make three meals (minus salt, pepper, and olive oil... everything else down to the butter or milk was included). I went online and got to set a menu based on six different options for each week. Considering my husband has been going to the gym a lot and is on a major protein kick I have tended to stick to the ones with meat (or fish) rather then full vegetarian.

We decided to make the first meal that night, Trinidadian Chicken Curry.

Here you can see all of our ingredients laid out and helpfully labeled as well as the recipe card that came with step by step preparation instructions. We were a little excited and just sort of leapt in to cooking without reading through the whole recipe first, so some of our timing was off (ie the grits were ready fifteen minutes early...) but lesson learned!

Our finished product may not have been as pretty as the one pictured but it was delicious! I've never cooked with some of those flavor profiles before (lime and coconut and other spices) but we both really enjoyed it! It was also much more filling than we expected.

We decided Friday to cook our second meal, Spicy Shrimp Spaghetti, as it was a Friday during lent and I am Catholic and do not eat meat on Fridays. This time we made less of a mess and did more of our prep work properly (as you can see my fine chopping skills above!). We also were much closer to the timing of the recipe instead of taking an extra twenty minutes to cook everything!

This recipe was also pretty good, not as good as the first one in my opinion, but still delicious and filling. Ryan was unsure of his until he added more red hot pepper flakes to it and then he was quite a happy camper.

Saturday morning I had rehearsal and was starving when I got home, so recipe number three was prepared! I was so hungry to start I forgot to take any prep pictures and we just ended up with our finished product of Pretzel Burgers with crispy sweet potato rounds. This recipe was probably my favorite, so delicious! We did add extra ground beef as they sent us 85% and we tend to cook with 93% or higher thanks to my sensitive stomach, but otherwise we stayed true to the recipe.

This recipe included a cheddar cheese sauce made from scratch (olive oil, flour, milk, shredded cheddar, barley flowers and seasonings) that I was proud I did not burn or mess up! It was very easy and even though my whisking drove my husband nuts I saw him eating it out of the pot with a spoon after, so I think he was ok with it! It also came with whole grain mustard to put on the buns which just made everything more tasty.

I promise not to do this every week, but I was so excited for our first order I couldn't resist! We don't plan on having it for too long as it is a little pricey (really my only downside) but it is manageable in our budget right now. If you've been on the fence about it I recommend it for sure!

PS - This post is in no way affiliated with Blue Apron, I just wanted to share my own opinions on our first order! They do not know I exist, except for the fact that I am a customer.

Easter 2013

My mom and Stefan were here for Easter and we had a great weekend. Mom and I made a huge easter dinner for everyone and it was a bit daunting! I've never really hosted a holiday before and I'm glad my mom was here to help me cook!

We made a huge ham, green bean casserole, biscuits, sweet potato with marshmallows, home made macaroni and cheese, pierogies, kielbasa and spinach salad. Whew!!! 

It was great to spend time with family and have an easter with Ryan in our own home. Amazing.

Our family tradition is an egg hunt with clues to find our basket. This year Stefan, Ryan and I worked together on a twenty egg hunt to get our baskets. Oooh chocolate, how I love thee!

We definitely overdid the food and had a ton leftover! Ryan came up with the idea of bringing plates to the guys on duty that were stuck on base. We ended up making ten plates if food and delivering them to guys on Geiger and Lejeune and it was so sweet. They were all so thankful and I'm glad Stefan came to see us do it and help. My husband is amazing for thinking of it and it totally warmed my heart. 

Hope you all had a happy easter!

Cooking With Pintrest

I have much better luck with the recipes on pintrest than the hairstyles!

Last night, after doing laundry, my neighbor Carrie and I had this lovely dish I found on pintrest a few weeks ago. The two of us getting ingredients and Christmas decorations in Target the other day was hilarious, it reminded us both of shopping with room mates in college. I am glad that Carrie and I have gotten as close as we have, her friendship has been a real blessing in my life!

So the Cheesburger Crescent Bake:

1 lb ground beef, cooked, drained
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup dill pickle relish
1 1/2 cups shredded American cheese (6 oz)
1 can (8 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated crescent dinner rolls


Now Carrie is a vegetarian, so I used these fake meat crumbles from Morning Star that were just as delicious as ground beef! I highly recommend them if you want to try the recipe vegetarian!! Excuse the iPhone photos, I know some people make them into works of art, but mine are SO not there!


Directions

In 10-inch skillet, mix beef and ketchup.



Heat to boiling over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally. Then stir in relish...



and 1 cup of the cheese.



Spoon into ungreased 9- or 10-inch glass pie plate.




Separate dough into 8 triangles; roll up 1 inch on shortest side of dough. Place dough on top of meat mixture in spoke pattern.


(Ok, my spoke pattern needs work...)

Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup cheese.

Bake at 375°F 15 to 20 minutes.



Ta Da! It was delicious!!!! And I am having leftovers tonight (: It is super quick and easy to make, I highly recommend it.

And to link with Goodnight Moon, some Journey... because it has been in my head all day. Especially since Ryan showed me a certain youtube video with this song, have you seen Action Figure Therapy? Warning, some language, but after hearing my husband talk about work sometimes I am sure we all have similar stories!

Pintrest: Good and Evil

Like most of the world, I am addicted to Pintrest. I will spend hours pinning things and tucking away ideas for our future home, family, crafts, clothes and recipes. Also, like most people, I am guilty of excessive pinning but not excessive doing. So I decided to start actually doing more of the things I am pinning! I had only done one recipe before, and it was delicious, so I decided to do it again. I saw the Cheddar and Cracker Baked Chicken everywhere so I gave it a go.



DELICIOUS!

I loved the garlicy cheddar taste with the crackers for just the amount of crunch. I even put half in the freezer, unbaked, to make for later. It has been really hard for me to motivate myself to cook for one, so this recipe having the freezer option was very appealing to me. I highly recommend this one.

Now the second thing I tried to do was some no-heat curls. I have been reading this girl's blog for ages and her style is amazing. So I decided to try it! I need to figure out how I am going to do my hair for the Ball next week anyway, so I figured this would be a good chance to practice.



Step One: Twist hair until it twists itself into buns on your head. Secure in place, leave overnight.



Step Two: After an uncomfortable night of sleep, wake up and remove pins. Enjoy springy girls. Use your fingers to gently separate.



Step Three: PANIC!!!!!!!!!


Maybe my hair is too fine. Maybe it was too damp/dry. Who knows. All I know is that when I went to gently separate my twists I looked like a lion who had stuck its paw in an electric socket. No pretty curls for me. Straight up white girl afro. I look like my mom did in her senior picture, but it was the seventies so she had an excuse! I was at this point late for work so I had to shove my head under the faucet in the shower and squeeze globs of conditioner in my hair. Quick rinse, then blow dry and I was ready to go.



Slightly frazzled, but not demented.



Oy.

My mom, husband, coworkers and the girls at BUNCO had a good laugh with me over it though! Looking back, I think it was hysterical. But now I definitely need another idea to curl my long, thin, fine hair for the Ball!!!

Fried Oreos

This is a pre-scheduled post, the hubby and I are loungin' in the sun in Myrtle Beach!

When Ryan re-enlisted we decided to have a celebratory bbq with steaks and friends to let loose. Of course we invited everyone to the park near our house (since an apartment is not ideal for grilling) where grills were abundant. Well apparently they were, but they vanished. In the week between our visits the grills were ALL removed! Luckily Russ and Lauren were awesome and invited us all to their house for use of kitchen and grill.

We had a blast and Lauren had the best idea for a dessert.... fried oreos!!! Her neighbor Michele was there helping too.

They are pretty easy to make!

If you buy some pancake batter mix (the kind that takes milk and eggs, not just instant with water, is much better.... we used water mix and ended up adding milk and eggs to thicken it) and make the batter according to the instructions on the box, you are basically ready. Add some chocolate syrup, vanilla, and cinnamon to the batter and whisk well.

Heat up so oil on the stove and then grab your oreos. We used double stuffed, much better. We then dipped the oreos in the batter, put them on a spoon, and dropped them in the oil. The oreo will sink to the bottom then float back to the top. With the spoon turn the oreo over a few times until it is nice and brown. Add some powdered sugar and you're ready for a nice summer treat. We even used the left over batter to attempt to make funnel cake. It didn''t look perfect, but it was delicious.

Look and see!



Michele has very good oreo spinning technique!
I was the dunker
Make sure to cover it in the batter!
Funnel cake!!
Yum!
Our first oreo versus our later oreos.... the batter with just water was too thin, adding more powder, milk, and eggs fluffed it out. If your oreos aren't perfect just experiment. You will figure it out!
See? YUM! It makes me think Jersey Shore and boardwalk, where I always had them. I will so be making these again! Serve right away and enjoy.

Corned Beef and Cabbage FAIL

I love Saint Patrick's Day. I am pretty heavily Irish, I mean my maiden name begins with O', a dead give away! One of my grandmothers was 100% Irish, and her husband was at least half (my real dad's parents). My mom always went out of her way to make the holiday special for me even though she has no Irish blood. She would make corned beef and cabbage and Irish Soda bread and all sorts of things. Did I mention Ryan and I met for the first time at a Saint Patrick's Day Party???

You catch my drift at this point. It is one of my favorite holidays.

So I was pretty excited to cook my first big Saint Patrick's Day dinner.

I went to Trader Joes after work on Wednesday and got all the essentials. Potatoes, onions, carrots, Irish Soda Bread (aka Blarney Scone! Hahahahaha... sorry) and Irish Butter. I just needed the actual corned beef. After wandering the store a bit I found the meat wall and got my five pound slab. It was already in a marinade with these giant peppercorns and big bay leaves and other things. Here I am thinking, "Sweet! One less thing to do!" So I get my stuff and go home.

After dinner that night I throw it all together in the crock pot. I paused a moment and debated rinsing off the beef and making my own marinade but... nahhhh. It would probably be better! Trader Joe's hasn't failed me yet!

Oh, but it did. Mistake one.

I throw it all in the crock pot and see the cabbage sitting aside. I am not a huge cabbage fan and my crock pot isn't huge, so I thought I would cheat and get shredded cabbage.

Mistake two.

I wake up the next morning, get the crock pot out of the fridge, and turn it on low.

All day I was so excited. Ryan would have his first home made corned beef and cabbage and our friends were coming over, it would be great. Well Lauren and Russ ended up not making it ( :( ) as Lauren got stuck at work, but we did wait til after 8 for them. I figured after nearly 13 hours in the crock pot this meat would be fall apart fantastic.

Oh, so so wrong.

The spices took over! Why did I not listen to my instincts and rinse the darn thing!? It permeated the vegetables and my poor shredded cabbage, mistake number two, was wilted and brown in the rubble. Oh crap. I tried to pour the juices out to reduce it to a sauce and ended up with cornstarch congealed blobs in potpourri water. So we skipped the sauce.

Ryan, bless him, was praising me up and down and eating it and saying it was delicious. As I chewed my Blarney Scone I looked at him and said,

"It's awful. I taste it too you know!"

"No, no it's not!"

Pointed look from me goes here.

"Ok, maybe just the vegetables...."

Ugh.

I felt so bad! The meat for some reason was not fall apart tender. It was rough. The flavor there was ok but the veggies were like cooked potpourri. It was terrible. We ate the meat with spicy mustard and lots of bread and butter, but the veggies were left basically. Anyone ever see Back to the Future 3? Remember when Marty is back in time and his great-great-great grandfather serves him rabbit he just hunted for and he takes a bite and spits little bullets onto his plate? That was us, with peppercorns or whatever the hell they were.

After we felt bad throwing out the veggies but they were inedible! What a waste :( But Ryan opened a bottle of White Zinfindel and I felt better.

And as Ryan put it, "Don't worry my love, you can practice again next year!"

Budget and Healthy Eating by Faith and Deployments

Lauren from Faith & Deployments was another quick blogger to get back to me! She is an Air Force wife with a fabulous blog. I have to institute this in our household... both for our wallets and our waistlines! Thank you so much for the fabulous entry Lauren (:

I am thrilled to guest blog for Allie and even more thrilled to talk about a lifestyle change my husband and I have been working on for the past 6 months. We are (or rather "were") big eat-outers and we don't (didn't) eat very healthy. Well during the third deployment I knew I needed to cook more and eat out less. One it saves money and two it is way healthier for us. So I started picking recipes (cookbooks, bettycrocker.com, kraftrecipes.com, etc). I figured out how many would last me for 14 meals: I can make 4 recipes and it lasts for for a whole week. I don't eat large portions and I usually only eat two meals a day. And I would only buy the ingrediants for those recipes. My grocery bills each month (clipping coupons included) were about $30 a week. Pretty decent. Well I knew it would go up once the husband returned, but I was determined to stick to the plan and to add in more veggies and eat less pasta and cheese. We're huge pasta and overloads of cheese eaters as well. So about $80 a week feeds up 14-17 recipes for us. We both have lunch the next day and on weekends it's sort of a fend for all. I do have "emergency" downfalls like pizza rolls or stuff to make bagel pizzas. But our emergency meals have gotten less and less and our overall eating fresh and less processed have gotten more and more. Sometimes we splurge and eat out once or twice, but it's a step in money saving and only buying what we need. Also buying week to week ensures that we use things before they expire or rot in the fridge which was a huge problem of ours. I only cook from the recipes I have chosen and if it sucks, I throw the recipe away. If I like it (or rather we like it) I keep the recipe to use later on if I need a space filler that is fast and easy.

An easy way to cook food with tons of left overs....slow cooker. It's my favorite thing. Especially if I have to work late or have meetings after work and only like 20 minutes to scarf down some food. While I am at work, the slow cooker does all the cooking for me. Don't get my wrong, I have made some DISASTERS in the crock pot. But for the most part, recipes are keepers. We've gotten to the point where I can buy two weeks worth of food and use it all and only shop twice a month. Just start small, and build up from there. It also helps that this new way was a norm once my husband returned and he was just so happy to have real food he didn't care what I was cooking. But I let him look over the recipes sometimes for input, but he eats everything so he isn't picky.

Bottom line, it takes time. Don't expect it to be easy the first time around, but now I am a master at 30 minute commissary trips because I buy way less processed things so I hit up the produce, frozen, and like one dry good aisle. I spend way less time trying to think about what we need because I make a list. And nine times out of ten I can build meals off of things we have in our pantry and only buy one thing to finish the meal. I can usually fly through the coupon section of the sunday paper because I know what we use and what we don't. I know which websites have the stuff we buy and the more I shop at the commissary I know which brands they carry so I don't have to throw so many coupons out. It's been great on our wallets and better on our waist lines. Now if we could just stick to regular work outs we would be set!

Day 13

Hosted here!

Day 13: Favorite Cookie Recipe

I did this for my favorite holiday recipe, but I will share one more my mom and I always made! (Ok more my mom, but I have helped!)



These pizzelles are light and crisp. Serve them plain or dusted with powdered sugar. Also, they can be easily shaped while still hot right off the iron and formed into a cone, cylinder, or even a cup and filled with your favorite filling. To keep them crisp, store them in an air tight container.

3 eggs
1 3/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp. anise seed or extract
1/2 c. butter (1/4 lb.)
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Do not use more than 1/2 cup butter and don't use oil as a substitute.
Beat eggs and sugar. Add cooled melted butter and vanilla and anise. Sift flour and baking powder and add to egg mixture. Batter will be stiff enough to be dropped by spoon. Batter can be refrigerated to be used at a later time. Makes 30 pizzelles.




You need a pizzelle iron, but it is totally worth investing in!


This isn't the exact recipe my mom and I use, but they are delicious. I promise! Pictures from here and here

Ketchup!! :P

Ok, an entry!

I am currently at work and in between phone calls so I decided it was time to do a blog entry. I will write it in my email, post the pictures and then post the entry when I get home. Complicated much?

So rewind a few days.

Lobstahs

On Friday, one of our clients sent a box of 50 live lobsters to the office. Why? He was vacationing in Maine and wanted to share! So I bring home two lobsters in a bag of ice for me and the hubby to share. Meet Jean and Claude!



And yes, they were alive! I felt a little like Julie from Julie/Julia because I really didn't want to put a live lobster into a boiling pot of water. So Ryan held up the lobstahs, I cut the rubberbands off the claws, and he dropped them into the boiling water.





We boiled the water with some thyme, had corn and lots of melted butter. We, living in the semi-South, do not have claw crackers or even a nut cracker so we had to use our kitchen shears to break the lobstahs open! The claw meat was so sweet and the tails was delicious, neither of us are brave enough to eat the middle gooey guts parts! Mine was definitely female as I had a LOT of little red eggs in mine! I didn't eat those though. Week one of work spoiled me, birthday cake, margaritas, and lobstahs!



Baseball

After dinner (and cleaning up since we were quite messy) we went over to the ballpark since we had tickets to the Nationals vs Marlins game. Our neighbor Rigoberto (who I have blogged about before, he is the awesome chef) has season tickets and passed them onto us for this game. We were in the third row on the third baseline!!!



Amazingly awesome seats. I had my new camera so I got to play around with a lot of settings, including my sports one which takes 25 pictures in about 2 or 3 seconds. It rocked my socks off. I feel like I need to make a flip book!




Funnily enough one of the Sgt Majors from the barracks was sitting in front of us and we were chatting back and forth most of the game. We ended up getting a free tshirt for Rigoberto that they tossed to us and having some delicious Boardwalk Fries! The Nats lost *surprise* but we had a blast.

I am not sure, but I think some guys on the Marlins lost a bet???



And my favorite: FIREWORKS



Art Fair



Saturday was a lazy day. Ryan has had a cold for a few days and even resorted to taking MEDICINE! I was shocked. Only Nyquil to get by without coughing all night, but he never takes anything when he is sick so it shocks me still. We watched tv and lounged around a bit before I ran into Rigoberto outside again. I gave him the tshirt from the game and he mentioned there was an art festival of sorts going on down on King St. Ryan and I drag ourselves from the house, me with new camera in tow, and go explore. I loved looking at all the artwork and wished I was uber rich enough to buy some of it! But I also got quality camera playing time!

Playing with Shutter Speed: 1/2000



1/2000



1/350 or so I think.... so you can see the difference in shutter speed!




Playing with Aperature:





and some of the photographer...

and the gorgeous hubby....



Nick's

We then walked all the way to the top of King St and I showed Ryan where my new office is located. When we were sitting on the benches near the fountain Ryan's friend called and invited us to Nick's, a country bar not too far away, to hang out.



We took a cab there (ended up being pricier than anticipated, $15!) and had a good time. We got some food and drinks and I really wish we did the line dancing lessons that were going on before the band started. Once the band started it seemed like everyone knew all the complicated dances and we couldn't do any of them!!! We slow danced to one song and even then people were spinning all around us!

My friend Kim (and one of my bridesmaids) is coming to visit next weekend. She is a huge country buff so we decided we have to go back next Saturday. She is wicked excited and I quote, "Imma gonna bring mah boots!!!" I am wearnig mine too! Mine are my mom's from back in the 80s. Kinda excited.

After the bar we decided to walk to the metro, almost got lost in a paving plant (don't ask) but made it! We even survived the speedwalk home!

Chores

Sunday was chores... Ryan had a C-Bag (I am sure you Marine S.O.s know what those are!) FULL of our laundry. I mean we couldn't close the thing. 2 people 2 weeks 2 much laundry! I went grocery shopping, still made it in budget with lots of frantic running around, and cleaned the apartment. Our bathroom sink was badly clogged for a day or two so I got some Draino for that and poured the entire bottle in the instant I got home. Three hours later, nothing happened. Crap. I was convinced I would have to call our maintenance guy. But I kept cleaning. I was just finishing the kitchen when I heard a horrific grinding noise. I look in the dining room and black things and shards of ice are FLYING out of the airconditioning unit. I had to grab my apron to shield myself to turn the darn thing off! Then I had to reclean the entire dining room. So that thing has not been on since Sunday, luckily it is cooler out. Ryan needs to call maintenance to come fix it! This stuff only happens when I am home alone. I honestly thought the window broke and glass was flying in but it was ice....how does that happen??? And with black leafy looking dirt things?? But the good news is our sink cleared overnight so that works again somehow! It just needed 12 hours or so to sit instead of half an hour like the bottle says?

Work work work. Still liking the job. Getting better, getting into a routine. I even made meatloaf last night!

ADD: We lost power at work! After I wrote this the computer flickered three times and died. People were stuck in the elevator, traffic lights were out, no power for like a mile around. So I walked home!!! I am tired now. We'll go back for my car tonight, I did not want to deal with traffic with no traffic lights working and the garage not working either!

I will write about my Doctor Appointment Adventure later....

Thanks for sticking with me guys <3