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.

Christmas in NJ

Yes, I am behind, what else is new? :P

For Christmas this year we got to drive up to New Jersey to see my extended family for the first time since my best friend's wedding back in May of 2014. I was super excited to say the least! I hate going so long without seeing my family, and even though I didn't get to see everyone this time around, I did get most people, which is a plus. 

The Tuesday before Christmas we drove 2 and a half hours to my parents' house and spent the night before leaving early Wednesday to continue the drive to New Jersey. I got kicked out of my car and Stefan and Ryan drove together where I rode in the van with my parents. I see how it is boys! It took us about 8 hours with a long stop for lunch but we finally got to New Jersey! 

My uncle Dave was visiting from Florida and he had some home made chili and sourdough bread bowls waiting for us and many of my aunts and uncles and cousins came over, so we got family right away. It was so wonderful to see everyone it just made my heart happy. One of the big things about going to New Jersey for me is the food!

I have to get a taylor ham egg and cheese sandwich on a roll, it is a breakfast must that my mom went out and got for everyone the first morning. We also have to order pizza at least once, because lets face it, Jersey pizza is the absolute best! We had that as our last meal when we left. Then the bottom two above are our Christmas Eve and Day meals, which are always fantastic. Since we are Western European (Polish) we tend to do a meat free Christmas Eve with pierogies, fried fish and mushroom soup. Christmas Day we go crazy with ham, smoked turkey, lasagna, beef wellington, more pierogies and tons and tons of cookies. So many cookies! Ah the food. So thankful for such deliciousness!

Another big highlight for us was finally being able to meet our niece Adrianna. She was born on the 4th of July to my oldest half brother Sean and we finally got to visit and spend some time with her. She is definitely a little firecracker, like her fitting nickname suggests! I loved being able to snuggle her and spend time with her and my brothers and their family.

My heart was also happy to spend Christmas Eve mass at my home church that I grew up in. This is the church I attended from the time I was in about second grade on. It is the church I was a lector (reader) in, received my first communion, confirmation, and got married in. I have lived many places over the past ten years since I left home and none have had a church that compares to this one. I hope someday I find one that will, but until then when I return it is like coming home. Everyone still knows us and treats us like family and it is just a tremendous blessing. It felt like a second reunion being there. 

My best friend Sam met us at Mass and then all of us went to our good friend of the family's house afterwards to catch up. We were there until almost 3am on Christmas Eve! My parents ducked out around 2:30am and us "kids" followed not too far behind afterwards. We still had a long drive back to my grandparents' house after that. Needless to say Christmas Day we slept in a bit before the rest of our family descended on us for dinner.

When my extended family gets together every room looks like this. People are setting up and stealing food in the kitchen, talking in the dining room, and watching TV in the living room. Everywhere you turn someone is there and you bump in to a lot of people and it becomes a hundred degrees in the house but it is wonderful. It was a very balmy Christmas in New Jersey, in the 70s most of our visit and the 50s maybe when we left, so the windows were wide open the entire time! All the people tend to drive my husband nuts but he loves everyone so he tolerates being crowded for me!

I was flipping through some old albums and I found this picture of my Poppy (second from the right) from 1928, when we was about six years old. My Poppy was one of thirteen children, but only Ethel, Emil, and Grace are in this picture with hum. For some reason I just loved this picture and had to take a snapshot of it to have. 

I was a little concerned on how the Dup would do with so many people, but she was utterly fabulous. She only almost jumped on Poppy's visiting nurse once and my cousin's aunt another time. Oops. But everyone basically loves dogs in my family so she got a ton of snuggles and treats and food sneaked her way. She was very unhappy with us when we returned home. One, she hates the car and sticking her in there for ten hours made her miserable, and two she missed all the attention she got for three days straight! Rylie literally spent all day Sunday hiding from us and refusing any treats we offered her. 

As always, the trip was entirely too short. Ryan and I had to leave Saturday to get back to North Carolina. We both had work Monday and knew we'd need Sunday to get stuff done. I hate saying goodbye to my grandparents, it always breaks my heart, and I sobbed as Ryan and I got into the car. And continued to sob most of the way down the New Jersey turnpike. It was a rough, long drive back. We left around 3pm and drove through rain on and off and didn't get home until 1:30 in the morning. We stopped briefly for food and gas but had to take a lot of smaller highways as the 95 area and cities were just a mess.

So it was a really terrific trip and I am so happy we were able to go and spend time with my family. It truly was a wonderful Christmas because of that. Hopefully not so much time will pass before we can get up there again.

I hope you and your families had a great holiday season.

Thanksgiving 2015

Our Family Portrait

I am behind! I know Thanksgiving wasn't that long ago, but I still feel like I am way off on my blogging. We spent Thanksgiving in South Carolina with my inlaws again this year. Normally we rotate each year, but my mother-in-law will be away this Christmas and we really wanted to drive up to New Jersey to see my extended family and Christmas gives us more time to do that anyway! So Wednesday after work we drove down south. I was feeling pretty woozy most of Thanksgiving to be honest with you, my stomach was just not cooperative, but thankfully it never got too bad! We had a delicious meal with family and spent Black Friday in our pajamas, napping and watching the 80s rewind marathon on VH1. My sister in law has never seen any of the Back to the Future movies and that had to be rectified! We also had a delicious dinner with his grandmother (Skeetsie) and mom and sister on Friday night.

Saturday we got up early and went in to downtown Columbia, a part called Soda City, where they do a sort of street fair/marketplace type thing. I had some shrimp and grits that were pretty decent and a nutella banana crepe that was amazing.

We also walked up to the capitol building and took some pictures near the Christmas tree. All of this is pretty much just like we did last year! Except this year it was about 70something degrees!

We also made a brief stop into the Richland County library so I could look around. This place was HUGE! Three stories easily with tons of space and cool things that made me pretty jealous. The mural below was in their children's area... since I do not have a child I didn't want to be creepy and go in there but I was able to take a picture from the balcony of the floor above. They have trees! Growing in the kids room! So cool.

We ordered some wings and went home to watch the USC/Clemson rivalry game. Honestly we were worried it was going to be a slaughter (with Clemson at #1 and us having a very off season) but it was a surprisingly good game! We almost had a chance at the end but it just was not meant to be!

After the game we drove home and used Sunday to clean, grocery shop, put up some Christmas decorations, and cook for the upcoming week. It was great spending time with family and as always, way too brief!

Polish Festival 2015

Last weekend I was super excited to be off of work because it was the Polish Festival down in Castle Hayne! Ryan and I went to the festival in 2012 during the first year we lived in NC but hadn't been able to make it back since... mainly due to silly things like work, shows, and deployments. So when this Saturday rolled around and we were not only both in the same country and off of work we decided to go back. It was super hot that day, nearly 80 degrees, and I was glad we both wore shorts. I don't think North Carolina got the memo it is November but I am so not complaining. The downside to the nice weather was that the festival was packed.

 

 

This was the line for food. Well, lines, one on each side of the booth. We sweated it out waiting for our chance to buy the mixed plate of food like we did last time and it was worth it. Ryan also got us some potato pancakes to eat while we waited. I was glad he did as we missed out on those last time!

 

I wanted them with sour cream but Ryan is on a health kick again and insisted on apple sauce. Sigh. My inner fat kid is so struggling to fight out!

 

We finally got to the front of the line and they loaded up our plates for us. The prices obviously went up a bit but it is so worth it. Sure, I just had Polish food with my Babci and Poppy a few weeks ago, but I can never have too many pierogies!!

The food was the same we got last time, sauerkraut with a roll, kielbasa, glumpke (beef and rice stuffed in a cabbage leaf) and pierogies with plenty of butter and onions.

 We also stopped by the bakery tent and got Chruściki (also called Angel Wings). My Babci's chruściki is definitely better, much crispier! This one was more like funnel cake strips than the yumminess that is chruściki.

 

After we ate we wandered back to the music tent to listen to the live Polka music and to try and at least dance together for one of them. It was crowded even on the dance floor so we mostly hopped around in a sort of two step that looked like it could maybe be a polka... if you were drunk enough.

 

Overall we had a fantastic time and I was super happy to indulge in some Polish food and traditions. It makes me feel like a little kid again visiting my grandparents. We didn't stay too long after that but it was definitely a fun afternoon.

Dining In 2015

On Friday the MCT portion of SOI-E had a Dining In that we were lucky enough to be able to attend. Ryan and I have been married nearly five years and together over seven and this is the first time we have been able to attend one! Other units had them scheduled and then cancelled over the years so we were looking forward to an evening out together. Plus, I always love a reason to see my husband in his dress blues! Dining Ins are a little less formal than Birthday Balls, so cocktail attire is encouraged, but I did see a mix of dresses for sure. Most women were in cocktail dresses, some were in long formal gowns, and one or two were in very casual dresses. It seemed anything semi dressy was acceptable, but I googled the bejeezus out of it ahead of time to make sure! I rarely have an excuse to wear a little black dress, particularly one as comfortable as the one I did wear, so I was all about the cocktail attire.

We clean up pretty good! I worked half a day and then used the extra hours to work on my hair and make up, always a challenge for me, but I thnk I did ok. The Dining In was held on base and it was a beautiful evening. The last time we were at this pavillion was for our first Ball in Lejeune, and the docks were under construction. A backhoe does not a romantic backdrop make! But three years later it looked really nice. We arrived for the cocktail hour and were early enough to take advantage of the limited open bar... as in we each got one free drink before the free part ended! Works for me! We mingled and I met some more of Ryan's fellow instructors and their spouses, which was nice.

The Dining In is all about rules and ceremony... including lining up and marching in to your seat. Once you are seated, you do not get up until the break otherwise the Vice can make your spouse pay a fine and visit the grog bowl. Other infractions include rudeness, breaking ceremony, uniform infractions, or anything else the Vice and the President deem to be punishable. Needless to say if you have to pee, you hold it! The dinner was nice and once the guys got into the spirit of fining the heck out of one another it was pretty entertaining. The grog bowl is pretty disgusting. The liquid inside almost looked like a bloody mary and was kind of thick with chunks of unidentifiable things floating in it. The poor Marines who had to take shots of it (some only had one, others had as many as five or more) looked pretty green afterwards!

 

Other traditions, besides staying seated, include the President having to taste the beef (to make sure it is "fit for consumption") as well as the wine. The Marines are usually pretty mean and do something to the food and wine to make it gross (I believe ours covered the beef in super hot sauce but I have heard of it even being covered in cat food before) because the President has to eat it. If he doesn't, no one else is allowed to eat anything! So unless you want a hundred or so hangry people, you stomach a small bite.

After the break (and a huge, mad dash to the bathroom) the fines are closed and you do the traditional toasts and the guest of honor speaks. Ours was a Sgt Major who has been in many years and nearly moved me to tears at one point when he spoke about some of the amazing men he served with and lost... including one of his good friends who was killed in the recent helicopter training accident in Florida a little while back.

Everyone is given a cigar to enjoy for when the smoking lamp is lit. Ryan and I have been smoke free for over eight months now, so we didn't even chance it with a cigar... I was pretty proud of us for sticking to it.

 

After the toasts and speeches the President dismisses everyone to the bar to join him for a drink (and a cigar) and you are free to mingle or go home. We hung out a little longer and chatted with some people before heading home again.

 

It was a lovely night and we both had a really nice time. I do have to say, as much as I love dressing up, it was super nice to change in to my sweat pants when we got home. We snuggled on the couch and watched the Simpsons and ate grilled cheese sandwiches.... you can't beat that!

 

Easter

Like most of our holidays lately, Ryan and I had a quiet Easter at home. Even though Ryan was not in cycle, he was naturally on the range, so travelling with our work schedules wasn't really an option. I am still trying to earn back leave time from my surgery in January! Bein sick has not been my friend. As you may remember, recently I wrote I mentioned I was getting an endoscopy done. Fortunately my biopsies were all negative, no bacteria or cancer or anything like that. I did have some gastritis and duodenitis as well as some severe bile reflux. Not acid, bile. Ugh. So I am on a new medication that I have to take three times a day to see if it helps prevent my attacks and general nausea. Naturally a side effect of the medicine is nausea, so I have had some yucky moments again, but I am trying to go a few weeks to see if it truly helps. No idea what my options are beyond this though!

 

Anyway, Easter. I went to Holy Thursday mass at the church on base by myself (as Ryan is Baptist this is a normal thing for us! The Triduum is pretty uber Catholic). Good Friday I sadly had to work and could not attend mass. Ryan and I went out for seafood that evening and ended up having some really good conversations. Saturday we scrambled like crazy to get things done so Easter Sunday we wouldn't have to do chores. We cleaned the house top to bottom, discovered a leak under our kitchen sink and repaired it, did laundry and grocery shopping all in time for the Easter Vigil mass that evening. The vigil is hands down my favorite mass of the year. Yes, it is long mass and my husband is a saint for putting up with me to go! We had seven people baptised, four convert from other branches of Christianity and a total of thirteen people confirmed. I am always teary during that part! It is a beautiful thing.

 

We got home that evening and made our pisanki. Ryan is getting to be quite good aafter being with me all these years! His are on the left and mine are on the right.

 

Our pisanki/pisanky (depending on your spelling!)

We were up pretty late but still didn't sleep in too much Easter Sunday. We had a nice lazy day of watching movies and opening the Easter basket my mom sent us. After awhile it got too lazy for Ryan and we decided to go out and play tennis. It was my first time doing anything particularly strenuous (aside from hiking or walking the dog) since I got sick back in October. I did alright but man am I out of shape! After a few hours we came home and I made the pierogies I had been saving for a special occassion. They have sat in the freezer from our last trip to New Jersey and are the made from scratch pierogies my Babci made.... so they are uber special! We had that with her babka bread that I also unfroze as well as a ring of kielbasa Ryan grilled for us.

 

Our neighbors also shared a special Easter treat with us. He found some baby bunnies abandoned on his job site and did not want to leave them. They all waited for the mother to come back but there was no sign of her. He brought them home for the evening and they decided to feed them and care for them for the evening until they could bring them to a wildlife shelter the next day. What that meant for us was that we were able to cuddle some furry little baby bunnies who had barely opened their eyes!

 

They were so cute and tiny and they made the tiniest little jumps. They had four of them total and I loved being able to snuggle them, even though it was pretty brief. A friend of mine recommended a good place to take them and the next day our neighbors dropped them off.

 

Monday we went back to work but that evening my brother came to visit us for our Spring Break! The Dup is in heaven, Uncle Stefan is her best buddy, and I am pretty psyched my baby brother is here for the week. Even though I work during the day we have been having some pretty awesome adventures at night and I hope we can get a beach day in before he goes. I hope you all had a Happy Easter and warmer weather is officially headed your way.

Thanksgiving 2014

Our Thanksgiving this year was spent at my inlaws in South Carolina and to make it an even bigger family celebration, my parents and brother drove down and spent it with us! So we had all of our parents with us for Thanksgiving this year. Perfection. I love being able to spend the holidays with family and having our complete family together is a luxury that I know many do not have. Very thankful indeed. Especially with our Christmas plans so up in the air it is nice to know we saw all of our parents for Thanksgiving.

Ryan and I with my parents and brother... and the Dup Dup

Selfie style later on with my mother in law and sister in law

We ate so much! I tried to be careful with my gallbladder on the fritz but man I could not resist trying a little bit of everything.

 

Plus there was pie... about four of them. Two apple, two pumpkin plus my mom made pecan pie bars that were so amazing they didn't survive the weekend.

 

As you can imagine we were too full to function much beyond watching football. Naturally my brother insisted on some selfies and I think I broke a top teen rule by taking a screenshot of a snapchat (an app I still don't really understand but have because I have maybe four friends who use it and insist I do too). I don't care though, I love the picture of me and my "baby" brother, who turned 18 years old on the first. Where has the time gone!? We gave him a Casio G-Shock watch that will hopefully last him forever... Ryan has had one since bootcamp and it got him through two deployments and various other crazy situations, so it is a good watch indeed. We also drove to Ryan's grandmother's house and his sister's dad's house to visit that evening.

 

Friday I don't think we got out of our pajamas. We watched a lot of movies, Home Alone, How to Train Your Dragon, The Wizard of Oz, and Love Actually. It was officially after Thanksgiving so I was all about the Christmas movies!

 

Saturday we became productive members of society again and actually got up early to head down to the street fair/market in Downtown Columbia. I love stuff like this! It was chilly bur not freezing and I had some delicious hot cocoa to boot.

I also found pierogies. In South Carolina! Epic, epic win in my book!

 

 

We got some pretty cool things there including home made ravioli (bacon, mozerella and sundried tomato), an art print of Molecular Chemistry that has wine bottles and the chemical breakdown of wine (LOVE), boiled peanuts, hot sauce and some other snacks. Then Ryan realized he never actually showed me Columbia properly in the, you know, seven years we've been together... so I got a tour. We went by the state house and some other really neat buildings and the campus of USC.

Christmas tree near the State House

State House all decorated for Christmas

 

Family selfie in front of the tree

After that we went back to the house with wings (well salad for me) to watch the USC/Clemson rivalry game... and that did not turn out well for us. After winning the last five years in a row Clemson beat the Gamecocks this year. Sad. Well, I guess they can have this one! Saturday night we watched more movies and slept in a bit Sunday before battling traffic to get home again. It took us an hour and a half longer than normal (thanks 95!) but we made it.

Overall it was a wonderful weekend with family and I am so thankful we had it!