#38 - Savannah for St. Patrick's Day

Savannah, GA, for whatever reason, has the second largest St. Patrick's celebration in the U.S. - and this year they had the largest parade! Chef Hubby's Mom and Husband live in the historic district and were wonderful and nice enough to let us invade their home for this epic celebration, which shuts down several of the main streets in the city.

Katieschmatie and her husband came with us, which meant that I had a buddy to dress crazy with, which is always fun!

The celebration starts several days before St. Patrick's Day. We got there on a Thursday and got to watch the streets get progressively more full every night.

Friday night the celebrations were already starting, and even though it rained between 8pm and 9:30 it didn't keep people from filling the streets again by 11pm:

We got dressed up on Friday, although not as crazy as our plans for Saturday:

Chef Hubby had a lot of people asking to take pictures with him cuz he looked aaaaaaawesome.

Saturday kicks off with the parade. People start lining up in the squares and along the parade route at 5 am to get good seats - the best ones are the ones that will provide some shade.

We walked around to take pictures of the parade route, along which (for some reason) there was a genuine bald eagle - who was not thrilled by the large crowd:

The parade has bag-pipers, high school marching bands, families with generations of Irish in them, local businesses, Vietnam vets, New York fire fighters, etc. etc.

Oh, and there was a goat. That was painted green.

 One of my favorite things to see, however, is the soldiers.

 By the end of the parade every one of them is covered in lipstick from girls running out from the crowd
 and kissing them on the cheek. They also get beads, and this year I saw some with boas.

Half the fun is looking at the crazy costumes of the people watching the parade:

This year, Katieschmatie and I were two of those people... and everyone wanted their picture with us!:

It was hard to go more than a couple of blocks without being stopped. And when we saw someone else dressed awesome, we would ask to get a pic with them too - like these two guys with the amazing mustaches!:

Saturday night City Market and River Street were packed. There was always space to go if right next to the stages was too crowded to stand right in front of, and the music was fantastic. So many people, all intent on having a good time without getting violent or riotous. Just rowdy and fun loving.

Dried Strawberries

So my new job at an accounting firm during tax season has definitely had a detrimental effect on how much I'm able to blog, however it does not have a detrimental effect on me making new recipes!!!!

This is one I was particularly excited about because I'm very picky about my strawberries. I don't like bad spots or the ones that look like they're not quite ripe, and after a few days I don't want to eat ANY of them because they seem a little mushy. It is these unlikely candidates that I decided to dry out in the oven and see if that improved their quality any.

It was an extremely successful experiment.

The steps are easy.
1. Wash the strawberries and preheat the oven to 210 (mine was probably closer to 250 and it worked out fine)

2. Core them (which means cut off the leafy crown and then - if you're like me - use a knife the take out the little core.

3. Cut them in half and lay them out on a baking sheet.

I wasn't sure if the direction they're facing would make a difference. So I did both. It didn't make a difference.

4. Sprinkle them with a little salt and pepper. I did notice that the strawberries with the core facing up held onto the salt and pepper and little better, but it didn't seem to make a difference in flavor to be honest.

5. Bake for 3 hours (or until dried)

I did notice that the ones facing up look a little prettier. They all tasted delicious though. They were like candy! I'm probably going to do this to all strawberries that have sat in my fridge a little too long for my picky self to just eat them. In fact, I'm going to be doing it again today =)

In case you're wanting a super easy and healthy-ish dessert recipe for strawberries, the strawberries that were eaten before making these were eaten fresh with a bowl of chocolate whipped cream... they taste like chocolate covered strawberries but it's less than half the calories!

#21 Buy a Bottle of Wine to open on Mine & Chef Hubby's 10 Year Wedding Anniversary

Buying a wine to age is not as easy as you'd think. A lot of people think that you can just buy any wine, age it, and it will turn into something fabulous. Not so. Especially nowadays, most wines are being made so that people don't have to wait, so that we can just open it whenever we feel like and it will taste delicious immediately. After all, this is the age of the "RIGHT NOW." We freak out about waiting more than 10 minutes to get through security at the airport, when someone doesn't pick up their phone by the third ring and when our internet pages load any slower than immediately. This does not describe a group of people who are going to wait several years to enjoy the wine they just bought, and winemakers around the world have bowed to the demand.

I did some research online. I found out that whites tend not to be aging wines. But neither are most reds. And most wines that should age well start off expensive, and then by the time you're ready to crack into them they're worth a heck of a lot more, because you had the patience to wait. But there's no guarantee that an expensive wine will age well either. Certain wines, usually wines containing higher amounts of sugar are what age best. Originally I wanted to age a wine for our 20 year anniversary, but most of the wines that do well waiting around that long are ports or sherries, and I wanted wine.

I had ordered some wine after a recent wine tasting and was chatting with the owner of the shop about my desire for a good aging wine. He brought me to a very reasonably priced wine that should age very well about 10 years. Alright, I decided to go for it. A 10 year wedding anniversary is definitely something to celebrate!

It's a good thing I took a picture of the bottle because I couldn't for the life of me remember what I'd bought. And I can't just go look at the bottle, because in order to keep Chef Hubby and I from accidentally drinking it before we're supposed to, I put it in a wine box and taped the top shut.

Just in case this isn't enough deterrent, after all one or both of us might (in a state of hazy boozyness) forget why I taped this wine box shut. So I put a little note on the top too.

Woo!!!

Storing the wine to age was easier than I thought too. I asked Chef Hubby what I should do and he said to keep it in a place where the temperature won't fluctuate much (not that we have anywhere to put it but a corner in our apartment, so check) and turn it on its side so that the cork doesn't dry out. And check. Stored.

Now I just have to wait 10 years. Well. 9 years, 6 months, 1 week and 3 days. I can't remember the last time I had to wait that long for something. If ever. 

Baked Cream Cheese Spaghetti Casserole

 I love spaghetti. Mmmmm noodles. This is not the most healthy recipe in the world. But man is it delicious. And I absolved myself by making it slightly healthier by using ground chicken instead of ground beef. And light cream cheese.

It was delicious.

Served it with garlic bread and delicious lemony garlic-y green beans.

Ingredients:
12 oz spaghetti
1 (28 ounce) jars prepared spaghetti sauce
1 lb lean ground beef
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 clove garlic, minced
8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated

1. Preheat oven to 350 F degrees. I'd also take the cream cheese out of the fridge at this point so it can start warming up a little since it's going to need to get melty.

2. In a skillet, brown the ground beef until cooked through; drain fat and stir in spaghetti sauce.  Set aside.

3. Cook spaghetti according to directions on packet.  Drain and place cooked spaghetti in bowl.  Add cream cheese, Italian Seasoning and minced garlic.  I put the cream cheese on the bottom and then put the spaghetti on top so that it would help melt.

Stir until cream cheese is melted and the spaghetti is thoroughly coated.

4. Lightly grease a 9x13" pan.  Spread a small amount of meat sauce in the bottom of the dish.  Put spaghetti on top of sauce and top with remaining meat sauce.  Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top.

5. Bake for 30 minutes, until bubbly.

 Yum so totally delicious! Very filling too, especially when served with a good veggie, so I actually ate JUST the portion size. Which is something I usually have trouble with. It also had great re-heat values for lunches.

#31: Take a Vacation with Someone Other Than my Husband

I love my husband and I can be admittedly clingy when it comes to spending time away. Also, I had never been on a one-on-one vacation with my best girlfriend, who has been my best girlfriend for the past 11 years, and that just seemed wrong. So I decided that for her birthday I would use a Groupon (Yay Groupon!) to take us out for a girl's weekend away.

I found a nice deal, 2 nights for the price of one, at the Chesapeake Inn in Urbanna, VA. It sounded nice: only 2 1/2 hours away, quaint small town, extremely popular Oyster Festival over the summer, hiking, an hour away from Williamsburg and the inn had bikes that we could use if we wanted to. I checked in with Katieschmatie, got the go-ahead and got the Groupon! We were super excited for our girl's weekend away. And if we'd known the bikes were actually SURREY bikes that look like this:

we would have been even more excited to go. As it was, we were pretty excited to see the bikes, period!

Fantastic Chef Hubby made some amaaaaaaaaaaaazing granola for us to snack on during the car ride:

Now, Katieschmatie and I set out on this weekend looking forward to some downtime. We've needed it. Our months have been insanely packed for well... months. First there was my wedding, then the holidays, then just insanity with social activities after the holidays. Leaving for a weekend away felt like a huge relief. We were looking forward to small town life and some enforced relaxation.

Enforced relaxation is definitely the way to describe it. Urbanna is insanely busy in the summer but during the off-season there is nothing to do. There are no clubs or bars, the restaurants have bars but all of the restaurants close at 9pm on the weekends. All the shops close at 5pm. The closest movie theater is 40 minutes away and you can't look up what movies it's showing online, you have to call and listen to their listings (which set us giggling as we had flashbacks to our middle school days). Every time we would get all up and raring to go one of us would say: "So, what can we do?"

We'd pause. Look around. Check the map, which had a schedule of events, however the events only happen March - November. And then we'd look at each other and say "Nothing. There is nothing to do."

It was exactly what we needed.

We explored the town, which is beautiful, both on the surrey bike and on foot. The Chesapeake Bay was a mere 10 minute walk from the inn. You couldn't ask for a more beautiful sky either.

Our first night there we drove the forty minutes to the movie theater to watch This Means War. Cute and fun. We got home at 9pm and refused to get into bed because we knew we'd fall asleep, and neither of us wanted to call our husbands to say goodnight that early. We were pretty sure they'd judge us. So we knit and read and then watched Wedding Crashers on TV before finally calling it a night around 11pm.

The next morning we were up at 8am, which horrified Katieschmatie. She hasn't been up that early in awhile. Had breakfast in town, which was delicious. Wandered around the shops, which had closed before we were able to get to them the evening before. We found a Thrift Shop which was having a sale, and filled up a basket of clothes for $4. We discovered that beer and wine is a heck of a lot cheaper in Urbanna, and doesn't have the obnoxiously high tax that Montgomery County puts on booze. So we stocked up.

For the afternoon we headed to Williamsburg, VA, since it was only an hour away and we didn't know what else to do in Urbanna (unfortunately neither of us care much more fishing and we didn't have a boat).

We came back to Urbanna in time to catch the Open Mic night at the Oyster House. 3 local guys with guitars, a keyboard and a ukulele, good harmonies and voices. We had a blast listening to them and eating delicious food (homemade bread pudding in a bourbon cream sauce YUM!) until the restaurant closed at 9-ish. After that we went back to our room and found what is possible the most dangerous show on TV: Animal's Planet's "Too Cute," a look at seriously cute animals. The episode we caught featured puppies. I can't even tell you how badly I want a puppy now.

The next morning I took another walk around town before we packed up, heading to Something Different, a restaurant just outside of town, which truly was something different and their food was amazing. We bought a lot of seasonings and sauces to take home and I can't wait to make some brisket!

All in all, it was a very fun weekend and exactly what we needed. On the ride home we both commented about how we felt truly relaxed for the first time in ages. To be honest, I can't remember the last time I felt that refreshed and relaxed after a weekend. It made me realize I need to slow down a little, say no occasionally to making plans, and enjoy myself rather than exhaust myself.

Thai-Style Asparagus

Despite my great love for Pinterest, and the many great recipes I've gotten from it, I started feeling a little bad about not utilizing the two shelves of cookbooks that Chef Hubby has. A couple of those cookbooks are mine, that I paid good money for, and I've never made anything from the. So I started wondering, why on earth am I cooking all these FREE recipes when there are all these recipes I've paid for just waiting to be made!!!

So this recipe is from the Better Homes & Garden New Diabetic Cookbook. I served it with steak.

Thai-Style Asparagus
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons orange juice
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons reduced-sodium soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 large clove garlic, minced
dash - 1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 teaspoon cooking oil
1 pound asparagus
2 oranges peeled and sectioned
2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds (optional and I didn't use in mine)

1. For vinaigrette, in a screw-top jar (I used tupperware) combine orange juice, vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, garlic and red pepper.

Cover and shake well; set aside.

2. In a large nonstick skillet heat oil over medium-high heat. Cook asparagus in hot oil for 3 to 4 minutes or until just tender, turning asparagus occasionally.

I used rubber tongs (so as not to scrape the nonstick pan) to turn the asparagus. It's harder than you would think. Once it gets all brown-y and good on one side, like this:

it no longer wants to turn. It wants to stay on that one side. And to be honest, you don't want it to get any more browned that that. Bright green is what you're going for. I used my fingernail to puncture the sides of the asparagus that weren't browned to see if they were done enough. Just do your best to get every side cooked.

3. Shake the vinaigrette, pour over asparagus in skillet. Cook the asparagus for 30 seconds more.

Gently stir in the orange sections.

To serve, if desired, sprinkle with sesame seeds. Makes 4 servings - and at 55 calories per serving that's pretty fantastic.

The asparagus was tangy, sweet, citrus-y, and fantastic. I love finding new ways to do food I already like and this was a great way. Plus it made me seem like a much better cook than I really am, because it looks and tastes so impressively beyond my usual skills. Double bonus!