Things We Did Over Break

So far, 2017 is off to a pretty good start. It's been pretty chilly here, but still nothing compared to the temperatures we had in Cleveland - that's my gauge for cold now. I can't really remember what 0 degrees (fahrenheit!) feels like, but I know nothing feels as cold as those Ohio winters!

The institute Carson works at was on break from December 23 until January 9, so Carson was on a more relaxed schedule. He's not really subject to the whims of the department anyway, but he has picked up a few classes he attends throughout the week when school is in session. Obviously you don't see that part of our lives, because it probably looks like he's ALWAYS home and we're ALWAYS off adventuring.In reality most days he's headed off by 8 and home around 6 and the pictures you see are from weekends or evenings when we're together. Just wanted to clarify that, in case it looked like he was playing hooky for a year! Anyway, he didn't have the burden of classes or meetings, so while he still went to the office every day of the break, he was home a little earlier on some days and left a little later on others. It was nice having him around more! 

But here are some things we've been doing over that winter break.

I researched iPhone cases. I used to have a hard plastic but not super protective case and that worked fine, then I got confident about my ability to protect an expensive phone. I bought a pretty case with no lip on the front and had it on for less than 24 hours before dropping it face down on pavement, which cracked the screen. Since then, I've been using a Lifeproof Nuud case (mine is white/teal). I like it because it's tough, and I know that because I drop it all the time by accident. It's got a clear back, the screen is sealed but not covered with a plastic film (Carson has the Lifeproof Fre and it has one of those plastic things and I HATE it), and is just generally a great case. The one flaw I find with it is that ONLY Apple chargers fit in it. Carson's fits a slightly larger charger size but not mine, and Apple cords are pricey and sort of flimsy. I've also had the case for over a year and thanks to the constant drops, the case has seen better days. It's still protecting my phone, but it has cracks and some of the rubber has come off. Another issue that isn't that big of a deal for me is that the sound quality isn't great. Not a dealbreaker though.

So, I wanted something that was okay if dropped, since try as I might, I have the grip of a three year old (sorry for the caricature, three year olds). I watched countless YouTube reviews and drop tests on phone cases and read countless reviews online before coming up with a few options. I included my old case on the list because I really do like it except for the charger issue. There were some really highly rated clear cases with some crazy awesome reviews (some had fallen off roller coasters or gotten run over in a parking lot with no damage!), but several of them said they yellow easily and I couldn't find any drop tests for those so I was slightly wary. I wavered between the Spiegen Ultra Hybrid in clear, the Caseology Skyfall in Champagne, and the more protective Otterbox Commuter (I didn't really like the look of the clear Otterbox Symmetry once I saw pictures online). I polled friends on Facebook and nearly everyone mentioned Otterbox, so I decided to go for it and order the Otterbox Commuter. Part of the reason I did my research online was because I haven't found stores here that sell any of these cases so I can't check them out in person. Amazon Prime wasn't available for these to ship to Germany, so I had to ship to my mother in law who's coming later this month, or I might have ordered a few cases and compared, then sent one back.

Anyway, that process took many days, and I hope I made a good decision!

I haven't tried these to see if they're like Cool Ranch Doritos, but I thought the name was hilarious. 

The lake has wavered between frozen and unfrozen, and last week it was the most frozen we've seen it. Flocks of birds sit in the center of the ice and we can't figure out why they do that (is it warm/comfortable? Do they know they're safer there because the ice isn't thick enough to walk on?), but they seem very content. We were freeeeeezing on this day as I walked Carson to the office and then did some window shopping downtown.

People have been taking small chunks of ice from the edge of the lake and throwing it onto the thicker ice in the middle, where it breaks and makes a cool sound. 

I haven't been able to catch up with as many people as I might have liked lately, but we have had a few Google Hangouts/FaceTime sessions with people lately. Hi Emily and Tirzah!

It snowed again! The snow was a little more dry the second time around and we saw fewer snowmen the next day, but it was really pretty! It's been pretty rainy and gloomy for the most part and I can't remember the last time I saw a blue sky, so the snow is sort of nice to break up the wet rain. A day or so after the snow fell, there was some hail, which was super unpleasant because we were about a mile from home and had to walk back with stinging wet ice balls in our faces. 

Snow covering the Aasee

I had some really good Kartoffelpfannkuchen (potato pancakes) in Hamburg last month and I've been craving them since. I know they're similar to latkes so we looked up a latke recipe and attempted. The biggest problem was that the holes in our grater are small, so they don't grate as well, and then the mixture was so water even after squeezing for so long, so they weren't great. Next time, we will grate early in the day and leave them in a colander with a dish towel weighed down by something heavy, and maybe use less onion and add a little more garlic or something. They weren't super crispy. I mixed creme fraiche with some chives as a topping and we had applesauce too, since that's pretty good with these. Next time!

You know that I love a good reminiscing session... well, it's been ten years since I graduated from high school so here's one of my senior pictures next to a picture from Montserrat last month! It seems really weird that it's been a decade! 

Carson is taking another class in Syriac this semester from his advisor at FSU and so he's been writing it out when possible. 

Oh! And I may not have posted anything about this but GOOD NEWS, we'd been looking for a casserole dish that was tiny enough to fit our oven and also not really expensive because we're probably not going to lug anything glass back to the US - we happened on this for 5€ when looking for something else and it's so cute. Carson mixed spaghetti noodles with a variety of spices and dairy products we needed to use to make a baked spaghetti the first day we had this, and it was nice to have something in the oven that didn't require reimagining things that can be cooked on a cookie sheet.  It's ceramic and the outside is aqua while the inside is cream. On second thought, maybe we will lug it home!

Anyway, we made this Parmesan Herb Salmon the other night (I saw the video for it on Facebook - anyone else like watching those videos? I love the cake/sweets ones even though I'm never going to make them because I don't like baking and we don't have the right ingredients/measuring instruments here) and it was so good! We sort of modified it because we had smaller frozen salmon filets and we used breadcrumbs instead of almond meal because that's what we had. We'll make this again! It was easy and we didn't need to shop for anything to make it!

Lasagna Soup

Lasagna... soup? It seemed worth a shot, somehow, and I'm so glad. I'm not really a soup person, but we both loved this and I bet you would too! It's much easier to make than actual lasagna and doesn't require you to turn on an oven. This was a pretty quick weeknight dinner that I was able to leave simmering while I finished up the laundry. I'd highly recommend!

Lasagna Soup

Adapted slightly from SkinnyTaste.

You'll Need:

(for the soup itself)

16oz sausage. Italian sausage was recommended, but I used whatever it was that we had in the freezer and added a bunch of spices and it was great. Ground beef would definitely work too

1/2 onion, chopped

2 crushed cloves garlic (I used minced garlic)

4 tbsp chopped fresh parsley, divided (I added more because I love parsley)

3 cups low-sodium, fat-free chicken broth 

2 1/2 cups water

2 cups marinara sauce (I used jarred)

2 bay leaves

black pepper

fresh spinach, chopped (as much as you'd like)

6 oz broken lasagna noodles (guessed on this measurement)

(for the topping - I eyeballed all of these measurements)

6 tbsp shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup part skim ricotta cheese

3 tbsp grated parmesan cheese

2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped

How-To:

Brown sausage in a big soup pot on the stove on medium heat. Add chopped onion and garlic and cook for two minutes. Add everything else. Simmer for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile mix together ingredients for the topping. 

When you're ready to serve, just top each bowl with the cheese mixture. 

This made for great leftovers and gave us six really decent sized servings.

Meringue Cookies

Baked Potato Cauliflower Soup

Surely you've seen the cauliflower trend in food? People are mashing up cauliflower and saying it tastes just like mashed potatoes. They're throwing cauliflower in as a clever substitute for potatoes everywhere.

And, well, I'm not always the first to a trend, but I'd pinned some of these cleverly titled, well-photographed, well reviewed recipes and finally the time came. I bought a head of cauliflower. It's not a food I enjoy, mostly because it looks strange. It's completely white, has little to no taste, and doesn't appear to be something I should waste my time on.

But I'd already bought the cauliflower so I HAD to make the recipe. And you know what? It was good. It wasn't even not bad. I didn't tell Carson that it was cauliflower instead of potato, just that there was a secret ingredient. I knew he'd eat it either way; I just wanted to see what HE thought - and he couldn't tell. He said it had a better texture. It was really filling and we were stuffed when we scraped the bottom of our bowls.

Here's how if you'd like to make this recipe too.

Baked Potato Cauliflower Soup
Original Recipe here.
Makes about 8 servings.
Time: took me just under an hour including chopping veggies and setting the table. Do that beforehand and this is a piece of cake.

You'll Need:
8 slices bacon, chopped
1/2 an onion chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced (or one teaspoon of jarred minced garlic)
4 cups shredded or grated cauliflower (1/2 large head - I didn't measure and just grated the whole thing)
2 Tablespoons water
2 Tablespoons flour
2 C chicken broth, divided
2 C 2% Milk (we had whole)
3-4 dashes hot sauce
2.5 C shredded cheddar cheese, divided
2 green onions, chopped (for garnish

Chop all the vegetables. Chop chop chop. This is the most time-consuming part... and grating cauliflower is really weird)
Saute bacon in large pot over medium until crisp. Set bacon aside and remove all but 1T drippings from pot (or more... it's a taste thing).
Whisk flour and 1/4 of the broth in a small bowl and set aside
Add onion, celery and garlic to the pot, seasoned with salt and pepper and saute until tender (4-5 minutes).
Add cauliflower and onion to the pot. Add water, put a lid on top and steam for about 5-7 minutes, until cauliflower is tender. Add the non-flour chicken broth and the milk and bring all to a boil.
Whisk in flour-broth slowly, then turn down to a simmer for about four minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the cheese and about half of the bacon. Taste and add salt and pepper and hot sauce to your liking. Serve topped with cheese, bacon and green onion.

Here's the grated cauliflower... looks like cheese but not quite as tasty. And be careful: easy to shred your knuckles; I nearly did!

Parmesan Alfredo Shells

Oh I'm sorry, you were looking for something healthy? Um, not today. 

Unless heavy cream and lots of cheese is healthy, in which case - you're in the right place!

We decided to make new Pinterest recipes for date night. 

I'd originally told Carson to search for my name on Pinterest and go look at my boards, but for some reason my profile didn't come up, so he clicked on another "Lindsay Bay" and found a recipe I wouldn't have pinned, some sort of enchilada, and planned to serve that with a potato recipe. I showed him my actual profile and he chose two different things: Chicken Alfredo Shells and Bacon-Wrapped Asparagus. 

Chicken Alfredo Shells!
You'll Need:
24 cooked and dried jumbo pasta shells (6oz or so)
2 Tbs. Olive oil
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, seasoned (the first time, we cooked this on the stove; the second time [yes the second - our poor arteries] I cooked a bunch of chicken in the crockpot for recipes and we used what we needed. I recommend doing that anyway)

Sauce (which would be excellent over any sort of pasta)
1 1/2 C heavy whipping cream
2 cloves chopped garlic
1/2 stick butter (original recipe calls for a whole stick but you definitely will not miss it)
1 1/2 C grated Parmesan, divided
pepper
chopped fresh parsley (use as much as you want. Parsley is my personal favorite herb so I use more than recommended)

Preheat broiler. Spray muffin tins (we used regular but the original recipe recommends mini so whatever you have works); set aside. Cook pasta shells, rinse under cold water.

Heat oil over medium heat. Add chicken and saute, then chop (again, we already had chicken, so whatever works for you here).

Mix cream and garlic in large saucepan over med-low, until steaming. Whisk in butter until melted. Add 1C Parmesan, a little pepper, a little parsley (or a lot). Increase heat to med-high and simmer around 10 minutes. Stir in chicken and remove from heat.

-- if you're going the regular pasta route, top that with the mixture and go on your merry way. If not, keep reading! --

Fill pasta shells with about a tablespoon of the mixture. Sprinkle with the rest of the Parmesan.

Broil until bubbling and melted. Garnish with parsley.

Enjoy! And eat non-bacon veggies with this. Lots of them.
This can be put in the freezer pre-broil if you'd like to save for leftovers!

Here's the bacon-wrapped asparagus, which sounds amazing, but was in reality disappointing. The bacon was too chewy and the asparagus under it was too tough. I love when roasted asparagus crunches, so the tops were just perfect. The flavors were good too - perhaps we'll go a different direction and roast the asparagus WITH pieces of bacon next time for a better result (or just wrap green beans... those never fail).

Carson's hilarious, wonderful apron made by my mom. That's what you get for complaining about my girly ones - best thing? It's not ridiculously short on him. My other ones look like doll clothes on him!

Cilantro-Lime Rice

We love Chipotle. The restaurant shares a building with the store where I work AND one that shares a building with our church... all of which makes it VERY difficult to resist.

But we are trying not to eat out as much and trying to eat a bit healthier, so one night, I decided to make a variation of the burrito bowls we love so much.

I made guacamole in the food processor. I used avocados, cilantro, garlic, lime juice and two handfuls of spinach (you can't even taste it). I would normally add a red onion, but I didn't have any.

I looked up a recipe for cilantro-lime brown rice and found this one. I varied ingredients according to what I had on hand.
You'll Need:
1 tsp butter
1 C brown rice (I just used regular, but I'll try another kind next time)
1 3/4 C water
1 lime (I used the kind in the squeezy lime-shaped bottle, but I will use a real one in the future)
1/4 C cilantro (we eyeballed it)
1/2 tsp. salt

To Do:
Melt butter over medium heat in medium pot. Add rice and the zest of one lime (again, I didn't have lime zest) and toast.
Add water, bring to a boil, cover and turn on low.
Simmer until rice has soaked up the water (20-25 minutes), stir in the cilantro and lime juice.

Enjoy!

Carson dished up the burrito bowls. Rice first, then black beans, sour cream, guac and cheese. He went a liiiiittle crazy with the sour cream on this one.
This was a really easy and fairly cheap and healthy (minus that crazy sour cream) meal for us with a lot of room for variation. Add cooked meat, a little salsa (I make this one all the time and it would have been perfect), fresh veggies and whatever else you'd like. Carson topped his with some tortilla chips!

This made great lunch leftovers for the next day (the rice made four servings, so next time I'll make more of that and we'll have lots of weekday lunches!).

Funfetti Dip

Out of all the dip recipes I've tried (it sounds like I'm talking about tobacco here, but don't worry, never tried that), this one was probably the biggest hit, and it was really simple too!

I've had a similar recipe pinned for awhile, and I made this one because someone in our community group was having a birthday. I was going to make a cake, but I didn't have all the ingredients and the snow was really piled up and the car was sort of stuck in the driveway so I had Carson run to the store when he got off work and made this instead. I'm glad, because this was a huge hit. I made the pea "guac" the same night so we had a contrast of really healthy... and this. But this was amazing.

You'll Need:
1/2 C melted and cooled butter (that's one stick. told you it wasn't healthy. You could probably get away with less)
8oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 C powdered sugar
1 C Funfetti cake mix
1 tsp vanilla (I always add more than recipes say)
1 T sprinkles

Melt butter and set aside to cool. Beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, funfetti with electric mixer (I used my hand mixer). Add vanilla and butter slowly. Beat for two more minutes. Stir in sprinkles. Put in fridge.
Top with sprinkles before serving. Enjoy with Nilla Wafer Cookies!
(this was such a hit that all the cookies were gone by the end, but there were 21 people at our house, so it serves quite a few people)

Pea "Guacamole"

Pea... Guac? 

I know it sounds strange, but this dip is actually quite good. I served it to our community group and had them guess what was inside - most people guessed avocados, no one guessed peas! 

Like you, I had second thoughts about mixing peas into a dip, but they were cheap (83 cents for a bag) and there are LOTS of recipes using them in this way so I went for it. 

You'll Need:
10-12 oz frozen peas, defrosted (I just ran under warm water for a few seconds)
garlic
cilantro
lime juice
pinch of cayenne
olive oil
salt and pepper
(red onion would be good too, and I thought about adding a little pesto instead of cilantro but someone in our group has a peanut allergy and I didn't know if the pine nuts in pesto acted the same way as peanuts!)

Mix up in a food processor, put in the fridge until ready to serve. Everything I put in was to taste, and I added the cayenne at the end for a slight kick. Since the flavor of peas is surprisingly strong, taste as you go. I served with tortilla chips.

The nice thing about this, other than how cheap it is, is that unlike guac, it doesn't brown. It is VERY green which can be a little alarming, but it's good!

Homemade Thin Mints

I'll admit: I was as skeptical as you are about this treat. Regardless, the ingredients were simple and I had most of them, so I decided to go for it. 

I had a cookie exchange for work and didn't feel like making sugar cookies again, so I decided that I would do these for that and hope for the best. It turns out: these taste like thin mints! They are the right size, have the right taste and the right texture. I was astonished. Carson is in love with them. 

I got the recipe from here originally.

Makes... well, that's hard to say. The recipe I followed said 18. But she used more chocolate than I did, so it depends on that. 

You're going to need:

box of Ritz crackers 

3/4 tsp Peppermint extract 

cup of semisweet chocolate chips

a bit of shortening (for melting chocolate)

First, line a baking sheet with wax paper. Then, melt your chocolate. I thought the shortening added a better texture, so I used it. Add your extract carefully and mix.

I then tried to carefully dip the cracker in the chocolate without making a mess and it proved impossible, so instead of using a fork, I used my fingers to coat the crackers. It was a huge mess, but it was also the only way I could do this. Perhaps if I had used more shortening it would have thinned the chocolate and been better, so try that.

Put them on the cookie sheet and then put that in the refrigerator until you're ready to enjoy. I really was surprised by how good these are, and they aren't $5 for a tiny box or seasonal! (Additionally, other pictures I've seen were much prettier. Mine weren't.)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Dip

I made this quite simple dip for a "Comfies and Cocktails" party a friend and I threw not too long ago. We watched girly movies, drank yummy drinks and snacked on tasty munchies... all in our comfy PJs. 

The day before, I realized that I probably needed to make something, and I had all the ingredients for this one so it was the winner. 

I found the original recipe here, and though she shaped her dip like a football for the Super Bowl, I decided to stick with a round ball. Some people thought that it was a strange cheese ball, initially. 

Carson was the official taste tester and really relished the job.

You'll Need:
1/4 cup of butter (half a stick), softened
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1 cup peanut butter (I used creamy because Carson prefers it and it's what we had [I don't personally think there's a point if it's not crunchy])
1 tsp vanilla (original recipe said 1/2, but I always add more)
1 1/2 - 2 cups powdered sugar (I used 1 1/2)
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
Chocolate sprinkles
Animal crackers or something tasty to dip it in

Mix the first three ingredients together.
Add the powdered sugar, bit by bit (unless you want a cloud of sugar) and mix in chocolate chips
Place mixture on waxed paper and shape (not necessary; mine was pretty pliable). This makes a LOT of dip, so I used about 3/4 of the mixture to do this and put the rest aside for later.
Serve! We had leftovers and it kept well in the fridge. The portion that I set aside earlier froze well for a couple of days.

Fall Treats

Remember the pumpkin bread I've made before? I thought that it would be fun to make it into cupcakes instead. I used a spice cake mix, can of pumpkin, eggs and a little milk, hoping that the batter wasn't supposed to be different for cupcakes. I poured it into my mini muffin pan and set it in the oven for... I think 10 or 15 minutes, I'm not positive, but I checked to make sure it wasn't burning many times. 

I made a cream cheese frosting by googling "cream cheese frosting" and making the first one that came up (I knew the ingredients but wasn't sure of measurements). It was a very scientific process. I cut a corner in a ziploc bag and piped the frosting on my little muffins, put a little nutmeg and cinnamon on top and voila! They were delicious. 

I helped with a baby shower awhile back and intended to make little pretzel sticks dipped in white chocolate... well, I ran out of time, Carson ate the white chocolate (I think white chocolate is disgusting, personally) and time passed and pretzel sticks weren't my top choice for snacks. So I made Halloween pretzel sticks for my coworkers. I melted the white chocolate in the microwave, then dipped the sticks. I used a spoon to help spread the chocolate and set them on a baking sheet to harden. I've seen some cute ghost ones with mouths and eyes, but all I had were tiny nonpareils, so they just have little eyes. I covered a few in Halloween sprinkles I had on hand, but the ghosts were cuter.
This was the easiest, laziest treat ever and I'll probably do it again... trying to think of cute Christmas ones!

 

Stuffed Mushrooms

I LOVE mushrooms, and I really love stuffed mushrooms. 

I've had my eye on a few recipes for them and decided to go for it when making an appetizer for a baby shower a couple of months ago. 

These were flavorful, fairly easy, and I think a pretty fool-proof recipe. Make this. No really. 

Stuffed Mushrooms

(original recipe here)

You will need:

16-24 oz mushrooms (I counted and this added up to about 35 mushrooms)

4oz cream cheese

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

8oz bacon, cooked and crumbled

1 clove garlic (or 1/2 tsp minced garlic)

1/2 cup sweet onion, finely diced (this equaled half of a medium sized onion for me)

What you'll do: 

Set your oven to 350*

Cook the bacon until it's nice and crumbly. Reserve a little bacon grease in the pan and set aside. 

Wash your mushrooms and take off the stems

Chop those stems into little pieces (I actually started off with 2 packages of mushrooms and only used the stems from those. When it came time to stuff, I realized I had a LOT of filling leftover so I opened the other pack of mushrooms and used the caps but not the stems... so do whatever you want here, but it will make a little more filling)

Dice your onion 

Toss the onion in the pan and cook for about five minutes, or until they've softened. 

Throw the diced mushroom stems and the garlic into the pan until everything is softened. 

Enjoy the aroma of your kitchen. It smells like you're an amazing cook. You are.

Add your cream cheese and Parmesan cheese to the pan and cook until melted

Turn off heat and season with salt and pepper as needed. I added a little parsley for no reason other than I really like parsley.

Stuff your mushrooms. If you used two packs of mushrooms, you will probably have mushrooms that are overflowing and that's probably a great idea. YUM. If you used three packages, that's fine too. 

If you want to prep this early for something, you can just refrigerate the filling. 

Pop them in the oven for 20 minutes at 350*. 

Enjoy. These are exceptionally tasty.