Mini Pies!

This project has been a long time in the making, I found it and then I had to order the little jars and those took way too long to come to my door.  I mean when you make mini pies, you don't just want to make like 3, you want to make a ton since they just go into the freezer.

I can't take credit for this wonderful idea, directions can be found here: 
http://www.ourbestbites.com/2009/09/single-serving-pie-in-jar.html

My suggestions would be to double or triple the pie filling amount because nobody makes just 4 pies, especially when you're me and you have say 20 mini jars to fill...I really did think that I'd make that many but I just didn't get enough fruit.  This is my pie filling:
2 cups of fresh blueberries
2 tbsps of white sugar
2 tsps of lemon juice
1 -2 tbsps of flour
1 tsp of melted butter
a pinch of cinnamon

The project was really easy and simple, it took me less than 1 hour to make two different kinds of fruit pies and 6 pies total.  I used pre-made crust dough this time, but next time I'll attempt to make my own.

Then you just put them in the freezer when they're all done and you can take them out whenever you feel like a single serving pie.  You just take off the top and bake in the oven on a baking sheet for 50-60 minutes when browned on the top.  These are mason jars so you don't have to worry about glass in the oven, unless you are worried in which case, just bring to room temp first and then bake.  I'm sure you'll be pleased with these little treats!

The Royal Chos

I got Abe a full adidas track suit with sweat bands for his birthday.  Many people would think this is stupid, but we think this is fantastic.  I mean obviously it looks great right?  I might get a matching one...

Happy Birthday to Abe

Happy Birthday to you.  It's been a really crazy busy year with work and travel and everything else.

You are currently in transit and can't see this fantastic photo of you Eating the snorkle, but let me tell you, it will bring the page views.  I'm kidding people, he totally gave me permission to post this...

You've accomplished a lot in this past year: marriage, Infamous, Uncharted 2, swimming, driving a tractor and feeding cows, learning to exercise again, and turning a new leaf with health in general.  I'm sure he has a ton of goals for this next year, and one of them is most likely finishing the P90X and surviving Another move.  My goals for him is to end the elbow pain and to eventually lace up those running sneakers : )  It's Ok if it doesn't happen though.

I think this is going to be a good year for us.

Counting down to...

We are just a few days away from signing a lease for our new place.  I think that everyone can agree that apartment hunting is the pits, we've been really lucky and viewed no more than 2 or 3 apartments per move.  You might call this settling, but we see it as saving our sanity - also apt hunting season always seems to fall right around when Abe does a ton of traveling so our only option is to make a quick decision. I can't wait to put all our stuff into boxes and hire movers to take them to a new home where everything will have a place that's not on the floor or stacked weirdly in a corner.  Abe will never complain about the amount of tupperware we own (we have far less than most people!) because there will be enough room for all of it and more...which means I'll be buying more of course.  I'm already in nesting mode because I'm determined to make this place a really great place for us to live.

We are just two days away from Abe's birthday.  This generally means that him and his BFF throw a huge party to celebrate their births and we may or may not survive it.  Last year Abe was traveling on his birthday so this year he may make up for it.  I have a feeling its going to be one to remember, only because every drinking experience either one of us has had in the past month has ended really painfully or gross.

We are only ten days away from Valentines Day.  We really don't celebrate Valentines Day, one time we literally did nothing, another time we made dinner at home and sipped on prosecco, and last year...yes last year was the year that we decided to really do something and you know where we ended up?  Joe's American Bar & Grill in a Suburb!  Also we grabbed some desserts at Whole Foods and sat on the couch stuffing our faces with fruit tarts and a meringue the size of a sea turtle.  At the time it all seemed like a good idea, but now looking back I don't see the point in all that.  We certainly were not celebrating our love, we were just out to dinner surrounded by couples eating moderately bad food.  This year I say we can do better somehow, I'm just not sure how.

  

Lost is back!

I don't want to ruin it for you if you haven't watched it yet!  But I can't hold it in.
So don't read this if you haven't...
But if you have, I have some questions starting with: WTF.  Next: who the F is Jacob's nemesis?  He's a really bad dude, I mean I remember him from other episodes but I don't remember much about him at all probably because they didn't want to develop him yet.  I can't believe he beat the crap out of Richard, I mean Richard is like a thousand years old and he just took him down like he was a regular human but he's not he's like super human.  I can't believe we found out what the smoke monster was finally...it's totally Not what I thought it was going to be!  I wonder what Miles heard Sayid say when he was dead, he must have known that he wasn't totally dead yet or something like that.  Or maybe it was something very important... It's really weird seeing Locke not as Locke.  I'm so happy that Lost is back, my brain is finally stimulated again.  I have to clear out these cobwebs!

  

Singles Night

Have you ever seen this many socks without matches?  None of these socks have a partner, I mean where are the other 30 of these things!  Moments like these make me want to pull out my hair.

5 Closets!

I think that we found our new home tonight.  It's much more space than we need: 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bath, dining room, living room, office/game room space, 4 season porch, pantry, a cute little counter space area in between the living room and the kitchen for the coffee maker and our juicer to have a home, and a minimum of 5 closets, plus laundry, parking for two cars, quiet neighborhood near a bus stop and the Movie Theater!, and a cute set of french doors in the living room, all freshly painted walls and nice hardwood floors, also he's going to paint the kitchen a new color for me.  it's actually 2 floors as well with one bedroom (future workout room) and storage space on the upper floor.  The downsides are that it's older so the rooms and closet spaces are shaped kind of oddly, we probably won't be able to fit all our big bedroom furniture in the master bedroom so we'll have to split it up into another bedroom, we actually need to walk outside to get to our laundry in the basement, but the basement isn't a serial killer basement...it's not finished but it's not scary either, no pets, many many windows will need window coverings, and we could actually get lost.  I hate to say this, but the place kind of gave me the creeps...I'm not sure why, but it just didn't really feel warm so I'm trying to blame that on their poor decorating and the Jesus room - there are 2 locked rooms the landlord uses for storage up out of the way, we looked inside and one was normal and one was a Jesus room, we're talking like church items and saints and crosses and lots of stuff that a very religious person might have and it used to be his Uncle's stuff when he lived there and he just keeps it in there.  He wanted to show us so we wouldn't think there was something Weird in there, and I was like thinking I'd almost rather not know. 

So this place is not perfect, it's the Exact opposite of what we have right now, but what we really need is more space for less.  I think we're going to take it, there's so much space there that we could find a way to make it our own for a year until we find a house.  We're going to need a whole lot more things to hang on the walls now that we have 1,000 more walls!

 

Happy Birthday To Me

Yesterday was my 28th birthday.  After lounging around all day and napping, to celebrate we just went out to dinner at our friend's restaurant Ten Tables near by.  The meal was delicious.  I started with French lentil soup and we split the steak tartare, both were excellent.  The lentil soup was really creamy and the steak tartare had a great flavor.  Our waiter brought out a "gift from the kitchen", it was pasta with pigs ears.  You heard me right: pigs ears.  The flavoring of the pasta was really nice, but the actual pigs ears themselves were something that I had to skip.  I tried one piece and they were a bit too strange for me to eat so I just ate around them.  My main entree was the Crispy Giannone Chicken with potato gratin (my favorite kind of potato), smoked chicken jus, broccoli rabe, and almond romesco.  The potatoes were perfect!  For dessert, I was so happy to see that there was a meyer lemon tart on the menu.  Behold, the most perfect lemon tart ever made:

This was the most delicious dessert, the merangue was really sweet.  I could have eaten 5 more of these, I want one right now just thinking about it.

For my birthday, Abe had my friend Natasha make me a pearl bracelet to match a necklace that I like to wear a lot and to our delight earrings showed up too!  Honestly, it might be time for me to get a bigger jewelry box.  I used to have only a few pieces but at this point I am completely over flowing with all my Sparkle & Metal additions!  Too much jewelry will never be a bad thing.

      

Need: 2 bed, 1 bath, 5 closets.

Today started our apartment search for April 1.  We've been really fortunate in that the last two places that we've lived have been really well kept and modern.  You could even say that we're completely and totally spoiled with our currently underground parking and 2 full bathrooms, but we paid for it man, living here is not cheap so it's time to move on so someday we can buy our dream house.  Also, we've found out that just because something looks nice on the outside does not mean it's well made!  This place is slowly falling apart.  We're currently missing part of the ceiling and there is a bucket catching water.  There are a lot of cons about this place: the sound of the bus stopping in front of our building, fire trucks and ambulances going by every 10 minutes, the front door being slammed at 2am on the weekends next to our bedroom window, and using our second bedroom solely for storage because there is 1 closet in this space.

After a little back and forth we chose a town to zero in on which was the easy part and we've been searching Craigslist for listings.  The good news is that there is a lot out there in our price range so hopefully we get to see a lot of properties.  The bad news is that the first place we saw sounded great, but we knew from the second we pulled up front At Night that it was going to be bad.  First of all we asked someone who lived in the house if the landlord was there, and he wasn't sure, and he wasn't sure how to get to the second floor.  The front doors didn't lock, we seriously just walked right into the entryway.  The unit we were looking at was on the 2nd floor and it was the largest one of the three.  There was certainly plenty of space but it was in really bad shape.  The washer was in the kitchen...and the dryer was in the pantry... wtf?  There were water stains all over the drop ceilings, and paint was peeling off all the high ceilings, and every window had that insulating plastic on them because the oil was so expensive to heat the place.  There were two balconies, which would have been my dream come true but it just wasn't worth it.  We got to see the basement, and the tenant was like: we have an elliptical down there!  I'm thinking it's going to be partially finished because who the F would work out in a stone cold dungeon next to the water heater and the oil tank?  She would.  The basement was sectioned off into 3 parts for the tenants to house their stuff and the areas locked.  It really reminded me of every show I've seen where people are kept in the basement unfound for years and then killed.  I would never Ever go down there if I lived there unless I was a prisoner.

The good news is that this was only the first one!  The bad news is that I think apartment hunting is for the birds.  It takes so much effort to find a decent place without having to pay a realtor fee, but we're going to find the one.  We have to.

 

Pomelo Fruit

Have you ever had a pomelo before?  It's a large citrus fruit, a even bigger than a grapefruit.  I saw this mother at the grocery store and I just wanted to try it.  I had no idea how to choose a good one, so I squeezed them all and shook them like I had any idea what I was doing and picked this one.

There is actually a lot less fruit inside than I thought, that fleshy white part took up most of the actual fruit.  It was soft and spongey and very easy to cut away.  I think the key is just to use a very sharp knife. 

I had no idea how to cut this thing open, so I just kind of cut it up like an orange.  After like 20 minutes of slicing and dicing, I took my first bite.  If the camera was able to catch that first reaction, I don't think anyone would eat this fruit.  I like most fruits and vegetables, I'd say about 95% of the ones that come across my path but this was far too tartly bitter for me and it had a really strange after taste.  I literally couldn't even eat more than one slice of this and I had to throw the rest away...it was a waste, but that's how much I really couldn't even stand it.  However, it was a good experience to try something new on a whim and it can't always work out for the best!