7 years

ago today, we had an awkward blind date. Today, we find ourselves happy and thankful that we gave each other a second chance at a second date

We've shared some fun adventures



and feel so happy to have each other.
I look forward to many more dates and years together.
This week also celebrates a bunch of birthdays. Happy Birthday to Mark (26th), Tre (28th) and Kristen (29th)!!

The past few weeks have been the craziest yet. I worked feverishly on my senior paper and managed to turn it on Thursday (hip hip hooray)! I finished up just in time to turn my focus to my economics class. I headed to Rochester on Friday for class and managed to once again feel overwhelmed. Two weekends down and one to go.

Mikey has been working like a mad man so I've been doing some cooking. Last weekend I made banana pancakes:
and switched to iced coffee:

I couldn't help but laugh at the difference in size of 2 limes we had in the fruit basket:
Can you tell which one is organic? Gosh, that is ridiculous!

Our good eat of the week was this pasta:
Spaghetti noodles with a garlic & white wine sauce, shrimp, asparagus & spinach.

Only 2 weeks until I get my freedom back! It's going to be a helluva two weeks but then it'll be over... forever!

ramen on steroids

I finally have some good eats to share with you. Mikey has been working a lot of prepping/cooking shifts at work so his enthusiasm for cooking at home has been dismal. (I don't blame him:)
But, tonight I begged for him to make something for the week. He came up with what he described as "Ramen noodles on steroids."
The highlight of the meal was a brand new (to us) Japenese broth/sauce called Dashi:
It includes a couple of new ingredients to our pantry:
I gotta tell you the Bonito Flakes freaked me out a bit. BUT, they were the key ingredient to the sauce. It's basically dehydrated fish. Combined with the seaweed, it imparts a fantastic beef broth taste minus the beef! To die for!! Per usual, Mikey tried telling me that I was loving something very similar to dried anchovies. Bad move! I can't stand the thought of eating eyes and fish parts. Blech! He was totally kidding, of course. The sauce was strained and so it was a nice smooth broth. It was also pretty spicy thanks to the addition of Sambal (chili garlic sauce).

I actually helped out with quite a bit of tonight's meal. I started the charcoal chimney for the grill so that Mikey could grill up some veggies & shrimp.
Fire roasted bell peppers (I peeled & gutted them after they came off the grill):
I also skewered the baby portabellas:
The shrimp are not pictured but Mikey peeled & de-veined them and then I skewered them.
Next I julienned some carrots & cut up the red cabbage:
Afterward I got a lesson on cutting the cabbage in a way that makes it more like the size of the carrots instead of squares:)
While I was doing some chopping, Mikey grilled up some asparagus that was drizzled with olive oil, S + P. The start of a beautiful rainbow of colors:
Next I snipped the ends of the pea pods and peeled away the seams (not sure how else to describe this process):
The grill master!!
Green onions over the fiya:
The asparagus was my favorite veggie off the grill tonight:

So, the "stew" is built starting with a bed of soba noodles:
Then, topped with the "soup" which consisted of all the veggies & shrimp added to the dashi with some garlic & ginger & miso. The end result:
Cilantro to garnish.
Mikey's bowl:
My bowl:
YUM!!
I can't wait to eat this for lunch this week! I was so impressed with the dashi. Definitely a keeper!

home stretch

It's crunch time right now... less than a month to go til I'm done with school! It's been consuming my life so I'm really excited about the end being near. I started my final class- Managerial Economics- in Rochester this weekend. It's 450 miles round trip so it's a bit time consuming but it's the last one! And, my favorite teacher of all time is teaching it:)

I sort of had an "A-ha" moment this weekend... I really love that my job does not require regular travel. Solo traveling is rather lonely and sorta stressful. I was sure wishing I had an iPhone and the Hubs with me. I had to print out all my directions (Duluth to UM-Rochester, UM-Rochester to hotel, etc) and rely on crappy hotel wi-fi to find a good place to eat. Sadly, most of the restaurants in Rochester are chains (no gourmet sandwich shops!) so I had to "settle" for Chipotle. I managed to find a Caribou Coffee close to my hotel for the a.m. I slept like crap in the hotel due to 1) thin walls/noisy neighbors and 2) my inability to set the hotel alarm clock! Gosh, it kept blaring music while I was trying to set it. I don't trust my cell phone alarm clock so I was literally up every half hour during the night checking the clock. I justified in my head why an iPhone would be good for me:
-GPS (no need to print directions & ability to re-route)
- Caribou Coffee locator (gotta have good coffee in the morning)
-Reliable internet to search for good/healthy food (hate eating fast food)
-Wells Fargo ATM locator to get cash for parking (hate paying ATM fees even more)
-Could have checked Mapquest to find out commuting times from hotel to the U... was up early to allow enough time. iPhone= more sleep

Must get a Smart phone!! I've got 2 more trips to Rochester- April 23-24 and May 7-8. Sadly, I won't be getting a new phone prior to these trips but I can keep dreaming...

We've been on-the-go so much lately that I don't have any good eats to show you. I did take a couple hours last weekend to do one of my favorite things.... bake cookies!
I used up the last of the Dove dark chocolates:

The best advice:
Some of my favorite baking things:
-MaraNatha peanut butter (just peanuts & salt... nothing else)
-Nielson-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Extract (the best!)
-Farm fresh eggs from Carlton, MN (2o mins outside of Duluth)
-Mikey's knife (shh... don't tell him I used it):
All whipped up (thanks to the KitchenAid... how did I ever go so long without one?) and ready for the oven:
Experimenting with the focus on the DSLR:
Mmmmm..... Mandy's Thunder Cookies (Dark Chocolate Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies):
My helper was close by to clean up any spills:
The batch made 3 dozen cookies. Half of them went straight to the freezer and the other half is in the cookie jar. These are NOT part of my healthy baking goal but sometimes you just gotta bring on the goodness.

I've probably mentioned this before, but if I could bake "healthified" cookies and muffins for a job while maintaining the lifestyle I desire, it would be my dream!