i’m alive…but still no internet

Hi there!!  I feel like I haven’t posted in weeks!  We have been insanely busy and still are without internet.  We had a problem with the provider we were going to be using, Qwest.  Finally, Chris ended up canceling it before we really even got it.  It was a bit ridiculous.  So now we’ll be waiting another few days or so before someone can come out and get us hooked up.  For now, I’ll have to rely on Starbucks.  I literally have not checked my email in 3 days.  It feels a bit odd.  So I apologize if anyone was waiting for a response! 

Rewind:

New Years Eve prepartions:

I have been craving pumpkin pie since before Thanksgiving.  I decided to finally make my own. 

Graham cracker crust with walnuts + pecans.  I didn’t follow a recipe, but also included melted butter + honey.  Honey is KEY in making graham cracker crust.

I also made a wild rice turkey soup with the leftover turkey from Christmas dinner.  We made turkey stock from the carcass, which turned out to be the most flavorful stock I’ve ever had.  We included tons of seasonings, garlic cloves, onions, apples, carrots, etc.

Target wine cube. YUM!  After cooking the veggies with 2 strips of bacon [for flavor] I streamed in about 1/2c of this white wine to scrape up the drippings.  It really enhanced the flavor of the soup.

Crust, before baking. 

Pie filling.  I subbed sucanat for sugar and it worked perfectly.

All stirred up.

Baked crust.

Utilizing my cook book stand finally!

This thing rocks.  It collapses for easy storage and when you’re using a book that doesn’t have rings you can set it behind the plastic so you don’t splatter food on it.  It also keeps you on the right page.  I hate when I’m using a cook book because I always lose the page I’m working on.  It was a wedding gift from Crate + Barrel.

Super sleepy doggies.

Mixing in the 1/2 + 1/2.

Processing the garlic for Curry Honey Hummus.

Needed more curry.

Soup’s done!  It was seriously so so so good.  I used a recipe but also did a bunch of things that weren’t in the directions.  I hope I can remember what all I did.  I should keep a journal in the kitchen so I can write down things like this!  It was insanely flavorful and the perfect creaminess.  I used Lundberg’s wild rice, which was delicious.

Hearty!

So I got the idea to make curry honey hummus because they had it on special at Vine Street [restaurant in Denver] the other night.  They change up their hummus daily and this is what they had that night.  It had the perfect amount of sweet + spicy [spicy flavorful, not spicy hot].  I used a simple hummus recipe from the book Clean Food, that Chris got me for xmas.  I am in LOVE with this cookbook and will talk more about it soon!

Then, from there, I just kept adding curry + honey, and s+p until it tasted right.

The bowl was wiped clean, 2 nights in a row.  Everyone really liked it.

I’ll post the recipe soon!

That pepper looks like a strip of bacon, no?

I have a lot more photos from NYE and NY day that will be posted soon!  I just wanted to make a quick post and let you guys know I’m still here and will be back in full force asap!!

Happppppy New Year!! I can’t believe it’s 2010!? Weird!

~Ashley    

crazy dayz

Moving Day Oats – Dec. 27th

• 1/4c oat bran – 1/4c oats
• water [out of milk!]
• apples from xmas baked apple dessert
• cinnamon
• 1/2 banana
• 2 EGG whites
• pnut butter glob
• Natalie’s mom’s amazing apple butter glob

I never ever would have thought to put egg whites in my oats until I saw it on Eat Live Run the other day.  It made for a SUPER creamy bowl of oats and a lot of extra protein for moving!

Dec. 29th Oats – Bob’s Red Mill Muesli soaked in Pumpkin yogurt + a little water + heated = DEElish 

With some Earthfare hot cocoa.  I love finding all my things that have been packed away for 3.5 months!

We are watching Maggie, while P+N are away for a night.  The dogs have been following us EVERYwhere, which is extremely annoying when trying to unpack. 

The only cutting board that was out was my new mini one.  It’s about 6” long.  At least I found the knife box!  Oh how I missed my knives :)

Pan sautéing some veggies

Whole Foods cheese pizza [yum!], veggies, + some salad with Annie’s Asiago dressing [not a huge fan]

Nice to get veggies back in my life.  They have been missing for the past few days with all that has been going on.

Dec. 30th – Finally, OATS!!!  [in a frying pan, hehe]

I have no measuring utensils out yet, so here is what I’m assuming:

• 1/3c oats
• 2/3c vanilla almond milk
• pumpkin pie spice [can’t find my cinnamon!!]
• 1/2 banana
• vanilla [ALmost used the lemon extract, hahaha]
• topped with some Yogi cereal [a new kind that is so so so good]
• 1T pecans

No, that is not milk, it’s the tea Natalie got me for Christmas with a little cream in it. Yumm

I’ll photograph the cereal box soon.  It is seriously, reallllllly yummy!

Okay, most random contents of a shoebox sized box:

• magnets
• sharpie markers
• old family photo
• magnets
• tampon
• chip clip
• checkbook for an account that is closed

And like 4 other things that I can’t remember, that were just as random.

Unpacking is going well, minus all the extra time it has taken us to deep clean everything.  My favorite part is finding things that haven’t been opened yet from our wedding!  I finally have room.  I just unleashed the stand mixer for the FIRst time yesterday.  It is so pretty + shiny :) I cannot wait to use it.  The VitaMix is out and waiting to be used as well!  I have a ton of errands to run today + loads more to unpack.  We finally get internet later today. 

Byeee for now!

~Ashley

i.am.tired.

We have been nonstop “go go go” the past 72+ hrs.  Things are coming along and today we can finally see progress!  When walking through the house it looked fairly clean, but upon further investigation it was actually completely filthy.  When you’re apartment/house [rental] shopping, you don’t really notice everything because you’re just focused on finding a place that is big enough to fit everything, etc.  The house is old, and even after 6hrs of scrubbing the kitchen, it still feels a bit dirty.  I won’t even tell you what disgusting things I found :)  However, I will tell you that Natalie let me borrow her steam cleaner and I don’t know what i would have done without it!!  Even though the kitchen isn’t sparkling, at least I know I got off as much grime as possible.

It looks something like this.

There are extension attachments and all sorts of different nozzles and brushes, etc.  It has been a complete life saver!!!  I will without a doubt be buying one of these in the future.  There is no way that elbow grease alone was going to do the trick.  I have been steaming the crap out of every nook + cranny I can find.

I have had some AMAZING finds on craigslist that I can’t wait to photograph + blog about.  We get internet tomorrow, so I’ll be back at the normal blog posts soon!  We’ve been up til about 2am the past 2 nights, so I have had no time or energy to photograph/edit/blog.  Forgive me :)

Ooookay, time to go again.  We’re going to get the kitchen 100% finished [cleaning + unpacking] as soon as we get home.  Oh yeah, did I mention we’re having a New Years Eve party?  It’s in like 2 days..haha...hopefully we’ll be almost done by then!

Adios bloggies

~Ashley