It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

With everything going on the blog has suffered some neglect.  It looks like I owe everyone some updates not only about Christmas decorations but also a recap of our Thanksgiving/Hanukkah.

So let’s start with the Thanksgiving/Hanukkah recap. It was a great time.  We celebrated at Steve’s dad’s house and there were about 16 people there.  Usually there is just a small group of us so it was a fun change having all those people around to celebrate with.  Since the two holidays wont over lap again for another 78,000 years we obviously had to make T-shirts to commemorate the occasion.  Below is the only photo Steve and I took together the entire holiday weekend. There was too much eating and drinking going on.

While we lit the menorah on Thursday night we had a traditional Hanukkah meal on Saturday night. There was a slightly small group for that and while we we didn’t have any custom shirts, there was plenty of amazing food.  Hanukkah is a dairy holiday so there were bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon, egg salad, blintzes, and my favorite…..latkes. Below is a photo of our full spread and me taking my turn lighting a candle on the menorah.

Now on to the more recent holiday events! I set up and decorated our Christmas tree…..that includes deco mesh! I decided to take the traditional route and weave it throughout the tree branches. For my first time I think it turned out pretty good.

I also finished up the mantel in the basement with red berries, ribbon, and our stockings.  Oh, and you might notice that there is also a T.V. on the cabinet.  Thanks to a great Cyber Monday deal and a gift card I got for Hanukkah we were able to get this item checked off our basement to-do list.  I really like how the mantle turned out, and now that we have a T.V. down there I get to enjoy  it since this has become my unofficial wrapping room.

Then last weekend Steve and I made our annual visit to the National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse in front of the White House.  We went on Sunday night so the crowds were pretty light.

Oh and I also scored some major Wife of the Year points by making Steve the only Christmas cookies he likes – gingerbread – from scratch! I even busted out the confectioners sugar icing with coordinating food coloring.  They turned out too good.  I can’t walk by the tin without eating one.  Good thing I only made a half batch.

Phew! I know that was a long post, but I think I have you caught up on everything related to the holidays that has happened in the Precker home over the last month. Thank you all for all of your kind words about Steve’s grandmother and for sticking with us during this challenging time.  It really meant so much to the both of us.

Ciao Italy!

Well we are back in the real world, and instead of a ocean, lake, or mountain, the view that greeted me this morning was that of my neighbors back yard 😦 Our belated honeymoon was a trip we will remember for a lifetime.  Each day brought such amazing and exciting experiences it is hard to pick what my favorite was.  For anyone who wants to explore a new country but is put off by trying to plan and navigate all the moving parts that come with international travel, I highly suggest doing a planned tour.  We booked ours through Insight Vacations, and while our tour option was kind of faced paced (early mornings, lots of walking, LOTS of sightseeing) we never stood in line, we got access to areas not open to the general public, there were great local guides, and our tour director Daniele was AMAZING! I don’t know if we can ever do another tour without him.  He had such an amazing personality and made sure we all had the trip we were looking for.

Because it always happens, the majority of the people on the tour with us were 50+, so some nights when the few young people weren’t quiet ready to go back to the hotel, Daniele would put us in a cab and tell the driver where to take us.  In Rome we ended up in a section of town that we would have never found on our own that was filled with bars and restaurants.  Steve and I managed to eat and drink our way around to 3 or 4 different places.

There was unseasonably warm weather the entire trip (mid 60’s to high 70’s) and there was only one day where it actually rained.  Which, considering this is their rainy season, isn’t too bad.  Oh, and I can’t forget the food!! I could dedicate an entire blog just to the meals we had.  Let’s just say we did not go hungry, and thank God for all the walking we did otherwise my pants wouldn’t fit me right now.  OK, now enough of the talking, I will let the photos tell the rest of the story!

St. Peters – Rome at night

The inside of St. Peters the next day

The beautiful blue waters of Capri

Taking a selfie with the view from our hotel in Capri in the background (don’t mind my gross hair. Italian’s don’t believe in blow dryers)

Florence at sunset

Where I lived with my MU ladies during our semester abroad

I had to include SOME food. Our second snack stop in Florence’s central market.

The sun trying to come out at Lake Majore

Enjoying an Aperol Spritz in St. Marks Square – Venice

I have about 200 more photos I could share, but these give you the readers digest version of our trip.  I can’t believe that last week at this time we were sipping on cocktails in Venice.  It already seems like it was a lifetime ago….. Oh well, I guess we had to come back to work so we could afford to go on another amazing trip! Until next time Italy….

Food, Glorious Food!

Yes, this is another recipe post, and no, I didn’t do the cooking.  Steve really loves to cook, and as a wife shouldn’t I support my husbands hobbies?!? Especially when it means I don’t have to get stressed about making dinner???  I think I might have mentioned that we are really trying to cut back on eating out not only to help our waistlines, but also our wallets.  Well Thursday nights menu consisted of a recipe for hearty Italian sausage and white bean soup from Natalie of the blog “Designer Bags and Dirty Diapers.”  If you haven’t already read her blog, it’s a great mix of design tips/ticks, recipes, and family stories.  It truly does give me hope that just because you get pregnant/become a mom it doesn’t mean you can’t wear stylish clothes, shoes, and great bags.

Any way back to the FOOD! I won’t go into all the nitty gritty of how to cook it/ what the ingredients are, you can find that all here, but I will give you our take on it.  On the meat component – they only had ground sweet Italian sausage at my grocery store, but we had some leftover chorizo from Sunday’s clam dish so Steve mixed that in as well.  There was about a link and a half of chorizo, and let me tell you that if you go that route you DO NOT need to add any hot sauce.  That was just enough to give the soup a really nice kick.  Also one thing we will do differently in the future,  because this was so good it’s going into the regular rotation, is to get smaller pasta shells.  Again, the store we were in had large shells on sale for $.99 so keeping my new budget in mind that’s what I grabbed.  Because you cook the pasta in the broth we noticed that we didn’t end up with much of the actual soup broth because it got absorbed into the pasta.  It was still amazing, but instead of having a soup like Natalie has pictured we had more of a light sauce.

I think the only other thing we decided to tweak in our next batch was to also add more spinach.  Two cups of spinach kind of vanished once it was mixed in, and we are spinach lovers so next time we are just going to keep adding until we are happy.  I can also attest that it is great the next day.  I just had it for lunch and the flavors got even better overnight.  This is great soup for all this gray, rainy, cold weather we are having.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

PS- Don’t mind the crappy iPhone photo. You can see a much better one on Natalie’s blog.

 

Weekend Recap – Speaking Engagements & Babies

Happy Monday.  I hope where ever you are reading this post the weather isn’t as gloomy as it is here in the D.C. Metro Area today.  We had beautiful sunny and really hot weather here all weekend, so if it going to be crappy I would rather have it be on a day while I am at work.  It was another whirlwind weekend for us even though we stayed in town we were barely at home the entire weekend.  Let’s just say that by Friday I was still dragging from last weekend and passed out around 8:30.  There was no rest for the weary because I was asked to be a part of an alumni panel for my graduate school to talk about social media.  I got to represent the non-profit side, and it was a great time talking about all the ways I use social media to accomplish certain goals for the organization I work for, how I measure social media impact, and as always – how I respond to the crazies.  I was up there for two hours and it flew by.  So a big thank you to The George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management for having me. It was an honor to be up be up there with two other very knowledgeable speakers.

After that Steve and I grabbed some lunch and then I was off to visit my friend Elyse from Marymount and her new baby girl Reagan.  At two weeks she is just as sweet as can be and was passed out the entire time I was there.  She has the most perfect little heart shape lips I have ever seen on a baby, and I even got to get some baby snuggles in.  My mother is probably reading this and is thinking that I am catching baby fever. Elaine, calm down, snuggling a friends baby is one thing but once said baby starts crying it’s really nice to be able to give the baby back to its mother and go home to a quiet house. Staying on the topic of babies, Steve and I became a first time aunt and uncle last week! Steve’s step-sister had a healthy baby girl named Bianca, and we are looking forward to meeting her when we are up on Long Island for Thanksgiving.  The baby related events don’t stop there folks! Sunday morning we celebrated the baptism of my friend Melanie’s sweet baby girl Maebelle.  After the service we were treated to a lunch full of southern favorites – including a little something called sausage cheddar biscuits and coffee cake from the famous Carlo’s Bakery (of TLC fame) in Hoboken, NJ.

Once we got home and emerged from our food coma, Steve and I sat down and planned out our meals for the week. Real exciting stuff right?!? Well, we realized that going out to eat as much as we do makes our money just fly out the window, and if we plan ahead and even do some of the prep-work Sunday night, we won’t be tempted to eat out.  We noticed a pattern that we were going to the store 2-3 times a week, after work, when we were hungry, and spending $25+ per trip, or we would just be lazy and go out.  Fingers crossed the plan works so I can afford to make some home updates after we get back from Italy.  Oh and speaking of Italy…. I also picked up our travel documents on Saturday!! It’s getting real 🙂

We ended our weekend with a homemade dinner with clams and shrimp from the D.C. fish market.  If you haven’t been there it’s an experience and the prices are better than Whole Foods and the quality is better than Harris Teeter or Giant.  I was kind of worn out from the day so I totally forgot to take any pictures but you can see a good selection here on Yelp.  Captain Whites is really popular, but Steve and I like Jessie Taylor.  Also if you like fresh steamed crabs this is your place! Here is a picture of the finished meal.  Steve added chorizo in with the clams to give them a little kick, and while an allergy won’t let me enjoy the shrimp,the butter and garlic he used to cook them smelled wonderful!

With so much excitement I am really looking forward to enjoying a long weekend with no real plans other than to relax!! Hope you all had a great weekend.

Weekend Recap – NYC

Happy Monday everyone! Don’t all groan with displeasure at once.  I know after this weekend in New York City I could have used an extra day off (or two) myself.  With work, me being in grad school, our wedding, and then being broke after buying a house, it has been years since our last weekend away in New York City.  We might not have even thought of this trip had Steve and his friends from high school not decided to go to special Oktoberfest Mets game.  Since it was going to be a guys night, I decided to work most of the day on Friday and head up on a late afternoon train.  When all is running smoothly the train ride from D.C. to NYC is an enjoyable one.

My train put me in the city just around dinner time so my friend Jess from college, who works in the City, met up with me and after some drinks at our hotel took me and another friend, Stephanie, to an Italian restaurant called Gemma.  Oh. My. God. it was amazing! After filling up on snacks on the train and in the bar I wasn’t super hungry so I skipped out on an appetizer and  went with the Pappardelle Bolognese.  The pasta was so fresh and the sauce was really flavorful.  All three of us loved our meals, and for dessert we split the Calzone di Nutella, a calzone filled with nutella and ricotta cheese.  Again out of this world and it was a perfect size for sharing.  Oh and John C. Riley was sitting at the table behind us!!! I was trying to be slick and take a “selfie” and really just get him, but it didn’t turn out so well.  He is the blurry shape in the bottom left hand corner.

After getting back to the hotel at 3:30 am, Steve and I dragged ourselves out of bed on Saturday for our 10:30 reservations at the World Trade Center Memorial.  Luckily I just happened to be on their website and saw that yes, you need reservations to get on to the memorial site.  For anyone planning a visit be sure to do this before you go to skip the long lines.  After seeing the memorial so many times in magazines and on T.V. I didn’t think it would have as much of an impact on me as it did.  Just standing there and remembering the horror of that day it really hit me that you and your loved ones can leave for a normal day of work and never come back, and especially all those first responders who ran into the burning buildings.  It just breaks my heart thinking of it.

Well nothing can put me back in a good meal like a good meal with friends.  Steve and I took advantage of the beautiful weather to walk to Little Italy where we were meeting up with four of his friends for lunch, and what turned into a full day of eating and drinking! After another amazing Italian meal, Steve’s friend Brandon and his girlfriend Julie lead us on a food tour of some of their favorite places.  I got a non Starbucks latte that puts that coffee giants to shame.  Who knew you didn’t have to add a couple of packets of sugar to a small latte to get rid of the bitterness! Then it was off to sample tea at Harney & Sons .  I know coffee and tea, but again keep in mind I was up until a time of night I haven’t seen since college.  Next stop was a hole in the wall cheesecake bakery.  Only in New York City can you find places dedicated to selling only one thing.  For example we passed a shop that only sold rice pudding.  I didn’t realize there was such a cult following for rice pudding.  It’s not really my thing, but hey good for those people who found their niche market and are able to make a living from it.

We said good by to Steve’s friends Pete and Stephanie after that and continued on to the Lower East Side where we went to a place called Tiny Fork.  Where Steve got a REALLY spicy Bloody Mary and we all split some fresh oysters on the half shell.  The people watching there is amazing. We even saw a guy skateboarding down the street with a little Frenchie tagging along side! After all that I was feeling really full so Steve and I went back to the hotel to lay and digest before we met even more friends for dinner! Brandon and Julie made reservations for the group at one of their local favorites, Ponty Bistro.  No joke the place only had about 20 tables and our group of nine took up half of the dining space.  Again the food was amazing.  I went with the mussels, and Steve, along with two of the other guys, got a lamb dish that looked like something out of the Flinstones.  Just when you thought we couldn’t have shoved any other food in our mouths, our last stop of the night was Big Gay Ice Cream.  I had seen this on T.V. and was really excited to try it.  Steve, not being the dessert eater was less excited, so he went with a boring chocolate milkshake, and I got the “Salty Pimp.”  It was really good, and standing outside while the “bouncer” tried to keep the crowd under control only added to the experience.

Sunday we keep the food intake to the minimum, and had brunch with even more friends (who knew we were so popular, and in NYC to boot) before we hopped on the train home.  Now after reading all of that you can see why I might need a couple of extra days to recuperate.  It was so much fun to see so many of our friends, and explore so many new neighborhoods, and dining establishments.  I feel like New York City is a place that is easy to get overwhelmed by when it comes to dining options, so having locals point you the best places that as a tourist you would normally walk by was a great experience for us. I can’t wait to go back!

Sunday Dinner

Now that you are all calmed down from the excitement of the basement reveal I am going to hit you with another shock – I cooked! Boom!! Yes, I actually cooked and it was not a salad or some type of baked good.  I made chili and crock pot mac & cheese.  A big thank you to Stephanie who is the author of Newlyweds North (and fellow WA alum) for testing and sharing these yummy recipes.  Trust me when I say these are super easy and don’t require a lot of kitchen skills.  I loved being able to throw everything in and then walk away, and have time while they were cooking to clean the kitchen.  End result an amazing meal and a handful of dirty dishes!

I had been wanting to try my hand at chili for a long time.  As I have mentioned Steve is the resident cook in the house and I usually have no complaints about what he makes, but his chili is where I draw the line.  My husband comes from the school of chili makers that believe chili should be heavy on the beans, and I swear to you sometimes its all beans with a little bit of sauce/meat.  While that might be good for some, my stomach and I have spent far to many nights being punished for this way of cooking.  Which is why when I saw Stephanie’s beanless recipe I knew this was the one.  For those of you who don’t like spice, this is also for you! While it looks like you are adding everyhot spice known to man, the end result is a really flavorful dish with a tiny kick.  Steve and I like a little spice so I might kick it up a notch next time.

Don’t get me wrong, the chili is hearty enough that can be it’s own meal, but I have two words that will change the way you eat chili/ mac & cheese forever – CHILI MAC! If you are healthy eater stop reading now or check your organic, non-dairy, gluten free ideas at the door.  I sure did.  There is a restaurant in  D.C. called Hill Country BBQ that makes the most amazing chili mac.  The first time we went there I couldn’t decide if I wanted the mac & cheese or the chili (it’s beanless) and the guy serving us was like “This isn’t on the menu, but you’re going to love it,” and he handed me a pint of cheesey, mac, chili goodness.  It’s glories got out and is now a regular menu item so I figured I would try my hand at making it at home.

As anyone who has tried to make their favorite restaurant dishes at home you know it usually ends up looking pretty close, but something is always missing from making it like the original.  Well, let me tell you I could have been eating take out from Hill Country this tasted so similar. After tasting this wonderful homemade meal Steve confessed he had his doubts, but was so impressed with the final product that he thinks I should become the new Sunday night cook in the Precker home.

Oh and one more thing – this dish gets better the next day.  Steve and I both brought left overs for lunch on Monday and were even more impressed than we were the night before.  Be sure to stop by Newlyweds North for all of the recipe details!

Breakfast of Champions

Via http://www.theyummylife.com

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks! It feels like we haven’t stopped moving since before Memorial Day, and our house looks like it.  Sorry to report that there hasn’t been any new home updates, unless you consider trying to keep up with laundry something to blog about.  In between lounging at the pool I am hoping to squeeze a project or two in this weekend.  Not to worry, this post isn’t another one where I just complain about having too much to do and not enough time to do it in.  I actually wanted to share a recipe with you!

Shocking news considering that I have an aversion to cooking, but this really isn’t “cooking.” It’s more like throwing a bunch of stuff in a Tupperware and letting it sit in the fridge overnight.  Now that I have you on the edge of your seats waiting for the big reveal, it’s……. refrigerator oatmeal!

I can hear your moans of disappointment from here, but stay with me it is actually really good.  Like many American women I don’t have time to have a leisurely breakfast, I would rather sleep for an extra half hour.  This doesn’t leave much time for variety and I usually end up with a piece of fruit and a Greek yogurt at my desk as I scroll through my emails.  After exhausting every type of yogurt in the market place I felt like I needed a change.  So I hopped over to my favorite inspiration place, Pinterest, and scrolled through the multitude of recipes I had stored up and decided to give the refrigerator oatmeal a try.

Don’t be put off by the chia seeds or the mason jars.  My local Whole Foods had a huge stock of chia seeds.  They are a bit of an investment, but in addition to being a healthy boost to your breakfast you can break out your old Chia Pet and add some greenery to your home.  You also do not need the mason jars.  I used a Tupperware and it worked out perfectly fine.  Just be sure you use one that has a good seal on it because you do need to shake things up a bit.  Another variation I made was to use dairy free coconut milk, not because I am a crazy health nut, but because I wasn’t paying attention when I grabbed it off the shelf, but it tasted just like regular skim.

Overall it’s not too different than yogurt, but the oats, fruit, and chia seeds add a little extra crunch and interest to my taste buds, and I have to say I feel fuller for much longer.  For the full recipe and flavor variations visit www.theyummylife.com . What are your go-to healthy weekday breakfast recipes?