She's here! Little Nikkia Lyn Gramoll arrived this past Wednesday at around 4:10pm. Weighing in at 5 lbs 11oz, she's already using her good genetics and speedy metabolism to good use. Secretly though, I hope she chubbs out and fills out some chunky thighs. I love poking squishy baby chub.
Find house of liking.
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Step 2 - Think about it. Over and over. And over.
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Step 3 - Go back and take another look at said house.
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Step 4 - Go back and take ANOTHER look at said house.
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Step 5 - Think about it.
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Step 6 - Reeeeeally think about it.
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Step 7 - Place an offer.
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We found a cute little home we like. And the price is right. It's a short sale, so it's up to the bank to make a decision on whether they want to move forward with the, now 5, offers put on this house. It could be weeks, or it could be months, before we hear anything back from the bank.
Keep your fingers and toes crossed for us!!
Let no hernia inhibit a man's culinary creations! Being stuck on the couch for 10 days straight has its pros; bedside service, lots of movies, lots of naps, surf the net 'til your eyeballs hurt, get absorbed into a book, losing sense of time....all good things....for maybe the first couple of days. After that, you begin to fancy the idea of being productive again. To sway some of the boredom, Joe hunched himself over the kitchen counter to make some dericous meals.
2 creations from Joe's library of ideas. Enjoy!
Here we have a lasagna-esque dish, cousin to one of our favs from Victoria's Pasta Shop in Norman, OK. It's basically, a lasagna noodle rolled around mozerella cheese, cottage cheese, and a couple of shrimp. Then topped with a red sauce, an alfredo sauce, and a litte parmesian and pepper. So simple, so good.
This one is probably the best thing I've eaten in a long while. Crunchy savory outside, juicy tender chicken inside. The batter is milk/egg based, flavored with curry and cumin. Dunk the chicken in the milk mixture, in some flour, back into the milk mixture and then flour one more time. Fry it up and you've got yourself a fatty time curry delight. Gonna put in a request with the chef to make this one again sometime soon. Here's the recipe, Joe's words exactly.
Ingredients:
● 3 1/2 - 4 lbs Chicken Thighs & Drumsticks
● 3 - 4 Eggs
● 1 cup Milk
● 1 tbsp Salt
● 1 1/2 tbsp Curry Powder
● 1 tsp Cumin
● 1 tsp Fresh Ground Pepper
● 1 cup Flour
Directions:
Easy and Delicious!
In a bowl, beat eggs and incorporate the milk. The idea is to use just a little more milk than eggs. Add several teaspoons worth of the curry powder, half the cumin, a teaspoon of salt, and half the pepper to the egg and milk mixture and mix thoroughly.
In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the remaining spices.
Cooking options are to deep fry, pan fry, or lightly pan fry and finish in the oven set at 350 (recommended).
To apply the batter, coat each piece of chicken in the wet mix, then the dry mix TWICE in that order. Cook to your liking!
Serves 6
YUM!
Those are frozen peas on Joe's "parts"....if you will.
Joe went under the knife this morning to repair a hernia he thinks he got during the triumphs of basic training. Hooah? But not without entertaining the surgeon and nurses along the way. Apparently, after receiving a sort of narcotic before going totally under for the operation, Joe was asking questions, cracking jokes, telling stories while laying there under the lights. None of which he remembers at all. Unfortunate.
Joe: "So like, do a lot of people tell secrets when they're on this stuff?"
Nurses/Surgeon: "uhh, sometimes"
Joe: "I killed a man once."
That one was the talk of the office for the day.
Joe is now sleeping by my side, recovering rather well after today's day long excursion. Hernia, stitches.....catheter.....and all.
This beaut was built circa 1798. We lav it. Oh deeeear we lav it.
P.S. Housing is crazy expensive up here. Thoroughly enjoy the market and cost of living if you live elsewhere. We're jealous of you.
Our friend Greg, whom we know from CIM, waffle time, and other culinary adventures, stopped by for a visit on his trek from Connecticut to Cleveland. What better to do, than eat good food with good friends I say? Nothing. So, we ventured to a local burger joint recommended to us by many a foodie. "Woody's" is a family friendly joint serving local, grass-fed beef, free-range/hormone free chicken, topped with organic produce from the Hudson Valley area. Result? Mouthwatering burgers anyway you like it.
Greg, Joe and I, each ordered different burgers, split them into thirds, and each had ourselves a scrumptious platter of cholesterol. I think my favorite one was Joe's...can't go wrong with the bacon and cheese variety.
My phone rang this morning....circa 6:00am. 'Twas my section leader letting me know West Point is under "code red"....aka....snow day! 5 minutes later, Joe's phone rang delivering the same news. Hareruyah! In celebration of being holed up, I'm thinkin' a homemade chicken pot pie is in order for this evening's delight.
We had ourselves a fantastico Christmas this year. My family came up to visit for a handful of days, where we made a pilgrimage to Mitsuwa (an enormous Japanese grocery/general store) and hit up Manhattan in all its tourist glory.
Macy's under the siege of last minute shoppers.
Joe and dad in front of the 9/11 site.
The Naked Cowboy somehow espacing hypothermia.
Happy New Year!Had an ice storm just a couple days ago. Nothing like the one that froze Norman a couple years ago, but good enough to delay West Point for 2 hours. Slept in (the best kind at that. Chilly apartment, warm and toasty under the covers), ate a couple toasted english muffins lathered with cream cheese and blueberry/lime jam (thanks Greg!), enjoyed a hearty helping of eggs de la scrambled, and downed a glass of soy. So good.
Joe and I's drive to West Point is probably the best 'drive to work' route. ever. It winds up and around Storm King Mountain, which sits right up against the Hudson River. Pics below were taken today, on my way and back to West Point.
I can pump 43 push-ups in 120 seconds, crank 83 sit-ups in 2 minutes, run 2 miles in 15:11. For 10 weeks, I ate with, slept with, peed with, pooped with, ran with, crawled with, exercised with my trusty M16. It was with me, all. the. time.
I learned to eat my 1500 calorie meals in under 7 minutes, grew comfortable sharing 7 shower heads with 27 females, perfected the art of "YES DRILL SERGEANT!!!", mustered the courage to give my 'battle buddy' an IV, could identify members of my platoon by fart, thought of cough drops as candy and a legitimate source of food, ruck marched for 10 miles carrying 60 lbs of gear on my back, shot a 50 caliber machine gun like there was no tomorrow, threw a couple of grenades like a girl, shot live rounds while riding on the back of a convoy, didn't shower for a span of 7 days while on a mission in the field, ran an obstacle course in the woods with a bayonet while yelling "KILL, KILL, KILL!!", woke up at 4:00 freaking AM every morning...sometimes to a yelling Drill Sergeant, did every type of exercise imaginable as a form of punishment.
And despite the craziness and stressful nature basic training was and is, I miss it. There are things my buddies and I went through that will always remain with me. The comradery you build with people you eat, sleep, poop and train with is strong. By the end of our cycle, we were all definitely a family. A disfunctional one, yes, but a family.
Joe and I both going through basic has brought us the closest together we've been. Being without each other for 4 months made our reunion an amazing experience. Never had I felt so overwhelmed. Our 12 hour drive back home from Ft. Jackson, South Carolina to West Point, New York was filled to the brim with basic training stories. We had each other laughing and understanding exactly what each other meant and felt. What an experience.
Ok, ok, so here are a couple snap shots I got via cell phone camera. (They let us have our phones back 2 days before graduation day). I wish I could have snapped a picture of myself with all of my gear on, (bullet proof vest, load bearing vest, M16, kevlar helmet, ect.) but we had to clean and turn in our equipment before we got our phones back. Hope these will satisfy your thirsty eyes for now.
Post graduation pic.
PVT Morgan and PVT McGrew chillin' before evening roll call.
My main homies, PVT Boatman and PVT McGrew.
The whole gang.
So. The day is here. It's my turn! Wish me luck as I keep my head low and try to stay under the radar. Good stories to come. I promise.
Be back Thanksgiving day.
I had to do it. I had to bake something before I packed up the pans and mixer. For good reason though...because come Monday, I'll be taking a two and a half month hiatus on any sort of baking, cooking, reading, long showers, practicing (that's going to be the strangest), anything remotely having to do with entertainment. But hey, I WILL get to become best friends with an M16, throw a couple grenades, go through a gas chamber, go rapelling, become strangly accustomed showering with a plethora of others, oh the list can go ON! I really am though, quite excited about going to basic. I think it'll be one of things I'll never want to do again, but glad and appreciative that I did go through it.
Anywho, on to the food!
So I ended up whipping up a batch of chocolate chip cookies. But, not just some ordinary batch of chocolate chip cookies. No no my friends. Theeese have chick peas and flax seed meal hidden inside...
I took a recipe from Jessica Seinfeld's (yes, wife to the infamous Jerry) recipe book and did a little tweaking (mainly just the flax meal part). Seinfeld's recipe calls for the chickpeas, but I decided to use up some of the flax meal we've got sitting in the fridge. Soooo, I replaced half of the butter in the recipe with a 3 to 1 ratio of flax meal. Result, fantastic-o. And plus, these are somewhat...."healthy"....right? So like, you can eat MORE, and not feel too horribly guilty.
● 1 cup packed brown sugar
● 5 tblsp butter
● 1 cup flax seed meal
● 2 egg whites
● 2 tsp vanilla extract
● 1 can (15oz) chickpea/garbonzo beans, drained
● 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
● 2 cups all-purpose flour
● 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
● 1 tsp baking soda
● 1/4 tsp salt
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Coat a baking sheet w/ cooking spray.
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat the sugar, butter, and flax meal until smooth. Beat in the egg whites and vanilla, then the chickpeas. Add the flour, oats, baking soda, and salt, and mix on low until a thick dough forms. Stir in chocolate chips.
3. Drop the dough by the tablespoon onto the baking sheet, spacing the cookies about 2 inches apart. Press gently w/ a fork to flatten. Bake until the cookies are golden brown and just set, 11-13 minutes. Do not overbake. Transer to a rack to cool.
4. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
If you don't have any flax meal, no worries. Just double the butter and omit the flax.
Straight-out-of-the-oven-warm-cookie-delight.
Good friend Karen invited a couple of us over to her place of abode for dinner and hang time. Her beau, Ben, arrived in Cleveland for the weekend after a summer spent in Berlin. Super great people, super great friends. Karen, born and raised in Dallas on granny's homecookin', branched out and partook of the evening's entree...tofu veggie green coconut curry with rice noodles. So grood.
Been packing up the apartment. 3rd move within a year and a half....oye! The trek up to West Point should be a rather permanent one.
Got a call from Joe last night!! So great to hear his voice. His platoon won a hand-to-hand combat competition, which yields a proud and happy drill sergeant, always a good thing. In reward for their win, they're getting milkshakes today! Wahoo! He gives many many thanks to everyone who has sent him letters...and Teen Bop articles....and babywipes. :-)
9:34pm
Was sitting in the living room, talking to mom on the phone....
BAT
flew by my face.
Hung up, put on Joe's winter coat, grabbed the oven mitts, a beach towel and a tennis racket. Woman on a mission. I opened up our windows and doors and turned off all of our apt lights except the lamps that sits right next to our porch. Mr. Bat flew swooped in circles, kept missing his doorway to freedom. Fiiiinally, he made a swoop pretty close to the porch door and so I came up beside him mid-flight and sorta guided him with the beach towel. Succes!!!!! Hory mory what a relief.
Mikki - 1, Bat - 0
Our first cuke is growing to a healthy size! I'm actually not sure if it'll get any bigger than this since the pot it resides in is little on the small side...I'll give it another week....then it's time to devour.
And here resides Emilio, our avocado tree we grew from a pit. Just over a year old, and a lanky 2.5 ft tall. A trooper Emilio is...he survived our fridge-worthy-temperature apartment this past winter. A hearty avocado tree is he. The tomato plant is also a big hit this summer. We've eaten a handful of the yummies already and we've got another 5-6 on the vine, ripening as I type. Home grown 'maters are so grood.
Joe was alloted a 2 minute phone call yesterday and was able to quickly blurt out his official mailing address! So, without further ado:
SPC Skinner, Joseph
RN 417
A 3-47 IN BN
5480 Roush Drive
Ft. Benning, GA 31905
Feel free to write him TONS of letters, even to the point of you thinking it may be annoying. Joe will cherish each and every letter, I promise. Just a note though, he's not allowed to receive any sort of care package or food. So, be kind, save him from doing extra push-ups and keep anything you send him to simple letters and pictures.
Ready, set, go write Joe!!!!
I babysit for a wonderful family just a couple blocks down from our place. They've got a 10-month old girl, Lilly, who is the best natured little squirt around town. Always happy, always smiling. Turns the dullest of days right around into something beautiful.
Today I babysat while Lilly's Mom ran to an appointment and then grocery store. Lilly and I jammed out to Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, played with animal blocks, bounced on her horsey, crawled allll around the house, played peek-a-boo for a solid 30 minutes (boy howdy she loves peek-a-boo), and then settled down for some quality nap time. Lilly's mom came home around dinner time, the usual, and among her bags of groceries, had a bag for me. She had bought me some of her personal favorites: chicken, white bean and veggie chili, a big carton or organic salad stuff, and a small basket of locally grown cherry tomatoes. How completely amazing. I almost cried. With Joe gone, dinner has become a reminder, and just a quick something. I'll admit.....I had shredded wheat for dinner Tuesday night. So this wonderful act of thought and kindness from Lilly's family really, really made my day. Thank you, so much.
Joe left for basic training today. 9 weeks to go. It's sad....but I already miss him terribly. The apartment is quiet, nobody to be silly with, nobody to eat late night snacks with, nobody to shnuggle with. This is just a small step though, to something bigger and better. It's totally worth it. Just you know, a little hard.
I can't even imagine how couples must feel when either are deployed....for 16 months. Wow.
So now it's my turn. This Sunday I'll travel back to West Point for round 2 of auditions for the Hellcats. If all goes well, I too could end up doing push-ups for a solid 2 months. Bring it on.
