June Day BBQ

It's that time again...PARTY!

This time the weather was nice so we decided to have a BBQ, vegetarian of course!  The (facebook) invitations were set, the calendars marked and the planning began.  S. really wanted veggie kabobs and I wanted corn.  We also decided to get some veggie burgers and iced tea!  Luckily our boss took us to Costco the week before so we stocked up on Boca Burgers, cheese, contact solution and other necessities.

The day of the party S. and I got started on making the veggie kabobs.

It was a long process but we did manage to throw our porch table down into the yard and V. helped us take the silk out of the corn.

Soon guests were arriving, beer and watermelon in hand.

Right as we were about to try and light the grill D. walked in and, since he is evidently some sort of West Coast BBQ god, took over the cooking.  S. and I played sous chef for a while grabbing foil, matches and spices but all of the cooking was kindly taken over by D. and J.  

Iced tea was drank out of jars and we even made s'mores, treating M. to his FIRST EVER S'MORE in the process.  

 

After eating most of the group moved towards playing wiffle ball, frisbee or trying to learn to skateboard.

Some of us still have wounds healing from the latter.  Towards the end of the night a guitar emerged and I could feel the JP hipster-ness oozing from our yard.

Party complete!

-N.

Orange Marmalade Ice Cream

No words necessary.

-N.

S.'s Birthday!

That's right I finally turned 23 18. So young! 

Friday night we had a ragin' party at our house. We made cupcakes with Bailey's frosting and a chocolate trifle. 

N. made me a brownie peanut butter cake! Which I ended up baking 2 days after the batter was made because our oven was broken for a while, then N. had to work. But she did this awesome frosting job when she got home!

Our friends also brought candy, more cupcakes, and a whole lot of liquor. There was also a cantaloupe filled with vodka and a bowl of jello. We have great friends. I think roughly 20 people showed up throughout the night.

The next morning, N., G., Z. and I went to Sorella's for breakfast. They have the best pancakes. N. never orders pancakes and then she is disappointed. When will she learn? Mine had chocolate chips, granola, and nuts.

After breakfast we watched Extreme Couponing then took a nap.

Later that night we went to the new Harpoon beer hall. It was larger and more crowded than expected, but they had the best pretzels EVER.

The night ended at New York Pizza, as all good nights should. We got there 5 minutes before closing and the place was a madhouse! When we left, one of the employees was physically blocking the door to keep people from coming in, and some girls outside were begging him for pizza. 

I certainly did not fall off my bike on the way home or do anything embarrassing...

Banana Bread

For some reason I decided Thursday was the perfect day to make a ton of banana bread.  Don't ask me why, maybe it was because it'd been a frustrating day at work and S. was out of town and I love banana bread, but either way I soon found 8 disgustingly soggy defrosting ripe bananas on my kitchen table.

So I had to move quick.  We were out of eggs but from my search on egg replacers a day earlier I knew my plain yogurt should be a good replacement so I searched for some recipes and came across this!  My mom also gave me her delicious Banana Snack Cake recipe so I decided to try and make an egg-less version of that as well.  Finally my plan was to make these because I had a weird idea that I needed to use up all the bananas RIGHT NOW!

I put P!NK on repeat, started singing and began baking.  It was actually one of my cleaner baking experiences.  I used two bowls, one for the dry ingredients and one for melting the butter and for the wet ingredients and then reused them from recipe to recipe!  I think I'm finally learning.  I did forget to take pictures though, so that's a slow process.

First I made the Eggless Banana Bread subbing out plain non-fat yogurt for the applesauce, doubling the vanilla extract and with dried cranberries!  Into the oven that went.

Next up was my mom's Banana Snack Cake (see below).  Yogurt for eggs and with chocolate chips and crushed walnuts.  I failed to read that I should press the nuts on top and instead mixed them in with everything.

I then realized that I didn't have enough oats for Sally's Peanut Butter Banana Oat Bars.  Let's be honest, it's a good thing.  I put the remaining 2 bananas back in the freezer.

Unfortunately I think our oven might be broken because both recipes took forever to bake and I ended up turning it up to 400 since it didn't feel hot.

After a while a toothpick came out clean and I went to bed!  Who wants banana bread?

Banana Snack Cake

Eggless Banana Bread with Cranberries

---

Banana Snack Cake

(Mom’s Recipe)

Ingredients

            1 cup softened margarine or butter

            1 cup sugar

            2 eggs

            1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup milk with 1 Tbs vinegar)

            4 mashed medium bananas

            1 tsp vanilla extract

            2 cups flour

            1 cup quick-rolled oats

            1 1/2 tsp baking soda

            1/2 tsp salt

            6 oz. chocolate chips

            1/2 cups chopped pecans (or a different type of nut)

Directions

            1. Preheat oven to 350⁰F

            2. In a large mixing bowl cream butter and sugar together with a mixer until fluffy.

            3. Mix in eggs

            4. Stir in buttermilk and vanilla, mixing well

            5. In a separate bowl, stir flour, oats, soda and salt to mix

            6. Gradually stir flour mixture into butter mixture; mix well

            7. Stir in bananas

            8. Spread in a greased 9” x 13” baking pan

            9. Sprinkle nuts on top and press lightly

            10. Bake for 30-35 minutes

Potluck

We had the idea to do a +1 Potluck party, where everyone is supposed to bring a friend who has never been to our house before. That way we get to meet new people and eat delicious food! 

We didn't think it through though, and ended up having the potluck during spring break and right after a big snowstorm, so a bunch of people unfortunately had to cancel. 

Even so, we had 7 guests, plus me and N.

C. made sushi in the living room. 

We forgot to take a picture of the table but it was full of delights. Potato balls (aka Savoury Squirrel Bakes), pasta, bread, rice with peanut sauce, cookies, and more! Mostly starches.
We succeeded in using up most of the odds and ends from our liquor cabinet, which was accomplished by serving everyone "mystery drinks."

The original idea was to also make it a craft night, but people didn't seem too enthused about crafting. So I set up a friendship bracelet station! Only a few people made them, but I still think it was a brilliant idea.

Z. wore his hat, as he must always do when he enters our house.

After we ate we went outside to enjoy the snow! We went sledding, buried each other in snow, ran around, walked to the pond, practiced tackling each other, built a jump, spun in circles, and somersaulted downhill. It was a fantastic evening.

Then came back and ate more food!

What is happening here?

3/6 De Facto Roommate Night

S. and I are now both off on Wednesdays!  I really love having a weekday off because I can do things that require normal business hours, plus it breaks up my work week.

We both woke up pretty early and did some computer work/reading before heading to yoga at the Blissful Monkey for their $10 lunchtime yoga.  Now it has been about 9 months since I last did yoga and I was fairly nervous to fall from downward dog or something, but it ended up being just fine!

Next I dragged S. with me to the library and then Polka Dog Bakery for a cat treat.  I love that I can complete all my errands by walking here in JP!

After eating lunch we headed out by bike to Trader Joe's.  Unfortunately it decided to start raining midway but luckily it was more of a refreshing sprinkle rather than a drenching downpour.  We parked, picked up our ceramic creations and then commenced grocery shopping!

The 'quiche pan' that I painted at the Clayroom!

If you have ever been shopping with S. and I you know it is a fairly long process, and when the wealth of Trader Joe's is in front of us it is even longer.  Plus you have to figure in we are carrying everything by bicycle.  Thus we made a couple rounds in the store, picking things up and dropping them off, contemplating organic or not and in general figuring what we need to live off of for the next week.  Eventually we checked out and departed!

Unfortunately S. had gotten a flat tire somewhere on our journey and with no tools on us we decided to walk our bikes to Landry's and get it fixed.  Everyone there was really nice and we were soon on our way, with a new ladybug bell for S.'s bike Francine!

I also downloaded the app Runtastic Roadbike in an effort to track my cycling journeys!  I actually haven't biked since Wednesday due to the snow, but I was pretty impressed by how well it worked on our return journey!

Despite our plans for a lazy night due to such a productive day, Z. managed to convince us to join him for dinner.  We ate at the Miami Restaurant in Hyde Square.  S. and I weren't really hungry so she got fried plantains and I had rice and beans.  Z. got goat stew which came with fried green plantains, rice and beans.  So much food!  The rice and beans was really good and I'm sad we forgot the leftovers!

Convincing us to leave the house took some work.

Mmmmm plantains!  (Maduros)

Z. enjoyed his goat tremendously.

This may look bad but it was delicious.
So delicious I have a suspicion that chicken
broth was used in the rice...

Party Party!

 We couldn't think of a theme for our last party, so we decided the theme would be Party! At first it was just going to be a normal clean-out-the-liquor cabinet party, but we got carried away with the planning.

We thought up a bunch of different party games. We also went through our closets, found random things, wrapped them, and included elaborate rules on what to do with these things. The winner of each game got a prize and had to follow all the instructions. We played each game for about half an hour, took a break, then played a different one. When it was time for a new game, N. and I locked eyes across the room, stealthily pulled out our harmonicas, and played loud discordant notes. This worked surprisingly well!

For example, Zack won a pink headband and a used copy of N.'s diving manual. He had to wear the headband all night and perform dramatic readings from the manual.

N.'s choice game, "Who's That Cat" was a surprise hit. Everyone sat in a circle with one person blindfolded in the middle. The blindfolded person spun around and pointed to someone, who then had to meow like a cat. Based on this, the person in the middle had to guess who it was. If they guessed wrong, everyone switched seats and the game continued.

There was also a limbo contest! I think I won because no one else really tried.

And Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey, beautifully crafted by myself and N. (This game had a fair amount of cheaters, you know who you are.) Other games included charades and that game where you write and draw (someone really needs to come up with a catchy name for that).

Burrito the Burro!

And of course N. made a giant cookie cake! Oh, and I made an awesome playlist that everyone enjoyed. Roughly every fifth song was Thrift Shop. 

We made everyone sign the guest book. Except for that one guy. 

A number of people have said this was their favorite party yet! The bar just keeps getting higher. 

Here are some choice excerpts from the guest book:
" Woohoo so much fun, thrift shop all the time!"
" I look incredible."
" Great party, if I hear thrift shop again I'm leaving"
"I wear your granddad's clothes"
" Sorry for ruining your clothes with silly string."

Move In

Hello New Home!

Too bad I don't own any furniture.

Luckily a former occupant left almost all of hers, and S. is letting me use her bed since her room comes with a bed!

I really enjoy packing since it let's you evaluate almost everything you own and think about whether you still want it or not.  Packing for me is a great excuse for a purge of my belongings.  

And since I have moved quite frequently the last 4 years (10 one-way moves I can think of), I thought I had kept my belongings to a rather small, reasonable number.  But, having the space to actually get all my stuff spread out in the same room tells me no!  I need to keep purging.

I shall try my best.

-N