Thought we should start walking you through the rest of the trip across the country. After the fiasco of going back to the Huck Finn hostel, it was my day to drive. We had initially made plans to go see CarHenge in Nebraska, but because of my job constraints we had to skip it. Our back up plan was to drive until we couldnt drive anymore headed towards the Badlands.
Did you know half of the midwest is under water?? Neither did we. As we drove along fields and farms under water we discussed if it was intentional or not, why they would do this... and then suddenly, the highway guided us off a ramp with a huge ROAD CLOSED sign in the middle of --apparently-- the state's only main road. I cannot express the amount of frustration that we were both subjected to after closed road upon closed road and hour after hour of driving out of our way. We ended up in Lincoln Nebraska with fast food burgers and our first shower since our first stop in Ohio.
After the experience, i have zero interest in ever returning to Lincoln. But it puts things into perspective. We stopped at a McDonalds to regroup when we were first guided off the road and spoke with some of the locals. This had been an issue for 3 months, and wasnt expected to be fixed until this coming May. Really makes you appreciate that the rain stops on the east, and all our flooding is gone in a matter of days instead of months.
Fast forward to January 2012, We each lost about 2lbs and did a couple runs (it still isnt fun btw). Tuesday i went a little nuts and ate my weight in string cheese-- i think i had 4 along with some other assorted stuff and spent the last 3 days busting my ass to take it back off.
Thursday was our month-aversary (yes we always celebrate them haha) and we made lasagna. We make our own noodles (you can google a recipe if youre feeling fancy and want some different flavors in the noodle itself.) Here's how we did it:
Pasta Noodle Recipe:
1.5 C Flour
1 Egg
2 Egg whites
1 TBSP E.V.O.O.
sprinkle of water
1. Make a well with the flour for eggs, and oil
2. Mix and make into a ball
3. Knead until smooth, shiny, and elastic (add water if its too dry)
4.wrap in wax paper, let rest 10 minutes
5. Divide into 2 balls, roll out (as thin as you can get it) and cut into a size that will fit in your pan.
Lasagna
1 C Chopped mushrooms (i double this)
1 C Chopped onions (i leave these out)
1 TBSP minced garlic
2 C Fresh Spinach (i use closer to 5 or 6 cups, it boils down to nothing)
2 C Low-Fat Ricotta (initial recipe calls for 3)
1/3 C Romano Cheese-grated (initial recipe calls for 2/3 c)
1 tsp salt (i cut this entirely)
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil leaves
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
3 C. Mozzarella Cheese
2 C. Tomato Sauce (if you have a brand of crushed tomatoes you like, its a better choice)
1.Preheat oven to 350
2. Cook mushrooms, onions and garlic in a pan with pam until onions are tender.
3. Boil spinach for 5 minutes, drain very well and chop
4. Combine Ricotta, spinach, salt, oregano, basil and pepper
5. Make your layers in the pan, Sauce, noodles, ricotta mix, mozzarella
6. Bake 45 mins at 350 with aluminum foil, remove and bake uncovered for 15 mins
12 servings at 7 pts a slice, we cut ours into 15 (at 5 pts a piece) and have a ton of veggies on the side to fill us up!
Happy Eating!!!
love always,
Meghan
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
reliving our childhood
First week on weight watchers went well, i lost 3.4 lbs, Kyle lost 3.2.
We've been working to not only lose some weight, but also save some money. So this week we made chinese (inspired by a posting on weight watchers.) and went to the movies... rather than go to Pepita's and renting a bunch of redboxes and drinking at home. -- and for those of you who have no idea what the hell Pepita's is... well lets just say youre missing out on some seriously amazing mexican food and INCREDIBLE margaritas. But, by splurging on a 3D movie and skipping the dinner out, we saved probably $60, made meals that will feed us for half the week and saved thousands of calories.
I have always had a minor obsession with Beauty and the Beast (like every girl my age if we're being serious!), to the point that i wore a yellow ball gown to senior prom. SO when it came out in 3D we had to go!! It was so cool. i didnt expect it to be impressive, so i was pleasantly surprised. it was awesome that i got to see the movie when it first came out as a child and now again as an adult. But i guess the reason i liked it so much was because the only 3D i've seen came with glasses with one red and one blue colored lens. I want to go see all the kid movies now, haha.
One more thing that i will start keeping track of -- we're going to run a marathon. but not really announce it to our families, or rather i'm not. I've started so many running goals that i feel i like it just sounds ridiculous to everyone anymore. But we're signing up because if we're going to be committing our lives to each other, we better make sure its a life worth living.... healthy and long. We've been running for a couple weeks, but i got sick this week and its been... at least 7 days since the last time we went. Today was awful, def need to pick it up come Wednesday.
Our favorite recipe this week was part of the chinese-- sweet and sour chicken:
we adapted it from a recipe we found on eatingwell.com and made our own fried rice.
Sweet and Sour Chicken
- 1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
- 2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons sugar-free apricot preserves
- 1 pound chicken tenders, cut into bite-size pieces
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
- 6 cups bite-size pieces of vegetables, such as snow peas, broccoli and bell peppers
- 1 5-ounce can sliced water chestnuts, drained
- 1/2 can of crushed pineapples, drained
- whisk vinegar, soy sauce, cornstarch and apricot preserves in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Cook Chicken, undisturbed, for 2 minutes in frying pan. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until no longer pink on the outside and just starting to brown in spots, about 2 minutes more. Transfer to a plate.
- Cook garlic in the pan (we added some ground ginger), stirring, until fragrant, 20 to 30 seconds. Add broth and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Add vegetables, reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook until the vegetables are tender-crisp, 4 to 6 minutes. Stir in water chestnuts and the chicken and pineapples. Whisk the reserved sauce and add to the pan. Simmer, stirring constantly, until the sauce is thickened and the chicken is heated through, about 1 minute. Serve with the rice. Viola! good luck!
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Oh yes, this is powerful stuff.
Okay, so its been awhile since we posted. The trip was incredible, Portland has been good to us and for us, but on Dec 26th -- our 8 month-aversary-- we found ourselves in Longwood, PA. Kyle took me to Longwood Gardens (we were back for the holidays) to see the lights. We went to a fancy-pants dinner at 1906 and then he drove us to a local B&B for the night.
His hands had been sweaty all day, he had picked me up from my parents house, flowers in hand and all this should have tipped me off, but when nothing happened in front of 10,000 twinkle lights and he skipped dessert i realized it was simply another wonderful night with the man i love, or so i thought.
We got to the B&B and he made me stay in the foyer and closed the curtains. I could hear him running around the room and suddenly Powerful Stuff (a song we he discussed dancing to at our imaginary wedding) came on. He told me to come out and i did a quick scan of Kyle and didnt notice a ring in his hand, so i started checking out the rest of the room, there was a small seating area with the fireplace going, beautiful furnishing, french doors that led to a patio. While i was getting acclimated Kyle told me to take a step forward and look in the bedroom. On the bed he had "Marry Me?" written in twinkle lights. I started crying immediately.
The ring is beautiful, but its nothing compared to the rest of our relationship and I cannot wait to marry Kyle September of 2013. In the meantime, i thought I'd invite people to watch as we prepare for this wedding.
We plan on a lot of DYI details and for myself, a serious weight loss regime.
Monday we joined Weight Watchers together and we've been trying out a few new recipes. We made apple-cinnamon pancakes from scratch and sausage and veggie egg-white sandwiches, but our favorite recipe this week was our home-made pizza. We use crushed tomatoes instead of tomato sauce, turkey sausage, low-fat mozzarella and mushrooms. Each pizza was 8 PointsPlus.
Dough-
1. 3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
2. 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3. 1 package of quick rise yeast
4. 3/4 tsp salt
5. 1/4 tsp splenda
6. 2/3 c. hot water (you may need to add more)
7. 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
Combine ingredients 1-5 and mix them well.
Mix 6&7 together and slowly combine with flour mixture. Mix very well (if it seems too sticky or dry add more flour or water)
Coat a bowl with cooking spray, place dough in bowl, cover and let rise for 10-20 minutes.
Makes 4 mini-pizzas
I'll keep you posted on various new recipes and some of the DYI details, but there will have to be some surprises as well.
Love Always,
Meghan
His hands had been sweaty all day, he had picked me up from my parents house, flowers in hand and all this should have tipped me off, but when nothing happened in front of 10,000 twinkle lights and he skipped dessert i realized it was simply another wonderful night with the man i love, or so i thought.
We got to the B&B and he made me stay in the foyer and closed the curtains. I could hear him running around the room and suddenly Powerful Stuff (a song we he discussed dancing to at our imaginary wedding) came on. He told me to come out and i did a quick scan of Kyle and didnt notice a ring in his hand, so i started checking out the rest of the room, there was a small seating area with the fireplace going, beautiful furnishing, french doors that led to a patio. While i was getting acclimated Kyle told me to take a step forward and look in the bedroom. On the bed he had "Marry Me?" written in twinkle lights. I started crying immediately.
The ring is beautiful, but its nothing compared to the rest of our relationship and I cannot wait to marry Kyle September of 2013. In the meantime, i thought I'd invite people to watch as we prepare for this wedding.
We plan on a lot of DYI details and for myself, a serious weight loss regime.
Monday we joined Weight Watchers together and we've been trying out a few new recipes. We made apple-cinnamon pancakes from scratch and sausage and veggie egg-white sandwiches, but our favorite recipe this week was our home-made pizza. We use crushed tomatoes instead of tomato sauce, turkey sausage, low-fat mozzarella and mushrooms. Each pizza was 8 PointsPlus.
Dough-
1. 3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
2. 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3. 1 package of quick rise yeast
4. 3/4 tsp salt
5. 1/4 tsp splenda
6. 2/3 c. hot water (you may need to add more)
7. 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
Combine ingredients 1-5 and mix them well.
Mix 6&7 together and slowly combine with flour mixture. Mix very well (if it seems too sticky or dry add more flour or water)
Coat a bowl with cooking spray, place dough in bowl, cover and let rise for 10-20 minutes.
Makes 4 mini-pizzas
I'll keep you posted on various new recipes and some of the DYI details, but there will have to be some surprises as well.
Love Always,
Meghan
Friday, September 23, 2011
Continuing On...
(Sorry we haven't kept the blog up to date - finding time to write while surrounded by the beauty of America's greatest national parks was difficult. We're actually already in Portland, but we'd like to share our adventure with you anyway. So, hopefully we'll be caught up soon.)
From Chi-town, we headed west to Saint Louis, Missouri. We arrived in the evening to a pretty empty but clean hostel called Huck Finn. The owner was busy with repairs (it was obviously the end of his busy season), but kindly let got us settled in and suggested that we visit the Irish Pub down the street. We took him up on his suggestion and headed out once we had gotten our beds made and our gear put away. We strode down the street, the sound of an Irish fiddle leading our way.
We walked into an equally empty but fantastic pub called McGurks. There was an Irish folk duo on stage (didn't catch the name of their group), one of whom was (begrudgingly) celebrating his birthday. On tap was Schlafly beer, a locally-brewed craft beer. Upon speaking with our bartender, Meg and I were told that the brew pub (similar to Victory in Downingtown) was just a few miles away. Being the beer lovers we are, we decided to add that into our plans for the next day. A couple of drinks wrapped up our evening and then we were off to bed.
The next morning, we awoke early and headed over to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, better known as the St. Louis Arch. It's a very impressive structure, designed by one of 20th century America's greatest architects - Eero Saarinen. St. Louis was surprisingly empty for a weekday morning - the streets were almost desolate. Meg and I had some time to burn before the Arch opened to visitors for the day, so we walked around downtown in search of breakfast. A restaurant called St. Louis bread company caught our eyes, and looked really familiar to us. As we walked in, we were certain that they had made a mistake on the sign. It turns out that a little company called Panera Bread started in St. Louis. You learn something new every day right?
As for the memorial itself, it is much different from what I remember seeing as a kid. There is a really well-crafted museum on the western expansion, from Native American peace treaties to the early 1900s. It even has talking animatronics that are activated by motion sensors (which kind of freaked me out). The main attraction though, is the ride to the top. Not much has changed since the monument opened to the public in the 1960s - egg shaped tram cars carrying up to five passengers take you to the top, where you can stay as long as you like to take in the view of St. Louis and the Mississippi River. I loved it, whereas Meg, with her fear of heights and claustrophobia...well, she wasn't so thrilled. Still, we looked out of the small windows and felt the arch sway beneath our feet for a couple of minutes before we headed back down.
For lunch, we headed over to the Schlafly brewery that we had heard about the night before. They had a good selection of craft brews, and their food was surprisingly good as well. We were actually confused to see that despite it being fairly crowded for lunch, we were among the few who were drinking. We left there with a growler (awesome) and headed over to their main brewery to pick up a bumper sticker. Our server at the brewpub had actually called ahead to see if they had stickers available (very cool dude), and when we asked for one, the very kind lady at the merchandise desk gave it to us gratis. So, Schlafly gets an A+ from me!
With a long drive ahead of us, we headed west once more (less an hour delay to get the laptop that I left at the hostel...blonde moment!).
From Chi-town, we headed west to Saint Louis, Missouri. We arrived in the evening to a pretty empty but clean hostel called Huck Finn. The owner was busy with repairs (it was obviously the end of his busy season), but kindly let got us settled in and suggested that we visit the Irish Pub down the street. We took him up on his suggestion and headed out once we had gotten our beds made and our gear put away. We strode down the street, the sound of an Irish fiddle leading our way.
We walked into an equally empty but fantastic pub called McGurks. There was an Irish folk duo on stage (didn't catch the name of their group), one of whom was (begrudgingly) celebrating his birthday. On tap was Schlafly beer, a locally-brewed craft beer. Upon speaking with our bartender, Meg and I were told that the brew pub (similar to Victory in Downingtown) was just a few miles away. Being the beer lovers we are, we decided to add that into our plans for the next day. A couple of drinks wrapped up our evening and then we were off to bed.
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| The Arch from Below [Meghan Dunbar] |
As for the memorial itself, it is much different from what I remember seeing as a kid. There is a really well-crafted museum on the western expansion, from Native American peace treaties to the early 1900s. It even has talking animatronics that are activated by motion sensors (which kind of freaked me out). The main attraction though, is the ride to the top. Not much has changed since the monument opened to the public in the 1960s - egg shaped tram cars carrying up to five passengers take you to the top, where you can stay as long as you like to take in the view of St. Louis and the Mississippi River. I loved it, whereas Meg, with her fear of heights and claustrophobia...well, she wasn't so thrilled. Still, we looked out of the small windows and felt the arch sway beneath our feet for a couple of minutes before we headed back down.
For lunch, we headed over to the Schlafly brewery that we had heard about the night before. They had a good selection of craft brews, and their food was surprisingly good as well. We were actually confused to see that despite it being fairly crowded for lunch, we were among the few who were drinking. We left there with a growler (awesome) and headed over to their main brewery to pick up a bumper sticker. Our server at the brewpub had actually called ahead to see if they had stickers available (very cool dude), and when we asked for one, the very kind lady at the merchandise desk gave it to us gratis. So, Schlafly gets an A+ from me!
With a long drive ahead of us, we headed west once more (less an hour delay to get the laptop that I left at the hostel...blonde moment!).
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Quote of the day
(post grand Teton brewing co)
Kyle: Mikey, Sunny, The Dee? Get it?
Meghan:... No
Kyle: It's always sunny!
Meghan:... Who's Mikey?
Cashier: he's our cook.
Kyle: Mikey, Sunny, The Dee? Get it?
Meghan:... No
Kyle: It's always sunny!
Meghan:... Who's Mikey?
Cashier: he's our cook.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Quote of the day
Kyle: and we have those hotdogs we. Can eat tonight for dinner
Meghan: they've been sitting out for 3 days in the heat...
Kyle: they're baking! That's a delicacy.
Meghan: this is on par with the Cedar Point Incident (Kyle tried to claim a silly band he found, in the dirt and hairballs next to a roller coaster, as his own.) and that other one... What was it?
Kyle: I ate that peanut I found Ob the seat under my butt.
Meghan: no, it was worse...
Kyle: oh! I ate that M&M I found in the center console that I didn't know where it came from.
Meghan: that was a private moment.
Kyle: .... Yeeaahhh
Meghan: they've been sitting out for 3 days in the heat...
Kyle: they're baking! That's a delicacy.
Meghan: this is on par with the Cedar Point Incident (Kyle tried to claim a silly band he found, in the dirt and hairballs next to a roller coaster, as his own.) and that other one... What was it?
Kyle: I ate that peanut I found Ob the seat under my butt.
Meghan: no, it was worse...
Kyle: oh! I ate that M&M I found in the center console that I didn't know where it came from.
Meghan: that was a private moment.
Kyle: .... Yeeaahhh
Friday, September 9, 2011
Fievel Goes West
After dealing with a night of very little sleep, between my cramping legs and the freak thunderstorm (they are much cooler watching them from my parents couch than thru the "window" on the rainfly) we packed up our soaking wet tent and stuffed it into some trash bags. We thought we were clever the night before and pulled out a change of clothing and packed the rest of the car up. Both our planned outfits were soaked.
We set out for cedar point, it was kinda busy because it was labor day weekend, but the lines were no where near as bad as they could have been. In fact the only line that took more than 45 minutes (we only did coasters) was Millenium Force, a top ranked -world wide- roller coaster. Just before we got on, a kid puked in a few spots while leaving the ride. We got a front row view of how they clean that up. ...Wash your hands every chance you get in an amusement park.
We set out for Chicago, about a 5 hour drive, where we crashed a birthday party for my friend's dog, Loki. They had a fire pit going and a selection of awesome food and local brews. We spent the night chatting about zombies and Gary Indiana (Kyle directed me into a town that made me want to padlock our doors). We passed out fairly early in their guest room (thank you Erik and Maura!)
The next day we got a tour from Erik and Maura, a born and raised as well as a transplants view.
The city was clean and pretty empty from the holiday and we got a lot of great photos. The lake looked pissed (we later learned there were pretty serious rip tides both there and up and down the east coast).
We finished off our tour with some authentic pizza and headed home to relax for a little bit before we started the trip to St. Louis.
We set out for cedar point, it was kinda busy because it was labor day weekend, but the lines were no where near as bad as they could have been. In fact the only line that took more than 45 minutes (we only did coasters) was Millenium Force, a top ranked -world wide- roller coaster. Just before we got on, a kid puked in a few spots while leaving the ride. We got a front row view of how they clean that up. ...Wash your hands every chance you get in an amusement park.
We set out for Chicago, about a 5 hour drive, where we crashed a birthday party for my friend's dog, Loki. They had a fire pit going and a selection of awesome food and local brews. We spent the night chatting about zombies and Gary Indiana (Kyle directed me into a town that made me want to padlock our doors). We passed out fairly early in their guest room (thank you Erik and Maura!)
The next day we got a tour from Erik and Maura, a born and raised as well as a transplants view.
The city was clean and pretty empty from the holiday and we got a lot of great photos. The lake looked pissed (we later learned there were pretty serious rip tides both there and up and down the east coast).
We finished off our tour with some authentic pizza and headed home to relax for a little bit before we started the trip to St. Louis.
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