Oops...we did it again!

The whole time we lived at our last house, I vowed that the next house we bought was going to be 'turn key'. "Ben, I am willing to paint, but other than that I am done with projects". Well, that didn't quite happen. We put our house on the market the Tuesday after labor day and it was sold on Thursday. We were thrilled, because keeping our house clean for showings was old after having done it for 2 days. :) Now the fun began, or so I thought, looking for new houses. The first day we looked at 15 houses, and we loved one of the houses, it had been on the market since June, it had been at the same price since July. We wanted to make an offer, but we wanted to make sure our inspection at our current house was fine before we made an offer. The house sold the very next day, Ben and I were pretty disappointed.

The search continued, I looked at houses on my day off with our realtors, who we really liked, which was good since we were going to be spending a lot of time together. After a few weeks, I had looked at 70 houses, and there was nothing we wanted to buy. I think there as maybe 1 or 2 other houses that we looked at twice. We were now into October, 3 weeks from moving and had no prospects for houses. Our realtors suggested that we expand the area we were looking to buy in since, I had exhausted all options in St. Louis Park, Golden Valley, Hopkins, and New Hope. They wanted us to look in Plymouth, which I believe my response was "I will live in Plymouth over my dead body". I have nothing against Plymouth but the whole point of moving was to get much closer to the city, and Plymouth still seemed very far out. Well Ben saw a house online, fell in love with it, didn't tell me about it and casually asked our realtors to add it to the list of houses to look at. The night before we went to look at houses, Ben let it slip that he loved this house, the yard was great, it is by a school, the street is quiet, and "It has a 4 car garage!".

The house was in Plymouth so I was less than thrilled, also after looking at the pictures, the kitchen was hideous. I had basically decided I would humor Ben, and go look at the house but that was it. We went to the showing we looked. The house was much bigger than I wanted, but it had a few nice things, 5 bedrooms all on one level (that were all decent size), a big living room and dining room, an attached garage. There were many negative things, it had ugly carpet in half the house, and everything was outdated, the project list was terribly long. If it hadn't been for Ben's deep love for the house, I probably would have walked away. I really hated the house, I couldn't picture living there, but over the next few days I started to research some projects, decided I would consider it, and we did a second showing. The second showing my parents, my aunt and uncle and my cousin were there. It was wonderful to have them all look at the house, but I was beyond over whelmed, my project list was multiplied by about 80. :) We did decide it was a house we could grow into, it had good "bones" and we were going to make an offer. The house had been on the market since the beginning of summer, had dropped the price on the house by $40k, but was still over priced for all of the work it needed. We made an offer $35k less than current price of the home, knew our offer would get rejected but that was my caveat for buying the house. We had to get it at a price where we could still afford to do all of the projects it needed. The buyers countered back at 10K under asking, not surprising, and Ben and I left to go to Washington DC for 10 days.

We decided it the house was still for sale when we got home we could talk about making another offer but while we were in DC we were taking a break from houses. Ben was super nervous the house was going to sell, I was still working through house renovation plans in my head. We got home from DC, they sellers had dropped the price by $15k, and I went to look at other houses. Ben and I were pretty sure the sellers were not going to come down to the price we wanted. At this point we were 7 days from moving out of house. While I was out looking at other houses, our Realtor casually mentioned that the sellers realtor had called and wanted to know what they could do to get the deal done. I found a house that I really liked that day, it was a lot less projects but also a lot smaller than the house we had been negotiating on. That night Ben and I decided to look at the house I liked, and then the house he loved again. We decided to make another offer on the project house. The sellers countered again, and at this point I wasn't sure I wanted to spend that much money on the house that needed projects.

We packed up our old house, moved most our belongings into 2 storage units and moved our necessities into my parents house. We were going to live with them for 6 weeks and if we had no plans after 6 weeks, we were going to move to an apartment for the winter. We cried when we left Sandy Lane, it was the house where we fell in love, realized we could survive renovations together, and where Ben proposed. That house was a labor of love, and when we left it, it was a beautiful house. The fact that we had no plans for a new house, made it a whole lot harder. We continued to look for houses to come on the market, but nothing was coming on the market. After about 2 weeks at my parents, we went to an open house on Sunday that my aunt had alerted me was going on, it was in Golden Valley, it seemed to meet the requirements of what we wanted. We went to look at it, and it was disgusting. It smelled, it was dirty, it was smaller than house we had been making offers on, and it was $20k more than what we were currently at in negotiations. At that point, I realized that we were not going to find another house, which as much space as the Plymouth house for the price we were at in negotiations. On our drive home from the open house, I turned to Ben and said, lets buy the Plymouth house. Ben was a good sport, and made sure I wasn't just saying that because we had no other options, and then he was soooo excited! I was finally sure we wanted the house, so I called our realtor and 20 minutes later we signed papers to buy this house on our phones in the parking lot of a grocery store.

We survived the inspection without any terrible news, began really planning for the projects and prepared to move in. Moving weekend went really well becuase we had wonderful friends and family that all came to make the weekend a success. A special shout out to those who helped clean, it was a disgusting job and we really appreciate your help. So now I am sitting here writing this from our couch, at our new house, full of projects, in Plymouth. Ha!

The good news, there should be plenty of blogging happening about projects in the future.

Here are the pictures of the house from when it was on the market:

Th e master bedroom, nice blue carpet...right? 

The Kitchen, painted counter tops, sticker black splash....

For the record, now I really do love our house, and I am very glad we purchased it! We have already done some projects, so stayed tuned, more posts to come!

Cheers,

Ali

Week 5- Still going strong!

Another box of vegetables arrived on my counter yesterday evening (via Ben) so it must be time for a weekly wrap up of our veggie success. We spent last weekend removing glue from our cement floor in the basement which was an extremely messy job, that I am very happy is over. After a very long work day on Saturday, I whipped up another batch of Easy Summer Quinoa. I stepped up the spice level this round, and we both enjoyed it. We also enjoyed a bottle of white wine and an evening free of projects. :) 

Monday night after a very long day of work, I arrived home at 7:15 and was STARVING. Luckily, I had put the chicken in the marinade before work for our Greek Chicken Gyros. Ben started grilling the chicken and zucchini when I was about 20 minutes from home, so when I walked in the door all I had to do was whip up the tzatziki sauce. Now, if you read the recipe it says something about letting the cucumbers sit for 40 minutes before your make the sauce. I decided to let mine sit for 4 seconds, while I whipped the food processor out of the pantry. I also didn't measure any ingredients and estimated the amounts of things. Guess what? It was still delicious, and instead of 40 minutes to make the sauce it took about 5. Maybe it would have been super amazing had I let the cucumbers sit for 40 minutes but I doubt it. We had a side of grilled zucchini that Ben sliced and tossed in olive oil before grilling. Travis, my brother in law was visiting, and he decided the recipe was a success as well. After dinner we went out for ice cream where we realized Trav is still about 7 years old and can't eat a dish of ice cream without becoming covered in it...hahaha. It was very fun to have him visit!

About the pictures of this dish....I forgot, my body was so hungry I didn't even remember until Tuesday that I didn't take pictures. 

I had left over tzatziki sauce that I ate today on a salad with romaine lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes (from the grocery store) and pita bread. Also, I just realized there was recipe to make your own greek flatbread....that probably wont ever happen, especially not on a work night. 

Tuesday night we had burgers with Sauteed Kale and Kohlrabi, the same recipe I used a few weeks ago. This time, I used my new mandolin I purchased at Crate and Barrel and my fingers were not sliced open. It was a rather nice change. Then we spent the night scrubbing the basement floor so we could paint it later in the week. We really have the most glamorous lives! 

Wednesday I went to Happy Hour and I ate zero vegetables for dinner. It was lovely, don't get me wrong I love to cook, and I am enjoying our veggies but I love sitting down ordering a beer and some appetizers and having someone else cook. Ben went to his own happy hour and then painted the basement floor- Thanks Ben!! 

When I was menu planning, I figured I had Friday off, so why not throw a whole boatload of food on Thursday night. I arrived home from work last night, and made Lettuce Wraps again, Glazed Turnips and Roasted Fennel with Parmesan. The lettuce wraps were good again but this time I used left over Romaine...it was kind of a disaster. The butter lettuce we used the first time worked much better. Last time we had turnips I just put them with some sweet potatoes and totally covered up the taste. This time I glazed the turnips (and burnt a few...I got distracted trying to put the new veggies away) and we both enjoyed them. I also took one of my most dreaded ingredients and made a dish both Ben and I enjoyed. I wont lie, instead of tasting fennel all we tasted was salt and cheese...yum! Next time we get fennel I should probably make something where you can taste the fennel but we ate it, so I will call it a win! I even remembered to take a picture but I just looked at it, and it is terribly blurry. So we will call it a fail on the week for pictures, sorry. Just pretend all my dishes look just like the pictures on the recipe. 

What is in the box for this week? A pretty good assortment but just when I thought I was free of the beets....we got more beets last night. Seriously, enough of the beets already. I know some people like beets but I am not one of those people (I think, I have never tried them). I would try them but I am too scared of dying my counters purple, and really don't think potential buyers would be impressed by that, so for now, no beets. But everyone who likes beets, let me know, maybe you will get a surprise gift! 

Here is the list for this week:

1. Zucchini

2. Cabbage

3. Beets

4. Bell Peppers

5. Lacinato Kale

6. Sage

7. Carrots

8. Long Red of Tropea Onions

9. Cucumbers

I have some good things planned for this week. I am off to spend the next hour painting the basement floor with my husband. Then we are going out on a date because we both deserve it after this week! 

Cheers, 

Ali 

A weak week.....

Thank goodness we took a bunch of veggies to the cabin with us last weekend, or we wouldn't have eaten many of them. We brought lettuce, cucumbers, broccoli, and cilantro. We used them in salads, and a veggie tray and poof they were gone. When we arrived home on Sunday night after a particularly long drive, I decided to whip up Easy Summer Quinoa which utilized the kale and zucchini from our CSA and basil from our garden. Ben was not excited about this dish because there was no meat but after 4 days of eating and drinking way too much crap, I decided a veggie filled dish was a good idea. After 2 bites Ben proclaimed that he loved it, and has asked me twice this week to make it again, so we are going to have it tonight for dinner. 

This is a pic of Ben's second helping, we devoured our first bowls and forgot to take a picture!

We ate the peas and the carrots raw as side dishes this week. I made enchiladas and pizza this week...both of which didn't utilize the CSA. It was a busy week so the new recipes were not happening. 

We did okay on the CSA items....here is what we have left: the beets (surprise), scallions and parsley. The scallions and parsley I should easily be able to use this week, and GREAT news...I found a home for the beets. I found at least 2 people at work who like beets so they are getting a lovely delivery on Monday. It is the only veggie we haven't tried that we have received....so not doing too bad. 

Thursday came fast this week- all the sudden it was time to get more veggies. My usual 2 minute commute to pick up our CSA box took about 20 this week because a bush decided to crash into some concrete barriers and block the main road in and out of downtown Mound. I was dedicated to getting our veggies though, took the back way to the pick up place and was successful. Here is what is on tap for this week: 

1. Kohlrabi 

2. Hakurei Turnips

3. Zucchini 

4. Cucumbers 

5. Lacinato Kale 

6. Lettuce 

7. Peas 

8. Fennel

Fennel and turnips are going to be the challenges to cook with this week but I think we can come up with something! 

Cheers, 

A

Going Strong

Well we made it through week 2 and we are going strong. I am actually really enjoying being challenged to cook with ingredients I would have never purchased. Ben and I are discovering we really do like a lot of vegetables we didn't think we would. This week I was especially dreading eating collard greens, more on that later. Let's start at the beginning.

On Sunday Ben and I spent the majority of our day working on our basement tearing up the remnants of vinyl/linoleum flooring that was glued to the cement floor. Terrible project and I am very glad to be finished with it. Ben did 2/3 of the work, and I would work shifts. At one point I begged to go to the grocery store (my least favorite place on a Sunday), in order to take a break. Luckily Ben loves food just as much as I do, so I was granted a free pass to run to the grocery store.

Sunday night as a reward for our hard work, I whipped up a locally grown meal (for the most part). I picked fresh basil from my overgrown pot of basil on the patio and made Grilled Chicken with Basil Dressing. I actually followed the recipe for the most part, I omitted the fennel, and used boneless chicken breasts but other than that I followed the instructions. Last week we were just dipping our toes into the world of Kale and Kohlrabi, so this week I decided we need to try them more natural. I made Sauteed Kale with Kohlrabi. The only change I made was replacing the salted pistachios with unsalted roasted sunflower seeds. I have to say this is one dish I would absolutely make again, in fact I could eat a bowl of it right now (and is 5:50 in the morning). I definitely do need a mandoline slicer to slice the kohlrabi. I used a box grater that had slicing blades on the side. While the Kohlrabi came out fine, it took my thumb about 3 days to recover from being sliced open then covered in lime juice when I juiced the limes. As with everything else, I am not a graceful cook. We rounded out our plate with grilled garlic scapes. I didn't use a recipe for this, just brushed them with olive oil and grilled them in our veggie basket on the grill. They have a very mild garlic flavor and were fine...I wouldn't purchase them, but if we get them in our CSA box again I wouldn't be upset. We also split a bottle of wine (locally grown at Trader Joes) to celebrate finishing the basement....yum! 

Yes, my chicken is half gone...I forgot to take a picture earlier :) 

Ratings:
Basil Chicken: Ali-8, Ben-7
Sauteed Kale with Kohlrabi: Ali-10 (Lets take a moment and appreciate this, I started out 2 weeks ago claiming to HATE Kale). Ben- 8
Grilled Garlic Scapes: Ali-5  Ben-6

On Monday, the food I was dreading was up for cooking. We made burgers on the grill (locally grown at Costco- ha!), with Sweet and Tangy Sauteed Collard Greens, and the left over Sweet Potato Turnip Swirl I made on Friday. I had a heck of a time finding a recipe for collard greens that seemed even a tiny bit healthy, every recipe contained bacon (which here is a confesssion, I don't really like bacon) or a ton of cream cheese. Don't get me wrong I love unhealthy food, love it, dream about it, eat it pretty frequently but the point of getting the CSA box was not to figure out how to eat vegetables covered in bacon mixed with a brick of cream cheese. So I searched for recipes with collard greens without bacon and stumbled upon the recipe linked above. In this recipe I used Olive oil instead of vegetable oil, and replaced the 5 tablespoons of melted butter with olive oil. This recipe was pretty good but I would decrease the amount of dressing by 50%. Our collard greens were dripping in dressing. I do realize this is my fault for just dumping the whole thing of dressing I made on the greens, but then I poured a ton of it off the greens and it was still dripping in dressing. The balsamic vinegar gives the greens a nice kick, and Ben and I were both pleasantly surprised not to hate Collard Greens. 

Oh yes, there was cheese on top of the potatoes and collard greens. Ben is from Wisconsin, we LOVE cheese. :) 

Ratings: 
Sweet & Tangy Collard Greens: Ali- 6  Ben- 6


Lets review how we did this week, here is what I have left from the box: 
Broccoli, Cucumbers and Cilantro that are going to the cabin with us
Green Onion that will hopefully still be good
A little of the speckled romaine lettuce (we used this in salads, on sandwiches but not main dishes)
Green Onions
Beets from week one

So far I have not let any vegetables go into the garbage.....so I am considering it a success. The box for this week that we pick up today is loaded with goodies, nothing I am scared to cook. 

Here is the list: 

Curly kale

Red romaine lettuce

Parsley

Beets

Carrots

Cucumbers

Zucchini 

Peas

Scallions

Okay I lied, there are more beets this week. Help me out people, what do you do with beets? 

Happy 4th of July!!! 

Cheers, 

Ali 

Pressure...

The pressure of getting a new box of veggies every week and trying to use them in a week is huge. I have to say our first week went pretty good, and we have used everything except for the beets. Great news....except we got a whole new box yesterday.

To use our veggies this week we tried a few new recipes, and I ate a couple salads. I have to say Ben has been liking most of the veggies more than I thought he would.

Ben and I had lettuce wraps at a restaurant a few months ago and ever since then he has been wanting me to make them at home. Since we had a head of butter lettuce in the fridge we decided now was the time. I used the PF Chang's Chicken Lettuce Wrap recipe from the site Damn Delicious, and as usual the recipes from this site never disappoint. Ben claims to hate water chestnuts, I love them, so I put them in the dish. I also ended up using ground turkey breast in this recipe since that is what I had in the freezer. Ben and I both really enjoyed  this dish. I also made Sauteed Radishes, which we both enjoyed.

Ratings: Lettuce Wraps- Ali: 8 Ben:8   Sauteed Radishes- Ali: 7 Ben: 7

I was dreading using the kale because the last time I ate Kale, I hated it. I made Kale chips and ended up throwing most of them away. The pasta dish I made this time made me not hate Kale. To be honest you really can't taste the kale in this dish. I thought this recipe was okay, I like the pasta but I think it was missing something. I would consider adding fresh tomatoes in addition to the sun dried tomatoes and some more heat to this dish. This dish was a little risky to make for Ben because he hates beans, usually I just skip beans in recipes but I decided to take a risk. Besides pouting about the beans, Ben did eat the dish and I think he liked it. I didn't take a picture of this one.
Ratings: Ali-6 Ben- 7

Finally, tonight on my exciting Friday night in (that might sound sarcastic but I was thrilled to be at home tonight after a busy week) I decided to listen to the thunderstorm roll in, drink a spotted cow, whip up a salad, and some Sweet Potato Turnip Swirl. This recipe was good, I enjoyed the citrus flavor the orange zest added. I did not add the sugar it calls for, and I did not miss it at all in the dish. Ben is out at happy hour tonight, so he has not tried these yet, but I am sure they will be a snack when he gets home.
Ratings: Ali- 7 Ben-TBD

Here is a preview of what we got yesterday in the new box of veggies:
1. Kohlrabi
2. Freckles Romaine Lettuce
3. Garlic Scapes
4. Scallions
5. Cucumbers
6. Collard Greens
7. Broccoli
8. Cilantro
9. Rainbow Lacinato Kale

I have to figure how to eat all of this, plus beets before we leave to go out of town on Thursday (and pick up another new box). I am enjoying the challenge so far and we have had some fun new meals. If you have any meal ideas for the items above, I am open to suggestions. :)

Cheers,
Ali

A New Series....CSA Cooking

I am going to start a new blogging series, hopefully this will be more than 1 post. :) Ben and I have had a busy few months but we finally wrapped up the wedding activities last weekend. The weddings were awesome but we are ready to get back to boring normal life.

We decided to sign up for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm share. We get a box of produce every week from now through mid October. We decided it would be a good way to try new vegetables, eat a little healthier and try new recipes. I love to cook, and it gives me an excuse to use all my new kitchen gadgets. :)

Yesterday we got our first box of veggies, and it contained a whole bunch of items I have never eaten. Here is the list for this week:

1. Kohlrabi
2. Beets
3. Hakurei Turnips
4. D’Avignon Radishes
5. Cilantro
6. Green Butterhead Lettuce
7. Lacinato Kale
8. Swiss Chard

I have never tried Kohlrabi, Beets, Turnips or Swiss Chard.

Tonight for dinner Ben and I decided to try Roasted Kohlrabi and Sauteed Swiss Chard. Ben and I were both more nervous about the Kohlrabi. It turned out that even though Ben pretended to gag while chopping it, we both really liked it. I think it helped that it had cheese all over it. :) I think it tastes like zucchini and has the texture of a potato. The Swiss chard was a little hard for me to choke down, it was kind of slimy. I think I might like it better in a different recipe.

Chopped Swiss Chard

Kholrabi Roasting

Swiss Chard all finished

Roasted Kholrabi

Dinner is served!

Here are our ratings (Scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being "never again" and 10 being "please make every night")
Roasted Kohlrabi:   Ben-6, Ali-7
Sauteed Swiss Chard: Ben-6, Ali-2

My goal is to blog about our adventures trying new veggies or at least new recipes at least once a week.

Cheers,

Ali

January Update!!

Happy 2015! I still don't believe that it is January already, but here we are enjoying subzero temperatures and hibernating so I guess I need to accept it. Ben and I have slowed down on the house project front, we have instead been spending more time at the gym, getting ready for the wedding, and binge watching TV series. I have to say, I have enjoyed the change. That said, we have done a few projects and have a few lingering I would like to see done this winter.

After much debate and discussion we decided to have Home Depot install our counter tops for us. Ben was pretty determined he was going to do it himself but somehow after 6 months of discussion, I wore him down. We decided to install new laminate counter tops; while stone counter tops are lovely we didn't want to invest that much money in this house. We picked out a color right before Thanksgiving, and they came out to measure the next week. 

We had been discussing what kind of sink we would like. I did not want stainless because we have terribly hard water and I didn't want to be constantly cleaning up water spots. I really wanted a granite composite sink. I did a bunch of research on them and there were pretty mixed reviews. The sink I was originally going to buy from Home Depot had terrible reviews, so after a lot of researching I found a sink I wanted. It was about $100 more then I wanted to spend. Being the bargain shopper that I am, I ended up finding the sink on Overstock.com, used a day after thanksgiving coupon and gift card, and ended up paying only $10 more than I wanted to spend. Problem solved. I was a little nervous about the sink because we had never seen it in person, I randomly picked a color from the swatches online but when the sink came we both loved it. 

The second week of December, the installer called to tell us the counter tops were ready to be installed. Ben and I were both shocked because this was about 3 weeks earlier than we were originally told, but also very excited. This led to me to do some very quick purchasing of a faucet for the sink (water spot and fingerprint resistant), I spent a little more than I wanted to but it was worth it to not have water spots. 

The day of install Ben and I both had the day off. We were told that they would be there between 9-11:30 to install the counter tops. We rushed through our workouts at the gym in order to be home and showered prior to the installers arrival. Ben had removed the counter tops and sink the night before so I was really hoping that the installer would show up, as our only sink at this point was the bathroom sink. :) At 9 am I convinced Ben to help me work on our playlist for the wedding dance and for the next 2.5 hours every time Ben or I thought we heard a car, Ben would jump up to look out the window to see if it was the counter top guy. For the record he didn't arrive until 11:27, so Ben spent a lot of time looking out the window. The installer showed up, and spent 3 hours installing the counter tops and cutting the hole for our sink. About half way through the process Ben stated that he was "so glad he was not installing the counter tops". Win for Ali!! 

After the counter tops were installed we had the fun 'couples bonding' project of installing the sink, faucet and hooking up the dishwasher. It was so much fun (please sense the sarcasm), Ben did most of the work, thank god and by the next afternoon I had a functioning kitchen again. 

The new counter tops are beautiful but I think my favorite part is the new sink. It is larger and deeper than our old sink and it is clean. For those of you that have never been to our house, our old sink was disgusting, it was stained, had huge chips in it and it never looked clean. It drove me crazy. The new sink is a huge improvement. We purchased some bar stools this past weekend, and are loving our new larger island. We had dinner "at the bar" last night. :) 

I was going to talk about other improvements but this post is way too long already...onto the pictures! 

Before pictures:  

In process pictures: 

Our first glance at the counter tops! 

Counter top installation complete!

All Done: 

Huge Improvement!

My favorite part!!

And just for fun- look how far we have come in 2 years: 

This is the oldest picture I could find of the kitchen (Before I moved in and Gary painted):

The paint, the doors, the floors, the appliances

And now: 

 More updates soon, I promise!

Cheers,

A