Thanksicking

As I write this, I only wish I was coming off of the yearly "turkey hangover"...but alas..not only am I not suffering from a turkey hangover, or any food for that matter....I am sick. Fever-y, vomit-y, achey sick.

I must admit I am feeling better today than yesterday by about 10 fold..which is why I decided to quick break out the blog this morning in case I am just on a high from 10 hours of sleep.

My Mom came up to the Cities to celebrate Thanksgiving. Since it was just the 3 of us we decided to do a Roast instead of a Turkey, and it was very good. We had some sweet potatoes, lefse, cranberries, salad and pumpkin pie. Yum!

We walked the Turkey Trot 5K that morning, and met up the with Schuster clan for a little while.

Then we went on a new adventure...shopping at 10PM on Thanksgiving night at the outlet mall. Fast Forward to 2AM when we were crawling into bed, with some great purchases under our belt and dreams of more deals to come Friday morning.

Needless to say we weren't busting down doors at 5AM Friday morning, but we still put in a full day of shopping...especially since was starting to feel 'off'.

The progression of my 48 hour (?--heres hoping) bug cut the weekend short, and Mom headed back home Saturday.

P.S. I sucked with my camera this weekend...if I woudl have had it you would have seen the following:

1) Picture of us walking it out on the Turkey Day 5K
2) Picture of Mom and I at 2AM with all of our shopping bags, and a picture of the ridiculous traffic backed up on the freeway at 2AM trying to get INTO the mall.
3) Me on the couch sick as a dog

A 6-Pack Thanksgiving

Saturday night was the first Thanksgiving in the Hanson household. We hosted the 6-pack which always proves to be a fabulous time. It was really fun to get to use lots of stuff that we haven't used yet since getting married. I even tried my hand at some fancy napkin folding.

The theme of the night was Thanksgiving with a twist. So basically we tried to make the typical food but with a little something special to it. For us that meant doing a Turduckin....a Chicken in a Duck in a Turkey. I was adamently opposed to this, but with some pleading from Nate and support from Summer the Turduckin was a go. Here was the pre-shot and post shot of the wonderful bird(s).


And the proud chef, taking the first step to a interesting carving process.



We definitely didn't go hungry as each couple brought some fabulous side dishes: from corn souffle, to a yummy goat cheese salad, mashed potatoes, garlic green beans and more..there was food galore.

Poor Ryan had just had eye surgery so he was in pain, and sporting some killer shades all night long..but he was a great sport.

Dessert was incredible...Summer brought these crazy sinful chocolate dipped pecan-shortbread bars...seriously my mouth is watering just thinking about it. I tried out a pumpkin cheesecake, but it paled in comparison to the pecan heaven.

It was fun to do some pre-celebrating with friends to get into the Holiday spirit.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Mojito Madness

Friday night all of the girls that work in Big G went out for a 'tour de mojitos' if you will. We had an original plan all mapped out based on some review in a local magazine, but then practicality took hold, and we made our path based on the fact that it is freezing cold, and wanted to minimize the time outdoors.

So first stop was Palomino. I have to admit, I was kind of hating on this choice because it seems so...generic. But...they by far had the best mojito of the night. I believe this was a cranberry pomegranate mojito..or something long those lines. I sucked 2 down in no time...bad news.


Then we went to one of my all-time favorite spots..Solera. I have to say I was extremely disappointed with the mojito here. It had huge potential as it's flavor was ginger-peach...but the bartendar messed it up royally..

Final stop was supposed to be the new tequila bar Barrio, but there was a 2 hour wait and we just weren't having it. So we went to the Newsroom...which is DEFINITELY not known for its Mojitos...and it was apparent.


But we still had fun. Good girl bonding time after a long few months of plans at work.


I was slightly regretting the drinks at midnight when we were at Byerlys trying to figure out what Turkey/Chicken/Duck to buy for the Turduckin that Nate is making...

Great Food: Episode 20

Funny that our 20th episode of Great Food Fast was marred by the flooding of our basement.

Whether it was perserverance or pure frugality of already purchasing the ingredients for our recipe...we went ahead and made our dinner anyway.

This is slightly delayed as we actually made this Wednesday night, but I was jamming out a paper and had class last night, so IWII (it is what it is...common phrase in the Hanson household).

SO...(and Debra I know this will be painful for you since this was your meal)...we made:

Orchiette with Roasted Peppars and Sweet Italian Sausage. We also made a side dish of Roasted Fennel.

The pasta was really good. We couldn't find any GD Orchiette to save our soul...Cub, Byerly's, Trader Joe's, Target...nada. So we used mini ravioli's that had cheese in them...which turned out to be a delicious choice.

Next time, my vote is for smaller chunks of sausage. I get grossed out by huge chunks of hamburger unless it is in patty form. I know...I'm weird.

Reheating verdict: Excellent. Nate said that it was absolutely delicious for lunch. This has become a more critical success factor of our meals as we both pack our lunch everyday and I'm packing dinner 2 nights a week for class.

Onto the Roasted Fennel..........yuck.........enough said. Felt pretty good about not having company over to taste that crap. Another bright side of the flood..Hmm....

Also...wanted to thank Nate for making this ENTIRE meal by himself while I started my paper. I'm so lucky to have such a great hubby.

FYI: The game of tag spreads

For those of you who may not be tracking the comments section of past posts, please take note:

Uncle Todd has fulfilled on is game of tag...and has tagged three more people. You better check to see if you are one of them..(ahem Nate...Dad...NICK..).

Good luck. Have fun.

Oh Snap

The title of this blog could have easily been titled "Oh F***" but I figured half of you would forever be blocked from my site for profane language.

So we were all set to have a fab Great Food Fast night tonight (with a special guest...stay tuned). I raced home only to find Nate shirtless with bike pants on looking FRANTIC. It was quite the sight.

Anyway, long story short a main water line burst or something along those lines and we had loads of water all over in our basement. Good times.


So after many calls to my Dad, some insurance peeps, and Kara (THANK YOU!) for an emergency plumber, we are all set.

The awesome insurance people just left...check out some of the pics below. The camo overall straps are SA-WEET.

Given the frickin sweet ass tile that was under our carpet, we are considering just getting rid of the carpet all together. I mean really...does it get cooler than that? It's like the Amazing Technicolor Dreamfloor.

Happy Tuesday to us.

Tag!

Just when I was wondering what my next blog topic would be about I got tagged by Emily!

Sounds fun right? Well it is definitely more fun then what I am doing right now (sitting in the worst class of all time), and it requires more thought than what I am doing right now (sitting in the worst class of all time).

SO...I got tagged, and what that means for me is that I need to:

1) Write 3 things about myself I like
2) Tag 3 more people
3) Go on in peace (I know Dad...you are thinking this is too cosmic for you..but hang with me).

So the first item is definitely the hardest. I think it is difficult to admit you like something about yourself, for fear of appearing pompous, or something worse. But here goes.

1) I like that I am passionate. No one can accuse me of being lacksedasical, half-hearted, or easy to push over....ESPECIALLY when it comes to something I am passionate about: family, friends, work, being healthy, etc. I can't say this always keeps me out of trouble, but I like that I actually care about the things that are going on in my life enough to go to the mat for it and stick to my guns. When a lady is being disrespectful to the Avis driver, I let her know. When someone is dissing my friend, I let them know they are wrong. When my Professor literally sucks at his job and is ruining my life..I let him know. (No honestly...ask anyone in my class...I totally lost my sh*t on my Professor last week). I don't stand idly by...


2) I like that I am learning how to hold back. I guess this one goes slightly hand in hand with #1. I am learning to recognize situations when it just doesn't make sense to try to expend energy to try to change it because it just isn't going to be change. This is true both in personal and professional instances. Now I just need to work on how to not show it on my face. Darn those emotions on my sleeve.

3) I like that I am reliable. On the whole, I feel I am a very reliable to those people in my life that I care for, respect and want to do good things for. I definitely am a pinch hitter at work and do a bunch of random projects when people need someone in a pinch. I think I am reliable in another way for friends/family. I hope and think they all know I would drop anything in a heart beat to help one of them out.

Alright..that was definitely the hard part.

Now the fun part! Who to tag...well not too many of my friends have jumped on the blog bandwagon...but I know some of you check this quite frequently, so you can post your three things in the comments section if you are blogless.

Tag Debra, Tag Todd, and Tag Meghan!

On Wisconsin!

We headed to Madison this weekend to visit Rachel and go to a Badger game. It was so much fun to get to hang with Rachel as it had been forever since I had last seen her! We rolled into town and headed straight for the Big 10 Bar where I enjoyed a Bloody Mary (my pregame drink of choice) and Nate quickly started downing beers.


Before we headed to the stadium to cheer the Badgers on, we stopped by Greenbush Bakery. This place emitted the most delicious donutty smell every single day in college. It took me back to Safewalking days. It would be midnight...Union South shift....late night donuts...mmmmm.

So we voted on sharing a chocolate old-fashioned...so freakin good.

The game was SO much fun. The first half not as fun as the second half when we came back from a 13 point deficit! ;)

To top it all off it started snowing in the 3rd quarter and it looked like a HUGE snow globe. It made me so excited for the holidays.

College nostalgia was running high and it was sad to leave. I was very jealous of the college kids, and I knew it was over for me when the bouncer at the bar barely looked at my ID before letting me in. SAD.

Great Food Fast: Solo Edition

Our weekly Great Food Fast dinner was a sort of sad affair this week. We had picked out the recipe and bought all of the groceries on Sunday for a fabulous dinner on Tuesday night.

Well, Monday morning I found out I was heading out to the "Fat Farm" in LA to do an integration segment with Cheerios...ON TUESDAY.

So I told Nate to go ahead and make the dinner without me since we had already bought all of the ingrediants. The dish was "Chicken with Poblano and Cream Sauce."

Nate thought it was good, and I had the leftovers for the next night of class. Oh and yes..you are seeing that picture right...Nate had flowers to greet me after the trip to LA. I know...I am very lucky!

Hold Please

Dear Loyal Blog Readers-

My schedule has spun out of control this week, and therefore I had to cut something out.

I haven't turned on a TV since Sunday.
I haven't really done any school work, except attend class (and berate my Professor).
I haven't seen my husband more than 5 minutes at a time since Sunday night.
I haven't been blogging.

I realize not blogging saves me only like 10 minutes of my day, but at this point everything counts.

So hold please while I try to catch up. First up on catching up...sleep. I found out Monday afternoon that I was going to LA---YESTERDAY. We took the red eye home, got in at 7AM, passed out for 2 hours and then rolled into work foggy-eyed and droopy tailed.

I had a work dinner tonight and tomorrow is class. SO--more to come Friday night. Hope everyone is having a great week!

Go Pack Go

I was lucky enough to "come into" 4 Packers/Vikings game tickets for this afternoon. Having never been to a NFL game before, I was pretty excited for the big game.

Summer, Kate, Nate and I met up for some pre-game drinks, which ended with a pre-game shot. Now, I honestly can say that I haven't drank FOREVER, and since we ran out of milk this morning before I got to eat my cereal, I drank on an empty stomach. The end result was a fairly drunk Greta entering the Metrodome. Lucky for me everyone was up for a little drinking so I wasn't alone!

Nate was a stand-up guy listening to us talk about upcoming holiday plans, shopping, planning a NYC trip, and pretty much anything but football. He was content with his beer and the crowd. And lucky for him there were lots and lots and lots of heavily make-upped cheerleaders to watch.

Unfortunately for us, the Packers lost by ONE freakin point. DANG! But it was still fun! Ironically, it felt like very little football was actually played. I'm not sure if this was because of all of the TV breaks/time-outs that you don't really notice at home, or because we just weren't paying that close of attention. Hmmm...

And now it is Sunday night, and I am feeling slightly hungover, raspy voiced, and tired. But I would do it again in a heartbeat, and it was definitely the highlight of the weekend.

Must See

I know the election is already over, and if you are like me you are defintiely sick of anything related to the election.

But this video is worth sharing, and viewing because it is so freakin cute. I also posted the lyrics below!

Obama on the left

McCain on the right
We can talk politics all night
And you can vote however you like
You can vote however you like, yeah

Democratic left
Republican right
November 4th we decide
And you can vote however you like
You can vote however you like, yeah

(McCain supporters)
McCain's the best candidate
With Palin as his running mate
They'll fight for gun rights, pro life,
The conservative right
Our future is bright
Better economy in site
And all the world will feel our military might

(Obama supporters)
But McCain and Bush are real close right T
hey vote alike and keep it tight
Obama's new, he's younger too
The Middle Class he will help you
He'll bring a change, he's got the brains
McCain and Bush are just the same
You are to blame, Iraq's a shame
Four more years would be insane

Lower your Taxes - you know Obama Won't
PROTECT THE LOWER CLASS - You know McCain won't!
Have enough experience - you know that they don't
STOP GLOBAL WARMING - you know that you won't
I want Obama
FORGET OBAMA
Stick with McCain and you're going to have some drama
We need it
HE'LL BRING IT
He'll be it
YOU'LL SEE IT
We'll do it
GET TO IT
Let's move it
DO IT!

Obama on the left
McCain on the right
We can talk politics all night
And you can vote however you like
You can vote however you like, yeah

Democratic left
Republican right
November 4th we decide
And you can vote however you like,
I said You can vote however you like, yeah

I'm talking big pipe lines, and low gas prices
Below $2.00 that would be nice

But to do it right we gotta start today
Finding renewable ways that are here to stay
I want Obama
FORGET OBAMA,
Stick wit McCain you gone have some drama
MORE WAR IN IRAQ
Iran he will attack
CAN'T BRING OUR TROOPS BACK
We gotta vote Barack!

Great Food: Episode 19

First, I can't ignore the amazing moments of last night. Nate and I planned to make dinner and hunker down to watch the election coverage all night. Little did we know, that red states would turn blue, turn-out would be up, and CNN would call the election at 10:01. It was incredible to watch, and inspiring to be a part of it.

So what did we cook up for election night? Unfortunately, we didn't get creative with red and blue food, but we did pull out Great Food Fast and tried our hand at two dishes.

First up was Creamy Broccoli Soup. The best part of this soup is that there wasn't really any cream in it at all. It was all broccoli, chicken broth, and onion pureed. Only 1 table spoon of oil for the whole batch, which makes this one healthy soup!

We also tried our hand at Roasted Pears and Sweet Potatoes. Technically a side dish.....but we ate it more as our main dish. I think Nate may have still been hungry afterwards.

Anyway, at first I wasn't sure I liked them at first. The spices seemed off. Basically you take ground mustard, cayenne, and ground ginger and toss them with a few tablespoons of oil and the sweet potatoes before putting them in the oven. I think where I went wrong was that I should have mixed the dry spices together first, and then tossed.

So the point of the story is that they definitely grew on me, and by the end of my bowl, I wanted more. I think there is room for improvement, but we will definitely try these again.

Monday Morning Humor

Some humor for you on this fine Monday Morning. This was a sign we saw in San Diego last weekend. To be honest, we don't even know how "Pho" is pronounced. It could be like "fo" or like "po".

Clearly one is more funny than the other. Either way, Nate and I got a big kick out of it. What can I say? We are easily amused.