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All posts for the month September, 2016

Well That Took Long Enough…

Posted by James on September 13, 2016
Posted in: New Home. Tagged: , . 15 Comments

I know,

Sorry,

In Feb 2014, Jamie and I tore out our useless master bathroom. If y’all have been patiently waiting for some updates on the remodel, I’m so sorry it’s taken so long. There’s been a few setbacks, and major distractions (like a book deal), but it’s never left our focus.

Besides, I did say that we weren’t in any rush with this project. I did. Scroll back about a year and a half and see for yourselves.

So, here’s where we left y’all off with the tiling part.

main-wall-of-the-master-bath-covered-in-tile

And here’s me grouting that lovely sea of turquoise with bright white grout…

starting-the-master-bathroom-grout

applying-that-second-grouted-area

a-whole-days-worth-of-grouting

james-going-to-town-on-the-master-bathroom-grout

The bright white grout really sets off the turquoise tile.  As the Property Brothers say in every single freakin’ episode, “It makes it POP!”

This took just slightly longer than I anticipated….but, several, SEVERAL, SEVERAL, nonconsecutive hours later…we have this.

main-wall-of-the-master-abthroom-covered-in-tile-with-grout

wall-section-with-grout

shower-stall-with-grouted-tile

Pretty awesome, right? It’s actually starting to look like a functional bathroom.

We’re just about ready to tile the floor now.

And I haven’t revealed the floor/floors we choose (Over a year ago) yet.

Unfortunately, we have a busy next couple of weeks….but I wanted to prove that we haven’t forgotten. And won’t either…..

There’s more to come,

Come Hell of high water…….we will have a master bathroom again.

Blue Apron Meals

Posted by James on September 5, 2016
Posted in: New Home. Tagged: , . 8 Comments

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I’m a very good cook,

Jamie, not so much.

S0 I was a little surprised when he suggested that we try one of those meal delivery services. You know, the kind where they send you all the ingredients and directions to make a couple of home-cooked meals.

We chose Blue Apron.

(Hello Fresh was an option too….but I couldn’t get past the badly dubbed commercials.)

Here’s how our Blue Apron meals arrived on the doorstep.

Blue Apron Box Waiting on our Porch

Each cold-packed box, delivered every Monday, contains everything you’ll need for 3 full meals. (Except for olive oil and salt/pepper which every recipe called for)

We started with Sweet Chili Chicken with Tinkerbell Peppers, Green Beans & Coconut Rice.

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Chopped Peppers

Stir Frying the Chicken

Lots of chopping. Seriously, LOTS of chopping. But I have to say that I would never have tried Tinkerbell peppers before this…..and they were both beautiful and yummy. The rice was good too, but there wasn’t much of it, maybe 1 cup cooked. I would have liked more. Overall there wasn’t a whole lot of flavor in the chicken, but we liked it.

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Our next recipe was Brown Butter Gnocchi with Summer Squash, Almonds & Soft-Boiled Eggs.

Blue Apron Ingredients for Brown Butter Gnocchi

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We eat packaged gnocchi occasionally. I usually have a bag in the pantry for quick meals. Summer squash is one of my favorite veggies and the almonds were a nice addition. Jamie isn’t big on soft-boiled eggs…but I thought it mixed very nicely with the rest of the dish.

It was good…..but not great.

Finished Brown Butter Gnocchi

Our third meal was Empanadas de Picadillo with Tomato-Cucumber Salad & Lime Creme Fraiche.

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Making the Filling for the Empanadas

Assembling the Empanadas

Baked Empanadas

The tomato was very unripe and the cucumber was a little over-ripe right out of the box. The empanadas didn’t have nearly as much flavor as I would have expected them too. Maybe they need more salt. But we think we may try making these again, only with a more flavorful filling.

Finished Blue Apron Empanadas

Overall, we got to try a few meals that we wouldn’t have on our own. And we both got a few ideas for future meals for us to make. And maybe some new skills.

It was fun cooking together, and I could see where anyone could learn some basic cooking techniques because the directions are pretty simple. There are pictures of the steps after all.

We had a broken egg and some veggies that weren’t quite as ripe as I would have chosen.

You don’t get huge portions, no left-overs anyway, but there was just enough food to feed two big guys like us.

So give Blue Apron a try.

I know that we’ll keep going.

We’ve got chicken burgers, roasted pork and zucchini quiche coming next time…..

I’ll keep y’all posted.