Over the last 10 days I was in NYC and NJ visiting friends, family, and work. It was such a great trip being able to not only see my friends before Christmas, but getting to my Mom’s concert, and enjoying the city at Christmas time (complete with snow!). I miss New York so much, but there is nothing like coming back home to Jay and Rondo.
To everyone I got to see last week, I love you all so much and miss you constantly. How lucky am I to have you all in my life?!
xo-j
We had such a fun weekend in NYC with all our family, which I am sure to be sharing pictures etc. from soon, but first I wanted to share a recipe from last week! I wanted to try something new since I’m pretty bored of our same 10 meals, and this was a weird twist on ziti both Jay and I ended up loving. Below is the recipe, make please, and enjoy!
WHAT YOU NEED
1 lb chicken breasts (boiled and shredded)
1 lb ziti
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup buffalo sauce (I used franks buffalo)
1 cup ricotta cheese
1/4 cup blue cheese dressing
1/4 cup parm cheese
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
Black pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS
1. Boil your chicken in water, drain, let cool, and shred. I did this way earlier in the day and then stored it in the fridge until I was ready to cook dinner
2. Boil your pasta according to box and let drain.
3. While the pasta is boiling mix the chicken, mozz, buffalo, ricotta, and dressing in a big bowl. When the pasta is done and drained add this to the mix.
4. Once everything is all mixed up, spread in a glass baking pan and top with the breadcrumbs and parm (I pre-mixed the crumbs and cheese).
5. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes
6. Once it is done baking broil for 1-2 minutes depending on your oven. Mine is really hot and the top was browned in about 1 minute.
7. Your all done…mmmm
xo-j
Come Sunday…
Jay and I will be getting married in 6 months! I can’t believe it! We’ve also been together 4 years, which is crazy. In the past 4 years we went from living a block away, to moving into our own (tiny) apartment (again, so tiny), we got a puppy, we got engaged (!), we bought a house, and now we are just half a year from being married. So many things have changed, and with each step, everything has gotten better. I can’t wait to see where we are in 5 years, and 10, and 20…
(just a few weeks after we started dating – our first new years eve together ringing in 2010)
Next week I will be in NYC working, visiting friends and family, and enjoying the season in the busiest/scariest/wildest place on earth to be at Christmas time. I’m really looking forward to being there, though I will miss my boys :(. Poor Ron is so used to having me home all day!
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
xo-j
After we were finished cleaning up from Thanksgiving (about a 3 day process!) we got our tree! Last year in Brooklyn we had a fake one since we were living in 650 square feet…but this year we have our HOUSE! We got the tree all set up, settled, and decorated this weekend. Our whole downstairs smells like pine which I’m loving, and every time I look over and see it I get so excited.
When we first brought the tree home Rondo wasn’t so sure about it, which was hilarious. I filled a bowl with ice water for the basin and set it down quickly to help Jay to set it up. We both looked over and Rondo was bobbing for ice cubes in the bowl and by the time we were done he had pulled them all out…ay! He cracks us up though that’s for sure. Anyways, a quick video of decorating, I’m so happy it is finally Christmas time <3!
This weekend was a blast, it was tiring, but man was it fun! Both Jay and my family came and celebrated Thanksgiving here at our house. We are so lucky to have such wonderful family (on both sides). Everyone pitched in and it turned out to be a really enjoyable day. We got some shopping in on Friday, saw Hunger Games, had a fun dinner out with the family, and by Saturday were totally and completely wiped. Thank you family for traveling here, helping me as I panicked the past 3 weeks about the turkey (Mom!), and making so much food I won’t have to cook again until Monday!
Below is a quick video of Thanksgiving – the prep, family, and then getting our Christmas tree! It’s crazy how quickly Christmas will be here.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving too!
xo- j
Soooo the wind this weekend was absolutely insane. I thought our house was going to blow over at least 3 times! This is the part of dog ownership that totally sucks. Going out in 20 degree wild wind is not my idea of fun at 8am…yuck.
The cold weather does lend itself to crazy heavy and delicious meals though, which I love. I made tortilla soup on Sunday without a recipe and it came out really really great (going to share in a minute). Every single recipe (even the ones that said “easy”) online had 55 ingredients. I am a good cook, I can handle making something difficult, what I don’t want is to have to spend $30 on spices I will only use once, and waste vegetables that I won’t cook with again soon enough. Plus, the grocery stores were so busy this weekend, I nearly had a fist fight in Trader Joe’s (ok I didn’t, but I wanted to!). Anyway, here is what I did, and like I always say (and mean it) it came out really great!
WHAT YOU NEED:
1 1/4 lbs of chicken breast cubed((ish)
15 oz can diced tomato & green chilies fire roasted (Traders! or buy separately)
1 can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (this decides the heat)
1 chopped medium onion
2 boxes Swanson Mexican Tortilla Broth (greatest product ever)
1/2 tbs garlic (to taste)
Some garlic salt, onion powder, s&p
Lime, Avocado, Tortilla Strips, Cheese, Sour Cream (all optional)
DIRECTIONS
1. Put chicken, tomato/chile, chipotle peppers, onion, garlic, & broth in the crock pot on high. Let this cook for about 2 hours.
2. Use a ladle to take out the chunks of chicken, onion, tomato & pepper. This doesn’t have to be exact, but make sure to get the big pieces of chicken. Put this in the blender and blend it up quickly. Don’t purée this, just give it a light, quick mix.
3. Put it all back in the crock pot (do the blending in batches) and add the seasonings you are going to want. I added about 1 tsp of onion powder, garlic salt, and just a pinch of salt. Now let this cook for another couple hours (or 10 minutes if you need dinner).
4. You’re basically done. Scoop it out and enjoy with whatever toppings you like. I did some lime juice, pinch of cheddar, tortillas and sour cream, but honestly, it would have tasted great without these additions too!
Mmm.
On a totally different note, thanks to Jay for being my cheerleader. Saturday I really missed my friends. Everyone was together in NYC & NC and I was struggling a bit with how much I missed them. I love our new life here, but there will always be days I miss the ease of having my best friends right around the corner (whether it’s college or Brooklyn). Thankfully, I have Jay, who not only completely understood, but got me ground beef disturbing Taco Bell for dinner, played a flower game with me, and reminded me of how lucky I am.
xo-j
We are having Thanksgiving at our house this year, and I’m really excited, and also terrified! I’ve never made a turkey or hosted a legit dinner for 14 people before…but I’ve made a million lists, and purchased (I think) everything we need. Anyways, the best part has been getting to plan for the table and making decorations. I found the cutest mason jar mugs last week, and have been picking up all different glass bottles/jars over the past month to make different groupings for the centerpieces (need a bunch since the table will be so long!).
Here is some of what I’ve done so far:
(Place Cards / Remember which drink is yours / Thanksgiving Party Favor)
I’m so happy with how everything turned out! Now, as long as I don’t destroy the turkey we are good to go!
xo-j
Yesterday was bizarre, it was 65 degrees! I decided to eat at my desk and take Rondo to the park for my lunch break since it was so beautiful outside, and before I know it there will be snow.
Not the same as wandering around midtown at lunch, but I’ll take it!
xo-j
Well, it’s been a couple weeks and I’m still obsessing over the idea of making a “vintage” door for our wedding. I decided this weekend, before going out an buying a door, paint, and spending money I don’t have, I should do a test run to make sure it is even going to work out. I thought I would share what I did because you can basically do this to any furniture, shelf, door, etc.
Some side notes to this project: 1. make sure you are well ventilated. 2. don’t clean your brushes in really hot water because you will breathe in the chemical steam 3. once you have breathed in the chemical steam make sure to freak out and call family members and poison control…ha seriously, I’m a mess!
WHAT YOU NEED:
Brushes – I got some 99c ones
Paint – I used acrylic since it was a small project. You need white and whatever color you like
Wood Stain or brown paint
Sandpaper
Tea Candle
Optional: helper
DIRECTIONS:
1. Sand your surface. I used both medium and fine paper.
2. Paint the white, allow to dry, and then paint the brown, or use stain.
3. Make sure you have allowed both layers to dry, then give it a bit of a wipe, here is what mine looked like after paint and stain:
4. Take the tea candle and rub the wax off on any surface you are going to want to look old and come through the color. I did this on the edges, by the clasp, and throughout the box in different places.
5. Wipe off excess wax bits lightly with a clean brush, and then paint your color.
6. You want to then take either a small butter knife or sandpaper and rub off where the wax was, this will make the white/brown come through. I ended up sanding this a bit too while it was still drying which came out nice.
7. Enjoy! All done!
I’m really glad I tested this out on a smaller project. When I do this next I will use a full brown paint instead of just the stain over white, and I will wax in a lot more places so I don’t have to sand as much after the color layer. I do think it came out great though. I’ll use it for Christmas cards!
xo-j
Last night we went to the Celtics game which was great! Jay’s family has season tickets and we are so lucky to get to use them! Fun Monday night, problem is it made me think today was Friday and it’s Tuesday…yuck.
A mini insta vid here
And clearly these have nothing to do with the game, they are just from the past couple days…except we did name him Rondo.
xo-j
forEVR and always 