Cinco De Mayo

I wanted to celebrate Cinco De Mayo this year, but I didn't want to go out to a mexican restaurant, because I figured it would be too busy. So, we had a festive dinner at home instead. I made chicken tortilla soup and dessert nachos.

For the dessert nachos, I used cinnamon sugar pita chips, a "fruit salsa" (diced strawberry, mango, kiwi) and topped it with whip cream and chocolate.  My husband really liked the dessert nachos, and I thought they were good too, but I think I'll add ice cream or frozen yogurt next time.

I had originally planned to surprise my husband with a pinata, but decided not too when in causal conversation he mentioned that he wanted to cut back on candy. I'll save that idea for another year, or for when our little girl grows up.

Easter Egg Scavenger Hunt

I came across the idea to do an Easter egg scavenger hunt for my husband on pinterest, and I am so glad that I did, because he loved it.

I hid plastic eggs all around the house. Each one had a clue inside, leading to the next. The clues were fun things that only he would know.

I should tell you before you read this list of clues, that we sometimes refer to each other as "the mom" and "the dad." This is something we said we wouldn't do when we had kids, but it has come pretty naturally and is fun/endearing.
My husband really liked the scavenger hunt and he was so surprised/happy to find the big Easter basket waiting for him at the end.

Here's a list of things I put in his basket.
1) Cookie cereal (whoever thought of this is a genius)
2) Two chocolate mousse flavored bunnys - peeps
3) A pecan delight egg
4) A brownie egg
5) Mint Chocolate Cookie (from Safeway - So good!)
6) Mint flavored hot chocolate
7) Packet of chocolate hazelnut spread
8) Pop rocks
9) Bunny Tails (white circular Cheetos)
10) A few truffles

Winter Olympics

My husband and I had plans to watch the winter Olympics together and I thought it would be fun to make a themed dinner to go along with our date.

Dinner:
I made mountain shaped quesadillas with sour cream snow to represent the "winter" Olympics.

I served the quesadillas with toppings that I arranged in bowls by color to look like the symbol for the Olympics. The blue one is sour cream with a few drops of food coloring.

I made an Olympic medal out of rolos candy for dessert.

I tried to create the Olympic torch with gold card stock and garlic salt flavored popcorn. To my surprise, my husband recognized the torch, before anything else.

 

Here is a picture of what the table looked like.

We watched the cross country skiing race after dinner. The race was pretty intense. Many of the athletes fell down after crossing the finish line, because the race was so exhausting. 

We both enjoyed our date and the next day while on the treadmill I couldn't help but think about how my workouts are much easier in comparison.

Talent Show

Church activities are the best for date nights, because you can just go and enjoy. Last week was our wards "talent show" and it was a lot of fun.

There was a potluck that gave people an opportunity to  share their cooking/baking talents. I brought this smoked salmon appetizer.

It really is the easiest thing to make. I just buy the ingredients at winco and put them all together. See method/recipe below.

At the talent show, there was a place for people to share their artistic talents too and a stage for performers. We enjoyed the dinner, appreciated everyone's talents and were truly entertained.

How to make:
I slice bagels and pipe on smoked salmon cream cheese. For the garnish I slice a thin strip of smoked salmon and roll it into a rosette and add a sprig of dill. 

Recipe:
If you don't live near a Winco you could make your own smoked salmon spread using this recipe.
1/2 a fillet of smoked salmon
1 regular sized block of cream cheese

Put the smoked salmon in a mixer and blend until it is finely shredded. Then, add the cream cheese and continue mixing until the two ingredients come together. Note: The flavor is good, but I haven't tried pipping this homemade version. I know that the consistency is not as smooth as the store bought.

Valentines Dinner

Here is a picture of our Valentines dinner. I used rose petals to decorate the table. We lit the candles, turned off the lights and listened to romantic piano music while we ate and visited.

For the dinner, I was able to find heart shaped pasta at the World Market. I used it to make a creamy tomato pasta with shrimp, lobster and salmon.

I served a loaf of bread, like they do at restaurants, and it complemented our pasta very well. We had an appetizer too, battered shrimp with sweet chili sauce.

For a beverage, I dressed up a bottle of Hawaiian punch to look like "Love Potion." I used the insta shapes app on my phone to create the label.

For dessert, I made my husband an individual sized layered cake that looked like a heart. It had three layers of brownies, two layers of raspberry sorbet and was covered with whip cream and chocolate. I made a smaller portion of dessert for myself.

My husband told me that he thought everything I made turned out really well and was restaurant quality. I enjoyed the food too and the romantic atmosphere. At the end of the night, my only complaint was that I didn't eat more dessert, lol. We'll see if I feel the same way during my workout today.

Valentines Love Song Countdown

This year I decided to do a "love song countdown" to Valentines day for my husband. Beginning on the first day of February, I sent him a love song each day with a personal message and a link to the song/lyrics via email.

Here is the list of songs I came up with.

1.) Cascada - He's all that
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TThBp9vWH88

2.) Anchor - Mindy Gledhill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcWN4R_GeGU

3.) Lily Allen - Chinese
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snLkEp8l2ug

4.) Lifes A Happy Song - The Muppet's
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9_zKm2Ewaw

5.) Every time we touch - Cascada
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL0bjwez8mg

6.) Loving you is easy - Marie Digby
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsAVvxdoiKI

7.) Heaven - by DJ Sammy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0hruPX_Uek

8.) Lucky - Colbie Caillat & Jason Mraz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Hgp150Eno

9.) All the Pennies - Mindy Gledhill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfwjvRxxZd8

10.) My Best friend - Weezer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZyNE0rNyQc

11.) Love CPR by September - Haha!
http://www.songlyrics.com/september/resuscitate-me-lyrics/

12.) One that I love by Charlie Hope
Fastforward 2 min and 50 into the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i0ep6xpdaA

13.) Your Song by Ellie Goulding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyoBOoljbhY

14.) My Valentine by Martina McBride
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKIMD04Y9P8

I think this love song countdown was a good relationship building experience for both of us.  It gave me one more opportunity to think about all of the reasons why I love my husband and he was able to listen to those messages and appreciate the sentiment.
 

European Bakery

We celebrated our little girls birthday with cake from Privet European Food & Bakery. It's a little store/bakery in South Salem. The thing that I like about their cakes is that they have frosting other than buttercream. 

We tried their chocolate cake with chocolate mousse frosting. The actual crumb part of the cake was a little dry, but the mousse frosting made up for it with it's rich, creamy, chocolaty flavor.

We got a slice of their Napoleon cake too. I think they could have used less puff pastry, but the pastry cream inside was really good and I liked the chocolate on top.

One of the things that I really like about this store is that you can buy assorted chocolates or hard candies by the pound. The flavors are different from the American candy bars that we are all so used to seeing and it's a nice change.

They sell inexpensive tasty eclairs there too.

Sushi Date Night

My husband and I went on a sushi kick when we first moved to Portland. We ordered it at lots of different restaurants and during that time I found that my favorite way to eat sushi was with terriyaki and spicy japanese mayo sauces.

I decided to make sushi for our date night and drizzle it with these sauces. How did I learn how to make sushi? Well, my husband gave me a few pointers. His Mom made it while he was growing up. I learned the rest online.

Here is a youtube sushi tutorial I put together.

Crab Pot

We'd heard about crab pot restaurants from family for the last couple of years. Then, we found out that there was one nearby in Vancouver, WA called Joe's Crab Shack.

So, we decided to go there this weekend. We tried their old bay and cajun crab pots.

The food was pretty good and the view of the Columbia river was beautiful.

Overall, we had a fun experience, but the food was a little pricy (as expected.)

Batman Themed Date

My husband really likes the newer batman movies starring Christian Bale. So, I thought he would enjoy this date.

I set up a table with movie inspired food and played the Batman theme song in the background.

Batman Pizza

I got the pizza idea from this blogger and used a homemade pizza recipe from this cookbook. I cut out the image using a card stock template after the pizza had finished baking.

Blue Flower

In the first movie Ra's al Ghul tells Bruce Wayne about a blue flower that grows on the "eastern slopes."  I tried to recreate the flower using blue taffy and black jelly beans.

Toxin

The blue flower is used to make a toxin. I tinted crystal light lemonade with blue food coloring to represent it.

Two Face's Coin

I used a chocolate coin for this.

 Bats

We had some smoked salmon cream cheese and crackers in the house, so I used them to make these bats. My inspiration for the bats came from this blogger.

I would have liked to create signs for the food and there is even a free batman font online, but I didn't have time.

New Years Date

For new years, I surprised my husband with this dinner.

 We had sparkling cider. The "Happy New Year!" sign was our hummus appetizer. Then, I made my husbands favorite meal, salmon pinwheels (recipe below.)

 For dessert, we had chocolate brownies topped with peanut butter cream cheese frosting and a festive Oreo decoration (recipe below.)

The oreo clock idea came from this website.

Salmon Pinwheel recipe

Filling
I used 1/3 cup cream cheese, 3 pickled artichoke hearts, two sun dried tomatoes, green onion, and slash of lemon juice and salt.

Salmon
I bought slices of salmon that had a lemon butter glaze on them already from Winco. I pounded out the salmon to be the same thickness, lined them up, spread the filling over them and rolled them up, using skewers to hold them together. Then, I sliced the salmon log into pieces and baked them at 350 for 15 or so minutes.

Cupcake recipe
I used store bought brownie mix for the base.

Frosting
I started out with equal parts of peanut butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar. Then I added what I thought it need. A little more peanut butter, then more sugar to balance out the sweetness, then more cream cheese if it tasted to peanut buttery. I added a splash of vanilla. The frosting was a bit thick, but it went well with the dense brownie.