Happy New Year!

So I know it's New Years and not Christmas, but I've fallen a few days behind on posting due to some family events, so before I jump into New Year's festivites I've got a few days to catch up on first.
Thursday night my immediate family had our Christmas celebration. We decided to rent a limo this year, which was a really fun way to drive around and look at lights.

Bundled up and ready to go!

One of the coolest light displays we saw all night

Why my parents were glad someone else was driving
(there's also a Crown bottle in the bottom left corner)

Next time, though, we're definitely going to go before Christmas. It seemed like there were houses that had stuff out but no longer lit (plus our driver told us that there weren't as many good displays this year as in years past--maybe due to the recession?).

Tomorrow--our New Year's festivities and (hopefully!) a look at our version of New Year's resolutions!

Dinner Party and Catch-Up

As much as I would loooove to get really chatty about the dinner party we hosted last night, I don't have a lot of free time before we head over to my parent's house for yet another Christmas celebration, so I'll make it quick because I want to get to a recipe I promised to post like a week ago.
So long story short--last night Darrell and I had four of our close friends over for dinner, and it was super fun. I got to pull out some fancy wedding gifts that we hadn't used yet and try a few new recipes. We had two "appetizers"--spinach artichoke dip and fruit with dip, and then for the main course Darrell made his Cajun chicken pasta (soooo good. And the dish that takes credit for introducing me to the deliciousness that is red peppers). And then I made a dessert in the crock-pot! It was pretty interesting, but surprisingly had quite a bit of cake-texture like it was supposed to and then lots of fudgy goodness to scoop out on top.
I didn't really have an opportunity to capture pictures of all the components of the meal, but here was our table setting.

We were fancy and I was excited. I did accidently pour wine into the water glasses initially, but quickly fixed the mistake. I'm just not used to being fancy!

So on to the recipe. Last week when Darrell had to work and I didn't I decided to surprise him with a new recipe. Not always a good idea, because I tend to get easily flustered when I cook. But the end result was edible, and actually tasty, so that's all that matters.

Salmon Cakes with Cool Lime Sauce

Sauce:

1 lime

1/2 cup mayo

1/4 cup sour cream

Zest lime to measure 2 tsp zest, and juice to measure 2 tsp juice. Combine with mayo and sour cream; mix well and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Salmon Cakes:

2 cans (6 oz) skinless, boneless pink salmon packed in water, flaked and drained

1/4 cup finely chopped red bell pepper

1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions with tops

1 tbsp snipped fresh cilantro

3/4 cup unseasoned dry bread crumbs, divided

1/3 cup mayo

1 egg white

Combine all ingredients, reserving 1/4 cup of the bread crumbs on a small plate or shallow bowl. Scoop the salmon mixture into desired size, and place in bread crumbs. Flatten to 1/2 inch thickness and turn to coat evenly with crumbs. Heat skillet over medium heat until hot and cook salmon cakes 6-8 minutes or until golden brown, turning once. Serve with lime sauce.

If you can't tell in the picture, my cakes got a little burnt because our skillets cook really hot, so I probably should have cooked ours over low heat and not medium. I also attempted to halve the recipe, which was a little dicey to figure out half an egg white, so ours were pretty crumbly and didn't hold their shape. We got five medium sized cakes out of half the recipe, so I'd say the full recipe would probably feed around five people. The book I got the recipe out of recommends making them really small and serving them as appetizers, which I suppose would work pretty well too. Oh, and to health it up a bit, I've heard that Greek yogurt can be substituted for mayo in most recipes (I think?), so that might be something we'll try next time (at least in the sauce). And definitely make sure you taste-test the sauce to ensure it has a lime-flavoring. The lime is very tasty with the salmon and pepper.

If you try it you'll have to let me know what you think! This is definitely something we'll be making again!

Christmas in ATL

Snow and all, we had a wonderful Christmas down in Atlanta. It's always great to see Darrell's side of the family--I only wished we lived closer so we could see them more than once a year!
We flew out of MSP on Christmas Eve, and it didn't exactly look promising that we were going to make it out.

Four inches of snow on the ground Friday morning, and it was still coming down as we sat at the airport. Thankfully, Minneapolis is fully equipped to deal with snow, so flights weren't terribly behind. We actually boarded our flight when we were supposed to, but apparently we boarded without a pilot because his plane was delayed getting in, so we had to sit on the plane and wait an hour for him. I slept through most of that, so it went by pretty quickly. Then we had to wait for our plane to get de-iced, and since we were leaving after our scheduled departure time we had to wait behind the other flights that were on time. But, we made it out and to Atlanta with plenty of time to spare before the Christmas Eve service, so it wasn't a major issue.
After the service we went to Waffle House (per tradition) and subsequently tucked ourselves into bed with a grease coma. We were staying with Darrell's aunt and uncle (mom's side) who have three little ones, so Christmas morning came early with eager anticipation to see what Santa brought (a Wii! They played it pretty much the rest of the day). We left mid-afternoon to spend time with Darrell's other side of the family and have a massive Christmas dinner (cue food coma number two for the weekend).

As I already mentioned, a few inches of snow wrecked havoc in ATL, so Sunday morning we got to sleep in and then go play in it.

Breezy on the attack

Susie playing catch with the snowballs we were throwing

We then spent the rest of the day celebrating Christmas with Darrell's mom's side of the family, which is quite a bit larger than his dad's side, so there was a lot of catching up to do. After grazing on the spread of food all day and a quick stop for ice cream, we went back to where we were staying. The girls already had the Wii fired up, and were playing Just Dance 2.

It was awesome. The big kids kept the dance party going after the younger ones went to bed--there's a few videos on Facebook--and although there is no evidence of it, I will say that we got to witness Darrell shaking it like a polaroid picture. It was quite spectacular.

We left pretty early Monday morning, and although most of the airports on the upper East Coast were closed and delayed from the snow storm, Atlanta was running pretty smoothly and we made it home without any issues.

It was quite a whirlwind weekend, but I can't ever complain about a weekend packed with family, food and fun!

Merry Christmas!

It's a white Christmas here in Atlanta GA! First white Christmas in over one hundred years--pretty cool to see everyone so excited (and nervous!) about it. It's such a different snow than what we get in SoDak--super wet and slushy and perfect for making snowballs. Church has already been cancelled for the morning, so I'm sure there will be a snowball fight on the docket in its place. Pictures and more details to come once we get back to South Dakota! Hope everyone had a good time celebrating with family and loved ones!

Workout FAIL(S)

Workout FAIL number one: Assuming that I can handle 50 minutes of cardio just because I used to be able to handle more than that in college. I'm lucky if I get to the gym twice a week these days (possibly a life FAIL? But that's a topic for a different post), but I still thought I could handle 20 minutes on the treadmill and 30 minutes on the elliptical last night. Not so much. I was seriously ready for bed by 9:15 I was that exhausted from the workout. And walking up stairs today was a serious issue.

Workout FAIL number two: Assuming that wine and push-ups go together. Pretty obvious, right? But apparently, after a glass or two (or three...) of wine, I feel pretty invincible. And that push-up workout that I forgot to do earlier? Totally managable, according to my inebriated state. Or so I thought. I made it through the workout just fine (maxed out at 17--my highest yet!), but I'm feeling the after effects of it now (a mere ten minutes later). Good thing I don't have to work tomorrow... I might definitely be taking advantage of the opportunity to sleep in. Although I do intend to get another gym workout in tomorrow before we head out of town... We'll see how that goes.

PS Food post tomorrow! I actually cooked tonight, and if I were feeling up to it I would upload the photo now, but there's wine that needs finishing and that's my priority for tonight :-D

Update: My camera decided not to work on Thursday so a food post was not happening (what's a food post without pictures??) It's good enough that I promise it will be coming sometime after Christmas though!

Family Weekend Number One = Success

Well, we officially survived our first crazy weekend of family holidays. Friday night we drove up to Minneapolis and stayed with some friends before meeting up with my dad's family on Saturday to do our Christmas celebration. We even set aside time for a trip to IKEA (looove IKEA) Saturday morning, but a darn accident put a stop to that. Early Sunday morning (after a late night Saturday) we drove to Mitchell SD to celebrate Christmas with my mom's family. And suffice to say, we pretty well crashed when we finally got home Sunday night.
And, on an exciting note, I even remembered to take my camera with me to document our family fun! But did I think to take a picture of the massive brackets my aunt made up for our Wii bowling, MarioKart, and dodgeball tournaments Saturday? Noooo. Did I pull out my camera to catch some of the hysterical action of my parents and other aunts and uncles struggle their way through MarioKart? Nooo. Did I document any of the cousin's crazy antics at the pool during adult swim? Of course not. Despite taking my camera, I left it packed safe and sound in my suitcase during the entire day on Saturday.
So, to make up for it, I made sure to take lots of pictures on Sunday. We went to the nursing home that my grandparents are living at and did some caroling for them and the other residents.

Here's a shot of Darrell and I taking a break from the singing (do you like how well I framed the Happy Holidays? Mad skills people, mad skills).

We opted to do a White Elephant gift exchange this year between all the cousins, aunts and uncles. For those of you unfamiliar with the process, everyone brings "a gift" from their home that they are looking to get rid of, all the gifts go on the table, and everyone draws a number. The first person can pick any gift, opens it, and then person number two can decide if they want to steal the first gift or open their own. Person three can steal either of the first two gifts or open their own. So on and so forth. There ended up being 24 of us playing, so there was quite a bit of random and useless stuff floating around and being stolen (coincidently, the most popular gifts to steal ended up being the ones with edible food. And yes, prefacing with edible is necessary). Once the game ended there was some under the table trading going on, and when all was said and done, this is what Darrell and I walked away with.

Not too shabby if you ask me. I also can't refrain from posting one of the adorable pictures I took of my cousin's sweet little girl. She was dancing around during the caroling, snacking on "affels" all afternoon, and generally smiling and giggling at everyone. I captured this picture while Darrell was busy making faces at her.

Isn't she just the cutest?


What little free time we have this week is going to be packed full of preparations for Family Weekend Number Two--pretty much the same story, but with different characters and set in Georgia! Praying for good weather and safe travels!

Judgmental

I admit it. I totally judge a book by its cover. I love looking through lists of popular and highly acclaimed literature and the searching the books on Barnes and Nobles to see which ones I want to add to my "to read" list (the list is currently over 400 books long...I can be ambitious, right?). But in my searches I've discovered lots of books that deter me based solely on their outward appearance. Take for example, this one: 

I'm not a fan of partial images of people on my books. It's just weird. And often overly cutesy (although this image verges on creepy...) And from my experiences, a lot of books with covers like this tend to be young adult fiction. Not that I have anything against young adult books, but when I curl up with a book I don't exactly want to find myself roaming the halls of a high school and dealing with teenage drama when I'm dealing with paying bills and busted transmissions.
Or then there are books like this:

Does anyone else see a fantasy/supernatural/weird mystery/suspense story? I'm just not feeling it. Plus there is just so much going on--I'm a little overwhelmed and I haven't even opened the book. And don't get me wrong, I've read a few fantasy novels in my time, and they weren't terrible, but I've hardcore been sucked into historical/real-life fiction and I can't get enough of books like that. 
Now here's a book that I can get on board with:

Simple, cute cover with no overly-fancy lettering or excessive editing. Looks like a picture I could take (and would want to take). This is a book that when it pops up during my slew of searching, I take the time to read the synopsis to further decide if I should add it to my list (for the record, it's on there). Superficial? Yes. Judgmental? Yes. But I have to rule out books somehow--there are just so many good books and not enough time to read them all!