The week of Quinoa

Carly here...I guess it's my turn to finally blog.  Eric has been taking care of all of it so far.  So lately Eric and I have begun having "Weekly Planning" together.  Thank you Pres. DuVall and Chapter 8 of PMG! :)  We have a set 30 minutes put aside on Sunday that we take a look at our work/school schedule and make sure that we both know what is going to happen in the coming week.  We also plan our dinners for the week. We are trying to be more health and budget conscious and setting set menu has really seemed to help with that.

Recently we discovered Quinoa.  For those of you who don't know what that is I highly suggest that you google it...buy it...cook it...and love it.  It is our new favorite thing to cook!  It is crazy healthy and we are really having fun finding recipes for it.  That was our goal this week.  We wanted to cook with quinoa at least 3 times.  I'm here to tell you about our results.  Please forgive the amateur photography and I promise the food all tasted even better than it looks in the pictures.

Owing to my recent Pinterest addiction I already had a few quinoa recipes saved up.  On Monday we started with a Quinoa, avocado and cilantro salad.  For our first time with the recipe it was okay.  Definitely some things we would do differently next time.  The recipe called for a bunch of cilantro.  We only put in about half of what it said but it was still over-powering.  We'll use way less next time and I'd also try and make it day in advance.  It was better as leftovers.  A good start, though.  We'd give 3.5 stars out of 5.

Our second meal was a Quinoa Broccoli casserole.  Eric made this one all by himself because I got off late from work.  He had it in the oven by the time I got home.  Best. Husband. Ever!  Sadly, ours didn't turn out as beautifully as the picture that came with the recipe.  It tasted pretty good but left you feeling a little sluggish and heavy afterwards.  We are planning to try this one again next week but replace the mayo with some plain greek yogurt.  Think it will work?  I'll let you know.  3 stars for this one.

The last meal attempt was probably my favorite.  We made Quinoa Stuffed Red Peppers.  Doesn't it just sound good?  Honestly though, it was pretty wonderful.  The filling tasted like quinoa chili. It has black beans, onions, tomatoes, etc.  I ended up taking just a bowl of that to work the next day for lunch.  I don't plan on changing a thing with this recipe when we make it next time.  You should try it!  Really easy, healthy and delicious!  4.5 stars!

We really did have a fun time trying all of the new recipes.  Both Eric and I are getting a little more daring in the types of recipes we will try.  Sometimes it work...and sometimes it's awful.  Luckily for us this past week turned out okay.  If any of you get brave and try them too let me know how it goes.

xxoo,

Carly

Furniture Is Expensive

Title says it all really.  Carly and I have recently found a brand new town home to purchase as our own!  So excited!  It is being built and will be done around March-ish.  They say March but we probably won't move in until April.  Anyway the point is that with our brand new bigger place we need new furniture of course.  Another new path for us.  Checking prices here and there we found that buying new furniture feels almost as expensive as buying our new house.  We don't need a lot of furniture but there are a few pieces we need.  Storage is a huge thing for us so more storage is a must.  Having that in mind we found a couple of things.

Carly had been scouring the classifieds for something that we could possibly make our own.  She found this old 9-drawer dresser for $40 on Craig's List.  Sounded like a good deal and seeing it in person later the next day we had to have it.  We handed him the $40 and he said "Oh, I thought I put it up for $30, here's some change I don't quite have $10 is that OK?"  Heck yeah it's OK!  We expected to pay $40 and paid $35.  Awesome.  It had a couple of broken drawers and the paint job was terrible!  Still, it was a great deal and we had high hopes.

The second part was a whole project in itself.  Carly found plans for building these shelves that would go behind a sofa, or pretty much anywhere, made out of MDF board and with a wood trim.  My dad has the tools and was willing to help us with this project and after a trip, or five, to Home Depot we were ready to build!

After cutting, nailing, gluing, sanding, priming, painting, for what felt like a lifetime and over the course of a weekend our project was complete!  Below are the final results.  Sadly we didn't take any "Before" pictures for comparison but imagine the dresser with a terrible dark blue paint job.  Both of them are now white and wonderful.  Wow that sounded cheesy, either way they look great and we are really happy with how they turned out.

gg

Eric

Scratching the Retro Gaming Itch

Everyone, at one time or another, has had a special memory with a video game.  They aren't just for "gamers" and we've all had a moment with one that touched us in some way.  Carly always talks about how she would play Sonic or Battle Toads with her brothers.  I grew up with games and would consider myself a gamer with many great moments with games and friends.  My point is that if we all think back we can find fond memories and sometimes we want to replay those games.

So I said to myself, "Eric, let's play some Super Nintendo."  "Awww yeeeaahhhh!" I said in reply.  I dug out my old SNES and got working on setting it up.  I checked the games, controllers, and cables getting ready to relive the games of my childhood until I noticed I was missing a cable!  The AV cable to be precise and without it I wouldn't be able to play.  I checked around online and found that it was pretty cheap but I didn't want to wait.  I decided to turn my MacBook into a SNES.

I've done this before, turn a computer into a retro gaming system, a simple Google search for a SNES emulator will give you exactly what you need but I wanted something more.  I wanted to be able to use a controller and have a nice big screen and a couch, you know like old times.  I chose my MacBook because it is currently only being used as a wireless adapter for my XBox 360, a story for another day, and was already sitting by the TV.  I made my list of how I was going to accomplish my task, because I love lists, and set forth!

The List:
1.  Download an SNES Emulator
2.  Connect XBox 360 Controller
3.  Connect to TV

I used ZSNES for my emulator, found some drivers for the XBox 360 controller, you'll need an XBox 360 wireless USB adapter for this, and grabbed my lame video out dongle for the TV.  After fighting with settings here and there to get the controller to work I was in business!  The emulator is easy to use, just install, download some ROMs (Only ones you legally own of course, these are back ups after all), and get to playing!

After it was all hooked up I just plugged it into the TV with my handy-dandy-video-output-thing and that was it!  Now I can sit back on my couch and relive the younger days using my MacBook as a Super Nintendo!  It's not quite as nice as it would be had I plugged in a real SNES but this works just fine for scratching my itch.

gg

Eric

Welcome!

Welcome to our new blog!  We've had a few friends, we won't name names Amy Jo, ask us to write a blog so here it is.  Our lives aren't particularly spectacular in any specific way but we love to try new things and thought this would be a great place to share our experiences.  Each week we try to perfect the culinary arts, we've tried our hand at building furniture for our new house, and Eric is always playing around with gadgets and computers.  

Wow - how nerdy do we sound?!

Keeping up with this blog is one of our new year's resolutions so hopefully we will have regular updates for you.  We hope you enjoy what you see and if you ever have a comment we would love to hear from you.

Happy New Year!

Carly & Eric