Sushi Groupon

For the longest time, Chris and I have talked about how cool it would be to learn how to make sushi. Of course, we talk about a lot of things that we would like to do and we never do them. I had seen that there was a place in Carmel that had a sushi class, but it was $75 a person. I like sushi, but not that much! Lucky for us, Groupon ran a special last year $35 a person. So I bought the Groupon and looked for a class. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a sushi class anywhere. I called and they told me that they had stopped doing sushi classes out of lack of interest. I was devasted. But I kept an eye on their calender. Finally, they started doing the classes again! I immediately signed us up for the February class and told Chris it was our Valentine's Day celebration. ;-)

So last night was the class. Once we got there, I started feeling really nervous. The chef talked to us about technique and how you had to have the perfect amount of this and the perfect amound of that. I knew it was going to be a disaster. But as we got going, I got more confident. We chopped up the fish and the vegetables. The hardest part is laying the rice. You don't want it to be too thick of a layer but you don't want it to be to thin. I hate it when people make statements like that. :-( Here's a picture of Chris making some sushi. He has put rice on one side of the nori and then flipped it over so that it will be a roll with the rice on the outside.



We made Philadelphia rolls, California rolls, and spicy tuna rolls. The spicy tuna was delicious! I made that one with the rice on the outside. It actually looked really good until I started cutting it up. You're supposed to have a clean slightly wet knife, but my one complaint was that there were not a lot of sinks. It was hard to clean off your hands and your utensils. So I think my knife was dirty and probably not wet enough. Below are our first two sushi rolls. Mine is the one on the bottom. Haha, I swear it tasted delicious. It just looks bad. Chris' came out beautiful. He did a very nice job and his were delicious as well.

I have to say that even if you paid the $75 for the class, it was worth it. They gave us so much food. After rolling sushi, he had us make these spring rolls. It was very fresh tasting. Its got carrots, sprouts, shrimp, rice noodles, and mint leaves. Isn't it pretty?

All in all, the class was a success. We got to sit down afterwards and eat our sushi and chat with the chef. I think that the more we make sushi, the better our rolls will look. Who's coming over first to try our sushi?

Visiting Dana

Last weekend, kind of the spur of the moment, I decided to drive down to visit Dana and Howard. The drive was pretty easy. I got there Friday night where we proceeded to play Spice Jenga which has quickly become my favorite game. How the two of them came up with this game and became so efficient at it is beyond me.

We got up on Saturday morning and they drove me down to see where Dana works and show me around Paducah. I have to say that it is bigger than I thought it was. The downtown area is very quaint and they have a great waterfront area right on the Ohio River. We attempted to play Bingo so that Dana and I could each cross that off our lists. Unfortunately, it must have been false advertising. No bingo was going on. :-(

Next they drove me past some crazy lady's house that is made of trash and then they took me to their bar. Funny how many similiarities it shared with Glory Days. Even closes at midnight! But Dana and I got in $12 worth of Megatouch which is more than I've spent in the last two years on that machine. After a while, we drove home and continued playing Spice Jenga until 3am. I will say that Dana showed me her dance moves, but I will not post what she looked like. I promised. :-)

The next day I left about noon to make the drive back. I loved going to visit. Their house is super cute and I'm so happy for them and all they have accomplished in KY. I did take some pictures there, but nothing really worth posting. So instead, I'm posting my new favorite picture of me and Dana. Enjoy!

Oliver Winery

On Thursday I was invited to a girl's slumber party and to a vineyard the next day. What better way to start off my new year than to knock another item off my 101 list? I immediately said yes. We partied into the night before laughing and gossiping, probably too into the night. The next morning was touch and go, but I finally gathered myself and we headed down to Martinsville, IN to go to Oliver Winery.

I actually don't really care for wine, but I've always wanted to go to a vineyard. Below are the ladies trying out the different wines. Not only do I not like wine, but at that point in the day, I was never drinking again so I did not partake.


After the girls tested out some different wines, they bought a bottle share and some cheese and crackers. We took these out to their patio to sit and enjoy. It was 60 degrees that day!!! No thank you to the wine, but you can see the dent in the brie that I made. :-)

Here was the view from the patio. I can only imagine how pretty this is during the springtime.

Hank and Layla

As most of you know, Hank is NOT welcome at the Schroeder household. Its very sad for all my Virginia friends that would love to meet him. So whenever Chris and I both go back to Va, we have to either kennel him or beg a friend to take care of him. Luckily, my friend Cassy travels as well and we watch their dog Layla and they watch Hank. Look below to see how cute they are!!

Usually, when we are watching each other's dogs, we send a picture just to let Mom know their respective dog is doing okay. This is the picture I got on Sunday just as I was telling a guy that Hank doesn't really hump things.

Our First Christmas Dinner

So Chris and I volunteered to make Christmas dinner this year using my parents house to host. I kept thinking how Chris and I will never be able to do this at our own home since we live so far away. We spent months figuring out what we wanted to make and putting together recipes. We also had to give other family members dishes to bring as well. I thought I did a good job telling people what to bring but you'll find out that we did run into some snags.

The first problem we ran into was my sister was supposed to bake a pie on Thursday night. I missed out on her pies for Thanksgiving so I really wanted one there. However, she just recently moved and couldn't find her recipe for the filling. She makes everything from scratch. So Chris and I just made two of his mom's desserts as opposed to the one we had planned. Although I can sympathize with Kat's situation, she still had to be punished. Therefore, she was given potato peeling duty. One large Costco size bag of potatoes.

After Christmas breakfast, Chris and I began prepping our dinner. Chris prepped the ham and put it in the oven. We had already made dessert the night before so we began washing lettuce, chopping onions, etc. Soon, we had nothing to do. So we went and showered and got ready for the party. At 4pm I started boiling the potatoes. I've made mashed potatoes before but never for 20 people. I had no idea how long it was going to take for the potatoes to get soft. As it turned out, I cooked them too long, but Chris managed to doctor them up and they looked normal. The family arrived as we were hitting the busy part of the night. Throwing everything together at the same time. Thankfully my mom has two ovens.

The other two little snags we ran into were the dishes that were brought to share. Chris wanted to make creamed brussel sprouts. I didn't originally think it was a good idea b/c my family doesn't really care for brussel sprouts. But Chris wanted to make something that was traditional at his holiday meals so how could I deny him this pleasure? Then my cousin, Alice, made carmelized brussel sprouts. I only gave three people directions to bring vegetable dishes and now so far we had a roasted root salad, two brussel sprout dishes, and a strawberry salad. Then my cousin Martha showed up (very late) and since she was late, she had just run by the store and gotten a container of mixed greens with an avocado. Now we have three salads and two brussel sprout dishes. I thought, oh well, it is what it is. Fortunately or unfortuanately, the creamed sprouts didn't come out very well so we bagged them and just served our meal. Here it is below.

My uncle Cy told me that when he heard we were cooking dinner, he was a little irritated. He didn't know that we knew how to cook and he thought it was going to be a disaster. He then said it was delicious. My uncle Brad said the potatoes were the highlight of the meal. My cousin Alice said that it was the best family meal we had ever had. Everyone went back for seconds. In fact, there was hardly any left over ham. I'm so happy and relieved that everyone liked it so much. And all in all, it wasn't the bad cooking the meal. We timed everything very well. The worst was cleaning up afterwards and having to hand wash all my mom's silver and crystal. Ugh!

2nd Annual Cannon IV White Elephant Party

Last night was the Cannon IV White Elephant party. It was supposed to be hosted the Drakes, however their basement flooded the night before so Jon graciously took over. Once again it was a success. Below is a picture of the whole gang with their prizes.

My favorite, of course, was the gift I received. I picked Ally's gift and received a Shirt Woot shirt of Krampus. If you don't know who Krampus is, google him. He's hilarious. Now Ally and I have matching t-shirts which we will definitely have to wear out when we go to the Vogue.

Poppyseed Chicken

Yesterday, I needed a quick, cheap recipe to make for dinner. I was hungry and poor. Thankfully, Dana came to the rescuse with her Poppyseed chicken recipe. Here's how it goes. You boil some chicken for about 10 minutes and let cool. Then shred it and line the bottom of a 9X13 pan.

Next mix a can of cream of chicken soup with one cup of sour cream. Pour over your chicken.

Spread it evenly over top, almost like you're icing a cake!

Mix 1/2 a cup of melted butter with one jacket of crushed buttery crackers (aka Ritz)



Then spread evenly over top and put in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

There you have it! It was delicious. I served it with white rice which I actually liked with it a lot better than I thought I would. Anyway, I highly recommend this recipe. You are supposed to sprinkle poppyseeds over top. Dana said she didn't think you could taste them and it was really just to make it look pretty. So I didn't buy them to save even more money. Shout out to Dana!!