DVD Downsize!

Ugh..where do I even start...

Eric and I met each other back in 2006. Back then, he had a pretty impressive DVD collection, as did I, so of course when the time came to move in together, our collection got pretty magnificent. Over time, we've accumulated more and more movies / TV shows...it's a little ridiculous to say the least. In our old neighborhood in California, we were basically the local Blockbuster / Hollywood Video.  Friends would always stop by and pick up DVD's (they knew we always had the newest releases) and would bring 'em back later in the week to switch 'em out for something else.  

Yeaaaaahhhh...When the time came for us to move here, it took 12-15 MOVING boxes to move our collection. Le sigh. 

Now that we've been here for three and a half years, our collection hasn't grown as much as it would've if we were stateside, but still, it's grown. In fact, the majority of it is being housed in this wardrobe we picked up last year. The top part is all the DVD's while the bottom drawers are video games. 

LE SIGH. 

The craziness.... the top shelf is two rows deep :-/ 

In about 10 months, we'll be moving again and I'm really on the fence about whether or not we're taking the wardrobe with us. Odds are, it'll stay here, but who knows. In the mean time, I wanna get our DVD's (only the movies) all organized because I don't want to have to dedicate one massive piece of furniture to hold all of that stuff! I mean, come on now! 

So, after hunting through various sites to get ideas as to how I can go about conquering this massive mountain, I finally found a way to do it:

I ended up ordering six of the organizing boxes (all have been re-enforced with Gorilla Glue), got a pack of alphabetical dividers in addition to some CD protectors. Honestly, the CD protectors were the hardest thing to find!  It took me a month to get my hands on them since no one on the local economy seems to carry them (or are reasonably priced) ...thank gawd for Amazon! 

Exciting, right? I know I know..it's too much for me to handle as well. I'll post an update...probably in a month or two, when I have a finished project. 

*whimper*

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When in Belgium...

..be like the Belgians!

Back in March, a friend and I relaxed in Brussels for the day and enjoyed some of the things that most Belgians enjoy. Had a few beers, some waffles and definitely had some mussels. They were UH-mazing and looked extremely easy to make. On that note, I decided to attempt making this awesome dish at home since I was really craving them and my son was willing to be my guinea pig :)

I went to the market first thing in the morning and picked up two containers of pre-packaged mussels. Price wise, it wasn't too bad. With the conversion rate and all, it came out to about twenty dollars for them and the pre-cut veggie baggies I was also able to get at the time. 

These little bags of pre-cut veggies were a bit of a life saver seeing that they have onions in it in addition to green onions, celery and carrots. Makes it a little easier rather than make an even larger mess in my kitchen :) 

While I was out and about a few weeks ago, I came across a kitchen store that sells "mussel pots" for pretty cheap ( 8 euros a piece), so I ended up getting a set since I know we'll use 'em for lots of things despite them being labeled for one thing. I got curious and went online to see how much they would cost on there and it kinda blew me away. Some sites had them listed for $60 a piece!  Eeesh! 

I remember my friend telling me about how she made mussels at her house and how it was really...really easy. When it comes to making the sauce for the mussels to sit in, you can kinda wing it since all that really matters is that you steam the little critters and their juices enhance the sauce. Fine and dandy. What do I love a lot? GARLIC! So, I minced up a bunch of garlic with some parsley:

I busted out my Le Creuset round oven and sautéed the veggies for about 10 minutes in butter to soften 'em up. When it comes to finding a recipe to make these, you can find all sorts of stuff on all recipes.com or anywhere else on the internet. They all basically consist of the same thing: butter, veggies, mussels and whatever else you feel like using to season. 

Then I added white wine (Chardonnay) to the base and let it boil for 20 minutes to get all of the alcohol out of it.  

Once the wine is boiled out and the sauce is at a simmer, I added some cooking cream to thicken it up. After a few minutes, I tossed all the mussels in and let them cook for another 6-8 minutes. 

Make sure you stir them around to ensure that all of them have opened up. Whichever ones didn't open up  need to be tossed out! 

Of course, I made my own fries to go with the mussels...

Voila! You can serve mayonnaise with your fritz ( at least that's what they do over here), but my son opted to have Samurai sauce since he likes things a little spicy. 

It came out AWESOME! We were both happy campers and totally inhaled this dish! My son was surprised as to how filling it actually was since he commented how mussels don't really have a lot of meat in them. Gotta love the fries! lol

All in all, I got a enthusiastic "two thumbs up" and will be making this again sometime :) Not bad for trying something that the locals make! 

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Itchy Trigger Finger

Sorry it's been a little bit since I've blogged. Between running around and taking care of errands, then my stomach problem flaring up, I haven't been feeling too motivated to sit down and type out a bunch of stuff. So, my bad!

Let's see here... we're basically a month and a half away from potentially finding out where we're going next for our new base. I'm rather excited about it since I actually like (yes!) moving to experience a new place. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Belgium and all it has to offer, but I'm ready to find a nice place to settle down, buy a house somewhere and just have our solid foundation for "home" set. I guess Eric missed the window to where he could see what our overseas options were (oh well), so now we're just hoping for the best when it comes to stateside. Sure, there are bases that we specifically have in mind that we want verses ones we want to avoid like the plague, but that's all up to the Air Force in terms of what we're dished out. 

Of course when you're trying to mentally brace yourself for a big move, especially when it involves changing continents, you go through all the motions of deep cleaning / purging anything and everything under the sun you don't think you'll need / want / use. So far, I've purged my office...in which I didn't realize I had as much crap in there as I did! Next I'll be working upstairs in the "man cave" since I'll have a lot of time on my hands for the next several weeks, then slowly moving towards the garage since there's tons of stuff that hasn't been used in, well, years. Of course I can't really conquer that area with Eric's seal of approval since there's a lot of his goodies and collections boxed up. Heaven forbid if I toss any of those by accident. 

And, I'm guilty of house hunting & day dreaming of our new place. It's a little sickening. Since we have absolutely no idea where we're going, I've been looking up real estate for the bases we want to see what the housing markets look like. Odds are, we won't live on base since we both didn't like how the base housing was at Vandenberg when we were stationed there. Given, every base is different...but the outcome is usually the same: small housing for Enlisted folks and the homes are pretty shitty unless you're way up on the food chain.  Not to mention, we have a fair amount of fur balls that probably wouldn't be allowed on base, lol. In addition to that, *I* like having my privacy, which is a sparse luxury when it comes to living on base. Given, you can have nosey neighbors when it comes to living amongst the civilian population, but it's different. I don't know how to explain it, really. I would just prefer to not live in a confined military community, especially since Eric has just a little over four years left. I'd rather enjoy the last years, lol.

I'm ready to get this show on the road! It's hard to plan for things when there isn't solid ground to build it on!

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Citrus Cakes

It's Spring(ish) time here! How do we celebrate it? With cake, of course! 

Actually, I was gonna make a blueberry / lemon loaf recipe I found on Pinterest, but I decided not to do the blueberries since I only bought enough of those to use in my morning shakes, lol. So, I opted out of the blueberries and made mini "brownie" size cakes with my new Pampered Chef Brownie Pan. 

Here's the recipe I used:

For the Loaf:

1. 1 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, divided
2. 2 teaspoons baking powder
3. 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4. 1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt (I used Greek yogurt)
5. 1 cup sugar
6. 3 large eggs
7. 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (approximately 2 lemons)
8. 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
9. 1/2 cup vegetable oil
10. 1 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen, thawed and rinsed

For the Lemon Syrup:

1. 1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2. 1/3 cup sugar

For the Lemon Glaze:

1. 1 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2. 2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease bottom and sides of one 9 x 5-inch loaf pans; dust with flour, tapping out excess.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the yogurt, sugar, eggs, lemon zest, vanilla and oil. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix the blueberries with the remaining tablespoon of flour, and fold them very gently into the batter.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake 50 to 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean. Let cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing loaf to a wire rack on top of a baking sheet.
5. While the loaf is cooling, make the lemon syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir together the lemon juice and sugar until the sugar is completely dissolved. Once dissolved, continue to cook for 3 more minutes. Remove from the heat; set aside.
6. Use a toothpick to poke holes in the tops and sides of the warm loaf. Brush the top and sides of the loaf with the lemon syrup. Let the syrup soak into the cake and brush again. Let the cake cool completely.
7. To make the lemon glaze, in a small bowl, whisk together the confectioners’ sugar and 2-3 tablespoons of the lemon juice. The mixture should be thick but pourable. Add up to another tablespoon of lemon juice if the mixture is too stiff. Pour the lemon glaze over the top of each loaf and let it drip down the sides. Let the lemon glaze harden, about 15 minutes, before serving.

Yields: 1-9x5 loaf

Note:

1. This recipe will also yield about 12 standard muffins or 36 miniature muffins, baking time adjusted.
2. It could be doubled and baked in a well-greased and floured bundt pan, baking time adjusted.
3. This recipe could also be baked in an 8-inch square or 9-inch round, to create a thin cake (approx. 1 1/2 inches tall), baking time adjusted.

In terms of cooking it in the brownie pan, I used the Medium Scoop (Pampered Chef, of course) to distribute the batter. Then I baked it for 15 minutes at 350*. I followed the rest of the instructions regarding the syrup as well as the icing part and here's how they came out: 

They were a massive hit and all disappeared within a few hours of making them! Yeahhh!! So if you're a lemon lover, you should definitely make this! I attempted a second batch today, but with oranges rather than lemon since Eric isn't a fan of "the yellow things". They're still just as tasty, but the orange flavor is very mild compared to the lemon. I suppose that could be considered a good thing, but I like tart / sour stuff. 

Anyway! These little cakes would be wonderful for a little get together, or as one of my friends suggested...a tea party :)

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International Shopper

Once again, the Bazaars are upon us! Since we've been stationed here, I've managed to make it to a few of 'em, so I know what to expect when we roll out to do some shopping. Here's a post from one that we attended last Spring. 

The only thing I was really wanting to pick up were some more Venetian roof tile paintings like I got last time. Luckily, the people who sell them (Bottega del Ceramista) has an online site where you can request a virtual catalog and were they're VERY helpful in terms of making an order. After corresponding through several emails with the owners son, they arranged it so I could just pick my order up from them when they reached the Spangdahlem Bazaar rather than having it ship directly to me. Normally, I'd go for the whole shipment option, but shipping from Italy to Belgium would be expensive because of the whole VAT tax thing. Plus, we'd kill a few birds with one stone if we just went to Spang since we could also do our grocery shopping, pick up others things that our usual base doesn't carry, blah blah blah. 

I really loved the scroll design as well as the leaves with the lemons. I figured it was a bright enough design that wherever I hang 'em in the house (mainly our future house), it'll brighten up any room :)

I originally picked out a colorful tile called "Rio", but after seeing this particular one in person, Eric and I opted to get this instead. It may seem like drab colors, but it really pops with the glaze and the black outlines compared to the light, water colored appearance the other one had. Although, Eric and I had a giggle about it since the Rialto is missing all of the graffiti that's scrolled all over the exterior of it. I suppose that wouldn't make for a very pretty remembrance, right? 

On our way out, I spotted this really beautiful plate that some Turkish guys were selling. Of course when they saw me stop and stare at it, they instantly wanted to haggle and make sure I took it home, lol. 

After handling it and checking it all out, I noticed it's all hand painted! You can even see the individual paint drops for the design on the plate surface! So, of course I bought it and I'll be hanging it up in my office.

*Hopefully* the vendor I got this from will happen to be at Ramsteins event later in May since I'll be going up there for Eric's graduation ceremony. I know the tile guys will be there and I need to place another order with them, so, maybe I can get some goodies while I'm there to support my hubby :)

When you think about it, we traveled from Belgium to go shop in Germany. While in Germany, we bought stuff from Italy and Turkey. Talk about getting around! 

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