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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Chicken and Broccoli

That's right.  You read the title correctly.  This Wilde girl is heading home to Buffalo this weekend!  I'm very excited.  There are plans in the works for lunch at my parents house (it is rumored to involve apple cobbler), breakfast at my favorite local restaurants with boyfriend and dinner with the in-laws.

This visit was only planned last Saturday, as we were groggily trying to acclimate ourselves to the eastern time zone.  Did you know that Alaska is in it's own time zone?  One hour further west of pacific standard time!  Couple that with the fact that the sun gets up much later in our New Jersey apartment than it did in our cruiseship stateroom and you've got two people waking up at almost 10am.  This is a huge deal for me.  I'm usually up by 7:30 on the weekends.


I suppose that the idea for the visit was hatched a few weeks ago, when I said "we could go to Buffalo for labor day weekend."  While on the cruise, boyfriend said "I looked at flights for next weekend, we should book tickets soon."  Come Saturday, boyfriend was sitting at his computer and booking the 8pm flight for Friday night.  Why the ticket says we take off at 8:01 and get to Buffalo at 10:05 is beyond me.  The flight is only an hour.  Those airlines are padding their time to make me feel better when we land "early" at 9:45, even though we took off 45 minutes late.  I'm not fooled airlines!


Moving on...  Other than spending time with my parents (who I haven't seen since Christmas) and boyfriends parents (who I can't remember when I saw them last!), we have no plans for our little weekend getaway.  It will probably involve getting a Ted's hotdog while drinking an overly sweet loganberry, chowing down on some John and Mary's chicken tenders while eyeing up Nina's ice cream across the street and driving by the now empty lot that used to hold the Swiss Chalet, wiping a tear from my eye.

Oh yes, there will be cobbler too.  I have a text message confirmation.  Bring on Friday!


And...  I get to see these little ladies.  They're one year old now!


And they're pretending to be little old eastern European ladies...

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Marinated Tomato Pasta with Gorgonzola

I'm finally back from our weeklong hiatus in the great white north.  No, not Canada.  Alaska!

Boyfriend and I spent a week among the seals, bears and whales, sailing the chilly Pacific on the Celebrity Infinity.  What can I say about Alaska?  It's just plain majestic.  We cruised by, hiked through and flew over some of the most beautiful landscapes that I have ever seen. 


Towering mountains with blue glaciers clinging to their sides.


Green hills, peeking through an early morning layer of clouds.


Huge boulders, floating on a river of flowing blue water and ice.


Our trip through Alaska was also one of the most active vacations we've taken.  Thankfully we had a day at sea to recover from all the activities.

Hiking...


Rock Climbing...


White Water Rafting...


I'm a little tired still.  That's why I went with a simple pasta dish from my new Alaskan cookbook, even though this dish seems like the least Alaskan dish I could find.  No salmon to be found!

But here's a bear...


And here's the pasta!


Sunday, August 26, 2012

Why Bother? 2012 - Sandwich Bread (Part 2)

I have been eating whole wheat bread since I was a little Wilde one.  Our freezer was always stocked with loaves and loaves of bread.  Sandwiches were always a part of my daily school lunches. 


These days I rarely make myself a sandwich for lunch, but I do like a slice of toasted wheat bread, topped with a thin layer of peanut butter. 


The recipe that I went with for my whole wheat experiment came out just like the bread from my childhood days.  With a hint of sweetness and a whole lot of whole grains, this bread may tempt me to head to the deli and make a sandwich.
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