Muffin Stuffin' Ninja...

I do not get sick very often, it seems each of our three years in Russia has brought one major illness. I thought I survived the third year without illness, but I was wrong, it got me in the last few weeks. Last weekend, I fell ill with what is hopefully my last, third and final Russian illness.

Saturday morning, I had planned to continue my closet cooking, using additional coconut, and some frozen bananas to make banana coconut muffins. Since I was dying (not melodramatic at all) on the couch, Ryan took on a super alter ego. My muffin stuffin' ninja of a husband took the recipe, and successfully made muffins. I credit the delicious muffins to my recovery.

Fancy presentation, including a chocolate leaf. 

Ryan also decided flowers would be a good addition to our apartment, fully assuring my recovery.

Closet Cooking...

Tomorrow marks the four week point until we move. Not like I am keeping a countdown. :)

After spending the past three years stocking up on food items while in America, and bringing back multiple, overweight pieces of luggage each trip, I have now reached the point where I need to use my stockpiles. Mixed among my American imports are also food items found in the local grocery stores. Certain items will appear in the store, and I have learned to buy (multiples) when items do appear because it is not guaranteed you will see them again soon, or ever.

My meal planning has taken on a new focus, something I am referring to as Closet Cooking. No pantry in my kitchen, only a closet near the front door to our apartment, the location of my food stockpiles.

The past week's Closet Cooking Culinary Creations:

Not an import, but an item Ryan found months ago during a shopping trip.
Sweet Chili Sauce for Chicken

I am still cooking mostly vegetarian meals, so rather than using the sauce on chicken, I used it to flavor a broth for what I call: "Sweet Chili Tofu, with Soba Noodles"

No babies in our apartment, but I do keep a supply of baby food in the closet. Mainly, apple for baking since I have yet to find applesauce here, and pumpkin as a substitute for canned pumpkin when there are no fresh pumpkins or squash to be found. 

Pumpkin ricotta twice baked potatoes. I added some diced pears for freshness and crunch.
Served with my absolute favorite salad combination, strawberries and goat cheese. 

Shredded coconut, for my husband that claims he does not like coconut. :)
Add in some almonds I have had for some time and leftover white chocolate from a previous creation. 

White Chocolate, Coconut, Almond Cookies
I took inspiration from the very popular candies, Raffaello. I am not sure if they are popular in the States, but they seem to be the candy of choice for any Russian holiday, event, or gift. 

My "Closet Cooking" is not only an attempt to clear the shelves before our move, but also to keep me focused during our last weeks here. After seeing the kitchen in our new house, I find it very difficult to cook in the "kitchen" I currently have. Adding a bit of entertainment should hopefully help me until I am cooking in my dream kitchen.

We went hunting...

Think a little less camouflage, and weaponry. Instead of animals, we were hunting for….HOUSES!

We were in Covington last week with one main focus, find a house. Our realtor was absolutely amazing. The first day we saw eleven houses, went back to the office, made an offer on one. The next morning, we found out the house was incorrectly listed, and was in a bad flood zone (major negative in Louisiana). It was a very quick decision to throw that house out, and we toured another five houses. Fell in love with a new build, went back to the office, ready to make an offer. After looking at the blueprint for the house, we noticed it did not match the house we just toured. Our realtor called the listing realtor, and realized we had toured the wrong house! The house had already sold the previous week (a Chevron employee actually bought the house, so Ryan is going to have to figure out who it is) The house we were supposed to tour was in the same subdivision, but we should have been one street over. We got back into the car, went out to find the house we had the paperwork for, the one we were supposed to tour, and we LOVED it!

It is a new build, not completely finished. Notice the lack of driveway, our first time touring the house was during a Louisiana downpour. I was determined to see this house, the realtor and I left our sandals in the car, walked through the mud to the house, washed our feet off in the rain, then toured the house. Good thing the floors had not been installed yet.

We met the builder later in the week, he is such a nice guy. He built an absolutely beautiful, perfect home. For now, we must wait, we have another five weeks in Russia, then it is off to Louisiana to start our next adventure!

P.S. This is the only type of hunting I foresee myself ever doing.

Cupcake Catastrophe

I do not think there could have been a better time to pause with my posting than on Ryan's birthday. I hope everyone has Ryan's birthday (March 21st) memorized. I honestly meant to blog weeks ago, but my mind has not been focused. I think my lack of focus led to this cupcake catastrophe.

Please do not take this as bragging, but I very rarely have a cooking catastrophe. Creations tend to turn out pretty well, and if they are not perfect then they are at least decent. The previous post, I showed the dinner and ice cream cake for Ryan's birthday, but I left out the birthday treats I made for Ryan's office. My main reason for leaving them out, was because I was determined to turn my cupcake catastrophe into a culinary creation, and prove to myself that I had not completely lost my mind.

It's only appropriate to explain what just happened during this post. I was typing along, type, type, type and I received a text from Ryan. We had received an email with a new listing from our realtor. Actually it was a price reduction. Since I have the entire real estate property listings for Covington and the surrounding 5 miles memorized, I immediately checked it out, confirmed the reduction, and then preceded to text back and forth with Ryan (he is currently away on a business trip) about whether or not it is now worth placement on our walk through list. It did make the list. But there was a huge discussion about a stupid fire hydrant right in front of the house. I have a hard time ignoring that (go figure). But I will give the house a chance. It's a nice house. 

Now back to the originally scheduled post. I hope you have a better understanding of why I am not able to properly focus these days.

The catastrophe began the day before Ryan's birthday. I was going to bake cupcakes for Ryan's office birthday treat. I had decided on a cookies and cream Oreo cupcake with a white chocolate buttercream frosting. I started mixing up the ingredients, had Pandora playing, it was great. Put the cupcakes in the oven, turned around to clean up the mess and realized I forgot to add the butter to the batter! In case you are wondering, when you leave butter out, the cupcakes still look normal, but they have a "gummy" (the word that came to mind when I tried it) texture.

I had to document this craziness. Cupcakes with no butter. 

I had originally planned to make 24 cupcakes to send into the office. I texted Ryan to see if only 12 cupcakes would be enough. I figured I would just make the second batch, adding all the ingredients in, and be done. Nope, Ryan said 24 cupcakes were needed. I remained calm, I had enough ingredients to make two more batches. I set into making the next batter. Really focused on adding the ingredients (all the ingredients) and put the cupcakes in the oven. They finished baking, took them out of the oven, and the all fell in the center. What was going on?!?! When I tried to test how they tasted, they crumbled in my hand (but they did taste yummy). I was losing my mind. I had now made 24 cupcakes, and still had none to send into the office.

Second try.
All ingredients, but this is what happened when I attempted to take the cupcake wrapper off. 

Things got serious. I sent that recipe packing, and researched a new one. Decided to give one a try, focused on adding all the ingredients in, but then I relapsed. I DOUBLED the amount of the last ingredient. Seriously, losing my mind. So I quickly rushed to double the remaining ingredients. I put the first batch of 12 cupcakes in the oven, and hoped that the remaining batter would survive hanging out until I could bake them. The first 12 came out beautifully, and it was time to put the next 12 in. Success!  48 cupcakes later, I had 24 cupcakes ready to be frosted for the office. The frosting was fantastic, the cupcakes looked awesome, and I was told they were gobbled up pretty quickly.

Successful third attempt. 

Finished product, ready for the office. 

Now for the other 24 cupcakes. I could not throw them away. The crumbled ones were delicious, and even the butter lacking ones were not worthy of the trash can. I decided to put them in the freezer until I was ready to deal with them. Their opportunity to redeem themselves came about a week ago. I decided to turn the catastrophe into a culinary creation. I took the bowl of crumbled cupcakes (probably 8 cupcakes worth after Ryan and I preceded to eat the crumbles the night I was baking) and made them into a no bake white chocolate cheesecake mousse pie. Success! The no butter cupcakes still sit in the freezer, and I will most likely turn them into another mousse pie.

From frozen crumbles to fantastic dessert. 

Maybe I am not losing my mind after all. Now back to checking on (stalking) all real estate listings of potential houses in Covington. I wonder if there is a support group for first time home buyers that are addicted to checking real estate listings. I think I would be a prime candidate. 

It's that time of year again….

Ryan's Birthday! Yesterday, March 21st he turned the big 28! I went back through our photos from last year, and I would say 27 was a great year/age for Ryan. Many experiences, adventures, and memories. I especially love this picture, and all the memories from this trip.

Maldives, November 2013

Yesterday, we celebrated with some of his favorite things.

Thai pizza, BBQ bacon crab cakes, mac 'n' cheese.
And Macy. :)

I had to throw some veggies into the mix. Paired with his favorite, ranch dressing.
And my favorite, champagne cocktail. 

A tradition was started last year. The birthday cake ice cream cake.
This year I went for a young at heart, fun cake.
Funfetti cookie.

The colors of each layer did not turn out as vivid as I would have liked.
Suppose to be blue, green, and orange.
Cream cheese icing between each ice cream layer, covered in white chocolate buttercream frosting, and cookie dough pieces. Yummy!

Someone was checking out Ryan's gifts while we were slicing the cake.
All gifts were imported from the States. I had to keep them small, light, easily packable.
A few more of his favorite things, Oreos (found cookie dough flavor), M&Ms (birthday cake flavor), and a snowboard frame from Jackson Hole with a picture of him from his backcountry day.

Ryan's first comment about his gifts, "look at all the crazy food stuff they think of in America." Soon we will be able to experience all the latest, greatest food creations in America. Though, when we are able to easily go to the store and buy them anytime we want, we will end up not buying them at all.

Happy Birthday, Love. 

May your next year be filled with many more adventures and memories. 

Photo Upload

My last post announced our upcoming move. We are patiently waiting for the official offer letter, and the remaining information detailing our moving process. After the official notification we can finally start pursuing houses!

I no longer find myself browsing handbag selections on Kate Spade's website, or visiting some of my favorite travel blogs and websites. Instead, I find myself spending (wasting, losing track of) hours online stalking possible houses. Ask me a question about Covington and the surrounding area real estate and I can pretty much tell you anything you need to know. My daily routine consists of viewing my favorite Covington real estate websites, checking if any new listings have surfaced. I have the list of houses narrowed down to about 12 (it was 13, but Ryan felt that was a bad number). This morning, I discovered 1 of the 12 is now pending, so that leaves us with 11. Ryan comes home from work to his "daily house report" my Mother gets her "house report" each time with FaceTime. The last couple days have thrown a wrench into my daily routine, no new houses have been listed. No need to worry, I then spend the time browsing various blogs and websites for house decorating ideas. To say I am excited would be a major understatement.

So what have I been doing when I am not in front of the computer? Well, the list of possible activities in Novorossiysk  leaves me with too many options to choose (major sarcasm). I go to the grocery store, clean, cook, go to the gym. All the time, thinking about moving, and having a normal life back in the States.

The best way to "see" what I have been up to is to upload the photos off my camera.

We decided to give the Sling Box a try shortly after we learned we were moving to Covington. Swamp People was on. It always makes me wonder when they have to use subtitles when people are speaking English. 

Clean window on left, dirty window on right. The pictures do no justice for how disgusting our windows were. I spent one afternoon tackling their nastiest, something I will not miss when we move. Glad the air is so clean here. 

You could scrap the dirt build up off with your finger. 

My trusty supervisor during my window washing. 

We celebrated our newest addition to our Chevron family, Miya. 

Mom and Miya

Love this picture, and Rose's face.
Miya had grabbed a handful of Rose's hair and was pulling while I was taking the picture. 

Who needs presents when you have wrapping paper?
Miya's laughs were adorable as people crumpled the paper. 

The last picture on my camera, and proof I have possibly taken our vegetarian meals too far.
St. Patrick's Day dinner. Broccoli cheese soup, and spinach artichoke cakes.
I think I owe Ryan a meal of bacon and cheese after this super green dinner. 

We are moving!

I intended to post about our Russian anniversary, give a hint that we were moving, and then the following day, post about where we were moving, but one problem developed. I found myself unable to close real estate websites long enough to open the blog page. I now find myself stalker of Louisiana real estate. We are moving to Covington, LA! Ryan and I are both very excited. My excitement is much more vocal than Ryan's and involves more cheers, giggles, and random dance moves.

Covington was the one location that was not in Ryan's original Top 5. The job/location was brought to Ryan's attention while we were back in the States. When he developed his Top 3, Covington found itself into his first choice location, we are so happy, thankful that he was given his first choice! I must be completely honest here, if you would have asked me a few months ago my thoughts about moving to Louisiana, I would have responded with, "I would never move to Louisiana." Thanks to a visit, a couple weeks ago, to our good friends Tim and Kate, that are currently (and fingers crossed remain) living in Covington, I now have a better understanding. I really like the area. During our drive to Tim and Kate's, I learned that Covington is located about 30 minutes north of New Orleans. Lake Pontchartrain separates the two areas. Chevron's office is located in Covington.

My initial excitement included having a house with a backyard for Macy. I am excited that she will no longer be an apartment dog. I am excited to be surrounded by English. I am going to talk to everyone! I have numerous domestic items that I am very excited to buy.

Ryan is looking forward to his new job. While he's excited for the high possibility he will be able to travel offshore by helicopter, his true excitement surfaced yesterday when he found YouTube videos about Nutria hunting in Louisiana. I greatly enjoyed listening to him laugh, and then later discussing the hunting with my Father during a FaceTime chat, and to read everyone's comment to his Facebook post yesterday. I thought it would be fun to ride along in the airboat until I saw the video, no thank you, he can do the hunting with the guys.

We are both looking forward to a definite change from our current location. We think our time in Covington will be a great opportunity to enjoy a bit of normalcy in our lives, enjoy not having to fly endless hours on planes, and rejuvenate before the next job assignment. AND, this is where you come in, I am looking at houses with GUEST BEDROOMS, so I am looking forward to guests, COME VISIT US IN LOUISIANA!