Week 4: Wookie Legs in Venezuela

Ok ok, I know I’m a day late.  It’s been a crazy week….ok that’s not true….it’s been a lazy week.  You know, you have those weeks where as soon as the kids go to bed you just lay your head down and bam, out till the next day.  That was mostly my week.  Thank God for Home Date Night though.  Something to break up the norm.  New food, New Fun, and you get to hang out with the greatest person on earth…your spouse.  Join us as we take a trip to Venezuela.

Date night started off kind of normal. Got home and the kids and mommy were upstairs.  Now most of the time they have no idea that I’ve slipped into the house.  So I make it my goal to scare the crud out of them if I can. It’s better if I get it on video.

Well, after I freaked them out I slipped into the bedroom where my wife was relaxing and watching some TV.  I jumped on the bed and layed my head on her legs.  Then I made this sound:

That’s the sound I make when my wife hasn’t shaved her legs in like….a month.  Ok, to be fair, it probably hadn’t been a month…maybe 29 days.

Wife: “Oh whatever, it’s not that bad”

Me: “Not that bad if we live in France”

Wife: “You love it”

You know, something happens about a year after you are married, it’s like all of the sudden your wife realizes that shaving her legs once every couple of days kind of sucks.  Somehow woman rationalize this by convincing themselves nobody is going to see it if they just wear jeans.  Then, you find out that the only time they are shaving their legs is when they know they are going to have to wear shorts.  If you are still a young couple you probably haven’t noticed this phenomena yet.  Just giving you a little warning guys….just rub your hands through your own legs and get used to the feeling…learn to love it.

Ok, after that we did the norms of getting the kids into bed and time for Date night to commence.  Since we were visiting Venezuela we decided to mix things up a bit.  We were going to make an appetizer/main dish and a dessert.

For our appetizer/main dish my wife wanted to make Reina Pepiada : Arepas with Chicken and Avocado.  I won’t blame you if you stop reading the blog now and go down to the recipe, run to the store and make this dish.  It was amazing.  I made it later in the week again because it was so good.

 

The Arepas dish was going to be more than enough food to fill us up so I wanted to use my new Kitchen Aid Mixer and make a dessert. AAAAAAHHHHHHHH !!!!!!! *Little girl squeal* .  If you have been following the blog for any amount of time you know how much I’ve wanted a Kitchen Aid Mixer.  I now am the proud owner of one.  My wife finally bought it for me for Christmas and I absolutely love it.

Now you might be saying, “Damn, this dude needs his man card taken away”.  To that I say, “I gave that up the day I said I do….so mine as well embrace the baker inside of me.”

To restore your faith in my manhood she did get me a bunch of fishing stuff.  Anyways, back to manly baking machine that is the Kitchen Aid Mixer. *pause in writing the blog while I go hug the Kitchen Aid Mixer*.

Ok, for dessert I made Venezuelan Polvorosas.  These cookies were mouthwatering.  I couldn’t stop eating them and they were super easy to make.  My mom makes a similar cookie during Christmas time that it reminded me of.  I’ll have to get her recipe and see how similar they are.  It’s a crunchy cookie but great with a cup of milk or hot coffee.  I ate them the next 4 days for breakfast.  Plus they are good for people that want to gain weight.  You know about 1% of the population.

My wife turned on Alexa and asked her to play some latin music.  I think Venezuelan music is similar to all type of Hispanic music.  Most of it was Salsa which always makes my wife happy and dancing all over.  I could tell she was in a fantastic mood and this was going to be a great date night.

Since my meal was towards the end I decided to help her out with hers.  She was glad to let me help….so now I know she is in a really good mood…..until….

Wife: These avocados are as hard as a rock !

Me: ummmmm will they still work?

Wife: yeah sure they will work – in about 4 more days when they are ripe

Me: sooooooo what I hear is you need a man to come mash them because of your woman muscles?

*Avacodo thrown past my head*

Me: Sorry, when I hear Shakira singing she just inspires me to be manlier.

Wife: Don’t worry, I’ll run to the store quick while the chicken is cooking and see if they have some ripe ones.

It is nice that we live close to a supermarket.  It was good that she went too because I would probably just buy more not ripe avocados.

While she was gone I went ahead and chopped up all the ingredients for the avocado chicken mix.  I kind of like chopping up vegetables.  Its good practice for when I’m on Master Chef.  Gordon Ramsay will be so impressed with my knife skills and good looks he will probably just give me my own restaurant

While I’m daydreaming of my future career as a world renowned chef, my wife returns home.

Wife: Hey, Ramsay, these are ripe avocados.

Me: *as I feel them I can’t really tell the difference but I say*  aaaaahhhh babe, you are right…these are much different and will work better.  

You gotta know when it’s worth it to fight for your rights….avocados are not worth it.

Now my wife takes a butter knife in her hand and holds the avocado in the other and proceeds to hold it and cut it at the same time.

Me: Probably not the best idea, just cut it on the table.

Wife: I’ve been doing it this ways since I was 5….see  OOOOOOWWWWWWEEEEEEE!!!!!

*wife slices into the palm of her hand*

Now, this is usually a good time to feel proud and belt out the “I told you so”.  But to say that to a Rican woman, holding a knife while she just cut herself and is in some pain…..no….I choose life.

Well, we got her patched up and I helped finish up the rest of the meal.   While the Arepas were cooking in the oven I went ahead and made the cookies.  She helped me roll them out and press the fork in.

By this time we were both starving.  The Arepas finished and we filled them with the chicken avocado mix of heaven and they were absolutely wonderful.  We were both able to eat about 2 each.  They are pretty filling.  While we ate I shoved in the cookies to bake and we started on our activity.

The activity was nothing crazy.  Since we are still in January we decided to make one of those Mason Jars that you keep through the year and add little pieces of paper with positive things that happen to you throughout the year, or things you are thankful for.  What we plan on doing is close to the end of the year we would go live on Facebook on one of our home date nights and read through them…..well, the PG-13 ones.

So we dug into our Martha Stewart side, got some ideas from Pinterest and decorated a mason jar.  I bought some colored sticky notes.  We just grabbed some items from my wife’s crafting stuff and decorated together….ok, she decorated, I watched and critiqued.  She is really crafty so she makes it looks simple but awesome.  We set it up on the window sill and my wife grabs the first note and writes something down and adds it to the jar.

Me: really already, what did you write?

*Wife grabs my hand and gives me the look*

Wife: Wookies need love too !!

Well, I hope you have enjoyed our At Home Date Night.  Please share and leave comments.  We love to also hear stories of other’s at home date nights.  You can join our facebook group.  Just search At Home Date Night in FB. This way, you will get a notice when we post.  It’s usually every Friday, but this week I failed.  I do have to say that next week will be tough for us to do an At Home Date night. We are going to try. I have to travel to California next week for business and might not be able to write the blog.  So the next one might be posted two weeks from now.  I’ll do my best though.  Thanks for reading and remember, Your Marriage is Worth It !!!

Main Dish:  Reina Pepiada, Arepas with Chicken and Avocado

ITEM	QTY	Cost	Notes
Boneless Chicken	1lb	$4.00
Small Yellow Onion	½	$0.99	Sliced
Bay leaf	1	$0.00	I had a little jar of these dried out, I used one of them
Peppercorns	5	$2.39	I didn’t have peppercorns
Salt	½ tsp	$0.00
Haas avocados	2	$3.00
Mayonnaise	2 TBS	$1.59	I bought a small jar
Lime juice	1 TBS	$0.50	I bought a real lime and squeezed it, gave me roughly 1 TBS
Red Bell Pepper	½	$2.00	Finely chopped
White Onion	3 TBS	$0.99	Finely chopped
Cilantro	3 TBS	$0.99	Finely chopped
Jalapeno pepper	½	$1.29	Finely chopped
Garlic	2 tsp	$1.59	Finely chopped
Ground black pepper	¼ tsp	$0.00

 

ITEM	QTY	Cost	Notes
White corn flour	3 cups	$3.50	P.A.N or Masarepa
Warm water	3 ¼ cups	$0.00	Sliced
Salt	1 tsp	$0.00
Cooking oil	1 TBS	$0.00	You may need more

 

Total Cost: $23.00  Wow, that was expensive, but it makes enough to have two full meals.  Plus there is enough white corn, and if you have all the seasonings it’s much cheaper.

Enjoyment Ratings:

Husband: 10

Wife: 10

Directions:

This is an easy dish you will be making for the rest of your life now.  It was sooooooooooo good and it makes enough to eat for dinner and then lunch the next day.  Now, will your kids enjoy it? Probably not because it doesn’t come in a little sealed pack with “gummies” written across it or a bag with an orange fish on the front.  Ok here’s how to make this masterpiece.

First you want to poach the chicken.  This takes the longest to cook so get it started. In a big pot place two pieces of boneless chicken breast (approx. 1lb) and fill the pot with cold water and cover the chicken by an inch or two.

Add in the 5 peppercorns, ½ slicked yellow onion, 1 bay leaf, and ½ teaspoon of salt. Bring the pot to a boil and as soon as it’s boiling turn it down to simmer and let it cook for about 15-20 minutes.  You need the chicken to be cooked through.  Ok, while that is cooking move on to the Arepas

Preheat the oven to 350F.  In a large bowl add in the warm water.  Then add in the salt and stir it in so it dissolves. Pour the corn flour in and start kneading it.  Make sure to there are no lumps.  After this is done let it sit for about 3-5 minutes.  You don’t need to use the mixer for this. It doesn’t take that long to knead.

This much dough will make you about 8 Arepas.  So just divide your mix into 8 equal parts.  Then form the arepas by making them into a ball, then flatten them to about ½ inch.  Rub your thumbs around the edges to make a nice seal.  They should be about 4” in diameter and ½ inch thick.

In a non-stick pan or skillet add a little bit of oil and get it hot.  Medium high should be enough, but you want it hot because you are going to sear the arepas now.   You should be able to get 3 or 4 in the pan. Let them cook for about 4 minutes on each side.  They should look like the pictures

Once you are done searing them off place them straight on the oven wire rack.  Let them cook for about 15-20 minutes.  Once they are done pull them out and let them cool.  While they are cooking, time to make the Avocado Chicken mix……pure heaven.

Ok, this is going to take some serious knife skills.  Plus, don’t let your wife cut the avocado if she is a Rican. She will do it like they taught her on the island and end up slicing her hand.  Cut it like a normal safe person on a cutting board.

Ok, while the Arepas and Chicken or cooking, finely chop up the red bell pepper (get rid of the seeds and ribs), finely chop the jalapeno pepper( again get rid of the seeds). Finely chop up the garlic, the cilantro, the white onion.  Add in the tablespoon of lime juice, the 2 tablespoons of mayo, and the two avacodos.  Now mash them all up till they are thoroughly mixed.   Add in salt and pepper to taste.  Once mixed in go ahead and cover it and set it in the fridge.

By this time the chicken might be done.  Pull the chicken out and let it set for about 2 minutes. Then start to shred it.  I use 2 forks and just dig them in and pull the chicken apart. This usually works pretty well.

Once it’s nice and shredded, pull the avocado mix from the fridge and add the shredded chicken to it.  Mix it really good and add more salt or pepper if it needs some.

At this point you are going to taste it one time and be like, “ WOW THIS IS AMAZING”  you are going to ask your wife to taste it again and she will slap your hand away…..don’t worry, it will soon be yours.

Ok, place the chicken avocado mixture back in the fridge.  The arepas should be done by now. Pull them from the oven and let them cool for about 5 min.  Once they are cool enough to handle, slice them and add the avocado chicken mixture to them.

As you are chowing down on this think to yourself, “I have the greatest wife in the entire world”

Dessert: Venezuelan Polvorosas

ITEM	QTY	Cost	Notes
All purpose Flour	2 cups	$0.00	you have almost all these items probably
Cinnamon	½ tsp	$0.00
Powdered sugar	½ cup	$0.00
Salt	1 pinch	$0.00
Sugar	1 cup	$0.00
Vanilla Extract	1 tsp	$2.39
Vegetable shortening	1 cup	$3.59

Total Cost: ~$ 6.00  !!!! well worth it.  and now that I have the vanilla extract and vegetable shortening I can make a bunch more batches and gain about 10 lbs…can’t wait !!!

Enjoyment Ratings:

Husband: 10

Wife: 9

Directions:

These might be my new favorite cookie.  I don’t know what it is about them, I just loved them. Probably because I made them and I was feeling pretty proud.  Anyways, these cookies are ridiculously easy to make….of course if you have a Kitchen Aid mixer like this guy it is now extremely easy.

Pre-heat the oven to 350F.  It’s probably already at 350F because you needed it at this temp to make the Arepas. Find and cookie sheet or flat sheet and put some parchment paper on it. Set this to the side.

In a large bowl or the bowl that comes with your brand new Kitchen Aid Mixer, add the 1 cup of Vegetable shortening and turn the mixer on low for 30 seconds to cream it.

Then add 1 cup sugar and the pinch of salt and continue to mix for about 30 more seconds or until it looks incorporated.  Then add the vanilla extract and cinnamon.

Turn off the mixer and scrap the sides

Turn it back on and just make sure it’s at the lowest setting.  Then start to slowly add in the flour.  You will be tempted as you add in more sugar to put the mixer on a higher setting.  Don’t be an idiot like me and try to speed this up.  Just mix it on slow until it’s just starting to completely combine.  I’m new to baking, don’t judge me.  One day , when I’m standing in front of Gordon Ramsey and he hands me the Master Chef trophy I’ll be thinking, “wow, from no named blogger who didn’t even know to keep the mixer on low when mixing in flour to greatest home cook in the world”.  You gotta dream big folks

Ok, now rolls little balls about 1 tablespoon size.  Place them on the cookie sheet about ½ inch apart from each other.  You should be able to get them all on one cookie sheet.

Get a fork and slightly mash them down.  They might start to crumbled right there, that means you put the mixer on high like me.  It’s ok, they will still taste wonderful.  Just push them back together and very lightly mash them down with the fork until they don’t crumble.

Bake them on the middle rack for 20-25 min.  Pull them out and place them on a wire rack to cool.  After about 5 minutes of cooling go ahead and transfer them to a large place and dust them with the powdered sugar.  Then shove as many down your gullet as you can because you won’t want to stop eating them.  Plus they are healthy…..ok…that’s not true, but I tell myself that.  These are also awesome with milk.

 

Activity: Thankful Mason Jar

ITEM	QTY	Cost	Notes
Mason Jar	1	$0.00	You usually have to buy these in packs, so you can save an old spaghetti jar, clean it and use this.
Notepad	1	$2.00	I like the colored pads.  They make the jar look cook as they start to add up.
Craft Items	as much as you want	$2.00	You shouldn’t spend more than 5 bucks on supplies, just find some crafty stuff around the house or your wife probably has some. My wife bought a few things at the store.

 Total Cost: $ 4.00

Directions:  

I don’t even really have to explain this.  Decorate a Jar, and leave it in a place that both of you see a lot. We put it over our kitchen sink on the window sill.  We always see it there and it reminds us to fill out the notes and drop them in.  Leave a pen there too.  That way you aren’t looking for a pen to write something down.  You will probably put it off till later if you don’t have everything ready right there….and we know what happens when a guy puts something off till later…….yeah…it never gets done.

But if you needed an idea here you go. My wife bought some little thank you cards. She took off the lid of the mason jar and cut out the “Thank You” symbol of the card with in the shape of the lid

 

She then bought these little things to hang around the jar to decorate it.  Add the colorful cute notepads and there you go.

Done !!!  I’m thankful for my wife. She is crafty….in more than one way.

Total At Home Date Night Cost: $33.00   Not bad !!!!!

Thanks again for joining us.  We hope you enjoy the blog and continue to follow us.  Have a great day!!!

Christmas Savings 2017 Shadow Box deposits

Option 1: $49.00 Total saved: $202.00

Option 2: $26.00   Total saved: $98.00

Option 3: $10.00   Total saved: $40.00

UNTIL NEXT WEEK…….Because your marriage is worth it !!!

 

Week 3: Dodging Axes, In Norway

I must apologize in advance for this blog.  This blog was actually written quite a bit ago when I thought I would start the blog back up.  I never posted it and saved it for when I thought something might happen and we couldn’t do date night one week.  I didn’t want to have to skip a week in this process, because as soon as I skip one, it’s much easier to skip another and then BAM !!! I give up.  So I have some of these gems in my pocket to pull out in certain circumstances.  My wife and kids were sick pretty much all week and it was difficult to do our planned Venezuelan date night. I was really looking forward to it and I know my wife was too.  So, I’ll leave you with our trip to Norway. I do have to say, this was a fun date night we had, the best part was I utterly slaughtered my wife at our activity.

The night started off pretty normal.  I got home from work and was handed over the keys of parental life.  You know what I mean guys, you get home, and you can just tell, It’s been a long day for your wife and she needs about an hour away from crazy town to get her wits back again.  It’s perfectly normal for this to happen and it happens to all of us. Women are a little unstable as it is, throw in kids and 5-6 hours of Hobby Kids mom on Youtube and it would drive about any person to the brink.  So give her that time. Let her decompress a little and you’ll see that the person you married many moons ago has returned, smiling, revitalized, and ready for a wonderful date with her knight in shining armor.  Sure the armor doesn’t fit as well anymore….but it’s still shiny.  Trust me, she appreciates it, even if it doesn’t show all the time I guarantee you she appreciates it.

So my wife headed upstairs and it was time for me to put on my big boy dad pants and tire these kids out.  My little one has been into pretending a lot. You know, acting like a dinosaur and of course, I’m the daddy dinosaur and we have to talk like dinosaurs and pretend to catch other dinosaurs and eat them…..yeah…..kill me.   You know, I’m not 21 anymore so crawling on my knees for an hour can do some damage…physically and mentally.  It’s ok though, he likes it and I know this phase will only last for about a year….yeah…kill me.   The older one rescues me though.  He likes to act like a crazed lunatic and jump on top of my back and act like another attacking dinosaur…this usually turns into an argument with the little one and then an all-out brawl takes place….this is my time to slip away and hide somewhere.  Usually crying happens shortly after, but at least I got a little break. I’m not quite sure how my dad did it. I had two older brothers and a younger sister and I can remember wrestling with my dad quite often.  Man, we would pound on him so hard.  Now I know why his body is so messed up and he walks like a bent piece of bread.  Thanks dad for letting us beat you up, it made us closer and I appreciate you way more now that my kids pound on me.

Well, I got them tired out and my back couldn’t take much more so I got them cleaned up and in bed.  My wife didn’t seem ready to come out of her cave so I headed downstairs to start date night.  I looked up her recipe and as I’m going through it I was like, “ Wow, I wonder if she read this, it looks like this is going to take 2-3 hours to make”.

Just then I hear this Viking music playing loudly and my wife comes down and she has made a viking helmet out of tin foil and is wearing it on her head and has covered one of her bras in tin foil and wearing it on the outside of her shirt.

Wife:  I’m ready for date night in Norway babe.

Me:  You are the absolute greatest wife that has ever lived !!!!

She never ceases to amaze me.  I wish she would let me post a picture of what she looked like. I just couldn’t stop laughing.  She is such a jokester and I love it.  This is why Date Night is so important. It reminds you that you are more than just a mom or just a dad, you are husband and wife, best friends who love being idiots together.

She kept the get up on for the rest of the night.

We started to make her dish.  She decided to make Norsk Kanelboller (Norwegian Cinnamon Twists). This is no walk in the park my friends.  I was like:

Me: did you read this?

Wife: yeah why?

Me: are you sure, because this is going to take like 2 hours?

Wife: WHAT ????

Me: well, good thing I don’t work tomorrow, we got this

Wife: Ok let’s do this !!!

I could tell the costume was making her feel like she could conquer the world.  Let’s just roll with it.  Well, we started to get into her dish and oh boy, we wished we hadn’t. This was a ton of work. Without a Kitchen Aid mixer this dish is extremely hard to make.   About halfway through the kneading process she was like

Wife: I think we should just throw this away and do something else.

Me: No way, we started it we are going to finish it.

Wife: no really, I don’t even think this recipe is accurate, the dough looks so weird and we’ve been doing this for 40 minutes now.

Me: We’ve come so far to give up now……ok let’s give up.

Wife: No ….we must endure.

So we endured and 2 hours later we had the most amazing hot cinnamon buns.

While the dough was rising I made the Norwegian Meatballs.  They were super easy to make and really good.  She and I both loved them.  It doesn’t take too long to make and you need something to do while the dough is rising.  I will probably make meatballs this way for the rest of my life.  They were so tasty.

Ok, after eating it was time for our activity.  Since we were visiting Norway all I could think about was Vikings.  So we decided to have an axe throwing competition……..yeah…..no…….

Having axes in the same house with a Rican woman is probably not a good idea.  So I did the next best thing. We got a dart board and we were going to play a modified version to the game called cricket.

I got the dart board off of Amazon for like 20 bucks.  I’m not big into darts and she said she had never played (I knew this….it’s why I bought the thing).   I’ve been losing at competitive games since doing the home date night so I needed some kind of advantage. If you want to read about me getting humiliated in a game I should have destroyed her at…read this

I explained the rules and set up the board.  The way we were going to play was just try to hit 20, 19,18,17,16,15 three times each and in descending order.  The first person to close out all numbers won the game.

On my first shot….WAMO….double 20’s.  Her first shot…..nada.

Wife: This isn’t fair, the board is too high and I’m short, plus you are making me throw from so far away.

Me: I don’t care that’s the rules

Wife: *look of, I’m going to stab you with one of these darts*

Me: *trying to hide how fearful of her I truly am*

We continued to play and after 6-7 rounds I was on number 17 and she was still on 20….yeah…I’m destroying her.

Wife: This is so unfair.  This is physics you know…pure physics is not allowing me to win because my trajectory is harder to accomplish than yours

Me: *blank stare*…….Ok, you can move a little closer.

Wife moves closer and hits all her 20’s and moves onto 19.  At this point I’m a little scared….but of course I’m talking smack and looking like I have total confidence in myself.

After my next turn I nail all my 17’s and 1 16.

Wife:  Get on your knees and try to throw so you can see what I’m talking about.

Me: *gets on knees, throws first two darts and misses 16*

Wife:  See what I mean…see how much more difficult it is

Me: *throws third dart and hits triple 16*…….so I guess I’m better than physics…right?

Wife: *punches husband in the arm*

Me: yep…I deserved that.

Well, everyone, you will be happy for me.  I took her down and closed out the game shortly after.  Finally, I get one in the win column for Home Date Nights.

She was a good sport about it.  She said good job and gave me a nice long congratulatory hug….no kiss though.

Well, we she headed upstairs for bed and I went in to clean up the kitchen.  I hear her call down and she says:

Wife: Hey, didn’t the Vikings like to explore and go raiding for villages for treasure?

Me: I’m not sure, I think a lot of that is myth and made up for dramatic TV shows.

Wife: *tosses down tin foil bra*  Well, maybe there are some lands up here that need exploring and still some hidden treasures to be found.

Me: *Makes Viking war call sound and runs upstairs as fast as possible*

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed our home date night and you are doing your own Home date nights. Please share your experience or share any ideas or thoughts on how we could improve the blog. We love to read comments or answer any questions you may have about the recipe’s.  Have a great week and we will see you next Friday.  Remember….Your Marriage is worth it !!!!

Appetizer : Norsk Kanelboller (Norwegian Cinnamon Twists)

ITEM	QTY	Cost	Notes
flour	8 cups	$3.99
dry yeast	1 pkg	$0.99
salt	1 tsp	$0.00
ground cardemon	2 tsp	$0.00
sugar	2/3 cup	$0.00
egg	1	$0.00
whole milk	2 1/2 cups	$0.00
Unsalted butter	2/3 cup	$0.00
Cinnamon Paste	QTY	Cost	Notes
Unsalted butter	1/2 cup	$0.00
cinnamon	6 tsp	$0.00
sugar	1/3 cup	$0.00
egg	1	$0.00

Total Cost: $5.00  (honestly, you probably have most of these items)

Husband Rating: 9

Wife Rating: 9

The only reason these get a 9 is because they definitely need some kind of glaze….oh and it takes A FREAKEN LONG TIME TO MAKE !!!!   but it was worth it.

Directions:

Prepare yourself physically and mentally.  If you do not have a KitchenAid mixer you may curse…not once, but a lot….in a loving way though.  We do not have a KitchenAid mixer….so there may have been a few choice words said.

Ok, once you are prepared dump all the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl (flour, dry yeast, salt, ground cardamom, sugar)

Add 1 egg to the dry mix and incorporate. This is where you start to wish you had a nice electric mixer.

Heat up the milk for like 30 seconds in the microwave. You don’t want it burning hot, just warm.  Now start to add the milk into the dry mixture and attach the imaginary dough hook (your hands) to the imaginary mixer (you) and start to mix everything together aaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnddddddddd…..let cursing commence as you knead the bajesus out of it.  When you think you are done kneading…knead a little more.  It should take you about 30 min….yeah….30 minutes.  If you read this recipe before you started than you have probably decided not to make it.  If not, then you are wishing you didn’t start it and are debating whether or not you want to throw all this flour away.  It’s a tough decision. We almost threw it all away, but we pushed through.

Ok, once kneaded (slightly sticky)…or so you think once kneaded,  melt the butter and add it to the dough ball in 1/3’s at a time.  This gets really messy without a mixer. Butter everywhere and it takes a long time to incorporate.  Probably another 15-20 minutes.

Once done, place the slimy dough ball into a bowl and cover with some plastic stuff, let the dough sit for about 45 min or until it has doubled in size….you see now why we were up so late.

While the dough is rising, in a mixing bowl mix ½ cup butter, 6 tbs cinnamon, 1/3 cup sugar, and 1 whisked egg and mix everything together to make a paste.  Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Ok, the dough has now risen, guess what? Time for more kneading.  On your counter top go ahead and lightly dust it with flour. The dough should be oily from all the butter you added.  Knead for about 5-7 more minutes

Once done with the kneading roll out the dough into a large flat circular form.

On half of it add the paste that you made and then fold over the other half onto the top of the paste.  Now cut long strips about an inch thick.

Twist the buns as shown in the pictures below.

Line a baking sheet with Parchment paper. Place the buns on the parchment paper and then put into the oven and bake for about 15 minutes.  Pull them out and admire your handy work.  Even without any glaze or topping these things are still good.  This makes a lot of buns. We were eating them for days.  They are great for breakfast.  I love buns

Main Dish : Norwegian Meatballs w/ Brown Gravy

ITEM	QTY	Cost	Notes
Ground beef	1 lb	$3.99
unsalted butter	2 tbs	$0.00
olive oil	1tbs	$0.00
Onion	3/4 cup	$0.99	grated
half and half	1/4 cup	$2.49	you probably have this
egg	1	$0.00
kosher salt	1 1/2 tsp	$0.00
ground nutmeg	1/4 tsp	$0.00
ground allspice	1/4 tsp	$0.00	just use whatever multi spice you have
black pepper	1/4 tsp	$0.00
beef broth	4 cups	$2.99
beef base	1 tbs	$0.00	I had some beef boulon cubes..you probably have these too.  They are cheap either way
Kitchen Bouquet	1 tsp	$2.99	I had to look this up to see what it was…its just some liquid flavoring
salt and pepper	to taste	$0.00

Total Cost: $13.45

Husband Rating: 10

Wife Rating: 10

Directions:

First you have to grate the onion.  I’ve never grated an onion before.  I figured you should just chop it up fine but I’m following the recipe so grating it is.  I think you can do it either way.  So grate ¾ of a cup and put it into a large mixing bowl.

Add ¼ cup of half and half, 2 tbs cornstarch, 1 egg, 1 ½ tsp kosher salt, ¼ tsp ground nutmeg, ¼ tsp ground allspice, and ¼ tsp ground black pepper.

Whisk all this together in the bowl.

Now comes the fun part, making the meatballs.  So dump in the pound of ground beef and mix everything together really well.

Now make the meatballs.  Make them whatever size you want.

In a large frying pan on medium high heat 2 tbs unsalted butter and 1 tbs of olive oil.  Then add in the meatballs.  Just brown them, do not cook them all the way through. Seal in that flavor.

Once you are done with the meatballs put them off to the side. Then deglaze the frying pan with 3 1/2 cups of broth. Don’t throw away the little brown bits from browning the meatballs.

Stir in the beef base and bring the broth up to a boil.

In another bowl whisk together the flour and kitchen bouquet and the remaining ½ cup of beef broth.  Then add this mixture to the main broth in the frying pan.

Reduce down to a simmer and let it cook for 5 minutes.

Heat the oven to 400F.  In a roasting pot or something you can put in the oven go ahead and put all the meatballs in and pour over the broth.  Cover the pot and shove it in the oven and let it braise for 35-40 minutes.  Yeah, that’s a long time.

In the meantime you can make some mashed potatoes or some noodles.  You don’t need a side at all. These meatballs are fantastic by themselves and are full of flavor. Enjoy !!

Activity: Darts “A game of Cricket”

Total Cost: $ 20.00

Enjoyment:

Husband: 10….of course…I WON

Wife: 1   just kidding, she had fun, she just doesn’t like to lose

Ok, this is really simple.  If you don’t have a dart board you can buy one off of amazon for like 20 bucks here. That’s pretty awesome. Yes, it’s not the nicest of dart boards but it will work.  This was a quick game which was good because we took so long on the buns…not the fun kind.

So the way we played Cricket was really a variation. It’s how I remember playing it.  Basically you make two columns and are trying to hit numbers 20,19,18,17,16, and 15.  We played where you had to hit them in order.  You have to hit 20 3 times before you could move on to 19.  The first person to close out each number won the game.  Now I bet if I went back through all the home date nights I would find that my wife has crushed me at most games that we play. Well, tonight was not that night.   I stand victorious…as I sleep on my lonely couch…but it’s ok….because I’m a champion.

TOTAL HOME DATE NIGHT COST : ~ $38.00

Christmas Savings 2017 Shadow Box deposits

Option 1: $50.00 Total saved: $153.00

Option 2: $24.00   Total saved: $75.00

Option 3: $10.00   Total saved: $30.00

UNTIL NEXT WEEK…….Because your marriage is worth it !!!

 

Week 2: Diffusing a Bomb !!!! In Japan

Japan is definitely on my list of places I want to visit before I meet an untimely death.  I guess maybe it’s the culture I want to experience.  They just seem like they have much more nationalism than we do here in Murica and hold traditions in high esteem.  I have a lot of respect for that. Oh I forgot, read this blog with a Japanese accent for better authenticity.

The night started off as normal….get important things done first. Like getting the kids to bed.

We did manage to get the kids to bed early but the youngest kept getting out of bed for just about any reason he could think of.  “I need juice, I need my night night put on right, can you read me one more book, what are you guys doing, bacon? I need to go pee, I need to go poo”.

Yeah, so that was constant throughout the beginning but eventually the little guy fell asleep and it was time for the magic to begin.  Why do little kids always have to go poo right before bed?  It’s programmed within them or something.  Anyways, off to Japan we go.

My wife put on the traditional Japanese station on her Amazon Echo (which actually worked this time) so our moods would be set.  I have to say, the music was cool but man was it super slow. I wanted some crazy Japanese pop music or something…but no…it wasn’t happening.

This at home date night meal took a little more prep work since the meal I was making was YakiUdon and my wife’s appetizer was Cheese Korokke.  I had two items on our grocery list that could not be found.  I actually had to go to an Asian market to find them.  The cool thing is…I found a new little grocery shop that I will be using in the future.  The lady running the place was so nice and kind.  They serve food there too so next time maybe I can get something authentic.  So make sure if you are going to copy the recipe you have an Asian market nearby because you won’t find two of the ingredients in murica’s publix and one of them is essential to the dish. The other one you can probably go without if you want too.

My dish wasn’t going to take that long to prepare so I started to help my wife with hers and she jumps back and makes karate fighting sounds at me.

“Waaaa, Chaaaa, Waaaa”

She waves her hands around like she is going to fight me.  Now imagine a little Rican woman with a slight Rican accent making karate fighting sounds…..yeah…that’s my life.

She said in Japanese accent, “You no touch my dish white devil.”

I’m not sure where she gets this stuff but I couldn’t help but laugh.  It was a sight to behold.  She didn’t want me to be able to take credit for anything she made. Sound familiar fella’s?  Although when it came time to chop up the yellow onion she let me know she wanted me to do it.  Now I wasn’t offering help, just being told what to do and responding correctly.  There is a difference….in a woman’s mind that is.

After about 30 minutes her dish was ready to sit in the fridge for a little bit.  We cleaned up the dishes together (awwwww) and then sat down to talk a little.  She looked up some things they do in Japan and a couple of them were pretty funny and some were downright deadly.  By deadly I mean…slurping.

Nothing says, “I want to get stabbed directly in the eyeball with a spoon” like slurping your food near a Rican woman.

Probably most woman I would say hate to hear the sound of people eating, but in Japan slurping your food loudly is a sign that the food is good and it’s a compliment to the chef.  I did not attempt this later when we ate my dish, I ate it normal, White Devil normal.

The other one was that KFC is the busiest place to eat on Christmas Day.  They say it’s because foreigners to the country couldn’t find a place to get a turkey so they settled for KFC, and the Japanese people started following suit because they thought it was how you celebrated Christmas.

If I ever eat at a KFC on Christmas I will have failed somewhere horribly at one point in my life.

The best one I thought was that it is normal to stick your finger into another person’s butt.  Yep, you read that right.  It’s called “Kan-CHO!”

So apparently kids on the playground will clasp their hands together and point their fingers as if to make a gun and when people walk by they jab their “gun” into the passerby’s butt and yell “Kan-CHO!”.

Let me make something perfectly clear, that is not acceptable in murica.

While my wife and I were contemplating whether or not we were going to visit Japan now, the Amazon Echo timer went off which meant it was time to fry my wife’s appetizer.  The Cheese Korokke is a mashed potato patty stuffed with Gouda Cheese and breaded with Panko and deep fried.

Yeah, can you say…. “Kan-CHO!”

It was simply amazing.  The only thing different we would do would be to add more Gouda Cheese to it, but the flavoring of the potato was awesome and the dip is the other item you have to pick up in the Asian Market. It’s a type of Japanese BBQ sauce.  It tastes a little like Caribbean Jerk sauce.  It was really good.  I think she ate one and I ate two.  You can see from the pics they are pretty big.  So now it was time to cook my dish.

What I made was called YakiUdon.  It’s basically a Japanese style stir-fry.  The Yaki part comes from the sauce you use called Yakisoba.  You have to get this at the Asian Market.  The Udon comes from the type of noodles you use (No slurping though).  Then it’s just chicken, broccoli, peppers and some other things all put together.

It really was a delicious dish but I overcooked the noodles which made it not so great.  The flavor was spot on though.  We both enjoyed it.  I actually made it later in the week and gave it to the kids and they really hated it, but their diet consists of Gogurts and Cheezit’s (Parental Winning !!!) ….so they are not the most reliable judges.  Now I made the noodles correctly and it was really really good.

Well, we were pretty full so that meant one thing, it’s time to do something super stressful that could possibly cause and all out fight but is supposed to be fun.

For our activity we decided to play a game called “Keep talking and nobody explodes”.  It’s a game on the PC where one person has a bomb with little puzzles on it and a timer and another person who cannot see what the bomb looks like has the bomb manual in front of them and they have to talk to each other to diffuse the bomb before the timer goes off or they do something wrong 3 times.

Nothing says, “Future Marriage Counselling Needed” like trying to work with your spouse to diffuse a bomb.

So we decided that I should be the one using the bomb manual because my profession is very detail oriented and interpreting instructions is part of what I do for a living and she should be the bomb diffuser because she is good at following directions…..wait…that’s not right….this is going to be rough.

I had played this game briefly before but my wife hadn’t so I walked her through the tutorial and she felt comfortable with what she had to do.

I do have to compliment my wife really quick in one area.  She is a superfast learner.  I am not.  You just have to explain something to her once or have her perform something one time and she will be an expert.

So, time to diffuse our first bomb and save the Japanese people.

She hits go and the dialogue goes like this:

Me: “Ok – what do you see?”

Wife: “I got a Bomb”

SMH, we aren’t going to make it I thought.

Me: “No what do you see, any wires?“

Wife: “Yes there are wires.”

So I go to the section on wires and start rattling off instruction on how many wires, how many colors..bla bla bla.  I tell her to cut the yellow wire, she does and that section turns green which means onto the next module.

Wife: “I have a big red button that says HOLD”

Me:  “what color is it?”

Now it’s a good thing we can’t see each other’s faces because if there is one thing my wife hates is having to answer stupid questions, which I am the king of.

Wife: “RED I SAID….come on we have 1 min left !!!!”

I frantically look for the section on buttons and start asking her questions.

Me: “Does the button say anything?”

Wife: “HOLD” , she must be boiling by this point.

Me: “Ok, hold…hold…hold..I don’t see anything about it saying hold….ok wait, it says to hold the button- and what color does the meter to the right of the button turn?”

Wife: “BLUE! “

Me: “Ok let the button go when the timer has a …..”

*eerrrrrnnnt*

Me: “Ummm what just happened?”

Wife: “I let it go like you said.”

Back and forth we go on who made the mistake or whatever all the while the timer is still going.

Me: “Ok if the button is blue now push the button in and hold …..”

Wife: “I’m already holding it in !” 

(We are sooooo dead) I’m thinking in my head.

Me:“Ok – this time – let it go when the number 2 is in any position on the timer”

* BLING *

We diffused our first bomb with 27 seconds to spare.  We are pretty much geniuses.

Now you think we would both be happy we solved our first bomb but like most married couples we kind of blamed each other for not listening.  We did close to 8 other bombs without killing each other.

I could tell my wife really was enjoying herself because we stayed up till almost 1 am playing together.  It was a lot of fun and some of the puzzles are really hard so we watched some you tube video’s on how to even understand what we were supposed to do.  Even with the video’s it got really hard, but we worked together, blew up a lot together, blamed each other a lot together, but now we feel like if we were in that situation in real life we probably have a 15% chance of actually surviving.  I guess that’s better than 0%.

So we shut down the PC’s and I headed upstairs. She was behind me walking upstairs and says, “Hey, want to play another game?“

I’m thinking…..JACKPOT!! , “Of course I do babe “, I say……and then I feel it…..”Kan-CHO!!!“

So I hope you enjoyed sharing this experience with us and I hope you will start to put and importance on your marriage and spending time once a week falling in love again because as we say here at the At Home Date Night Duo blog…..let’s make marriages great again….wait no that’s not it….Feel the Bern of Marriage again…..wait that’s not right..what was it, oh yes, Marriage for America….nope that is just stupid and feels like something a complete and utter criminal would say.  I got it, Because your marriage is worth it !!!!  See you next Friday for another installment as we take a trip too Venezuela !!!!

 

Appetizer:

Cheese Korokke

ITEM	QTY	Cost	Notes
potatoes	2lbs	$2.00
butter	1tbsp	$0.00
oil	2tbsp	$0.00
onion yellow	1 lg	$1.00
Gouda	7oz	$3.98	I once ate a whole one of these on my way home from work.
salt and pepper	to taste	$0.00	I recommend 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper
eggs	3	$2.67
panko	2 cups	$1.68
flour	1/2 cup	$0.00	you have
tonkatsu Sauce	dipping	$5.65	you could possibly skip this
deep frying oil	2 cups	$2.28	you might have this too, but I put the price in there anyways

Total Cost: ~ $20.00

Husband Rating : 9

Wife Rating: 9

Directions:

Chop up the potatoes in little cubes and place them in a big pot of boiling water.  Cook them until they are soft.  Drain out the water and Mash the potatoes while adding salt, pepper, and butter.

 

In and frying pan saute the finely chopped onions with the olive oil.  Once the onions have a good color mix them into the mash potatoe mix.

Hopefully the mashed potatoes are still hot. This helps with making the patties.  Fort the patties just like you would hamburgers.  Then in the middle cut up some Gouda and stick it in your mouth.  C’mon people !! You really think I could go through a whole recipe that involves cheese without stuffing some down my gullet before adding it to the food?  Think again !!

Ok, now that you are satisfied by the Gouda cheese, add some to the middle of the patties. I would recommend adding a lot.  Then put another patty on top of the cheese and make sure to close in all around the cheese with the potatoe.  Place the finished patties on some parchment paper and then stick it in the fridge and let it sit for about 15-30 minutes.  It really all depends on how hungry you are.

So you can fry them two ways.  The easy way is with a deep fat fryer (which is what I have) or you have to add about 2 cups of Canola or Veggie oil to a pan and fry them that way.  Either will work. The later just takes longer.

Get the oil hot while the patties are in the fridge. Then get your breading station going.  Pull out two plates and one bowl.  In the bowl whisk the eggs and add a little bit of milk.  If you don’t have milk then don’t worry, just use the eggs.  Then on the first plate put the ½ cup of flour and on the other plate put the 2 cups of Panko.

Now dip the patties in the flour, then the egg, then the panko, then into the burning hot oil.

Let it cook until it’s pretty brown.  I would even let it cook a little longer since Gouda takes a little longer to melt for some reason.

Let it sit for a couple of minutes and then dip it into the Tonkatsu Sauce and into your mouth.  Congrats…you just ate a Cheese Korokke.

Main Dish:  

YakiUdon

Sauce:

ITEM	QTY	Cost	Notes
Soy Sauce	2 Tbs	$2.28	You may have some..
Mirin	3 Tbs	$3.99	you have to buy whole bottle..but you will use it for other things
Yakisoba Sauce	2 Tbs	$4.99	these sauces are breaking the bank
Garlic	2 cloves	$0.00	minced
Ginger	1/2 tsp	$1.49	minced

Meal:

ITEM	QTY	Cost	Notes
Chicken Breast	1lb	$5.00
Frozen Udon Noodles	2 8oz	$2.88	frozen, usually comes with 2 8oz or 7.1 oz packs
Olive Oil	2tbs	$0.00
Yellow Onion	1/2 med	$1.00
Red Bell Pepper	1	$1.68
Broccoli Florets	2 cups	$1.84	partially cooked
Green Onions	2	$1.18	sliced

Total Cost:  ~$26.00

Husband Rating : 8

Wife Rating: 8

Directions:

This meal is super simple and you will probably start moving it into your normal rotation of bi-weekly meals.  I would recommend that you use or get a Wok to cook it in.  I don’t have one, which sucks, but hopefully my wife will read this, feel bad for me, and buy me one.   Of course that will probably involve me having to buy something for her as well, second thought….don’t buy me that Wok.

Cut the chicken up into little thin strips and put them in a mixing bowl.

 

To make the sauce just whisk the soy sauce, mirin, yakisoba, ginger, and garlic in a small bowl.

Add about 1 Tbs of the sauce to the chicken and mix it in with the chicken. You have to do this guys because your wife probably doesn’t like touching raw chicken.

Add some salt and pepper to the chicken

Heat up the Wok or large frying pan.  Medium High heat should be good.  Once it’s hot add the olive oil to the pan and coat the pan. Then add the chicken and the finely chopped onions. Let that cook until you can’t see any pink on the chicken anymore.

While that is cooking go ahead and chop up the broccoli if you bought it fresh. If you bought it frozen then cook it however the instructions tell you minus a minute.  You don’t want it completely cooked.

Once the chicken is brown throw in the broccoli florets and red bell peppers.  Let that cook until the peppers are a little soft.

While that is cooking, boil 10 cups of water and place the Frozen Udon noodles into the boiling water for about 1.5 minutes.

Drain and let the noodles sit.  This is really easy to screw up. Don’t break apart the frozen noodles, you want them to be long and stringy. If you leave the noodles in to long your meal is going to suck.  I think they are already partially cooked when they are frozen.  I overcooked them the first time. Every other time I put them in for only 1.5 minutes.

Ok, once the chicken, broccoli, and peppers look like they are cooked go ahead and add the noodles. Mix it all together.  Then mix in the rest of the sauce.

Serve it in a bowl and garnish with green onions.  Enjoy !!

Activity:

“Keep Talking and nobody Explodes”

ITEM	QTY	Cost	Notes
“Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes”	1	$14.99	Download off of Steam

Total Cost: $14.99  Sometimes Steam has sales on games. I think I picked this up for like 10 bucks.

Enjoyment Ratings:

Me: 10

Wife: 10

Probability of Marriage Counselling afterwards: 97%

Ok, this is your chance guys !!!  You get to play a video game with your wife !!!!!  I know it’s not League of Legends or Call of Duty, but hey, I’m trying to ease them in slowly.  Give it some time and soon they will be head shotting those snot noise kids that get 15 hours a day to practice their aim while you get a couple hours a week before you can say “Kan-CHO”.  Ok, back on topic.

You have to download Steam onto your computer. If you don’t know what Steam is then you fail.  Actually, it’s really easy. Just make a Steam account. Search for “ Keep talking and nobody Explodes”. Purchase it. Then play it.  Go through the tutorial with your wife.  You do need two computers to play because you aren’t supposed to be looking at each other’s screen while you play.  One person diffuses the bomb while the other one looks through the manual on what to do.  YouTube is your friend as some of the puzzles you may not understand exactly what you are supposed to do.

Shoot us a message if you can get passed some of the Morris Code parts.  Those were fun. By fun I mean it went something like this:

Me: Ok, I need you to repeat the sequence by saying bleep bleep for the short tones and blooooop bloooop for long tones.  They should just keep repeating the same sequence. You know you are at the beginning of the sequence when there is a long pause.  There is a short pause between letters.

Wife: Ok….Bleep Bleep Bleep BLOOOOOP….uh uh ….BLOOOOOP BLOOOOP

Me: did you hear the long pause first? (in my head I’m thinking…..what the hell is she doing)

Wife: What long pause?

Me: the long pause that starts the sequence?

Wife: I never heard a long pause…OH WAIT….Bleep BLOOOOOP ….BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP……oK  long pause….BLOOP BLOOOOOOP

Me: *confused look*

Me: Stop, please stop for a second.

Wife: BLOOOOP BLOOOP BLOOOP…WE ARE GOING TO DIE !!!  HURRY UP WHAT IS THE CODE????

Me: we died as soon as you told me there was a Morris Code module.

Wife: BLEEP BLEEP BLOOOOOP BLEEE…oh no that was a BLOOOP…WE CAN STILL DO IT.

Me: God….just kill me now…kill me now please.

Wife: I Believe in you babe….BLEEP BLOOOOP BLOOOOP.

*Explosion*

Wife: You gotta listen babe…I’m doing the bloops and bleeps

Me: *head pounding on computer desk*

You guys are going to have a ton of fun playing this game.  It was challenging and fun to work through all the problems.  If any of you get the Morris code on the first try leave a comment.  We’d love to hear about your experiences with it.

Total At Home Date Night Cost:  ~ $60.00 .  

A little pricey but lots of repeat value. A lot of the sauces we can use for other things and the game you can play a bunch. Well worth the investment. If you have those things the date night is more around 30 bones I believe.

Thanks again for joining us.  We hope you enjoy the blog and continue to follow us.  Have a great day!!!

Christmas Savings 2017 Shadow Box deposits

If you don’t know what this is then check out the blog post here.  Even though we weren’t doing the home date night blog we have kept up this tradition and it always helps out during the Christmas Holidays.

Option 1: $51.00 Total saved: $103.00

Option 2: $25.00   Total saved: $51.00

Option 3: $10.00   Total saved: $20.00

UNTIL NEXT WEEK…….Because your marriage is worth it !!!