Tag Archives: Food

Date Night Duel!

Remember that awesome date night I planned for SB?? It was all thought out and planned ahead and unique?? Well…I’ve been one-upped…er like…10 upped!

SB had a date night planned for us, complete with Sniperhints throughout the week. He used words like ‘dark’ and ‘not too light’ and I thought he just needed words to rhymn with ‘park’. Turns out his hints lead us to Dialogue in the Dark at Atlantic Station Friday night! I was beyond stoked. I’d heard about the exhibit from friends and couldn’t wait to experience it!

Let me tell you…at first I was a step or two away from an anxiety attack. We got our walking canes and the lights went off and we were let go to bump into everything explore. I felt totally out of control and cramped. I was unsure and stumbling and just semi freaking out. I would NOT let go of SB’s hand, but eventually I had to. I would occasionally smell him or hear his voice close and that calmed me. About halfway through the tour I started to relax. I stopped trying to “see” (I know, silly) and really tuned into my other senses. I explored a little on my own and used my hands a lot. By the end of the tour I was navigating my way around like a pro not so crazy person! Our guide was totally blind and so awesome. It was an amazing experience to spend an hour in the shoes of someone with a disability. If you haven’t tried it you really should!

Our next stop was dinner. After the tour we were both starving so I was thrilled to see that our reservations were at Geisha House. We drank wine and ate the most delicious sushi! (Ok..not as good as our first date sushi…but damn good!) Me becoming the old prude I am was content with heading home after dinner, but Ben had one last surprise up his sleeve. Date Night @ 10:00 right down the road. I’ve been wanting to see it since it came out b/c let’s face it…is there ANYone funnier than Tina Fey or Steve Carrell? Exactly…

We stopped here for a delicious little dessert and went to the movie. It was hilarious and did NOT disappoint. It was just the perfect date night. The weather was awesome and there’s no where I’d rather be these days than hand in hand with my guy. :) We finally made it home to crash and get ready for the rest of the weekend=Ben’s camping trip with the guys. He better blog about it soon…and I promise you’re gonna wanna stay tuned for these stories. (Don’t worry guys…I’m sure he won’t share ALL of them with blogland.)

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A Very Turner Easter!

Here are some pics from Easter! It was a very Turner Easter indeed. The SniperJess family still has some things to work out as far as ‘holidays sans domestic disbutes’…so we kept it the three of us. We also went to SniperBen’s family’s church cabin for food and egg hunts!

We started the holiday off by dying easter eggs. This is a childhood tradition for me (and most really) so it’s something I would love to pass down to Chase. We made striped eggs and pretty pastel eggs and the ever so crucial ‘everything’ egg which turned out much prettier than I remembered! We had a few mini hunts around the apartment for Chase then hit the kitchen…

Ahhh…our happy place. We are getting SO much better at planning and carrying out our big meals lately. This holiday called for cupcakes and muffins! I’ve been addicted to making cornbread muffins and putting creamed corn in the batter. They turned out delish! We also whipped up some stellar cupcakes. SB on the cake…SJ on the decor! They turned out so cute!

Lunch at the church cabin was traditional Easter lunch but very delicious..then the kids grabbed up what felt like 483290483 easter eggs from the field. We all had fun, got lots of great pics, and enjoyed the warm weather. In fact…after the egg hunt we stopped by for some swim suits and had our first swim of the year. The pool at the apartment is lots of fun and I anticipate some bloggin about the good times to come there.

So that’s it! Regular ol’ sniper fun on Easter. Hope yours was sniperrific as well!

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Planting the seeds!

We can haz green thumbz??

We’ve had some beaauutiful weather over the past few weeks! We’ve even dipped our toes (and heads) in the pool already! We also planted a few really awesome things to put out on the porch! SB and I love to cook, and you just can’t beat cooking with fresh veggies and herbs. The domestican in me wants to be in the fields…with a big straw hat and some overalls picking all my fresh goodies, but apartment living = porch growin’! It’ll definitely do for now. We’ve used the herbs in several dishes but we’re still anxiously awaiting the arrival of our peppers! We have 7 different kinds plus a tomato plant. Fresh salsa here we come!!

*editors note…i will begrudgingly leave the awful pic of myself extremely hungover, but let it be known that my spirits were much higher than they look!

**note to self…recovery from night(s) of drinking is now extended an additional 24 hours due to old age. *sigh*

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That’s right…s’mores cupcakes!

S'mores cupcakes

S'mores cupcakes

A few weeks ago, Jess and I were tasked with preparing some food for our friend Kit’s birthday. She’s getting pretty old and was probably thinking something like ovaltine, tapioca, and melba toast, but we had something a bit cooler in mind. I mean, after all, us whipper snappers like our food with a bit more flair!

Since we pretty much rock the block when it comes to cupcakes we thought that we’d do it up right this time. What better way to kick start spring than with s’mores. I mean, nothing says spring and fun and awesome and money like graham crackers, dark chocolate, marshmallows, and fire. We scoured around for just the right recipes and set off to make the perfect cupcake.

At the base was a traditional graham cracker crust (crushed crackers, sugar, butter baked to a golden brown). We topped that off with a light yet rich dark chocolate cupcake. Then to really sell these as s’mores, we made our own marshmallow fluff. Now it is possible to buy this stuff, but why do that when you can make it, I mean… home made is always better any way. So we made our own fluff, then piped it on top of the cupcakes. One thing was missing…fire. The thing that makes a s’more a s’more is the melty chocolate and burned marshmallow dripping all over your hands and pants as you try to cram the whole thing in your mouth. So we got us a dandy kitchen torch and toasted them suckers right up.

The result was a perfect chocolaty, creamy, crunchy cupcake that captured the essence of all things s’mores. They looked as good as they tasted and they were a hit. In conjunction with the cupcakes we made some pinwheels (3 varieties: Greek, American, Italian), some candied sweet and spicy mixed nuts, ultimate guacamole, cheesy sausage dip, and a buffalo chicken dip. Everything turned out exactly as we anticipated.

The icing on the cake, if you will, was that during the process of all the cooking, Jess and I (mainly Jess), got the hankering to start up our very own catering business. We’ve not ironed out the details yet, but we have the idea and drive to really get it started. For now it’s just a notion that’s floating around in our heads. We’ve got a ton of prep to do and will need to get some research done before we really get started. In the mean time, we’ll do small events, parties for friends, etc.

So that’s that. A great weekend filled with s’mores cupcakes, friends, and amazing ideas of a catering business that I know will be a success.

S’mores cupcakes on Flickr

Recipe will be posted once we get a better handle on the catering thing.

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What a Winter Break!

I have had the last week off of work and it’s been B.L.I.S.S. With a sick day AND a snow day prefacing it…it feels like Christmas Break all over again. There is SO much to blog about! SB took care of our Vday weekend with his previous post. It really was a magical weekend for us. It was our first Vday that counts, but I truly hope we continue to have weekends like that for a long, long time. :)

When we got home SB was off for President’s Day. We stayed pretty busy in Chattanooga so it was nice to have him home to rest up and unpack from the trip. We also realized though, that if we were going to try to go car shopping together, today was the day. So off we went to Gossett VW in Alpharetta. I had my sights set on a Jetta…but drove it and just felt….meh. Next was a Passat and as soon as we got 1/2 a mile down the road we look and each other and just knew. This was the car! I’ve had it for a week now and I love it! Old Greg is gone (for $500!) and the new car needs a name. One will find her soon. :)

The rest of the week stayed pretty busy! My break’s usually fly by, but honestly I usually spend them being lazy as ever. I got a LOT done! My new driver’s license is on the way with my maiden name and I found a new doctor in Dunwoody and the whole office is awesome. Wednesday we planned on going to Snow Mountain, but waited too late to realize they are only opened on the weekends. doh! SB had the day off anyway so we enjoyed some family time at home. We went to dinner with SB’s parents for his dad’s bday and had some delicious food at Red Lobster. Our week of getting shit done continued on until the weekend rolled around and BAM! We were hit with some beeaauuutiful weather! Blue skies, slight breeze, sun shining in the 60’s. Chase and I drove around to look at schools earlier in the week and came across an awesome park that is literally around the corner from our apartment.

Saturday morning we got up, I went for a run, then we picked up some lunch and headed to the park! You would have thought they were giving away gold! People were just as in love with the weather as we were and it was packed. As we sat in the sun, ate our lunch, and watched the families, dogs, and our Chase, play and swing….it was just a great way to end the week.

But wait!! We have one more in us!! We were going to Snow Mountain dangit!! After two failed attempts (saturday time slots were sold out), we finally got a time slot at 6pm Sunday night. It seemed late for a school night, but it turned out perfectly! There was a small crowd at first but by 7:00 we were going straight up to the slides and tubing away! I was so nervous for Chase b/c I’m telling you…those things went fast! He loved it though…and I learned again that I need to let go just a little bit and let him be a boy. We have some great pics from the week. Now…if the next 9 weeks would just fly by so we can have Spring Break! :)

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And so it begins…

What a day! It started off earlier than I’ve been up since Christmas break started. Tea, coffee, oatmeal with fruit..we were off! I am too tired to go through the details, but we got SO much done. We packed up my living room, sold my living furniture, and got Chase his own room up here in Dwood. It’s temporary until the middle of Jan., (moving to a bigger apartment here at 2Blocks with more room…phew!) but it gives him his own space and a place to keep his things and I love that. He really seems happy up here and I am so so thankful for that. Oh…did I mention we de-Christmas’d TWO apartments today? Yeah..trees, outdoor lights, decor…all of it. Packed up and ready for storage. I have so much to blog about…our Stone Mtn. trip, our official move to Dunwoody, and Christmas of course! We all got so many awesome things from Santa and each other that I can’t wait to brag about. I’m hoping for a calm, relaxing few days. I have some things on my to do list in anticipation of the move, but other than that I want to play games with Chase, watch movies with Ben, and enjoy the rest of my break before heading back to work. A great way to start that is to plan a nice, calm week eating in. Here’s what on the menu. :)

Sunday
Spaghetti and Meatballs with Bacon Marinara (yes…bacon. everything’s better with it!)

Monday
Broiled chicken with green beans and rice

Tuesday
Fish Tacos. Muy delicioso.

Wednesday
Brunswick Stew

Thursday
New Year’s Eve dinner in the city. :)

Friday
Our first attempt! Roasted chicken, collards, black eyed peas, cornbread. stfu!

Now…off to enjoy a hot bath with my new products from Lush!

Jazz up yer ballz!!

Tis’ the season for ballz!! Sausage balls that is. :) They are a must have and a staple of almost every holiday ‘get together’. Someone says ‘finger food’ and sausage balls’ll be there! Now don’t misunderstand me, sausage balls are the bomb! SniperBen and I started a conversation about a month ago playing around with different versions of the balls. “Bacon balls…Oh..I know! Jalapeno balls! …wait…what about..” and it basically went on from there. The amazing ideas never really came to fruition, however, we talked about it again while walking down stone mountain yesterday with chase (blog on that to come btw!). I needed a good ‘finger food’ dish to bring to Girls’ Night gift exchange and we remembered the balls!! Here’s what we came up with.

Bacon/Ranch Balls
Regular sausage ball mix (the bisquick kind)
add chopped up bacon (pretty small)
ranch dressing mix (powder kind)
*these may need to be cooked a few extra minutes

BBQ Balls
Regular sausage ball mix
add your fav. bbq sauce
we added extra chopped up white cheddar cheese and spices

MexiBalls
Regular sausage ball mix
extra texmex cheeses
LOTS of chopped japs. yummmm….

Maple Balls
Regular sausage ball mix
maple syrup (go on and get the good kind, it’s worth it)
brown sugar

They were great!! I don’t really have exact measurements or cooking times, but you can wing it! The idea is, think of some awesome things that YOU would like and go great with sausage. Cook them until they look “done”. I promise you’ve never ’sausage’ a great finger food for the holiday! {disclaimer: that corny but funny joke was brought to you by SniperBen}.

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Thanksgiving break-2009: Sniper Style Part 3 (The next day…)

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Not just 1 or 2, but 3 dancing machines!

Our week of thanksgiving bliss was trucking right along. I had good food and traditions with the Turner’s and lots of rest and cooking in Dwood with the boys, so the only thing left was turkey time with the Birney’s (Sniperjess’ family). For those of you that know us…the Birney house is always an interesting experience. It’s untraditional, and slightly unorthodox…but it’s always a good time with genuine intentions from all. My growing time in Dwood lately lead to what I would call a “catch up” session when we got there. The adult beverages were poured and we chatted about the previous week and just life in general. SniperBen had leftovers, but I was somewhat tired of turkey so I passed (which I would later regret…aLOT). SniperBen got yet another look into the life I grew up in. Our holidays are about celebration and believe me…we celebrate. There was laughing and jump roping and Madonna tunes blaring and dancing. I won’t sugar coat it…things get a lil crazy. It’s a lot for a person to take in if they are not accustomed to the Birney house, but SniperBen held his own. (and later held my own….blegghh). I will admit I may have over done the turkey day festivities, but I was still very thankful to have my guy there to load us up and take us home at the end of the night. (Sorry you had to tomtom your way back to my apartment babe…I owe you one! ..or two.)

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Aww, we found our perfect tree!

The next morning (after some much needed Tylenol on my part), we had plans to get our tree! Going to the tree farm and cutting down the perfect tree is tradition I have always had and I could not wait to share with the boys. Believe it or not, this was the first time SniperBen had experienced this tradition! That made it all the more exciting for me. Chase ran around pointing out his favorites, and we scoped the place for the best tree. Of course…we found it! Ben cut down his first tree like a pro and we headed home to watch some football and trim the tree…sounds simple, right?

Um… no. We got to my apartment and fought with the #$*& tree for about an hour (at least). We put it in the stand, everything looks great, let go and…wait for it…lean. Try again! Loosen this part…tighten this part..wait for it..it looks great!…wait…lean! GRRRR! This is a classic scenario where SniperBen’s patience is just what I need to keep me from throwing the damn spruce out the back door and getting another one.

Merry Christmas from the Snipers.

Merry Christmas from the Snipers

A deep breathe, and big ol’ hug, and that smile of his and I was laughing about it with him. He suggested dinner and a new, snazzier tree stand. While we were at it…I decided to switch up my boring ol’ theme and have a multicolored party tree!! And that we did…in addition to jazzing up the outside of the apartment too! I love our Milner tree and I love the decorations. We finally rested that night in a warm, cozy apartment filled with the glow of our hard work from the day. It’s the first Christmas I’ve had in a few years now that hasn’t felt like a chore. It’s an absolutely awesome feeling and I can’t wait to make more Sniper adventures this holiday season! (and believe me…stay tuned b/c they are coming!!)

You know we can’t do anything with out taking a ton of photos. So here’s the rest of the photos that help tell the tale of our very first Thanksgiving week together.

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Thanksgiving break – 2009: Sniper Style pt. 2 (Thanksgiving Day)

Rosevelt the turkey

Roosevelt, meet Turner

In true Turner style the morning got started with a big plate of food and a lot of scrambling around. After breakfast Jess and I started in on the turkey, gravy base, and more chopping of vegetables. You’d think that after like three days of preparing food, we’d have all this mess done. That wasn’t really the case. There always seemed to be more carrots, onions, celery, taters… oh wait. No potatoes to cut up those had already been taken care of and were in the fridge setting up. Oh, the taters! Let me describe the ways I love thee. Ok, I’m done.

Here’s a side note on the Potatoes Gratin. In planning for this meal, we decided that it would be nice to branch out and try and new dish. Something that would take this whole feast up at least one notch. Well, I found a recipe for some potatoes gratin. So we got everything ready, including roasting our own garlic, making this cheesy cream stuff and boy did it smell good. It was assembled with great care and loaded up in the car in such a way that if a little were to spill out it wouldn’t be that bad (we sat it in a cookie sheet then placed it in the back seat floor board). Well that would’ve been great had the whole pan not erupted all over the place. About three miles form apartment, we both noticed an abundance of garlic smell. Upon further investigation it was discovered that the most epic potatoes on the planet were all over my car. So I pulled over and in a feat of great restraint decided to not throw the entire pan into on coming traffic. Instead I put them in a box I had in the back seat. This proved to be even less successful than I imagined in my head. Once we got to my parents house I discovered that I now had garlic cheesy cream sauce in the back of my car AND in the floor board of the back seat. No worries, we’d simply clean up the mess and put them in the fridge and they would be PERFECT for our lunch the next day.

Roosevelt

Roosevelt!

Back to Thanksgiving day! We got everything cooked and boxed up and the house was smelling unbelievable and damn…we forgot to cook the potatoes! Deep breath… Ok, box’em up and we’ll cook them while we eat and have them at dinner. So we get to my aunt’s house (a short walk from my parents) and after chatting for a bit, and getting stuff set up, we start in on what turned out to be one of the best Thanksgiving lunches I’ve ever had. Eventually I smelled something that didn’t smell that fantastic…oh, that must be the potatoes that are now charcoal in the oven. Yeah…after all that we burned the taters. Fail. Oh well, everything else was perfect. From the apple cake that people couldn’t get enough of to the deviled eggs that went faster than you could spell deviled eggs. Everything was just perfect.

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Decorating the fence

For years, the Turner tradition has been to decorate my grandmother’s fence after we eat lunch. This year was no exception. The temperature was a bit cold, but we’ve been through much worst. It actually turned out to be pretty amazing out. The kids got to run around and play, the “adults” decorated the fence and we got it all up in no time. I was really glad Jess got experience it this year. She and Chase seemed to just fit right in. Watching her interact with the family and seeing Chase run around and laugh and play just brought a warmth to my heart that I’ve not had before. The day was perfect.

After the fence was done we hung out and chatted for a bit before heading back to the apartment. The plan was to get home, unpack everything, rest up for a bit and then go see a movie. We left it up to Chase since we figured he wouldn’t want to see 2012. Eventually he decided on Planet 51, which turned out to be pretty funny. We had a good time out and about and it was a great end to an outstanding day.

This Thanksgiving day will not be one soon forgotten. Everything fell into place. All the things that were most important to me where with me and I couldn’t have asked for things to go any better. I know it’s been over a week since Thanksgiving and we’re now a few weeks from Christmas, but it’s all good. Sometimes a sniper doesn’t always take the first shot and waits for the right time.

Up next… the Birney Thanksgiving festivities, our first tree, and the end to a nearly perfect week.

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Thanksgiving break – 2009: Sniper Style pt. 1

New Moon Queen

Maybe YOU should relax

It all started with a trip to Burger King for some New Moon paraphernalia. I got Jess’ place and we got ready and headed off for some sushi, time with friends, and a gaggle of tweens and/or begrudgingly happy boyfriends and husbands. The movie was ish at best. It was better than Twilight, but then again, Twilight was a pretty terrible movie. There were some decent fight scenes, a fast car or two, some sparkly “vampires”, enough emo looks to make a rainbow cry, and and then some credits. That pretty much sums up the movie, or at least what I recall of it. The night wasn’t a total wash however. On the way to Milner, Jess got word that one of her friends was looking to unload some UGA tix. We jumped at the chance, I stopped by the ATM, got some cash and in exchange, we got tickets to what would be our very first GA game!

uga tickets

UGA vs. KU tickets

Saturday was spent kinda laying around since we were up late on Friday. With this being our first game, we decided that we needed some GA gear so we’d fit in with all the other Athenites. In addition to the new shirts, we went ahead and picked up a new camera. No sense in lugging around the big camera the whole night. The ride out there was pretty quick and after finding a good parking spot, we made our way to Sanford Stadium. The game went as expected, with GA bending over for Kansas and the echo of “Cox’s pass is incomplete” on loop throughout the night. After witnessing a girl getting vomited by a drunk guy hanging over the ledge of the upper level and our asses being frozen off, we decided it was time to head out. The game didn’t get any better after we left, but that’s all good. Jess’ put on a show with some cartwheels on the way to the car.

Sunday was more of the laziness factor of vacation setting in, only this time we went ahead and got all the stuff we would need for the week (dinners, breakfasts, lunches, Thanksgiving, lots of snacking, drinking, etc). Jess had to go pick up Chase that afternoon, so while she was gone, I made up a batch of my soon to be world famous OTP chili. It’s the kind of chili that people ITP can only dream about. The rest of the night was spent enjoying dinner, couch time, iCarly, Sponge Bob, iCarly, Sponge Bob, Suite Life of Zack and Cody, iCarly, and then some non-Nik TV. The first weekend on what was already becoming an epic Thanksgiving break had come to a close.

Chicken Florentine Lasagna

Chicken Florentine Lasagna

Monday was spent making lists, laying around, playing video games, watching cartoons, napping, cleaning, just being together. For dinner the plan was to make some awesome lasagna. Dinner did not disappoint. Jess whipped up a stellar Chicken Florentine Lasagna that pretty much blew all our minds. Well, it would’ve blown our mind some more had it not been for the inedible “garlic” bread that I made. I my overly zealous ambition to make something that could equal her dinner, I threw enough garlic to kill all the Cullen’s PLUS give Jacob a heart attack. Needless to say, we just at the lasagna and salad (and drank the wine). After dinner, we started in on the makings of the Thanksgiving desserts. Jess started in on her Apple Cake and I got to crackin’ on my Everything Fall Cookies. The cookies and cake took their toll on us and we were worn out. I mean, there’s only so much cooking one can do at like 8pm at night before you just need to sit down and watch iCarly or Sponge Bob.

"Big City" haircut

Tuesday morning was all set for some breakfast then off to get fancy haircuts in the “big city”. I had an appointment for 12:30 and since Chase needed to get a haircut, we got him squeezed in for noon. This was the first time he or Jess had been to one of them fancy hair cuttin’ places. So rather than an old man in a white coat bustin’ out some clippers and a comb from some blue liquid jar and giving you two pieces of double bubble gum after you hair cut, we got Cortex. After getting our hair did, we headed out. We popped in to El Azteka for some Mexican foodstuffs then decided it would be a great idea for Jess and Chase to be introduced to Ikea! As it turns out, it WAS a great idea. We got some really good ideas of some things we want in our apartment when they move in. We found a dining room table, some desks, a spring form pan, some paintings, a few pillows, and all and 6 insanely huge cinnamon rolls. Well, since the cinnamon rolls would’ve gone bad by the time Jan. 15 rolls around, so we decided to go ahead and nom on those. The rest of the day was spent enjoying each other’s company and prepping more food for Thanksgiving. Actually… now that I recall, the apple cake was made on Tuesday night. Either way it was a grand evening and just what we both needed.

Girl's got a cannon for an arm!

Check out that cannon!

Wednesday was spent getting MORE things ready for what was turning out to be the Thanksgiving meal to end all meals. We did some prep work in the morning, then headed to the park. We took Chase’s bike so he could ride around and not be so cramped up. The day turned out to be perfect. The weather was just right, there was no one there, we found some balls and tossed’em around a bit, and generally had a great time. It was exceptionally nice to just spend some time with Jess and Chase outside, not in front of a TV getting frustrated at Boom Blox or watching iCarly. After the park, we loaded up the car with all our fixin’s and headed over to my parents house. The plan was to stay there Wednesday night so we could get up early Thursday and get to rockin’ on the lunch. This turned out to be a great idea. We got there that afternoon, and started in on the prep.

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All that for 1 turkey?!

As I got started on gutting the turkey, Jess went to town on chopping up the veggies. She sliced like a ninja and cut like a razor blade through onions, celery, carrots, butter, herbs, and all manner of things. We got everything we could done and all set for our first official Thanksgiving together. All the pots were put away, the lists were double checked, the cookies had been nommed, and it was time for bed.

Next up is the adventures of our Turner Thanksgiving day, including decorating the fence, the most epic plate of food ever, and so much food that it would have been a pleasure to fall into a coma.