Bloomington

So, one of the huge advantages of my new position at work being part time is that my schedule is pretty flexible. And since it's my first year of marriage and all (you guys know I got recently married, right?) I basically want to spend EVERY LIVING MINUTE with Brett. So when he told me a couple months ago he had a short work trip to Bloomington, Indiana planned, I was all, "I'M COMING WITH." (Enter SVU "dun dun" here.)

Bloomington is only about 7 hours from Kirksville so we left Friday morning and got back on Sunday evening. Brett's event was Saturday and I basically vegged in the hotel room doing crossword puzzles on the iPad and watching extremely edited raunch-coms on USA. What is interesting is everything other than those moments. What did we do in everything other than those moments? EAT.

We have friends who love Bloomington. Our pal Jason got his PhD at Indiana University (do I get credit for having a friend with a PhD? I want credit.) and he and his wife Erin had lists of suggestions for us. On some of Brett's longer trips, he loses the energy to seek out a local establishment every night (and who could blame him) so we wanted to take advantage of the easy commute to tasty places (our hotel was SO close to downtown), good company (hello- ME!), and trust-worthy recommendations.

Friday night took us to The Upland Brewing Company. As expected, it offered totally delicious pub fare (I had fish and chips and Brett tackled their Reuben) and their brews were very tasty.

I think this is their wheat ale:

I ate breakfast at the hotel in the morning, but Brett was able to get away for lunch and at Erin's suggestion, we tried Mother Bear's Pizza- a delicious pizza place with a very busty bear for a logo.

I took this picture of some graffiti in our booth.

No photos of the pizza, which was devoured too quickly to snap a pic. We shared pesto bread sticks, I had the Illinois Central (I'm a sucker for barbecue sauce on a pizza) and Brett had the Tuscaloosa Touch Down (two words: pulled pork.)

Saturday night, I scouted out a place to try and settled on Bub's Burgers and Ice Cream, mostly because those are two of my favorite things in one name of a restaurant. Turns out, Adam Richman visited their Indianapolis location and completed their food challenge- The Big Ugly. This is a one pound hamburger. Brett strongly considered that, but wanted to save room for a milkshake. I really liked this place. I had a regular cheeseburger, but Brett got adventurous and tried their Elk Burger. (I tasted it. It tasted basically the same.)

I also took the most pictures here because lots of other people were taking pictures which made it less awkward.

Not our best, but blog worthy:

They brought us samples of their soup of the day and I made Brett take it like a shot.

Brett going to town on Elkie:

And our super tasty milkshakes- Cinnamon Crumb and Praline Pecan.

We had brunch on Sunday (yep- still eating!) at The Runicble Spoon, a place that serves Erin's favorite mimosa. I'm inclined to agree since it was a full glass for $5! Our waitress had a hard time splitting our check and we sat next to some fairly self righteous IU students, but my Eggs Benedict was kick ass and Brett had a stack of blueberry pancakes that were very, very worth it.

On the drive home, we stopped for lunch/dinner in St Louis at about 3. A weird time, but by this time we had been destroying our bodies with food on a pretty regular basis so what did it matter. We did (you won't believe this) 5 Guys Burgers and Fries.

It was really yummy and I loved it because I am the type of person who develops an emotional attachment to her food. It made me wanna say DAYUM. (You knew that was coming, right? You knew.)

As you can tell, there were NO weight resolutions on the queue this year. I just... GUYS WE ATE SO MUCH FOOD.

We had a really great time together though and I'm feeling super grateful to have the opportunity to spend extra time with Brett when he travels. It sorta sucks when he leaves and it felt great to pack up into the car with him instead of saying goodbye.

As with any time I travel out of town, I gathered quite a few thoughts and insights on the process (more than just "Another pale ale, please" I swear) and I'll share those soon for sure. For now, I think I'll read back through this post and enjoy the visual feast from our weekend!

Christmas/New Year's Eve

I had a really amazing holiday. Of course, I forgot to take as many photos as I would have liked, but here's a nice sampling of my Christmas and New Year's Eve.

I got really excited when it snowed- We had a White Christmas!

We watched a lot of classic Christmas Shows!

I also did some fun Christmasy work stuff- like showing The Muppet Christmas Carol...

And walking in our First Annual Christmas Parade with my friend's adorable daughter Macy.

There was a LOT of this..

And wrapping, eating, drinking, playing:

Our Christmas Eve Tradition- Chinese food! 

Christmas morning-

(Every Christmas morning we've ever spent together, I get out my camera and Brett exclaims, "Are you going to take pictures of me?!" The answer is always, "Uhm, yes.")

I felt like a princess when I unwrapped this! My favorite..

Hanging out at Brett's parents 

 And spending some awesome quality time with a couple of our favorites (Fries and Rachel and Kyle)

New Years Eve meant a new hair cut and some fun in Des Moines!

Confession: I still have not taken down a single Christmas decoration. Really hoping to tackle it this weekend but man! I really lost my fire for it!

Recipe Review- Muffin Pizzas

Time for another recipe review! I don't really count these sorts of posts as presenting any new information to you, because let's be honest- NONE of these recipes are original. In fact, they've already been blogged, reblogged, and redid. So at the risk of sounding like I'm trying to pry blog content right off of someone else's site, I refer to these as reviews. Just my take on the whole shindig! 

I made these delicious muffin pizza cups for dinner and I just can't even tell you how delicious they are. You must go out right now, spend like $2 and take like 5 minutes of your time and make them yourself. 

The first time I made them, I just grabbed pizza sauce, cheese, pepperoni, and the crust and it was so good. I added a sausage this time and made my own sauce and of course, it was great again. Turns out, just like regular pizza- the possibilities are endless.. 

Browning up sausage (Does this gross you out? Should it gross me out? It doesn't.)

I used the premade pizza crust that comes in a biscuit can- which totally exists. I also increased this recipe from 8 servings to 12 by not reading the recipe all the way through and making enough to fill my entire muffin pan. If you make these, don't worry about your dough not filling up each cup. It will rise as it bakes and everything will work perfectly. And deliciously. 

Here's the story about making my own sauce. Again, I ignored the recipe and didn't even realize it includes making your own sauce. I thought I was being originally creative here. At any rate, it mostly came from the place of me shopping at Aldi, them not stocking pizza sauce but having tomato sauce available for $.38 and me thinking that sounds a heckuva lot better than spending $3 on a big jar I'll never use up. So I just dumped it into a bowl, tossed in some Italian seasoning, some oregano, and salt and pepper. Seemed okay to me! 

Filling up the adorably delicious muffins (You should have extra sausage left. You can eat this for breakfast later.)

Fill with cheese and put a little pepperoni hat on it! 

If you are in my kitchen, using my oven, and I am- then bake these at 400 degrees for 17 minutes. 

THEN EAT THEM LIKE THE PIZZA MONSTER YOU ARE. NOMNOMNOM. 

So good and you're welcome.

Day 3 and 4: Treats! Plus BBQ Beer Chicken

Days 3 and 4 were all about the treats. A Christmas coffee and donut one day, followed by s'mores the next. Yum. (PS, can you spot the sneak peek for my next Christmas Craft post?)

Very effective cooking method

This delicious treat was made complete with yummy hot cocoa. 

I also made something wonderful for dinner. Something truly amazing and fantastic. If there are three things I love in this world it is barbecue, beer, and my crockpot. This brought them all together. 

Here's the recipe for Barbecue Beer Crockpot Chicken. 

We had Schlafly Christmas Ale on hand so that's what I used. Folks, I drank a beer at 10 am. I'm serious. You don't just throw out perfectly good, unused Schlafly Christmas Ale. It doesn't matter WHAT time it is! (Don't worry, it was my day off.)

Sauce + Chicken. Simmer baby simmer.

 Shredded up and deliciously sauced.

I served it up the way the recipe recommended, with a serving of slaw on top! 

We demolished it. Exhibit A: 

I SERIOUSLY recommend this recipe. It's pitched as a summertime recipe in the original post, and I know its December but it is like 70 degrees. Close enough.

Back in the Saddle

Well I've returned to the world of blogging. Won't lie- it was a nice vacation. BUT! Now I'm back and I'm totally ready to over-share and under-perform for my captive audience.

Isn't Thanksgiving the bomb? Or da bomb, rather. I just love it. So much food. So much family. I love my Iowa family and I don't get up to see them enough so when I do, it's a great treat. Food was awesome and I was so busy eating I neglected to take any photos.

Friday we drove to Kansas City to be with Brett's family for the rest of the weekend. It was our first trip to KC as a married couple, and look at this adorable way his family greeted us:

We had game night that evening and relaxed most of the day on Saturday, but did a little shopping here and there. We caught up with Chris and Sarah and we all ate and drank our weight in beer and pizza at Waldo's Pizza. Again, too much eating, no photos.

My wedding gift to Brett was a pair of Chiefs tickets and coincidentally, Sarah and Chris have season tickets and we were able to tailgate Sunday before (and after) the game. Photo time was totally on. Bask in the glory:

 Brett and I doing the tailgate thing

 Me and Sarah, whom I love

 At our seats

 With our treats

Game time baby! 

Outside the stadium, a little chilly at this point 

 The gang, cameo by other Sarah who looks cute even though she wasn't really in the picture which is something I never manage to do. 

Brett and Chris... True lovers. 

Yay for a photo-full post of fun things! We did it!