Parchment Paper Chicken

My brother-in-law recently sent me this youtube video thinking it looked like something I'd be interested in. Heck yeah! It is a quick overview of four different recipes for cooking chicken wrapped in parchment paper (hello easy clean up!) thus keeping it moist. I even sent it on to another sister who tried it first. We both used foil for our trials, but she pre made a couple of them to eat during a week without labeling them. Surprise dinner!

I tried the bbq chicken and the asparagus one, but I am horrible about making sure I really have all the ingredients ahead of time. For the bbq, my potatoes had gone bad so I used a bed of spinach. For the asparagus one I totally missed the pesto and sliced tomatoes and just bought the asparagus. So I substituted some feta cheese and called it a day. This may not really be a review of the recipes then...

Anyways, here are the pics and I would definitely make them again. The bbq was the best (covered with white onion and corn) and the asparagus one was just eh. Buy the pesto next time, Crazy Donut Lady!

Goodbye Fusion

We traded in both our cars for a giant truck about a month ago. And I got way more emotional about it than I thought. So I started to make a list of all the places this car has taken me (it was my first car that was all mine!)

I leased it new in 2012 and bought it in 2014. In 5 years and 60,861 miles it went:

Philadelphia for family Thanksgiving

Florida with my parents

Back to Nebraska

(Met hubby)

South Dakota on first joint camping

Pennsylvania and Boston to introduce future hubby around

Minneapolis on first married camping trip

North Dakota

Montana

Denver twice (once just me, once with the husband)

All over Nebraska for the Nebraska Passport in summer 2016

Bee, Nebraska twice

Kansas City

T@b teardrops

Oh tiny trailers, how cute you are.

These are some pictures of T@b teardrops from the Omaha Boat and Sport show. They had two on display, one with an outside kitchen and one with a kitchen inside. Now that we have our monster 28 footer, I dream of a time when we can try out a tiny thing too. Without killing each other. Although, I did watch a youtube video recently of a couple who lives full time in a T@b. I just don't know about that wet bath...

Siedlik Bakery

What: Glazed Croissant

Where: 4524 S. 84th St, Omaha NE

When: Wednesday, March 28, 2017

I'm not sure if you've heard about what happens to my mother when she comes to visit Omaha. It's quite a spectacle. Obviously in a good way. But one of her trademark Omaha habits is showing up back at my aunts from some errand with a ton of donuts from some bakery she passed along the way. And this time was no different, a huge box from Siedlik suddenly appeared.

Sadly, I was not feeling the greatest by this time in her visit (we all passed around a pretty bad cold) but I still managed to get the last glazed croissant in the box. Glazed croissants may be my new favorite. I always like croissants anyways for their flakey, buttery goodness, but add donut glaze to that and I'm hooked. So hooked in fact, I forgot to take a picture till I was about halfway through it! Delicious! 5/5 and why hadn't I heard about this bakery before??

Red Rocks

During our trip to Denver in March we went to Red Rocks, an amazing outdoor amphitheater that has been hosting musical acts for almost 100 years. We didn't go see a concert, which I think was good because there are literally two roads in and I can just imagine how crowded it gets for concerts. There were a lot of hiking trails around it but we just checked out the theater and the small museum they had. And maybe Hubby climbed on a couple rocks on the way back to the car. He just can't help himself. I'm going to let the pictures talk for themselves, if you can, go check it out.

Long Distance donut run

My mom and her brother came up to Omaha recently, any my motorcycle riding, slightly anti social uncle brought me a donut from Daytona Beach! It was a boston creme pie and they kept it in the cooler for the two day drive. It was delicious! The frosting was not the typical semi-hardened frosting you see on most chocolate donuts but more of a hot fudge sauce consistency. Sadly, I forgot to ask him where it was from! May just have to visit this winter and go get some more!

City Tour of Denver!

One of the things Hubby and I joke about is one day owning a city tours company. You know the ones you sign up for and then they take you to the best 5 bars in downtown or on a progressive dinner to four different restaurants. Or perhaps a donut crawl.

For research purposes we figured we should take some tours sometimes and Denver happens to have a free one! You know how I feel about free things! So when we were there in March, we got up somewhat early on a Sunday and met at the state capital building for our free tour.

There were about 25 of us on the tour and the guide had some of the best voice projection I'd ever heard. Hubby will have to work on that a bit. We walked around for about 2 hours going almost 2 miles in that time and learned the history of the buildings and parks and areas we went by. It was super informative and a great way to get to know the city. Our friend who lives there even came with us and learned some things she didn't know! And for future reference, it's dog friendly.

Laramie Square, lots of historical buildings that didn't get torn down because someone fought to save them.

US Mint which had two somewhat successful robberies.

Public art at the convention center. Denver has a rule about public art in any large construction projects so there is a lot of public art in Denver.

Not actually on our walking tour, but a cool sign for the latest up and coming neighborhood.

Also not on the tour, but pancake flight at Snooze! Best place for brunch in Denver!

Wahoo Bakery

What: Chocolate cake, cherry cheese kolache

Where: Wahoo, NE

When: Friday, April 14th, 2017

website

The Wahoo Bakery is one of my favorite small town bakeries ever. Wahoo is a town of about 4,500 north of Lincoln. My mom discovered their donuts on one of her crazy Nebraska road trips with her sister a couple of years ago. Hubby and I don't make it to Wahoo very often, but when we do we always hit up the bakery and the Wahoo Meat Locker. Normally in that order.

This time their selection wasn't the largest (probably because we didn't make it there till about 11am which is not prime time for donut selection) so I ended up with a kolache. Hands down one of the best kolache's I've ever had. The dough was not sweet at all but delicious and the filling was the right level of sweetness to pair with the dough. I could have eaten 3 more, but thankfully I only bought one. 5/5.

The chocolate cake is one of Hubby's favorites normally so the selection was not disappointing for him at all. I had to stop myself from eating more than the bite he offered me because it was also delicious. I'm kind of glad we don't live in Wahoo...

Also, for anyone wondering about the Meat Locker, excellent meat and an adorable selection of kitchen gadgets. My favorite are the Hawaiian wieners which are a touch spicy and have little tiny chunks of pineapple in them and Hubby picked out a honey bbq smoked sausage that people were fighting over at Easter dinner. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it!

I did not win the contest for how many eggs were in the window :-(

Alternative Cuss Words

In case anyone needs this: