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

Cabin's I'd love to stay in

Breezy on Superior, Minnesota
Studio to 2 bedrooms on Lake Superior. Recently redone and gorgeous looking.


Medicine Creek, Nebraska
2 bedroom state park cabins that look brand new, but no fireplaces.

I'm sure I will be adding to the list, but that's all I got for today :-)

What's in your glovebox?

My recommendations for a happy roadtrip:

1. Registration and Insurance card, easy to find.
2. GPS and charger
3. Flashlight
4. Tire guage
5. Napkins
6. Baby wipes! I have become a firm believer in baby wipes, especially over other antibacterial wipes. They're gentler, smell better, and tend to be cheaper in bulk because there are always store brands available. Great for washing your hands after pumping gas or if the bathroom soap dispenser didn't work or if your face is feeling icky from a day stuck in the car. Endless possibilities!

200!

Well, I made it to 200 posts. And have a dozen more scheduled or thought about, so there will definitely be more milestones to come but I'm super excited about 200!

I figured I would mark this milestone with a list, because you all know how much I love lists.

My Top 5 Posts:
1. What would your mom do?
2. Road Trip Necessities
3. Family Reunion Necessities
4. The Worst Donut Ever
5. Donut Art!


(none of these were reviews, kind of ironic?)


My Top 5 Future Post Ideas:
1. from my sister: my one neutral only packing guideline
2. donut reviews: the new Krispy Kreme in Lincoln
3. travels: Montana, my second new state of 2016!
4. day trips: Nebraska Passport attractions
5. Washington DC, future home?

The Official Platte River Playlist

In 2008 my mom's side had a family reunion at Platte River State Park. It was our first reunion in quite some time and the first time my Dad brought out his guitar in almost as long. So we made an official play list and sent out CDs in the runup to the reunion so people had some time to "study up" on the songs that my dad would be playing. And just some of our favorite camp fire singalongs.

Onto the playlist:

1. Blow Up Your TV (John Denver)

2. North to Alaska (Johnny Horton)

3. Take Me Home Country Roads (John Denver)

4. Homeward Bound (Simon & Garfunkel)

5. Teach Your Children (unknown?)

6. Sloop John B (The Beach Boys)

7. Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald (Gordon Lightfoot)

8. This Land is Your Land (Peter, Paul and Mary)

9. City of New Orleans (Arlo Guthrie)

10. Blowin' in the Wind (Peter, Paul and Mary)

11. Thank God I'm a Country Boy (John Denver)

12. The Boxer (Simon and Garfunkel)

13. Puff the Magic Dragon (Peter, Paul and Mary)

14. Battle of New Orleanes (Johnny Horton)

15. Mrs. Robinson (Simon & Garfunkel)

16. Taxi (Harry Chapin)

17.  King of the Road (Roger Miller)

18. Leaving on a Jetplane (Peter, Paul and Mary)

19. Grandma's Feather Bed (John Denver)

20. Red Rubber Ball (Cyrkle)

Food and Wine's America's Best Donut

Another list, but a little big city heavy.

I've been to 7 of them, hopefully with plans to hit a couple more this year.

Dough, Brooklyn
Federal Donuts, Philadelphia and again here
Doughnut Planet, Manhattan
Top Pot Doughnuts, Seattle
Voodoo Donuts, Portland
Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop, Brooklyn
Blue Star Donuts, Portland 
(Fake review: District Donut, Washington DC)


Top of my list of where I can't wait to try:
Gourdough's in Austin
I'm really excited about the make your own!

Donuts in Nebraska!

Saw this great article, probably on Facebook. I've been to #2 (Conroy's Family Bakery, Conroy's part 2 and Conroy's part 3, I really like Conroy's...), #4 (Donut Haven), #5 (Donut Stop, no review yet), #6 (The Doughnut Hole), #10 (Olsen's Bake Shop, again no review yet!), #11 (Petit's and Petit's part two), #12 (Randy's and Randy's part 2) which is pretty good! I better get moving on the rest of them! And get some reviews in for The Donut Stop and Olsen's!

Article:
Donuts in Nebraska!

50 States, 50 Donuts

While researching one of my donut stops in July, I found this lovely list by Zagat of one donut from each state. I love lists like this by state, and this one is especially nice because you can view it as a list and not a slide show! Woohoo!

From the list, I have gone/had donuts from:
Colorado's Glazed and Confused Donuts
Massachusette's Union Square Donuts
Minnesota's Glam Doll Donuts
North Carolina's Krispy Kreme (although probably not the flagship store since I've never been to Winston-Salem)
Oregon's Voodoo Donuts
Pennsylvania's Federal Donuts
Texas' Shipley Do-Nuts
Washington's Top Pot Hand-Forged Doughnuts

However, I've only had two of the actual donuts on the list (The Maple Bar at Voodoo and the Sticky Bun at Federal Donuts, which may be my husband's favorite donut ever)

Camping menu planning

I'm a planner. I like lists and I like organization and I like to be prepared. So about a week before my husband and I left on a 4 night camping trip, I sat down to plan our menu and work on a grocery list. And quickly realized that four days of cold turkey sandwiches for lunch just wouldn't do. After a quick google search, I found Happy Money Saver and 10 great recipes to try!

    

So, in order, my thoughts and results!

1. Pancake Batter in a bag: definitely will do this again. I froze mine flat, but should have frozen it in a block because we weren't going to eat it right away. The more spread out whatever it is when frozen, the faster it will defrost.

2. Egg sandwiches and 3. Omelettes in a bag were skipped on this trip.

4. Campfire pizza log: got soggy because it was too big for a ziplock. For our next trip I will try to make it into two smaller pizzas so that I can properly wrap it. Also, mine looked nothing like that.

Pizza toppings cooking: fresh spinach, tomato, garlic

Ready to be rolled up. Sadly, no
"rolled up" picture, but I'll just tell
you it wasn't pretty.

5. Taco soup: excellent! I really liked the recipe because I could mix it up a bit (I used a can of rotel instead of the second can of stewed tomatoes, because that's what was in my pantry when I went to make it). Again though, like with the pancakes, I would freeze it more compactly and not flat if we weren't going to eat it in the first two days camping.

Soup ingredients, plus the ground turkey.

Cooking everything up.

We may have eaten this at a hotel. It was
a weird camping trip.

6. Campfire sandwiches: this was a life saver with the rain that just wouldn't stop, we ate them cold in the tent. Next time I would cut the bread into thinner slices. Perhaps my french bread was just much bigger, but the 6 sandwiches ended up with way too much bread to them.

7. Curly dogs: didn't try, but it sounds super yummy.

8. Campfire roasted apples: I was totally pumped to try this, brought my apple corer along and everything, but the rain just didn't let it happen. Very sad.

9. Campfire eclairs: Tried these at a cookout with some friends and they failed pretty miserably. The crescent roll dough was too floppy to stay as an open tube on our marshmallow sticks. We ended up spreading the dough out on some foil, cooking it, and then melting some chocolate on top. Or adding cherry pie filling. It tasted good, but I was sad we couldn't shape them correctly. Maybe they need to be wrapped around something bigger for the cooking phase.

Left: crescent roll dough with cherry
pie filling and chocolate on top.
Right: flattened crescent roll dough
with chocolate on top.

10. Cake in an orange: This may be something I never try, mostly because getting all the flesh out of an orange doesn't sound fun to me.

Updated Camping Kitchen

Our first trip of the summer was a little bit of a let down because the weather was pretty bad and we didn't get to cook much (quick tip: a screened in kitchen tent is really a good idea if all you have is a sleeping tent, really wish we had had one on this past trip).

Other things that I added to the kitchen box: 

1. Apple corer (for a specific recipe that I never got to try out)

2. Plastic trays from the dollar store

3. Twine (for a clothes line, that I also never got to put up since it was raining and our site didn't have good trees for a clothes line)

4. Picnic table tablecloth pinchers (dollar store, totally helpful to hold down the dollar store table clothes I also brought)

Like I said, we didn't cook too much over the fire, mostly we used the Coleman camping stove, but there wasn't anything I wanted but didn't have for the cooking on this trip, so I would say it was a success.

Donut Bar

Yesterday I mentioned the donut bar I put together for some friends and I figured I should give some more details so you guys can set up your very own! (Warning: this will feed a crowd, so you may not want to just set it up for you and your roommate unless you really want a sore belly!)

Supplies: (food)

Glazed or plain donuts (the plainer the better)

Chocolate Fudge Frosting

Maple Buttercream Frosting

Caramel Sauce

Peanut Butter Sauce

Crumbled chocolate sandwich cookies

Crumbled Bacon

Sprinkles

Sugary cereals

Peanuts

Chocolate Chips

Butterscotch Chips

Chocolate Mint Chips

Cherry Pie Filling

Cool Whip

Supplies: (non food)

Small slow cooker

Squeeze bottles

Tiny bowls/spoons for toppings

Plastic table cloth

Plates/knives/forks for eating

Recipes:

Chocolate Fudge Frosting

1/2 c butter, 1/3 c milk, 1/4 c cocoa powder, approx 1 lb powdered sugar

Heat everything but the sugar on the stove to a boil, stirring regularly. 

Stir while boiling for 2-3 minutes, then remove from heat and beat in powdered sugar. 

Frosting sets fairly quickly, I made this ahead of time and transferred it to my slow cooker bowl to reheat right before starting the donut bar.

Maple Buttercream Frosting

3 T softened butter, 1/4 c cream, 1/2 lb powdered sugar, 2 T maple flavoring

Beat all ingredients together and refrigerate until needed. Frosts the best slightly cooler than room temp. Add more cream to make it softer or more powdered sugar to make it set firmer.

Caramel Sauce

5 T butter, 3/4 c brown sugar, 1/3 c cream, 1 t vanilla

Heat butter, brown sugar, and cream until it boils, stirring regularly.

Stir while boiling for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Let cool slightly and put in tupperware. Right before starting the donut bar, reheat in microwave until you can pour it easily. Funnel it into squeeze bottle.

Peanut Butter Sauce

1/4 c peanut butter, 1/8 c cream, 1 c powdered sugar.

Mix all ingredients together until desired consistency is reached. Funnel into squeeze bottle and refrigerate until needed.

My creation, in 4 parts: Chocolate frosting with caramel sauce, chocolate frosting with peanut butter sauce and cookie crumbles, maple frosting with caramel sauce, maple frosting with bacon crumbles. It was pretty awesome :-)

Ambrosia Bakery

What: Jelly Filled

Where: 272 Naugatuck Ave, Milford CT

When: Saturday, July 19th, 2014

While back on the east coast in July I was the runner for two of my favorite coworkers' wedding. They were doing a dessert bar so I went to Costco, Whole Foods, and Ambrosia Bakery to pick stuff  up the morning of the wedding.

1. Costco on a Saturday morning is super busy.

2. Costcos apparently do not believe in labeling aisles.

3. Telling someone not to panic yet while they are waiting for a preorder at Whole Foods is somewhat panic inducing.

4. Count the orders before leaving in case they forgot a box of six dozen Cannolis.

But, silver lining, I got one of the best jelly donuts I've ever had. Like Frangelli's fresh-filled good.

I couldn't even tell you what flavor the jelly was, maybe some sort of blackberry? Delicious. The dough was awesome too, not too sweet to balance out the jelly. 5/5. Would definitely go back and try out some other flavors.

National Donut Day deals

Nationwide:
Dunkin Donuts-free donut with any beverage purchase.
Krispy Kreme-get any donut for free, but not in CT. Sorry Connecticut.
Tim Horton's-free donut with any purchase.


Local:
Super Savers-free donut to the first 200 customers starting at 7am.
Hy-Vee-glazed donuts are 2/$1.
Russ's Market-glazed donuts are 4/$1 with five cents from each donut going to the Salvation Army, the creator of National Donut Day.
LaMar's Donuts-free holed-donut

Non Local favorite of mine:
Shipley's Do-Nuts-free donut and small coffee, 5am-12pm.

And for my NYC readers:
Doughnut Plant-free mini cake donut with any purchase.
Cumberland Farms-free donut with a beverage purchase.


Official Donut Day website, and some donut porn

Anyone find anything else on google? I don't know where I should start! Somewhere I can walk to, would be good.

Road Trip Planning!

There are a ton of steps in planning a road trip in my family.

1. Dream big. Get a plan going. Rough out the timeline. Google docs is your friend. Use the spreadsheet feature to make a calendar, and then share it with pertinent people so that everyone can update it as needed and have a visual for the cross-country planning conference calls.

2. Convince Dad it's a good idea. This may take a couple of weeks, so give yourself plenty of time!

3. Retackle the timeline. Plan out days based on mileage and end goals. Hit up google maps until you dream about routes in your sleep.

4. Configure as many friend and family visits as possible along the route. When else are you going to be in State College, PA? Better see those friends now!

5. Scour HotelCoupons.com for deals. You can't make reservations, so print out a couple for each likely stopping point on your trip to be prepared. (Always have a backup plan!)

6. Check Groupon for deals in cities you'll be visiting. Especially cheap restaurant deals.

7. Find the donut shop you are going to visit and review while on the trip. Make sure you write down the hours and phone number, just in case.

8. Get the car ready. Clear out the stuff you don't need (like the snow shovel during a Memorial Day Weekend trek). Put in the stuff you might (see road trip necessities for the complete list)

9. Start making ice for the cooler a couple days before. Giant blocks of ice (one or two) will stay frozen longer and can be supplemented with ice from a hotel. Don't rely just one ice from a hotel though, often their ice has more surface area and therefore melts in the cooler faster (when did this become a math lesson? You guys know I used to teach high school math right? Well, now you do).

10. Get the clothes ready. Do you need to bring laundry soap for the laundry mat stop halfway through? Layers are the only way I dress while traveling, so lots of leggings and cardigans for me.

11. Get the maps and paperwork ready. Make sure someone who isn't traveling with you has a copy of your itinerary and pertinent info about the route and your car.

12. Get the food ready. Turkey sandwiches carefully re-stacked in the empty bread bag? Yes, please.

13. Get on the road! Have fun! And remember, some schedules were meant to be ignored :-)

Planning a Tour

I'm pretty good at planning things. Trips. Weekly meals. Geometry lessons. It's one of my strong suits. (Maintaining a clean room, however, is not). So are my mom and sister. We like spreadsheets and notebooks and lists. My other sister likes spreadsheets and lists too, but her trips are a little more "fly by the seat of your pants" than my mom and oldest sister.

Anyways, point of this post: how to plan a tour.

Q: What do I mean by tour?
A: The tours I'm talking about aren't the guided tours with someone walking backwards in front of you with a mic telling you about the history of the buildings you pass while you wonder when you get to eat next. I'm talking about self-guided tours where you go where YOU want to go and eat when YOU want to eat. And geek out about something. This is your chance to pick something you're interested in, and focus just on that and have fun.

Q: Do I have to go somewhere to plan a tour?
A: No! You can take one of your hometown! See places you've never seen. Or revisit places you have seen all in one day!

And on to planning.

Step 1: Pick a focus.
What will your tour be of? What are you interested in? Do you want it to be food related? History related? Book related?
Ideas for focus:
Food - Donuts (duh), Pizza, Coffee
History - 5 oldest buildings in town, Original houses, abandoned buildings
Book - Did a book take place in the town? Can you follow in the character's footsteps for a day?
Places - Libraries, Parks

Step 2: Decide on a time frame.
Will your tour be a full day? Half day? How long will you spend at each place? How long will it take to get from place to place?

Step 3: Logistics - plan your route
Will you be walking, biking, or driving? Is there a particular place you need to start or finish (time wise or food wise)? If it's a food related tour, is there enough time between stops for digestion? Mark the locations you want to visit on a map (paper or online) and then connect the dots to plan your route.

Step 4: Prep work.
Do you need to research any of the buildings or locations? What hours are the food places open? Do you need to bring anything with you (camera, water bottle, money, bike lock).

Step 5: Enjoy your tour!
Grab a buddy and immerse yourself in something different for the day! Take pictures, write notes, or just enjoy your tour. Make sure you have a list of your stops and a good map to guide you!

Step 6: (Optional) Create a record of your tour.
Do you want to make a scrapbook? Write some online reviews? Make a slideshow to force family members to look at?

Besides my most recent donut tour of NYC (that one was all planned by my sister, I just got to go along for the ride, or walk) we also went on a Fangirl tour of Lincoln. Fangirl is a young adult book written by Rainbow Rowell that is about a freshman at UNL. My sister and I had a free afternoon in Lincoln and had both recently finished the book so we decided to follow in Cath's footsteps and visit places she went to throughout the book. It was great because I had only moved to Lincoln earlier that year so I got to see a lot of places I hadn't seen yet, and we got to get lost in the story again. This tour combined history, architecture, and food. Oh, and ridiculous photo ops:

Packing for cooking over a fire

The full kitchen box!

This past weekend I got to go camping in South Dakota which was awesome because 1. I'd never been to South Dakota and 2. It had been way too long since the last time I went camping. We rented a cabin in a state park just over the Nebraska boarder and it was AMAZING. But again, that's for another post. Notice I'm trying not to inundate all you readers with a ton of stories at once. This post will focus on packing a kitchen to go. I'm really proud of my packing job because there was only one thing that I was like, crap, I wish I had brought that. And we used almost everything in my kitchen box!




Items for two people for a two day camping trip:
1. 6 inch fry pan
2. 4 quart pot with lid that would also fit the fry pan if needed
3. Spatula/scrapper
4. Spatula/flipper

Cold breakfast the first morning before
we got firewood.

5. Two plastic cooking spoons
6. Two pot holders
7. Three tea towels
8. Collapsible bowl with lid
10. Two distinctly shaped sponges (so we could tell them apart if need be)
11. Small tupperware of dish soap (approximately 1/4 cup)
12. 2 8-in plates
13. 2 10-in plates
14. Cutting board
15. Sharp knife

Dinner the second night cooked
over the fire.

16. Metal pinchers
17. Utensils (assorted butter knives, forks and spoons)
18. Corkscrew/bottle opener
19. Can opener
20. Scissors
21. 4 bowls
22. 4 cups
23. Paper towels
24. Assorted ziplock baggies
25. Trash bags (large glad ones and some old grocery bags)
26. Tub of antibacterial wipes

Hot breakfast cooked over the fire.

Everything fit into a collapsible crate that I had from college that measured approximately 18x12x12. We didn't use everything, but the only thing I wanted and didn't have was some duct tape (although, not sure if that counts as part of the kitchen packing or not). If I go camping more in the future or for longer periods of time, a dish bin would be nice for doing dishes (the collapsible bowl worked fairly well, it had a lid which was nice, but it wasn't very big) and a kettle for warming up water on the fire.

Oh how I love the Onion...

Not-That-Important Employee Snatches Best Donut in Box

Best part: "Several employees told reporters that they were incensed at Schuler’s transgressive act, repeatedly noting that the “top-tier” donuts should be exclusively reserved for managers and the other more valuable members of the team."

I would like to know what the "top-tier" donuts would be. Can we make a list? Three best donut types. Everyone go! I'll post mine tomorrow, with a new review.

Also, ways to avoid this office blunder:
1. Make sure to get multiple maple cake donuts if you are the supplier.
2. Cut donuts in half! The frozen yogurt place I went to tonight had dividers for your cups so you could separate different flavors. Everyone loves to mix it up!
3. If you are the newbie, wait until only three donuts remain and then take whatever you want from those three. If people still complain, at that point it's their own fault for being so slow!

Family Reunion Food

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I'm in the middle of a move and the wireless at the new apartment is not the best...so I may be MIA for awhile...
But I thought I'd list all the food we had this past weekend! Because I like lists and food, obviously.

Friday:
LaCasa's pizza (hamburger & plain)
Salad
Chips
Chocolate Hy-Vee Cake that said "Halpenny Cuz Normal is Boring"
Vanilla Hy-Vee Cake that said "Halpenny When You Want the Very Best"
Mudslide Cake
Gluten Free brownies
Snickerdoodles
Chocolate chip cookies
Beer/wine/buzz balls/pop/water

Sunday:
Fried chicken
Ribs
Potato salad
Coleslaw
Chips
Baked beans with whole strips of bacon on top
Carrot/raisin/nut salad
Romona's coleslaw
PB M&M cookies
Chocolate Butterscotch Oatmeal cookies
Sugar cookies
Romona's lemon cake
Beer/wine/buzz balls/pop/water

I feel like I'm forgetting something...

Random stuff that comes in handy at family reunions

Painter's tape
packing tape
scissors
cheap pens
permanent markers
wet towel in a bag (again!)
tons of coolers and ice (more ice than you can ever think you'll need probably)
camp chairs
semi-disposable leftovers containers
trash bags
lighter

Food & Fireworks

For July 4th, I went with my mom's older sister to my cousin's house for food and fireworks. And there was a lot of both.

Have you ever heard of FHB? It stands for Family Hold Back and apparently is when, at a large event with food, the food supply starts to diminish a FHB situation is called and the host family stops eating to make sure all the guests get enough food. My sister heard about it from a friend of hers and my whole family was just like, what do you mean there isn't enough food at a family event??? That has NEVER happened to us, on either side of our families!

So, yeah, I guess we're a little food crazy. Here is a short list of the food available for the 4th (we had 18 people there I believe)

Layered Jello (welcome to the midwest, normally we have two, but my cousin ran out of time to make hers)

Four types of chips

Three types of dips for tortilla chips, plus layered chip dip with cheese and beans

Dip for veggies and potato chips

Baked beans

Oreo/cool whip dessert

PB rice crispie treats with chocolate frosting

Jello cake (I guess we did have two jello based dishes...)

Hot dogs

Hamburgers

Coleslaw

Garden Salad

Spicy dried beef roll ups

Giant bowl of olives (what, everyone doesn't have just a bowl of olives sitting around on the buffett table? I guess I'll excuse that, I don't even like them anyways but everyone else in my family does, it was the only empty dish by the end of the night)

Fruit pizza

Fruit salad

Chicken wings

Shrimp

We also spent about half the time there talking about the trip on the Lincoln Highway that my aunt and I took last weekend or the trip to the United Kingdom and Ireland that my uncle and aunts are planning for next month. 

So yeah, I guess traveling and talking about food are just in my genes! And blowing stuff up, I almost forgot the firework selection that we had!