Dish 10 Orange Chicken with Sweet Potatoes

This was the first time I'd ever made anything with sweet potatoes.  I cooked this one in the crockpot, but I still had to do a good amount of prep work.  My friend told me that she and her husband do crockpot Sunday almost every week.  I kind of like this idea and copied her for a few weeks.  This came in especially handy when my oven broke.  We've gotten away from it recently, but I'm thinking of getting started with it again soon. 
This dish came out MUCH better than the last time I did chicken in a crockpot.  Last time I made chicken that way it was so dry, but this was good.  I thought it would taste a little more orangey, but it was pretty good nonetheless, just a different taste than I expected.  I still can't decide if I like sweet potatoes or not.  I'm on a kick where I really like sweet potato fries and when I've been out to eat lately, I've gotten sweet potato fies instead of regular fries, but I'm still up in the air re:  sweet potatoes themselves. 

More Venues=More Fabulous Places

After our day of looking at a great wedding venues and a not as great as we'd hoped wedding venue, we spent the next couple of weeks looking at five more places.  The first one of those four was a hotel, which we liked, but it wasn't set up for anything so it was just a big empty room and hard to visualize.   The second place we REALLY liked.  I think I liked it more than my fiance, but he said he liked it.  The third place had a nice outdoor area for pictures, but the venue itself seemed a little small for what we wanted.  The fourth place we looked at, we also liked, but the location was in the middle of a city, so we were a little concerned about where we'd take pictures.  We are currently considering that place for our rehersal dinner though.  I must admit that ALL of the people we met with at these four places were REALLY nice, accommodating, and willing to answer questions, offer suggestions, etc.  The only "bad" thing about this was it was getting hard to narrow our choices because we liked everything so much.  :-) 

Summer Movies (Two Months Late)

As promised, here are the 20 movies I watched over the summer (a.k.a. the goal I did reach)

1.  West Wing Season 2 (okay so it's a series, not a movie, but I Netflixed it and enjoyed it, I'm hooked on that show now)
2.  Junior (had never seen this one, it was fumny)
3.  It Had to Be You (cute chick flick)
4.  Ted (a little raunchy, but definitely funny, this was one my fiance wanted to see so I was a good girl and went with him, but yeah, it definitely had a lot of laughs)
5.  Hope Springs (not the new one with Meryl Streep, this is a few years older with Colin Firth, it was okay)
6.  Boys Don’t Cry (one of those movies that makes you think OMG, how can people be so mean, but as disturbing as it was to watch, I think it teaches a good lesson--be KIND to people even if they are diffrent from you, and yes, I know that's putting it really simply)
7.  I Don’t  Know How She Does It (A fun, cute movie)
8.  Sherlock Holmes (not really my type of movie, but I do quite like Robert Downey Jr, this was another one my fiance wanted to see)
9.  Magic Mike (yes, I confess, I watched this movie, but come on Channing Tatum is HOT)
10.  Georgia Rule (better than I thought it would be, I liked it, even if it did deal with a disturbing issue in places, it had some good humor in it too)
11.  Jane Eyre (an older version of the movie, not the new one, I read the book a few years ago and have been wanting to see one/several of the movie versions)
12.  Black Swan (I wanted to see this mainly for the dance aspect, I will confess I had to look away a few times during this movie, well acted, etc, but distubring in places, like when she was stabbing herself with feathers)
13.  Beauty and the Briefcase  (Cute)
14.  The Bridges of Madison County (Good movie)
15.  21 Jump Street (Again, my fiance's choice, not mine, but it was all right)
16.  Eat Pray Love (read the book so had to see the movie, I liked it)
17.  Conviction (Good movie, liked it a lot)
18.  Love and Other Drugs (Not my favorite, but good movie anyway)
19.  Adventures in Baby-Sitting (I had never seen this, good 80s movie)
20.  New Year’s Eve  (Yes, I know it's cheesy, but I liked it)

1 Goal Achieved, 1 Goal Almost Achieved

On July 17th, I blogged about some (rather silly) summer goals I set for myself.  I was going to watch 20 movies and read 10 books over the summer.  I meant to write this blog earlier (you know at the end of the summer), but you know me, I'm always behind in blog life.  Plus then I got excited writing about Iceland, wedding stuff, and my 52 dishes.  Anyway...I only met one of my goals and came close on the other, but no dice.  I'll start with the books, the goal I didn't quite meet and you can check back tomorrow for the movie goal, which proved more successful.  What's that you say?  You don't believe I'm going to write a blog tomorrow because that would mean I blogged two days in a row and I've been slacking lately.  Well, you're right, I'm not going to write it tomorrow, I'm going to do it now, but schedule it to post tomorrow.  :-) 
I only ended up reading 8 books instead of 10.  I think I spent too much time on movies and the computer.  Next summer, I'll do better (I hope!).  Here's what I read:

1.  The Wedding Girl (Cute chick lit)
2 . The Brightest Star in the Sky (this was by Marian Keyes, who is one of my favorite authors when you want a combo of chick lick intertwined with some larger/more serious issues, I enjoyed this book.)

3. Catching Fire (second book in The Hunger Games, it was pretty good.  I originally had NO desire to read this series, but so many people kept telling me I "had" to read it that I gave it a try so of course after reading the first book, I "had" to read the second, now I need to get the third one.)

4. Eat, Pray, Love (I was a little nervous on this one because several people told me they didn't like this book, but I enjoyed it.  I liked the movie too.)

 

5. Fearless Fourteen (by Janet Evanovich, her books are good for a fun/light summer read, I've read her other 13 "Stephanie Plum" novels so had to read this one too)

6. Salem Falls (I enjoy Jodi Piccoult's book and this was no exception, good book)

7. Here Comes the Bride (sequel to a book I read YEARS ago, I liked this book a lot, the main character kind of reminded me of me and where I'm at in life)

8. Plum Lovin' (another Stephanie Plum novel)

Dish 9

There aren't a whole lot of things I cook well, but I can cook chicken.  I like chicken, my fiance likes chicken, and my fiance likes bacon, quite a bit.  So when I found a recipe for bacon wrapped chicken, I thought, oh, yeah, he's going to like this one and that'll give me dish 9 in my "52 recipes in 52 weeks" or "A Year of New Dishes" quest.  So I made it, unfortunately, it made too much for two people and though I usually like leftovers, for some reason this meal reheated wasn't as good as the real deal.  The real deal was decent though, not my favorite of the new dishes, but something I would try again. 

A Quick Post About Dish 8

Well, you  might not know it from the blogs I've been writing lately, but I have continued my 52 recipes in 52 weeks, though I did unintentionally take a brief break due to a broken oven, but we'll get to that in another blog.  So dish 8, which I actually made at the end of August (yep, I'm behind) was chicken pot pie.  Believe it or not, I'd never done a home made chicken pot pie.  I usually bought the frozen kind and stuck it in the oven.  I will admit I bought the crust, didn't do a home-made crust, but otherwise, I made it.  It was pretty good.  I don't like peas so I picked out all the peas.  My fiance does not like vegetables, but he actually ate his.  :-) 

Home Again (Sort Of) Bye Iceland, We'll Miss You!

We flew home from Greenland that evening (plane food was decent).  Spent the evening doing a little shopping at the mall near our hotel.  Then because it was our last night in Iceland we decided to go to a local restaurant/bar for food and drink.  As it turned out, nothing was open within walking distance of our hotel (we were no longer staying in the heart of Rek) so we went down to the lobby, had a glass of Icelandic beer (yes, me the girl who doesn't like beer, but when in Rome or rather when Iceland...) and hung out in the lobby looking at brochures for all the places we wanted to go next time.  The next day it was off to the airport (last minute souvenir-shopping) then back home.  Or at least near home, I had plans to go away that weekend.  Go figure our flight home landed EARLY.  My fiance had barely left to come get us since our flight was so early.  Overall, it was a great trip. We dropped my friend off then headed up to my friend's lake house for a weekend of fun.  I somehow managed to stay awake long enough to enjoy myself that night, but was glad to sleep in the next day.  :-)  So there ya' go, two months later, I finally finish writing about an 8 day trip.  Ay ay ay.   

Day 7: Greenland

When my friend and I were planning our Iceland trip, we decided to splurge and do a day trip to Greenland. When else would we have the opportunity to go to Greenland?  I'm sure people go there and all, but I don't personally know anyone who has been there (at least not that I know of, perhaps you've been there and I don't know it).  It was kind of a random spot to visit, but it was only a two hour flight from Iceland and we were both interested in checking it out.  So on our almost last day of the Iceland trip we did a day trip to Greenland.  The population of Greenland is approximately 60,000.  There are cities near me that are bigger than that.  The town we visited has a population of under 300.  The town had:  an airport, a hotel, a general store, a souvenir shop, a school (the school does not house the equivalent of our high school, so students basically have to go to some type of boarding school because you can't really commute from this town to school on a daily basis), a church, a community center (I think), a cemetary, and an assortment of houses.  We saw all of those things (and of course I took pictures of most of those things) as well as a drumming presentation.  We also walked from the airport to town so we stopped quite a few times to take in the views and get some good pics.  You can't really drive from the Kulusuk (where we visited) to any other parts of Greenland so there aren't many cars in town.  There is a helicopter that flies back and forth a few times a day between Kulusuk and another larger town.  There are also boats in town so people can fish, catch seals, etc.  It's a different life than I'm used to, that's for sure.  Anyway, I learned a lot about the town and Greenland as a whole, saw some nice views, took some good pics, and went on a short boat ride that did not require Dramamene.  I feel like I should write more, but instead I'm going to post some pics.  We had a good day trip and met some nice people from Colorado, Belgium,  Iceland, and of course Greenland.  And of course I bought a couple of souvenirs and had a danish (do they call it a danish in Greenland--it's part of Denmark--is that pc?  That's how the woman described our snack to us.)    It was a good day!

Below is a view inside the church.

 The drumming presentation we saw is below.

 Hanging out in Greeland, with the town we were soon to visit in the background.

 

The School

Day 6 You Actually CAN get there from here

You may remember from eight years ago that I mentioned we tried to go to Grimsey Island earlier in the trip, but Mother Nature had other ideas.  Well, we tried again on day 6.  Our plan was to take the ferry to the island and fly back to Ak.  If for some reason the plane couldn't go again because of the fog, we could take the ferry back as the ferry left later than the plane.  We had to take a bus to the ferry stop, which worked out fine in the end, but there was some drama as the lady at the bus station said the bus didn't go back.  The bus driver assured us that it did (as it turned out since we were able to fly home it was a non-issue in the end anyway).  The bus was late so they had to hold the ferry for us, but they did and we successfully boarded the ferry and set sail for Grimsey.  I took my seasick medicine and settled in for a pleasant ferry ride.  WRONG!  Pleasant it wasn't. I mean the people were nice and the movie playing was a good one, but the ride was bumpy.  The medicine that usually helps was NOT helpful.  I was a miserable grump.  I sat in one of the only empty chairs (near the front of the boat, which I know is not the best place to sit when you feel sick on a boat, but it was my only option), closed my eyes and hoped I'd fall asleep.  No such luck.  I spent a good deal of time looking at my watch and trying not to try during the movie (when I wasn't dozing, I kept opening my eyes at the sad parts of "Reign Over Me").  I don't think I spoke more than three sentences to my friend, I felt so miserable.  Three hours is a long ride when you feel sick, but eventually (slowly) it passed and we docked.  And I stepped off the boat and felt fine.  It was like magic or something.  I was afraid I'd still feel a little blah, but nope as soon as I was off the boat, I was back to my ol' self.  We spent some time exploring the island.  We didn't have time to do quite everything we wanted, but we did see the one school, the church, walked part of one of the trails, visited the two shops, from a distance saw the light house,  AND made it to the arctic circle, where we posed with the pole for pictures and got a certificate.  BTW the island is small, when I said the school, two shops, etc, that's because that's all there is.  There is also a small hotel or two and an indoor pool. The population is about 90 people.  I really wonder what it's like living in a place like that.  I'd love to meet someone who lives on a small island like Grimsey and ask them a ton of questions about island life.  It kind of fascinates me.  I could't live like that forever, but maybe a few months would be fun.  Anyway...Thank goodness it wasn't foggy and we were able to take the plane back to Ak.  The plane holds about 20 people.  The airport was small, the staff were very nice--they even took our pics by the plane, the plane was small as in you could see the pilot from your seat, and I'm pretty sure the lady who checked us in also took our pic, loaded us onto the plane, and cleared the plane for take off.  A little different from life around here, but I'm not complaning, just noticing.  The plane was SO much better for me than the ferry (and only a 25 min ride).  We spent the rest of the evening shopping a little bit more, exploring Ak and seeing another famous house (Nonni's house), having delicious treats at a local cafe/bar, walking around a bit more, than having tapas (sp?)--my first time--at a local restaurant and I will admit I finally tried an Icelandic beer there (I'm still not a beer fan, but it was drinkable lol), then it was back to the airport to head back to Rek for two nights.  Oh, and as you check out the pics, it appears that I took a lot of pictures of churches, I think that is because we saw so many on the trip.  :)

 

Night 5

We made it to Akureyri (or Ak as my friend and I referred to it because I often forgot how to spell it) that evening. We checked into our guest house, which was all right, different from anything I'd stayed at before. Then we set off to explore Ak a bit. We visited the Botanical Gardens (where my friend befriended yet another cat, in case you forgot since it's taken me forever to blog about this trip she also befriended a cat in Rek earlier in the trip, I think she must attract them or something), visisted a historical house, did some shopping, enjoyed some fabulous ice-cream, and got some sandwiches and some FABULOUS desserts at a local bookshop/cafe.

Day 5

Aren't you glad I didn't go away for a whole month since it's taking me over a month to write about an 8 day trip?  Imagine how long it would take to write about a whole month.  Of course if I were "normal" I'd probably just sit down and write about one day each night, but intsead I throw in recipes and then have the audacity to get busy at work and not blog for a few days.  My goodness!  So day 5, we explored the Lake Myvatan area.  We looked at a look of scenic stuff so I will try not to drone on too long and just let you enjoy pictures.  We temporarily misplaced the car keys (yikes!), but found them a few minutes later (in the tourist info center on the counter, thank goodness!).  We also got a little lost, but since there aren't a lot of roads it didn't take us long to find our way.  Oh, except when we were walking and got lost, not so much lost as somehow ended up on the 6-8 hour hike (with only 1 small bottle of water) instead of the 40 minute hike, but we eventually realized that too and turned around (it just meant some extra exercise lol).  We also saw some more tufted houses.  So here are some pictures from that day: