Wedding Pictures: Getting Ready

Today is our 6 month wedding anniversary, so I thought this week would be an appropriate time to share some of my favorite wedding shots. I can't believe its only been six months. It has felt like an eternity, probably due to my first semester of grad school. Speaking of school, the second semester starts today!

We are headed out tonight to celebrate at Sardine. It happens to be Madison's winter restaurant week, so we'll be enjoying a three course dinner for $25.

Here's the first set of photo's. Even though I told Aaron not to drink before our ceremony, I do love the picture that came with it. And you'll also notice Ruth way up in my dress, fixing it like only a sister can do.

The Sugar Problem

A great thing about the chocolate hazelbnut spread recipe I posted the other day is that it tastes like dessert without having any refined sugar in it.

One of the biggest benefits I found from doing the Elimination Diet was cutting out all refined sugar from my diet. I felt great and my blood sugar levels were noticably more stable (I still get hungry but I can control it and I'm less cranky). I am hoping to continue with mostly refined sugar free eating habits.

Sugar only on special occasions is something a lot of people try to live by. The problem with this is there are too many special occasions in my life. Friends come to visit, a party, some coworker's birthday or baby shower, holidays, etc. This turns into multiple special occasions a month and then its no longer an occasional sweet treat, but a big part of your diet. Its too much sugar for me. I do believe celebrating is important, but I feel like that can be done with a special meal or activity that doesn't need to include a sweet ending.

I am re-doing the elimination diet now so I don't need to worry about having sugar for a while. Once I am finished I plan on limiting any type of refined sugar to a immediate family member's birthday (mine or Aaron's) or anniversary celebration, plus the occasional piece of pie when visiting my mom. If I don't set limits for myself it is too easy for me to grab something sweet (or bake it myself) and then lose all of the health benefits of being sugar free.

In reality, there are plenty of natural sugar options: dates, agave, maple syrup, fruit (especially pears, bananas, and applesauce), so you don't have to miss out, you just have to bake it yourself.

Maybe you don't think you consume that much sugar, but if you really look at what you are eating and drinking you might be surprised. If you are concerned about sugar like me, here are some unlikely places I've found it hiding:

• Bread. Sugar is often the 2nd or 3rd ingredient in pre-packaged bread. We buy bread from the bakery section instead which only has flour, yeast and water or oil.
• Tomato Paste or canned tomato products. Often as high fructose corn syrup!
• Dried Cranberries. Luckily the bulk section at our stores have apple juice sweetened ones.
• Salad Dressings. Your best bet is to make your own!
• Flavored Yogurt. Tons of sugar in this stuff, try plain greek yogurt with honey or maple syrup instead.
• Granola Bars. Look for date or honey sweetened bars, like Lara Bars.

Most of this is packaged food so you can be safe by just avoiding that in general and always reading labels.

Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

I have been seeing "homemade nutella" various times throughout the year. One recipe, fromEleana's Pantry, finally caught my eye because it included ingredients I am familiar with and that sounded good to me.

I had leftover hazelnuts from Christmas gifts and then we received some agave nectar in a tequila set for Christmas, so I decided to use it to make this. I did not buy hazelnut oil, I just used olive oil and it still tastes fabulous. It is a little thick though, and the recipe suggests adding more oil to make it creamier. I didn't want to add more olive oil because I was afraid of the flavor. Next time I think I'll either buy hazelnut oil or use a little coconut milk or almond milk to thin it out.

Aaron has been eating it with pretzels.

See all the wonderful things you can make with a food processor?

Make your own Nori Rolls

Aaron and I have been looking for a good sushi place in Madison since we moved here last year. We had tried four or so different restaurants and were disappointed every time. There was the night we waited over 45 minutes for 2 rolls, the time we spent $16 on a special roll that was smaller than a normal spicy tuna roll, etc. Plus I actually like to taste the fish in my rolls. I don't go out to restaurants to eat cream cheese.

Friday night we finally ate at an acceptable sushi bar. Its tiny and the only reason we hadn't tried it yet was the long wait. It was some of the best sushi we've ever had and still reasonably priced. I just wish they took reservations for parties of 2 and they would save some super white tuna for me.

Anyway, on Saturday we decided to try making our own vegetarian nori rolls. We don't have a bamboo rolling mat, but I was inspired by this post from The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen.

After searching around Whole Foods for a while, we found everything we needed including the "sweet brown rice." I didn't know this was a real thing and neither did the Whole Foods staff who told me they didn't have it and sent me to the bulk section to get white sushi rice. Lo and behold there was a bin of sweet brown rice. We also got wasabi and coconut aminos, which is a low sodium substitute for soy sauce or tamari (I'm doing the elimination diet again and haven't added soy).

The rice was very sticky! This ended up being too much rice, next time I'll try to make a thinner layer.

Cabbage, carrot, green onion and avocado for filling.

This recipe made 8 fat rolls and it was ridiculously easy. Now we have snacks for the week. Also if you have a hangover the plain avocado roll is particularly satisfying. Next time I'll try adding some cooked or raw fish.

I highly recommend you try this if you enjoy nori rolls. It is much cheaper than store or restaurant bought (10 nori sheets cost about $5 here... one roll in the prepared foods section is $5-$9). The brown rice is much better for you than white and you can make these as simple or as elaborate as you like.

Snow, finally.

Up until Thursday we were having such wonderful sunny, 45 degree weather in Madison. I wasn't complaining, but a lot of people were and they finally got what they wanted. Lots of snow.

I snapped this picture before leaving work Thursday afternoon. It had been snowing all day and continued to snow. The hour long drive home was not fun.

We'll see if the snow lasts. We were thinking about investing in some new skis for me this winter, but we decided it would be better to spend our money on a tent since camping seems like a more relevant activity this year!

Baked Sweet Potatoes

I remember a time in my life when I thought guacamole/avocados were disgusting (it didn't last long, all I had to do was get over the green color and taste the amazingness to be hooked). I also can't remember a single incident of eating sweet potatoes before I turned twenty. Funny because now I eat these things all of the time. I even eat them together!

Baked Sweet Potato with Avocado Topping

This is the only way Aaron and I eat baked sweet potatoes. Admittedly its most delicious if you mix in some lime juice and goat cheese, but I'm redoing the elimination diet and that stuff isn't allowed. Its still really good with just mashed avocado, salt and pepper.

I do wish sweet potatoes didn't take so long to bake. An hour at 400 degrees is a long and hot time to wait. I don't microwave them though because you lose the crunchy skin. We bake them on tin foil, brushed with oil and topped with salt. When a fork goes in easily, just take them out, cut them open and stuff them with mashed avocado.

This is a really easy dinner, surprisingly filling. We had it last night with leftovers for lunch.

Apartment Updates

We are finally starting to make our apartment look like a home people actually live in, instead of a storage closet, which is good because we are staying put for at least another year and a half. Our newest addition is a rug for our living room area, so we can FINALLY put up our glass coffee table. We have been using a little Ikea stool as a coffee table since August. That and the floor (haven't spilled anything yet!).

We decided to go with a solid style red. It works for now. I can't see us using it in the living room of future homes because I am going more for the grey and yellow color scheme. This is more of a hallway, kitchen or bedroom color rug to me, but we had to start somewhere and we really needed a rug.

The other thing we added was some decorative Christmas gifts. A digital photo frame I loaded up with wedding pictures and this beautiful frame Aaron's sister made with flower's from her bridesmaid bouquet:

(After putting this up I finally threw away my dried bouquet which had been sitting on the counter looking pretty pathetic since we got back from our honey moon.)

Things You Shouldn't Do at Work

1. Have mini meetings in the hallway. Everyone can hear you...

2. Not say hello to your office mates/pretend your officemates don't exist.

3. Drink the freely provided juice straight out of the carton in the middle of the kitchen.

4. Try to hide in the nook between the fridge and cabinets when someone walks in on you doing number 3.

New Year's Day

For New Year's Day Aaron and I decided to make a special dinner. I think its important to ring in the first day of the year with something a little different and maybe a little bit fancy. We haven't had risotto in a while and I have been lamenting the lack of big scallops available to us when suddenly they showed up at our grocery store. So it was set, scallops and risotto.

Aaron wanted mushroom risotto and after our cashier encouraged us to try dried mushrooms, we used some re-hydrated shiitakes. Yuck. Watery, rubbery, hardly any flavor. They were highly disappointing and I'm glad I picked up some regular mushrooms to saute in there too.

We have never cooked scallops ourselves before, mainly because they are expensive (the five we bought set us back over $18) and they are so easily ruined if they are overcooked. With some butter and some luck we seared those suckers and only the bottoms stuck to the pan a little bit.

It almost felt silly to eat such a pretty meal on our little round table, but I hope a fancy New Year's Day meal is a tradition we can carry with us. We also watched three movies in a row but I don't know about continuing that tradition...

We ate our scallops and risotto with these two things:

Arugula Salad

Parsley Caper Relish

Happy New Year!

Well its been a while since I posted anything. We have been busy traveling to see family and then cleaning our apartment from top to bottom since we were having friends stay with us this weekend. Now that they have left we have a wonderfully clean apartment (aside from the copious amount of bottles that needs to be put into the recycling bin).

Its funny to think how much has changed in the past year. Last year for New Year's we were in Madison so Aaron could meet with his future boss to talk about job opportunities here. I remember being driven around on New Year's Eve to look at the campus and city. It was a really foggy day and I felt bad because Aaron could barely see any of Madison. The weather yesterday was extremely similar to that day. One of our friends even thought Lake Monona was Lake Michigan because you couldn't see across it.

Christmas and New Year's last year was a time of unsureness for Aaron and I. While we celebrated the holidays with our families, we didn't know where we would be working, living, or studying in the coming months. Pretty much all we knew for sure was we would be getting married in July, since the down payment was already made on our reception site. We enjoyed ourselves but we were both anxious.

We were so lucky to have everything work out for us in the weeks that followed. Aaron got a job offer and we found an apartment in Madison that was downtown, affordable, and available immediately.

After a few weeks of searching, I found a job too, and eventually was accepted into my graduate program. Things couldn't have gone better than they did and I hope our good luck continues into this year!