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Wow, 2 weeks.

It’s been 2 weeks since my last post.  I do apologize, but life happens, and it happened to me in a big way in the last two weeks.  I won’t get into details, but the dust is finally starting to settle in our new place and hopefully that’ll mean more time to make more yummies (and posts).

 

My best friend, Em, who owns a wonderfully awesome blog, Gratitude. Simplicity. Frugality, is having a wonderfully awesome giveaway today.  Check out her blog, especially if you live in the Michigan-area, she has lots of Meijer related posts!

Moving Day #2

Today is the second of what’s turning out to be many, many, many moving days as my awesome boyfriend and I move into our new condo.

It’s definitely a change from living in an apartment that’s not yours and you know you’re probably going to move out of in the next year. So, I’ve complied some of my best tips for moving …

• before you buy the house, you should make sure all the appliances that come with it work.  (our refrigerator with a built in ice machine / water filter isn’t doing much of anything right now … other than taking up a lot of space)
• make sure you have the cap for the air mattress you’re borrowing.  (we ended up with a new air mattress because, well, duct tape will work for some things but not this)
• get AT&T U-verse.  (This one is isn’t that important, but our awesome AT&T tech, Brian was here for 4 hours and now we have awesome tv, dvr, and well we didn’t have it last night so it’s a welcome change)
• don’t buy things from IKEA.  (This is a terrible lie, buy lots of things from there, they are ridiculously cheap and usually awesome.  However, they come with this ridiculous stickers attached to absolutely everything and they’re a pain in my rear to take off.  I’ve probably removed the better half of 50 of them today and my fingers hurt.)
• make sure you put the shower curtain, shower rod, and the shower curtain rings all in the same spot.  (I found the shower rod last night, but the curtain and rings were elusive.) 
• if you want to actually get work done, make sure you don’t have the tv/internet installer come the day after you move in.  (ever since he left we’ve been sitting at our computers like we’ve been in outer space for the last 3 months)

Those are my tips so far, I’m sure I’ll have more later today or tomorrow. 

 

Also, I hope you found your Bell’s Oberon (see previous post).  I did, if you’re in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area, you can check out the Meijer on Carpenter.  They even stocked them cold!

It’s … OBERON DAY!

Most of you (my five friends that actually visit this site) already know it’s Oberon Day, but for the rest of you, I need to fill you in.  

Bell’s Brewery is located in Kalamazoo, MI, where I went to college.  I spent my 2 years there looking forward to this day.  It only happens once a year … the day they (the magical brewers at Bell’s) tap the Oberon keg for the first time this season.  

Unfortunately, for how amazing this beer is, it’s only available in the summer months (it’s Bell’s seasonal beer).  It’s usually March – September.  Sometimes you think you’re lucky and can find it on tap after September, I promise it’s not luck.  The only time I would ever, EVER recommend not drinking Oberon is after it’s season.  Not only is just an awesome summer beer, but these establishments that still have it on tap usually changed the keg right before the end of the Oberon season and it’s probably been sitting around for awhile.  It’s definitely not something I would wish on my worst enemy.  However!  You don’t have to worry about that now, for at least 6 months, so drink, drink, drink! 

There is nothing better than the first time you see this label at your local Meijer, where you can get your oranges also.  It’s really important to put an orange in your Oberon.  Screw the “man rules” that say you can’t put fruit into your beer.  This, and only this beer, it’s ok to have a slice of orangey goodness. 

Since I don’t live in Kalamazoo anymore, I have to wait to get my Obe fix until it’s distributed all over Michigan.  I’m hoping I won’t have to wait too long, but you never know.

 

Bell’s Brewery distributes it’s beers to many states, so you don’t have to be lucky enough to live in Michigan to find it.  I got my Aussie friend hooked on it when we were in Minnesota for a couple months a few years ago.  It’s seriously the best beer out there.  So, in the words of the amazing band, Craic Wisely, “LIFT UP YOUR GLASSES AND SING … ALL THE HARD DAYS ARE GONE!”

I hope you enjoy your Oberon Day as much as I’m going to!

Olive & Cheese Toasties

I like to try new things, sometimes.  When I try new things, it’s better when they include something I already love.  Although, it’s been awhile since we’ve made these toasties, they’re ridiculously good and you can use a million different ingredients with them.

First, you’re going to need some olives.  Why olives?  You haven’t been here long, have you?  These particular olives seem to have received some steroids (not that I condone the use of steroids on anything, but these are the biggest olives I’ve ever seen).

When you were little you can’t tell me that you didn’t put the olives onto your fingers.  I haven’t done it in years, but there is just something about this ginormous olives that begs for them to be put onto your fingers.

So, I did.  Who can argue with olives, most definitely not me. 

Ok, back to the cooking.  You’ll have to forgive the next series of photographs.  They were taken in the “kitchen” in my boyfriend’s apartment.  The kitchen left a lot to be desired.  Thankfully, tomorrow we’re moving into the brand new condo.  Where was I?  Cooking, oh yes.  

I bought ricotta cheese.  Why not?  It’s amazingly good.  I hear you can use cottage cheese in place of ricotta, but that’s just gross.  Go for the good stuff, you’ll appreciate it a lot more, and you won’t feel like the 85 year old woman who eats cottage cheese all the time.  Ew.

Mix the ricotta cheese with the other ingredients of your choosing.  I, of course, chose olives (diced)  …  garlic and spinach.  

This looks good enough to stick your finger in, and you should, to um, survey the flavor.   It’ll probably need some salt and pepper.  It’ll also use some parmesan or romano cheese to thicken it up a tad.  If you’d rather have it loosey-goosey, by all means, you can leave that out.

Then you’ll need some sub buns.  It’d be so much better if you used ciabatta or focaccia, or you were trying to impress someone.  Alas, it was a holiday when we were shopping for this meal and well, all the fancy-shmancy bread was taken before we made our way to the store.  Sub buns work just fine, they’re cheap and well, you can’t go wrong with cheap.  

You’ll need to put them in a 450˚F oven for about 5 minutes to stiffen them up a bit so they’ll be able to hold the cheesy goodness that’s soon to come.  Once they’re out of the oven, sprinkle (or use your favorite spreading technique)  olive oil on them.  If you’re really into it, you could rub the pieces with some garlic, or even better roasted garlic to get more flavor.  I added garlic to the cheese spread, you could do both. 

Once you have the bread oiled and full of garlic, you can commence placing the cheesy goodness.  Slather it on there until it can’t hold anymore, or until you’ve realized that you have three other pieces of bread that must hold this goodness also.  

And for the finale, 

Sprinkle some more mozzarella cheese on the top.  

Cook the toasties on the top rack of the oven until the cheese on top has browned.  It’ll smell amazing, but you’ll want to make sure that everything has had enough time to melt, so you might have to adjust your oven accordingly. 

Again, the picture quality and and the quality of the appliances isn’t amazingly great, but after tomorrow everything is going to change, for the better! 

 

Enjoy!