Chicken Ricotta Spinach Roll Ups

I made this last week, and it was awesome! The recipe is from here (link), and I followed it exactly. We had this with some asparagus and some leftover birthday ice cream cake for dessert! I'm glad we have leftovers.

Blueberry Pancakes

In exchange for the weeks/months away of training that Luke is doing, he has been getting Friday off when he is home, which is pretty fantastic! Sadly, I do not have Fridays off, but at least the schools here get out at 2:15! Over this longer weekend, we went to the Dole Pineapple Plantation, did some shopping for the house, and in general got to spend some quality time together, even if that time was spent reducing the amount of cardboard in our house. On Saturday, we slept in (to 8 am...) and had some pancakes before heading out to shop for furniture. These pancakes were pretty light but also really filling.

2 eggs
3 tbsp sugar
salt
1 tsp baking powder
8 tbsp flour
7 tbsp vanilla yogurt
1 cup blueberries

Beat the eggs and sugar until the mixture is creamy. Sift the flour with a bit of salt and baking powder and mix this into the egg/sugar. Add the yogurt until it is incorporated, and then combine the blueberries with a spoon or spatula. Cook them in a pan with nonstick spray and top with blueberries. Delicious!

And here are some photos from the Dole Pineapple Plantation. 

Stuffed Peppers for a Stuffed House

The movers came today and delivered our crates upon crates of stuff. I went to work and left Luke to deal with it, which clearly makes me a front runner for Wife of the Year, and it's only March. When I came home, I took care of first things first and set up the wireless and hooked the TV up to the cable since Women Tell All was on tonight. I figured if I was going to tackle the anxiety of having a house full of boxes, I would need to unwind by watching some girls go after each other and Chris B. Harrison use superb counseling skills to guide the whole process.

Being as our kitchen stacked to the ceiling within boxes, I thought this would be a relatively easy dinner. I had never made stuffed peppers before, but we really liked them! Luke was skeptical at first, but there was nothing left on his plate after dinner.

4-5 bell peppers, cut in half and seeded

1 lb ground turkey, browned (I seasoned it with chili powder, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, red pepper flakes, oregano, and sea salt. You could also use a pack of taco seasoning)

1 can black beans, rinsed

1 can whole kernel sweet corn

Monterrey jack cheese for topping

Put the peppers in a baking dish and sprinkle olive oil on them. Bake them at 375 for about 20 minutes. While their baking, combine the browned turkey, black beans, and corn in a bowl. Spoon this mixture into the peppers - I could have probably stuffed them more than I did because I had a ton of leftover filling, which will likely turn into tacos later. Top them with cheese and bake them for about 7 more minutes. Yum!

Pork Chops with Mushroom Sauce

On Friday morning, Luke and I got the keys to our new house on base. We were so incredibly thrilled to finally be in a place where we could unpack our clothes and put the suitcases away for a long while! We've been living in hotels since Luke graduated from TBS in July, so this has  been a long time coming. Living in hotels hasn't been all bad, despite some really, really loud and enthusiastic neighbors during our last week. We learned that we really can get by with very little "stuff" and that we don't need much to be happy, which is sometime easy to forget. So for our first dinner in the new (very empty!) house, I made pork chops with a mushroom sauce. We ate it on the floor because we have no chairs, and we were perfectly happy to do so.

2 lean cut pork chops
salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste
1/4 onion, diced
1/4 lb mushrooms, diced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp basil
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp flour

Marinate the pork chops with the salt, pepper, and garlic salt. Brown the pork chops slightly on both sides in a skillet over medium heat. Add remaining ingredients and sauté. Combine all of the ingredients and top the pork chops with some of the mixture. Turn the temperature to low and let it cook for about 20-25 minutes or until the pork chops are done. We ate them over brown rice with some snap peas.

"Mexican" Chicken Chili

I had a lot of leftover shredded chicken from chicken tacos and decided some "Mexican" chicken chili would take care of it. I love this because it has lots of fiber and protein and it meant not cooking for a few days in the hotel. This was a super easy slow cooker dinner that made lots of leftovers and was a big hit.

1 can Rotel tomatoes with chiles
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 can tomato paste
1 can black beans, rinsed
1 can kidney beans, rinsed
1 can sweet corn, whole kernel
1 pack of taco seasoning (or homemade!)
3 chicken breasts, shredded (I used leftover chicken from chicken tacos earlier in the week. I cooked the chicken in the slow cooker with a jar of salsa verde on high for 3 hours)

Combine all ingredients in the slow cooker except for the chicken and cook on low for 8 hours. Stir in the shredded chicken and let it cook for about 15 more minutes. Easy as that!

Red Wine Beef Tips

Our one-month mark of island life came and went so quickly I barely realized it. I can't believe we've been here for a month already - it still feels like a vacation despite the fact that we're both fully immersed in work. While we've settled into work life, we are unfortunately still unsettled in home life, meaning we are still living in a hotel. We have been told that we can move into our house at the beginning of next month, so we are excitedly counting down the days. By the time we are able to move in and have our household good delivered, we will have been living in hotels for 7 months, and 5 of those were mandatory. I'll just say that is far too long to be living out of boxes and suitcases.

Thus, my quest for making real food in a hotel room continues, but I thankfully have a crock pot at the very least now. When I was living the bachelorette life, salads and soup were really easy fixes when there was no time (or let's be real, motivation) for cooking. But my husband isn't playing that game, and I'm always looking for something meaty to make so he's not looking for snacks two hours after dinner.  Last night I made red wine beef tips over brown rice, and it was really delicious. Downside: our tiny hotel room still smells like onion? We had this with a side of steamed broccoli, and there were lots of leftovers!

2 pounds of stew meat

1 medium shallot, thinly diced

5 cloves garlic, thinly diced

salt and pepper

1 tsp herbes de provence

10 oz. red wine, or as I prefer to not waste good wine, red cooking wine

Put the meat in the slow cooker and top it with shallot, garlic, salt, pepper, and herbes de provence. Pour the red wine over it and cook it on high for 4 hours or low for 8. We ate it over some brown rice, which I made in the Pasta Boat in the microwave. Super easy, hotel room friendly, and definitely delicious! 

Hawaii Life

Well, we've made it to Hawaii! We spent our first four days here at the Marriott Ko Olina Beach Club, and it was nothing short of amazing. The beach was breathtakingly beautiful and the weather was phenomenal. I've never lived near a beach before, so I am pretty much in awe of every beach I see, but I think it's fair to say this is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. If any military friends are planning a trip out here or are PCSing and want a vacation spot, the Marriott Ko Olina gives a great military discount!

Ko Olina sunset

beautiful view at Ko Olina

Luke reported to MCB Hawaii on Thursday, and he was given a quick reality check as to how much work he has ahead of him. He was originally told he'd be in a liaison platoon for a few weeks, but he's now taking over as a guns platoon commander. He is really excited, but he has all of about 3 days to learn every aspect of his job before the LT he's taking over for PCSes. So it will be a good learning experience for him and he will likely be forced to use the organizational skills I've been gently suggesting for the last 7 years. He was also hailed the day he checked in, so we got to meet everyone and I got to meet some wives which made me feel a lot less overwhelmed and lonely!

After the Hail & Bail

I met with my internship site supervisor and principal on Friday, and I am incredibly excited to start working tomorrow. For those of you that are thinking, "Shouldn't you have a real job by now?" basically I am doing another internship so that I can be licensed/certified to be either a mental heath counselor or a school counselor. The licensing process for counselors is terribly inconsistent across states, particularly the states in which we might live, so this is not ideal, but is pretty much necessary. In Hawaii, there are lots and lots and lots of substance abuse counseling jobs, but I know my limits, and that is one of them. I really disliked substance abuse counseling in my first clinical internship, and I know I would burn out very quickly if I were to do that, so I am taking this time to expand my scope of practice so that I can get a job that I will love going to every day. My site is a local middle school in Kailua, and I think it is going to be a really positive experience. Because I am already nationally certified, they are giving me a huge caseload and a lot of responsibilities, and I am thankful for that. I am really looking forward to working with the kids and hopefully making a difference.

Luke and I are really loving living in Hawaii so far, after 9 days of experience. He had a 96 this weekend, so we had a chance to explore a little and get to know our surroundings. Kailua is one of the towns right outside of the base, and it has a small town feel despite there being a lot of military and tourists. We also got to spend some time today at one of the beaches on base, and I have decided this is not going to be a bad place to endure a deployment. For the time being, we are getting TLA and living in the hotel on base. We ask for prayers that we will either be offered base housing very soon or that we would find a place to live off base. Options are limited right now, and we really want to get it handled before Luke leaves in the near-ish future.

Pyramid Rock Beach on base