Work Trip

Hey guys! Tomorrow I leave for a business trip and won't be back until super late on Thursday night. I probably won't be a very good blogger this week.

Hope everyone has a great week!

xo, Jess

Weekend Warrior

The last couple of weeks have been very busy getting all packed and ready to move! BHB and I moved into our new place YESTERDAY! It was a crazy day but now the hardest part is over. My favorite part is unpacking and decorating!

With moving day being yesterday I haven't gotten a lot of sleep but that didn't stop me from getting up for THE DAY WE HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!

*drum roll please*

Moving yesterday was perfect timing for me because we used to live about 40 min from the closest Target (INSANE, right?). Well now we live about 7 min. YES!

I woke up at every hour starting at 2am to check the Target site. Around 3:30 I was able to place an order. Then I got a few hours of sleep! I woke up early (exhausted) and headed over to Target. I wasn't sure what to expect and for some reason I thought I would be early enough and didn't think a lot of people would be waiting already because of the area I live now. I was wrong! There were already about 15 people in line which still wasn't bad at all.

The experience was insane! Once the doors opened people were RUNNING and PUSHING and just nuts. I went right for the shift I wanted, and was able to get some other things in my size and headed to the dressing room. Within minutes all of the shelves were empty.

The majority of the good stuff I got was from waiting around the dressing room after I had tried everything on. It was a great way to grab stuff people were putting back after trying on. I couldn't believe some of the carts I saw piled high with all things Lilly. I didn't even bother to go to home stuff because it was on the other side of the store. I ended up spending about 2 and half hours there including waiting in line and waiting around the dressing rooms.

I am pretty happy with what I was able to get! Shifts, maxi dress, navy shorts, scarves, flip flops, cover up and the pineapple sandals! Here are some of my favorites that I got...

        

What did ya'll get and what was your experience like?

xo, Jess

Cheers

Today Brook and I went up to our new place to sign everything so we stopped at a local bar for a celebratory beer!

Cheers to us!!! Happy Wednesday, everyone!

xo, Jess

Easter Weekend & Moving Time

Hey guys! I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter and weekend!

On Saturday I went to a surprise bridal shower for my friend Alaina. She thought she was going to a party for her aunt so she brought a bunch of food to her own shower lol. She was very surprised! The hardest part was hanging out with her on Friday with all the girls and not saying anything about our Saturday plans! It was so nice to spend time with the girls and see Alaina so surprised and happy. Here is a pic of her from the shower.

If you know me then you know BHB & I have been apartment hunting for a bit now. We currently live in a condo that my mother owns but it is on the market so we are looking for something else! After Alaina's shower I spent Easter Eve at my Aunt & Uncles house for dinner when I got the call from the realtor that we got the place we want!!! We couldn't be more excited because we instantly fell in love with this place when we looked at it. Its perfect for us! There is plenty of closet space (eep!), room for my home office, and most importantly allows dogs! We were hoping for a May 1st move in but there were some other families interested so we needed to be aggressive. We agreed that we would be available for an April 15th move in date which is one of the reasons we were chosen. It's so exciting but it also means that we are moving next week!

I'm going to be extra busy the next few weeks!

xo, Jess

Crafty Host

Yesterday I had the honor of hosting our girls craft day! This time around we chose nail art and we had such a fabulous time. It was a lot more time consuming than we had imagined but successful and fun!

The supplies needed for the craft are:

• Piece of Wood (size depends on the pattern you want)
• Nails (length should not exceed the thickness of wood)
• String
• Template
• Hammer

We started out by hammering our nails in based on our templates. After this we broke for lunch! I prepared a taco bar and made yummy palomas! After lunch we finished off the craft with the string portion. This is the part that took the longest!!! I definitely recommend using a nail with a larger head to avoid the string coming loose.

I decided to go with a map of a NJ with a heart on our hometown. This way I have it as a keepsake for wherever BHB and I may move in our lifetime.

Not the best quality but here is the group with our finished pieces!

xo, Jess

St. Pittsburgh

Last weekend, BHB & I were lucky enough to travel to Pittsburgh for St. Patty's Day to celebrate with our best friends, LPH & DFH, who live there. We had a wonderful weekend visiting with them and getting to see their new house that they bought last fall! (It's been too long since our last visit!) We drove out Thursday night so we would have plenty of time. Friday we spent the day with DFH exploring different liquor stores in Pittsburgh finding beers we can't get near us. We went to FatHeads Saloon for a late lunch of beers and apps.

Fat Heads

After a few beers at Fat Head's we met LPH for dinner at Carmella's Plates & Pints. It was delish! The previous chef at the restaurant was the winner of Chopped on the Food Network. I got duck tacos which was something WAY outside my food comfort zone. They were so good!



After dinner we went for drinks at the Le Mont, which has the most amazing views of Pittsburgh. The martini was also amazing.

Drinks at the Le Mont

On Saturday we went downtown, got a few green beers and then got tickets to the Penguins/Bruins game. We had the greatest seats! Only about 6 or so rows back. Naturally we had to get a pic of all of us against the glass.

Penns Game

The rest of the day we spent exploring Pittsburgh and stopped by the Arsenal Cider House. It's in an old row home on a residential street and if you didn't know it's there you would miss it!

Col Brook & Gen Jessica @ Arsenal Cider

While exploring during the day, LPH also brought me to get Pittsburgh Popcorn! It was so amazing and they are known for their crazy flavors. Popcorn is one of my all time favorite snacks so I was super excited about this pit stop. I ended up getting salt & vinegar popcorn which I had never tried before. It was awesome!

We went back to their house and spent the rest of Saturday night hanging out and hitting the hot tub with a few drinks! It was chilly & misting out which made the hot tub perfect!

On Sunday we got breakfast and then sadly it was time for BHB to head back home to Jersey. I'm already looking forward to planning our next trip out there!

xo, Jess

Vermont Weekend...and a few Beers

Hi All! So Last week BHB and I traveled up to Vermont for the weekend! Everyone asked if we were going skiing but we only went to be away, eat good food, drink good beer, and just enjoy each others company. It's so beautiful up there and we had an amazing time. Here is a recap of our trip!

Wednesday we got up there and immediately started "beer hunting". BHB and I are huge fans of craft beer, especially in Vermont. We spent the first few hours going into different stores buying stuff to bring back home with us. When we made it into Waterbury we grabbed a bite to eat at The Blue Stone. They had the most amazing pizza, and that means a lot coming from a Jersey Girl! It was such a cozy restaurant and we got a to sit at a bar height table in the front window so we could people watch and relax after our car ride and beer hunting. We shared a steak pizza and two local beers before heading to our hotel.

Here is my hotel selfie from before dinner!

For Dinner that night we ate at Prohibition Pig, which is one of our favorites in Waterbury.

They recently held a contest for showing Pro Pig "swag" through Facebook and Instagram and I won a giftcard! It couldn't have been better timing because one week later we were there!

Here's my picture that won 3rd place in the contest!

On Thursday, we got up early and headed out to Winooski, VT. We ate lunch at Misery Loves Company, which is a trendy farm to table restaurant in downtown Winooski. I got a Korean Reuben and BHB went with The Vonnegut, which consisted of pork belly, cheese, and fried egg. The food was amazing!

After lunch we drove into Burlington to park and walk around. It was FREEZING so we tried our best to bounce in and out of shops. BHB bought me the warmest blanket from Vermont Flannel Company. It instantly became my favorite blanket! (I think BHB thought we could share, but is now reconsidering since I've used it everyday since we came home)

(I took this picture at home. I think Teddy loves the blanket as much as I do!)

After exploring Burlington we stopped in at The Vermont Pub & Brewery for some drinks. 

It's known as Vermont's oldest brewery. It was owned by legendary craft brewer, Greg Noonan, who is famous among beer connoisseurs. We each got a beer (there was a lot of beer drinking on this trip) and shared the most amazing cheese sampler platter with 6 different cheeses from around Vermont. I wish I got a picture of it!

From Vermont Pub & Brewery, we stopped into Zero Gravity for another beer before heading to dinner.

For dinner we ate at The Farmhouse in Burlington. They are known for their amazing food and incredible tap list. BHB and I had Cantillon Iris on DRAFT! We are so lucky we ordered right away because it soon after kicked and we would have missed it. For an appetizer we each got bone marrow toast. BHB ordered it last summer when we were in Vermont and I tried and loved it! It's definitely not something I would have originally ordered on my own, but I've been really trying to explore new foods. Since we each wanted our own toast we shared a burger for dinner. My phone died as soon as we got there so I only got this blurry menu pic... Blogger fail!

After dinner we headed back to Waterbury and stopped in to The Blackback Pub for drinks before going back to the hotel. The same bartender that we met last summer was working- Jessie. She remembered us and even gave me a souvenir glass to take home.

Friday was for Hill Farmstead! We woke up early and started the drive up to Greensboro Bend, which was a little over an hour from Waterbury. It's an insane drive because you really feel like you're driving into the middle of nowhere (you kind of are).

We wanted to arrive early because the brewery is known for having long lines. You can only buy their beer at the brewery and its VERY popular among craft beer drinkers. We did get there early to find we were the first ones! It was snowing and very cold so we put our bag of growlers in "line" and sat in our car. Shaun Hill, the owner of Hill Farmstead saw us waiting and waived for us to come inside early. What a nice guy!

After we got our growlers we started the drive back down to Waterbury and stopped in Hardwick, VT for lunch at Positive Pie. BHB got an awesome burger and I got a BBQ chicken pizza - yum! We also each got a beer- surprise, surprise!

After lunch we were both exhausted so we decided to head back to our hotel to rest before getting freshened up for dinner.

Friday night was the last night of our trip and we ate at The Reservoir, which is also known for great food and beer! I got pork tenderloin with veggies and BHB got the yummiest venison pot pie. I certainly had the most handsome date in all of Vermont. Love this guy!!!

After dinner we stopped back into Prohibition Pig for some drinks and to use the rest of our giftcard!

Saturday morning we packed up the car and headed back to Jersey! We had such an amazing time being away together. Writing this post made me so hungry for the delicious restaurants Vermont has and I can't wait to plan our next trip! Where is your favorite place for weekend getaways for great food and company?

xo, Jess

Here are some extra random pics of our trip. The views were incredible and the snow and ice on the trees made the road feel like a tunnel. Enjoy!

Homemade Chicken Pot Pies

As I'm sure y'all know, we are in the midst of a blizzard in the northeast! BHB had to keep the liquor store open til about 6:30pm tonight and I wanted him to come home to a home cooked meal after traveling in the snow. For a long time we have been fans of Marie Callender's chicken pot pies, so I wanted to try homemade pot pies! I did some research so I knew the foundation of the recipe and then decided to come up with my own "filling" ingredients. I wanted to share my recipe with you!

For this recipe I used my Large Double-Handled Soup Bowls from Williams-Sonoma found here (c/o a birthday gift from my Uncle Kenny last year!) They are great because they are oven safe - hence perfect for pot pies!

**On a side-note, my next plan for these bowls is homemade french onion soup! I'm writing this so I'm more accountable to actually make it :)**

Ingredients:

1 can Cream of Chicken soup, condensed (I used 2 cans due to my extra veggies)

Pillsbury Grands! flaky layers biscuits (the one with 8 large biscuits)

1 lb Chicken breast

Bacon (I used 4 thick cut slices crumbled but I wish I added more)

2 cups of mixed vegetables (I used 4 cups bc I bought too many veggies)

Shredded Cheddar 

Directions:

Preheat Oven: 375 degrees

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

For our pot pies, I wanted to use chicken, bacon, cheddar, asparagus, broccoli, onion, and red pepper. Most of the recipes I found called for the frozen mixed veggies that included carrots, corn, and peas but I wanted something different! Feel free to substitute any variety of veggies you want!

Step 1: Pre cook Chicken/Bacon & wash/cut veggies. It cuts prep time if you do this at the same time :)

Season the chicken as you wish! I always just use a little salt, pepper & garlic powder

Step 2: Slice up cooked chicken & bacon and add it to veggie mixture

Step 3: Add can(s) of condensed cream of chicken to mixture and stir!

Step 4: Crust time- Bottom!

I found it easiest to put the biscuits on a cutting board and flatten them out with my palm. Since I have 4 bowls and 8 biscuits (perfect!), I used one for each bottom and one for each top!

When I had the biscuit nice and flat, I put one in the bottom of each bowl and tried pinching it up around the sides as much as I could.

Step 5: Add a few spoonfuls of stuffing to each bowl

Step 6: Crust time- Top & bake!

Using the same technique from step 4, I flattened out the biscuit and laid it over the top of each bowl. I tried my best to pinch around the edge to hold it in place.

Keep in mind, for my recipe, these pot pies won't have the typical "pie crust", but will only have a bottom and a top.

Bake at 375 for 25-30 min. I baked mine for 30 minutes by accident because I was outside shoveling. LOL. I would keep an eye on it in case you don't want your top as brown as ours turned out.

Step 7: ENJOY!

All of our veggies were perfectly cooked, so even though I wish the crust wasn't as crispy, I'm not sure if less time in the oven would have meant less cooked veggies.

This was my first time making this so please let me know if you have any tips or would have done something different! I'm still not sold on the way I did the crust and would like to explore other options to maybe make the full pie crust rather than the "sandwiched" pot pie.

I was VERY happy with how ours turned out. They were so yummy and BHB was obsessed! I wish I took a picture of the empty bowls :)

What veggies would you use in your homemade potpies!?

xo, Jess