My Party Planning 101

 I just love a good party. I love to decorate, get dressed up and socialize. The cooking and cleaning part I could do without! This years instead of fighting about trying to decide whose family we would visit for Christmas we decided to invite them all to our house for our very first party in our new home for Christmas Eve dinner. The added bonus of that is my mom is a great party planner. Since it was not only our first party, but we would also be hosting for 12 their was a lot to do and a lot of stuff we didn't have... Like for instance 2 days before when we realized we only had 8 plates! Luckily Target was close by and melamine plates are cheap ;) I also didn't have enough servingware or dishes, but Mom on the other hand has enough for a party of 50. She brought down casserole dishes and serving pieces and was also nice enough to take me to the Macy's 2 day sale to buy me a few pieces of my own.  I love all things Martha Stewart and while most of her Whiteware collection was sold out, I was able to get some great pieces at a great price.

I've helped my mom with many parties over the years and with her help and some serious planning everyone has gone off without a hitch! 

Maybe my OCD or my need to make things perfect, but I plan every detail ahead. Yes, and I do mean everything I like itineraries, menus and incessant planning. 

There is nothing worse to me than wishy washy people who can't ever plan ahead of time!! They drive me crazy and if your planning goes awry it will be because of someone like that. If you are hiring people to help, make sure they are organized and that you are too. 

Step 1- Pick a theme. Also figure out how many people are coming. Obviously this party was Christmas. I don't necessarily mean a theme party, but knowing what kind of party you are having and who your guests will be will help with the next steps.

Step 2- Plan your menu. I pull out my cook books, recipes and my MacBook. 

Step 3- Make a shopping list. Once my recipes are together I write my shopping list, I group my items by where they are located in the store. This also helps keep your budget in check so you aren't aimlessly wandering around the store grabbing things. Also a great idea can be to ask your guests to bring their favorite drink and/or appetizer, helps alleviate cost and everyone gets what they want to drink. 

Step 4- Plan your serving pieces. This is often overlooked and can leave you with nothing to serve your food on. We always got our menu out and made a sticky note for each dish we would be serving. Then you lay all of the serving pieces out with the sticky note inside them. This will insure that you have enough. Depending on what I'm making I also try to make sure I have the proper thing to cook my dish in as well... Which is how we realized I didn't have a roasting pan ;) 

Step 5- Clean and decorate. At the very least make sure the places people will be are clean { like your living room, dining room, and the bathroom}. While it can be hard to keep the kitchen clean while preparing a dirty bathroom is unacceptable! Even if your the type of person who can tolerate a little grim (which I think you know by now I'm not) your guests may not be and will not appreciate using a dirty bathroom. Here is how my crazy brain works... ... If you can't clean your bathroom when you know people are coming over, did you clean your kitchen, is it dirty and disgusting, should I even eat here... Irrational? maybe probably, but I know I'm a little crazy! 

Step 6- Prep. this is an important step, but not always possible with your busy schedule. Anything that can be prepared the day ahead, do. It will make day of so much easier and your party more enjoyable for yourself.

Our Christmas Eve Party

My Family

The Dinner Table

Drink and Appetizers

I like to set up an area that is easy to access and people can congregate around

The Dinner

Homemade green bean casserole was delicious!

I know I have some OCD* issues so I am not sure this will be helpful to anyone else, but this is how I plan a party and I generally don't have to many issues... except getting people there on time! 

{* Just a side note- I recently read an article from someone with what they called severe OCD and they were hurt at how people use the term so loosely. I do not mean to offend anyone with my usage of the term. I have not been clinically diagnosed with OCD and gave never been to the doctor for that or my anxiety... maybe not a bad idea though. The way I look at it is as of now my cleanliness, everything having it's place, my compulsion to add things to the number 28 and anxiety are not too bad and they help me stay uber organized! I do have family members who have OCD and I especially do not mean to offend them. }

Are you a planner or do you throw it together at the last minute? 

What is your best party advice?

XOXO,

Annie

My New Year's Resolution

My New Year's Resolution: to find a career that I love or don't hate... and pays!

We are very blessed and have had a lucky and wonderful year, but not being employed since we moved here has been frustrating. I really want to do some good and want a job that doesn't make me hate myself.... as an attorney it might not be an easy thing to find! Now I just need to implement a plan to find myself a job I enjoy and spread some good.  

Kristina from My Traveling Troop asked me to participate in an article she was writing for Blue Star Families where she would share the New Year's resolutions of military spouse's across the nation. It is a great article and I hope you can check it out, also be sure to stop by her great blog. Every Monday she does Moving Monday where she features a duty station. 

Check out Kristina's Blue Star Families article here.

Happy New Year! 

I hope you all had a wonderful 2011 as well, enjoy what is left!

What's your New Year's resolution?

XOXO,

Annie

Left over turkey soup

INGREDIENTS
Carrots
Onions 
Green Onions
Shallots
Peas {frozen}
Potatoes
Celery
Chopped Garlic
Seasoned Salt
Butter
Turkey Stock
Noodles
Turkey

Add celery, shallots, green onions, onion, chopped garlic, butter, poultry seasoning and season salt to pot. Saute for a few minutes until they become clear.  

Then add carrots and potatoes for a few minutes. Then add stock {see below} and cook for 45 minutes.

Finely chop turkey and add to mix. 

Turkey stock- so I went the lazy route this year and used William Sonoma turkey stock instead of making my own. 

You can make your own by removing all usable turkey meat from the bone. Break up leftover bones a bit, so they fit into the pot. Put bones, skin, any leftover droppings and giblets (optional and don't use the liver) into pot. Add cold water enough t cover everything. Add onion, green onion ,celery, poultry seasoning, season salt, and salt and pepper.

Bring to boil then immediately reduce heat and bring to a simmer. Skim off any foamy stuff that floats to the surface.

Cook at least 4 hours, occasionally skimming off foam on the surface. 

Remove bones and veggies and strain the stock, ideally through a small mesh strainer.

If want to store or freeze for later cook longer so it is more concentrated and easier to store.

Veggie option- for my picky pants father,  we added all the veggies plus mushrooms to veggie broth and cooked.

Noodles- I got this tip from Nordstroms cafe, cook noodles separately and add to bottom of individual soup bowls before you pour in the soup. This keeps them from getting soggy.

Do you have a great way to make your leftovers into another meal?
if so I'd love the recipe!

XOXO,

Annie

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from my family to yours! 

This year we are very blessed, my husband is home and we had our first Christmas in our new home. Christmas day was just perfect. We slept in and then hubby made our traditional Christmas omelets, we spent the rest of the day in our Christmas PJ's on our couch watching all four national lampoons vacation movies. To me this is the perfect Christmas day and I hope we have many more like this in years to come, unfortunately as a Navy wife I know that probably won't happen. But as long as we are happy, healthy and safe I will be ecstatic and grateful.   

Our families Christmas tradition; my husbands Christmas omelets. No matter where we are in the world we can make Christmas omelets, whether microwaved or made on a hot plate they are always delicious. Since this is our first Christmas at home we can actually use a stove this year.

This year we decided we weren't going to do presents, we already had everything that we wanted and with the new house money is flying out of our wallets!  However I couldn't resist putting some stocking together for us. Stockings were always one of my favorite parts of Christmas and while I could give up presents I couldn't part with the stockings. 

BB loved he stocking and all of the goodies inside! She didn't even remember that most of the toys are the same ones I gave her last year ;)

This week has been crazy, from last minute shopping and getting our house ready to preparing a Christmas eve dinner for 12. {More to come on that later}

I hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas as well!

What does your family do for Christmas? 

XOXO,

Annie

SLC Punk!

I may have been the only person I knew in Utah to have ever watched SLC Punk, but I can't possibly be the only one who loved that movie and saw it a million times! I still love anything with Matthew Lillard and Jason Segel and who wouldn't love a movie with Devon Sawa, yup the kid from Casper.

"And this city was still the same...

I mean, look at it! There's nothing going 

on. That's what I saw when I looked out 

over the city: nothing. How the Mormon 

settlers looked upon this valley, and felt 

that it was the promised land, is beyond

 me. I don't know, maybe it looked 

different back then.: 

Since I have never actually had to live in Utah, I don't know how the kid in the movie felt, but I know I felt the same way about my hometown... you know minus the mormon part! I definitely don't feel the same way about Utah. I thought it was absolutely beautiful, maybe it's just the California girl that I am, but I think the snowy peaks, trees and of course the lake are absolutely amazing!

On Black Friday after some more shopping, we drove over the great Salt Lake to Antelope Island. Driving over the lake onto the island was an experience, Abby my cousins kid did not think it was awesome. She did not want to drive over the lake! 

Although I have visited my cousin several times over the years in SLC, this was my first trip to Antelope Island. I wasn't able to see any of its name sake animals, but we did get a close up view of some Buffalo. This is my view of them from the car with no zoom.  

 The Great Salt Lake is the largest natural lake west of the Mississippi, during the ice age it cover over 20,000 square miles. Today the lake covers 1,700 square miles, which is 28 miles wide and 75 miles long.  {yes I am the nerd who thinks the brochures are interesting and I love reading them!} 

I thought it was especially interesting that while water flows into the lake from four different rivers it has no outlet, water only leaves through evaporation. The salinity in the lake is so high that the only living organisms in the lake are brine shrimp and algae {I think there was one other thing too, but I can't remember everything ;) }

We also visited the ranch on the property, it is one of the oldest building in Utah. Some of the rocks on the island are some of the oldest rocks found on earth.  

That's princess Abby photobombing us!

I really enjoyed our visit and learned a lot! I just wish it hadn't been so windy and cold {I know I'm a wimpy California girl!}

Am I the only nerd who reads the brochures and plaques in museums? 

XOXO,

Annie

Christmas time is here

Christmas is my favorite time of year, I love everything from the decorating to the yummy food. I also love Christmas movies, I could watch them over and over.. in fact I have! My husband is less enthusiastic about the holiday season, likely stemming from his years in the Navy. He spent every year since he joined the Navy ten years ago without his family. Our first Christmas together he wasn't even going to celebrate Christmas at all, just let it pass like a regular day except that no where to eat is open. I being the holiday lover I am could not let that happen so for the first time ever I spent Christmas without my parents. Unfortunately as a Navy wife this has become more of a tradition than I would like. I packed up my fav Christmas stuff and headed to Virginia, where Danny was in school for two months. We had a great holiday and I even got him to buy a tree, a small tree but it was a tree! Over the years I have broken him down and we have decorated wherever we were more and more. This will be our first Christmas in our new home, in fact in any home- we have done 3 Christmases in a row in various Barracks rooms around the world {see last years Christmas post, here}. I have gone full on Christmas around here, minus the Christmas music as Hubby still HATES any and all Christmas music. Not my favorite so I'll give on that, however the Christmas movies are here to stay!

MY TOP CHRISTMAS MOVIES 

White Christmas

Irving Berlin's White Christmas is my all time favorite movie, Christmas or otherwise. Since the moment I first saw it, I wanted to have a White Christmas too- I don't even like the snow, but it just looks so beautiful! 

Love Actually

So it may not be super Christmassy, but it does take place during the Christmas season. I loved the entire storyline and it always without fail makes me cry. All of the Characters stories are linked in one way or another and I love how their lives are interlinked. If you haven't yet seen this romantic comedy, you should. 

Love Actually Is All Around

A Christmas Story

"you'll shoot your eye out" 

This is a classic Christmas story and one that everyone I know absolutely loves. TNT always plays 24 hours of a Christmas story and I will and have watched it over and over again. This year we don't have TNT so I had to order it and make sure we had it in time for Christmas eve, because I will be playing it over and over again! Next year I will be buying a leg lamp ;) They have them here in all sizes and prices. 

National Lampoons Christmas Vacation

When I was a kid, we had a VHS of National Lampoons European Vacation and Vacation {yes I am dating myself here!}. Our cabin in Santa Cruz didn't have electricity, but we did have a generator that ran the VCR {google it if your too young to have had one ;)} and these, Top Gun and Dirty Dancing were my go to movies. I have probably no exaggeration seen them all a hundred times, I'm sure I've seen Top Gun more than that! So when Christmas Vacation came out, it was of course an instant classic in my house. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong when the Griswolds are around. While the kids change from movie to movie, Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo are a constant through all four films {don't forget about Vegas Vacation}. Love this movie and I can't wait to watch it again. I hope our family Christmas goes better than a Griswold one! If you haven't seen all the movies or love them like me, you can own the Ultimate Vacation Collection for $16 at Amazon.

Elf

I'll admit the first time I saw this in the theatre I didn't really think it was all that funny. I'm not sure if I was  just tired or not in the Christmas mood, but my friend and I left early. Funny because it now makes my list of favorite Christmas movies! I love how Buddy, the elf is so oblivious of the "real" world and how he was way too big for anything the the North Pole. I can't not mention Zoey Deschannel, she is hilarious, I just love her and she is great in this movie. She looks so different I almost didn't recognize her. {side note if you haven't seen New Girl, you should it's hilarious!}

Favorite Quotes:

Buddy: SANTA! OH MY GOD! SANTA'S COMING! I KNOW HIM! I KNOW HIM! 

Buddy: [phone rings, Buddy picks it up] Buddy the Elf, what's your favorite color? 

Bad Santa

No surprise that this is not only my husbands favorite Christmas movie, but the only one he owns. This is definitely not a kids movie, but I think it is absolutely hilarious. The Gilmore Girls mom is great in It and of course Billy Bob Thornton plays an great drunk! 

I hope you all are enjoying your Holiday season as much as I am! What are your can't live without Christmas movies?

XOXO,

Annie

GIVEAWAY: $20 Commissary Gift Card Courtesy of Kikkoman

A few weeks ago I received this awesome holiday kit from Kikkoman. 

My husband was stationed in Japan for two years and we really enjoyed the cuisine, so I was happy to be able to add a little Japanese flavor to our dinner. I know it wasn't even close to a traditional Japanese meal, but the ginger and soy sauce brought my taste buds back to our time in Atsugi.  

I know I'm not the greatest cook and I didn't even start cooking anything except spaghetti until after I met my husband, but I do try to make easy, healthy and tasty meals. Hopefully they will help the less cooking savvy people out there like myself. I started with some basic and not terribly expensive ingredients

The Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds of Halibut

1 package of Kikkoman Kara-age soy-ginger coating

Asian stir fry vegetables from Trader Joe's

Kikkoman soy sauce

garlic

salt and pepper

Jasmine rice

The Halibut

First I opened the Kara-age soy-ginger coating and out it into a plastic bag as the directions stated.  I cut the fish into smaller strips, coated with water and put in the bag to coat thoroughly. The directions said to pan fry, but I hate pan frying anything. For several reasons, one a pan full of hot oil freaks me out and two it just isn't as healthy as baking. So I decided to coat a cookie sheet with a light layer of EVOO {Extra Virgin Olive Oil} and bake in the oven. I baked for 7 minutes and then flipped and cooked another 5. When I took them out to flip them they did stick a little, next time I think I will spray the pan with Pam and then add some oil and hopefully they won't stick. It was delicious and the hubby agreed, I will definitely be making this again!

The Rice

The Jasmine rice was easy, I just measured the rice and water and pressed the cook button on my awesome new Zojirushi rice maker. Well, it's not actually new it was a wedding present, but since we didn't have a house until now it went straight into storage. It works great and I highly recommend it, the fast cook setting only took 20 minutes and all I had to do was press a button.

The Veggies

 I added 1 tbs EVOO, 1 tbs butter, some Kikkoman soy sauce and chopped garlic to a wok. I heated over medium heat until the butter melted and then added the veggies,  covered for 7 minutes, stirred covered 7 minutes, added salt and pepper and cooked a few minutes longer. 

Our Yummy Dinner

Serve with some two buck chuck from Trader Joe's and you've got yourself a great meal! {if you haven't been to Trader Joe's or you don't have one, they have an amazing label of wine called Charles Shaw and it's only $1.99 a bottle. It's hard to beat that price!} 

You can also visit www.kikkomanusa.com/homecooks for more delicious recipes and a buy one get one free coupon for Kikkoman Soy Sauce.

* Accepting of the free kit in no way obligated me to review their products, although they asked if I did in fact like them that I please let others know. Since I did like them, I decided to do a post on their product. They also enclosed the Commissary gift card to give to one of my readers.

THE GIVEAWAY: $20 Commissary Gift Card

There are three ways to enter to win:

      1.    Become a follower of my blog and leave a comment telling me what's your favorite dish using a Kikkoman product {if you are already a follower just leave a comment} = 1 entry

      2.    Become a follower on twitter {@navywifediary}, and tweet about this giveaway {be sure to include @navywifeidary as well as the link to my post} Also don't forget to come back and leave a comment that you sent out a tweet = 1 entry

      3.    Mention this giveaway on your blog with the corresponding giveaway link {here}, then leave a comment in this thread with the link to your blog post = 1 entry

*Leave one comment for each entry. so they can be counted as more than one entry. Also please leave your e-mail address if not stored in Blogger.

Giveaway will end at midnight PST on Thursday, December 14th, 2011.

Good Luck.

XOXO,

Annie