Welcome Home to us: Seafood & Duck

(I'll admit, I wrote this in mid-November...)
Welcome home to us! We've been traveling and have been busy for the last few weekends. In bigger news though, I have new sister-in-law! Mr. K's brother got married last weekend during what was a miracle and sign from God when it comes to Mother Nature. If you're on the east coast, you know how much rain we were predicted to get over the weekend. Between my friend Ryan's wedding in Maryland, and our family wedding in NC, I was a bit nervous for Saturday. We set up the chairs for the outdoor ceremony on Saturday morning in the pouring rain, hoping that the clouds would clear for the 3:30 ceremony. Low and behold, the rain stopped around 11, and held off literally the rest of the day and evening, even for clean up after the reception. We couldn't believe it. The wedding was absolutely beautiful, the bride was stunning, groom grinning from ear to ear, guests dancing all night, and an awesome bubble send-off. I can't wait to see the pictures, they are bound to be nothing short of gorgeous. Congratulations John & Mandy!

Now on to our weekend at HOME.... We spent our Saturday morning at Home Depot, finally getting blinds!! Yes, we put in our order for blinds. We've been living with paper shades for about 18 months since we moved into our house. So we can't wait for those to come in and finally get installed. One step closer to feeling completely settled. A weekend home wouldn't  be complete without a trip to Home Goods, of course. We surprisingly didn't get much, but I am definitely making a trip back there soon to get my holiday fix. The store was officially taken over by Christmas stuff. It was crazy.

Let's move on to the yummy part of this post...
A tasting of seafood and duck. That pretty much sums it up.

First up: Oysters Rockefeller 
Heat oven to 375 degrees, throw oysters on cookie sheet, 3-4 minutes until they open. Pull out, shuck 'em, dress them with whatever you're feeling. In our case, we took our own spin on oysters rockefeller, with stuffing! Put them back in the oven for about 10 minutes. Watch closely. You're looking for the breading to brown, turn into a crust.

Prepping for parsnip puree - base of the main dish...coming later

Second up: Clams w/a parsley, garlic sauce

• Handful of parsley, one pinch of garlic, half glass of wine of olive oil (aka 2 tbs). Blend until smooth. add what you need until you like it :) Consistency lighter than pesto. 
• Put wine (enough to coat the bottom of the pan) and another good pinch of garlic in a medium pan. Bring it to a boil, then put clams in (we had a bag of 12 from Harris Teeter), cover for about 10 minutes. Start paying attention though at about 8 or 9 minutes. You're looking for them to open by themselves. After 7 minutes, add half of green sauce. This is your first opportunity to see if the clams are opening. Mix everything up with the sauce. Cover that baby back up. 
• 3 minutes later (10 min total cooking time), take out the open clams and put them aside. 
• Wait another 30 seconds for the other guys to open. If they haven't opened, take them out. Don't wait for them to open. Throw 'em away. (this is our opinion, feel free to wait longer if you wish)
• Plate the clams, spoon remainder of sauce over the plate.
• Enjoy!

Third up: Stuffed Mushrooms
Stuffed mushrooms are, shall I say a staple in our house? This time, the stuffing was stuffing... typically it would be breadcrumbs. Tis the Thanksgiving season, right?

• Carve out the center mushrooms with a pairing knife (white button mushrooms... find the largest ones you can)
• Make stuffing according to package (we used the same stuffing mix for the clams and mushrooms), about a cup. 
• Mix half a cup of stuffing mixture with half handful of parsley, 2 tbs or green onions or chives (your choice), salt, pepper, 2 tbs of BACON. We found some Boarshead slab bacon on sale at Teeter, so we diced that and used it. 
• Put mushrooms on aluminum foil-lined baking sheet, spray mushrooms with olive oil, stuff mushrooms with filling. 
• Bake at 375 for about 10 minutes. Then really start paying attention. You're looking for is it to start browning and bubbling ("Bubbling is always a good sign" -Mr. K). Could be up to 15 minutes. 

*Chef's note: pour glass of wine, then enjoy Mushrooms.

Fourth up: Seared Duck on Top of My Two Favorite Foods 
Mr. K knows how much I love mashed potatoes and ramen noodles, so this was a surefire way to my heart (and stomach). This dish can also be called: Hoisin Duck & Sweet Potato Mash on Crispy Noodles

• Cook ramen noodles per package directions. Only cook the noodles though. After noodles are done, drain, then toss the noodles in the seasoning. 
• Divide noodles up into mini-muffin pan. We tried different levels of filling. 
• Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. 
• If you don't have mini muffin pan (we didn't until two days ago), you can use a regular muffin pan and make 6 bites, or just use an oven-proof skillet and make one big crispy pan-sized noodle (that actually sounds awesome). 

• For the potatoes, peel them, boil 'em, drain. Mash with 2 tbs of coconut milk for sweetness (or butter if you don't have coconut milk), and salt to taste. 
• Duck: The recipe we started to follow for this called for marinating the duck for 4-8 hours. We didn't do that. We marinated it for about an hour, and it still turned out flavorful. Either way though, this is what you should do: 
• Marinate duck in hoisin sauce, garlic and ginger for "some time." 
• heat oven to 400 degrees (yes, same as the ramen noodles) 
• use a medium or large pan, sear duck breast fat side down for about 1-2 minutes. Then sear the other side for 1-2 minutes. Place duck breast fat side up in a baking dish and roast int he oven for 6-8 minutes, or until the internal temp reaches between 140 (rare) and 150 degrees (medium rare). Fun tip from the recipe we were following: Roasting the duck breast fat side up allows the fat to melt down into the meat while roasting, keeping the meat succulent and juicy. 
• Allow duck to rest on a cutting board for about 10 minutes before slicing, so as to keep the juices in. Slice into 12 bite-sized pieces for serving (or however many ramen noodle crispies you have). 
• Put it all together now! Crispy noodle bite on the bottom, then spoon a bit of potato mash on top, then top with a piece of sliced duck. Garnish with whatever you like - scallions, peanut or sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds. 

Note: To be honest, we were really excited for this dish, but it looks a lot better on camera than it actually tastes. Give it a shot, but it definitely wasn't my favorite. The noodles aren't all that flavorful, but the combination of purple potatoes and the duck are pretty great, so try that together.

Powder Room Update

In an effort to make our house feel more homey, we're working on it room by room. Our powder room seemed like an easy fix, so during our almost bi-weekly trip to Home Depot, we sought out shelves that we wanted to try out. We had one vision in mind and then saw this great shelf we loved, and ran with it. It ended up matching perfectly with the waste basket and toilet paper holder that was already in there! When we went to Michaels for one of their big Christmas sales, we fell in love with this frame and thought it was the perfect feel for the bathroom. I'm actually surprised we didn't get a few more of them because we both loved it!

The last photo I actually took on Friday night, a couple weeks after we actually finished it, but I realized I didn't have an updated version with the new photo and candles that we put in there. The photo in the frame is one of our one from when we took a walk around the Capitol when we lived at Navy Yard last November (2013). I love how it turned out and it's feeling more homey now. On to the rest of the house!

Before: (See how plain it is?! I can't believe we actually let it go that way for so long)

After:

Now all we need is some color on the walls. And you're probably saying the same thing. However, we promised ourselves we would wait until the one-year mark because that's when our warranty is up. In other words, as part of this new home build process, the builder comes back at 11 months after move-in and checks the house for certain things, and fixes it. Examples include cracks in the walls as the foundation settles (we've already seen some, and come February we'll be taking to the walls with that gorgeous blue painters tape to everything that we see in preparation of our 11 months. To say that we've been in here for that long is beyond me, but that's for another day). Other things they'll check (and hopefully fix): nail pops, bowing of the hardwood floors, etc.

So until then, we'll love these blank walls... aka canvases!!

Our First Overnight Guests!

I had big plans to post updates of our house last week, but it really just got away from me! Monday was Monday, and let's be real, not much gets done that night. Tuesday was the Wizards game so we went across the street to watch it with neighbors, after going to dinner at our neighborhood hole-in-the-wall for some half-priced pizza. I've been there many times before, usually after Christmas tree picking with my family since our go-to place is right across the street. But it was Mr. K's first time there, and he approved. Loved meeting some of the locals. Back to our weeknight plans, my dad came over for dinner on Wednesday  night, and Thursday night we had our first softball game of the season (and we won!). Friday night was happy hour with some high school girlfriends at Rosa Mexicano ($14 pitchers of sangria and Guac on Tap, anyone?!). So now that you know what I did all last week, let's get to the good stuff.

We had to make sure the guest room was all set for our very first overnight guests (hey Becker & Laura)! This is what it looked like less than 24 hours before they were arriving:

Front-facing windows

Paper shades from Home Depot have been a lifesaver throughout the whole house, and we put up in this room and the one across the hall because it's my favorite room (tons of sunlight), so I'm hoping I'll start using it as a yoga room or a zen room or something. maybe. we'll see. Until we get buy light fixtures for all the rooms upstairs (we have the wiring done, we just need to get the actual lights), a tall, standing lamp will have do. That's what we have in our Master for now, and it's been fine.

The bed that's going in there was in pieces in the room next door and the mattress was just on the floor in the room across the hall.

Middle bedroom with the bed pieces

So this bed... it's our Ikea bed with the storage drawers underneath from our old apartment. We took it apart pretty quickly when we were moving out and the directions were nowhere to be found. We were doomed you might think, but luckily we were able to put it back together in less than an hour! So without further a due, the guest room:

Lastly, these end/bedside tables! I love these.

When we were across the street at our neighbor's house, they gave us a tour, I saw these tables against a wall in their master bedroom and commented on how I loved them. My neighbor said, "do you want them? They don't fit with our furniture in here." So of course I had to! We're so appreciative that they gave them to us, they're such cool pieces and I cant wait to really create a room around them!!

And with that, we give you our first guest room! This is probably it for awhile in terms of decorations until we really decide on a theme for the room, but it will come together at some point! Up next, the kitchen and living room updates!