Navarro's in Paris

Navarro Family @ the Eiffel Tower

For Spring Break, we took a short 3 day trip to Paris with our friends the Moreno's. We left bright and early on a Sunday morning and had a really easy drive to the hotel. We stayed outside of the city at L'Elysee' near Disneyland Paris. It was a nice hotel with the basics such as beds, bathroom, & bar! Best of all it had underground parking and was across the street from the train station and a mall. I would definitely stay there again.  It was a great trip and we had a blast. I think I may have wore everyone out but we almost made it to see everything that was on the original itinerary list! Instead of uploading a massive amount of photos I created a mini movie of our pictures. I hope you enjoy viewing our pictures just as much as we enjoyed taking them!

 

Sadly we didn't make it to the Louvre in time to see the Mona Lisa. We got there 20 minutes after it closed. So we will have to go back, but being 4 hours away I don't see a problem with that! One of my favorite things to do was to put a lock on Pont des Arts. You put your lock on the bridge and then throw the keys into the Seine River to lock your love forever. I glitzed our lock up with pink glitter so that if we go back it will stand out and we can find it.  We had a great time and I am sure we will go back again!

 





My love, and our lock!

I'm Baaaccckkkk

Wow it’s been almost a year since I have updated the blog. So sorry to deprive all 6 of my fans of my awesomeness, but you can finally relax I am done with school and am still unemployed so I have nothing to do but blog! I will be able to update my blog now and you will finally be able read about all of the fascinating details of my life on a regular basis! For today I will leave you with my list of things I am looking forward to now that I am finished with grad school (yay me!!!)

1.     Interacting with my family instead of half listening and half doing school work.

2.     Not citing everything I say in APA format.

3.     Sleeping all night (no more 1 A.M. web conferences with professors in Texas)!

4.     Reading trashy romance books instead of text books.

5.     Applying for jobs and waiting on the NOR (notice of results) that tells me that although I spent the last 2 years going back to school I am still not qualified to be a secretary for the government.

6.    Using my laptop for shopping, candy crush, FB, and anything other than Microsoft word and Blackboard!

7.    Tweeting! Yep that’s right, I tweet random stuff. Lucky you, you can follow me there too, at https://twitter.com/niktastik1219

8.    Feeding my addiction to pinterest. Oh pinterest how I have missed you!

9.    Watching T.V. especially reality shows that are so stupid you can’t stop watching.

10.   I almost forgot the most important part, celebrating graduation. I will be doing that from now until May 19, 2013 (that day after actual graduation).  You are all welcome to join me in my celebrating, either here or there or by Skype somewhere in between!

 

Have a wonderful day, do something nice for someone, and stop and smell the coffee. Yep I said coffee, I don’t know why people say stop and smell the roses, they don’t really smell good ask Outkast.

Oh my gosh Spaghetti Bread

Spaghetti Bread

Bread, cheese, and spaghetti simply ahhmazing!!

By now you all should know that I am totally addicted to Pinterest. Many nights I lay in bed looking at stuff to make on Pinterest. What I realized the other day is that most of my pins are food. Hmm why is that??? Other people pin dream homes, clothes, crafts, but me I pin dinner, desserts, snacks, muffins, pretty much all things food! I came across this pin while staying in TLF at Barksdale and just now got around to making it. Let me tell you it was worth the wait! Sorry I didn't take step by step pics but if you check out this link you will find the recipe and directions.

The recipe called for Rhodes frozen bread dough, but they don't sell that over here, so I made my normal bread machine pizza crust dough. I used about half a pound of ground beef, and Newman's Spaghetti sauce. My oven is pretty small so I had a hard time finding a pan to fit the bread on so I ended up using a cookie sheet.

To assemble, you roll out your dough into a rectangle, let that rest while you cook your spaghetti and meat. I then mixed the meat, sauce, and spaghetti. Pour the mixture down the middle of the rolled out dough and top with cubed mozzarella cheese. Next you will cut the sides of the dough into strips every 1 1/2 inches. Don't cut the dough all the way to the spaghetti stop about 1/2 inch from the spaghetti. Pull the end up fold over and take each strip and start braiding. It was pretty easy once you start. Just one side over the other. When you get to the end just tuck the dough under. Brush with egg white for browning and sprinkle Parmesan cheese and Italian seasoning over the top.

All braided and ready to bake!

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until done. After 30 minutes my dough was fully cooked. As I said I have a small oven and I had to turn my braid several times once the dough started rising it actually hit the oven door!

Cooked!!!

This was a hit in my house, but then again we love bread, and cheese so you can't go wrong with adding spaghetti! Will for sure make again. I think I will experiment with fillings next time.

Spring Break Part 1 Saarpark Centre & Farmers Market

The kids have been on Spring Break for the past week and it has been great! Thouroughly enjoyed sleeping in a bit and hanging out. Rob was unable to take leave this year and just had a day off during the week. The weather didn't really cooperate with us too much but we made the best out of it and explored a few places not far from the base.

Saarpark-Centre

 
The first place we went to was Saarpark-Centre in Neunkirchen Germany. It took us about 35 minutes from our house to get there. The mall was pretty big and reminded me of a mall in Dallas. Much bigger than that so called mall in Bossier City we had for the past 2 years. Ashleigh and I found quite a few stores we liked and ended up buying a couple of dresses. The Rob's eh not so much. They probably won't go back unless I promise them wings from Hooters. There is an H & M and it was much nicer and organized than the H & M I went to in New York. Tons of small boutiques, shoes, and house ware stores. The best part was that there was a TK MAXX!! No I didn't spell that wrong it is TK not TJ Maxx here. Looked just like the one in the states just different brands of clothes. There is also a Hooters there.





Hooters is somewhere over there by that oddly shaped building ;)

We decided not to eat there and went back to a small village close to the base and ate the best German food I have ever had! The Wooden Spoon was delish. I had schnitzel with caramelized onions and garlic. Rob and RJ both had schnitzel with ham and cheese. Ashleigh had wonderful spaghetti carbonara. I would highly recommend the Wooden Spoon and can not wait to go back! I didn't bring my camera in to dinner so the pics are from R.J's ipod.

Ashleigh's dinner.

Caramelized onion and garlic Schnitzel

Ham & Cheese Schnitzel



K-Town Farmers Market

Ash and I decided to check out the K-Town Farmers Market. The market runs Tuesdays and Saturdays from about 8-1:30. I did my research and found an address that would put me fairly close to the market. However, I could not find a place to park to save my life! And I was in my itty bitty car not the truck. After driving around in circles for a good 20 minutes I tried across the street in the opposite direction and BAM found a spot! The market was not that big and we actually spent more time looking for a spot then wandering around the market.  But never one to waste the opportunity to shop, Ash and I wandered around the area and found a ton of stores. New Yorker has become one of our favs! Cute cheap clothes. H & M again, although this one was much smaller. Much to Ashleigh's delight, Claires, a Foot Locker, and many more.




Can not escape Claire's they are everywhere!!!



This was the smallest Foot Locker I have ever been to!

We stopped for lunch at Burger King and continued our shopping er exploration. Then we stopped for a pastry at a bakery and headed to the run errands. A very successful day. Not much at the farmers market just some spices and pasta and flowery salad, but we had a great time.

Next post will tell you about our trip to Heidelberg, the castle we saw, and of course the food!

Homemade Bang Bang Chicken and Shrimp

Bang Bang Chicken and Shrimp!!

I love, like seriously love the Bang Bang Chicken and Shrimp from Cheesecake Factory. Since I now live in Germany I do not have the option of running to my nearest Cheesecake Factory and ordering my favorite dish. Yeah the little things I have to sacrifice in order to enjoy my 3 year European vaca! Anyway, I scoured the Internet until I found a copycat recipe for my fav. dish and decided to try it tonight. I ran into a few snags with the ingredients. For one, the commissary did not have any chili oil, so I had to make my own. Again, google came in handy and it was fairly simple. My oil was not as spicy as I wanted, so next time I will use hotter peppers and allow it to infuse longer. I also was unable to find mace. Again google to my rescue, I subbed nutmeg for the mace. The rest I was able to find. Dinner was delish, but was not as spicy as the CCF, so I added some red pepper flakes and it was pretty darn close!

All of the ingredients except the chicken and the shrimp. The sesame oil was not used since I made the chili oil.

To make the chili oil, cook oil until it bubbles, add chili peppers, let sit for a while, strain and pour into a jar or bottle.

Curry Sauce which goes on the chicken and shrimp around the rice.

That's me!! I am making the peanut sauce. Well actually Ashleigh was making the peanut sauce, but she didn't want to be in the picture she ran away as soon as the camera came out.

My favorite part, the toasted coconut! Yumm I could eat that whole pan!!

Finished product! Add the the red pepper flakes and it was pretty darn good if I say so myself!!


I found the recipe here, but made some changes by making my the chili oil, and using nutmeg instead of mace. There are some mistakes in the recipe and a few things listed in ingredients that were not on the directions but not hard to figure out.
http://www.firehow.com/2010102820891/how-to-make-cheesecake-factory-copycat-bang-bang-chicken-and-shrimp.html

Easy Peasy Chicken Flautas

I <3 chicken flautas. A long long time ago I tried to make them. I was young and had them at Chevy's and figured I can make these at home so I put some chicken in a tortilla and dropped it in the deep fryer. All the chicken fell out of the ends of the tortilla. Dinner sucked that night. Since then I have experimented and most nights my flautas didn't come out too well. So I saw a pin on pinterest and though oh how cool a baked version. The pin took me to a link on all recipes. I wasn't crazy about the recipe posted there so I just made up my own and here you will see what I got.


Sorry forgot a picture of ingredients.

4 bone in chicken breasts
1 pkg McCormick Hot Taco Seasoning
20 Corn Tortillas
Monterey Jack Cheese
Taco Cheese
Oil
13x 9 Pan sprayed with cooking spray


First I boiled 4 bone in chicken breasts for about an hour. Then I shredded the meat and mixed a pkg of McCormick's hot taco seasoning along with 3/4 cup of water with the shredded chicken.

Taco seasoned chicken

While the chicken was simmering, I softened 20 corn tortillas in oil for about 15 seconds. I just covered the bottom of the pan with oil and heated the oil on medium until hot. Dropped a tortilla in there and flipped it over after a few seconds. I normally would have seasoned the oil with chili powder but I have yet to restock the spice cabinet since the big move so it was plain oil for me. Soften all tortillas and drain them before moving on to the next step. I drain them between coffee filters.

Fry each side for just a few seconds

Once all your tortillas are softened and drained, then you can begin to assemble them. I don't measure I just dump some chicken and lots of cheese in the middle of the tortilla and roll it up. Put it seam side down in the pan.  Repeat for the other 19 tortillas.

All wrapped up before going into oven

Bake in 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until flautas are golden brown or as crispy as you would like.

After being baked

My family likes a lot of cheese so I added some cheese to the top. I served my flautas with black beans, Spanish rice, home made salsa, lettuce, sour cream, and guacamole. Easy peasey and none of the chicken fell out!

Yummo!!!

A few notes: No they don't shrink, I had too many in the pan so I had to take some out and put them in two pans so what you see in the first pan is before I removed and made a second pan. If you want the original recipe from all recipes you can find it Here

Late Whining Wednesday

I have been such a slacker with my whining Wednesday posts. I do apologize because I know it is the best part of your week, and you can't wait til Wednesday and come here and see just what the heck it is that is annoying me this week and share your whines with me. However this little bitty move to ya know another COUNTRY kinda got in my way!! But now that I've taken care of that little business I can focus on the important stuff like wine, I mean whines on Wednesday. Yes I know it is Thursday, but I really had this all planned and ready to go yesterday but damn research class got in my way and I had to analyze some data, but now on to this weeks whining Wednesday.

1. Stores that sell stuff that is about to expire in a day. Do they think you are going to go home and eat the entire box of oreos or make a huge batch of deviled eggs that night? I know I know it is a sell by date but seriously who eats that stuff after the sell by date?

2. Things that get "borrowed" but never returned. When you borrow something it means you will return it. If you are going to borrow a hair bow you should return it, if you borrow money you should return it. If you borrow socks you should return them too, although if you have any of mine you can just keep them we can call em a gift.

3. Everything comes from somewhere so that means it belongs somewhere right? If you took something from the cabinet it stands to reason that it should be returned to the cabinet. I don't understand the I don't know where it goes theory.


That's all I got this week don't forget to add your own whines!