Project Date Night '16: April (Star Wars!)

For Project Date Night this month, M and I did a dinner and a movie date with a Star Wars theme. Yep, I confess...I'm a Star Wars junkie. I've been eagerly awaiting Episode 7 on DVD so I could do a date night - it was fun!

Setting the Mood

To get us in the Star Wars mood early in the day, I took a picture of my screen (high-tech, I know) with the R2D2 love note up on my screen and texted it to M... saved on printer ink! :)

I also sent him a link to the John Williams is the Man youtube video. I think I've watched this video about 47 different times, but it still makes me smile. I walked around singing the song for the rest of the day!!

Menu

I think it's fun to do plays-on-words with food and theme events... obviously...

• Han-burgers (hamburgers) - We just ate them with a knife/fork on a plate.
• Leia-ed salad (layered salad) - Got the idea here, but decided not to do the mexican thing. We did sort of a chopped salad with chopped mixed greens, sliced black olives, diced grape tomatoes, diced cucumber, chopped green onion, sauteed diced red bell pepper and topped with crumbled bacon and homemade italian vinaigrette....YUM.
• BB-8's (baby carrots)
• Poe-tato chips (Boulder Canyon coconut oil kettle chips) - Wicked yummy, simple - and can you believe it, HEALTHY - chips.
• Wookie Cookies (chocolate macaroons) - I'm so glad I found this recipe! It's hard to find egg-free macaroons, but these are great. I did the stevia sweetened (sugar free) version. When the cookies were done I drizzled them with some almond butter for a Chewbacca-like two tone look.
• Lightsabers (fruit kabobs) - Green grapes for the 'blade' part, blueberries for the 'handle' threaded onto a bamboo skewer.

Movie Review

As most of you know, I have a sort of obsession with Star Wars and Harrison Ford. I loved the original 3 movies (Episodes 4-6) and tolerated Episodes 1-3... So, it was 50/50 for me whether I would like the latest installment, The Force Awakens. 

*** Spoiler Alert ***

Let's talk talent... 

• Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) gets top billing and yet he's only in 1 scene. What's with that?
• Carrie Fisher's (Princess Leia) performance seemed a little forced, but being that she's playing a character who by now is a little road-weary and has survived quite a lot of loss, it's workable. 
• Harrison Ford is the man. Ok, so I'm a little biased. I enjoyed his performance. He's his typical Han Solo cranky, sarcastic, charming, rakish self. And underneath that crusty exterior, he's loyal and has a good heart. 
• Daisy Ridley (Rey)... whoop, whoop! The girl power this series needs to take the franchise forward. Loved her character and spunk! And I mean, lightsaber duel? Yes, please.
• John Boyega (Finn) did a fantastic job. I enjoyed his portrayal of a stormtrooper-turned-hero and he plays well with Daisy's Rey.
• Oscar Isaac... apparently, "they" decided the younger cast needed a cocky pilot, so they chose Oscar to play Poe Dameron, a rebel pilot. While Poe has his good points (loyal to the cause, cares about others), I just wasn't swooning. Sorry, the role of hunky, charming, sarcastic pilot has already been filled.
• Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) also didn't impress me too much. He did a good job with the part, I just wasn't impressed with the character. Kylo Ren seems a little unstable and not nearly conflicted enough about the dark side/light side dichotomy and overall I felt the character was a little flat. 
• Throw in some random droids (BB-8 is cute) and aliens and of course, the 'bad guys' to round out the cast.  

Let's talk plot...

• Ok, so here's the rundown...scavenger/pilot desert bedouin teams up with a cocky pilot and an evil organization escapee to join the rebellion and destroy a machine capable of obliterating entire planets. 
• The evil villain was 'seduced' by the dark side of the force, is being trained by a super-evil (and really old/decrepit) genius and is prone to fits of temper, but might possibly be convinced to return to the light side of the force. 
• After much epic-ness, leaps to hyperspace, the Millennium Falcon breaking down, 'feel the force' mumbo-jumbo, lightsaber duels, and heartbreaking loss, the heroes emerge scarred, but victorious and we feel some sense of closure and an anticipation of the next installment.  

Sound familiar? Yep, I thought so. What's weird is that even though the overall plot is pretty much the same as the original trilogy, I truly enjoyed the movie and I do look forward to the next installment. To me it feels as if history is repeating itself in this franchise, but really, that's pretty true to life. 

Let's talk recommendation...

I give it a solid 4 out of 5 stars. It's a movie I will enjoy watching again in the future. Although I may not pull it out to re-watch frequently, and it's not quite on par with the original trilogy, I would still recommend it to anyone who has enjoyed any of the previous movies. 

Check out the trailer and more information here. 

And if you're interested, look through the parent guide here for information on language/violence/etc.

Additional Date Night/Family Fun Activities

We didn't add anything else to our date and opted for a plain jane dinner-and-a-movie date because that's what we felt up to. However, if you're looking for some additional "fun" activities...

• Pop on over to the Dating Divas and check out their Jedi Training game and Jedi medal craft
• Or, try this quick prep movie game from Dating Divas!
• Stretch your strategic brain with the Star Wars edition of the board game Risk
• Get goofy with Star Wars Mad Libs
• Include the whole family with this Sorry! board game (Star Wars version)
• Or, this Star Wars card game (similar to the classic card game War) recommended for ages 7+ 

Total Cost: Free

Food came out of the grocery budget, so nothing extra on that. I got a great deal on the movie through TopCashback - Free after the cashback during a special offer! I was planning to rent the movie from Redbox, but now I get to keep it!

Project Date Night '16: January

We enjoyed Project Date Night so much last year, we've decided to do it again this year. Our theme this year will be "Cheap or Free", so we'll be doing mostly at home dates. I am saving up for one bigger date out, maybe for our anniversary or Christmas.

Our best "Scared of Dinosaurs" faces.

To start off our year with a roar, we stayed in and did the Jurassic World date from Dating Divas. M had been wanting to see the movie anyway, so when I saw this date on the Dating Divas' website, it was a no-brainer.

Our best "Hungry T-Rex" faces. While trying not to laugh.

The Details
It was a super easy date to throw together.  I printed off the food tags, signs, tickets and prediction sheet from Dating Divas and whipped up some snacks for us to munch on.

I taped my labels onto appetizer forks I had sitting in a drawer and wedged them onto the edge of my serving dish. Perf!

Too cute, right?

Before we watched the movie, we took a minute to predict a few things about the movie... like... how many times does a dinosaur roar? How many cars get smashed? How many times is the phrase "Genetically Modified" used? We totally flunked it. Turns out, we only got one prediction right. Funny how it makes you pay attention to the small details, though.

The Menu

• Carnivore:  Spicy Crispy Bacon (I slathered some taco seasoning on slices of bacon and cooked it on low in my cast iron skillet to render out the fat without burning the meat. Results were really crispy spicy bacon! YUM!)
• Herbivore:  Salt & Pepper Kale Chips (I love Oh She Glows' master recipe. Simple, crunchy and delicious. Oh, and my kiddo loves them. You try feeding leafy greens to a toddler. Winner!)
• Omnivore:  Cookies... Yep, dinosaurs eat cookies... at least they do at my house. I made a slice-and-bake version of the gingerbread boys and girls cookie recipe in Everyday Grain-Free Baking cookbook I got for Christmas. LOVE that cookbook. Although, next time, I will use more molasses!
• Beverage:  Martinelli's sparkling apple cider (by request, M loves this stuff. Although getting the bottle open is always a challenge, because we can never remember to buy a bottle opener.) Oh well. The sparkly-ness went well with the spicy ginger cookies!

Mini Movie Review
If you're a fan of the Jurassic Park franchise, you'll love this movie. If you're not a fan, you'll probably hate this movie. If you're indifferent (like me), then you might actually enjoy the movie (I did).

It was very action packed (although a little over the top) and I thought Chris Pratt did a phenomenal job as a "dinosaur trainer". There's lots of action, and barely any romance, so it's more of a guy movie, but we both enjoyed it. Check out the trailer here.

So there you have it!

Cost: free (I count the food in the grocery budget and I used a code for a free Redbox DVD rental. Yay!)

Project Date Night: November

It's no secret to those who know me well... I love stand up comedy. Not trashy, raunchy "comedy" (totally not necessary), but just people making funny observations about life in a witty way.  M and I have a short list of our favorite comedians... and we often quote them in our day to day life... the material doesn't get old.

This month, our Project Date Night theme was "Comedy Club". I'm not a clubbing kind of girl, so we did our own stand up comedy experience at home. And no, I did not improv or make M do one-liners off the top of his head. This was about us laughing together while watching someone else deliver the humor. :)

I made a ticket to our special event and left it in his lunchbox. Pretty easy to do with clip art and MS Word. Here's a blank printable copy for you to use if you feel so inclined.

We put the munchkin to bed a little early (it was one of THOSE days) and we were ready for a break. So, we got comfy, snuggled on the couch with our snack, and watched some videos on YouTube.

The Menu
We always get a laugh out of Anjelah Johnson's "Bon Qui Qui" character, so I named our red, bubbly punch "The Bon Qui Qui" in her honor. (Pomegranate juice, grapefruit juice, cinnamon simple syrup and sparkling water... it was pretty good!)

I made M a mini lemon cheesecake with a gingersnap crust. Apparently, I've got a few kinks to work out of that a recipe. He said the flavor was good, but the crust was soggy... bummer. 

I made Chocolate Covered Katie's Healthy Chocolate Fudge Zucchini Brownies. Got to say, (sorry, Katie!) I felt a little "Meh" about the finished product. They were indeed chocolaty, and fudgy. But they were just really dense and heavy, so I'll keep searching for the perfect brownie elsewhere.

Results? Standing ovation and encore! We had such a good time with this one, we'll plan to do it again sometime. If you looked at my YouTube playlist, you'll notice there's several hours of comedy, so there's plenty more for another round of Comedy Club in the future.

Project Date Night: October

Did you know that October has more rainy days on average than any other month of the year? At least that's what M tells me. It feels true, regardless. Rainy, chilly weather makes me want to stay in and stay warm, so this month's Project Date Night was perfect!

The original plan was to learn to ballroom dance in our living room, inspired by watching the movie, "Shall We Dance" last year. But, as I started compiling a YouTube playlist of instructional videos, I came across quite a few line dancing videos and I thought, "Hmmm, that seems like fun," so the Shall We [Line] Dance date night was born.

Menu
I went all country and did...

• BBQ pork ribs (with homemade BBQ sauce, recipe below!)
• Corn muffins (box mix - I splurged, although I do have a GF cornbread muffin recipe in the works)
• Baked (sweet) potatoes (pretty plain jane)
• Sweet tea (actually a mix of black tea and leftover mildly sweet hibiscus sun tea I had made the day before)
• I was planning to do southern style greens, but just didn't feel like it by the time date night rolled around, so we skipped it.
• Gingersnap cookies (gluten free and actually just as good as the wheat based gingersnaps I grew up baking. SO good. Recipe coming soon. ish.)

Details
We watched the instructional videos while eating our country style dinner, then proceeded to [try to] cut a rug.

Honestly, we aren't very good at dancing. At all. Like, take a normal person's rhythm and split that between the two of us and that's about right. But, we got our heart rates up and had a few laughs and "learned" how to do the Two Step, the Cowboy Boogie, and the Canadian Stomp. We attempted them anyway, but finally gave up. See, this is why we don't dance in public. Because we're really bad at it. But at least we're bad at it together!

You can check out our YouTube Shall We [Line] Dance playlist here.

We're not going to be winning any dance competitions any time soon, and you can forget about us 'showing off' for friends - not gonna happen - but we will continue to be silly together and try new things. 'Cuz that's how we cowboy boogie, kids.

Note on the BBQ - I like it thick, sweet and tangy with just barely any heat. M tends to add hot sauce to his dish since he likes it spicy. If you can relate to him, just up the hot sauce, tasting as you go until you find the right level of heat for your tastebuds. Enjoy!

Easy Peasy BBQ Sauce

by Raye

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: none

Keywords: no-cook condiment dairy-free egg-free gluten-free grain-free nut-free refined sugar free soy-free vegetarian

Ingredients (about 2 cups)

• 1/2 c. tomato paste
• 1/2 c. water
• 1 tsp granulated garlic
• 1 tsp granulated onion
• 1/4 c. molasses
• 1-2 Tbsp honey (preferably raw)
• 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar (preferably raw, I like Bragg's brand)
• 1 Tbsp prepared Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp fish sauce, optional (I like Red Boat brand)
• 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 Tbsp cayenne pepper hot sauce (I like Frank's Red Hot)

Instructions

It can't get much easier than this...

• Measure tomato paste, water, granulated garlic, granulated onion, molasses, 1 Tbsp of the honey, the apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, fish sauce (if using), sea salt and hot sauce into a small mixing bowl. Whisk until combined.
• Taste and add another Tbsp honey and more hot sauce if desired. Transfer to a storage jar.
• Or, measure all ingredients into a 2 cup (1 pint) wide mouth canning jar and use an immersion blender to mix it together.
• Cap tightly and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
• Note about fish sauce: Fish sauce is a lactofermented Asian condiment and is used to bump up the umami (meaty flavor) in the BBQ sauce. It's good either with or without it, so up to you.
• Note about storage: The sauce gets thicker as it sits in the fridge. Stir before serving and add a tablespoon or so of water if needed to thin out to your preferred consistency.

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Project Date Night: July

Here's the post I started writing back in July our Project Date Night: July... and then promptly got distracted and forgot to finish and actually post. Yep, it's been that busy around here. But never fear! I do remember to get back to things, eventually.  If you're new around here, read all about Project Date Night here.

July 25 was humid, rainy and 73 degrees. It for all the world reminded me of winter in Florida. And seeing as it was the 25th, Christmas in July seemed a fitting theme for this month's Project Date Night.

Guess how many websites have posted a Christmas in July themed date night idea? Big. Fat. Zero. Ok, so back to the drawing board.

Warning: this post will not contain sweet awesome graphics or stunning photography. Instead you will find pics featuring poor lighting, odd composition, blurry action and silly expressions. Proceed with caution.

Menu

• Christmas Tree Snack Plate (strawberries, grapes, cheese and pecans arranged on a platter)
• Iced Eggnog Lattés (strong brewed coffee blended with coconut milk and vegan eggnog, topped with ground nutmeg)
• "Oatmeal" Cookies (grain free)

Details
We played several "Minute to Win It" games.  A lot of the games are geared toward a group or competition between two people at the same time. To keep things simple, we just printed up the names of the games on slips of paper and put them in a [santa] hat.  Then we took turns drawing a slip and trying to complete the challenge within 60 seconds.

Hysterical. Really. I don't think we've laughed this hard in a long time.

Project Date Night: April [The Princess Bride]

So sorry for the delay in posting this! It's been a whirlwind couple of months!

In keeping with my Project Date Night commitment, M and I had plans for a date out in April.  Nothing too fancy, but OUT. Just us.

Sarcastic comment: Do we need a selfie stick?

Then life happened, as it is want to do. Sickness, sitter schedule conflicts, traveling out of town... it boils down to me sitting here on my couch the last week of April and suddenly realizing we hadn't had a date night yet.

Inconceivable!

Enter my handy, dandy back up date plan. Yep, I have a back up plan. Life can get pretty unpredictable, so I had this little date night ready to go just in case something came up and we had to stay home instead of going out. Glad I did!  We love the Princess Bride movie and book, so we had a Princess Bride themed date night in. It was pretty low key, but fun.

Not sure what the hype is all about? Watch the movie trailer on IMDB.

Here's the nitty gritty:

• The idea was inspired by the Dating Divas.  
• I texted M during the work day to "invite" him to our theme date, "Join me tonight in the search for the six-fingered man!" He responded with, "Dun dun DUNH!!!!" [that's dramatic music in case you weren't sure].
• We had our usually dinner with Ry Guy, then put him to bed and munched on some homemade "Magic Pills" while watching the movie. In case you're wondering, in the movie, the Magic Pill is a chocolate covered remedy that revives "mostly dead" the hero of the story, Westley. Our Magic Pills were chunks of almond butter fudge dunked in chocolate. Bite sized yum!
• We also took this printable Princess Bride Quiz. How well do YOU know the movie?
• We laughed and imitated our favorite characters. Classic Fezzik, "Anybody want a peanut?" If you've never seen the movie or read the book, you'll be completely lost at this point. :-)

"magic pills"

I leave you now with the words of the Impressive Clergyman, "Mawage. Mawage is what brwings us togevah today. And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva..."

Project Date Night: March

Here's a look at our Project Date Night for the month of March.  If you're wondering what in the world I'm talking about, check out my original Project Date Night post here.

Any other Hunger Games fans out there?  If you know me, you know that I am a huge Suzanne Collins fan. I "blame" my buddy C.E. for getting me hooked - she first loaned me the books 2 years ago and I've been a fan of both the Hunger Games books and movies ever since.

Since we're cheap thrifty and already went to see the Hobbit in theaters, we decided to wait until Mockingjay Part 1 was released on DVD and do a theme date at home... Netflix is our friend, guys. Oh yeah... that's how we roll. :). Watch the trailer here!

There are SO many ideas for Hunger Games parties, gifts, crafts, etc. online.  Most of them are for the Hunger Games (the first book/movie) and Catching Fire (the sequel). Not as much for Mockingjay (the 3rd installment).

Project Date Night: January

As promised, a grim look at my good intentions and date disaster. Ok, so it's really not THAT dramatic. Although, my camera's still busted, so no pics on this post. M got a replacement part though so I hope to have pics against soon!

My plan for January's date was to continue the Hobbit theme we started with our Christmas Eve T-Shirt Tradition.  M is a big Tolkien fan and his birthday is in January, so I thought we'd do a Hobbit themed 2-part date to celebrate his birthday.

Here's what I was supposed to do:


photo credit: the dating divas

On New Year's Eve, we were supposed to stay up late and do Dating Diva's Hobbit Date, with the following menu:
Hobbit Stew (beef stew)
York "Shire" pudding
Elvenking Cobbler (berry cobbler)
Bag End Brew (iced tea)
Treasure (Peanut Butter truffles and Lemon truffles wrapped in gold foil wrappers)
Dragon Jerky (beef jerky)
Ring Cookies (coconut flour cut out cookies)

Then, we were supposed to take the "treasure" (snacks) with us to M's parents' house (where we were headed for the weekend) for the second half of our Hobbit extravaganza  - tickets to see Battle of the 5 Armies in the theatre.
 
Here's what I actually did:

• I made Paleo lemon truffles.  They were really good. So good, I had a hard time staying out of the fridge.  I kept wanting to snack on them.
• I burnt the ring cookies because my brain was totally on hold and I forgot they were in the oven.
• I didn't get to make the Peanut Butter truffles because I took too long with everything else. 
• I was planning to make homemade jerky, but forgot a few weeks ago and ate the beef, so no beef = no jerky and also no Hobbit stew. 
• M requested a cheesecake for his birthday dessert at his parents' house, so I made one here before we left. My thought was, I'll skip the cobbler since we're having cheesecake tomorrow. But, the cheesecake was terrible.  I mean, really terrible. 
• At that point I ended up saying, "FORGET IT!" and skipped the rest of the menu altogether, ate the remaining lemon truffles and went to bed early.

Fast forward 2 days. We went to M's parents' house and I bought more ingredients for cheesecake and actually nailed it. I can't have dairy or eggs, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it. I also made chocolate bark for me and that came out wicked yum.  We decided to go to the movie on Friday night for the 7:20 showing, which worked out ok, except we were still full from dinner, so we didn't actually snack on the nut mix I brought.  That's probably ok. We had a snack back at the house.

The movie was good. "Very epic", M said. I agree. Really didn't feel like 2-1/2 hours - the action kept it moving. And it was nice to get out without the baby.

So, we had a fun movie date, although it wasn't quite as extensive as I'd hoped.  Oh well. M didn't seem to mind.  Isn't he a keeper?

Western Theme Date Night

The lovebirds at the rodeo!

Last week, it was M's turn to plan date night.  He did a hum-dinger of a job, too!

We began our evening with dinner at Logan's Roadhouse.  Nothing like a good steak to get me in a Fan-tas-tic mood. :)

Side note: did you know that Logan's has a "health nut" section of their menu?  Each of the menu choices in that section are guaranteed to be 550 calories or less.  I did the math on my calorie counter at home and found out my meal only cost me 520.

I had a 6 oz sirloin steak (grilled to perfection, I might add), a baked sweet potato (plain, not butter or toppings) and steamed broccoli.  A...maze...ing...

I did splurge a little and have a roll and some peanuts.  And 3 glasses of water.  With my lemon. And M's lemon.  And half of M's water while waiting for my refill...

What can I say? I was just a little thirsty. (I hadn't had nearly enough water that day!)

(Clockwise from left) 1. Invocation / 2. Calf Roping / 3. Clown! / 4. Team Roping

Anyway!  After that, we drove out to the Equestrian Center for the FFA rodeo.  I'm not a huge fan of bull riding, but they had several other events as well.  I personally like the barrel racing the best.

It was also fun to see all the Western wear.  Not to be out done by the 'good ole boy' uniform (scruffy jeans, work boots, a t-shirt and camouflage baseball cap).  We definitely felt like we were in the real south.

Get it here!

To finish our date, we snuggled on the couch and watched a Western flick on Netflix instant play.  It was a John Wayne movie I'd never actually seen before (that's pretty amazing. I thought for sure I'd seen them all by now) - "In Old California".  It was quite a switch to see the Duke playing a polished Boston chemist instead of his usual rough and ready gunslinger (although there's plenty of those in this movie as well). I really enjoyed it!

Western Themed Date Night:
Dinner: $11.00 (we had a gift card that covered the rest of the bill)
Rodeo: $20.00
Movie: Free
Total cost: $31.00

Try this one at home - if you're not into rodeo, you could always go horseback riding, or line dancing.  Or, if you leave near a ranch, check with them to see if they host live entertainment.  There's an "Opry" near us that would have been fun to visit.

And instead of eating out, try grilling out on your patio or back porch... I definitely recommend beef though. For some reason, it just sets the mood.

Would love to hear about your version of a Western themed date night, if you decide to do one - we will have to do this one again, it was a lot of fun!

Date Night: Fire + Ice Theme

I came across a cute ice themed date night idea here.  I was inspired to tweak the idea and make it a "Fire and Ice" theme for us.  It turned out well and we had a good time!

I printed off some clues (word puzzles) onto 4x6 cards - I gave M a card before each part of our date and he had to solve the puzzle before we went on.  The puzzles were really simple, just some clip art that stood for each word, so he solved them really quickly.  Except for the last puzzle... he had a hard time figuring out what "ice cubes + old lady in glasses + movie reel" meant.  So finally, I just let him open up the Netflix envelope and see what movie it was (Ice Age).

Part 1:  Dinner
The most important part! :-)  We started our date off at Firehouse Subs.  Yum!

I had a grilled veggie sub and an Honest Tea.  M had the Smokehouse Beef and Cheddar Brisket and Salt+Vinegar chips.  Hit the spot, I'm telling you.