Iron Chef at home... our new favorite date night

Like most married couples with kids, Jared and I spend most evenings relaxing in front of the TV. This is great for catching up on our shows, but it can make for a pretty lame marriage. Since we can't afford to get a babysitter every weekend, I tried to come up with ideas for creating the feel of a date night at home. And then it hit me - we love to cook, we love Iron Chef, and we love a little friendly competition... a weekly Iron Chef battle was just the thing we needed to, uh, spice up our Saturday nights. Here's what we do... earlier in the week we'll pick an ingredient, then toss around some course ideas. We prepare 3 courses, 1 each and then 1 joint course. Everything is made from scratch and we aren't allowed to use recipes (unless it's to make an ingredient that we've never made before, like pie crust.) Jared goes out during Saturday naptime to get all the ingredients, we start prepping during the day as needed, and we start the real cooking once Emma goes to bed. We don't limit ourselves to an hour because, well, that would be insane.

The first week we did Battle Blue Cheese, and it was AH-MAZING! I took a ton of photos, and then promptly accidentally deleted them when I formatted my CF card. So let's move on to Battle Bacon, shall we?

Our first course was our joint course... a romaine salad with shallot bacon balsamic dressing topped with blue cheese crumbles and bacon. It was really tasty, but the blue cheese overpowered the bacon flavor. I'd absolutely make this again, though.

bacon wrapped scallops bacon wrapped shrimp

The second course was all Jared, and the man out-did himself... bacon-wrapped shrimp and bacon wrapped scallops crusted with lemon pepper & sea salt, topped with Old Bay bacon crumbles. The shrimp were good, but the scallops were to-die-for. So juicy and tender, and perfectly complemented by the bacon.

The third course was mine, and if I do say so myself (and I do, because it's my blog), I crushed it. Maple bacon ice cream garnished with bacon brittle. Best. Ice. Cream. Ever. Okay, maybe not the best ever, but easily the best I've ever made. If you've ever been to Voodoo Donuts in Portland, you've probably had their maple bacon bar... well, this is the ice cream equivalent of that deliciousness.

Jared and I agreed that we tied on this battle... his scallops were just as delicious as my ice cream. We high fived each other and agreed that this was the best date night idea ever. Well, second to actually leaving the house. Cooking together is a blast and we get an amazing meal out of it. If you're looking for a way to jazz up your weekends with your significant other, I highly recommend trying your own Iron Chef battle.

Up next for us... Battle Lemon. Kinda unconventional, but lemons are in season so we're just going to roll with it.

wear + share: 11.2.12

I mentioned yesterday that I'd be doing something a little different today, and here it is! The revamped Link Love: WEAR + SHARE...

Happy Friday, everyone! After a crazy busy October, Jared and I are welcoming in November with a date night. We're finally going to Volt, which I've been looking forward to trying since before we even moved here. Here's what I'm dreaming of wearing Saturday night...

1 / 2 / 3 / 4

And here are some things to help you kill time 'til 5pm...

Well that's it! I hope you guys like the new format, and that you have a most fantastic weekend.

date night

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Before Sunday night, Jared and I hadn't been on a date in seven and a half months. SEVEN AND A HALF MONTHS, people! That is craziness. But with all the chaos of the move it just wasn't happenening... plus we both work a lot, and we get such little time with our boo boo. It's really hard to sacrifice any time we get with her, so it has to be for something really good. And this past Sunday was just the excuse we needed. Our favorite band, The Avett Brothers (more about our love for them here) was playing in Baltimore and we knew we had to go.

We ramped up a sitter over the past month so that Emma would be comfortable with her, we really liked and trusted her, but when the time came to leave we were so nervous. No one had ever put Emma to bed besides us! So for the first couple of hours I was definitely that cliche mom on a date night who was checking her phone every few minutes. All I wanted was that text saying she was sleeping soundly. And right as we were walking into the venue, we got it. Best text ever!

Once we could finally relax, we had SUCH a good time. I can't tell you how great it was to be out just the two of us, especially seeing our favorite band. We had great seats, the set list was nearly perfect, and it felt great doing something that was so quintessentially us. We've been seeing The Avett Brothers live since 2007, and this was show #12 for us... in that time we've gotten married, had a baby, and moved across the country. They've been a constant in our relationship and something that always brings us back to each other. I can't think of a better way to spend our first date night in what felt like forever.

Now that we've ripped off the babysitting bandaid, we're hoping to make it a regular thing. Any recommendations? What is your favorite thing to do on a date night?