NewlyMarylanders supports Junior League of Annapolis, Inc. (yes Heidi is a member, yes we’re a little biased here) and will be getting down at the upcoming JLA fundraiser (albeit solo) 10/29 – “Pig and Pearls” – tickets are $45 ea until 10/16 and then the price increases. The event, a bbq/oyster/libation event will include a silent auction with some BALLER prizes and is family friendly!
We hope all of our fabulous readers can make it!
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So as Adam was getting ready to depart for BCT, we’ve been using up all of our LivingSocial deals and having date nights galore. I put pretty much everything on hold this past week to spend as much time with him as possible. We had a great time enjoying good food and each other’s company.
Each week, we make it a point to have a least one date night, a night dedicated to us where we catch up from all the craziness of the week past. The week before he left we hit up Rockfish in Annapolis using a LivingSocial voucher we had purchased a while ago. AMAZING food. We had been wanting to try it for a while and I am so glad we did.
Fried goat cheese. DELISH!
The dessert was a homemade strawberry shortcake which was AMAZING. I had a seafood salad with shrimp, scallops and i forget what else but it was perfect – I’ve become more and more of a salad person lately and the one that I had at Rockfish was delish.
The ambiance was just right – homey, yet classy and casual. I was surprised to see Rockfish had a nice large bar area away from the dining section so it wasn’t super distracting.
We highly recommend Rockfish – especially for a casual but classy dining experience with amazing food. Definitely a staple in Annapolis – I’m excited to go back and try the brunch soon!
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Over the next ten weeks, I’ll be posting news/info that I get from Adam as he goes through basic training in Fort Sill, Oklahoma as training for the Maryland National Guard. Joining was a huge step – something that he had talked about doing for the past ten years so despite the nerves, and my apprehension of living alone for the better half of six months, we were both really excited about all the opportunities. Earlier this evening when he was in a holding pattern, he posted this over on www.adamjschmidt.com but I decided (with his permission obvi) to cross-post. Enjoy!
Started my day on about 30 minutes of sleep at 5am after a late night of tying up loose ends for my departure to Basic Combat Training at Ft. Sill. Due to a miscommunication with my recruiter my ride failed to appear at the appointed time so I had to rouse the Mrs. a few hours early and race up to the Baltimore MEPS to make my 6am reporting time.
Four hours later after being weighed, taped, measured, and thoroughly eyed over I was cleared to ship. The Mrs. made it up a little after 11am and we had some time together between informational briefings about how airports work before I boarded the bus to BWI.
We’d made a point to take advantage of the prior week, so our parting wasn’t as heart-wrenching as it could have been. However, my main concern about the next eight weeks is how I’m going to fair without her. We started dating five years ago, celebrated our second anniversary in September, and in that time I doubt we’ve spent more than a week apart.
Was booked on Southwest from BWI to Dallas with a stopover in Little Rock before my final connecting flight to Oklahoma. Everything went off smoothly, I was even able to get my frequent flyer account credit for the travel! Unfortunately, I now find myself in a holding pattern at the Will Rodgers World Airport due to the fact that they ran out of seats on the bus to Ft. Sill. So I’ve been separated from the other recruits that I’d thus far traveled with from the Baltimore MEPS.
If all goes according to schedule I should hop the 10:30pm bus for the 90 minute ride to Ft. Sill and reception battalion where my processing for Basic Combat Training will commence.
In the meantime I’m taking a breather at the YMCA Military Reception Center staffed by a great group of volunteers who are making me feel at home.
It’s doubtful that I’ll have any substantial access to email or the internet over the next eight weeks – so I’ve arranged to have the Mrs. periodically post my letters to Newly Marylanders so that I can share my Maryland Army National Guard training experience.
Looking forward to being back with my family for Christmas – I’ll have the Mrs. post my mailing address for Ft. Sill when I get in case anyone wants to write.
{Crossposted from www.adamjschmidt.com}
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Saturday night Adam and I hit up a new restaurant. You’d think, just based on its location, that Punk’s Backyard Grill would be your average run of the mill suburban restaurant. I mean, with other restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory, Red Robin, CPK, among others you think either over priced, mediocre or just…m’eh. Right? Right. Well…not Punk’s.
Punks, which is geared to be a backyard grill style restaurant, has an awesome ambiance filled with picnic style tables and indoor greenery. Outside there are similar tables with patio style string lights and of course the go to table umbrellas.
The menu, is made of fresh ingredients and backyard grill style dishes with burgers, kabobs and sides you’d find at your family reunion picnic (well, at least at my family reunion picnic). Adam and I were both super impressed by not only the portion sizes (not overwhelming at all) but also by the healthy options. He had the turkey burger and thought it was great. The veggie burger was delicious and incredibly flavorful. We left feeling satisfied…but definitely not full.
From their website:
Punk’s Backyard Grill is, without question, about food. We use only the freshest, highest quality ingredients, and we make most everything from scratch. Every day, we’re roasting fresh corn, hand-trimming flat iron steak, pattying our all-natural beef, making salad dressings, and squeezing fresh limes for our margaritas. What we don’t make in-house (like our fluffy brioche buns, for example), we have made and delivered every day from local suppliers and farms.But Punk’s is about more than just fresh, honest, wholesome food. It’s also about an experience—re-creating the comfortable nostalgia of a neighborhood backyard cookout, of neighbors hosting neighbors in true, genuine hospitality.
The best part about this off the beaten path joint? The beer list – 25 microbrews on the menu. Not to mention their own “Daft Punk Ale” which was featured tonight during happy hour – $3 pints with 20% off food? Yes. Please.
I’ll definitely be back to this place, it’s so hard to find restaurants with healthy and interesting options, but also joints that are affordable and have an interesting theme or environment to it.
Definitely a place to check out – especially if you’re at the mall and don’t want you’re standard, mediocre food court crap.
Punks Backyard Grill
2188 Annapolis Mall
Annapolis, MD
Website
Twitter
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So this Christmas was the first Christmas where Adam and I didn’t spend it with our respective families. He was a little depressed about it – given that he’d been with his family every year for 27 years. My family traditions haven’t quite been the same and now that my cousins and I are all older, my Nana’s house that I would spend Christmas at got too small and it hasn’t been the same for a few years.
So we did our best to make a fabulous Christmas anyhow.
{dinner}
We made an amazing dinner.
Maple Glazed Turkey (with sage and thyme!)
Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes
Candied Carrots
Maple Sweet Potatoes
Cranberry sauce (a family recipe)
Apple and Sausage Stuffing (another family recipe)
Rosemary croissants (via Liz)
Brussell sprouts
Spinach salad (with tomatoes, dried cranberries, blue cheese and walnuts)
For appetizers we had:
Bacon wrapped water chesnuts
five layer dip (left over from work Thursday nights)
and stuffed mushrooms (via Liz)
It was an amazing night and reaffirmed our love of hosting dinner with friends because when you can’t be with real family, you might as well make it with people who feel like family right?
{Our fabulous guests}
In the honor of sharing, I’ll share with you all the fabulous stuffing recipe passed down to Adam from his father who got it from his father’s sister – a family favorite for sure. When he first made that for me, I was certain this guy was a keeper. I mean, my sister and I used to fight for the leftover Stove Top that my own mother used to make, I’ve been a stuffing fiend since I was young! But this stuffing? Is amazing.
Sausage and Apple Stuffing
Ingredients
1lb bulk sausage- jimmy deans, jones,- you can use the spicy version
if you want.
1 medium size bag of stuffing- I’ve used corn bread stuffing.
1 large onion slice
2-3 cloves garlic minced or however much you like-or use garlic powder
pepper to taste
apple juice or cider
apples diced
raisins if you want
Directions
cook up the sausage and drain the fat off.
cook up the onions and garlic. add pepper as wanted.
mix the sausage onion, diced apples, stuffing, raisins in large bowl
add the juice or cider to the point where it is moist.
put into a pan and bake for 30-45 minutes at 400 degrees (we used 450 because that’s what the turkey was being cooked at. took about 30-40 minutes)
you can use chicken broth instead of apple juice or cider.
Puppy approved. The holidays exhaust her.
Enjoy the recipe and we wish you a very happy holiday and a joyful new year! (Expect more from us soon, and about our adventures around Maryland!)
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