When in Greece

On of my father's day gift to Lance was to do a themed date night each month for the next year. Last night was our first date night and we traveled to Athens, Greece.

Our friends Kasey and Ashli also joined us, as it turns out group rates to Greece are cheaper. Once we were packed and ready to go, we jumped on our private jet and were on our way.

First class all the way! I mean, look at all of that leg room! Plus, we were served a bag of peanuts and water. And of course, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was playing on the big screen. I'm flying first class from here on out.

The flight went super fast and we quickly arrived in Athens where we hoped in a cab to go find some food. Here were some of our options:

Lance and I both went with the Gyro (pronounced yee-ro) plate. It had a gyro, some fries, and some salad with some Greek dressing. It was actually pretty good.

Once our bellies were satisfied, it was time to get dressed in more appropriate attire. The boys were not thrilled about our costumes at all, especially when they found out we would be walking the neighborhood, but they were good sports and wore them anyways.

 Kasey not super thrilled about his outfit. Haha.

 Will was pretty grumpy the whole time, hence the binki.

Kasey and Ashli before the war.


We figured since the Olympics originally started in Greece, and they are soon taking place, that we needed to do a few competitions of our own.

Competition #1: Water fight

For our first war, we had a water fight. But it wasn't your typical water fight. You see, all of our water had red koolaid and red food coloring in them, and all of their water was blue. That way, the color would show up on our togas and you'd be able to tell who won.

 Our home base and stash of weapons.

Kasey and Ashli preparing for battle

We had water balloons, water guns, and those spear looking things, which were actually probably the most effective.

Will liked playing with the spear, and he loved throwing our balloons in the grass. I think he popped a good portion of them before our war even started.

Doesn't Will look adorable in his little toga? Unfortunately he was NOT interested in letting me get a good picture.



Will and Lance after the battle.

Both sides fought hard until ammunition ran out. It turns out, blue koolaid doesn't show up nearly as well as red, so it wasn't as noticeable as I was hoping. But it was still really fun and we were pretty wet and sticky by the end.

Competition #2: Bocci Balls

We played Bocci Balls for our second olympic game. If you've never heard of it, basically you have one small "target" ball that you throw/toss. Then each team has some balls that you try to get as close to the target ball as possible. Closest one gets a point.

 They definitely have their game faces on.

 Don't worry, we brought our too.

 And then we decided to beat each other up...yeah...

To throw or not to throw, that is the question.

 

Kasey and Ashli beat us in Bocci, but I think we won the water fight.

By this point, Will was being very difficult and we decided to head home and get him to bed.

 Will was super thirsty by the time we got home.

Once Will was down for bed, we finished our olympic games with some Mario Kart races. We got some Greek Doughnuts made, but Kasey and Ashli had to leave before we were able to finish them. Here is a picture of them.

They are covered in a honey glaze and topped with cinnamon. We had some issues cooking them that involved exploding oil and a small fire on our stove, but otherwise they turned out ok. They weren't amazing, but they weren't bad either.

And lastly, just because he's so adorable:

 

A New Favorite

A while back Lance and I decided that we wanted to try making home-made ravioli one night for dinner. Sounded like quite the task, but figured we may as well try it. So I went to my favorite website for recipes, allrecipes.com, and found a recipe that I was willing to try.

Click here for the recipe that I used.

The first time I made it, we decided not to make the pesto sauce to put over top. It was so good that I decided to make it again, but this time I tripled the recipe and made the pesto sauce to go on top. And that pesto sauce is GOOD! Definitely not leaving that out again.

Here is a picture of how it looked the first time we tried it, without the pesto sauce.

And here is a picture of our meal tonight, with the pesto sauce.

The dish was really good before, but this pesto sauce was excellent. It took the dish up a notch and really made it stand out.

We were surprised at how good this recipe is. Seriously, it tastes like a dish you would get at a fancy restaurant. If it were easier to make, I'm sure we would be having it much more often. Though it is a bit time consuming, we will definitely be making it on special occasions and every once in a while. It's worth it. And we were amazed how filling they are! I had just a small plate of ravioli and was completely stuffed afterwards. I wanted more, but my stomach said no.

Anyways, if you are looking for a new dish to try out and you are willing to spend a little time, I strongly recommend this. I'm so glad I decided to triple the recipe today because now we'll have enough for leftovers for several days. Below are a few suggestions or things I discovered that may make it easier for you. Enjoy!

Tips/Suggestions:
-Both times I made it, the dough was way too dry and I ended up adding an extra egg or two plus more water. I pretty much just added as much as I needed until the dough was workable.
-It says to only let the noodles boil for 4 minutes. I let mine boil for at least 10 minutes because I wanted to make sure it wasn't going to be doughy. Just boil until you feel like they are cooked.

-The dough is really hard and kind of difficult to work with. The first time I was way nervous because my dough was so hard and I was so sure that it wouldn't work. But it turned out great.
-Make sure you roll your dough out as flat as possible. When it cooks, it expands and you don't want your noodles too thick.
-I used a lid from something to cut the dough instead of pizza cutter or knife. Made it so they were all the same size and it was easier to cut.

-I added sausage and ground beef to our filling to give a little more substance.
-We used marinara sauce the first time and we used meat spaghetti sauce the second time. Lance and I both liked the spaghetti sauce a lot more than the marinara.
-I would make the dough and filling the night before. Then let it sit in the refrigerator overnight. This meal is very time consuming, and it was a lot better split up into two days.
-Use a fork on the edges to create the ripple effect. It also helps to seal the edges together.

-Instead of baking the noodles then adding the sauces, we poured the sauce over the noodles and then baked it. Just a matter of preference I suppose.
-I didn't do the egg wash either time and it turned out fine. Just didn't feel it was necessary, but maybe it does something? I don't know.


Again, here is the recipe: Recipe for home-made Ravioli.

Enjoy! And if you decide to make it, let me know what you think!