Blog Posts

Valentine’s Desserts To Fall in Love With

Valentine’s Day is a day for love, but it is also a great excuse for indulging your sweet tooth. Last week, we suggested various activities to commemorate the day. In this post, Nantucket Gate Blog is sharing a few delectable dessert recipes that will help you win your Valentine’s heart. Super Fancy Chocolate Cheesecake Cake from Willow Bird Baking Impress your Valentine with your baking skills by making this decadent layered chocolate cheesecake cake. This dessert is the perfect choice for chocolate lovers. Ingredients include flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt, buttermilk, vegetable oil, eggs, vanilla extract, freshly brewed coffee, cream cheese, dark chocolate chips, Dutch-process cocoa powder, warm water, unsalted butter, bittersweet chocolate chips, and flaked sea salt. Root Beer Float Cupcakes from How Sweet Eats Have you ever tried cupcakes infused with the flavors found in a rootbeer float? This magical and unique dessert is sure to impress your Valentine. To make the cupcakes, you will need flour, dark cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, brown sugar, an egg, vanilla extract, root beer concentrate, root beer, heavy cream, butter, and sour cream. For the frosting, you will need butter, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, milk, and root beer concentrate. Fudgy Brownie and Raspberry Ice Cream Sandwiches from Averie Cooks These incredible ice cream sandwiches taste like a chocolate-covered raspberry! Ingredients needed to make them include the following: butter, bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, sugar, vanilla extract, eggs, flour, and a frozen dessert; try using raspberry sorbet, ice cream, or gelato. Red Velvet Cheesecake Bars from Baked by Rachel These creamy cheesecake bars are infused with red velvet and include a rich chocolate crust. The crust is made from crushed chocolate graham crackers, granulated sugar, and melted butter. For the filling, you will need cream cheese, sour cream, granulated sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, salt, unsweetened cocoa powder, and red food coloring. Chocolate Cherry Cake from Pastry Affair Chocolate and cherries are one of those combinations that just make sense, and this chocolate cherry cake won’t disappoint. Here’s everything you will need: flour, sugar, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking soda, salt, vanilla extract, vinegar, vegetable oil, water, and pitted dark cherries. End your Valentine’s Day on a sweet note with one of these amazing desserts! We hope you enjoy baking some of these delectable desserts in your lovely apartment here in Tacoma, WA. Check back soon to see what’s new on the blog!

Valentines Day Activities

Whether you’re single or in a relationship, Valentine’s Day has an impact on everyone. Many people use the day as an opportunity to confess their admiration of another, or to express love to their significant other. In this week’s Nantucket Gate Blog, we’ve got a few ideas on activities you can do with a date or your loved ones this Valentine’s Day. Dinner and a Movie Nothing beats the classic date. It’s a perfect opportunity to spend some time with the person you’re on a date within multiple settings. Depending on who you’re going on a date with, you can choose whether you want to go to a more upscale restaurant or find something quick and easy before the movie. Though many people have an issue with the movie portion of this activity due to the lack of talking time, it’s an enjoyable way to spend an evening. You could spend time during dinner chatting! Indulge Your Sweet Tooth Instead of going to a movie and having dinner, you could forgo all of that and just focus on desserts! Find some delicious desserts around Tacoma, WA and try all of them! If you do this, by the end of the night, you’re probably not going to want dessert anymore, but it’s a great activity for a date! Take a Helicopter Ride This may be the most expensive activity on our shortlist, but it’s the one that will give you the most breathtaking views. Find yourself a place to rent a helicopter ride, and do it quickly, as it might get pretty full up before Valentine’s Day rolls around. The skyline illuminated by the lights would be a romantic change of scenery, especially on Valentine’s Day! Do you have a choice activity you like to participate in during Valentine’s Day? Share them with our apartment community by leaving a comment!

Beating the Winter Blues

During the winter months, it can be hard to stay motivated with the combination of the cold and the decreased amount of daylight. In today’s Nantucket Gate Blog post, we are sharing some tips that will help residents of our apartments combat the winter blues and stay on top of their game during this difficult season. Keep reading for our tips! Stay Physically Active It can be hard to get motivated to work out any time of the year, but winter makes it even harder. The combination of the cold and dark make us want to go into hibernation mode, but that will only make us more depressed. Even just going on a one-hour walk during the day will help you cope with the changes brought about by the season. Eat Healthily A healthy diet will help you to have more energy, avoid putting on unwanted weight, and boost your mood. Try to avoid junk food that doesn’t fill you up but is still high in calories and carbs. Balance your craving for carbs like pasta and potatoes with lots of fruits and vegetables. Foods high in processed sugars might give you a brief spike in energy, but you will crash hard afterward. Find a New Hobby It is also important to keep your mind active during the winter to avoid feeling down or bored. Take up a new hobby that puts your mind to work like reading, doing puzzles, or creating artwork. Take a class that teaches you a new skill! Keeping your mind active and sharp will benefit you in so many other areas of your life. Stay Warm Wear several layers, eat warm foods, and drink warm drinks to help you stay warm. Being cold can cause feelings of depression while being warm can help to reduce the winter blues by as much as 50 percent! We hope you found these tips helpful and that they will help you fight off the winter blues this season. Thanks for reading. If you have any more tips or suggestions, please feel free to share them in the comments. Stay warm this month here in Tacoma, WA!

Satisfying Soups

Soup is the ideal winter meal, which seems to explain why January is National Soup Month. Enjoy a delicious bowl of your favorite soup in your apartment this month in a true celebratory spirit! Read on for some of our favorite soup recipes from Nantucket Gate Blog. Chicken Tortellini Soup This superb soup includes a hearty helping of chicken and cheese tortellini pasta with plenty of vegetables mixed in. The recipe comes from Genius Kitchen and includes the following ingredients: butter, carrots, celery, onion, minced garlic, fresh thyme, Mrs. Dash original seasoning mix, mushrooms, chicken broth, three-cheese tortellini, cooked chicken, baby spinach, and freshly grated parmesan. Lasagna Soup Ever eaten lasagna in soup form? This recipe comes from Eazy Peazy Mealz and will definitely fill you up. Here is a list of everything you will need to make it: mild Italian sausage, a small onion, ground beef, tomato sauce, chicken stock, cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, garlic granules, parsley, and lasagna noodles. Chicken Cordon Bleu Soup The traditional chicken cordon bleu dish that features baked chicken stuffed with ham and cheese takes on a new twist in this sensational soup recipe from Chef in Training. To make it, you will need butter, flour, half-and-half, milk, chicken base or chicken bullion cubes, cream cheese, chopped rotisserie chicken, cooked and chopped bacon, cubed ham, and grated Swiss cheese. Slow Cooker French Onion Soup This French onion soup recipe from Snappy Gourmet lets your crockpot do all the work! Simply add all the prepped ingredients in your crockpot and let it cook for 6-8 hours on low. Ingredients include the following: yellow onions, beef broth, red wine, Worcestershire sauce, unsalted butter, minced garlic, and dried ground rosemary. Butternut Squash Soup Pureed butternut squash shines in this creamy and flavorful recipe from Dining with Alice. All you need to make it is peeled and cubed butternut squash, water or chicken broth, coconut milk or heavy cream, ground cinnamon, and brown sugar. You will also need a blender or food processor to puree the squash, and a crockpot to cook the soup in. What are your favorite soups to enjoy in the winter? Let us know in the comments and share your favorite recipes as well. Thanks for reading our post. Have a wonderful and warm month here in Tacoma, WA!

How to Prepare for the Grammys

Are you planning to tune into the Grammys this year? Rather than simply watching it on January 26th, we here at Nantucket Gate Blog invite you to take some time leading up to the awards ceremony to prepare! By following these few simple tips, we’re confident you’ll be ready to be an educated viewer of the year’s most significant music awards ceremony. Listen If you haven’t yet heard the music being nominated, it’s a good idea to take some time leading up to the Grammys to listen to it! Since there are so many categories, it may seem a bit overwhelming to know where to start. Rather than attempting to listen to everything, we suggest picking three or four major categories and listening to everything nominated within them. If you’re only able to listen to a few categories, make sure to include the most prestigious ones like record of the year, album of the year, song of the year, and best new artist. If you have time to listen to everything more than once, all the better! Study On top of merely listening to these albums and songs, it’s important to get a little bit of background information on them. Who is the artist singing them? What is their story? Do they belong to any minority groups? Why is it significant that they specifically are up for a Grammy award? Of course there will be songs we like at first listen more than others, but with a little context, songs that didn’t stand out before will start to become more meaningful and interesting. Favorites will always stay favorites, but it’s important to realize that there is more to music and to the Grammys than sound or popularity alone. Enjoy Once you’ve done your homework, it’s time to sit back and enjoy the Grammys! When you don’t know half of the music up nomination, the awards ceremony isn’t nearly as exciting; when you have spent time beforehand preparing, you’ll likely have specific artists and songs you’re rooting for, making the whole event much more fun. It’s perfectly normal to be bummed out when one of your favorites doesn’t win, but make sure to celebrate the success of the winners as well. It took a lot for these artists to get where they are, and winning is no small feat! We hope these tips helped you prepare for your Grammys viewing experience this year in your Tacoma, WA apartment!

Reasons to Pick Up a New Hobby

How often do you spend participating in a hobby that you sincerely enjoy? This week, Nantucket Gate Blog wants to encourage you to either pick up a new hobby or rekindle an old one. Not only are hobbies enjoyable, but they are also beneficial in more ways than you would imagine! Keep reading to discover something new about how investing time into a hobby could help you this year. Stress Relief Sometimes, it feels hard to justify setting aside time during a busy week to participate in a hobby, but did you know they can actually help you relieve stress? By putting a pause on any obligations for some time each week, it will help keep your mind at ease and help you forget about what is weighing you down long enough to help you feel ready to take on your responsibilities. Physical Health On top of releasing stress and helping your mind to feel more at ease, hobbies are also beneficial for your physical health! Doing things you enjoy has a correlation with lowering BMI, cortisol levels, blood sugar, and more. To the extent that physical health influences mental health, doing something you physically enjoy may help decrease your chances of depression. New Challenges Often, new hobbies bring on new challenges. Because hobbies are more amusing than obligations, resolving challenges in a setting that is less mundane than your everyday routine will help you stay mentally stimulated. Since the challenges presented aren’t as threatening or as stressful as conflicts at work or family problems, it’s a way to practice problem-solving without all the pressure. Confidence Boost Being able to excel at something — no matter how small that thing is — is incredibly satisfying, especially when they aren’t directly related to your home or work life. When you find out you have a knack for something that’s enjoying to you, it’s natural to feel more self-confident than you did before. Whether something comes naturally to you or not, practicing your hobbies is a great way to get a confidence boost as you work at them and excel! How have you benefited from your hobbies? Let our Tacoma, WA apartment community know in the comments below!