Go Green

Halloween is this next weekend. This will be crazy cool. I narrowed my costume choices. Ethan helped me out with the specifics and google got me the templates. Michaels got me the materials. If all else fails I will be the Green Lantern.

Chef's Table

I am very lucky. I have a job. I am very grateful and happy to have bread winning taken care of in the near future. I work at the Chef's Table. It is one of the most demanding and rewarding jobs i have ever had. I worked today form 3:30 to 10:50, and my legs are thrashed cause I rush the whole time that I am on my feet.

The food is great, but really I don't even get a discount, so sadly I can only make sure you get everything hot and  fast. Come in, if you are up to the prices. It will be worth it.

Later, ty.

New Cookbook

I have the best Mom ever. She is the coolest and most talented person I know.

I love cooking and music because of my mom. She always helps me to know how to get everything just right as I make cookies, or mac and cheese. Or how to fix it when I really mess them up really bad. It only took me three very sad batches or chocolate cookies. She definitely helped me get my cookies right after that.

Well I just received a copy of the coolest cookbook. And it is by my mom. She took all of her favorite recipes and put them all together. Many of them are not her own but she has put some of my favorites in there and they are the best cause she made them her own. (and now mine too!)

The most different part of it... it is all digital, and my mom just gave me a web address  to get all of her
recipes.

So now all of my free time over the last 2 days has been spent printing my favorite recipes and putting them into sheet covers. I am putting together a cookbook for two of the coolest people ever. So this is for you Whitney and Mo.

So I was not having a good week last weekend. It seems that when I have a lot of good things coming my way, or at the end of a great day, things seem to go downhill.

That was last Saturday. It was not the best. It turned very quickly. How, you may ask? Invite friends over and have fun...With the best breakfast ever: Pumpkin pancakes and Maple whipped cream.

I love pumpkin pancakes, but this time we omitted the ginger butter and substituted a very sweet whipped cream, using a cup of heavy cream and adding maple syrup to taste. The best part was the animal shaped pumpkin pancakes!!

Pumpkin Pancakes with Ginger Butter

If I had to, I could go without my computer for a month

There is way to many sites, email lists, groups, followings... I like seeing someone and being there friend. It works to pick up a phone and call. Skip the message on facebook skip the that button to share and come over and share it with me already. Start by not turning it on. People can get a hold of me by phone, if they didn't get my number then I didn't want to talk to them.

Squishiest Carpet I've ever had

I had a wonderful experience this morning. I awoke to the beautiful sound of rushing water. This was so refreshing until I found that my defective apartment had once again led to major disaster.

The soothing sound was none other than that of the small, yet strong fresh water hose leading into the back of the toilet reserve tank in the empty room opposite mine. I quickly sloshed through the living room ad bedroom to the bathroom to get sprayed with water (thankfully clean), in the face. I reattached the hose and went to get clean laundry from my laundry bag in my closet.

Sidenote: this next occurrence is very typical of my stay at Coventry apartments... it gets worse.

I go into my closet to find that atrociously familiar "squish, squish." My toilet had leaked under the wall of the bathroom into my closet. Not the clean water either. I quickly washed my feet threw on sandals and squished back in to save my newly washed clothes. The clean untouched clothes on the bed, the tainted clothes back to the laundry. I then pulled my paper missionary planners from 2/3's of my mission from the floor to find them soaked completely through. (They had been stacked nicely in the corner to stay safe.)

I call my apartment manager, who is out of town. He calls maintenence who is going to get there in 7 or 8 hours. I leave to take care of my things. 10 hours later i get a text saying that the maintenance is held up they won't come till tomorrow. They come and say there is a leaky seal, and that they will be back later. I stay out of my closet and wait for maintenance to clean or replace the carpet; they never do. I call the manager tell him about the very pungent mildew smell and ask he get it clean or replaced. He called me, from the inside of my apartment, and said he smelled nothing and that I needed to just buy a fan and blow air on it till it dried. As he left my apartment he informed me that my apartment was filthy (rememberme throwing my clothes everywhere) and he would be coming back to inspect my apartment this week.

Nightmare Weekend

So this weekend was a total nightmare. I had this great date planned for Ryan, an old roommate, and his birthday.

I was over at Ryan's the Sunday before his birthday and we were talking about this and that when it occurred to me that Dani has never seen Nightmare Before Christmas, the best. I asked Ryan what he thought I should make for Dinner to go along with the Movie. We discussed dark Grape juice, savory food... all to fit into the dark, but classy, feel of the movie. We could have also had Christmas themed cookies and food too, but that was just too much for the roommates that will not listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving!!

Ryan mentioned that his Birthday was coming up, and that we should go dancing for a date too. Then I realized that making a bunch of 'Nightmare' food and then eating it would be a great birthday bash for Ryan. So Ryan and I planned his birthday dinner to be the Night after his birthday! We had Boyd, Joyd Bohnson come too.

I found a great theme night from a Rachel Ray and changed a couple recipes to fit the people that were eating and Ryan and I got to work. I made Ryan read all the recipes and take charge of most of the cooking, as I did a lot of busy work. My goal whenever I cook with Ryan is to make him cook most of it and convince him that he really is a good cook! We had Curried Carrot Cobweb Soup, Bloody Steak Fingers and Anti-Vampire Shrimp Scampi, really good if you do not want to sit close to your date, so we called it anti-date shrimp scampi too! We had amazing grape juice to go with the meal, and for dessert/movie candy Ryan and i popped popcorn and drizzled it with melted chocolate and mixed in skittles. New favorite, for sure.

We did have one setback... one of the roommates had moved out for the summer term and accidentally taken all of the bowls and dishes from the whole apartment, so I had to call Dani to bring some. But they looked awesome with all the bright food. And the food was really good; Ryan gets all the credit on this one.

Well as Ryan and I were talking to our date and cooking at the same time we found out that Dani had seen 'Nightmare before Christmas' and it was one of her favorite movies, so it all worked out in the end.

The fridge that really just messes up your food.

I am sitting on my couch listening to the hum of my new fridge and a very full mini-fridge. The old fridge will never be missed. It was about the size of 2 mini-fridges stacked one on top of the other. We never got along and could never be friends.

Upon first arriving in my new apartment, my fridge, who I do not miss, was defrosted and luke-warm on the inside. (The last tenants had not cleaned the fridge out and the apartment manager had come before me and cleaned a little.) I had just arrived from San Diego with my best friend Moose, 6'3", 320 lbs. with food in tow.

While I was in San Diego with Moose, Moose's father, Mark, gave me a gift. Moose and his Dad the day before had come back home from Yuma, Arizona. They drove there to buy 20 half gallons of a very exclusive ice cream called Blue Bell Ice Cream. It is rarely sold outside of Texas and neighboring states. Oh and Yes, I had one! I love Blue Bell; I was introduced on my mission to Texas. It is like homemade ice cream on steroids.

You may see where this is all leading to. My fridge, which would have a nickname, but that would involve acknowledging the darn thing, was not cold, but it was cool enough. I informed management that the fridge struggled and was not cold enough. I wanted to suprise a favorite mission companion a few weeks later, and I checked the ice cream... but, to my suprize the ICE cream, was NO-ICE cream. I was crushed.

Told management about it. The rest of the fridge had gone out too, losing a bunch of food. Management came by and 'fixed' the fridge. I was still dissatisfied with the coldness. But it would have to work for now. Well a couple weeks later I made Moose a birthday dinner. I had bought tons of food to make Cafe Rio pulled pork burritos and salads. It was a huge meal. Frozen drinks, Brazilian lemonade. 8 lbs. of pork alone. Tons of Romaine lettuce and rice. Salsas, dressing, and even tortilla strips. Moose had at least 5 burritos, and half the meat. Everyone else ate their fill too.There were left overs to feed me and all of my friends for weeks.

2 days later, the fridge went out. This time melting a Kroger half gallon of ice cream and a half bag of ice on the contents of the fridge, thus trashing every carton and container. Management was called, and last night, finally replaced the fridge. This fridge is bigger, better, colder but still empty, losing a full fridge of food is hard to come back from. Well now that all is cold or will soon be now I can get management to get me working appliances and bathroom too.


Recipe For Pulled Pork Burritos and Salads