Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Cooking with Dannon
Tonite's meal is called dessert. I decided to skip dinner and make a yellow cake with chocolate frosting and then blend it into a milkshake with Andes Mint ice cream!
What to do:
purchase these items:
yellow cake mix
chocolate frosting
Andes Mint ice cream
Make the cake mix as instructed on the box but replace the oil with apple sauce. You cannot taste the difference and don't need the extra calories.
Cook it as directed on the box. When it's done, let it cool-also take out the ice cream so it can begin to soften (multi-task!).
Let it cool as long as you can handle to wait and then cut a piece out. Put frosting on that piece alone-it will not go neatly as the piece will still be warm. (we only frost one piece because the rest of the cake will still be too hot to frost-you're not very patient either.)
Put your piece of cake into a blender with some ice cream and alittle milk. Add sprinkles for prettiness.
Put into a cup and eat with a spoon-or just drink it... if you're really impatient, the cake will have melted the ice cream to make a more liguidy texture.
Don't leave the kitchen a mess..
After you've enjoyed your shake, frost the rest of the cake once it cools and then freeze it. Once it's frozen, cut it into cubes and throw it into a bag so you can get out mini cakes as often as you want!
What to do:
purchase these items:
yellow cake mix
chocolate frosting
Andes Mint ice cream
Make the cake mix as instructed on the box but replace the oil with apple sauce. You cannot taste the difference and don't need the extra calories.
Cook it as directed on the box. When it's done, let it cool-also take out the ice cream so it can begin to soften (multi-task!).
Let it cool as long as you can handle to wait and then cut a piece out. Put frosting on that piece alone-it will not go neatly as the piece will still be warm. (we only frost one piece because the rest of the cake will still be too hot to frost-you're not very patient either.)
Put your piece of cake into a blender with some ice cream and alittle milk. Add sprinkles for prettiness.
Put into a cup and eat with a spoon-or just drink it... if you're really impatient, the cake will have melted the ice cream to make a more liguidy texture.
Don't leave the kitchen a mess..
After you've enjoyed your shake, frost the rest of the cake once it cools and then freeze it. Once it's frozen, cut it into cubes and throw it into a bag so you can get out mini cakes as often as you want!
Friday, November 23, 2007
Thanksgiving
Well, yesterday was Thanksgiving and it was alot more fun than I expected it to be. We woke up (me about 9:30am and Mike about 11:30pm) to a fresh blanket of wetness. It snowed and snowed but the ground is too warm for it to stick. Yea, that won't last long... High today is like 30. Either way, I took a picture using a different color mode on my camera. The only colors are red, the rest is grayscale. Guess that's what happens when Mike sleeps in, I'm bored, and it's too cold to do anything. :)
Oh, and here's a pic of my street with the same sort of effect. The leaves finially fell last/this week and it's so pretty!
We went over to Jim and Barb Castro's house and there were about 20 other people. Oh, we brought Jarrod with us.
Jarrod was kind enough to take some pictures of Mike and I before we left to drive out to their house (40 miles/75 minutes). Out of about 20, here are the best ones... Note that Mike isn't very good at having a "normal" expression.
The drive out wasn't awful but we didn't expect it to take as long as it took. Once we got there, we were welcomed with hugs and kisses (they're Italian, guess it's normal) and then we hung out for a couple hours in eager anticipation for the wonderful food that was being provided.
After dinner, all of the guys jumped up to do the dishes. It was very sweet of them but soon after everything had been collected Barb told them they were welcome to do something else. I think that she was worried that the china would be broken. :)
We went downstairs and played ping pong. I enjoyed playing against Mike and almost beat him once. When more competition came downstairs, though, I retired to a nearby chair to laugh at everyone else.
Mike had been anticipating taking on Tony Falco at ping pong all week.(not to be confused with his son Anthony or grandson little Anthony) Tony won and Mike will not be able to hear the end of it!
They also played Bingo. Barb's dad calls out Bingo at the local McDonalds so it sounded like a real game. It was very funny.
Before we left, Jarrod chose to show off his artistic abilities and draw a picture of David (yes, on the wall) without looking. I was surprised that everything was in the right place--it didn't really look like David though.
It was a great night. We left about 9:00pm to take the long trek home. We expected it to take longer to get back into the city but it only took an hour. Don't really know how that happened because the traffic was very slow.
We played Christmas/Oldies music and the guys sang dumb and were entertaining.
After the long trip home, we rented Pan's Labyrinth and had Jarrod over to watch it. Interesting movie. Doing things with an artist is always interesting because they think so differently... He brought a whole different perspective to the movie and I was like "what?". I guess they think differently... more abstract... odd.
Oh, the blurry pics were taken by my phone... The nice ones were my camera-though my phone doesn't do too bad.
Oh, and here's a pic of my street with the same sort of effect. The leaves finially fell last/this week and it's so pretty!
We went over to Jim and Barb Castro's house and there were about 20 other people. Oh, we brought Jarrod with us.
Jarrod was kind enough to take some pictures of Mike and I before we left to drive out to their house (40 miles/75 minutes). Out of about 20, here are the best ones... Note that Mike isn't very good at having a "normal" expression.
The drive out wasn't awful but we didn't expect it to take as long as it took. Once we got there, we were welcomed with hugs and kisses (they're Italian, guess it's normal) and then we hung out for a couple hours in eager anticipation for the wonderful food that was being provided.
After dinner, all of the guys jumped up to do the dishes. It was very sweet of them but soon after everything had been collected Barb told them they were welcome to do something else. I think that she was worried that the china would be broken. :)
We went downstairs and played ping pong. I enjoyed playing against Mike and almost beat him once. When more competition came downstairs, though, I retired to a nearby chair to laugh at everyone else.
Mike had been anticipating taking on Tony Falco at ping pong all week.(not to be confused with his son Anthony or grandson little Anthony) Tony won and Mike will not be able to hear the end of it!
They also played Bingo. Barb's dad calls out Bingo at the local McDonalds so it sounded like a real game. It was very funny.
Before we left, Jarrod chose to show off his artistic abilities and draw a picture of David (yes, on the wall) without looking. I was surprised that everything was in the right place--it didn't really look like David though.
It was a great night. We left about 9:00pm to take the long trek home. We expected it to take longer to get back into the city but it only took an hour. Don't really know how that happened because the traffic was very slow.
We played Christmas/Oldies music and the guys sang dumb and were entertaining.
After the long trip home, we rented Pan's Labyrinth and had Jarrod over to watch it. Interesting movie. Doing things with an artist is always interesting because they think so differently... He brought a whole different perspective to the movie and I was like "what?". I guess they think differently... more abstract... odd.
Oh, the blurry pics were taken by my phone... The nice ones were my camera-though my phone doesn't do too bad.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Fun Week
This was a fun week.
Work is going very well. Lots of areas where I'm growing but alot areas where I can look back at how I handled situations and see how the Lord has grown me. It's been encouraging.
I went to Supper Solutions yesterday. I was nervous about how it would be an it was fun. --In case you don't know what that is, it is a place where you go make a certain number of meals. They have all the ingredients and recipes and you just cook. They even clean up! I'm not sure whether it's as cost effective but it will help us have actual meals instead of just ground beef with cheese on it or something. :)
I played soccer with the Moody Women's Soccer Club yesterday. I've been playing with them on Saturday afternoons all semester and it's fun. Not very "high intensity" but enjoyable. We did my favorite drill: me kick corner kicks and everyone else try to get them into the goal
Since soccer brings me such joy, I will allow it 2 paragraphs. I played again today on my city team. It was our last game and we only had 8 players. Luckily, I had invited a friend from Moody to play with us and that put us at 9 people-which is the minimum you can play with. I think that I played well, considering the circumstances. I can always see areas where I need to grow though.
After soccer I rollerbladed to Moody (because it was a BEAUTIFUL day) and hung out with my friend Beki for a couple hours.
Came home and ate some chocolate (not just chocolate, but chocolate with caramel and brownies) ice cream for dinner.
Life is good. :)
Work is going very well. Lots of areas where I'm growing but alot areas where I can look back at how I handled situations and see how the Lord has grown me. It's been encouraging.
I went to Supper Solutions yesterday. I was nervous about how it would be an it was fun. --In case you don't know what that is, it is a place where you go make a certain number of meals. They have all the ingredients and recipes and you just cook. They even clean up! I'm not sure whether it's as cost effective but it will help us have actual meals instead of just ground beef with cheese on it or something. :)
I played soccer with the Moody Women's Soccer Club yesterday. I've been playing with them on Saturday afternoons all semester and it's fun. Not very "high intensity" but enjoyable. We did my favorite drill: me kick corner kicks and everyone else try to get them into the goal
Since soccer brings me such joy, I will allow it 2 paragraphs. I played again today on my city team. It was our last game and we only had 8 players. Luckily, I had invited a friend from Moody to play with us and that put us at 9 people-which is the minimum you can play with. I think that I played well, considering the circumstances. I can always see areas where I need to grow though.
After soccer I rollerbladed to Moody (because it was a BEAUTIFUL day) and hung out with my friend Beki for a couple hours.
Came home and ate some chocolate (not just chocolate, but chocolate with caramel and brownies) ice cream for dinner.
Life is good. :)
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Update on my life
First off, no pics for this post. Sorry.
Life has been going by very quickly! So much has happened this month but nothing really all that important.
Sharon had her baby, Brielle Christine on 10/2--yea, makes me want one. This child is perfect!
I got my hair cut. One of these days I'll take a picture but it's not much different. He cut a few inches off of the top layer so it would lay better without me "looking like a Christmas tree" (his words). I really like it and it's so easy. I will choose him next time. Thanks, Mom, for the gift certificates!
Cannot remember anything in the last 2 weeks so we'll skip alittle time.
Monday I made cinnamon rolls with Tanya that were just okay... I want another try at them.
Last night Beki Rohan and Faith Fullmer (both Moody students) came over and we made pizza and watched The Lake House. It was okay... Not "girly" enough for a girl's night.
TODAY WAS SO FUN! I went to Moody to play in an indoor soccer tournament. The Women's Soccer Club (oh yea, I'm in it... I play with them a couple times a week) had a team and we were the only girl's team out there. We lost every game but played really well together. It was 3 hours of soccer straight! Okay, 2 hours straight then an hour break and then another hour straight. Anyway, I'm very sore now. I'm still planning on playing my final Spanglish Armada game tomorrow but I hope that I don't let anyone down. It's not until 8:00pm though so we should be fine.
Well, Mike is super super busy writing a paper and reading and after that he'll study and then read some more so I'm alittle bored. I guess I shouldn't complain because I have been very busy and actually need a rest.
Oh, and I got a new cell phone!
That's all. Goodnight friends.
Hey, how about if anyone actually reads this, you comment or something so I know.
Life has been going by very quickly! So much has happened this month but nothing really all that important.
Sharon had her baby, Brielle Christine on 10/2--yea, makes me want one. This child is perfect!
I got my hair cut. One of these days I'll take a picture but it's not much different. He cut a few inches off of the top layer so it would lay better without me "looking like a Christmas tree" (his words). I really like it and it's so easy. I will choose him next time. Thanks, Mom, for the gift certificates!
Cannot remember anything in the last 2 weeks so we'll skip alittle time.
Monday I made cinnamon rolls with Tanya that were just okay... I want another try at them.
Last night Beki Rohan and Faith Fullmer (both Moody students) came over and we made pizza and watched The Lake House. It was okay... Not "girly" enough for a girl's night.
TODAY WAS SO FUN! I went to Moody to play in an indoor soccer tournament. The Women's Soccer Club (oh yea, I'm in it... I play with them a couple times a week) had a team and we were the only girl's team out there. We lost every game but played really well together. It was 3 hours of soccer straight! Okay, 2 hours straight then an hour break and then another hour straight. Anyway, I'm very sore now. I'm still planning on playing my final Spanglish Armada game tomorrow but I hope that I don't let anyone down. It's not until 8:00pm though so we should be fine.
Well, Mike is super super busy writing a paper and reading and after that he'll study and then read some more so I'm alittle bored. I guess I shouldn't complain because I have been very busy and actually need a rest.
Oh, and I got a new cell phone!
That's all. Goodnight friends.
Hey, how about if anyone actually reads this, you comment or something so I know.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Laura's Visit
So, Laura and I met in YWAM 3 years ago. She came to visit and we hung out for like 2 weeks. We've since kept in touch and it was so fun to have her visit for a few days.
She attended classes with Mike all day Monday and (said) that she really enjoyed it. Afterwards we just hung out and relaxed because it had been a long day. We rented The Bourne Supremacy from Blockbuster and I got it for FREE because I had an old movie ticket. (That promotion expired the day we went--just in time.)
On Tuesday we slept in. It was extremely fun. We then took the "L" to downtown and ate lunch at The Signature Room in the John Hancock Building.
Afterwards we raced to meet Jarod at his school so he could give us a tour of the Art Museum. It was so fun! It took us about 3 hours to get through the paintings alone. He knew so many fun things about them that the time just flew by!
After the museum, we went to Millennium Park and hung out for a little while.
Here is a view from the side of "the bean"
After taking way too many dumb pictures at the park, we proceeded to Jarod's school where we hung out and drank coffee in his room.
It was fun to meet his "very artsy" roommate. His roommate was cooking dinner and it smelled so good so we rushed out to go to Ghiordano's for dinner (where we had to waste 45 minutes waiting to be seated--at least we were able to order the pizza so it was done as soon as we sat down).
After stuffing our faces, we drank coffee (I had tea) at Borders in anticipation for the next section of our journey: The Bourne Ultimatium. Yea, we went to a 10:20pm movie and then walked home in the pouring rain.
Anyway, it was like 2 hours that we wasted total...
It was a great weekend. I sure hope that it's not another 3 years before we get to hang out again.
She attended classes with Mike all day Monday and (said) that she really enjoyed it. Afterwards we just hung out and relaxed because it had been a long day. We rented The Bourne Supremacy from Blockbuster and I got it for FREE because I had an old movie ticket. (That promotion expired the day we went--just in time.)
On Tuesday we slept in. It was extremely fun. We then took the "L" to downtown and ate lunch at The Signature Room in the John Hancock Building.
Afterwards we raced to meet Jarod at his school so he could give us a tour of the Art Museum. It was so fun! It took us about 3 hours to get through the paintings alone. He knew so many fun things about them that the time just flew by!
After the museum, we went to Millennium Park and hung out for a little while.
Here is a view from the side of "the bean"
After taking way too many dumb pictures at the park, we proceeded to Jarod's school where we hung out and drank coffee in his room.
It was fun to meet his "very artsy" roommate. His roommate was cooking dinner and it smelled so good so we rushed out to go to Ghiordano's for dinner (where we had to waste 45 minutes waiting to be seated--at least we were able to order the pizza so it was done as soon as we sat down).
After stuffing our faces, we drank coffee (I had tea) at Borders in anticipation for the next section of our journey: The Bourne Ultimatium. Yea, we went to a 10:20pm movie and then walked home in the pouring rain.
Anyway, it was like 2 hours that we wasted total...
It was a great weekend. I sure hope that it's not another 3 years before we get to hang out again.
Sushi with Maria
Maria came over to make sushi a couple of weeks ago. We thought that we'd be experimental and bought Unagi from the Korean Market we get our sushi stuff from. It was NOT a good thing. It was okay... They looked very pretty though.
I will still forever favor Unigi when someone else is cooking it. :)
I will still forever favor Unigi when someone else is cooking it. :)
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Mike and I babysitting Caileigh
Mike and I got to babysit Caileigh a few weeks ago and I'm just now able to post the pics. Caileigh loves Mike the most because he'll feed her junk. ;)
What's wrong with this?
I just noticed that an electrical outlet in my house looks very rusted. I don't think it's rust because it's sticky and rubs off. It has melted the area it was touching on the plug. It is the outlet that my window a/c unit is plugged into.
I immediately turned off the unit and unplugged it and the plug is like that too. There is no way that anything could've been spilled onto it because of the location. What could be wrong?
I want to find out quickly because I'm not turning it back on until I do and it's getting hot in my little house!
I immediately turned off the unit and unplugged it and the plug is like that too. There is no way that anything could've been spilled onto it because of the location. What could be wrong?
I want to find out quickly because I'm not turning it back on until I do and it's getting hot in my little house!
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Hirshy Trip 2
We went to visit the Hirshey family again on the first weekend in August. It was very relaxing--not as busy as last time.
We stayed up until 3am the first night playing a board game called Carcassonne. It's another fun German game. Here's a link: It was very fun! Andrew's dad even joined us until about 2am.
The next morning, the Mike and the Hirschy's went golfing and Tanya and I watched the movie The Island. It's an interesting movie. Another link
In the afternoon, we helped pick and shuck corn for dinner.
Mike enjoyed feeding the cows while we were there.
One of the cats had kittens just after our last visit so we played with the 6 week old kittens. They were pretty afraid of people.
I blame Mike for this.
That evening we rode horses! I got the nicest horse. Andrew got the hardest one and was "bucked" uff but not really because he landed on his feet. Mike didn't want to be left out so he got bucked off too--and landed on his back. He's tough though and got back on.
Sunday we went to church and then BBQed and it was fun. The weekend was very relaxing. Sorry it's taken so long to post!
We stayed up until 3am the first night playing a board game called Carcassonne. It's another fun German game. Here's a link: It was very fun! Andrew's dad even joined us until about 2am.
The next morning, the Mike and the Hirschy's went golfing and Tanya and I watched the movie The Island. It's an interesting movie. Another link
In the afternoon, we helped pick and shuck corn for dinner.
Mike enjoyed feeding the cows while we were there.
One of the cats had kittens just after our last visit so we played with the 6 week old kittens. They were pretty afraid of people.
I blame Mike for this.
That evening we rode horses! I got the nicest horse. Andrew got the hardest one and was "bucked" uff but not really because he landed on his feet. Mike didn't want to be left out so he got bucked off too--and landed on his back. He's tough though and got back on.
Sunday we went to church and then BBQed and it was fun. The weekend was very relaxing. Sorry it's taken so long to post!
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Recipes
So, I haven't taken many pictures lately but I have been cooking Mexican food quite a bit. Here are my 2 favorites (this week at least):
Dannon's Enchiladas
Here’s my recipe for my (what I call) enchiladas:
1lb ground beef
½ large onion
1 glass jar of enchilada sauce from Trader Joe’s (divided)
¼ lb. pepper jack cheese
¼ lb. Colby jack cheese
6 large, authentic tortillas from Sunflower Market
Cook ground beef (I season with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper)
Chop the onion in large chunks and add to beef when it only has 1-2 minutes left (I like the onion to be cooked but crunchy at the end)
Shred the cheese together and add half of the cheese mixture to the beef mixture
Add alittle less than ½ of the enchilada sauce to the beef mixture and mix it all together
Pour about 1/8th of a cup of sauce onto the bottom of a 6x6 glass pan and spread it around the bottom (this will help keep the tortillas from sticking)
Spoon 1/6th of the beefy, cheesy, saucy mixture into the first tortilla and roll-place in glass pan
Repeat last step until the pan is full—sometimes I have 1-2 tortillas left over. I usually put the meaty goodness into them and roll them up, seal them with saran wrap and eat them for breakfast)
Empty remaining sauce on top of tortilla mixture
Sprinkle wheeze on top of sauce
Bake at 400 degrees for 12ish minutes (until the sauce is bubbly)
Cut them all in half to make it easier to serve
Enjoy
I gave my enchiladas recipe to a friend and he gave me a yummy, semi-healthy Tortilla Soup recipe:
1 tbs cooking oil
2 pc. Boneless skinless Chicken Breast (But if you like little skin, leave it on)
2 cans Chicken broth
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Garlic Salt
1 white onion (diced)
2 Jalapenos (seeded and sliced)
1/2 cup Cilantro (chopped)
Black pepper
CONDIMENTS
• Sour Cream
• Shredded Cheddar or Mexican cheese
• Authentic plain or salted tortilla chips broken into pieces
o If there is not authentic tortilla chips, plain tortilla chips will do.
• Avocado sliced (Optional)
Slice chicken breast into good bite size pieces.
In a pot on medium-high heat, add the oil and brown the chicken until it loses its opaqueness (Be careful to not let the chicken stick to the pot. This will tear the chicken up).
Add Chicken broth, Rotel, cumin, garlic salt, onion, and Jalapeno. Turn-up the heat until it starts boiling.
Reduce heat to simmer (for about 10 minutes).
Add Cilantro and continue to cook to an additional 10 minutes.
Add fresh cracked pepper to taste.
Enjoy!
Dannon's Enchiladas
Here’s my recipe for my (what I call) enchiladas:
1lb ground beef
½ large onion
1 glass jar of enchilada sauce from Trader Joe’s (divided)
¼ lb. pepper jack cheese
¼ lb. Colby jack cheese
6 large, authentic tortillas from Sunflower Market
Cook ground beef (I season with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper)
Chop the onion in large chunks and add to beef when it only has 1-2 minutes left (I like the onion to be cooked but crunchy at the end)
Shred the cheese together and add half of the cheese mixture to the beef mixture
Add alittle less than ½ of the enchilada sauce to the beef mixture and mix it all together
Pour about 1/8th of a cup of sauce onto the bottom of a 6x6 glass pan and spread it around the bottom (this will help keep the tortillas from sticking)
Spoon 1/6th of the beefy, cheesy, saucy mixture into the first tortilla and roll-place in glass pan
Repeat last step until the pan is full—sometimes I have 1-2 tortillas left over. I usually put the meaty goodness into them and roll them up, seal them with saran wrap and eat them for breakfast)
Empty remaining sauce on top of tortilla mixture
Sprinkle wheeze on top of sauce
Bake at 400 degrees for 12ish minutes (until the sauce is bubbly)
Cut them all in half to make it easier to serve
Enjoy
I gave my enchiladas recipe to a friend and he gave me a yummy, semi-healthy Tortilla Soup recipe:
1 tbs cooking oil
2 pc. Boneless skinless Chicken Breast (But if you like little skin, leave it on)
2 cans Chicken broth
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Garlic Salt
1 white onion (diced)
2 Jalapenos (seeded and sliced)
1/2 cup Cilantro (chopped)
Black pepper
CONDIMENTS
• Sour Cream
• Shredded Cheddar or Mexican cheese
• Authentic plain or salted tortilla chips broken into pieces
o If there is not authentic tortilla chips, plain tortilla chips will do.
• Avocado sliced (Optional)
Slice chicken breast into good bite size pieces.
In a pot on medium-high heat, add the oil and brown the chicken until it loses its opaqueness (Be careful to not let the chicken stick to the pot. This will tear the chicken up).
Add Chicken broth, Rotel, cumin, garlic salt, onion, and Jalapeno. Turn-up the heat until it starts boiling.
Reduce heat to simmer (for about 10 minutes).
Add Cilantro and continue to cook to an additional 10 minutes.
Add fresh cracked pepper to taste.
Enjoy!
Saturday, July 14, 2007
the beach with Caileigh
Sharon and I took Caileigh to the beach today. We went to Montrose beach because it's a pretty quiet beach. It was fun. Caileigh was alittle nervous at first because she had never been on sand before. It didn't take her long to get used to it and she enjoyed running around. She DID NOT want to get in the water though!
Here are some pics.
Here are some pics.
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