Midway airport

Bret and I arrived in chicago for our layover. We called vanya but he's apparently overseas on assignment. We ate lunch and listened in on some strained conversation about religion. Then we went walking and saw this cool sculpture. I'm guessing it's of the local great lake. Anyone know which one? I'd say it is a quiz but the truth is I don't know the name. Anyone? So now we're chilling. We pulled out the gps we borrowed and I showed bret how to use it. His coworker was pretty insistent yesterday that we get one. Luckily I was bottling applesauce with someone I visit teach when bret called a bit worried we really did need one and this woman had one we could borrow. It's rather nice but she only had directions in spanish and french so I had to download the english ones off the internet. I noticed the thing cost 434 back in 2007. Yikes.
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We're off

Bret and I are hanging out at gate b-21. It doesn't get more exciting than that. Really. The excitement begins at 5 tonight when we land in dc and have to drive 2 hours to bret's brother's home. I'll try to keep you all posted while we're exploring the east coast.
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The latest pair

So what do you think? Preferences? I love how quick and easy they all are. I tat while bret reads scriptures out loud.
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more stuff i make

i don't have a photo, because i'm not much of a picture taker.  but i have been busy making other things.  for one - a new style of earring (tatted) that i think i like better.

but also - the stuff that keeps me busiest - is canning.  plum juice last week - that was fun.  anyone know the difference between plum juice and prune juice?  i don't.  it's good stuff if i dilute it a bit with water.  bret thinks it's good stuff if you sugar it up.  so this morning when i was scanning the blog world i was happy to see this post!  it's all about these reusable canning lids.  whoever thought of such a thing?  so of course i entered the giveaway, but i just might have to order my own if i don't win.

other things canned so far this year:  apricots and apricot jam galore, currant jelly, strawberry jam (just freezer style so it doesn't really count as being canned), and now plum jam and plum juice.  if i weren't taking a holiday soon i would probably be canning my grape juice.  i'm hoping to get some applesauce canning in before i leave.  good times i say!

I made them myself!

I'd like to report I just finished making my very first pair of earrings. Jewelry making has always intimidated me, but then I saw this book at the library that gave me courage. It's a book of tatted jewelry. Yep, I tatted these earrings. The hardest part was threading the beads. I think this may have been the simplest project in the book but it sure felt good to do it. Success feels good. I just might try something else.
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Sausage patties

These patties are actually made from powdered milk. Yep. Mixed with hot water and vinegar it turns into cheese. So I mixed the cheese blob with spices and a bit of egg and bean flour then fried it into patties. I actually made five but had to eat one. A bit salty maybe and certainly not greasy but they're good! We're having breakfast for dinner tonight. Now to make pancakes.
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Weed

Anyone recognize this leaf? I found a couple vine like plants in my vegetable garden and have no idea what they are or where they came from. I finally ripped them out since they were thriving so well. That's usually the sign of a weed.

By the way, I found cat poop in my freshly seeded rows of beets. This is why I am intolerant of "pets.". They don't always know whose yard/garden they're using. I wish animal control was more supportive. Maybe it's time I invested in a cat trap.
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The chipmunk

He got right under our feet. Despite the signs telling you not to feed the animals I think it's safe to assume they've been fed plenty.
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The blue jay

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Timp cave hike

Bret and I went on a field trip to timp cave today. Our friend paul invited us and it sounded fun. Well it was fun. But they were sold out on tickets to actually see the cave so we just hiked the trail for fun. Bret and I hiked half way for fun and then rested. We rested while the others kept going. We were entertained by a chipmunk and blue jay. Good times I say. Good times.
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zucchini

one of my good friends started a blog on living more frugally.  recently she recruited another friend to join the effort.  one of the features on the blog is to take an ingredient that you might have too much of (due to a sale, or home garden) and use it in a multitude of delicious ways.  veronica, the new poster, has been posting ways to use zucchini and i commented  that just last night i made chocolate zucchini cake with mine.  she asked for the recipe.  i figured i might as well share it with others.  (p.s. check out tight wad in utah - the blog that not only helps you save money but also eat well.)

my recipe comes from one of my favorite cook books.  it's called "no man knows my pastries" and is a satire on life in utah as much as it is a cookbook.  it's a bit irreverent and i doubt i'll ever share it with my mother in law, but some of the recipes are good and it makes me laugh.  i think you can get it for a cent at amazon.  i bought it at the di about 8 years ago - probably paid a quarter or more for it!  i've made the recipe exactly, but last night i mixed things up a bit.  i'll give you my version (which i tried to make a bit healthier), but feel free to tweak it how you wish.

chocolate zucchini cake (or i like to call it bread so i don't feel guilty eating it for breakfast - like i did today.)
3 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup applesauce
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups zucchini
3 tsp vanilla
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp soda
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup chocolate chips (the original recipe calls for nuts, but i think cc are better than nuts)

beat the eggs, then add oil, applesauce, sugar, vanilla, and zucchini.  blend thoroughly.  add all dry ingredients and blend again.  pour in 2 greased loaf pans that have been sprayed with pam.  ( loaf pans make it look like bread!)  bake at 325 for 1 hour. serve with milk for breakfast.


i did find another recipe on allrecipes that looks good, but i like this one so much and since it came from my cook book that i try to justify owning as a cook book, i choose to use my recipe.

new fans! and a birthday

my blog isn't exactly the hottest spot on the internet but i'm happy to report i have two new fans!  self reported ones.  that sometimes helps since (as i always taught my english students) it's good to know your audience so that when you write you can meet your objective more efficiently.  or something like that.  (can i just say how happy i am NOT to be going back to school this fall?)  one of these new fans is an old high school friend, recently reconnected through the miracle of facebook.  she said she's been enjoying reading my old posts.  i took a day last week to review some of them.  WOW - the past feels so long ago!  i wasn't quite sure what to make of my emotions that came with reading about past relationships, troublesome students, fighting the good fight of getting certified as a highly qualified english teacher, and the random ramblings of my day to day experiences.  i was also reminded of many of my old fans of this blog.  i wonder if i've lost them or if they just don't comment anymore.  hard to say.  life moves on.  sometimes looking back is just weird.  anyway, back to the present!

so, with new fans, i feel i better write something!  i did have a birthday last week.  it was pretty good.  for the next few months i'm officially older than bret.  that makes me feel special but i have to make a concerted effort to remember we're not the same age since he can never remember his age and i have to do it for him.  my bday landed on a great weekend - one of bret's longer ones.  we spent one evening with his parents, one day with my mother and brother, an evening with friends, and then an evening with the neighborhood.  i got to help put on the 7th annual night out against crime for my 'hood.  i got to be in charge of organizing the kids' games.  luckily i have super nice and enthusiastic neighbors who agreed to help.  i also luckily have a good husband who is willing to do anything i ask.  we started working around 4:30 in the afternoon and didn't get home until 11.  bret didn't complain a bit.  he actually may have enjoyed himself.  no, now that i think about it, he said it gave him a lot to think about.  maybe that's like enjoying himself.  our neighborhood isn't exactly "upscale" by any means.  we'd more likely be referred to as the "other side of the tracks" although, the real tracks (for uta trax) are actually about four blocks further west.  but our residents tend to be multinational, limited english speakers, alternative family types.  hmm, this isn't coming out right.  basically there are a lot of rentals in the area.  not to mention the hood has a reputation as being a bit of red light district (at least a few years ago it did).  so anyway, the kids that came to our games weren't exactly polite or well behaved.  neither were the parents.  rules?  what are those?  as bret said, they didn't respond to the word "no."  they didn't respond to anything.  he felt a bit run over by the kids.  not exactly the thing a new husband needs to experience.  it's not like the idea of kids sounds easy breezy anyway!  when we were cleaning up i couldn't help but smile to realize that the people doing all the work were two old women, one middle aged woman and her 10 year old son, one old man and his pregnant daughter and her husband, and then me and bret.  not exactly the sort of crew that can haul tables and chairs for 200 after having worked for three hours setting up, grilling, wrestling kids, and cleaning up.  i was impressed with their fortitude.  i, however, lay on the grass and tried to relax my back as it was causing me some severe pain after all that.  we're thinking next year of hiring the hauling of tables and chairs.  the two old ladies that do most of the work are pretty good at getting donations from businesses, but not so good at getting members of the neighborhood to pitch in.

yep, so that's how i spent my big bday weekend.  the best part was having  a good husband intent on making me happy all weekend.  he let me eat apple currant crisp for breakfast on thursday.  he took me to moochies for lunch on saturday.  and he got me a box of see's.  who could ask for anything more?

apricots and doors

thursday i went apricot picking with two women in my neighborhood.  they're also in my ward, but i met them through my involvement in neighborhood watch.  anyway, they're great women.  i love how they've "adopted" me.  so we went picking.  the tree belonged to a 92 year old woman whose children won't let her climb ladders anymore.  another woman joined us, and i think everyone except me was well over 70.  so i got elected to climb the ladder and get on the roof to pick.  good times i tell you.

so anyway, the rest of the day was spent processing those 30 odd pounds of apricots.  the fun went into friday, as well.  somehow we managed to let a fly in.  by the time we went to bed we finally noticed it.  bret didn't want it annoying us while we slept so we lured it out of the bedroom and then closed the door.  as usual, i needed to use the restroom around 3 a.m.  guess what i did.  yep, i walked right into that closed door.  and bret slept right through my pain!

anyone want some apricot syrup?  syrup is a lot easier to make than jam.  in fact, if you try to make jam, be prepared to embrace the syrup you'll get instead.

food adventures today

sometimes i have days where i cook a ton.  usually it's to use up things going bad in the fridge.  other times i just need to.  today was a combo.  i had avocados that were RIPE.  bret and i have been buying  a ton of them lately because they're on sale.  i'm content to leave them in the fridge and just take a couple out each week.  bret, though, thinks he must have at least five that are ripe all at once so that he can make guacamole. trouble is, guacamole requires tomatoes and i had about five avocados needing to be used today.  luckily i found tomatoes that were cheap (doing price matching through walmart).  but when i got home i decided the tomatoes weren't ripe enough and besides, i'm SICK of guacamole.  he isn't of course, but i'm all about variety and now that he's married to me he has no choice - i thrust variety at him regularly.  so what did i find online?  recipes where you take avocados and turn them into dessert - my type of recipe!  here's a link to bret's favorite (i made him try two).  i highly recommend it.  the other one i made involved a banana.  since bret was willing to let me finish the banana one so he could finish the other, i decided to experiment some more and mix cocoa powder and sugar in.  wow - that was a good idea! 

besides avocado treats i had to bake bread. i also had to make dinner.  my new favorite cookbook, no joke, is "country beans."  i love it so much i bought a copy on amazon.  i think i've tried about five recipes in there and bret loves them all.  in fact, one i've made like three times now he loves it so much.  double in fact, i made that same dish again, today, a double batch!  i had a huge costco size bag of spinach that needed using.  this recipe calls for a pound of fresh spinach.  basically it's spinach with rice and beans all mixed together and held together with beaten egg and cheese on top.  when bret got home he saw it sitting out on the counter and got excited thinking it was for dinner.  but it wasn't.  it was for the freezer.  for dinner we had mashed beans mixed with rice and cottage cheese - all baked together with olives and mushrooms.  i thought it was pretty tasty, but we both agreed it made a better burrito filling than anything.  luckily we had some tortillas (and avocados) and some sour cream and bret was as happy as if i'd fed him the spinach stuff.

but yeah, i'm tired.  my back hurts.  no more kitchen work for me.  at least for tonight.  and tomorrow.  we have plenty of leftovers in the fridge!

Yikes!

This was on my front door when I got home last night. It's big and blue and beautiful in a bug sort of way. Little versions hover around my garden regularly.
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Raspberries

This is my second harvest of the summer. And I think I will get one more. I've made friends with a couple older women in my ward and they are happy to share with me. They also gave me a huge pile of beet greens last month and a zucchini today!
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fried ice cream

i have many things i've intended to blog about, but today i did something that got me on the computer right away - no more blogging procrastination.  i made fried ice cream.  sort of.  for some reason i've been subscribing to a blog about raw foods.  it gives a menu for a day (including recipes) to show you how you can eat raw foods for under 10 dollars a day.  10 dollars is still a lot in my world and the servings are all a bit small, but it's fun to see how foods can go together in new ways.  well, today i tried one of the recipes!  it's for fried ice cream.  but since this is a raw foods blog, there's actually no cooking involved.  since raw foods people are all about organic type ingredients i'll admit i cheated.  i'm not that gung ho.  i had three bananas in my freezer so i took it as a sign that i could do it.  since i didn't have "cacao" and wasn't totally sure what that was, i just took a couple hand fulls of chocolate chips.  i threw in a bit of salt and ground it to death in my four cup cuisinart food processor i got for my wedding.  it was pretty runny so i threw the whole mess in an empty ice cube tray to let it "set up."  after an hour or two i mixed up 3 tablespoons of ground flax, 1 tablespoon of sweetened coconut flakes (since that's what i have in the freezer), a dash or two of cinnamon and a bit of a dash of cayenne powder.  i mixed it together in a bowl.  then i took my banana mixture cubes and took two at a time, mushing them together in my hands to make a big ball.  then i rolled the ball in the flax mixture and stuck it on a plate.  i did a couple cubes by themselves (making smaller balls) but decided i may not have enough flax mixture for that, plus that would have taken longer and i was afraid of my banana stuff melting - it was already getting soft.  i didn't bother drizzling anything over the top of them, i just ate them straight.  well, i only ate the two small cubes so far, but i don't plan to drizzle anything over the other guys.  i'm hoping bret doesn't care for them.  they sure are good though!  i figure anything made out of chocolate chips and bananas can't be all that bad.

Decorating

So yesterday I tried some visual home improvement besides the usual cupboard organization. This was my favorite.
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treats

i hate to say this, but i eat treats. i have a basket where i put any candy passed my way (christmas usually brings some) and gum i can't help but buy. i'm a bit of a new gum flavor lover. anyway, this basket comes in handy - just a bit too high to always be in my face, but when i need a treat i know where to find it. maybe some day i'll put healthy treats in there for a kid or something, but for now, i just like to eat stuff out of it. my favorite is the bag of cashews. the good husband also likes them. i've been tempted to get rid of the basket all together. i tell myself it's part of decluttering and saving myself some calories. what do you all think?

experiments

so i've been experimenting with making my own yogurt.  i love yogurt and i love being frugal and i love knowing what ingredients are in my food.  not that i always follow those rules (the frugal and ingredient knowing) but it makes me happy when i do it.  so i've read a lot about making your own yogurt.  i've tried it.  in fact, i've tried it three times.  all were successful, but last night's was the best.  the first time i tried it i used a hot pad and number 10 can to insulate and warm it (can't find the site i used for direction).  i failed to realize my heating pad would go off periodically, though, and it took longer than i'd intended.  also that technique only made one quart.  last week i made it using the crock pot.  that technique may have been my worst, but there were a few factors that played into its failure.  i shouldn't say failure, it just wasn't ideal. anyway, last night i tried the cooler technique.  this was the most successful, but it was also the longest i've cultured it - pretty much 12 hours.  last night's was a double success because i made plain yogurt and greek style.  the greek one was just a starter i got when smith's was doubling coupons so basically i got a cup of yoplait greek yogurt for free.  i'd tried greek before with the crock pot, but my store bought cup of yogurt was near expiration and i think i cooled the milk too much. i didn't use a thermometer.  i liked last night's technique because it incorporated a thermometer.  by the way, i always just use powdered milk since i have a lot of it on hand.

at this very moment i have my plain yogurt mixed with some failed strawberry freezer jam in my cuisinart ice cream maker.  hooray for ice cream treats whenever i want!  i'm excited to see how the frozen yogurt turns out.  there's plenty of sugar in there from my failed jam, though, to make it decently unhealthy in case you were concerned.  and no, there's no story in the failed jam.  just that it's come in very handy for mixing into our breakfast oatmeal along with a banana or two.  i think i may fail at jam more often - no guilt about using it up.