Mom to the rescue

My wonderful mom came flying to my rescue last week. I was dreading the week because Scott was leaving for Houston to attend classes for work. Which meant me being at our apartment, alone, no job to keep me busy, and no friends to keep me company. (Just so you know, I love the ward out here so far. They're awesome. But Scott and I are literally the only young married couple and also the only couple without at least 3 kids. We're clearly in a different stage of life then everyone else.) So needless to say, I was getting a bit of anxiety about Scott leaving. My mom could tell and bought a plane ticket and stayed with me for the week. It was fantastic.

I know. I have the best mom.

It was so fun having her out here and having our first visitor! 

We of course had to spend a day in the city of New Orleans. The live jazz music was excellent and the mardi gras masks were very entertaining!

Mom's mask with the beds hanging down under her eyes kills me every time! haha it's such an awesome mask. And so jeanie. 

We found an impressive living statue. Mom snuck up behind him for a picture!

We had to try out Cafe Du Monde while we were there. They only serve beignets and drinks and it's a cash only business but their beignets are delicious! mmmm 

I realized that I never feel claustrophobic while inside the French Quarter but as soon as I step out, I take a huge inhale as if I can finally breathe. Everything is so tight inside there. 

But I do love the Spanish architecture.

Now for some history provided by the mug I bought: "New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Jean Baptiste La Moyne Sieur de Bienville of France. New Orleans changed from French to Spanish then back to French control before being sold to the United States in 1803. During Spanish rule (1762-1800) two fires destroyed most of the French Quarter. Rebuilding was done in the Spanish style with wrought iron balconies, this is why the dominant architectural style is Spanish not French."

Next stop was a ride on the streetcars. The St. Charles line ventures through the uptown neighborhoods and must also be one of the parade routes for Mardi Gras considering the ridiculous amount of beads hanging from every tree and many telephone lines. (Can you see all the beads in that tree?) The houses we passed though were gorgeous.

Audubon Park is this amazing area full of huge oak trees, ponds, fountains, open green space, and a trail that has a 2 mile loop.

You may also come across a man sitting on a bench playing his saxophone, serenading the park.

Such a great find! I need to go back and walk through the park some more. So glad I was able to have my mom there with me! She kept me sane and we had a great time. It was all in all, a relaxing, fun week. 

Stuffed Chicken Breasts Italiano

I'm trying to cook more meals while I'm living at home. I have time, I don't have to pay for the ingredients, and I don't have to cook for just one person. It's a win win situation. Here's what I tried out yesterday.
Stuffed Chicken Breasts Italiano and Bloomin' Onion Bread.

I was slightly uncertain about how things would turn out as I was preparing the main dish. But it was really good actually. And easy.

Stuffed Chicken Breasts Italiano

 4 lg skinless, boneless chicken breasts

salt and pepper to taste

8 oz. container ricotta cheese 

2 T each of chopped ripe olives, Italian parsley, and chopped onion

1/4 tsp. garlic salt

1 can Prego pasta sauce

1 C. shredded mozzarella cheese

1 pkg. (12 oz) fettuccine pasta, cooked and drained

Carefully slit a lengthwise "pocket" in each chicken breast, starting at the thick side, and cutting approximately 3/4 of the way through the width of each breast. Season the inside and outside of each breast with salt and pepper. Meanwhile, combine ricotta cheese with olives, parsley, onion and garlic salt. Place approximately 1/4 C. of this filling into the pocket of each chicken breast. Arrange stuffed chicken breasts in a 9X13 baking pan and cover with pasta sauce. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until chicken is done. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over top; return to oven for 2-3 minutes or until cheese melts. Serve on fettuccine pasta, garnished with sprigs of Italian parsley, if desired. 

So the recipe said it serves 4 but that's only if you each eat one of those huge chicken breasts. I'm going to say it feeds more around 8 people or so. 

The Bloomin' Onion Bread recipe was found here at this site. I'm not really a fan of sourdough bread but this was fantastic. We didn't use poppy seeds and it turned out just fine. The trick though is cutting the bread. It's a pain. Also serving it proves slightly tricky but eventually everyone just rips pieces off for themselves. 

Cake Making

If you don't already know this about me then just understand that sometimes I look at something and decide that I could probably do that if I tried. So I do. Example. Example. Example. Example. Example. Example.
Guess what I've gotten my hands into now?
Cake Decorating.
Yup.

I made my first attempt cake yesterday night/today.

Crumb coating. 

I didn't have the right size of coupler but I didn't realize that until it was already in the bag with frosting... So duck tape came into the rescue to help me with the piping. 

Are you slightly impressed? 

I feel good about this being my first decorative cake. Granted the frosting is kind of messy looking, but this was my very first time piping frosting. 

I found the idea for the decorating here and decided that since those flowers are pretty forgiving, it would be a good first attempt idea.

Frosting recipe was a Buttercream Icing which was really good. But the recipe hardly makes any. Of course I used a ton for the flowers but with one batch it wasn't enough for the filling and crumb coating, let alone adding all the flowers on top.

The cake was a Hersey's Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake recipe which was really good and moist. I obviously didn't use their chocolate frosting but I think it turned out well in the end.

It was a really fun experiment! I would love to take some classes though, just the basics so I'm not stumbling around like a chicken with its' head cut off. There are so many details!! What kind of cake? What kind of filling? What frosting? Colored? What decorations? If you want the flowers to harden then it's one recipe, if you want them to soften up then it's another. What freaking frosting recipe is good?! What tip to use for piping? Remember how painting is a complete art and science all it's own? Cooking decorative cakes is exactly the same way. There is so much that goes into planning a cake.

Cookie Cups

Great idea yes? I know, that's exactly what I thought. And let's just look how how easy this is. I mean, cookie dough, back of muffin pan, cook, peel off, stick some ice cream in there, done! So my friends and I decided to try it. 

First piece of advice: always start with less. 

I think you'll understand what I mean when you check out the next picture. 

It kind of turned into a ridiculous mess. 

And it didn't come off the pan very well at all. 

So we ate cookie crumbles and ice cream in a normal paper bowl. 

My second piece of advice: do not put on the oven cleaner if you have big chunks of cookie dough sitting in the bottom. 

Yeah, that's what we did. And there were flames inside the oven. And tons of smoke billowing out of the oven sides. I sat there questioning if that was normal. It wasn't. No worries nothing horrible happened. We canceled the oven cleaner and I cleaned it out this morning. No harm done. Next time I'll just try things a little bit differently. 

Spaghetti Limone Parmeggiano

Found this recipe the other day and decided to try it out. This is the second time I've made it and I'm still loving it. 

 First, start cooking the meat (I added meat to the recipe, much better), and get the noodles boiling. 

 Next we make the sauce, composed of basically lemon zest and juice, Parmesan cheese, pepper, salt and extra virgin olive oil.

The cheese will melt and turn into more of a paste once you add the pasta and pasta water. 

Once the sauce has been made, we add the chicken and pasta. 

Sprinkle in some fresh basil leaves. 

And finish! You have a delicious chicken/pasta dish. Honestly it tastes so light and fresh. It makes me picture warm, warm summer days with an ice cold lemonade. 

Spaghetti Limone Parmeggiano
3/4 box of spaghetti (I used either fettuccine or linguine. I just like thicker pasta.)
Coarse salt
1 lemon
1 1/2 cups finely grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 1/2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
3-5 Tbsp. pasta water, to thin sauce
Handful fresh basil leaves
Chicken (I added the chicken into the recipe and just cook up whatever amount I think works, but cut into bite sized pieces).

1. Boil spaghetti in salted boiling water (DON'T TOSS OUT PASTA WATER) and start cooking chicken in olive oil.
2. Grate zest from lemon into large mixing bowl (not a lot of zest). Cut lemon in half and squeeze juice into bowl (again very little).
3. Add Parmesan cheese, pepper, and a pinch of salt, mix in olive oil to form a wet paste.
4. Once pasta is cooked add 2-3 Tbsp. of cooking water to lemon/cheese mixture. Add spaghetti and chicken to bowl, adding more cooking water if necessary. Stir.
5. Roughly tear in basil leaves.
6. Serve with a sprinkle of salt, pepper and few gratings of extra Parmesan cheese.

Chef-ness

So sometimes I like to try out new things. Well, okay really I try out new things quite a bit. The new thing that I tried out was cooking with my roommate. (Yes I do normally cook, it's not like this was my first time.) But we searched for recipes from different countries, and Switzerland was the winner! We made Rippli which is pork loin ribs that are cooked with potatoes, bacon, carrots, cabbage, celery, tomatoes...just flat out goodness.

Me and one of my wonderful roommates: Becca (p.s. she knows what she's talking about when it comes to cooking. I was her little grasshopper pupil.)

Doesn't that look delicious? Allow me to inform you that it was. 

We also decided to make a dessert, Swiss of course. We made Schokolade Kuchen which is chocolate cake. Can I just say that it was the most bizarre chocolate cake that I've ever made. There was absolutely NO flour involved. Weird. But it was delicious. It definitely has more of a dark chocolate side, but don't worry if you're not a huge fan of dark chocolate. The powder sugar frosting will make up for the lack of sweetness.

I like us and our cooking ideas. Hopefully we get in a few more recipes before the end of the semester. 

For details on how these recipes were made check out our apartment blog. www.stepintotheden.blogspot.com. I'm sure we'll get the post up there in a couple days or so. 

Dear Future

So I was going to tell you all about how I found a song with my name in it! But my roommate told the story in a much better fashion so I will share hers, which you can find at our apartment's blog! It really is a fantastic song, and I love it.

So this semester I discovered another something for my future husband. Remember this? Well, another thing that's going to happen along with reading aloud, is hair brushing. My poor roommate made the mistake of brushing my hair one night and I've become addicted and she now brushes my hair at least a couple times a week. How have I gone my whole lifetime without having someone just brush my hair for a lovely amount of time?! It just astounds me that I've gone so long without this joy. So in my futuristic mind, my husband gets to brush my hair while I read aloud. I know, it'll be fantastic. I hope he's alright with all this.

Do you want to know what I'm going to do when I get rich? I'm going to buy amazing ingredients so I can cook fantastic food. The movie Julie and Julia is definitely inspiring and has made me want to find a cookbook and make every recipe in there. The only problem is that all those great recipes are much past my budget. So this will all be happening once I actually have money.
Except today, my roommate found a wonderful little cookbook at the D.I. which we plan to make some good use of this last half of the semester. It's called the Avon International Cookbook. Exciting yes? Quite.

Day 23 and 24

Sorry, yesterday was a busy day.
A photo of something that has made a huge impact on your life recently.

Day 24

A Recipe

The best cake ever: Chocolate - Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake

1 box yellow cake mix

1/2 cup sugar

4 eggs

1 small choc. pudding, instant

3/4 cup water

Mix ingredients gently. Do not over stir. Then add:

1/2 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

3/4 C. sour cream

Fold these two ingredients in and pour in bundt pan sprayed with pam (or to be safe, cover with crisco and then light layer of flour). Bake for 45 minutes at 325 degrees. Let cool slightly before getting cake out of bundt pan. Add glaze on top.

Glaze:

2 T. butter

1 sq. unsweetened chocolate

1 C. powder sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla

2 T. hot water

Melt butter and chocolate and add remaining ingredients. Let drizzle over cake. 

Day 10

A photo that makes me happy.
(Sorry I am a lover of photography so I couldn't just pick one photo.)

My adorable cousin Mia. Makes me smile every time.

Crepes make my soul happy.

One word: Fantastic

Cooking

My lovely sister Heather has become quite a little homemaker now that she's married. I make fun of her constantly, but I hate to admit it, but it's effectively rubbing off on me. Evidenced by my headbands, and now the fact that I made bread this morning.
I love cooking.
And bread makes an apartment smell divine.

They ended up being a retarded shape. I know circles aren't my specialty. I don't know if they're supposed to be that floury either. Oh well.

The edges are always eaten, dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

And of course the rest goes to my panini sandwiches (I'm addicted). Pesto sauce, turkey, swiss cheese (or havarti cheese), turkey, avocado, baby spinach leafs if you have them, and pesto sauce. Amazing panini.

Some Things

There are only 4 weeks left in this semester... scary. I think the class that scares me the most is english. ha compared to anat and phys you must think how? But at least for now, the final paper that we're suppose to work on all semester... yes I have barely done anything for it. Oh I have my topic no worries, but even my topic is a little daunting. My teacher wanted us to write about something in our field that we're going into. Some argumentative issue that we can write about. Let me just tell you that in the field of radiology there aren't too many huge debates going on that are really worth a papers worth of research. But I did find one where they've been debating the use of the functional MRI verses the Wada Test for pre-surgical tests in the brain. So interesting to me, but the dang medical language in the articles are daunting! I have to dissect each term to figure out what they're actually saying, and somehow I have to transfer that into a paper and make it understandable to people who have no knowledge of the field AND make it interesting?! My friend keeps teasing about how much of a 'page turner' my papers gonna be... Yeah I'm worried.

In Anatomy and Physiology we've been learning the muscles. And I've been introduced into a new way of studying.

Penning out the muscle names on my legs! It honestly works wonders. People gave me weird looks, but now when I hear the muscle name I can look at my leg and see where it would be if it was still written. Don't worry I'm not cheating and I got all the pen off before church.

So a problem we've been coming across in our apartment is that we often forget we have food in the fridge. It leads to horrible discoveries like this...

Yeah I'm disgusted too don't worry. We had to throw away a few other dishes along with the cake. Any salad that I buy seems to get gross at a much faster rate than it ever did at home. I've given up buying salad for the time being until I know I'm going to eat the whole bag before it goes bad.

Aubrey is still being Aubrey. I love rooming with my cousin. We are both just layed back about things so it's really easy to live with her. Next semester we're moving up to Royal Crest with 4 new roommates! It's nice to live with people you know and I'll be sad not to live with my girls right now, but I like being in new situations, new people, new ward... bring it.

We always seem to encounter one problem or another when baking cookies. Either too big so they squish up against each other making square cookies, or not enough chocolate chips...resulting in cookies with one sad lonely chocolate chip.

Ashley came into town last weekend and stayed with us before AFY so we took her to the sand dunes! And I think colorful sunglasses are the best. They're legit.

I think my favorite song overall this semester is Something Good Can Work: by Two Door Cinema Club.