Washington in June

I was taking a few pics of our new bed frame (that we purchased from Ikea when they were having a "dine for free when you buy something" deal), when I found some pictures from a trip that Dillon and I took up to Washington in June this past summer for my youngest brother's priesthood ordination (I can't believe he's twelve). Also, that was quite the lengthy sentence.

While in my beloved Washington, we watched a lot of league baseball and squeezed in a trip out to Bill's Berry Farm. I'm tellin ya, those Washington farmers know their stuff.  We picked the best berries (both blue and rasp) in record time because the bushes were loaded.  It almost became a 'Blueberries for Sal' type situation with Geoff eating a few more berries than made it into the pail ;)

But before that we started our day getting giant donuts and taking them to the river (inside joke to during a Turkey Trot warm up when Teresa thought that the song was saying, "Donuts at the river!!" instead of "Don't upset the rhythm!!" and was very confused when she couldn't find the donuts at the end of the race).

 Seriously, the things are huge.  The little red ones to the right are actual size donuts, the pink frosted ones are the gigantor ones.

 Dillon will be such a hands on dad someday ;) jk jk he really will be.

 And now a series of derpy pics of my bros walking to me.

 At least Dillon can strut.

 And here we are, at the farm.  Dillon thought I kept saying Billsbury Farm (like Pillsbury ha).

 Country decor, I guess.

Such good prices and so easy to pick, too!

 Rows and rows of berrrrrrrries!!

 It was so easy to just grab a handful while walking by. 

 Full bucket in no time flat.

 And the raspberries were the same.

 No back breaking labor here, only easy stuff.

 Our spoils.

 Goodness

 More goodness

Only one teensy cloud in the sky.

And then we make this awesome blueberry breakfast cake with our pickings.

I wish it were early summer again already...

Creamy Tortellini Soup with Spinach

It's getting cooler outside, and despite not liking it, I like the idea of all the food that comes with this next season (food is the best part of every season, am I right?). Though I'm not a huge soup eater unless the soup actually fills me up and doesn't leave me wanting to snack the rest of the evening, fall is pretty much the perfect time to start having soup.

This is a recipe I tried out last winter when we were doing yoga dinner nights with some friends. It actually does feel like you ate a meal after finishing it (woooo).  I adapted it from this recipe from BHG since I didn't feel like it had enough flavor--the smoked paprika is what really makes this a recipe I like. It was the very first recipe I pinned on Pinterest and I'm getting tired of scrolling down past alllllll the other things I've pinned now that I've got a substantial stock of recipes to try out, hence the blog post.

Without further ado:

Pic from BHG

Creamy Tortellini Soup with Spinach

4 Tbsp butter
6 Tbsp flour
2 c milk
2 c water
2 c chicken broth
1 8 oz package mushrooms sliced
1 small onion chopped (or half a large onion)
4 cloves garlic minced
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp celery salt
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1 7 oz package dried tortellini
1 12 oz can evaporated milk
5 cups fresh baby spinach
shredded parmesan cheese (optional)

Melt the butter in a big pot, add flour, and stir until smooth paste forms.  Add in all the liquids in their 2 c increments, stir until smooth.  Add in sliced mushrooms, chopped onion, and spices; add pepper to taste. Simmer for 10 mins then add dried tortellini.  Continue to simmer until the tortellini is cooked, about 20-30 mins. Add evaporated milk, simmer for 5 more mins.  Remove from heat, stir in spinach. Serve with shredded parmesan if desired.

If you want it thicker, add more flour at the beginning.  Also, next time I am going to try cream added at the beginning with the other liquids rather than evaporated milk at the end.  

Food lately from my Instagram

It seems that I can only find the creative juices to post a picture to instagram if it involves buying, making, or eating food.  I just love food, so sue me.  And because I love it so much I figured I should share it in the best way that I can.  

If it were possible to send the food I make to each of the people who like it, you know I'd be clogging up the direct message feed sending tasty messages straight to those inboxes.  But since no one has invented that transporter thing from Willie Wonka yet, the best option I've got is to post the links to the recipes I've used and let you make the food yourselves.  I just went back through my instagram and chose a few of the things I've made and liked.  Let me know if there is something you want a recipe for that I left out.  

I make a few changes to some of the recipes, but feel free to ignore my little notes! Happy baking/cooking!

 Buttermilk Blueberry Breakfast cake (b/c cake for breakfast is ideal)

 Grilled Balsamic Garlic Pork Tenderloin

 Sour Cream Doughnuts

 I don't really follow a recipe for a roasted chicken.  I just mix some spices, parsley, and minced garlic in some softened butter and then smear that under the skin, on the skin, and in the cavity, then roast on a bed of potatoes, carrots, and onions for and hour and a half at 375*. Toward the end I turn up the heat to make the skin crispy. 

 Chocolate raspberry tart

 Bang Bang Shrimp!!! Personal favorite.  The things I change for this are: Instead of just adding the  sriracha, I do that AND use 1/4 c of sweet chili thai sauce.  For the breading, I cut back on the breadcrumbs and use cornstarch instead of flour.

 This one isn't really a recipe.  You just wrap 'lil smokies in bacon (usually half a pack of bacon to the smaller pack of smokies), cover in brown sugar (seriously, the more the better), and then bake at 375* for 30 mins. 

 This is my favorite regular chocolate chip cookie recipe and it is none other than the Nestle recipe ha. (anyone else picturing Phoebe from Friends saying "Nestle Tollhouse"?)

And these cinnamon rolls are made the regular way with my father-in-law's roll recipe.

 

1 TBS yeast

1/4 C warm water

1 C milk

1/4 C butter 

1/4 C sugar

1 tsp salt

1 egg

4-6 C flour

Add yeast to warm water, let blossom (aka let it sit for about 5 min until it becomes frothy).  Add butter to milk and then microwave for 1 min.  Stir until butter has melted, add sugar and salt, mix, then add egg.  Add 1 C flour and mix well.  Add milk/flour mixture to yeast. Add flour 1 C at a time until dough is soft but not sticky.  Let rise in a greased bowl until doubled in size.  Punch down, *shape, let rise until almost doubled. 

*To shape (now, this is my method and I like it, but do whatever method you know and like best)

Roll out dough to make a rectangle.  Spread up to 1/2 c of softened butter on dough.  Spread 1 c brown sugar over butter and press in.  Sprinkle with cinnamon.  While leaving dough unrolled and laying flat on the counter, use a pizza cutter to cut the dough into strips width-wise.  Once all the strips have been cut, roll them up one by one and seal the edge well. Place spaced apart on cookie sheet (12 per sheet like you would cookies). It may seem silly but I just like the shape they turn out when I roll them separately and space them out.  

Bake at 375* for 12-15 mins 

Being cultured and the like

Sometimes I beg Dillon to take me on dates and he obliges by taking me to Hawaii (he sure set the bar high with that one).  But sometimes he switches it up and listens to all my prodding that I want to go to museum-y, cultured type stuff and gets tickets to an event that I've emailed him deals about.

One of these such deals included going to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is an exhibit on loan at the Leonardo in Salt Lake City.  Its purpose was to share the culture of one of the oldest areas in the world through the  Dead Sea Scrolls and ONE MILLION PIECES OF POTTERY.  Seriously though, it was a TON of pottery, a few other clay artifacts, and then a few fragments of papyrus/parchment.

But those scroll fragments were very cool to look at and learn about.  There was a video explaining how they were found and what the scientists (or professors, or whoever else handled them) did when they got them back to labs.  They had to sift through dirt and dung to get the pieces and then had a huge puzzle ahead of them to figure out which fragments went together; out of 1,300 possible scrolls!!

But before we went to the exhibit we stopped by a Belgian waffle place, called Bruges, for dinner.  They serve a few sandwiches and THE BEST WAFFLE OF MY LIFE.  Seriously, I talked about it the whole time I ate the waffle and for days afterward.  I mean, it was a sugar waffle with chocolate in it, how could you go wrong?

So anyway, back to the exhibit.  You were only allowed to take pics of a few things because of the damage that light could do to the artifacts so we only have a few grainy pictures this round.

 Bruges, home of the waffle that I love

Said waffle

Just reading up about pottery

 Here is one of thousands of pots in the exhibit

 This guy was as surprised as we were about all the pottery

But really, look at all the work that went into piecing the pottery together.  That was broken into so many pieces before they put it back together. And that's pretty much all they let people take pictures of.

And then there's this, surprise! haha  I found a new app the other day.  Hours of entertainment right there.

In Which I Bake

I don't really use one specific recipe for when I make something.  I usually spend way too much time scouring the internet for the perfect combo of ingredients look up a few recipes and combine them into one that has all the elements that I like (or specific ingredients that I have on hand), or use certain tried and true recipes in things I want to make.  That is what I did with the cinnamon swirl bread that I made recently.

I used Dillon's current favorite roll recipe which I found on Pinterest--and modified to my liking--(original recipe here from A Bear in the Kitchen) and just added a bunch of sugar to it once I rolled it out. 

For the dough:

1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon warm water
1 1/2 tablespoon yeast
1 cups milk, warmed
1/2 cup canola oil 
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
5 - 5 1/2 cups flour

For the filling:

1/2 c room temperature butter
1 c sugar (I used half white, half brown)
3 TBS cinnamon
a dash of nutmeg

In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with dough hook, combine warm water and yeast. Let sit for a few minutes until foamy.  Microwave milk for 1 minute to warm. Add to warmed milk the canola oil, eggs, sugar and salt; mix. Add mixture to yeast in mixing bowl and stir to combine.  Add flour in one cup increments and mix. Add 1/4 - 1/2 cup more flour if needed to form a soft dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Knead with dough hook on medium high speed for 5 minutes. Remove dough, form into a ball, and place in an oiled bowl. Allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 1 1/2 - 2 hours.



This is when I started taking pictures :)

 Punch down dough and turn onto a lightly floured surface.  Divide in to two equal parts.  Roll out each to the width of your bread pan and the length according to how many swirls you want; the longer and thinner the roll out, the more swirls.

 
Once rolled out, spread the softened butter onto the dough and sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar mixture.  Roll up tightly from the short side and place seam side down into a well greased bread pan.

Let rise for about 45 mins.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 mins.

 Let cool (if you can) and enjoy!!

Shout Out

Shout out!!!

To my mother Teresa for getting me a Kitchen-aid for Christmas and then letting me have it a month and a half early so I can bake delicious things for myself others.

To Costco for having Kitchen-aids on sale.

To winter for not being that bad...yet.

To Allison for being here over the holiday break and doing things with me like eating food and going to the temple.

To my fridge for (mostly) keeping things fresh so I can eat food.

To my garbage for graciously receiving all the things my fridge rejected.

To Dillon for leaving his TV at my apt so I can watch things like Harry Potter while everyone is gone.

To Dillon, again, for calling me before his boat set sail so I could hear his voice one last time before he was out of range for one whole day. ;)

To Amazon for remembering that I had a $12 gift card balance and for giving me free, super fast shipping.  

To my oven for cooking my snickerdoodles juuuuuuuust right. 

To my Christmas lights for being sparkly. 

To Delta Airlines for flying me home to my family tomorrow night!

WOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Thanksgiving!!

So naturally, since it's been over a month since Thanksgiving happened I have you all desperate to know how mine was.  Well, I will tell you.  It was FABulous.  Mostly because I had two and because Dillon came home with me (not his first time meeting my fam or coming home with me, so no need to freak out errybody ;)).

The first was with all three of the Relief Societies in our ward.  Our high councilman's wife (and him too I guess) owns a restaurant that she now uses as an event center for cute things like book clubs and tea parties and etiquette lessons and Thanksgiving dinners for RS sisters.  It is such a cute little place to have dinner.  It had tables set up everywhere.  One was the kid table she uses for the little girl tea parties and guess who got to sit there? :) 

We all brought a side and she provided the turkey.  She also made this AMAZING stuffing that had pine nuts in it.  Pine nuts!  It was all sooooo good!

My second Thanksgiving was at home.  Dillon and I drove up Wednesday morning, leaving early enough to take Allison to the airport.  We got there just in time to play a joke on Matt who thought that we were flying in later that night. 

Then we went to Costco to get everything else we needed for the next day (including samples). 

We woke up early Thursday morning and Teresa got the turkey in the roaster before we headed out for our annual Turkey Trot run.  We saw a few interesting hats, stood around for a long time, and then ran.  It was good. 

My sister, unfortunately, had to work at 2 that day so we wanted to have an earlier Thanksgiving than normal.  We started cooking when we got home and only took breaks to go get cleaned up.  All the food was the healthy and made from scratch version of your normal Thanksgiving food and it was delicious! Best Thanksgiving to date!  My fav was the Brussels sprouts :)

Food, food, I love food

I love thinking about it and then making it and then EATING it.  I also love eating food with people.  It is such a social event where you can talk and share ideas, concerns, or whatever happened to you recently.  Most of the time, laughing ensues.   

My favorite time of day is from the hours of making food to eating it (typically from 4-7ish).  WHAT am I going to do when I get to heaven and there's no more eating?

So, let me share with you a current favorite recipe I've been making quite frequently.  It involves squash and makes me feel healthy.And the colors are pretty, so win win really.

Now, there are one bajillion stuffed acorn squash recipes out there, but this one is my fav. The filling includes pork sausage, onions, cranberries, and spinach.

 Cut up the squash from top to bottom, like so. (btw, do my hands really look like that...?)

 Scrape out all the seeds, pumpkin carving style.

 Lay them cut side down in a pan with a little bit of water and bake at 375* for an hour.

(This is when I decided I didn't want to take a pic of every.single.step and I remembered that this isn't a cooking blog, despite how much I talk about food, so I don't have to!)

 Saute onions and pork sausage, throw into a bowl and add cranberries, spinach, an egg, bread crumbs, and a little bit of milk. Mix it all up.

 Stuff it into the cooked squash halves and bake again for 15 min.

Bam, you're done.  Eat it on up!