First night out in YEARS

So last night I went out for a friend's birthday party in SLC. It was a blast. We went to a dueling piano bar, and it was so much fun! The pianists knew so many songs and people would make requests, so the music was so many different genre's. Anyway, I haven't gone out with friends for so long. It was really nice to have the break from my kids. I love how I don't need to leave them for long for me to miss them and "renew" my appreciation and love for them. So, this morning when I woke up, it was great to see their smiling little faces and cuddle with them.
So, thank you to my wonderful husband to hanging out with them pretty much all day and letting me go out to celebrate my friend, Carole's, birthday. I love you so much. Next time though, I'm dragging you out with me!! No pulling the old man card, I won't take no for an answer. ;)

Sliced my finger WIDE open

So last night while I was making dinner and washing off my cutting board between chopping up some things, I made the mistake of running my ring finger on my right hand down my VERY sharp chef's knife. Lots of blood, and a few whispered cuss words (my children were hanging out in the kitchen with me) and John was heading to the bathroom to get me hydrogen peroxide and a bandaid. Turns out, the bandaid was not enough. I soaked through it in a minute. Haha. So, I went to gauze and tape, which also were soaked through, but slowed the bleeding down, switched the gauze out again after I finished cooking dinner, and taped it up like a mummy.
This AM I looked down and noticed (after cooking breakfast) that the bleeding had started again. So, took off the gauze, cleaned it up again, and put on a clear bandaid (it's pretty rad) really tight. The bleeding has stopped. So, now I just need to keep my fingers crossed that I don't need to go get stitches. I REALLY don't want stitches. My pulse quickens just thinking about it. :( Ha. I know, I'm a pansy.
Anyway, really sucks. Especially when I forget and try to type with that finger.

Samosas with Mint Dipping Sauce

Some people have been asking about my vast collection of recipes lately, so, I've decided to start posting them as often as I can on here to basically put my collection online for all of you to access. I'm also organizing all the past blogs to make it easier to search for what you're looking for! Thanks everyone for reading this and keeping up with me and my beautiful little family. XOXO

SAMOSAS WITH MINT DIPPING SAUCE

Ingredients

• 1 large potato (about 1/2 a pound, use 2 if needed), peeled and diced
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO)
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 jalapeño pepper, seeds and stem removed, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons fresh ginger (about a half-inch piece), grated
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 plum tomato, seeded and finely chopped
• 1/4 cup frozen peas, thawed
• 1/4 cup vegetable stock, a little more or a little less to loosen filling
• 2 tablespoons (about a palmful) fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1 package (2 9-inch rounds) store-bought, raw pie dough
• 1 egg, beaten with a splash of water
  
  
  For the Mint-Cilantro Dipping Sauce:
• 3 to 4 cloves garlic
• 1 one-inch piece of ginger
• 1 bunch fresh mint, leaves removed from stems
• 1 bunch fresh cilantro, leaves removed from stems
• 1 jalapeño pepper, seeds and stem removed
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• Salt
• Juice of 2 limes
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO)

Yields: 4 servings of 4 samosas each

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Cook the potatoes in a large saucepan of boiling, salted water until tender, about 3-5 minutes. Drain and reserve in the same pot you cooked them in.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, add EVOO. Add onion and cook until soft, about 3-4 minutes, then add jalapeño, ginger, garlic, coriander seeds, curry powder, cumin, allspice, cinnamon, and salt and freshly ground black pepper, and cook about 2-3 minutes. Stir in the drained potatoes, tomato, peas, and cilantro and cook another minute. If the filling seems too thick, add a splash or two of vegetable stock. Remove from the heat and let cool.

On a lightly floured surface, unroll both doughs. Cut each dough round into 8 equal wedges, like a pizza so you have 16 long wedges.

Spoon 1 teaspoon of the potato filling onto the middle of each wedge. Brush the edges of the dough with egg wash and fold up, bringing the three points up to each other, then pinching at the seams to form a small pyramid. Brush the outside of each samosa with egg wash and transfer to a baking sheet. Bake 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.

While the samosas are in the oven, prepare the dipping sauce: Place garlic and ginger in the food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add the mint, cilantro, jalapeño, sugar, salt and lime juice, and puree until ground. Add water and EVOO, pulse to combine.

Serve up the samosas with the dipping sauce alongside.

Fire Safety

Thank you Groupon.com for this dose of laughter this Wednesday morning:

For as long as matches have existed, so has fire. If you suspect that your house may be aflame, stay safe by following these simple steps:

S-M-O-K-E

S: Search for the source. The only way to protect yourself is to be informed.
M: Measure the diameter of the fire. The firemen need this for their records.
O: Open a window next to the flames so that a stiff breeze might blow the fire out.
K: Kiss all of your favorite possessions. You won't have time to take them with you.
E: Escape up the chimney (the last place a fire would look for you) and wait quietly on the roof for rescue.

The concept of democracy

Children apparently cannot grasp this concept. I am currently watching my friend's two kids, ages 1 and 3 today for awhile and attempted to hold a vote for which princess movie we were going to watch. So, after having Princess and the Frog win 2-1 (Annie was asleep, and wouldn't have cared anyway), the one who had not voted for the movie threw a bit of a fit and went to lay down in a different room. Ha. Whatever makes them happy. My house is actually quiet. Victoria was so tired, she passed out before the movie even started! Ha. 

Anyway, more to come, but at the moment, I am going to take advantage of the quiet and get a bit of cleaning done!!

Just kidding, Annie woke up, and I don't think 1 of the girls I'm watching is going to take a nap... oh well. A few moments were nice. :)

Whole Wheat, Oatmeal, Banana Pancakes!

Or, at least I'm telling myself they're super healthy because I would like to enjoy them on a regular basis. Ha. These have a lot of dry ingredients, so, since we really enjoyed these this morning, I made a ziplock full of the dry ingredients to use next time (think Bisquick). Also, if you don't want banana flavored pancakes you could use applesauce instead and more cinnamon for an apple cinnamon pancake!

Ingredients

• 1 cup uncooked rolled oats (Old-Fashioned Oatmeal)
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons dry milk powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 egg
• 2 cups milk
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (could substitute with applesauce)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or more, I don't measure this)
• 2 bananas, mashed (I used over-ripe ones from my freezer and defrost them in the microwave for 30 seconds)

Directions

1. Place the rolled oats into the jar of a blender and blend until the texture resembles coarse flour (this depends on what texture you want. Blend more for a smoother texture and visa versa). Whisk together the blended oats, whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, brown sugar, dry milk powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon in a bowl; set aside.
2. Whisk together the egg, milk, vegetable oil, and vanilla. Stir in the mashed banana. Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and stir just until moistened. Over stirring makes the batter (gluten) tougher. Let the batter stand for 5 minutes (could sit overnight for a quick breakfast the next day). Once it has sat and bubbled a bit, do not stir it again! The gluten has already begun to develop as soon as it mixes with the wet ingredients, so any extra speeds up the process.
3. Heat a lightly oiled griddle over medium-high heat. Drop batter by large spoonfuls onto the griddle, and cook until bubbles form and the edges are dry, about 2 minutes. Flip, and cook until browned on the other side. Repeat with remaining batter.

Enjoy these!! Victoria was asking for seconds and Annie polished off almost a whole (small) pancake herself too!!

Tiffany turns pastry chef!

Somewhere in my busy busy life, I have decided to take on the task of learning how to bake FABULOUS specialty cakes from one of my favorite people in the whole world. Alyson Hill is absolutely amazing and is teaching me everything she knows about cooking/baking. She used to cater and bake wedding cakes, and now, she just does it out of her house. Not a bad way to make a little money on the side!

Anyway, we recently co-baked a retirement cake for a woman in John's squadron, and some Valentine's Day cupcakes. Then I single-handedly made an awesome birthday cake for my friend Stephanie. Here are some of the pictures:

"Congratulations MSgt Velisa Harris on your Retirement"

Birthday Cake for one of my favorite ladies, Stephanie Virtue. The gift tag says "To Stephanie. Happy birthday!"

A few Valentine's Day cupcakes, unfortunately, these are the really pretty ones. I forgot to take pictures of those.

Please excuse the dust...

I'm working on perfecting my blog's appearance at the moment, so, you'll probably be noticing some changes over the next week or two. If anyone knows anything about HTML, let me know. I happen to be a little pre-occupied to do much self-teaching on it unfortunately.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope you're all enjoying Hallmark's, chocolate companies, and flower retailer's favorite holiday of the year! We're probably going to be having a fairly relaxed day. Delivering cupcakes to John's office, cleaning, grocery shopping, and coming home to cook up a delicious filet mignon wrapped in bacon along side some wild rice and asparagus. I am beyond excited to cook it. I'll have to post some pictures of the final product tomorrow. It should be pretty tasty since it's bacon wrapped. Usually filet mignon dries out very quickly because it's such a lean cut, but, with the bacon lending it some fat, it should retain it's delicious juiciness. Also, something to keep in mind if you're ever debating on cooking up some filet mignon, it's meant to be prepared at either rare or medium rare. If you cook it too much, it becomes rather tough and inedible.
Anyway, enough about that, it's making my mouth water. Ha.
Here are a few pictures of the girls, two of my favorite Valentine's. :)

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!

Chore Wars

So, a friend of mine posted this on facebook the other day. I hate cleaning, almost as if I was allergic to it. Might as well hold me under water (which, by the way, is probably my biggest fear. Don't do it, I'll flip out) or threaten to make me go for a run (also, really unenjoyable).
Anyway, the site is called www.chorewars.com. It's pretty much the kick in the butt I need to motivate me: competition. Unfortunately, John doesn't do much cleaning since he's at work all day, then exhausted by the time he gets home. Or so he says... Ha. So, I think that means I'm competing against myself. But, so far, it's working!
For each chore you do, there are various experience points awarded as well as a possible treasure if you defeat one of the many monsters/perils along the way. So, for example, cleaning the bathroom can earn you 45 experience points, 1-45 gold pieces, and there is a 25% chance of treasure (torn spellbook, ruby ring, +1 plunger, and a towel cloak) if you beat the 50% chance of encountering a wandering monster (tentacle, drain beast, giant spider, water elemental). It truly brings out my inner nerd. My father would be proud. 
Anyway, for those of you who live with other people (or who want to compete with me!), you should join chore wars. It's quite fun. Ha.

10 Things I don't want to hear from my husband

What I don't want to hear from you, my darling husband ...

1. Details of how successful or unsuccessful your trip to the bathroom was. Just don't go there, please. Call your brother; that's what he's there for.

2. That you didn't like the dinner I slaved over all day long. Just smile, feed it to the dog under the table and shut the hell up.

3. How annoying you find the kids, three seconds after walking in the door. I've been with them all afternoon. I know.

4. The dirty joke you heard at work. Chances are, I won't think it's funny. Call your best friend. That's what he's there for.

5. That there are no clean socks. I have been doing laundry all freaking day. I have no idea why the basket is still full and I have no idea where your socks are. Wear a mismatched pair. Wear a dirty pair. Don't wear any at all. Just don't expect me to find you any.

6. That you think I look fat. I don't ever really want to know that, even if I ask. Tell me the color is wrong or it's not as flattering as it could be. Anything but fat.

7. That I haven't changed in two and a half days. I know. I can smell myself. I'll do something about it when I'm good and ready.

8. That your head hurts and your throat tickles and you are really sleepy. Call your mother. That's what she's there for.

9. That you're in the mood. Just go for it, or don't go for it, but I'm too exhausted to discuss it.

10. That you managed to wrangle all of the kids out of the house, to the museum, out to lunch and to the bathroom with no minor catastrophes. I like to think I'm the only one who can handle them, thank you very much.

I got this off of shine on yahoo. I thought it was just too hilarious to share. Especially since they are all so true!