Where the wind comes sweeping down the plains...

This year we're celebrating Thanksgiving in Oklahoma. James' youngest brother moved out here to be a youth pastor this past summer, so we decided to make the trip out to see him.  While I wouldn't recommend the 14+hour drive to anyone, I'm enjoying my first trip to OK. So far we haven't seen a lot of the area but we did get a night tour of his church and we've seen a little of the town. Tomorrow we'll go down town to the shops and specialty stores. We hope that everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving!

Election Day!

Election Day - it's more exciting than game four of the World Series, my birthday, and the opening night of the newest movie all combined. Perhaps I'm a nerd, but I get excited about elections. I enjoy watching the televised debates, reading election updates, political discourse on the radio, checking the polling stats, etc. I love that citizens impact history on nights like tonight! No matter which way this election goes, I hope all enjoyed exercising your political rights and freedoms at the polls today!  

Brief overview of the trip

We started in London, and enjoyed a lot of the sites from the outside.

After London, we made it to Portsmouth and crossed the English Channel to Normandy to tour the beaches and soak in some history.

On to Lyon and a visit with Bertlinde.

Hiking in Switzerland was breathtaking (literally!).

Attending the wedding of Annemarie and Volkmar was a great experience.

Heidelberg was gorgeous and then we headed home.

Made it to Bertlinde's house without major problems but may have a lovely parking fine coming in the mail due to parking (illegally ?) In Lyon for the art market. We enjoyed some lovely cathedrals, a priory, and châteaus near Bertlinde's and went to see her home in the South. I need to learn some French cooking tips ...but would most likely gain too much weight. We've arrived at Interlaken after going a bit off the beaten path. Beautiful flowers, mountains, and we love the sound of cow bells.

Hello from Caen, so far the trip has gone well...but knowing a bit of.basic French would help quite a bit. Touring Omaha beach and American cemetary tomorrow. Will prove to be very interesting. Enjoyed London... much easier to navigate...perhaps because language was not a big factor? Hoping to make our remaining connections to Bert ok. Perhaps this will lead to more stories.

Summer relaxation?

School is out and it is time to kick back, relax, and have some fun. However, it seems that is not in the cards for me this year. There seems to be a long list that just keeps growing and growing...kind of like the weeds in my strawberry patch. To do list for the summer: 1. Finalize plans for trip to Europe (I absolutely hate vacation planning, but love the end result. Therefore, this is the biggest headache I have currently. I'd like to give the car rental agencies in Cherbourg a piece of my mind... who closes a car rental place in a port town at 5 p.m. when the Ferry doesn't arrive until 7:30 p.m.? THAT threw a wrench in the plans...) 2. Continue to look for different employment options (an ongoing task that started a while back). 3. Finish the kitchen remodel (perhaps by the end of June?) 4. Finish the bedroom closet remodel (perhaps by the end of June?) 5. Paint the upstairs office and move the bedroom pieces that have been in the basement for three years into their rightful spot upstairs (perhaps before the end of August?) 6. Finish planning a baby shower for a close friend 7. Continue running (We've started and now that I'm past the being extremely sore stage, I'd like to keep it up for a while) By the amount of to-do lists I've posted, one would think that we're getting a lot accomplished; yet to be fair I think I'm posting the same things repeatedly. On a slightly different note, the New Year's resolution of one new thing/day has hit the back burner though I'd like to come back to it soon.

Walk a few steps in my shoes

April's challenge - intentionally go for a walk every day. It doesn't have to be a certain distance or speed, but the goal is to go on a walk outside each day. I haven't been too focused on exercising over the last year and I figured this was a way to ease back into it. Perhaps a later challenge will be to run every day...but I think that's pushing it a bit at this point. However, with the amount of lemon curd, angel food cake, Easter candy, and school treats (we teachers seem to be fond of cookies, donuts, and all other sweets) I've been eating it should come sooner rather than later.

March Craziness

The idea for March was to write one "old fashioned" letter/note to a family member, friend, or acquaintance each day. Except for about three days this past week I met the goal, mostly due to a school mandate that forces teachers to write a quota of "good news" cards to our students each month. Most days I don't have to work too hard to identify a deserving student, but we are "encouraged" to write to all students throughout the school year. I must admit I have had a few students where the best thing I can come up with is something along the lines of "Congratulations, your student rose above his normal level of apathy today...", so those students have to wait until I catch them on a VERY good day so that my "good news" card doesn't have such a sarcastic ring to it. Though for most students its easy to identify a positive characteristic to highlight.

The problem that I've found with this month's goal is not writing the letters, but remembering to send them. Currently I have quite a few letters sitting on my dining room table, that need to be addressed and stamped. A few of you should be getting letters soon. So, Jenn, Mom, Grandma P., and a few others you've got mail coming! (Please ignore the date I wrote it...it will only serve to highlight my new level of procrastination.)

Not my best idea

Deliberately clean one thing (a room, drawer, shelf, etc.) for a month - it doesn't sound like a lofty goal, but I completely underestimated my hatred of cleaning. While I knew my aversion to chasing after dust bunnies was strong, I apparently didn't know its depths. (On the bright side, I gained a bit of personal insight this month.)

Despite my lack of enthusiasm I believe I cleaned at least one thing each day, but at times it seemed as if I was just attempting to keep the clutter from taking over. I had grandiose visions of cleaning out the office, mopping the floors each week, finally unpacking a couple of boxes that have sat on a shelf for the past 2.5 years. Unfortunately February looked more like a cycle of cleaning bathrooms, washing dishes, taking out the recycling, etc... and I still have a stack of insurance papers sitting on the piano (which needs a good dusting) from a meeting two weeks ago. Even though it wasn't that great of a month goal-wise, I think I'll return to this goal again later in the year...perhaps when I don't have so much school work to tie up my evenings and weekends.

Moving on to March's goal - write a letter (snail-mail style) to one person every day. The count so far:
3/1 - Tiffany
3/2 - Good News Cards from school to 4 students

Dinner for a month - Week 4

1/23 Poultry Pasta Primavera - This was a passable dish. The flavor was decent, but the best part was the vegetables. We had a great red pepper and some very nice broccoli that really made the dish work. I wish I had taken a picture of it, because it was one of the most attractive dishes I made this month.

1/24 Dressed up Lima Beans - James hates lima beans, but the recipe noted that some of the most admit lima bean haters had changed their minds after eating them "dressed up." James must be the exception to this; he noted that they were "Meh." I thought they were OK, but I think I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to lima beans - just slather them with butter and a dash of salt and its good to go.

1/25 Dinner at church

1/26 Cauliflower-broccoli pizza crust - This is a "must make" for anyone who has seen the recipe on pinterest. I changed it just a bit by adding a bit of broccoli and it was really enjoyable. Don't expect to pick up a piece of the pizza and eat it like normal; this is a crust that needs a fork. However, the flavor makes up for the eating style. ( I firmly believe that pizza was meant to be eating with one's hands...perhaps that it why I enjoy a thin crust and not deep dish.)

1/27 Dinner out

1/28 Bake apples - I used another recipe off pinterest for this one at Tiffany's request. It was a bit labor intensive, but other than that it was an extremely easy recipe. The flavor was good, but I think I would like more crust than just the little lattice top (which I found quite a challenge to make). James would say I need to practice this a bit...perhaps because he always wants me to make more pies.

1/29 Seasame Scallion dressing - A nice dressing for salad, but different salad items would be a good idea than the ones we used. I threw a tossed salad together, but it didn't pair as nicely with the dressing as well as I would have liked. I might try this dressing as a marinade for grilled chicken sometime.

1/30 Spicy Cajun Shrimp and Apple Tarts - The shrimp (or "shrimps" as Mom would say) had a great flavor - just enough spice with a splash of buttery lemon. We served it with rice, but the recipe recommended it with crusty french bread for cleaning up the sauce. This would be something fun to serve for a big summer family gathering. The apple tarts were just thrown together to use up some apple mash (which I made to extract the juice from an apple for the seasame scallion dressing the day before) and a little leftover pie crust. They were fine, but I didn't bother to write down what I had done.

1/31 Spicy honey glazed chicken - This recipe would be ideal of grilling, but we used the griddle on the stove (with great results). My only complaint was that the sauce never truly carmelized, which would definitely happen on our grill. It starts with a great rub, and is followed with a honey-vinegar glaze. The author of the recipe noted that leftovers of this make a great chicken salad the following day. James said this was his favorite recipe from the this month.

For February the challenge has changed - instead of cooking, it's cleaning. My goal is to clean one thing at home each day. This could be one drawer, one room, or one set of laundry or dishes. I have a tendency to put cleaning off until the weekend and then find a good chunk of my weekend taken up by cleaning; so I thought I'd see if the Danny Tanner method (I seem to remember that Full House character cleaning something every day) would work for me.

Dinner for a month - Weeks 2 and 3

1/9 Chicken Kiev with roasted cauliflower, bacon, and pepperjack cheese - I liked this one a lot, but James found the cauliflower a bit "weird".

1/10 Cornmeal raspberry pancakes and spiced hot chocolate - The pancakes were wonderful, but the spiced hot chocolate wasn't too appealing. Due to not having the specific ingredients on hand, the substitutes left the recipe with a lot to be desired. I would be willing to try it again, if I had vanilla bean on hand and the correct chilies.

1/11 Dinner at church

1/12 Pretzel crusted pork tenderloin and grated potato pancakes - The tenderloin was alright, but nothing like the pretzel crusted pork chop I had a my gourmet dinner club that I was attempting to "channel" with the dinner. I do intend to make the potato pancakes again, perhaps with an Irish inspired meal around St. Patrick's day.

1/13 Baked Onions - This was a Paula D. recipe and it was alright. It had the flavor of french onion soup, but the salt content was a little overpowering. I'd make it again with some minor adjustments.

1/14 French omelet with mushrooms and mozzarella filling - I definitely prefer a regular 'ol omelet to the french. Something about the consistency - a bit runnier - did not sit well with my stomach.

1/15 Pickle roll appetizers - We tried this simple appetizer recipe for small group last Sunday mainly because the children of our leaders love pickles. These were nothing special, but they were incredibly easy to make and the kids loved them.

1/16 Ham hock soup with homegrown black beans and Fruit Platz (made with cherries from our trees) - It was fun to cook a meal using ingredients from this year's garden and both recipes turned out well. The soup had a nice flavor, and an interested purple tint due to the beans. Also, the fruit platz (an old Russian Mennonite recipe) turned out well and the texture held up decently during multiple reheatings over the next couple of days.

1/17 Creamy Cesar dressing and black cows - We had quite a few left overs that we decided to clean up with a side salad and black cows (cola floats). We didn't have any anchovy paste for the dressing, but I liked the flavor without it just fine.

1/18 Dinner at church

1/19 Lemon rosemary chicken with potatoes - This was an incredibly easy recipe, which turned out great. The chicken was very moist and flavorful, and James even loved the lemon-rosemary flavor with the potatoes.

1/20 Lemon "Puppy" Chow - This was a hit at small group, but I don't ever plan on making it again. The chocolate version is much better. However, if you like lemon bars, you might enjoy this easy treat.

1/21 Baked cheese sticks - Think Wisconsin Cheese sticks, but slightly healthier (baked; not fried). A nice marinara sauce would have been good with these.

1/22 Baked cavetelli and roasted green beans - The cavetelli had to be substituted for macaroni, but the recipe didn't take too much of a hit with the substitution. Overall the pasta was decent, but nothing too unfamiliar. The green beans however are worth making! These beans were mixed with onions, tossed with garlic, red wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, and then baked at 400 degrees for 15 min. (stirring around the 10 min. mark). If you're looking for a different and easy side dish, I'd give this a try.

Dinner for a month - Week 1

I was hoping to have more photo documentation of the new recipes we've tried this week, but some of them were much more appetizing (photo-wise) than others.

1/1 Imitation Mimi's Cafe Carrot Bread with Raisins and Almonds and wassail (though it was an old recipe!)- Very moist, but a bit too dense.


1/2 Taco Lasagna - This needed a layer of rice and a topping of broken chips to be enjoyable.
1/3 Imitation Pf Chang's Orange Peel Chicken - The breading on the chicken did not hold up during the "toss in sauce" stage, but it had a nice flavor.

1/4 - Dinner at church

1/5 - Crumb Topped Cauliflower (to go with a roast James made) - A great flavor (onion, lemon, and a bit of parsley in the crumb topping), but the topping didn't "stick" very well with the cauliflower; so the textures didn't mix that well. A decent side dish that will make it to the table again.

1/6 - French Vinaigrette Dressing - This was used on a nice salad with cauliflower, carrots, and mushrooms. We needed something easy and "new" while we finished off the week's leftovers.

1/7 - Gourmet Dinner Club Night - I was assigned something I've made before, but in my defense it was a new recipe for stuffed mushrooms. They were OK; I wasn't wild about the addition of parsley to the recipe, though I did enjoy the dusting of paprika on top. I most likely will go back to my original recipe.

1/8 - Mushroom Pasta and Hot Fudge Pudding - The pasta was very similar to stroganoff, though I was hoping for more of an Alfredo taste. The pudding (from a new copy of an old cookbook my mom had from 1957) had a nice consistency and flavor, but I would have enjoyed it more had we coupled it with a dish of ice cream.

An attempt

New Year's resolutions never last with me, but I thought I would come up with a smaller goal and build upon that. Not too long ago I watched a movie about a girl who cooks through the Julia C. cookbook in a year (I think it was Julie&Julia or something like that) and decided that I would try cooking a new meal every day - not for a year, but for a smaller, more manageable bit of time. So my attempt at a New Year's resolution is to make a new recipe for every dinner for a month (barring the nights we eat at a friend's, with extended family, or out).

Any one else care to join me?