Whoopie Pies, Tetrazzini & a failed Salad.

Cookies; Mushrooms; BACON!

I've got pictures of food.. but nothing I'm really thrilled with. Although, worth trying again for sure. And the cookies turned out perfect, as expected. I first made these last New Years Eve, and once we decided I was making some type of dessert for Thanksgiving these Pumpkin Whoopie Pies were Ed's first request. I followed the recipe as it was and my only "issue" was that I had too much filling than I did cookies. Not a real big problem but I hated to toss the extra. And this is extra AFTER pilling on more onto each cookie. If you end up with excess filling like that, I suggest letting them sit over night. I gave one to Ed to test and while warm, the filling went everywhere when being bit into. But the next morning it had set up and was easier to eat.

My Thanksgiving salad, I didn't even bother taking a picture of because it wasn't as pretty as it could have been. I took the easy route and bought a box of organic spring greens, and I found out when throwing it all together the greens were starting to expire already. And my pomegranate that I seeded for it was going bad as well, so it was lacking that pretty bright red also. And it's possible I forgot the cheese for it all together. I'll give it a second try another day though. Made a vinaigrette for it which I felt was a little strong on the red wine, but Ed thought it was perfect.

The mushrooms and bacon were for a Turkey Tetrazzini. Which was good, but I wasn't happy with the quality of the left over turkey I used. I was using the turkey picked from the bones after making turkey broth,  instead of actual cut turkey from dinner. It did taste good, and smelled great cooking, everyone enjoyed it (and we had enough to freeze a second dish of for baking later), I think I'm just picky. I would like to make it again with better turkey. 

Ends of the scarf.

I finally finished the scarf I started making for Ed two months ago... I'm still not thrilled with the final results, but it is the happiest I've been with any of the attempts. You can see the picture one end is wider than the other, I still can't figure out how I manage that. Besides that.. I'm happy with it. Not sure what I want to do next. Clearly I still need practice at keeping my stitches even. I've been debating a "quilt" blanket, were I pretty much just stitch a bunch of squares (for the practice) and then stitch them all together. I wonder how much of a difference it'd make it I actually attempted to follow a pattern, but so far I'm just winging it. I would like to find someone who can actually sit and working with me on it, but most the people I know who can are in another state, or the wrong side of the mountains. I've got a bunch of black yarn, so maybe I'll just start with that.

Ed has had a break from swim lessons this week, having just the swim team and beginning life guard lessons. He's had a packet and CD-rom of some sort he got about two weeks ago, and now the lessons. He'll have the test in January and be able to actually life guard then.

Besides that, all I have is cat pictures.

Sasha

Sparta

Flop, not and wreaths

I feel like I'm stuck in a web. I can't really move, don't have a lot of motivation cuz I'm tired from trying to move, and it blows

Pass list, baby! Totally used this as my phone background
for a few days until I got the letter in the mail that
basically said "we're not kidding." 

A week ago today, this happened:


It was rather surprising. Austin can tell you I was a big bag of nerves all day. I even went to work on Thursday (when I don't usually) because I needed something to take my mind off of the news.

Thankfully, it was also good news for my three best law school friends, who I studied with for most of my time at McG. It would have been so awkward if one of us had not passed, I mean, specifically the four of us, because we constantly studied together.

But for the past four months I've been able to avoid being serious about applying for jobs because a lot of them strictly require a bar passage first before they actually interview you. So, my not applying for jobs was excusable since I want to work public sector and not at a firm, where I might have more wiggle room.

Now that I have passed, I actually have to get a job. I sent in 2 applications this week to public defender offices in Northern California, not far from where we're living now. I want so very badly to work for one of those offices. It'd be perfect. But, what will be will be. Deeeeeep sigh.

All that is just to say that I am feeling stuck again.  After we got the above good news, we celebrated. Since our engagement a bottle of champagne was in our fridge - it was promptly uncorked.

Then my cousin, Ryland, his girlfriend, Devon, our friend, Danny and Austin and I went out on the town. Eventually we met up with some other law school peeps who passed to celebrate. But first.

Yeah, it's dark ... it was night time.

Fishbowl happened. It was that kind of night.

On the homefront, I've been cooking but not well or memorably. When it is memorable, it's for all the wrong reasons. That dinner I was planning on putting up here was really unpleasant. Not kidding. I made tamales again, I've made them a few times now, and they're good, but I don't know... not something worth sharing I guess (particularly these ones because I just used old frozen veggie burgers I made a month or so ago as the filling, and that just does not sound appetizing.)

yes, it is upside-down, but I wasn't the one eating it :P

But I was redeemed this morning when I woke Austin up with a bunch of these --

The picture leaves a little to be desired. They are crêpes filled with cream cheese and cinnamon apples. The filling really was the star; Austin had four filled crêpes with extra filling on top.

Basically, I diced up a fuji apple in chunks, added a tablespoon of butter and 1/4 cup water to a saucepan with the apples with a tablespoon of brown sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon of cardamom. Cooked it for 4-5 minutes until the apples had softened.

THEN, I took some of the juice from the apples, 1 teaspoon of maple syrup and beat in about 1/2 a brick of cream cheese. After cooking my crêpes with my handy dandy crêpe maker I slathered on some cream cheese, added in the apples and sprinkled on some powdered sugar and voila!

Out of my rut!



Also. As you've seen on instagram, I made wreaths. The picture I put up there was the wreath I gave to my Grammie, who we spent Thanksgiving with. I also made one for our door.

I was fairly proud of my work - even though they aren't professional quality or look particularly fancy, I am just completely not crafty, and so the fact that I could make something resembling a wreath, well that was just magical

ooooooooooh ahhhhhhhh

I liked the berries that were in my grammie's wreath, but I had a bunch of flowers left so I arranged them in a pretty vase (wrapped with red gardland).


I think we're going to spend the rest of the day decorating - putting up christmas tree and decorations.

Overall, it's been a pretty darn good week, though, I'm excited to get back to work next week.

Mostly Swimming.

Whelp, our big excitement lately was a evening out to watch A Midsummer Night's Dream as put on by the high school, it was adapted to be a musical and set in the 20's and quite fantastic. And we went on an unauthorized tour of the remodel of the high school . That was entertaining.

Warm ups and last minute instruction.

Events, Heats and Swimmers list

The water slide.

A day later, Ed had his first swim meet as the assistant swim coach. The Madras Aquatic Center hosted it,  and there were a total of four teams competing. It was the first swim meet I'd ever gone to, and Ed's first where he wasn't the one swimming. I don't know if I'd call it fun, but I did enjoy it and look forward to future meets. I'm sure it'd be different if I had a kid who was swimming, or more involved with the team in someway, however, I pretty much just sat there munching on the snacks provided to the Coaches. I was happy to cheer on the CAC team, but since I don't know any of the kids it was rather uneventful for me. Perhaps next time I'll volunteer as a timer (they needed 3 per lane!), or help out with recording the swimmers times or something. Be a little more involved myself.
I've never spent any time in Madras, (for those who don't know, it's about an hour away from where we live) besides driving though on our way over the mountains. I was fairly impressed with the Aquatic Center though. It has two indoor pools, the full sized pool that was in use for the laps, and a kiddie pool. They also have an impressive water slide into the kiddie pool, it's at least two stories high and wraps around a few times. I want to go swimming in Madras just to go down the slide. (Little known fact: swim meets.. include a lot of splashing...very wet tables.)

We then decided to drive from Madras to Bend to attend a surprise party for my brother. He was expecting a gathering of friends for the Duck game, but he wasn't expecting all the decorations and cupcakes and group of people yelling "Happy Birthday" at him when he opened the door. That was also a fun night out of the house. Lots of good food, disappointing Ducks game (the first they've lost this season I believe) and the to counter the pain of the the Ducks loss, they decided to watch one of the (UFC?) fights that was on. I couldn't tell you much about it as I spent the whole time entertaining a 2 year old who was enjoying beating me up. Got kicked in the face, choked out and bit.. but the little guy was exhausted by the time we left so it was time well spent.

Scenes from Dan's Party.

And that's all the news from me. I'm still not having any luck getting employed, but Ed is having fun and being successful at the pool. After the swim meet, the Coach he works with went to look up Ed's swimming times on the Oregon Swim site, and his best time that was listed (but not his over all best time) was 58.35 for the 100 Fly which was his stroke when he swam. The Coach was quite impressed with it (2012 Olympic qualifying times are 55, 57 seconds.) and actually had Ed teach a Fly lesson all day yesterday. He is so cute when he tells me about the kids he's teaching and his lessons "click" and suddenly kids who couldn't do a legal stroke, have pretty decent stokes that they won't get disqualified for.

Times from just one meet.

No big plans for Thanksgiving for us. Family is all over the place this year so I think it will be just Ed & I and his parents. We have Kirk in charge of the turkey and stuffing I believe. KD will be making a side dish and a dessert, and I'll be making side dish and a dessert. Ed wants the Pumpkin Whoopie Pie cookies I made last New Years. And I'm thinking about this Escarole Salad with Toasted Walnuts and Red Wine Vinaigrette, but 1.) I don't know if I like escarole as I've never even heard of it, let alone had it, and 2.) I should check with the others eating it before I decide to make it. KD asked if I knew how to make Green Bean Casserole so I think she may want that. I've still got a day to decide anyway.

Picture Post

I have nothing going on lately.. so I'll share a handful of pictures that will make my uneventful life more interesting for you.

Birthday Flowers

I woke up super early for my birthday to babysit Jace, who was asleep for the first hour and half that I was there. It was a long a morning, and Ed came by after work with roses, a coffee and a pomegranate. It was fantastic.

Birthday Pedicure

We spent Saturday evening with Dan & Connie watching the Ducks play, having dinner, celebrating each touchdown with Duck Farts mini-shots. Made watching football more interesting for sure. (I learned a lot too!) Dan had to leave town to go back to Cali for work early Sunday morning, but in the afternoon I went over to visit with Connie more and she treated me to a pedicure for my birthday. 

Bo Pup. (Black Lab/Chow Chow mix)

Came home from dinner Saturday night to find an odd amount of dogs barking outside at 10:00 pm, but Tucker wasn't outside taking part. However there was a specific yipping that was new. We stopped at the front door and looked at each other wondering if this new yip was coming from inside the house as it sounded. Inside we found this little 6 week puppy hanging out in a kennel in the kitchen. Kirk & KD had been looking around for a puppy for a while and they clearly found one while we were out that afternoon!

The current state of my 3rd attempt at Ed's scarf

I had nearly finished Ed's scarf... but it was too wide, and not long enough. And I was going to have to buy another thing of yarn if it was going to be able to actually wrap around his neck. So I pulled the whole out and started over. (And to be honest, that is the length of it after I'd pulled out another 3rd of it.) I should get on it though, because I've bought the black to the trim around it. But this whole 70 degree weather in November stuff doesn't inspire.

I haven't done much on the food front lately. Tonight we're making broccoli beef for dinner in order to use up some broccoli, and beef. I gave up on my yogurt. I think I killed my culture so it never formed. But while tossing it out it DID smell like yogurt, and the very bottom of the jars looked like I was on the right track. Thinking of trying it again with raw milk and starting earlier in the day so it's not 1 am and I'm in a hurry to finish it up so I can go to bed. Made Shallot and Maple Spaghetti Squash. The shallots in my recipe were a little strong. It was good and everyone enjoyed it, but it mostly tasted like shallots to me, so I'm still not sure what I think about spaghetti squash. I don't think I've satisfied my spaghetti squash curiosity yet. Did find a place to order cultures for cheese.. so I may experiment with making cream cheese in the next few weeks.

Told ya I don't I have anything interesting going on. Off to puppy sit. :)