Yummy food

I went to a cooking class at whole foods this week and had such a blast. It was a grilling class and they made, Achiote Shrimp Skewers with a smokey lime Vinaigrette, Grilled Panzella Salad with pepper bacon, roasted tomatoes and chilmichurri dressing, Mole BBQ Chicken with Jicama Slaw and Maple-Habanero Glazed Pineapple with fresh whipped cream. I don't know if I can or will actually make any of these things for my family, but it was so delicious!! I'm going to give you the pineapple recipe and if you want another one leave a comment and I will copy the one you want. The pineapple left a very pleasant tingle in the mouth and the whipped cream was perfect to cool it. I actually licked the spicy syrup off the plate, I didn't care how rude it looked!! It hurt a little, but hurt so good!!
Title: Maple-Habanero Glazed Pineapple

Description:
Oh WOW yummy and spicy

Ingredients:
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 Habanero chilies, quartered
1/4 tsp kosher or sea salt
1 cup heavy cream
3 Tble powered sugar
1 ripe pineapple

Directions:
Prepare Habanero syrup: place syrup and chilies in a small saucepan over low heat. Gently heat for 5 minutes to infuse the syrup with the flavors of the chilies. remove from heat and continue to steep for additional 15 minutes.
Whip cream: add cream and sugar to small bowl; whip with a large whisk until soft oeaks form. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use. (or use electric mixer lol)
Grill pineapple; clean the pineapple and cut into 1 1/2" rings. Heat the grill or grill pan over medium-high heat. Using tongs, dip the pineapple slices into the syrup and place on the grill. Using a brush, baste with more of the syrup and season lightly with salt. Grill turning once until caramelized marks appear.
Serve with a little of the syrup poured over and a generous serving of the whipped cream, to help with the heat!

Number Of Servings:6-8 servings

Must love cooking

So this last Sunday it was my turn for dinner but another family wanted to do it, which is fine but they forgot to tell me until after I had defrosted an entire bag of Costco chicken. The result being we have eaten a lot of chicken this week. Yesterday I made a perfectly wonderful dish of chicken enchiladas. They don't look pretty but they were very tasty, I thought. Then I ran off to church with only half the kids since some programs were cancelled this week. When I got home it was to find that the kids who remained at home had ordered hot wings and soda from pizza hut and had them delivered. This is why you do not allow sites to store your credit card information, so they did pay for it themselves. I just can't see how that would be something I would want to spend my hard earned money on, but I guess I'm not a teenage boy. WHY DO I BOTHER COOKING??

Thank goodness for MONDAYS

It was the kind of weekend I can't actually post everything, one it would take too long, and two it was so awful. I should have known once the run in with the tree happened I should have gone back to bed. After the tree before I could even get out of my clothes we started trimming the hedges around the house, there is around 20or so of these giant bushes that we have to shape into a round or egg look. My arms are so sore from the trimmer and my shoes are even dirtier than they were. Then while we were doing this for 5+ hours Matt starts throwing his Chinese star at our tree, I've been telling the boys for years to not throw sharp things at my tree, I've lost enough trees thank you. Of course he ignores me and I am too busy to notice when he comes and tells Kirk that his star may have flown into the neighbors air conditioner and it is not making a very loud hissing noise. So I am happy to let you all know we have now bought new airconditioners for both of our neighbors. It may be awhile before we get one for ourselves. The neighbors were very nice and are being very fair, and Matt is going to work off his part by cutting both our lawns ALL SUMMER long. Then Connor had a meltdown at church worthy of a 4 years old. All in all a long weekend. Gosh it's fun being a parent!!

Looks it's a bird, it's a plane....

Ok brace yourself. So I went running on the greenway at 7 this morning, a SATURDAY!! Which is crazy, but running 6 miles today puts me at 200 miles for the year so far, which I am so excited about!! So we are out there running and there is a smallish tree across the path and me thinking I'm the badest thing around says, lets move this tree so it doesn't block people. I grab a branch and start to pull and my friend grabs the same branch but farther down and I have the thought, I am holding this branch too far away from the trunk, and she is even farther out. The millisecond I had that thought, so I didn't even have time to respond if that had been a prompting, the branch broke sending me flying through the air. High enough and far enough I could feel my arms and legs pointing back at the tree like I had been punched in the stomach in a action movie. Then I hit the rain soaked mud with my back and rear end and I may have said I bad word at this point. And then couldn't move from shock, she helped me up and we continued on because I HAD to have 6 miles. And then what do you know?? Instead of my normal 10 minute miles we ran 6.5 miles in 57 minutes which obliterates my previous records!! all in all it was a wonderful morning run, I got to talk and run and sweat!! I do think I will take a excedrin in precaution...

Will run for food

This weekend I had the best running experience ever. I ran 2 miles to a cute bakery on a beach ate a chocolate croissant and then ran back, it was heaven I would run everyday for a croissant.
At this same beach I sacrificed two toenails to Poseidon or Ariel or whoever lives in the water. It was a rather painless way to have the poor things go their merry way after my last race ruined their chance of living happily on my feet. The shame is I just paid money last week to have them painted a delightful orange color. Sigh. I had thought about keeping them in a necklace as a race souvenir, but maybe a fish ate them instead.

I like big butts.... ahem

Ok as I was running through goodwill in a huge hurry my eye was caught on a pair of jeans in the jeans section. So I stopped and looked and sure enough it was a pair of "7" jeans, a expensive trendy brand of jeans that I have wondered about. They had the original tag on and just happened to be my size! So I kinda have the creeps trying on clothes in good will and I'm in a huge hurry so I bought them for 5 dollars!! Ok I try them on and they are a little tight, maybe my other jeans that are the same size have just stretched way out. So I washed them, partly dried them and then stretched them out while I watched tv. I didn't really notice until later that they made them to look like there is a seam going down the back of the legs, kinda like you would see in some tights girls wear. Not totally my thing, but come on they are 7's!!! Tonight's YW activity was a "If you leavin we're grieving" party to say good bye to our 18 year old YW. I made a black veil and everything so I thought I would wear the jeans. I was showing some of the laurels my $5 find and I explained the back, one girl said well turn around. So I did and she gasped and said "wow those make your butt look huge" of course everyone heard everyone is laughing and I was kinda like OOOhh. Then she realized how that sounded sounded and tried to explain she gets jeans so to give her some back side so she was excited for me. I explained "girl I have always had a round butt, I don't need jeans to make it look like that!" It was funny, but kinda not, you know?

General Bonnie

Coming from a home where the father figure was kinda the main disciplinarian I had the idea that this is how every family worked. That I would be the nice mom who got to sneak the kids forbidden treats and lessened the punishment where I could, you know the good cop. Alas this is not the case. I think it's because since the kids were born Kirk has either been a law student or a attorney working his tail off for his family. This means he hasn't been home a lot. So he brings them candy or soda or movies on school nights, lets them stay up late so he can see them to make up for it. This started the pattern of me being the bad cop. Which I'm honestly not usually thrilled with. However last week I read a article about Jeff Bridge in the Costco magazine, I know, who reads that, well I do. I especially read it if I'm supposed to be doing the dishes. Anyway he mentions that his Mom was known as the General in their family, and they called her that. I'm sure there were days that annoyed her and days when it seemed endearing. So in my head I keep telling myself that one day maybe it will be cute that I'm the General. Starting the nickname myself isn't quite ideal, but I may start dropping it here and there in my bad cop routine. "I know Dad said you can have a diet coke at 8pm on a Wednesday night Elle, but I'm the General and I said no." See how that works? Think it will work?

Sick day

One would think that having a child home sick, I would be forced to stay home and get so much done around the house. Well my husband would think that. But it seems like I get even less than normal done, I lay around holding my sick baby, watching movies with her if she asks me to. Eating more, drinking more soda. All in all it's not very healthy for me to have a sick child. Who by the way has scarlet fever. Does that give anyone else the creeps hearing? It feels like we should be quarantined or something. At least it was something we could positively identify and now treat, so by Saturday afternoon she will no longer by contagious, or itchy. Just in time to go to church so I can play my piano solo that I desperately want/need to get out of!! The stake presidents son is having his farewell and it's mothers day, not a good time for me to play the piano, I need to play in August when everyone is on vacation!! ARGH

Sigh, again

I know I'm talkative today. Tonight Elle was saying her prayers with me and she said, "thank you for Dad to have a good job and bless him to be safe, bless mom while she relaxes at home and maybe can clean up a little so Dad comes home happy." Nice. I am so unappreciated, and unnoticed, just like most every Mom out there!! Good thing it's Mothers Day soon, I could use some bucket filling!!

Just wanna be a rock star

Ok you can have one picture. Kirk and I were dressed up to go to a friends rock star party. Yes I am in pleather pants. Kirk hated the nose stud on me, so it came out, yes it was magnetic. He was a very good sport to go with me, he had a terrible week and just wanted to stay home!

All kinds of fun

My wonderful but slightly crazy busy husband's leg is not healing. He is on another antibiotic to try and heal it, and if not he goes in on the 17th to have it cut open and dug out. Considering he is hiking Philmont in June that doesn't sound so great, so everyone cross your fingers with me that it heals. Note to EVERYONE, when you get a cut, clean it out and put neosporin on it.... (duh)
I am having a really, really REALLY hard time with my haircut. I will not post another picture of me until it's grown 1 inch or 2. :) Until then look at pictures of me when I was 13 cuz that's what I look like now. hmmm only not 80 pounds, and without braces, and of course with out hoop earrings that Grant Danielson could put his fist through... you know, like that.

New recipe

I tried out a friends recipe for the big family dinner tonight and it was so great I thought I'd share it with everybody!!
Roasted Chicken with Lemon and Basil
1 whole chicken, I bought a package of breast and thighs
1/2 cup chopped basil
1 onion coarsely chopped
10 garlic cloves minced (i used the minced in a jar kind)
Juice of 1 or 2 lemons
1/4 cup olive oil
kosher salt, pepper
1 lemon thinly sliced
2 cups water

Lay chicken in a casserole dish, throw everything else on top and mix it around with your hands to coat the chicken. Pour the water in the dish.
Roast, uncovered at 425 for about 30 minutes, Scatter lemon slices in pan, reduce temperature to 350 and continue roasting until thermometer inserted in thighs is 165- about 45 more minutes
Garnish with basil leaves and lemon slices. Super yummy and fresh for summer.

Really yummy

I have to do a very quick book plug. I checked this book out at my library on accident. It was on the sale shelf so I picked it up to buy, but it was placed there by a patron and it wasn't for sale, bummer. Anyway today I made "the works" pizza on page 78, and it was quite honestly phenomenal. Kirk had doubts about the sauce because it's chunky and not runny at all, but it was amazing. I do think I will double the recipe for the sauce next time. I highly recommend checking it out from your library. Although I think I am going to get one of my handy dandy Barnes and noble coupons and buy it!! It really was that good. Next I want to try the greek pizza, hmmmm kalamata olives!!