My blog

Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon For Christmas Tara and Ryan gave me a copy of Julia Child's cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking , along with a movie about Julia Child. I love to cook, but I actually didn't have much experience with Mrs. Child before now. We invited them over to try Beef Bourguinon (Bore gen Yawn), which is French for fancy beef stew. The first thing the recipe calls for is chunk bacon. You may be wondering, what is chunk bacon? So are all the people in Wal*Mart, they definitely didn't know what it was when I asked. I knew what it was but the only place I knew where I could buy it was Germany or the internet, and time was too short for either of those options. I had resigned myself to curing and smoking my own chunk of bacon (which is gross). Luckily when I went to Macey's one of the meat counter guys said "Uh we don't have unsliced bacon, but we have Salt Pork..." Ta Da! Friends, if you are looking for chunk bacon it is actua...

Socks While Handsome Bryce and I were engaged we would meet with my wonderful bishop every other week. It was really fun to spend time together and get advice. Bishop Bryant gave us a packet of articles he had thoughtfully compiled about finances, communication, forgiveness, stress etc. I really appreciated the time he took with us to help our marriage to be successful, but I have to admit that there was one article that we have been mocking ever since. I looked all over Google for it but I can't find it. I only remember that it was talking about that you will realize your spouse is human and little things will start to bother you such as "leaving their socks directly in your path to the bathroom". I know, horrors! But in my searching I have found that socks are a pretty big deal in many households. Well guys, this weekend it happened. Bryce left his socks right in the middle of my path to the bathroom. Lucky me that I married the one man who make socks on the floor of t...

BYU Beats SDSU Handsome Bryce and I went to one of BYU's biggest basketball games last night. It was the first time they have beaten a top 5 ranked team since the '60s! These pictures where I hold the camera in front of us never work. The game was sold out, I couldn't see any empty seats. Everyone was so excited and so loud, jumping and yelling and generally acting crazy. I discovered that I cannot yell as loud as other people, because when I screamed I couldn't hear myself at all. My ears were kind of ringing at the end. All the excitement and cheering was great, but there was one draw back... You see, BYU fans, like some other schools, have this little ritual they do during free-throws. It involves everyone putting their arms up above their head while they wait for the shot, and then saying "Whoooosh!" if it goes in. This is all well and good, normally. But friends, this was a high energy game, and most of you did not make high energy preparations: Next time...

Actual Size A few months ago, on a whim, I bought a small package of "actual size" stickers. They come in three sizes: 3'', 2'', and 1''. I think they cost about $1, and seriously it is the most fun $1 has ever given me! Giant smoothies? Yes please! A cell phone less than 2 inches tall? Not a problem! The possibilities are endless; a giant Coke bottle on a vending machine, the worlds tiniest conference presenter. It's even funny if you stick one to a muffin with clear packaging. These stickers have made me incredibly amused, but I have a bothersome feeling that I have not yet achieved the most optimal sticker placement. I only have 7 left, so if you think of a good idea you should tell me about it, before I squander all of my stickers on "Brick Oven" menus. p.s. Don't worry Mom, the stickers peel off without leaving any residue. Also, I read the vandalism law for Utah and it doesn't say anything about stickers.

Sneeze I don't know how they do it, but some people have such nice, little, polite sneezes: But not me. My sneezes are violent, toe shaking, head banging events that cause babies to cry and dogs to howl. When the zombie apocalypse comes it will be because my sneezes have literally woken the dead. I try to suppress them, but I'm pretty sure if I don't open my mouth the force of the sneeze would cause my brain to explode. So, sorry about making your baby scream and the zombie problem thing, I just can't help it.

Mexican Pizza The name of this recipe is actually " Black Bean Pizza " but due to recent black bean failures I decided to call it "Mexican Pizza" to minimize black bean memories. Unlike the brownies, this black bean recipe turned out exceedingly delicious. It reminds me of the Navajo Tacos my mom used to make, (but which I am pretty sure no Navajo people make). I made the pizza dough in the recipe and it was very easy. I added onion powder to the crust, but I don't think that made a significant difference. I pureed the beans and spices in the food processor. (Dear food processor inventor, you are great and I love you, platonically.) I liked the step of putting it in the over for 3 minutes, I will be doing that with all my pizza doughs now. After it came out of the oven, I spread the dough with the bean slurry and put salsa on top. At this point I was thinking it looked kind of gross and was having flashbacks of the brownie failure. I put down a layer of mozzare...

Black Bean Brownies, Bleck! Normally I don't believe in trying to healthy-up recipes for desserts. I don't trust "fat free ice cream" because cream is fat, so that just leaves you with ice. I don't believe in sugar free sweets for the same reason. I stumbled across this recipe for Black Bean Brownies and somehow forgot all of my rules against healthy sweets. It was just so strange I wanted to try it. You will notice all the testimonials at the bottom extolling the many qualities of deliciousness and non-bean tastingness that these brownies have. Don't be fooled. Though deceptively pretty and good smelling, they taste exactly like beans. Apologies to Bryce's mom, who found them without explanation in her kitchen whilst in the throes of brownie cravings. You can imagine the sheer horror of biting into a delicious brownie only to discover that it is only cleverly molded beans. They were pretty good with tortilla chips though.

Coconut Shrimp I recently stumbled upon this blog: Recipeasy . I keep saying that name over and over in my head and it sounds like "Re-seh-peeeeezy" in a high pitched voice like Princess Peach. (I think we have been playing too much Mario Kart around here.) I like the the looks of many of the recipes. I decided to try the Coconut Shrimp recipe and it was a fabulous success. I started with frozen uncooked shrimp. I didn't have any brown sugar so I used honey instead. I started the shrimp marinating while I made the mango salsa. Shimp marinating in a bag doesn't look yummy. Perhaps you know this, and perhaps you don't, but cutting up mangoes is a pain in the patoot. I learned a secret way of doing it from my sister Sara. You lop off the sides and then cut a grid through the flesh, but try not to go all the way through the skin. Then you turn the slice inside-out, which is excellent fun. Then you slice all the fruit cubes off with a knife. I mixed up the mango salsa...