Friday, January 29, 2010

Child.

Last night Jerry decided to take off his sweater.

First, he got his arms out of the sleeves and then started spinning around singing, "Helicopter!"

Then the sweater started to creep up his body and eventually over his eyes.

Lastly, Jerry couldn't see and fell to the ground in terror as the helicopter turned from friend to foe.

Friday, January 15, 2010

recent recipes

Here are a few things I have made over the past few weeks which I got from the internet. (Psh! I am NOT typing out a recipe)

From Food Network:

Giada's Garbonza Bean and Zucchini Salad.
Yum! First off I looooove zucchini, hence my attraction to this recipe. But I do not love zucchini raw, so I cooked it in a tad bit of butter in a pan with a little bit of S & P. I also did not have any red onion so I just cut up a bit of yellow onion really small. I thought it was fabulous and Jerry even said, "This is good, for a salad."

Sunny's Picnic Potato Chicken Salad Cups
This recipe is GOLDEN! The paprika, bacon, and mustard totally make this recipe. I have to admit we did not cupify this recipe, but I am sure the addition of lettuce would make this more fun! Jerry really liked this.

Robin's Chicken Piccata
This did not live up to my expectations. It has tons of my favorite ingredients: artichokes, capers, lemon.. but I must have missed something because it was not too spectacular. Jerry said that he liked that it tasted more light and different that what I usually make. I took the leftovers to school the next day, and they seemed to improve with time, or maybe I was just super hungry.

Melissa's Chicken a l'Orange
This recipe would normally never appeal to me, but one of Jerry's all time favorite meals is orange chicken, so I thought I would give this a try. I used boneless skinless chicken breasts, and since they didn't have skin like the recipe calls for, they did not get crisp. The sauce was Super easy (it has 2 ingredients!) and pretty tasty! Overall it was really good, and since it really only has one ingredient that I normally don't stock, I have a feeling it will be a go to meal from now on.
UPDATE: I forgot to say that after I used the sauce as a glaze for the chicken, then I added some chicken broth and flour to make it a little milder to top the cooked chicken and rice with.

From Our Best Bites:

First off, if you do not know about this site and cook in any shape, way, or form, you need to visit it RIGHT now. Not only do they have simple, practical recipes, but they also have good tutorials on how to do stuff like .. make tortillas(which I almost successfully did).

Stuffed Pizza Rolls
Okay, despite my raving about this site, this recipe (or at least the way I made it) did not turn out very well. I stuffed mine with sausage and cheese, but all the cheese disolved into the bread making it a harder texture.. and then there was no ooey gooey cheese when you bit into them(which is the best part, you know). I still think this is a great idea though, maybe I should try a different crust.

From Recipe Zaar:

This is a great site to explore. I like to just type in 'chicken' or 'banana' and then sort the results by ratings. I have made MANY things from this site

Creamy Cajun Chicken
I really liked this, although I think the only ingredients I actually HAD were chicken and sun dried tomatoes. I had to make my own cajun seasoning, and I had to use milk and butter as a substitute for cream(which of course, is not as good as the real stuff), used a white onion for the green onion, and used whole grain spaghetti instead of linguine. But despite all of that, all 3 of us liked it! Even Daxson! (well at least he was a good pretender). The tomatoes made the sauce way good, but I'm sure when I make it with cream it will be even better!

Italian Soup
I was running low on food supplies last night, but I had italian sausage and some soupy vegetables so I just typed in 'italian soup', and this recipe seemed to have positive feedback. I substituted celery for zucchini(but I woul prefer the later) and did half sausage and half ground turkey to make it a little lighter. I ended up cooking some macaroni noodles separate so that when we reheated the leftovers the noodles wouldn't overcook and get puffy.


If you just read all that, you're crazy.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

winter semeter '10

.. is going to be a challenge!

I am pretty much taking all the same classes, just one level higher (music theory, sight singing, dictation, piano, music civ, Singers, voice lessons). So far, it has already been a challenge for me, and it has only been 7 days of classes. But, I just had my first voice lesson for the semester, and I am super excited for my repertoire this semester!! (can anyone say Carmen aria!??) I even get to sing a music theatre piece, so I am going to sing I'm Not Afraid of Anything from my new Songs for a New World book that Jerry got me for Christmas.

I am very thankful for our electric blanket that was a wedding gift. We only have a window unit in our apartment that is in our family room and takes a long time to warm up all the way to our bedroom. But this morning in my half-awake, half-sleeping state I got nausous/ freaked out by the wireing in it.
.. just thought you would want to know.

Things that made me happy in the past 24 hours
- coming home to a perfectly clean home (yes, Jerry is wonderful)
- I Am Aldolfo from The Drowsy Chaperone
- lifting 3 lb. weights
- crappy ABC family shows
- DD's video of Henry
- groceries
- singing in devotional
- my SOFT, WARM robe. i just love it!
- a canceled class

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Christmas Break 2009

Wow, break seemed to last forever! in the best of ways!

Highlights include:

Getting our car fixed(but not the money that it cost)
Meeting Tobin and Trista's new arrival, Kalan
Getting to make music with all of my Hale in-law siblings
Having at least one super lazy day with Jerry
Driving to and from Arizona with no radio
Driving in snow for 7 hours and seeing hundreds of cars off the road, but not being one of them!
Getting to see Devin, Emily, and Creed
Jerry's new guitar! Thanks, Devin!
Spending all of our time with my parents, who I missed (hiking, eating out, movies, games)
Spending 2 days with all the Hales(minus the Tobin clan) for New Years
Cleaning our apartment and decorating! (it still looks pretty sad, but hey, not as bad as before!)

For the next month Jerry is putting all of his effort into applying for the BYU MPA program. It is one of the best in the nation, and getting a job afterwards is pretty easy , plus it will really help Jerry so he can have a career he will love! What's better than that? If you know me, you know my philosophy is to never expect anything so that I am never dissapointed. I am going to try to live by this for the next few months, but it so hard to not get my hopes up.