Our life

So I know I've been bad about blogging.

And honestly I still blame Blogger and their dumb photo size rules. If I could just upload my pics and blog the world would be a much simpler place.

Anyways....

So recently..... I made eggplant parmesan a few weeks ago. It came out pretty good. I baked the eggplant, but next time I might try frying it first so it doesn't get soggy.

I also made Skinnytaste's Sana Fe chicken. This usually makes 2 meals for us, so the first time I put it over rice, then we use the leftovers for quesadillas. It's yummy.

Here is a rare picture of me and Daniel. 

We have a Burger King in our city now. Honestly i was very excited when I first heard. However...the only thing I really go to BK for is their Original Chicken sandwich. guess what they don't have on the menu??

I made baby food today. I stuck the with "P's"-pears, peas, and pumpkin. She will get peas tomorrow for the first time. I'm alternating veggies and fruits as she gets introduced to a new food. 

I'm not really running. I would like to say it's because it's been raining every day here. That's true, but I'm honestly just not motivated. I have lost all my pregnancy weight, so I'm happy about that. My body will never really look the way it did before, but that's okay. i'm glad I'm back to a healthy weight. 

Daniels' parents get here late tomorrow night and are staying about 11 days. I'm super excited and so is Paige. Grandparents Day is this Sunday, so i'm happy they will be here to celebrate. We'll do a little traveling with them next week. 

My dad's birthday is today! (your tomorrow) Happy Birthday DAD!!!!!!

Here he is running his first race-an15K on his birthday in 2009! My sister and I ran it too, we had so much fun!

Happy Weekend!

love

laura

Twins

Saturday I was making brownies, and needed an egg. I feel like the eggs here are smaller than the ones in the States. So when I went to get an egg from the fridge, I noticed one looked a lot bigger than normal. So I cracked the egg into the bowl and 2 yolks came out!!! Maybe this is common, but I have never seen this before! Daniel usually buys our eggs at the market, and he said he noticed they were bigger than usual. He had also found a couple that had 2 yolks. My first thought was, oh my gosh, twins!!!

This was Paige last night. She fell asleep in my arms, then we put her in the bouncer. So cute.

Speaking of twins......yesterday we were getting ready to head out and I put Paige in the dress that my sister and I wore when we were babies. When my mom first showed it to me, I  was convinced it was doll clothes and my mom was just confused. But the tag actually says 0-3 months, so I guess it's safe to say the dress is for real.

It has "I love Granny" embroidered on it. I wish I had a picture of when I was wearing it as a baby.

We tried to get her to smile, but it was almost time for her nap. Not that it mattered, with being away from home yesterday she missed two naps. But she did take a long afternoon nap that was lovely!

I just can't take the cuteness!!!! Seriously, the little ruffles and collar! agh, too much!

We didn't really do too much this weekend......Friday night Daniel taught english corner and Paige and I hung out, again with her falling asleep in the bouncer. Saturday, Daniel taught class in the morning and I watched an episode of Call the Midwife. That afternoon we ran errands and got ready for company we had for dinner. Yesterday we met with some friends, ate at McDonalds, then just rested most of the afternoon.

Speaking of McDonald's-I can't remember if I had already you this or not. But.....almost all the McDonald's here have a Mon-Fri lunch special where you can get any of their value meals for about $2.50. And I'm talking the regular meals-burger, fries and a drink. It's a steal! We get McDonald's about once a month or so. I know......BUT it's really the only good Western fast food here. So it always feels like a treat. And it's so cheap, it's hard to pass that up! 

Happy Memorial Day!

love

laura

Pumpkin Oatmeal Muffins

It's fall. Which means it's PUMPKIN TIME!!

Until last year, I had never tasted pumpkin and had convinced myself I didn't like it. Then a friend made a few recipes with pumpkin and I loved every one of them!

We buy our pumpkins in the market here....they look like long squash. I cut the pumpkin in half, deseed, cook for about an hour or so, then scoop out the pumpkin and puree it with a little bit of water. One pumpkin can get me about 10 cups of pumpkin puree. I still had pumpkin in the freezer from last winter, so i decided to get my fall baking on this past weekend.

I've been wanting to make a pumpkin muffin, instead of just regular pumpkin bread. But I wanted to make the recipe a little healthier. All of the healthy recipes online included ingredients I can't get here and/or sounded too healthy to even taste good.

So I took my regular pumpkin bread recipe and tweaked it a little. I have to get my splenda from the states, so I never cook with it. I always use it just for my coffee. But I decided to splurge and use it in this recipe, and it worked really well!

Pumpkin Oatmeal Muffins:

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup oats

3/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp nutmeg

2 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda

1/3 tsp baking powder

1 Tbs ground flax seed

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup Splenda sugar blends (mine was a little closer to 1/3)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup oil (plus 1 Tbs)

2 eggs

1 cup pumpkin puree

Preheat oven to 350 (175 C)

In large mixing bowl, combine all of your dry ingredients. Mix well.

Add pumpkin, oil, and eggs to dry mixture. Mix well.

Grease muffin pans. I used a 1/4 measuring cup to pour the batter into the muffin tins. They were about 2/3 full. I baked these for about 22 minutes....you might want to check these at 20 minutes. When a toothpick comes out clean, remove from oven.

Cool in muffin pans for about 5 minutes. Then use a knife to go around the edges to loosen the muffin. Then remove the muffins and allow to cool on a baking rack for about 10 minutes.

Makes about 15 muffins. You could also make this into bread if you wanted. 

These were REALLY good! Daniel said he couldn't taste the difference between this and the regular pumpkin bread recipe. The main change was decreasing the flour and adding in the oats. Also adding ground flax and Splenda. These are super moist, and taste really sweet! 

I was worried that the oatmeal would give it a strange texture, but you couldn't even tell it was in there. These may not be the healthiest pumpkin muffins, but they are really good tasting ones!

I also experimented a little when I made my granola bars. I like adding in nuts like cashews, almonds, and peanuts, but the nuts don't seem to mix that well with the granola mixture. So yesterday I decided to blend the nuts first, then just add them in. They weren't as chewy as normal, so next time I need to add a little bit more honey. But I like how they came out. One change I have made to the original recipe, is I also add almost 1/2 cup of peanut butter. And when I half the recipe, I use a 7X11 pan, because an 8X8 is too small. 

When you take the granola bars out of the oven, you can either freeze them first for about 45 minutes, or cool in the fridge for about an hour. Then take them out and cut them. Because it's cooler here now,  I leave these out, but during the summer, they always stay in the fridge. I think they're chewier that way. 

love

laura

Must make recipe

You know how sometimes you just feel like you're in a cooking rut? You feel like you make the same thing all the time and nothing sounds good to make? That's where I was a few days ago, so I wandered over to Skinnytaste.com, because I feel like everyone is talking about it.

And I found this! I always love a good crockpot meal!

I made a few substitutions....I chopped up 2 tomatoes (next time will do 3) instead of using the canned diced (bc we can't get that here), and instead of all of the spices, I just put in a packet of Taco seasoning. I also didn't use scallions, because I'm still unsure as to what those are exactly. And I only used about 1 lb of chicken.

Here it is!

Last night I served it over rice, and tonight I made tortillas and we just used the leftovers as burrito filling. I'm telling you, this is amazing and delicious!!!!! I rarely ever find a recipe that I want to make over and over again, but this one is definitely a keeper. One thing I simply LOVE about it, is how easy it is!!! Very little chopping or prep work. Also, I love that it is versatile.....you can put it with rice, tortillas, use it as a quesadilla filling, or serve it over tortilla chips and make a taco salad. Leftovers will no longer be boring! Make it, I promise you will like it!

Also, in cooking news this week, look what I did!

Apparently I'm stronger than I thought. I'm thankful that I wasn't hurt when the blade went flying but also sad, because this was seriously my favorite knife!

Daniel cooked on Saturday night, and we had pork, veggie stir fry and rice...it was yummy!

Random story.....I hung out with a local friend on Saturday night and she has a car. So she picked me up at my house but made me sit in the back the whole time because she "wasn't skillful." It was pretty awkward, so by the time she took me back home I insisted that it would be okay for me to sit in front, a risk I was willing to take.

I'm off to spin class!!

love

laura

Baking Palooza!

Yesterday, I spent most of my day in the kitchen. It was a really cold day, so it gave me a great excuse to have the oven on!

Ya'll know of my new love and obsession with pumpkin. Daniel bought a huge one at the market this week, and I cooked it down to puree it. I got 10 cups out of it. That would cost me $40 at the import store!!! And it only cost about $2 and some of my time.

After I puree it, I put it into 1 cup baggies to put in the freezer. This is what I had left after making pumpkin bread.

Ya'll should have seen my kitchen! It was such a disaster, there was pumpkin everywhere!!!

I had leftover cream cheese icing from Daniel's birthday party, so I thought it would be great to use on the bread. Ummmm yes, a wonderful idea if I say so myself :)

I knew we were having mexican for dinner, but we were about out of tortilla chips. So I figured hey, i can make those too!

First, I made my own tortillas.

I know what you're thinking.....move over Martha Stewart, am i right?

Then I cut up the tortillas and baked them into chips.

We had chicken taquitos, mexican rice, tortilla chips and queso! It was special because we had queso-real velveeta cheese and rotel! I think we both ate until we were sick. You really indulge when you are around things like queso and homemade chips.

After a day of baking, we snuggled up and watched Home Alone. I love a good Christmas movie!

I should probably go run now, ha!

love

laura

Foodie

This post is all about food. It's a wonder i haven't lost any more weight lately, ha!

On Friday, Daniel and I went to a local tea house for lunch. We drank a lot of sweet tea. But not what you're thinking of....

It tastes like a creamy milky (hot) black tea. Some places make it a lot better than others, but this tea house knew what they were doing. I put back several cups of it.

For lunch, we had this......

It's like a meat pie.... the inside is beef and onions and a lot of oil. Yum!

Then, as i mentioned in my last post, I bought a $5 can of Hormel chili to make chili dogs on Friday night. I scraped every bit of chili out of the can that i possibly could, ha! And the chili dogs??? Amazing!

We had leftovers for lunch today....they were SO good! I might want to splurge on these a little too often!

Tonight chicken curry was on the menu. I had made it once in the states, and liked the flavor but it was really watery. I found a new recipe here, and OMG please try it! I haven't found a new recipe in a long time that i've liked this much. Seriously delish.

Okay, it doesn't look as good as it tastes, look past that, ha!

I did make a few changes to the recipe. I used 3 chicken breasts, so i just eyed and increased all the spices. And i don't have yogurt (but i'm sure greek yogurt would be great in this), so i used homemade sour cream, about 1 1/2 cups, and couldn't tell the difference. I also used about 1 1/2-2 cups of Coconut Milk. I'm sure you could use less but i wanted a lot of sauce to pour over the rice. I also did not add the lemon juice (after reading other reviews), but i think it would have been fine with it. I also added 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar and a good bit of salt. The good thing with the recipe is that it's easy to play with and add less/more of what you want. It also was VERY easy to make.Try it. You'll love it!

And yes, that is fresh mango on my plate. Nom Nom Nom!!!

love

laura

Eating and Running

That pretty much sums up my week, ha!

This week I ran twice. I ran a 5K, and then 4 miles this morning. It feels really good to be running consistently again. I would like to get back up to about 6 miles, but don't really feel the push to run longer than that right now. There is a half marathon in our city next year that i really want to train for, but for now.....i'd take 6.

This past week has been unseasonably cool. We had about 3 days in the 70's with nice breezes. It was nice to have the windows open for a few days. It's hot again today. Not hot like ya'll are experiencing, but still hot and humid.

Which brings me to a new love i have.....

I was at a friends house about 2 weeks ago and was served ice coffee. Let it be known that i am a coffee snob, including iced. I have a deep passionate love and appreciation for McDonald's Sugar-free-vanilla iced coffees. Clearly i can't get those here. BUT, i tried it at my friends house and i'm officially hooked!

Sidenote: You can't get coffee creamer here (you can get the powder but it's about $11). So most people (including me) buy coffee syrups from coffee shops. I bought Hazelnut a few weeks ago.

Anyways........here's the recipe for the iced coffee i'm now in love with:

Brew coffee-put in fridge to get cold.

Once cold, pour over ice and add milk and coffee syrup.

Drink and enjoy!

disclaimer: maybe you all have been making your own iced coffee for a while now, but i've always had my doubts about it. I am now a believer.

After my run this morning, we had breakfast burritos. We don't have salsa, so it was just sausage, eggs, and cheese. It was delish!

I'm attempting to make my own ricotta cheese tomorrow. I'll try and document it to let you know how it goes. After conquering the homemade crescent rolls, i'm hoping this will go well too!

Sidenote: I tried to make a dessert this week that i've made 100 times in the states. But i had to make my own whipping cream. The whipping cream came out okay, but the dessert as a whole was a complete failure. Like, the worst the thing i have EVER made. Ever. It was a sad day.

Anyways.....this past week has been pretty busy with language and responsibilitiess that we have here. This week should be a little less crazy. I'll let ya know :)

love

laura

Best meal ever

I have to document this.

Kelly's Enchilada Ring recipe has been a fave of ours for a while. I double the sour cream and only add black olives to a portion because Daniel hates black olives. I usually use lime juice, but i haven't seen limes here, so i used lemon juice instead.

I really wanted to make this recipe here, however crescent rolls are unheard of. But a friend of mine has a recipe blog and had a recipe for homemade crescent rolls! So i decided to give it a whirl...

The rolls were actually much easier to make than i would've thought. I did skip the step of rolling them up and letting them rise for 30 minutes, because the enchilada ring recipe calls for the crescents to be unrolled. After letting the dough rise for an hour i just rolled them out and filled them.

Here is the finished product.......

It was definitely the best i've ever been able to make it. I mean seriously, Daniel and i agreed it was probably the best thing i've ever made. Ever. The homemade crescent rolls were to die for!

Sidenote, i did run 3 miles yesterday. It was actually harder than i thought it would be, but since it's been so long, i know it will take a while to get back to where i want to be.

Cultural side note: I decided to take the bus to a store yesterday so i could pay 0.25 rather than $3 for a taxi. Well, it took me almost an hour to find the bus stop. I got on and after riding around for a while i asked if we were going to the store. Everyone told me i was on the right bus but was going the wrong way. No problem i thought, i'll just ride it till we get there.

Then the bus stopped at the station and everyone got off.

A sweet old man took pity on me and helped me find the right bus to get on. I sat on the empty bus for about 10 minutes. Then we went right back to where i first got on the bus. Apparently there are 2 stops on the same street for this bus. One side takes you one way, the other takes you another. So 2 hours later i was at my store. I taxied home :)

love

laura

catching up

Since my last few posts have been somewhat serious, i though i'd do a recap of our last few days.

Last thursday I went to my MIL's house and got to play with Mary Kay! Her lady came over and basically let us play with make up. I did fall in love with the lipstick and gloss....maybe a future purchase?? hmmm...

I didn't take a before pic, but here is me after. It was really windy that day, so that's why my bangs look all plastered.

yes, i know it's in black and white....but i forgot how much i love those!!

We all (everyone except Daniel) went out to dinner and talked about our upcoming Hawaii trip!!!!

here are Mike (BIL) & his friend Zach:

Friday, we had dinner at our SS director's house... she made this delicious italiam creme cake. I held myself back at 1 piece. Daniel made up for it with the 3, pieces he ate :)

Saturday morning Daniel was at a training thing, so i went grocery shopping alone. I had the best time! (not bc daniel wasn't there, but bc of the great stuff i got). Due to Sarah's annoying influence in my life, I bought flax seed, whole wheat flour, yogurt (gag), all natural peanut butter, fresh fruits and veggies, etc.... I was SO proud of my little grocery cart when i was checking out. I've already used the flax seed for the choc zuchini bread i made on Sunday nite!

Saturday afternoon we went to Gainesville!!!! i've been bugging Daniel about this forever. I really like their GAP outlet, and now that we have Dave Ramsey in our lives...it just makes sense!

Although I did not like DR very much on Saturday. I actually got mad. and annoyed. I'm not a huge shopper, but when i go, I usually don't tell myself 'no' very often. I had to tell myself 'no' a lot on Saturday. As we were leaving, Daniel had the nerve to say 'hey, we're living now like no one else, so that later we can live like no one else.' ohhhh if looks could kill!

Although I am happy now, and I KNOW deep deep deep down inside it was a good thing we stayed on budget that day, i still reached an unhealthy anger level :) (ok not really, i didn't throw antyhing....)

Saturday nite ended up being fun and relaxing, and we caught up on the Amazing Race, one of our fave shows.

Sunday night brought lots of cooking. I tried a new recipe, Spinach Manicotti. YUM!!

This was our last few days in a nutshell. We currently don't have any weekend plans, and i'm pretty excited about it! And i'm going to the eye dr tomorrow, which also brings me way too much happiness. how can a new eye rx not bring anyone joy??? bring on the dialation!!!

love

laura