Happy Birthday Tom!

Tom turned 33 today!

He is by far the most awesome person in the world: the best husband, the greatest father, and there isn't anyone I would rather spend eternity with.


Here are a few, of the countless, reasons I love him:

• He is the most selfless person in the world.
• He is super hot on a road bike.
• 
• He has a great, albeit bizarre, sense of humor.
  
• He is an awesome marathoner. (7 or 8 marathons to his name)
• He has great work ethic.
• He cleans the house.
• He makes a mean alfredo and hollandaise sauce.
• He is so kind to his parents (and mine).
• He is patient.
• He always puts his family first.
• He honors his priesthood and strives to be like the Savior.
• He lets me sleep in every morning and gets the kids going.
• He watches enough sports to be manly, but not too much that it's annoying.
• He watches chick flicks with me.
  
• And he looks great in a mullet.

Basically, there are too many awesome qualities that this man possesses, so I won't bore you with them all.

But I just wanted to shout out a Happy Day to my rad guy.

It's a . . .

. . .I have no idea, but we are super excited to be welcomimg a new one into our family sometime in June. This ultrasound was taken a month ago, when the babe was merely the size of a lime. He/she is now the whopping size of an orange.

We are all excited and can't wait for the new one to join (and proabably complete) our family.

PS: I finally got my pictures from the past 3 moths uploaded and will hopefully post some of the highlights of our life in the coming weeks.

Thump, Quack, Moo

Man, I haven't posted for a while. Life has been crazy! But fun. The last thing I started posting about was Porter's storytelling festival back in November, so I guess I ought to finish the post.

Porter entered last year and won for the first grade with his telling of "I am a Seed." This year he progressed to a longer, more involved story, "Thump, Quack, Moo." He did marvelously and won again! We were so proud. He was by far the loudest and most confident second grader out there. He practiced every day and really worked hard on his voice and hand motions.

Bountiful Basket: Hurricane

Bountiful Baskets has arrived in Hurricane!! I am super excited that we have our own site here and invite all my Hurricane peeps to check it out and join the co-op. Or if you are in Northern Utah or anywhere in Arizona, there is probably a pick-up near you.

Basically, Bountiful Baskets is a food co-op that distributes seasonal and regional produce at a great deal. As a participant, you contribute $15 ($18 the first time) to the co-op on Tuesday or Wednesday. That money is used to buy the produce. On Saturday, the produce is delivered to volunteers who distribute it equally amongst participants. At 9 am the produce is ready for participants to come and retrieve at the Coral Cliffs Cinema. It is all done by volunteers. Volunteers come an hour early and help distribute the food and in return get an extra piece of produce for their basket.

The co-op usually offers extra as well. This week a citrus pack can be added on: $18 for 22 lbs of grapefruit, tangerines, lemons, limes, and oranges. They also offer great whole grain bread: 5 loaves for $10.

I am super excited and just wanted to share the news. Click here or here for others who have tried and loved Bountiful Baskets.

Chile Rellenos with Roasted Tomatillo Sauce

So with the yumminess found in my first experience with Bountiful Baskets, I made chile rellenos. They are my all-time favorite Mexican food, but they are always hit and miss and restaurants, so I don't order them too often.

My Mexican Pack came with 4 giant, dark green poblano chiles. They were beautiful and instantly called out to me that they wanted to be made into chile rellenos. Luckily for me, I had a plethora of other Mexican produce to compliment them and an awesome friend/chef just posted a recipe for a tomatillo sauce. The pack had all the necessary produce.

I altered her recipe a tiny bit. I think I used 8 tomatillos. I didn't use the sour cream (although I might if I was using it as a dressing), I just used olive oil. I added some roasted onion. I added one roasted chile (I don't know what kind it was and I wasn't sure how spicy it was. It was yellow and about the size of a jalepeno.) Next time I'll add two. And I just roasted all the veggies, including the garlic, on my grill. The sauce was what really made the rellenos awesome.

Now for the actual Chile Relleno recipe.

4-5 Poblano Chiles (Anaheim also work well, and I used one plain old green pepper for the kids)
Filling
8 oz. cream cheese
1/2 c. grated cheese (Jack or any mexican cheese are best, but I ended up using cheddar)
1 clove garlic, minced (I should have roasted another 1 or 2 cloves for the filling)
handful of chopped cilantro
2 T chopped onion (I should have roasted that as well)
salt to taste
Batter
4 eggs, separated
flour
salt

Roast the whole poblanos on the grill until the skin is nice and blackened all over. Place in a paper bag and close for 15 minutes. Remove skin from chiles and carefully deseed, if desired. (I left two with seeds for Tom and extra spiciness. Mine without seeds had the perfect level of heat.)

Mix filling ingredients. Carefully slit each chile and stuff with filling and fold back closed.

Whip egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold in yolks. Dip each filled chile in flour with a bit of salt and shake off all excess. Dip in egg batter and immediately fry in skillet with hot oil. Fry until golden brown on each side and filling is hot.


Serve with Roasted Tomatillo Sauce, Mexican Brown Rice, gaucamole and fresh corn tortillas.

Bountiful Baskets Rock!

So if you've never tried, or heard of, Bountiful Baskets, you need to get involved. It is a food co-op that delivers great local and regional produce at a can't be beat price. For $15, you get a big box of random seasonal produce. They also usually offer extra produce (such as bushels of peaches or a mexican variety pack) for a great deal. It is super fun to see what you get and to figure out what to do with it all before it goes bad.

This was the first time I have tried it out, but I think it was well worth the money. I did have to drive 40 miles to get the stuff, but I rationalized because I was picking up 8 boxes for all my friends. I am working on getting a pick-up closer to home.

Here are the goodies from my first week. I figure the standard basket, which cost me $15, contained $20-$25 worth of produce had I bought everything on sale. Do you see those persimmons. I have got to find a fun recipe to use them up.

The Mexican pack cost me $7.50 and contained $10-$15 of awesomeness. Do you see all those chiles, three varieties?. Chile rellenos were cooked last night, and let me tell you, they were wonderful.

So if you live anywhere in Arizona or in Northern Utah or Cedar City you need to check out their web site and get involved.

Since I don't cook much anymore and rarley take pictures...

Photo from www.thepioneerwomancooks.com

I will share a recipe I want to try and may get to by Christmas and if I do, I will definitely take pictures and share.

Pioneer Woman posted about yummy dark chocolate truffles with sea salt. That is two people who have posted about the awesomeness of sea salt (Her and her). I guess, I need to invest in some.

I have always wanted to make truffles because a) they are so delicious, b) they are so expensive and c) they are so beautiful and I think they would make grand Christmas neighbor gifts.

Does anyone else have a great, simple truffle recipe? Please share.