Harvest Time - Recipes

All the fall/harvest type foods available right now are putting me in a cooking mood. I have been trying to incorporate them into the meals that I make. As I mentioned in a post last month, I learned how to can apple pie filling, which I repeated over the weekend at my mom's house. Apples are a great fall food, and so versatile. On Monday for dinner, I made potato and cheese pierogies cooked with onions and apples, served with chicken noodle soup. I also recently tried a new caramel fondue recipe used for dipping apples, and it was delicious.
Last night, I made vegetarian stuffed peppers. Those turned out great too. Especially since our landlady just gave us two bags of walnuts off her tree! I love being able to use up fresh, seasonal ingredients.
Tonight I made pumpkin pancakes served with massaman curry over rice. Okay, so the curry was left over from the Thai restaurant we went to for my birthday, but I made the pancakes myself. They turned out great. I would highly recommend trying this recipe. Let me know if you have any more great fall recipes I should try! I'm making my first Thanksgiving dinner this year...

Tagged...

8 Things...okay, I've never done one of these before but Kim tagged me so...

8 Favorite T.V. Shows
1. Lost - we were hooked on the DVDs all summer, just have season 4 left
2. Alias - we've been hooked on those DVDs this fall
3. The Office, again, on DVD. Need to catch up on the last season of that
4. I don't watch TV. If it's not on DVD, I don't watch it. Most of the shows out there, I've never even heard of
5. I like several of the shows on NPR...does that count?
6.
7.
8.


8 Things that Happened Yesterday
1. We got rid of the monster TV that we bought on KSL
2. I got Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master in exchange for it
3. I also got Mac OS X Leopard
4. I made yummy vegetarian stuffed peppers for dinner
5. Did some reading for my pediatrics class
6. It rained a lot, and snowed a little
7. I voted for Barack Obama
8. He won


8 Favorite Places to Eat
1. Rumbi
2. House of Tibet
3. Sawadee Thai
4. Paradise Bakery
5. Mazza (Middle Eastern)
6. Chipotle
7. Quizno's
8. IMC cafeteria (just kidding)


8 Things I'm looking forward to
1. Thanksgiving
2. Holiday break from school
3. Our scooter being fixed
4. Chase graduating
5. Our cruise to the Caribbean - Dec 15!
7. Me graduating
8. Buying a house

8 Things on my Wish List
1. Travel the world
2. Learn a couple more languages
3. Perform again (dance)
4. Get completely out of debt
5. A puppy
6. Be happier by simplifying my life and needing less
7. For my family to be happy too
8. For my dad to be rebaptized

I tag...anyone who wants to answer this on their blog!

Happy Halloween from Wal Mart

I try not to venture in here. Especially after a comment from an acquaintance once when I mentioned I was afraid I couldn't afford to shop anywhere else for groceries: "Well, then, you should go to college and get a degree. Then you could afford to shop somewhere else." This was after I had graduated with my bachelor's degree and been accepted to nursing school. Oh, the joys of having a sociology degree.

Anyway, our bank happens to be in Wal Mart, so sometimes we have to make an appearance. This sign was the first thing I saw when I walked in.

Now I remember why I'm going to nursing school.

Trips

Chase and I have been trying to plan a trip for a long time. I have had a bunch of unused Delta Skymiles in my acount for years, accumulated mostly from business trips I've taken. It was never quite enough for a flight though, so back in June we decided to get one of those American Express cards that gives you Skymiles with each purchase, plus 15,000 bonus miles when you sign up. Or so we thought. We had originally planned to go to Maine in August, to visit Acadia National Park and my friend Brittany. However, we soon found out that the miles take 8-12 weeks to come through on your account. A couple of weeks ago I was thinking about this, and wondering why, though we'd waited months, these miles had stilled not shown up on my account. (We'd bagged the Maine idea a long time ago, traveling to Canada instead, and were now looking to fly to Florida for a cruise to celebrate our anniversary and Chase's graduation.) When I called American Express, they informed me that they'd "made an attempt" to transfer the miles to me in June, but because my name was different on my card (married name) than my Skymiles account (maiden name), it wouldn't work. Besides being annoyed they hadn't notified me of this little problem, I thanked the man and set to work faxing my marriage certificate to Delta so they could change my name. Despite this, the miles still did not appear (meanwhile rates to Florida are increasing daily). When I contacted them again, after forty minutes on the phone, twenty of them spent on hold, and a three-way conversation between me, an American Express lady, and a Delta lady, this is what I found out:
Delta lady: The name on your American Express card and the name on your Skymiles account don't match, so we can't give you the miles.

Me: Nice try, I faxed the marriage certificate in last week and they told me everything was updated.

Delta lady: It says here that the name on your Skymiles account is Ashley Raymond.

Me: Yeah, that's right.

Delta lady: Well, the name on your card is Ashley L. Raymond. That is not the same name.

After a little more negotiating, I agreed to fax in my drivers license, which lists my middle name, so that I could prove to them that I am Ashley L. Raymond, instead of the "other person" they had an account for, who happened to have my same first and last name, address, phone number, social security number, and credit card number. The conversation ended like this:

Delta lady: Before I hang up, would you like assistance booking any hotels or rental cars?

Me: NO! (Because of you, I probably can't even go on my *@$#?&#* trip!)

Delta lady: Would you like to apply for an American Express Skymiles card and receive 15,000 bonus miles with your new card?

Me: Aaaarrrghhh! (Hang up phone)

After a few more painful phone calls and several more painful days of waiting, I am pleased to say that we have now booked our flights and cruise in December. Finally...in seven weeks we will be here:

Stories, Updates, & Things Left Unblogged

So I've taken a break from blogging for a while...to focus on the election (ha! just kidding - although my candidate is pulling ahead...yay). So what has been going on...

1. A couple of months ago, in an effort to be more environmentally conscious, we downsized to one car and bought this:

Cute, fun, 80 miles to the gallon...but it broke down this week. I never really thought about how you'd get a scooter to the shop to be fixed when it doesn't work...you can't tow it, nor does it fit in your car. We're still working on that one...

2. I have learned how to can. Sort of. Some women in my ward were nice enough to teach me. Eventually I would like to know how to do this on my own, but since I don't have any of the equipment, I settled for canning in the church kitchen (applie pie filling!) the first day and in someone's home kitchen (tomatoes) the next week.



















































Next I'm looking to buy a wheat grinder so I can make my own whole wheat flour.

3. I'm going to have a niece! My sister already blogged about it here, and I am so excited...we guessed it would be a girl, and we were right. What else would you expect from my family?

Hilarious

Click here

Junk

One person's junk really is another person's (my) treasure. And there are a few times when my husband's job at the after school program working with mostly very disadvantaged kids comes in handy. Like when we get to go to the SLC Arts Festival or Raging Waters for free. Or tonight, when he called me from work and asked me to bring the car over, because today is the lucky day every year when the Salt Lake Airport drops off all the junk from their lost and found at the Sorenson Center. This is mostly so that the children can take advantage of the coats, clothing and other items that they might need. But there were many, many things that the children did not need, that we definitely developed a need for very quickly when we saw them. Like the 7 megapixel digital camera, the digital photo frame, the tempurpedic travel pillow, the brand new suitcase and electric razor, the plastic baggie full of quarters, the portable hand-held TV, and the brand-new women's size small Marmot rain jacket (yay! it was even raining today). Of course, there was a lot of real junk too, and some verrrry interesting finds. I think a lot of the stuff was removed or confiscated at security. There were a lot of belts. I know airport security is a big deal now since 9/11, but really, must we seize baby bottles with formula in them? And I did feel sorry for the poor diabetic person who somehow became separated from their glucometer, insulin, and syringes. But it was a great treasure hunt for us!

Street Fair

I spent Saturday afternoon at the Avenues Street Fair. My sister Allison debuted her new business, Shades of Jade. She has been making all kinds of handmade things to sell, such as photo frames, baby headbands, and onesies with cute designs sewn on them. She did pretty well for her first time selling the stuff, and we looked pretty cute in the little booth...

You can check out her stuff here

?

There are a lot of funny and...unique things around Salt Lake. Like this.





I wish I had 25 hours in my day.

Today

Do I look like a sad person? I think I don't smile enough. But I think that is just naturally the way my face is (and my personality). I tried to capture it here.

Today I am going to change my life. This is something I have been wanting to do for a while. I wasn't quite sure how, and I'm still not, but I think that I can do it. And in the process, I will change other lives as well.

I will feel better about myself. I will love others better. I will learn more. I will give even more. I will be happy. Because really, these are choices. And I will make these choices today.

Canada Part 2

That was getting to be a long post, so I thought I'd break it up. The day after we went to Banff, my cousin Traci and her family took us on another adventure. We went to dinner at the home of some friends of theirs, who live on a little farm outside Lacombe. They had lots of fun animals to play with.


After dinner, we rode "quads" (4-wheelers) a few miles down the road to a gorgeous lake where we were able to canoe around and see even more wildlife. We came really close to two big pelicans, and we saw tons of beavers swimming around in the water. We got out and hiked around at this little cave, and then rode our quads back to the house, where we got to try Saskatoon pie (a type of berry found in Canada).


We also got to hang out with Traci's adorable kids:

Madison


Hailee and Payton

The next day we went to the West Edmonton mall. Alberta happens to have one of the biggest malls in the world, and it's only about an hour away from my aunt's house. It's actually pretty crazy and maybe an interesting commentary on Western consumerism, but somehow they managed to fit hundreds of stores, a waterpark, a full amusement park complete with roller coaster, an ice rink, water/animal shows, and lots more into this mall.




I'm not going to say it wasn't fun! We were able to stop and do a session at the Edmonton Temple on the way back too, which was really nice. It was fun to see one of the smaller temples, and I actually got to meet the temple president!

It was a great trip.

Canada

Yay! Summer vacation! We (I) totally needed this, as it has been one of the least fun summers I can remember, for me at least...work and school kinda burned me out so we'd been waiting to take a trip like this. It was totally worth the 15 hour drive each way (well, 24 hour drive on the way there, but that's another story) for the week we got to spend in Canada. We stayed in Lacombe, Alberta with my aunt and uncle. The drive through Alberta was pretty, it actually rained a little, which brought out the colors of the surrounding farmland beautifully, and provided us with an awesome double rainbow.


Oh yeah, we also passed this:


Our second day there we drove to Banff National Park. This is definitely the biggest national park I've ever been to. It was amazing. The Canadian Rockies were majestic and the water in all the lakes and rivers was bright crystal blue. We found out that the color comes from rock powder that falls from the mountain in the glacier melt and allows blue and green light to be reflected back from the water.



We stopped at Lake Louise (above) and looked around the hotel they have on the grounds. It was called Chateau something (meaning it's really expensive - $600/night minimum), and the grounds were really beautiful.




We then went to the actual town of Banff for lunch and shopping. It's a kind of quaint-looking, touristy, ski-area town, very Park City-esque, only cooler. Later we took a gondola ride up to the top of Sulphur Mountain, and from there hiked over to another peak. Amazing views from the gondola and mountain tops, including a baby bighorn sheep:





We also caught the elk herd that lives at the Banff Springs golf course. We were really close to some of them, which was cool, and they didn't even seem scared. Then we stopped a Bow Falls on our way back to Lacombe.






We can't wait to go back to Canda again and spend more time in the park and in Banff. I think it would take several days to see it all. It was an amazing place!

World Water Week

Today marks the beginning of the 2008 World Water Week. Besides being a fun alliteration to say, World Water Week is an annual meeting in Stockholm, Sweden to present and generate ideas about better use of the resource and environmental concerns. This year there is a special emphasis on water sanitation throughout the world. In light of my last post, and my efforts to be more conscientious of my impact on the environment, I decided that this is something I would definitely like to support! Some of the initiatives being considered at this year's conference include cutting back on the use of bottled water, carbon-offsetting, recycling, and fair trade. I am excited that this group is taking the initiative to help the billions of people in the world who do not have access to adequate sanitation. This is the kind of organization I would like to be involved with in the future (you know, once I'm out of school and I have time for stuff like that).

Addendum to the Golden Cathedral Trip

Another wonderful souvenir I acquired on the Golden Cathedral Trip (besides the hundreds of bug bites and terrifying memories of being stuck 50 feet in the air)...Giardia. Yup, that's right, the parasite that lives in your intestines.


This is an artist's interpretation of a parasite in my small instestine

**Giardia is also known as beaver fever. Strangely you don't usually get a fever and beavers have little to do with it.**
Courtesy of www.ceoblues.com/archive/2006/june/giardiabeaver

MOBA - Is this for real?

Museum of Bad Art, Dedham, Massachusetts.


"Lucy in the field with flowers"
"Acquired from trash in Boston, this single painting planted the seed that grew into MOBA. The motion, the chair, the sway of her breast, the subtle hues of the sky, the expression on her face -- every detail combines to create this transcendent and compelling portrait, every detail cries out "masterpiece."


"Mama and Babe"
"The flesh tones bring to mind the top shelf liqueurs of a border bistro. With an astonishing emphasis on facial bone structure, the artist flirts with caricature and captures features of Mamma's face which remind us of a Presidential candidate. The upright marionettish pose of the babe hints that the early bond between mother and child is as formal as it is familiar. Good old fashioned parental respect is at the center of this celebration of color and contour."


"Sunday on the Pot With George"
"an the swirling steam melt away the huge weight of George's corporate responsibilities? This pointillist piece is curious for meticulous attention to fine detail, such as the stitching around the edge of the towel, in contrast to the almost careless disregard for the subject's feet."


"Think Again"
Acrylic on canvas by Unknown
Acquired by Scott Wilson from trash

This disturbing work "makes an offer you can't refuse". The chilling, matter-of-fact manner in which the subject presents the severed head to us is a poignant reminder of just how numb we have become. The understated violence implicit in the scene speaks volumes on our own desensitization, our society's reflexive use of force, and the artist's inability to deal with the hindquarters of the animal.

http://www.museumofbadart.org/

The Golden Cathedral

On the fourth of July, Chase and I, and Chase's dad, Mike, took off for Escalante Grand Staircase to hike Neon Canyon and see the Golden Cathedral. It was quite an eventful trip. After the 6 hour drive down, we started the 4 mile hike down into Escalante. It was blazing hot when we started, and even the water in our water bottles was actually HOT after the first 45 minutes or so. Luckily, a great big cloud came over and shaded us for most of the hike.



The trailhead where we started was called Egypt, which I thought was kind of funny because it was nothing but sand and barren desert, and I guess I have always kind of pictured Egypt to be like that. I'm probably wrong, but I thought it was amusing. There actually turned out to be great desert scenery, and we even found those pretty little flowers growing right out of the sand!




After we made the hike in and set up camp, we swam in the river for a bit, cooked our dinner, and went to bed. Not that we actually slept...the mosquitoes, wind, and rock-hard ground kept us awake most of the night. The next morning we set out for the top of Neon Canyon, then dropped in by rappel and enjoyed hiking through the beautiful slot canyon. We knew there would be a couple tricky spots, such as this "keeper pothole" (meaning if you fall in and you're alone, it will keep you there - the odds of you ever getting out are almost none). But we didn't count on the trouble we were going to have coming down the last rappel, on the Golden Cathedral itself.


Chase in the keeper pothole...luckily we all got out!

The Golden Cathedral is beautiful...at least in these pictures. I didn't really take time to look at it while we were in there because of what happened...I was a little nervous about the 80' rappel down because you couldn't see over the edge, and I knew there was a pool of water at the bottom. I just don't like not being able to see what I'm getting into! So I made Chase say a prayer for us before I dropped down, and I'm glad we did. When I got to the end of the wall of rock, just before the free fall, my prussic knot got stuck on a piece of tape that was around the rappel rope, marking the middle. I couldn't go back up the rope, but the farther the prussic slid down, the tighter it held around the rope and wouldn't let me go down either. I was stuck, dangling about 60' in the air. It was one of the scariest things that's happened to me, because we knew there were no other people out there in the event we needed to be rescued, and there was no way I was going to be able to make that knot move. I didn't have anything to cut it off with, and I had no way to move anywhere. Chase eventually had to descend the same rope to where I was and try to rescue me. We tried a few things that didn't work, and after about an hour of hanging there we were able to get me free and we slid down. He had left his pack at the top, so he ended up having to hike back around to the top of the canyon and drop down again to get it. Meanwhile, Chase's dad and I hiked back to camp through the river (and got about 150 horsefly bites on the way - not joking). We were all exhausted after that, but still had to make the 4 mile hike back to the top of Egypt trailhead. Then we still had a 6 hour drive back to Woodland Hills, and another hour to our house. We didn't get home until after 4 in the morning! I told Chase I think I'd need a break before doing any serious rappelling again for a while.


Me as I was getting stuck on my descent


Chase on his way down to rescue me



Us, trying to untie the knot. So glad we finally got it free! Thanks for saving me, Chase! And thanks to Mike for driving us down there, and taking these pictures!