Exploits in the Kitchen

A Southern Twist on Enchiladas:

I have a friend at work named Krystal.

Krystal is a true Midwestern/Southern girl.
Krystal and I share a love.
A love of Food.
As a result we are continually sharing recipes. It is fun because we actually go home and make the recipe we got from the other person, only we put our own twist on it. Like, Krystal loves processed cheese (Kraft singles and Velveeta), I used to live up the road from Gossner's Cheese, consequently, I consider it a desecration to add anything processed to my foods. As result each new recipe has our own flair.

One time, I gave Krystal a recipe for a delicious ham and bean soup. I told her to put diced chiles in it. She thought I said put green enchilada sauce in it. (I don't get it either). She said that sounds weird but delicious. So she tried it and loved it.

Every time we make a recipe we bring it the next day for the other one to try. Her soup looked suspiciously green and a little too thick.

"What did you add?" I asked.

She listed the ingredients.

"No wonder you thought it sounded weird." I said.

Who knew? Krystal swears by that Enchilada Sauce now. She adds it to everything.

One day I gave Krystal my Chicken Enchilada's Recipe.
She LOVED the cream cheese, sour cream and cream of chicken soup filling. However, the next day at work she told me her twist:

Krystal: "After I filled each burrito wrap with filling I fried it in a pan of oil."

Me: "Burrito wrap?"

Krystal: "Well, what do you call it? "

Me: Do you mean tortilla?

Krystal: "I have never heard of that. I am talking about the wrap that goes on the outside of a burrito that you can buy in packages."

Me: "I think we are talking about the same thing. Continue."

Krystal: "Anyway, I fried them in oil. They were DELICIOUS. "

Me: "And then did you bake them? "

(I just could not wrap my mind around NOT baking enchiladas)

Krystal: "What? NO! Girl, you are lost! I told you, I FRIED them. "

Me: "Oh! "

Krystal then explained how she had changed my recipe. So I decided to try it her way.

It was fun and needless to say sinfully delicious.

Here is the oil heating up

My SEXY assistant filling the burrito wraps

You have to be careful or the hot oil will splash on you and it hurts

YUMMY

Aren't they BEAUTIFUL?

I was going to leave this picture out since I look like a big dork, but I wanted to give you the true version of the night. . so here it is. Don't judge me.

(I had to to use protective wear to guard against the grease)

Mike's Birthday Cake

Part of my gift to Mike was a homemade German Chocolate Cake. With homemade frosting.

The trick is to really blend the butter and sugar. It always amazes me that the more you blend butter and sugar the more fluffy and light it gets. That seams like an unexpected outcome.


fresh out of the oven


Making the frosting. The key to the golden look is to use all brown sugar. I try to substitute brown sugar for white as much as possible. For some reason it seems healthier to me.

The finished product - its like a miracle in your mouth. So simple, yet so Delicious.

Now, only really amazing and fabulous cooks get really sweaty faces while they cook so obviously I would be in that category:

Ice Cream Cake: A treat for the youth

I am in the Young Women and in my new-calling-excitement I volunteered to make an ice cream cake for our monthly Sunday Evening Discussion with the Bishopric.
I thought it was fate. The youth requested an ice cream cake, and I just barely got a recipe ice cream cake recipe from my friend Millie at work.

Lesson learned: Never volunteer to bring a new recipe for a public event. Always make it at least once before you bring it anywhere.

First tip for ice cream cake: Ice cream melts. Fast.

Second tip for ice cream cake: Follow all the instructions (I skipped the last step, consequently it looked very strange and not at all appetizing.)

Third Step: cover gross looking cake with crushed Oreo's.

Although the Young Women president looked at it with a apprehensively, the youth loved it.

THE END.

p.s. Because the majority of entertainment and joy in my life comes from food, I have decided to create another blog: Sarah's exploits in the Kitchen. I will let you know when it is up and running. It is going to be a recipe blog. So if you ever get a hankering to fry some enchilada's or make my ice cream cake - you can!

p.p.s. Katie - I bought your Christmas present on Saturday at the city market. I am telling you in advance for two reasons. 1. So we can rig the gift drawing to make sure I get your name. 2. So I can torture you with the thought of a unknown gift for two and a half months.

Our Castle

Tradition. . . Tradition! (And a little about Mike)

I have decided General Conference is a beautiful time of year that should be accompanied by a delicious TRADITION.

Tradition. . . . TRADITION!!!

And the tradition is . . . . .(drum roll please). . . . . Homemade Cinnamon Rolls!

And why not? They are delicious and succulent. . . and worth the 6 hour process.

In the future, you will hear my children say, they first learned to love General Conference because of Mom's AMAZING cinnamon rolls . . . and then for its own right.

And a little about Mike:

I have been negligent in keeping you up to date on the doings and actions of my very fabulous husband, so here is a little info.

Mike is in the thick of his 2nd year of law school.

He has also started his MBA courses - hoping to graduate with a JD and a MBA in entrepreneurial studies.

He is diligently playing in TWO fantasy football leagues.

He is doing a little research for a lawyer on the side, and should start some soon for a professor.

And in addition to all that he continues to make his wife the happiest girl alive with all of his kindness and love.

And that is that.

KC Favorite Things - pizza

Within 1 block of our humble abode there are 4 pizza joints. NONE of them are national chains. All unique.

My favorite (so far) is Minskey's. We simply step out our front door, walk up a small hill and turn left. The building has the cool look of most buildings around the plaza, but the door is ordinary and easy to miss. You would NEVER suspect the pleasure that waits inside.






Biting into a Minskey's Pizza is like suspending reality for a brief moment and entering a world of pure taste bud heaven. It is DELICIOUS. Their hand-tossed crust tastes homemade by the best grandma cooking skills in the universe. Seriously.









Do you see the divine crust?
Do you see the fat chunks of tomato and meat?

You know those pizza places that make only imitation pizza? They always leave you hungry for the real thing??

This my friend, is the real thing.

Stop at one piece??? How dare you even mention it?! Blasphemy!

Stop at two pieces? Only a saint could pull it off.

Stop at three pieces? I tripple-dog-dare you to try!

Happy Birthday Mike

For Mike's 27th birthday we walked down to Jack Stack BBQ on the Plaza

A view from the walk home

Mike got an awesome Coleman camping stove. It is a grill, griddle and stove all in one.

Blowing out the candles on a homemade German Chocolate Cake. Delicious.

The cake was good too.

It was a nice day

What do you think?

Don't look at all the fly-away hairs, just the bangs.

Bang Revolution

For quite some time I have been feeling a need to change my hair. This need showed itself every afternoon in the bathroom at work. When my hair had only 20% of its original cuteness from the morning.

At first I considered cutting it short, and then I thought of how I looked last summer and I thought: NO.

Then I thought: maybe it is the humidity here. No solution to that. Just live with it. . .

Maybe a trim?

Got a trim. No change. Still feel . . . dissatisfied.

THEN - a girl at work asked me if I thought she should cut some bangs. YES. She should.

This brought my own bangs to mind. They are supposed to sweep carelessly, yet beautifully to the side. Instead they fall in one bunch in the middle of my, lets be honest, large forehead.

Should I grow them out? At this point I picture myself in Jr. High, without bangs. NO, I should NOT grow them out.

Then girl from work showed me a picture of the bangs she wanted. It was like a light bulb going off in my mind: I need MORE bangs.

So I took fate into my own hands.

(picture of me holding scissors)

Friday night I went resolutely into the bathroom, locked the door. Combed a good deal of hair forward, and began to clip. And I clipped and clipped and clipped.

Mike came, he saw, he said, "you should not have touched them."

So I clipped, and clipped, and clipped and clipped.

And then I viewed, examined, considered and thought: fabulous.

And then I knew: it is a revolution.

I have had a few revolutions in my life. Like the time I got into college and realized I had a sense of style and could use it to my advantage. It revolutionized my life, my outlook.

Seriously.

Looking at my figure in the mirror one day, I thought, "wow, I am hot." That was a revolution. All of the sudden people of the opposite gender began to think the same.

Falling in love with Mike was NOT a revolution. That was a CONVERSION.

There has been a serious drought of revolutions lately. Until . . . . the. . . .

BANG REVOLUTION.

Saturday morning I sat eating breakfast after styling my new bangs to perfection. Up to this point Mike had avoided looking at me too closely. He is not a fan. Finally, he just sat and looked at me, his head tilted to the side.

Me: "They are cute. Admit it."

Mike: "You can just see so much of your face."

I tried to take that as a compliment. I really did.

I would, of course provide pictures. Because even if you are like Mike, and you are not a fan, you soon will be.

However, my computer has some sort of crazy virus and has already ruined two of my memory cards, not to mention the time I have wasted getting the perfect picture of my bangs to post:

20 minutes taking 30 different pictures (twice).

1 minute taking memory card out of camera and inserting into lap top.

30 seconds: "Memory disc not formatted error."

So I have to leave you in suspense. Believe me. You are missing out.