Dust in the Wind

For the second time this week, a giant dust cloud has engulfed the city. The photo on the left shows how the skies normally look around town, and the photo on the right was taken today during a mutant dust storm. For the record, there is not a single cloud in the sky, that is all just dirt. I checked the Division of Air Quality web site for an update and was told pretty much what I already knew: I am breathing crap today.

Fortunately, this just happened this afternoon, so Kristina and I were able to get in a fantastic ride this morning before the cloud descended on the city. We got up very early and took our first long ride on our new road bikes. Here we are getting ready to hit the trail:

We got in about 15 miles before Kristina had to go get her hair done. Then I got in about 4 more miles back home around the neighborhood before the dirt started making it impossible to breathe. Now we just need to multiply that by 5 and we have the century covered!

Spring Break in Idaho

Spring Break! Are there any more exciting two words to the young and the young at heart? I didn't think so. This year, Kristina and her husband took off to Mexico for a week. Our neighbors two houses down are heading to Maui. A bunch of college/high school kids just got back from Southern California. Me? I went to Idaho with my boss last week for an impromptu trip to Rexburg. Maybe I didn't get to have a candlelight dinner on a private island in Mexico like Kristina did last week, but I got to go to the potato museum in Blackfoot:


And since I'm sure you wanted to see it, here is the Largest Potato Chip in the World! It's a world record holder:Is this the best spring break ever? It just may be.

Too Early to Golf?

Some people say it's never too early in the season to start golfing, as long as the sun is shining. I'm here to tell you that's not true. Friday was supposed to be in the high 50's-low 60's so we went ahead and got a tee time. We probably shouldn't have gotten one so early in the morning (I thought 10:00 am would be safe) because it was SO cold. I had to laugh when I got up to the green on the 13th hole and found my ball on a small pile of snow. It gives new meaning to the word "snow ball". Yup, it might have been too early.

Another problem with the course was that it was totally covered with deer droppings. When we got to the 15th green, we found a family of 6 deer munching on grass and leaving little little pieces of evidence of their presence. I shot (with a camera, of course--I'm not John) a couple of the deer leaving the green and casually climbing up the mountain:

The week after next looks like it will give us some better weather. I'll just look forward to that. Maybe by then someone will have cleaned up all the deer poop! :)

Chocolate Raspberry Crème Brûlée Tart

Feeling ambitious? Do I have a recipe for you to try! This is a little invention I came up with a couple of weeks ago and I had a request to make it for my mom's birthday last week so I decided to create a little photo essay of the process so you can try this at home. Here goes:

First off, this is not a quick and easy dessert, but it is well worth the effort. You will probably want to make the no bake Crème Brûlée a day early and let it chill overnight. You may have never made a no bake Crème Brûlée, but you need to have something that will allow your raspberries to stay fresh and delicious.

No Bake Crème Brûlée

3 cups heavy whipping cream
3-4 vanilla beans
1/2 cup super fine baking sugar
8 egg yolks

1. Measure 3 cups heavy cream into a saucepan. Split the vanilla beans lengthwise and scrape out the seeds using the dull edge of a knife. Toss the seeds and the vanilla beans into the heavy cream. In dire circumstances, you could use pure vanilla extract instead, but honestly, if you're going to the trouble of making this dessert, you really should have vanilla bean speckles in it, right?
2. Bring the cream and vanilla to a light simmer, not to a boil, just so that some bubbles appear around the edges of the pan. Remove from heat and let stand for 20 to 30 minutes.
3. Separate 8 egg yolks into the metal bowl of a stand mixer. Add 1/2 cup sugar and blend on high until the egg mixture is pale yellow and fluffy (see image above).
4. Strain the cream mixture to remove all the vanilla beans and floaters. Turn the mixer mixing the egg yolks on to low and slowly pour about 1 cup of the of the cream into the egg mix. This will temper the yolk mixture and allow to adjust to the heat of the cream without cooking the eggs and giving you a scrambled egg mixture. After a minute of mixing, go ahead and pour the rest of the cream into the egg mixture and blend on low so the cream and eggs are mixed well.
5. Making sure your combined egg/cream mix is in a metal or glass bowl, place the bowl over a pot of simmering water, making your own double boiler. Let the mix cook for about 30-40 minutes, stirring frequently. It's kind of tricky to know when the custard mix is done, but it needs to be pretty thick, so that when you dip a spoon in there, the mix should cling to it and coat the spoon well. The mixture will set up when it's chilled, but make sure it's got a good custard consistency to it.
6. Strain the mixture again to eliminate any lumps (heaven forbid).
7. Cover the custard with some plastic wrap, but put the plastic wrap directly on the custard to prevent a skin from forming. Chill for 6 hours or overnight.

Tart Crust

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 stick of butter, chilled, cut in slices
1/4 cup sugar
dash of salt
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons cold water
1/2 tsp vanilla

1. In a food processor, blend the flour, salt and sugar. Add butter and blend until the flour mixture is lumpy and the butter is all chopped up in small pieces.
2. Mix the egg yolk, water and vanilla in a small bowl. Turn the food processor on and add the liquid. Blend until a ball of dough forms.
3. The dough will be easier to work with if it is chilled, so you should throw it in the fridge before you start rolling it out.
4. Grab a tart pan (which is one of the coolest inventions ever) and get a rolling pin and roll-pat or pastry cloth. Roll out the crust and transfer it to the tart pan. Mold into place by hand.
   
5. With a fork, prick the bottom of the tart crust as shown above.
   
6. Put a piece of parchment paper over the crust and add some pie weights (pennies or uncooked pinto beans work great as well). Cook crust for 15-18 minutes, then remove the parchment and pie weights and cook for 5-6 more minutes so the crust will brown.
   

Chocolate Layer

1 cup heavy cream
6 oz semi sweet chocolate, roughly chopped

1. Bring the cream to a boil. Remove from heat.
2. Add chopped chocolate. Let sit for 2 minutes.
   
3. As soon as the chocolate is melted, stir vigorously until you have a nice creamy chocolate mix.
   

Assembly

1. Spread the chocolate mixture in the bottom of the baked tart crust.
2. Cover the chocolate layer with fresh raspberries.
3. Top the fresh raspberries with the chilled Crème Brûlée custard. Chill until you are ready to serve.
4. When you are ready to serve, cut a slice and place it on a heat proof plate (no Styrofoam please!)
5. Sprinkle a little super fine sugar over the top of the slice of tart.
   
6. Grab your kitchen torch! Now the fun begins...
7. Light up the torch and hold the flame to the sugar on top until it turns brown and caramelizes. Serve immediately.
   

Hope you enjoy this! It's a fair amount of work but SO worth it. It's a really fun dessert to serve for dinner parties. Want a variation? Try bananas instead of raspberries. We tried it out of necessity this past weekend and it was delicious as well.

Another Girl's Night, Another Blurry Photo

I'm not sure how this keeps happening--we have had servers take photos at our Girl's Nights every month for the last couple of years and all of the sudden they are all turning out blurry. Not good. Tonight was dinner at Thanksgiving Point Harvest Restaurant, and we had two absences again (Mary and Kelly), but still had a really good time. However, the food was not good tonight. Usually, Harvest Restaurant is so good, and has been one of my favorites for years. However, there's a new chef there and things have really gone downhill. Karla and Angela will be so sad to read this, but one of our favorite appetizers there (the Parmesan zucchini, of course) is awful now. The new chef changed the recipe all around and it tastes like cheap greasy tempura that you could get for $1.99 at a Chinese buffet. Even the sauce is different now and there is no flavor to the veggies, just very bland and oily. I actually sent this dish back, it was so bad. Broke my heart to realize that it's gone now. Lisa took about 2 bites of the spinach salad and couldn't finish it, and John declared all my leftovers "inedible" and "tasteless". *sigh*

News from tonight's dinner:
-Lisa was bitten by a snake named Max this week. I feel slightly responsible because John and I gave the snake to her kids (long story). Lisa, I'm glad we didn't give you a rattlesnake!
-Bonnie was "hired" with no pay to be our biking team's manager. It's a prestigious job, but we feel she's up to the task.
-Once again, we spent an inordinate amount of time discussing what we are going to wear when we ride (rather than how we're going to train), and decided on black stretchy pants and deep red jerseys. With matching lipstick.
-We learned technical riding terms like "bonking", "goo" and "sweepers" from Lisa.
-Lastly, Bonnie was in rare "pun" form and came up with several options for our bike team name, and after much consideration (and probably driving the couple at the table next to us out for a romantic dinner crazy), we decided on our team name for the ride! Here were the ideas that were thrown out, and you'll notice they all have a biking theme:

• We Have Spoken
• Geared Up (Kristina wanted a Richard Gere tie-in here)
• Helen Wheels
• Tired
• Flat Tired
• Rose Pedals
• Helmet Headz
• Heavy Pedalz
• Jersey Cows (moooove on over)
• and lastly, our favorite, and our new team name "RIDEZILLAS"

Love the Girl's Nights! Next month can't come soon enough :)

The Century Route

Today, for the first time, I got a look at the bike route for the Little Red Riding Hood Century, and apparently, we start and finish in Wellsville, UT but go all the way up to Preston, Idaho! Son of a gun. For those of you who know nothing about about Preston, Idaho, it is the town that inspired the hit movie "Napoleon Dynamite". In fact, each year, the town hosts a Napoleon Dynamite Festival. Don't believe me? Take a look at the pictures. FYI, the pictures are hosted at a web site called www.rexkwondojo.com. Yup. I never thought I would have a reason to go to Preston, but, assuming I make the whole 103.8 miles, I will be in Preston in June.

We're going to get fit for our new road bikes within the next week or two. The one I'm thinking I'll get is the Women's Tourmalet, which is a LeMond bike. As in Greg LeMond. That is only really funny because when Kristina and I were talking about the bikes, she told me that we should get the LeMond bikes and for some reason, I was thinking it was the guy that swam in the Olympics back in the day that hit his head on the diving board while he was doing a dive and everyone was scared to get in the water because they thought he might have AIDS. Anyway, it's not that guy. I apparently was thinking about Greg Louganis who is not a biker while Greg LeMond, on the other hand, was the first American to win the Tour de France, so it makes sense that one of them has a bike named after them and one of them doesn't. Here's the bike:

Also, we all just got our hotel reservations for the night before the ride up in Wellsville. We're all staying at this sweet little resort and spa "nestled above Cache Valley in Sardine Canyon in the shadow of Wellsville Mountains" (that's from their web site). It actually looks amazing and all the husbands are coming up with us the night before and will be there for the ride too. Now that we have the hotel reserved and the jerseys designed what else is there to do? Oh yeah, train my body to actually be able to ride that long. Details.

Meat Lover's Pizza Recipe

Last week, John and I came up with one of our favorite new pizza recipes: our version of a Meat Lover's Pizza. After dinner last week, I had two requests for this one as a take home pizza, so it was a pretty popular one. Here's what you'll need to make this tasty dish:

Dough
1 tablespoon yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons olive oil

Dissolve the yeast in 1/4 cup warm water with the pinch of sugar (or honey, if you'd rather)
Mix flour and salt
After yeast starts bubbling, add to flour/salt mixture
Add the remaining 3/4 cup warm water and olive oil
I throw all these in my Kitchenaid stand mixer, and let the dough hook work it's magic.
Let this dough rise for at least 30 minutes, or several hours. You can store extra dough in the fridge and it is actually even better the day after you make it.

Sauce
You have to make a fresh sauce with this one (no canned sauces please!), and here is the recipe for the red sauce I use:
4 whole tomatoes, chopped
6-8 gloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh chopped oregano leaves
6 large fresh basil leaves (I pulled mine off the Aerogarden)
1 tsp sea salt
fresh ground pepper
2 tablespoon tomato paste

Cook all together until it smells like a a dreamboat in your house. You can either use it as is or blend it for a smoother consistency. I like to blend mine--I'm kind of a texture person.

Toppings
For the toppings, add prosciutto, Boar's Head dry salami and spicy sweet sausage. For the sausage, John came up with the ULTRA brilliant idea to cook the sausage in honey, and I had the idea to add some extra crushed red pepper. The result? A little slice of heaven.

To build your pizza, roll out a small ball of dough until it is very thin. Place rolled dough on a pizza paddle and add sauce, cheese and toppings. Transfer to pizza stone and cook for about 10-12 minutes at 425 degrees. Try this at home and let me know what you think!

Viva Las Tarascas!

I just have to give a shout out to Las Tarascas in Provo--nicest people, most authentic food and best atmosphere! John and I usually go out to lunch on Fridays as a way to ring in the weekend. As soon as we got in the car today, we somehow both knew that it was a Las Tarascas day. Las Tarascas, in case you were not aware, is in the Albertson's parking lot on University Parkway. My favorite thing on the menu, which I had today, is the Tacos al Pastor (pictured above). These have slow roasted pork, pineapple, mango sauce and fresh cilantro. John got the owner recommended mole "just like my grandmother used to make". He thought it was one of the best meals he had eaten in a while. Tarascas also has some of the best salsa at their salsa bar. They have a spicy green salsa which I suspect has ingredients very similar to my creamy tomatillo salsa salsa that I make in the summer. I've said this many times before, but I fully believe that you can tell everything you need to know about a Mexican restaurant by the chips and salsa. Still true. The owner told us that if we call ahead, and bring in a bunch of friends around 10:30 or 11:00 a.m., he will throw a breakfast burrito party with eggs, fresh salsa, queso fresco and hand made tortillas. Who wants in???

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!!

Today I'm so proud to wish my amazing parents a very happy 51st wedding anniversary!! They have been such amazing examples to me and in a world of quickie wedding and and even quicker divorces, I'm so grateful to have parents who have been together so many years and who still work together and love each other.

A year ago today, I was running ragged trying to get ready for a huge 50th wedding anniversary party we threw for Mom and Dad. All the siblings were out here and family came in from all over the place--it was such a fun day. This year will be a little more low-key--I'll be making them a nice dinner at home and we'll probably play some games. As I planned last year's party, I remembered with fondness the celebrations I tried to throw in the past for Mom and Dad's anniversaries, like the year I went to so much trouble to find them stuff for their 25th Anniversary (including an heirloom plate the proudly announced this milestone) only to be told at the party that it was actually their 24th Anniversary. How embarrassing.

For a little flashback, here are some photos from last year's festivities:


Family is great, parents are great, life is great. Happy 51st Momsie and Popsicle! Love you both!!

Good Things for a Sunny Friday

It's been a week since my last post, so I thought it would be appropriate to update my blog with several items of note that are good things in my book:

Spring is almost here!!!

This weekend, it's time to "spring forward" and lose an hour of sleep. I've always thought this was probably a smart way to go, because if I had to lose an hour of sleep in the fall, it would not be pretty. However, I manage to get excited about changing my wakeup time to be the equivalent of 4:30 a.m., all because it means that the days are getting longer and the weather is getting warmer and most importantly, it's almost time to plant the garden (somewhat of an obsession with me). At any rate, excepting a few last storms, I think we are on our way to better weather. Hooray for spring!

Speaking of "Springs"...

Our vacation is booked for Palm Springs

John and I just booked a week's vacation at the Marriott in Palm Springs. This makes me unbelievably happy! We're going later on in the season, but I'm already planning what do to there. The resort is shared on the same property with the JW Marriott there and will be a dream.


So far on my list of things to do there: Golf, shop at Trader Joe's, Eat at In-n-Out Burger, swim, golf, swim, golf and so forth. There are three championship golf courses on site so there will be lots of different options there. Best part of all? Just hanging out with John :)

As far as good things go, let's talk about last night's best TV moments:

Lost and Meant to be Lost

In my opinion, LOST is the best show on TV. This season is amazing! I read an interview with the writers and they said that setting an end date for the show has been so liberating for them, and they feel like they can give us more and more answers. True to their word, last night's episode was another amazing one. It was Juliette-centric and gave us a lot more insight into the craziness that is embodied in Ben. Wow, one sick puppy. I can never get enough LOST. Oh, and the "inside man"? 10 bucks says it's Michael.

Other good news from last night? We said goodbye to Danny Noriega on American Idol.

Two words, America: THANK YOU!

Training for the Century

Training is going pretty well for the Century in June. I started spin classes at Gold's and will start riding outside within the next couple of weeks as the weather gets better. I still think I might be crazy trying this, but what the heck. The worst thing that could happen, other than getting yelled at by amazonian spin class instructors with fake tans, is I will probably get in better shape. Ta-freakin-da.

Pizza Party this Weekend

Saturday night, we're having a bunch of friends over for a gourmet pizza night. On the menu? My famous 4 cheese and pesto pizza, white pizza with fontina, ricotta, fresh tomatoes and basil, mushroom pesto pizza, hawaiian pizza with homemade sauce and fresh pineapple, vegetarian delight pizza, and any custom pizza to order. Oh, and a chocolate and raspberry creme brûlée tart. What an off-day it will be!

Last good news for the day?

Our good friend Chad got his mission call yesterday to the Chile, Concepcion Mission!

Now he can use the fake Mexican accent he's been practicing at Cafe Rio. Chad, we love ya! You will be amazing!!!

Happy Friday to everyone :)

My Favorite Cookbooks -- "The Art of the Tart"

Last time I counted (and I have bought more since then) I found that I own over 125 cookbooks. Whenever someone comes over to my house, that's one of the first things people comment about. The inevitable question is "Do you actually cook out of all of those?" Well, the answer to that is, "Of course not". I am a recovering cookbook-buying addict, and I'm the first to admit that many of those books were bought in the heat of the moment. Some of my favorite mistakes, which I have never cracked open include "Salsas That Cook" by Rick Bayless, "The Food of Malaysia" by heaven knows who, "Bobby Flay Cooks American", by, of course, Bobby Flay, and, much to my chagrin, "How to be a Domestic Goddess" by Nigella Lawson. I know, the irony of not even attempting to cook something out of that book is just out of control.

While there are many cookbooks on my baker's rack that go ignored, I have several that I break out on a regular basis. These are the cookbooks that I will be featuring in this new section of my blog entitled, surprisingly, "My Favorite Cookbooks". First on my list has some of the most beautiful food photographs I have ever seen. "The Art of the Tart" was written by none other than Tamasin Day-Lewis, who's very famous brother just won an Oscar for "There Will be Blood" which I actually haven't seen. But don't think that Tamasin is just a hack in the kitchen riding on the coattails of a famous brother. She is amazing!


This book has vibrant and lush photos, and a nice linen weave on the outside cover. She also does something I love which is to include a metallic pantone color (877C, I'm pretty sure) on the inside cover, which adds a very nice classy touch. Once you get past how pretty the book is, you can begin to delve into the recipes, which is where the goods are at.

My top three favorite tarts in this book have to be (not necessarily in this order): The Souffléed Cheese Tart with it's deliciously rich Gruyere and mustard pairing, the Tomato Prosciutto Tarts, covered with fresh basil and baked on a delicious puff pastry base (this tart is pictured on the front of the cookbook), and the Brûléed Black Currant Tart with its fresh berries and caramelized sugar crust on top. There are 90 different tart recipes for every season and every pallet. There are very easy tarts and more advanced tarts; there are tarts for everyone! So do yourself a favor--pick up this book next time you are browsing in Borders for a good cookbook (am I the only one who does that?) You can actually get this book online at Amazon, used for a little over $7.00, which is a steal! Do it!

Friends in High Places

So the other day I saw Orrin Hatch on Facebook and I thought to myself, "That's kind of progressive of Orrin". So naturally, since Orrin is one of my two Senators, I invited him to be my friend. Sure enough, a couple of days later, I got a notification that Orrin accepted my friendship invitation.This opens up a whole new world of social networking. Who's next on my friendship list? Barack Obama? John McCain? Mitt Romney? The sky's the limit.

Cry Me a Riverdance Part II -- The Resolution

For those of you who have been following my Riverdance Saga, I have a resolution to report. If you haven't heard the Riverdance story, you can check it out here. Go on, I'll wait.

So I got a very nice call this weekend from Kingsbury Hall. I sent them an email last week letting them know how disappointed we were to have such poor seats for the Riverdance show, and I even sent them photos of our view, which I previously shared on this blog. Well, Brooke, who is the Ticket Office Manager, left a message for me profusely apologizing for the oversight. Apparently, the seats we were sold were never supposed to be sold unless you had been informed that there was an obstructed view (makes sense). They were also never supposed to be sold over the internet, and Kingsbury Hall had no idea how those seats got into the mix. So Brooke and I finally spoke today and she offered to refund our tickets 100%. She is cutting a check for the entire amount, and as an added goodwill gesture, she is also throwing in 2 tickets to the Saturday night performance of "Celtic Woman" in April. Yes, "Celtic Woman". I wish, with everything inside of me, that you all could have seen John's face when I told him that he has to go see "Celtic Woman" with me to make up for the Riverdance mishap. Priceless. Michelle was over here when he found out and laughed her way out to her car.

To be fair, once I read up on the Celtic Woman group, I actually got kind of excited to see them. Want to share? Here's a sampling of what they do:


So it's pretty much like a two hour Enya concert, but with smoke machines, little jigs and 5 Irish chicks with the most adorable accents. It makes me proud to be 6% Irish.

Words to Live By

I have a new favorite quote. It was given by one of my heroes, Marjorie Pay Hinckley:

“I don’t want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenk’s lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor’s children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone’s garden. I want to be there with children’s sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.”

Love it, love it, love it! I ran across this the other night and loved it so much that it is now hanging on my desk, along with the question "What Would Marjorie Do?" Hopefully it will help me to not be ornery during the work week :) No promises though.

Fiesta in February

Fun day today! We got together with a few families in our neighborhood and had a grande Mexican feast. One of our friends made a dutch oven smoked pork roast cooked with cumin, orange and wrapped in banana leaves. She also made rice and homemade refried beans which were amazing. My food assignment today was tamales and flautas. I've been thinking for several months of the best way to make a more healthy tamale, and Eureka!!! today I figured it out. Tamales traditionally have a lot of lard in them, and since I'm not a huge fan of large quantities of pig fat, I've been trying to figure out how to keep the masa dough soft and the texture right while making it healthier. Normally, I don't try brand new experimental recipes on large groups of people who I have never cooked for before, but I decided to give it a go today. I'll actually put the whole recipe up here on a later post, but the secret ingredients that really made these tamales pop were pureed fresh corn, chicken broth, olive oil and organic Grade A maple syrup. I know, I know, who'd have thunk? Watch for this recipe soon!

I also got to hang out with my awesome sister-in-law Michelle today. She celebrated my off-day today by requesting brownies, which I happily made for us. We also watched The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe since she had never seen it. I have her reading the prequel tomorrow (The Magician's Nephew) which is an amazing book. Chelle, can't wait to hear what you thought! Next up, The Dawn Treader, but that's another book for another day. Poor Michelle tried to take a nap all day today but only finally fell asleep 10 minutes before she had to leave to work. Oh the irony.