Bountiful Basket

Adam had been excited about something all week and Monday he told me that he had a surprise that he couldn't tell me about until Saturday. Well, today Adam continued to be excited and he was out the door with a laundry basket at 9:55 am. I was so confused at what he was doing and what the big surprise was. I was laying on the couch working on this weeks Sunday School lesson that we were going to teach, and I see the front door slowly open and Adam brought in a basket full of fruit and vegetables! It was so exciting. We also just got a dehydrater machine, so for the next hour we worked on cutting up apples, pears, and bananas to dehyrate them. It was a fun morning.

All this for $15, and the grapes are beautiful and amazing!

Things in the basket:

Potatoes
Celery
Black Pumpkin thing (I don't know what it is..)
Lettuce
Pears
Bananas
Corn
Grapes
Persimmons
Apples
Clemintines
Brusle Sprouts

Flowers and More Flowers!

I came home from a hard and long day of school last night and on the table was this beautiful arrangement of star gazer lilies and orchids which happen to be the same type of flowers that we had at our wedding. Adam is always spoiling me with surprises and he knows just how to cheer me up when I'm having a hard time.

Bajio Sweet Pork Burritos

Meat

3 lbs Pork Roast
1 can Dr. Pepper
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup salsa
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground mustard
salt and pepper

Place pork in the crock pot. Then add all ingredients. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Shred pork with about an hour left to cook.

Sweet Rice

*1/2-1 tablespoon vegetable oil
*1/2 of a white onion, chopped (add more or less to your taste)
*1/2 bunch fresh cilantro
*1 1/3 cups white rice
*3 cups chicken broth
*1/4-1/2 cup white sugar

Put a little oil in bottom of pan (maybe about 1/2-1 tablespoon).
Saute chopped onion until translucent. Add the chopped cilantro (no big stems) and saute a minute more.
Add the rice, cooking until it is light brown (being careful not to burn).
Combine the chicken broth and sugar, letting sugar dissolve. Then stir into rice until combined. Bring to a boil.
Cover and let cook on low, med-low until rice is done, about 25-30 minutes. Fluff with a fork before serving.

Homemade Bread

My new thing is to make yummy homemade bread rather than buying store bought bread. I try to make two loaves every week because Adam and I go through it so fast. But it saves us a little money and it tastes a lot better than the store bought stuff. It does take a little time, but I actually really enjoy baking and the end result always makes it worth it. :) It's just something we can do to save our pennies.

They may not look the prettiest, but they taste amazing!

Happy Halloween??

So today is Halloween, but it's really not at the same time. Rexburg along with a lot of other places made yesterday Halloween because no one wanted to trick or treat on Sunday. I even have a teacher training meeting tonight from 7-8. If it were really Halloween, I wouldn't be going to that meeting probably. So today at church, I didn't know whether I should say Happy Halloween to people or not. So I just didn't. It was just like another day.

Adam and I got to teach our first Sunday school lesson today in church. We just got called to be Sunday school teachers and I was nervous about this new calling at first, but it has turned out to be not too bad. Our lesson today was on strengthening our stakes and it was pretty fun to work with Adam to prepare this lesson. We are learning a lot from each other and it's nice to have that scripture study and preperation time together.

Thore

This massive water bug has been Adam and I's pet for several weeks now. He just chills in this large baking bowl during the day, then we can hear him swimming around at night and splashing in the water. His favorite thing is to just hang out on his rocks. I think he likes living with us. I personally think that he is too big to be a bug. We are good to Thore. We fed him a fish about a week and a half ago and we are going to get him another one for family night tomorrow. I can't watch him eat the cute, 28 cent, gold fish, but Adam thinks that it's pretty cool. Thore has this long needle/stinger thing by his mouth that he stabs into the fish. The stinger makes all the insides of his food turn into a liquid and then he sucks it all out. It's pretty gross and kinda alienish, I think. But we like Thore, and hopefully he'll live for a long time. We should have probably gotten a tank for him by now. Oh well. I will just never use that baking bowl ever again.  

Thore

Thore's food

Fresh, Homemade Apple Pie... Mmmm...

When we went down to Utah last weekend, we visited my Grandma and Grandpa Twitchell. They let us pick some apples on their apple trees and we brought them back with us to Idaho. I wanted to make something with them and I thought, what is better than fresh apple pie? Nothing. So I slaved for about three hours last week and I whipped up a yummy apple pie. Everything was from scratch, and as you can see it was made with lots of love. It was a fat and heavy pie, but it sure is yummy.

Pastry

2 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons shortening
4 to 6 tablespoons cold water

Filling

1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
8 cups thinly sliced peeled tart apples (8 medium)
2 tablespoons butter or margarine


1.In medium bowl, mix 2 cups flour and 1 teaspoon salt. Cut in shortening, using pastry blender (or pulling 2 table knives through ingredients in opposite directions), until particles are size of small peas. Sprinkle with cold water, 1 tablespoon at a time, tossing with fork until all flour is moistened and pastry almost cleans side of bowl (1 to 2 teaspoons more water can be added if necessary).

2.Gather pastry into a ball. Divide in half; shape into 2 flattened rounds on lightly floured surface. Wrap in plastic wrap; refrigerate about 45 minutes or until dough is firm and cold, yet pliable. This allows the shortening to become slightly firm, which helps make the baked pastry more flaky. If refrigerated longer, let pastry soften slightly before rolling.

3.Heat oven to 425°F. With floured rolling pin, roll one pastry round into round 2 inches larger than upside-down 9-inch glass pie plate. Fold pastry into fourths; place in pie plate. Unfold and ease into plate, pressing firmly against bottom and side.

4.In large bowl, mix sugar, 1/4 cup flour, the cinnamon, nutmeg and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Stir in apples until well mixed. Spoon into pastry-lined pie plate. Cut butter into small pieces; sprinkle over filling. Trim overhanging edge of pastry 1/2 inch from rim of plate.

5.Roll other round of pastry into 10-inch round. Fold into fourths and cut slits so steam can escape. Unfold top pastry over filling; trim overhanging edge 1 inch from rim of plate. Fold and roll top edge under lower edge, pressing on rim to seal; flute as desired. Cover edge with 2- to 3-inch strip of foil to prevent excessive browning.

6.Bake 40 to 50 minutes or until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in crust, removing foil for last 15 minutes of baking. Serve warm if desired.

Makes 8 servings