One of Winter’s Simple Pleasures

THIS:

PLUS THIS:

EQUALS THIS:

PURE BLISS!

I LOVE WINTER!

A Cereal Matter

I had never taken much thought to how I eat cereal until I was talking to one of my coworkers this week. You see, I am a big cereal fan. I eat it at least 6 mornings a week. My favorite use to be Frosted Flakes, but over the past year I have switched to Frosted Mini Wheat’s. There are several reasons for the transition. The first is that FMW’s is ranked as one of the healthier cold cereals. The second is that a serving size for FMW’s is large. I like my food. I eat a lot. Therefore, big serving sizes serve me well! The third reason for the switcheroo is because I found that I stay full longer when I eat FMW’s as opposed to FF. So now eat FMW almost exclusively for breakfast.

The fact that I eat FMW’s isn’t the odd thing; it’s how I eat them. After I have a huge serving of FMW’s in my bowl and pour 1% milk over it the real fun begins. I then use my spoon to flip any Mini Wheat’s over that have their frosted side down as quickly as possible. It’s like a race! You see, if the frosted side stays in the milk, then the crisp sugar will dissolve into the milk. I don’t want to drink the frosting from my FMW’s. I want to eat it while it is on the mini wheat! Sadly, each bowl has at least a few mini wheat’s that are unfrosted on BOTH sides. These little buggers are the ones I eat first, reserving the ones caked with the most frosting till the end.

I have had to skip my mini wheat – flipping tradition a few times in the past when I was late for something, and it just doesn’t taste as good! It may be strange, but it is how I like it!

Weekend Rundown

Saturday: After work I went and picked out a new bike. I am so excited! I haven’t had a bike since I got home from Brazil, and I really miss riding ( especially with gas prices so high!) There was a big Memorial Day sale going on, so my Dad helped me pick out a bike that will actually fit me and my short legs :) They had to put it together, so I can pick it up later this week!

Later that night I was working on a talk for a sacrament meeting the next day (I am still on the RM circuit with the High Counselors) When I got a call from a counselor in my Bishopric asking me to speak in my ward. Sadly, the topics were not the same, so I spent the rest of the evening preparing TWO talks.

Sunday: I gave my first talk at 9:00 and then ran to my ward to give my second talk at 11:00. I am SO glad to have those done. It wore me out completely! I also received a calling in my new ward (YAY!) I am on the enrichment committee. Later, we celebrated my Grandma’s birthday (which was fun!) and I went to bed at 9:00.

Monday: (memorial day) I went out to breakfast with my parents and grandparents, and then spent the afternoon playing wii with Lacey and Steve. I had only played it once before, but I liked it way better this time! Bowling was my favorite. Lacey had to repeatedly remind me to back away from the television. So much fun!

That night we had a bar-b-que (YUM!) and made a strawberry rhubarb coffee cake for desert. I know the picture looks like it could be Shepard's pie, but it really is coffee cake! The recipe was a bit more complicated than I was anticipating, but it turned out yummy! (except for the whole rhubarb part, I am just not a fan of the texture of the stuff. I just ate around it! Next time I am putting cherries or just strawberries in the middle!)

I hope you all had a great weekend and a happy Memorial Day!

Cake, Anyone?

Last night we had our ward’s Relief Society birthday party. I was put in charge of bringing a cake. I fell in love with cakes in Brazil, where they fill cakes with tons of different yummy things, so I decided to do the same with this cake. I used a boxed yellow cake mix, and put in layers of caramel, chocolate, and cream cheese. I covered it all in glossy white frosting and used chocolate sprinkles and snickers to decorate. I couldn’t find our round cake pans, so I made a heart shaped cake instead.

I would love to tell you how good the cake was, but the truth is that I didn’t try any. I licked too many bowls and spoons while making the cake, so that by the time it was actually done I didn’t want to even look at it (seriously, I couldn’t handle the thought of anything sugar)! It did get good reviews, though.

The lesson itself was excellent. We talked about elect ladies and how we can become elect ladies. Our ward is really, really small, and only a handful of girls came, but it was fun! We had TONS of extra food (two lasagnas and over half the cake), so I may still get to try my cake. (If anyone wants any, you are more than welcome to it! Just come get some!)

Soups On!

Last week when I was at the Olive Garden I fell in love with their Zuppa soup. I enjoyed it so much that the next day I started searching for the recipe on the Internet. I found several recipes and lots of reviews that claimed that the soup turned out just like the Olive Gardens. I was way excited! I made it today for a special President’s Day Family Night that we had. I doubled the recipe and it made A TON of soup! One batch would have made enough to feed all seven of us, but who complains about leftover soup? It just gets better! Here is the recipe that I used. (this was the recipe BEFORE I doubled it)

Ingredients:

• 1 pound bulk mild Italian Sausage
• ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 4 slices bacon, cut into ½ inch pieces
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 5 chicken bullion cubes
• 10 cups water
• 6 potatoes, thinly sliced
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 head chopped kale

1. Cook the Italian sausage and red pepper flakes in a large pot over medium heat until crumbly and cooked through. Remove from pot and refrigerate while preparing the rest of the soup.

2. Using the same pot, cook bacon until crispy. Add onions and garlic and cook until translucent.

3. Add the bullion cubes and water to the pot. Bring to a boil. Add potato slices. Turn down heat and let simmer until the potatoes are tender. This should take about 20 minutes.

4. Mix in heavy cream and sausage and heat through. Mix in kale and let boil for five minutes.

Serve with a good bread. ENJOY!

I will definitely make this soup again, it was awesome! I don’t know if it is identical to Olive Gardens, but it is really close! Here are some things that I would recommend doing if you ever decide to try this recipe:

-The original recipe calls for 1 ½ teaspoons of crushed red pepper. I started with ½ teaspoon, and found it to be plenty! (Seriously, 1 ½ would be way to much!) Start low and then go up.

-If you don’t get all of the sausage grease off before adding it back into the soup, the grease all floats to the top and makes the soup kind of pink. Next time I will set the sausage to drain on top of a stack of paper towels so it absorbs the fat.

-I think next time I will use half and half instead of heavy cream just to be a bit healthier, and I don’t think it will make much of a difference.

-Don’t overcook the potatoes, they will fall apart!

-The recipe doesnt include salt, but depending on the bacon and bullion cubes that you use, you may need to add some. I added about 1/2 teaspoon per batch about the same time that I added in the water and bullion.

-If there is not fresh kale available you can use fresh spinach (or so I have heard!) but I really LOVE the fresh kale in this! It was my first time ever using kale, and it was actually really easy to find.


Let me know if you ever decide to try the recipe out. I would highly recommend it!