My Birthday

Oh what a great day it was! 

Actually, what a great weekend it was. I've typed up a big long description of my birthday twice now, and both times there was a malfunction and everything was lost. Very frustrating, but I have to write it all down again, because it was just that good.

Me at the party

My family threw me a big party in Salt Lake on Friday and it was one of the most hilarious, crazy, inventive, and fun parties I've been to. We were each asked to bring something with us... a mystery ingredient. Kimball and I chose beets.

Other mystery ingredients: lemons, eggs, and
rice paper. The banana, macaroni, and baby food were
just for the kids.

The theme of the night was a cooking contest. Each of the four teams had to choose a mystery basket (my mom had put them together) and a mystery object (the things we each brought), and then we had one hour to create culinary masterpieces with what we had in our box, incorporating the mystery food, and using whatever else we could scrounge around for in the kitchen. 

Leah and Ryan had trout, apples, artichokes, assorted nuts,
Alfredo sauce, and intensely dark chocolate.

Katelyn, Chase & Brittany had salmon, ramen noodles,
avocados, cream of corn, blueberries and cinnamon hearts.

Brooklyn and Ned had chicken, potatoes, pineapple,
onions, edamame, and coconut water. 

Kimball and I had meatballs, butternut squash, green
chiles, garbanzo beans, tomatoes, and granola bars.

Even the little ones got to be on a team. They each had a sauce pan and random ingredients that they chose form the cupboards and fridge. I laughed so hard when I ran past their table (trying to get the can-opener to Kimball as fast as a I could) and my nephew was cracking an egg into the pan which already contained ramen noodles, grape jelly, yogurt-covered raisins, pretzels, and goldfish crackers. The little ones even cooked and ate their masterpieces. So funny.

The little ones had grape jelly, ramen noodles, pretzel
sticks, eggs, goldfish, and yogurt-covered raisins.

The hour of cooking was complete and utter chaos. We were all running around like mad, fighting over pans, sink use, soy sauce, and dishes. It was so funny. We all took it so seriously, and tried really hard to make good food.

We actually chose to use the beets we brought (everyone ended up using what they had brought). We cubed them and cooked them with the butternut squash for what seemed like eternity. My hands were stained red - more than I thought was possible. We pureed the cooked beets and squash together (in the food processor) and topped them with the crumbled (in the food processor) granola bars. We also pureed the garbanzo beans together with the tomatoes and chiles and poured the sauce over the meatballs to bake (this was a general favorite, we all loved it, and we were surprised at how well it turned out!) We had already used all of our ingredients, and the plate looked pretty barren, so I whipped up a little salad at the very last minute made up of chopped romaine lettuce, havarti cheese, mini chilled beet cubes, bacon, and chopped walnuts (which I neglected to toast, and got docked points for). I made a quick dressing out of raspberry balsamic vinegar and Persian lime olive oil. Luckily my mom had great salad stuff on hand!

I was so impressed with everyone else's creations! I love that we all got so into it. It was so much fun. We had a little restaurant set up in the living room, (five little tables for the five teams, including the kids) and we went around tasting everyone else's food and then enjoyed our own meals. Everyone's food was so delicious! I was so pleasantly surprised by the whole night.

Leah & Ryan's rice paper-wrapped trout and wild rice
atop a thick chocolate sauce and a side dish of
artichoke with an alfredo-based dipping sauce 

Brit, Kate, and Chase's cinnamon heart-encrusted salmon
with creamed corn and wild rice, with a side salad of
spinach, hardboiled eggs, blueberries, and avocados. 

Brook and Ned's - I don't even know how to describe it.
It was so good. Definitely had an Asian feel. They had
fried potato disks and delicious chicken, with the cutest
little cups of edamame in hollowed-out lemon halves.
They even had a drink that was made with coconut
water and a capri sun. (They won the prize for best
overall meal) 

Their presentation was soooo great!

So proud of his meal! 

Yeah, we ran out of time and didn't even
bother putting drinks, napkins, or even forks
with our meal. We were rushing. 

Mom and Bruce sat in a separate room with the sample plates (we each had to produce two full meals, and two small sample plates) and judged the meals. They handed out the prizes at the end. We ended up winning the prize for "Best Taste" with our dish. There were prizes for sportsmanship, presentation (our presentation was horrible), and being health-conscious, etc. There was even a prize for best kid's meal. We were pretty proud of our meal though, and we would definitely make it again. (Special thanks to Leah who thought to bring a food processor. We couldn't have gotten by with out it!) 

Mom announcing the awards

Our prize. We also tied with Leah & Ryan for the sportsmanship award.

We enjoyed my cake and ice cream, and I was thoroughly spoiled by everyone's thoughtful and fun gifts. Everyone said what they appreciated/loved about me (which is a great birthday tradition!) and then we started tackling the mess in the kitchen. I was completely unreal! I've never seen a mess so bad, and we have some huge gatherings at our place (My mom and Bruce each have six kids, which means in their joined immediate family there are twelve grown children, eleven spouses to those children, and 16 grandkids with two on the way. That's an immediate family of 41!) Anyway, with the 11 contest participants and the two judges watching, we managed to do some damage. With all of us fighting for counter space, pots, pans, knives, mixing bowls, and serving plates, it seemed like every single dish in the house was dirty (and my mom has a LOT of dishes). We all said we'd like to do a party like that again, but the mess made us all re-think it. We all pitched in, (the married-in boys more than the girls - thank you men! We love you!) and after an hour or so it was back to normal. 

Part of the mess (the workstation Kimball and I used)

Brook and Ned's spot

Leah & Ryan's place

And the workstation of Katelyn, Brittany, and Chase

The next day (Kimball and I slept over at my mom's) my older sister took us all to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D! It was so fun! I loved being there with her little kiddos. They were so funny-looking in those big glasses. I'd forgotten how much I love that movie, too! Such a classic. Thanks to everyone who made this birthday such a great one!

And that was only Friday! Kimball's family spoiled me, too on Sunday with dinner, cake, gifts, way too much (in a good way) Lindt and Ghiradelli chocolate, The Song of the Sparrow by Willa Cather, which is a book about a Swedish girl's journey to becoming an opera singer, (I'm halfway through, and loving it!) and gift certificates to our favorite place to eat: Cafe Fresh... so good.

Monday was my real birthday, and Kimball did not let me down at all! But more on that later.

My 27th Birthday Cake

Way back on the 23rd, I turned 27. It was most certainly the best birthday yet. I seriously think it has something everything to do with being married this year. My dear husband is much too good. My birthday was on a Monday, but the entire weekend leading up to it was so fun. I spent Thursday and Friday making my birthday cake for the party on Friday night. I had requested the honor making my own, since I love baking cakes, but rarely get to. Kimball and I can't finish one. Well, we can, but we don't want to. Okay, no, we do want to, but we shouldn't and we won't. Anyway, I settled on this Serbian recipe called a Milk Cake. It was pretty darn good. The tricky part was adjusting the recipe for the size of pan I had, and figuring out all of the measurement conversions.

Random thing I recently learned: did you know a Canadian/British cup is a different amount than an American one? Kimball and I were arguing over this a while back when I kept insisting that I knew with 100% certainty that there were 250 mL in a cup, and he insisted that there were only about 237 (236.6).  We looked it up, and we were both right. So, my advice to you who have moved between countries: don't rely on old recipes or even measuring cups! This might explain why my mom stopped baking when we moved to Utah from Canada. Nothing would turn out the way it had. So weird. See this wikipedia article for more info.

Anyway, this cake was six layers.

 Layers 1 & 4 were thin chocolate-like cakes/biscuits that weren't very sweet.

Layers 2 and 5 were a milk-based white chocolate cream that was thickened with corn starch and then creamed with butter. 

Layers 3 and 6 were an incredibly delicious, creamy milk chocolate frosting consisting of milk, sugar, milk chocolate (only the finest), and butter. 

I also brought some homemade chocolate ice cream to top it off. It was so good with the ice cream, if I do say so myself. 

Enough about the cake, though. This party was so much fun and deserves a post all it's own, which will follow shortly. 

2012

In the last 59 days since November 19th, we have spent a total of 29 nights away from home and only 30 nights in our own home. It has been crazy. We have been living out of suitcases and re-locating like it's our job. We have packed up and filled our car to go somewhere else a total of 12 times.

It all started with that pesky fire, which left us homeless for fourteen days, and for the rest of the time we were at one of our parents' homes for the holidays or babysitting our cute nieces and nephew for 6 days (just last week). Our house has been in a state of disaster ever since the fire (with the exception of maybe 6 days when I got it looking great before we had to leave again. I even put up a christmas tree and decorated (minimally) for Christmas, but it was hardly even enjoyed. So sad. Since things have been so crazy, we have even put of our New Year's resolution making until this weekend. Tomorrow is our new start. We spent the first two Saturdays of this year in bed all day... relaxation bookends to the crazy, tiring week of tending three kids. I know it was ridiculously excessive of us to spend both of those days reading, watching movies, cuddling, and sleeping, but people keep telling us to enjoy this time before children, so we are. Shamelessly. In the few spare moments I had here in my home (especially my kitchen) I was able to scrounge together some Christmas gifts and treats for loved ones. I still haven't even finished one gift, and I'm thinking it will end up being a Valentine's gift (that's for you Alisa & Euan... so sorry!) Despite the frustration of feeling like our home isn't our own lately, it's been really nice to spend so much time with our families, and to spend so much time with Kimball. My husband and I have never not been able to spend a ton of time together since we got married, so that wasn't new, but it's still just as great as ever, and it deserves mentioning.

One of my goals for this year is to keep a better journal and to keep up on my blog. I have too much time on my hands not to... especially because all this time = lots of new recipes and crafts. So, even though I say it like every four months, I'm going to be blogging regularly again soon. I have a million pictures I want to post, too! Life has been great since we got married, but I have a feeling it's about to get even better. We just feel like things are going to start looking WAY up. This has potential to be the best year yet. Here's to 2012!!

Part Three (of the fire story)

Why was there a truck on fire in our parking garage? Here the story as the cops have figured so far:


*I'd like to mention that as Kimball and I were discussing the possibilities and trying to figure out the mystery of the burning truck, I proposed what ended up being basically the exact truth. I think I need to try my hand at crime solving. 


The truck, as it turns out, was a stolen truck. Some hooligans had stolen it to aid them in a heist. They robbed some place (a business it sounds like, not sure which one). They went and stored their goods who knows where, and (I assume) they were driving north by our place. They passed the first underground parking driveway next to ours, and then they saw ours and and saw their hiding spot. They pulled in, noticed an empty spot (which happened to be ours... still feeling guilty about this), saw a can of flammable stuff on the window ledge (this part is conjecture... there had been this canister of something dangerous and flammable on the ledge for the last couple weeks. I had noticed it, but thought nothing of it), and in an attempt to hide the evidence (or draw even more attention to themselves, or ruin an entire apartment building?) they decided to torch it.

So that's what happened. Pretty crazy, and pretty exciting. I spent today cleaning our bathroom, and it's really not as bad as I thought. It's tedious, but I don't mind it at all. Our landlords (a father and son, and really great guys) came today and said they'll help us out however they can. They took pictures and will talk with a restoration company today to see what they can and need to do for us. They'll probably do our carpets, walls, ducts, and vents. I just hope I can get the smell out. Any ideas or suggestions for really great air fresheners? I don't want anything scented, sit something to suck the chemical smokey smell out. Such a crazy, random experience.

At least it's a good story, right?

This is the car that was parked next to the truck. Their car was the only
one that was damaged. All the others were just covered in soot. Our car
(thank goodness) is clean as ever, but our apartment had the worst
apartment damage.

Part Two (of the fire story)

(This is a continuation from the last post) 

The firemen hard at work, we wondered how long we should wait. We had our car keys, and e knew our car was safe. Maybe we could just go over to Kimball's parents house and wait there. One of the police officers called us all over (there were maybe 40-50 of us out there now) and told us that they had reached a bishop in the area with keys to a nearby church (I love Utah). We were all supposed to go and wait there in the warmth, and they'd inform us when it was safe to come back. We decided to go with everyone, since it would be a little adventure, and in case they divulged anything, we would want to know what was going on, and when/if it was safe to go home.

We all walked a few blocks and met the bleary-eyed bishop with his family. We all crowded into the gym (some luckies got the foyer couches) and sat on the floor and metal folding chairs. The police man came in a after a while and told us that the Red Cross would be there shortly to help with anything we needed, and that they might start arranging hotel rooms for those whose places weren't livable. Kimball and I got pretty bored after a while, and decided that we'd just get our neighbor's number, figuring that their damage would be comparable to ours, and call them later that day from the comfort of Kimball's parents' place.

We walked back to our apartment, by now it was about 5:30, and saw that the firemen had successfully put out the fire, and were starting to pack up. We went and talked to one of them. We asked how bad the damage was, and he told us it would due fine, and that we should be able to go in. We went in, thinking it was over, and that we could resume our sleep, but we wouldn't be so lucky. I could see big black fireman foot prints in our entry, and realized they must have come looking for anyone still inside. They had even opened our balcony door and turned on our ceiling fan to start airing the apartment out. Despite their efforts, it smelled horrible. We decided to gather some clothes and essentials and head to the in-laws at least for the day. I went to grab my phone charger and saw that it looked as if the outlet had vomited ashes. This was a little disturbing. We puzzled over it for a while and decided to work about it later. We continued packing up, and as we got to the bathroom, we realized this whole thing was much worse than we had thought.

Pictures are needed here.

the outlet

I don't even know how this happened. It's like there was
smoke in our walls, and it just came out of every crack
it could.

Our bathroom floor... so gross. There had been a rug
where that foot is.

This is what the inside of every closed drawer and
closet looks like. I don't understand how the smoke
got in all the way to the back of closed drawers and
managed to oat everything inside.

We started to see that this was more than just a bad smell. We moved into the kitchen and found it to be almost just as bad as the bathroom. 

We couldn't tell that the counters were dirty until we
moved a cereal box...

And then we noticed the floor. I'm so sad about my
pretty rug! I got it years ago at Anthropologie on a
major sale, and I don't know that it's cleanable. I
kind of like the new deeper hues though...

I was sad to realize that the 2 dozen pumpkin cookies I had made the day before were covered, but not very well with saran wrap. Maybe some were still okay, but we weren't brave enough to risk it. We were tired and didn't want to overwhelm ourselves too much, so we grabbed some clothes and threw our bedding in the wash and left. This was funny: we couldn't find any clean surfaces and we didn't know what to do with our pillows and duvet while their covers were being cleaned, so we stuffed it all in the clean dryer. We went to my in-laws and explained it all, they kindly said we could stay indefinitely, and then we slept from about 8 am till noon. We woke up, and decided to face the place once again. We brought huge tupperware bins and garbage bags with us. We basically threw out anything that wasn't worth cleaning or that had been contaminated: magazines, little notepads, our toothbrushes, dental floss, Q-tips, cotton balls, cookies, and tons of food that wasn't in an air-tight container (baking soda, cereal, etc.). I wish we could have thrown it all away sort of. The thought of scrubbing that whole place down, cleaning every book, article of clothing, appliance, dish, chair, the mattress (who knows how it's doing), towel, nail polish bottle, blow dryer, razor blade, and all my fabric and craft supplies... everything is so dirty! And this isn't just dirt. It's sticky, greasy, invasive, smudgy, stinky soot.  We filled our clean tupperwares with clothes and stuff that we thought we'd need for the next week or so, took the pillows and duvet from the dryer to dry the sheets, and put them in clean garbage bags. We dried our sheets, turned off the furnace so the smokey residue would stop blowing in, and we left. 

We would find out later that day what happened, and why that truck was burning in the first place. More to come. 

*(Sorry I'm not writing more at a time! I'm tired, and we're busy starting Thanksgiving super early by playing games and having treats and watching Boy Meets World, because we just survived a fire!). 

I'll post again tomorrow. 

The Full Story (well, part one of it)

Thursday night was a bad night. I was so tired, but as I got into bed and closed my eyes, my body refused to relax enough to fall asleep. I was tossing and turning for so long that I finally pulled out my phone and read for a bit. I don't know what time it was when I fell asleep, but I think I ended up getting about six hours of sleep. Kimball and I had been planning on going out on Friday, but I was so tired I didn't know if it would happen. I went to pick him up from work/school, and as we pulled up to our place we decided to park on the street, instead of in our parking stall beneath our building. The stalls are so narrow, so it's sometimes just easier to park outside, especially when we're just home for a few hours. We got settled at home, and both of us ended up falling asleep. Waking up from our little nap, we both felt groggy and decided to stay in... huge blessing... or huge mistake.

We ended up going to bed around 1:00 (I know. We had been tired, really.) There we were, snug in our cozy bed, with freshly cleaned sheets, and happy to be evading the snowstorm outside, when everything went crazy! The fire alarm woke us both up instantly around 4:15 am. I have no recollection of waking up, getting out of bed, or turning on the light. All I know is that all of those things happened, and then I was running through our apartment looking for the source of the smoke I could hear and see everywhere. Kimball and I, with our mussed hair and wide eyes seemed to just walk in circles for a while... or run in circles. My first thought was, "get outside now!"I actually first thought to go out on our balcony, but I realized quickly that that was a horrible idea. I thought back on all those conversations I'd had about "If your house was burning down, what would you grab?" I couldn't think straight, but I did think straight enough to yell to Kimball to grab our phones (who has phone numbers memorized anymore?) and our computers.  I was busy looking for the fire. We thought it was for sure in our apartment, but then I saw the smoke pouring out of our ceiling vents. Shoot, it was upstairs! This was the moment of panic (really a moment... from waking up to getting outside was maybe a minute and a half, tops.) I ran into the bedroom and told Kimball, and started wrapping our huge bedspread around me. I knew it would be cold out there, and, confession, I was just in my undies. This was my moment of not thinking clearly. I saw Kimball pulling on jeans and a shirt, and realized that it would be a joke to go outside as I was. I grabbed some jeans and a sweater and got dressed faster than I ever have. We threw our electronics into a backpack, and Kimball grabbed his little bag of cough drops (this was his moment of not thinking clearly), and we ran out of our house. Not knowing if we'd see it again. Such a weird, panic-filled, confusing few minutes. The worst part was not knowing where the fire was or how long we had to get out of there. I thought our ceiling could have fallen in at any moment, or our wall would turn black and crumble to ashes.

We ran out into the rain to the front of our building. There was only one other couple out there. (I was proud of us for being so quick and smart - these guys were quicker, but they were also in shorts and had no shoes). The guy was looking into the parking garage, and when he saw us he yelled, frantically, "There's a truck on fire in there. It's seriously about to blow up! Oh man! It's gonna blow!" We laughed to ourselves, relieved that it wasn't the building, and at the fact that he earnestly thought the car would blow up. Too many TV shows. These guys also hadn't brought their phone, so they (frantically) told us to call the police. We did, but the cops showed up right as we got through, and before we had to a chance to see into the garage. I just wanted to know where the truck was, and how bad the damage would be to our car. We stressed about this for a minute with the other couple. What a huge pain. Our cars might be ruined, and the police have already taped it off. There's no way to even go get our cars to get away if we want to. This was the point that Kimball realized that he had his cough drops in his hands... I let him hide them in my backpack... my poor little sicky. Kimball turned to me and said, "Wait, did I park on the street last night?" My eyes grew wide with hope at this suggestion. I didn't know. I was delirious then, and I was worse off now. "I think you did!" We sat and thought and thought, and finally concluded that we had, in fact, evaded the flames! What a huge relief. The moment I realized it, I turned to cold-footed pair and proudly announced, "We just realized we parked on the street! Isn't that lucky?!" I immediately realized how horrible it was for me to say that. They looked, well, tired. I avoided them for the rest of the adventurous morning. People had started to pour out of the building in all sorts of funny PJs (robes, Harry Potter robes, shorts, too-short flannels, it was great) as the fire trucks showed up. We heard a loud pop, and guessed (correctly, as we'd find out later) that the windows were being blown out by the heat. I couldn't believe how many people came out without shoes on. (Isn't that the easiest thing to grab? They're just right there by the door!) We were told to move away as the firemen worked their magic. They also started going around to apartments waking those who's fire alarms didn't go off. There we waited, and here you must wait until I have time to write a little more. This is long and detailed, but it was such an adventure for us, I have to record it all, you know, for posterity.

Sorry to leave you hanging... just imagine how we felt!

Creamy Tomato Soup with Cheesy Croutons

Yesterday was so blustery and cold! I didn't have a lot of food in the house, but I did have a large quantity of broccoli and a few cans of diced tomatoes. I really wanted soup, so it was either broccoli or tomato. I suppose I could have combined the two, but I ended up settling on tomato, as you may have deducted from the title of this post. Clever you... 

It's strange to me that I decided to try tomato soup, since I've never really liked it, but after reading a few recipes and picking and choosing which ingredients I thought sounded good, I pieced together a recipe that sounded good to me, using ingredients that I already had. I was shocked at how delicious it was! It was amazing. Kimball and I both loved it, and it was surprisingly filling.

Creamy Tomato Soup:

Since I was sort of throwing it together as I went, I'm not sure of the exact amounts of certain things.

Add the following to a big pot:
2 cans of diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon of chicken bouillon
1-2 cups water depending on how thick you want your soup to be 

(you can use chicken broth in place of the bouillon and water)
a teaspoon or so of salt
a teaspoon or so of pepper

While that's heating up, brown the following in a skillet with a bit of olive oil:

Half a yellow onion 

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon of sugar

When the mixture's lightly browned, add it all to the pot of soup. Stir it in, and add the following, to taste:
celery salt (it's strong, so use a little bit and taste before you add more)
oregano (a couple teaspoons)
basil (a couple teaspoons)

You can use fresh or dried herbs. Be sure to taste it as you add the spices. If you add way too much, you can add another can of tomatoes to dilute it a little bit. 

When the soup comes to a boil, turn the heat down, and slowly pour in some heavy cream. I don't know how much I used - maybe half a cup - Just be sure to start with a little, and stir as you pour. If you add too much you'll really taste the cream. Pour, stir, and taste until it looks and tastes how you want it to. You can also omit the cream altogether.

You can stop there, or, you can puree the soup. I used an immersion blender and partially blended it up. I wanted to make it a little thicker by blending some of the tomatoes, but I retained the chunky texture of the onions and some tomatoes. If you don't want to do this, but you want the results, you could use 1 can of crushed tomatoes, and 1 can of diced.

-

It seems like people love the combination of tomato soup and grilled cheese. I'm not a fan of grilled cheese sandwiches, but I improvised and came up with a healthier, easier, and tastier substitute. I call them croutons because of they're size and shape, but they're only delightfully crispy, not crunchy like the kind you buy. They were also surprisingly delicious. 

Here are the directions:

Cheesy Croutons:

Preheat oven to 350F

Bread - I used regular whole wheat sandwich bread (1 slice per person), but you could use rolls, french, or other bread

Olive oil

Shredded cheese - I used mozzarella and asiago. Parmesan would be good, too

Garlic salt

Paint the bread lightly with olive oil, and cut it into squares. (If you're using rolls, you can cut them into cubes, and toss them with a bit of oil in a large ziploc bag instead of painting them. Arrange the bread squares on a tin foil-lined baking sheet (it's so much easier to clean up!). Sprinkle the bread lightly with the shredded cheese. Make sure the squares are close together, or even touching, so you don't waste cheese! Bake them at 350 for about 10 minutes, or until the cheese starts to turn golden brown. I didn't time them. I just checked periodically till I liked what I saw. Remove them from the oven when they look done, and sprinkle them lightly with garlic salt. Pull them apart carefully, so they retain their cheese. They'll get soggy if they sit in the soup too long, so just a few at a time when you're ready to eat. 

I served our soup with these croutons, and a few sliced grape tomatoes thrown in. They add a really nice touch, and make it feel even more like real tomato soup.  

India Fest 2011

We (somewhat) recently had a lovely evening at Spanish Fork's annual IndiaFest. The curry was decent, the literature was inspiring (we lean vegetarian), the temple was beautiful, and the music and dance were fantastic. They had a stage set up at the bottom of a hill where we were able to watch Indian dancers, which was so fun. I love Indian dance, and if I could find a class in Provo, I'd take it. There were displays set up all around the temple to educate us on all things India, random caged animals, like parrots and llamas. 

It was a little chilly, but luckily we were able to warm up in the overcrowded, incense-filled temple. I'm not a fan of incense (even though it reminds me of Jerusalem and all the old churches we spent hours in), but it was better to hang out inside anyway since that's where the music was. Actually the reason we were even at IndiaFest in the first place was to support the band, of which Kimball's former Kung Fu instructor of ten years is a member. This guy's not only a martial arts master, but he plays in a traditional Indian band and a traditional Irish band. Such diverse interests and talents! We actually went and heard him play with his Irish band the week prior at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, which we have no pictures of, sadly. It was pretty great though, and hopefully we can go back next summer. Anyway, back to India. In the temple, they were calling people up to bless them and put a red dot on their forehead, and the band had everyone get up and dance around in a big circle. Kimball and I just sat on the side, for fear of being converted unintentionally, but we did chant and sing the hare krishna songs along with everyone, one of which was stuck in my head for days. So cultural. 

By the way, why have we shortened the word festival? Is it just me, or is it a great word? There are so many fests these days and not enough festivals. Timpanogos did it right. I don't care what people say, I'm lengthening it back out. 

Thank you, India Festival! We had a great time.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies (healthier...)

I've recently succumbed to the enticings of Pinterest. (Facebook really doesn't do it for me anymore). I don't recommend Pinterest if you're busy, but if you're looking for a great recipe, hairstyle, decorating idea, or tutorial of any sort, I'd most certainly bypass a google search and head over to the picture gallery of inspiration, especially if you, like me, are a visual person. I don't like trying recipes if I don't have a picture of the outcome. Because I want to help people like me, I've started photographing some of the food I make in an effort to help you understand how great these recipes are, which brings me to the next trend I'm on board with: Instagram. I'm loving the way these filters enhance my pictures. I admit, I've gone over board, and there are now few photos which haven't been enhanced in this way. So, laugh if you will, but in the meantime, enjoy these pictures and these recipes. Oh, and by all means, feel free to pin them! 

this recipe makes about 24 little cookies

I'm going to give you all a recipe that you all need. I don't think I've ever made pumpkin cookies before, and I'm so glad that the first attempt will likely be the recipe I use from here on out. These are the best pumpkin cookies I have ever eaten. Way better than store-bought. They aren't dry at all, and though they're sort of full of sugar, they are somewhat healthier than your average cookie. They have whole wheat flour, and contain no oil or butter! They are amazing. They're low in cholesterol and high in vitamin A (well, and high in sugar - omit the chocolate if that's a concern).

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

*recipe is adapted from this recipe.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a cookie sheet, or simplify your life and use parchment paper or a silpat baking mat.

Combine: 

1 cup canned pumpkin, 

1 shy cup white sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1 egg

In a separate bowl, mix together:

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

a pinch (about 1/8 tsp) of each: nutmeg, allspice, & cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix the wet and the dry ingredients and stir in

1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1 teaspoon of milk to make a paste

1 tablespoon real vanilla extract

Mix well, and add

2 cups (1 package) semisweet chocolate chips (this was a LOT of chocolate - you could use less)

Drop spoonfuls of whichever size you choose onto your baking sheet, and bake until golden brown and firm in the middle. I baked the little cookies for about 12-14 minutes, and the huge second batch (seen below) baked for more like 25 minutes.  

And for those who are wisely trying to be more aware of what they're ingesting: