What's Been Going On...

Outside my window... Snow Snow Snow Snow Snow.

I am thinking... about having to get a crown on a tooth tomorrow. That will be the most extensive dental work I've ever had done and I am quite nervous about it.

I am thankful for... the fact that ALWAYS God is on His throne and Jesus is sitting at His right hand.

I am wearing... a gray sweater I bought last summer for $8. I love it and have received several compliments on it.

I am going... to get my sewing room in order. I am going to get my sewing room in order. I am going to get my sewing room in order. (This afternoon, I emptied out a box that was in there and threw some things away (!) and put the other things in their proper place.)

I am currently reading...Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon. (I need to mix a thinker book with a fun one.)

I am hoping... we have good weather in a couple weeks when we are planning on heading to see our kids and to see some basketball. (Hubby got tickets as a Christmas gift to see KU [our kids' school] and ISU [our Alma Mater] play each other in basketball.)

Noticing that... snow mobiles out in the field next to our house wakes me up from my Sunday afternoon nap. Hmph.

Pondering these words... Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. Seeing all the snow helps to visualize it.
Still. Mind. Boggling.
 
From the kitchen... I've been having fun using some new kitchen toys I got for Christmas and birthday gifts. I think I am going to like the food processor. Next time I won't make Pico de Gallo Mush. I used it to chop some cilantro and it worked really well! (And I did NOT end up with cilantro paste!) I was so proud that I didn't get all lost in the watching the blade go round and round. :)

One of my favorite things... Spending time with my husband. (I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that here before a time or two.)

From my picture journal...
I don't think I ever posted a picture of the BEAUTIFUL roses my daughter and son-in-law sent me for my birthday. They lasted a little more than a week and I just loved seeing them and smelling them.

Katie's Roasted Corn Salad (Pioneer Woman)

Hi! I'm Megan, the third contributer to the "Pioneer Woman" blog.

I actually made the Roasted Corn Salad a couple weeks ago for dinner. But I've had a few distractions in the past two weeks that prevented me from getting this written. One being this adorable little guy:

His name is Charley and my husband and I brought him home just two weeks ago. So while the Roasted Corn Salad was extremely simple to make, it took me significantly longer than I expected since I had to keep one eye on him at all times.

Here's the vegetable ingredients:

As I was picking these out at the grocery store, I was dreaming about picking all of these delicious vegetables straight from the garden. If you want to try this recipe I would highly recommend doing it during the summertime. Although, even in the wintertime it was amazing.

I used our cast iron grill pan to cook the corn, squash, onions and pepper. The recipe said to just cook them on the stove for approximately eight minutes, but I found that they weren't fully cooked, so I popped them in the oven on broil for a few minutes. That did the trick!

The next step was to mix up the delicious dressing!
Here are the ingredients:

Ree suggested to chop up the basil by cutting into the chiffonade (aka tightly rolled leaves). It gives you nice thin strips of basil. I've been cutting my basil this way for a while, but now I know the name! :)

The finished product was delicious. My brother even said he didn't really notice the squash and tomatoes (he's not a fan of those). We served it with tortilla chips and tacos, but I can imagine that it would be wonderful with steak or chicken.

COMING SOON: Hot artichoke dip. Yummmm.

The Weekend

I thought I'd throw a recap of the weekend in here.

It was cold.

But it didn't snow!

The End.

The actual temperature last night was -18F! (I think.) (I could be off by a degree or two, but seriously, when it's that cold does a degree or two really make a difference?)

Hubby has been working hard at getting his shop in order. He built some shelves to put all the boxes of stuff we just can't part with. You know.... the box of baby clothes that were too darn sweet to give away, the box of baby toys we keep to bring out to entertain babies that visit us, the box of childhood memories for both my husband and me, the box that takes me an hour to go through because --- Hello Memories, and well, you know... boxes and stuff....

Never fear, we have gotten rid of lots and lots of stuff. There are so many empty boxed in the garage, it will take a few weeks to get rid of it all.

I considered asking Hubby if he was going to sort through his lumber and throw some scraps away, but then I thought he might ask me to sort through my fabric scraps....so I kept my mouth shut. :)

Yesterday Hubby and I got to go on a date. :) We went to the nearest biggish city (an hour away) and saw a movie (Secretariat), did some shopping, and went out for supper. Despite the cold, we had a great time. I should admit that my hubby spoils me rotten by dropping me off at the door of the stores and restaurants. That makes being in the cold not as awful. He's so sweet!

(Lots of awkward transitions to new subjects...)

Finding satisfaction in a church in our new area continues to be frustrating.

I will never understand the fascination with ice fishing. The lake near us has so many little houses on it. I just don't get it. I should take a picture of it, but that would involve getting out of my car in this terrible cold.

I have so enjoyed being a part of the Facebook world. A few nights ago I was watching my all-time favorite TV channel, HGTV. There was a show originating from Canada. That got me to thinking about the camp in Ontario I went to as a kid. I saw on their website that there was a Facebook page for alumni. (You wondered what HGTV had to do with Facebook, didn't you? You thought I'd never get back around to Facebook, didn't you?) I jumped over to that page and hunted around and believe it or not I actually found some of my old camp friends! I have reconnected with two of them on Facebook. Awesome. Now we just have 36 years to catch up on. Ha. Ha.

Things coming up in the next week: cleaning (woohoo), working on some things in my sewing room, a work (Hubby's) Christmas party that was canceled in December because of the Blizzard of 2010, and then to celebrate my half-century mark, I get to have a crown put on one of my molars. YeeHaw.

And that's the news from here.

PW's Potato Skins (Pioneer Woman)

Next up in Pioneer Woman Cooks: Potato Skins.

Cast of Characters:

(I just had to get my new food processor in the picture. That block of cheese? Shredded in .o9 seconds flat! It was awesome!)

This is definitely a recipe that can be started early and done in stages. I baked the potatoes in the afternoon and let them cool before slicing them in half and digging out most of the insides. 

The finished product:

They were very yummy! What not to like? Crispy potato skins, bacon, melted cheese, onion? Oh, and I substituted plain Greek yogurt for the sour cream. I think I liked that better than I would have the sour cream.

A Hodgepodge of Questions

Another Wednesday, another Wednesday Hodgepodge. I know I didn't participate last week, but, hey! I was quite busy being in Chicago and celebrating my 50th birthday! Remember? :)

Thanks to Joyce@From This Side of the Pond for another set of questions for this week.

1. Do you like your name? Were you named after someone? If you have children how did you settle on their names? 

Not a huge fan of my name. Not named after anyone. (I did call myself by both my first and middle name when I was playing Dominoes with my hubby the other night because I missed an obvious play.) Our son is named after his three-times great-grandfather (first name) and his great-grandmother (middle name). Our daughter's middle name is kind of after a dear college friend. We choose her first name because we both liked it and her big brother could pronounce it.

2. How do you define success?

When our kids were in high school and agonizing over what college to go to or what to major in, we always told them that it didn't matter to us one bit what specifically they decided. All that we cared about was that they love God and serve Him with all they have.

And guess what? That's what both of them are doing (and their spouses)! I call that Success. For sure.

3. Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy?

I like watching Wheel of Fortune. I am even thinking of getting the Wii version of it. How fun would that be? To be able to play it whenever I want? Yes, I'm a nerd.

4. If you could own any single object that you don't have now, what would that object be?

I would love to own a dishwasher that actually cleans and is quiet. (And not pay any money for it.) We had a great one in our previous house. It cleaned and was nice and quiet. The noise of this one is about to drive me batty.

5. What is something that inspires you?

My daughter. She is an amazing young woman. She is kind, loves God, is talented, smarter than smart, a great cook, fun, not afraid to try something new, and she is beautiful. See what a beautiful bride she was?

6. Meatloaf-yea or nay? If its a yay how do you make yours?

I do like meatloaf, but I haven't eaten it or made it in a very looong time. I think if I did make it again, I'd like to get one of those pans that drains the fat away. Do those work? Does anyone have one and use it?

7. Which is more admirable- the ability to organize and be methodical or the ability to adapt and make do?

Yes. Both are admirable and good qualities. Although I will say that I lean more towards liking and admiring the ability to organize and be methodical. (I did marry and engineer, after all.)

8. Insert your own random thought here. 

I had a hard time sleeping the other night. Maybe I should try this: (anyone else a Mr. Bean fan?)

Guacamole (Pioneer Woman)

Okay, finally I am writing my post with the next recipe in our (me, Amanda, and Megan) cooking adventure. What are we doing? The three of us are cooking our way through Pioneer Woman Cooks. And blogging about it.

So far we've made BBQ Jalapeno Poppers and Pico de Gallo.

Tonight I tackled the Guacamole. I was delayed a few days longer than I was planning due to technical difficulties. Namely, I couldn't find a ripe avocado  in the store and had to wait for what I bought to ripen.

The first step to making PW's Guacamole is to make her Pico de Gallo. (See Amanada's post.) I thought I'd make it and give my new food processor a whirl. (Pun intended.) (And can I say? I've been married for 26 years and didn't think I really needed a food processor. I was wrong.)

Before:

After:

(And mine was really, really, really spicy. Really.)

Um? It looks nothing like Amanda's Pico de Gallo:

 I think I got a little too pulse-button-happy. Next time I'll back off on the button. (But it was so fun to watch!)

So, the next thing I needed to tackle was The Avocado. (Insert dramatic music here.) I have never done anything with an avocado before. They intimidate me. (Did anyone see Julie & Julia? Remember how nervous Julie was with the thought of de-boning a duck? That's kinda how I felt about attacking an avocado.)

 

 But look! Look how easily the flesh came out of the skin! ( I was a bit excited at this point.)

I used a fork to mash the avocado. You want to leave a few lumps.

(Yes, I know those are my Christmas dishes. I know it's not Christmas anymore. But, in my defense, they are called WinterBerry and it IS still winter, right?)

Next I added the "Pico de Gallo" (in quotes because it looked more like green salsa.)

 

 The spiciness worked out okay, because I could cool it down a bit with the avocado, but still have a bit of a kick.

Tonight was my first time using an avocado, and it was also my hubby's first time of trying Guacamole.     Great action shot, huh? :) He's such a good sport.

Hubby's verdict? He didn't like it. Sad.

My verdict? I loved, loved it! (Maybe that's a good thing hubby didn't like it...more for me!) (Wait, maybe not good, I'll eat too much of it.)

The Best Birthday Trip Ever.

Didn't you all just love Amanda's inaugural blogpost? I sure did! I am so excited about doing this cooking through Pioneer Woman Cooks cookbook with Amanda and Megan!

The next recipe is my turn...

...as soon as I get myself out from under the mountain of laundry from our trip to Chicago. Why did we go to Chicago? Oh, just to celebrate my 50th birthday...!

This is the wonderful view of Lake Michigan we had from our Fancy Schmancy hotel room we stayed in:

Monday morning I got up while my hubby was in the shower and was sitting in front of this stack of presents.... waiting....

Yep, he spoiled me goood! The bottom present is a panini press/griddle, the next one up is a Le Creuset Dutch Oven(!), next is a set of dominoes, and the small one on top is three worship CDs. (Now I have ALL new music in my car, which a great since I didn't change the CDs out for more than 6 months.)

Birthday lunch was at a fun diner. Some college friends introduced us to this place eons ago. It's wait staff are kinda rude/funny. They're supposed to be. (I wonder what someone would think who didn't know that.)

Birthday afternoon I went here to spend some Christmas and babysitting money I had burning a hole in my billfold:

Oh, it was fun to shop there!

The day ended with Birthday Cheesecake. Mmmm...and Yummmm!

Tuesday night we went to see Wicked. (If you haven't heard of it, it's the prequel to The Wizard of Oz.) It was Amazing!!! I was so caught up in the story and the costuming and the singing. It was just the perfect ending to a wonderful trip!

Well, I guess this is the ending... we came home to the driveway drifted shut with snow. My Hero Hubby shoveled me a path to get into the house and then spent an hour using the snow blower to clear the driveway so he could pull the car into the garage.

Sigh. Welcome back to the frozen north. Sigh.

Pico de Gallo (Pioneer Woman)

Hello all! My name is Amanda, and I'm a new contributor to Just Enough Light and new to the blog world in general. A few things about me... just so I don't feel like we're strangers ...

I'm married to a wonderful man who loves God.

I have an outstanding mother-in-law who organized this exciting tour of Pioneer Woman's cookbook.

I'm also in medical school, and I enjoy everything about it except that we don't get snow days. :)

I also love cooking and eating good food.

This week I made a deliciously simple Pico de Gallo.

In typical PW fashion, we have the cast of characters:

Roma tomatoes, onion, jalapeño, cilantro, lime and salt

(By the way, the recipe in the cookbook doesn't include amounts or numbers, so I kinda estimated.)

I sliced up the onion and tomatoes. I took the seeds and squishy stuff out of the tomatoes. It's just less messy that way.

I need to improve my herb-chopping skills. I always end up with bigger bits than I want. Perhaps this will be a job for my new food processor.

Yummy cilantro!

Jalapeños are great to cook with until you accidentally touch your eyes. Ouch!

Stress relief after getting jalapeño in my eye. Also, I love the smell of limes. So fresh and wonderful.

The finished product. Perfect addition to tacos ... or eaten by the spoonful. :)
I would like to thank my husband for photographing this and future food posts. He did a great job considering the terrible fluorescent lighting in our apartment.

Birthday Eve

Today is Sunday. What I like to call Birthday Eve.

As I type, I have less than two hours left in this decade. (Unless you count the hour I was actually born, then I have a little over fifteen hours... maybe I should go with that. But then... I don't think I can stare at this stack of presents from my hubby for that many more hours. Oh the dilemma!)

Yes. Tomorrow I turn FIFTY. Oh my.

Hubby and I ran off to Chicago to celebrate. (Cool.) We spent a night with his aunt and uncle who have got to be the coolest aunt and uncle ever. They are the best hosts. Aunt Penny even made me a birthday pie complete with candles. I about cried. (and I forgot to take a picture --- phooey!)

This afternoon we heard the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Fun!

 We decided to really live it up and are staying in a Fancy Shmancy hotel downtown. I'm really looking forward to the next couple of days which includes tearing into that stack of presents and seeing Wicked. Oooo!!! (I will be certain to take pictures...)

(I should add here that Hubby let me open one present tonight. He's so nice. It was a book: In the Company of Others, by Jan Karon. Yay! Something to read when I'm snowed in!)

BBQ Jalapeno Poppers (Pioneer Woman)

The momentous first installment of our great adventure of cooking through Pioneer Woman Cooks.

Drum roll, please....

On New Year's Eve, Megan (daughter), Amanda (daughter-in-law), and I made the first recipe in Pioneer Woman's cookbook: BBQ Jalapeno Poppers.

(See what a great cookbook this is with all the helpful pictures and detailed instructions?)

Megan took on the task of cutting and seeding the jalapenos.

Me and my girls with the jalapenos ready to be stuffed!

Stuffed with the cream cheese/cheddar cheese mixture and wrapping with bacon. Yum! We found that about 3/4 of a piece of bacon covered the best. (Guess what Megan fixed for breakfast the next morning?)

Brush with BBQ sauce. Pouring it on your fingers first is optional.

Mmmmmm!!

Wednesday Hodgepodge

Time to start the new year with a new Hodgpodge of questions! Thanks to Joyce@From This Side of the Pond for another set of questions.

 

1. What three words would you use to describe 2010?

Challenging. Wedding! Moving.

2. If fear were not an issue what is something you'd like to try?
Well, I could say something about not trying bungy jumping or sky diving because of fear, but I can honestly say I just don't have a desire to hurdle my body through the air. So I need to come up with something else...

3. What do you add to your coffee or tea?
Coffee? Blech! I'm a tea drinker and more often than not I add ice to my tea. I love, love, love Ice Tea. I drink it all year round.

4. What historical sporting event would you like to witness?
The Olympics. We were in Sydney, Australia about six months before the 2000 Olympics and it was exciting to see all the preparations that were going on in the city. I'd love to watch Figure Skating or Gymnastics and my hubby would love to see Track & Field.

5. What is one piece of advice you would like to give your sixteen year old self?

Those extra 10-15 pounds really are a big deal. Keep them under control.  Also, some of those boys? So not worth it. God has the most amazing man waiting for you to spend the rest of your life with.

6. Are you a planner or do you prefer to fly by the seat of your pants?

I think I would fall under the planner category. Although, I do love to do things spur of the moment. The balance of planning things to make sure something happens, and allowing for extra time to be able to something spur of the moment, is a tricky one to find.

7. What is one thing you are looking forward to in 2011?

Blogging and cooking my way through Pioneer Woman Cooks with my daughter and daughter-in-law. (Go read this post to read all about it.) (I wrote about it in point #6.) 

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Time for another video! Here's one with a scene from the movie Julie & Julia comparing the real Julia Child with how Meryl Streep portrayed her in the movie. Brilliant!

A List of Recaps

I have much to blog about, and a lack of creativity, so a list is ahead.

1. Our kids were able to come to our house for Christmas Day. (I can count on one hand the number of times we have been able to to that as a family.) (It was also the first time we had all been together in this house.) We had such a fun day together complete with eating lots of food and exchanging gifts.

Getting ready to dig into our feast. It was all very yummy! 

I love this family of mine sooo much!

2. Hubby read us the Christmas story from Luke 2. He also led us in a time of prayer and praise for what God has done for us by sending His son, Jesus to earth.

3. A couple of days after Christmas we headed to Iowa to see both of our parents. We weren't able to mesh our schedule with my side of the family, but we were able to spend a day with my parents and to surprise them with Caleb and Amanda. 

This quilt was on the bed we slept in and I marveled at how beautiful and well made it is. My grandmother made it 50+ (?) years ago. I wish I could have talked quilting with my grandmother.

4. We made a road trip to Kansas for the New Year's weekend. Hubby and I got there sooner than we had thought we might, so we decided to have a date night.

We had a hard time deciding on a restaurant because there are so many choices. (Choices is not what we have in this small, rural Minnesota town.) Kind of on whim, we choose a Japanese Steakhouse. It was excellent! I really enjoyed the evening.

Dates with Hubby are always good. :) (And no, I did not eat the tofu)

5. We spent our New Year's Eve at Megan and Zach's. They did a great job of hosting and we had a lot of good food and and played some fun games.

6. I would say the funnest, most fun, best fun, coolest thing that happened over the Christmas vacation was the result of a movie we watched with Caleb and Amanda. I had seen Julie & Julia in the theaters and recently bought the DVD on a whim. We sat down to watch it with Caleb and Amanda the night before Christmas Eve. (If you have never seen it, you should! Go here to watch a trailer of the movie.)

Basically the movie is about how Julia Child came to be, well, Julia Child. (Meryl Streep does an awesome job of protraying Julia.) Paralleled with that story is a story about a woman named Julie who was trying to find some purpose in her life. Julie decides to cook through Julia Child's cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year's time and blog about it.

Amanda (my daughter-in-law) and I started talking after the movie about how it would be cool to cook through a cookbook, but neither of us wanted to try out French cooking. (Maybe it was the aspic that did us in...). Since we both had a copy of Pioneer Woman's cookbook, we talked about working our way through that. When Megan (my daughter) got here, we threw the idea at her. 

What was the idea? The three of us are going to cook our way through Pioneer Woman Cooks AND blog about it here! We split up the recipes New Year's Eve and even made our first dish. (I'll blog about that in a few days.)

I am soooo excited about doing this. We'll attempt to post about once a week. I say attempt, because, while I have nothing better to do in this frozen trundra but cook and blog, my daughter is studying to be a Pharmacist and my daughter-in-law is studying to be a Doctor. They are kinda busy. But they excitedly agreed to work on this and I couldn't be more thrilled!

The Cooking Threesome. I think Hubby suggested we call ourselves "The Kan-Sota Connection" or something cheesy like that. :)

Here we are working hard at splitting up the recipes. (and no, this photo is not at all staged....) The dividing of the recipes consisted of comments such as, "My husband won't eat that, will yours?" And, "Ooo, I want to make this! Me too! Me too!"

So keep coming back here for some yummy food pictures and great blogging!