baby!

this morning, my brand new niece arvilla turned one week old.
i feel like a bad aunt for not having written a congratulatory post the very day she was born,
congratulations juli and tom!

i'm looking forward to going down to st. george soon to see her (and photograph her)!

i am an only child, so obviously i have no siblings to provide me with nieces and nephews. luckily, i inherited six lovely nieces (and five lovely siblings-in-law) when i married andy. the niece count has now reached seven, with another one due this week AND another one of andy's sisters is expecting a baby in the spring.

babies, babies, everywhere. what an exciting time.

creamy lemon caper salmon

with asparagus and brown rice

i tried this recipe for dinner last night and it was awesome.

lemon caper salmon:

-a couple of salmon fillets
-olive oil
-about 1/4 stick of butter
-a couple of spoonfulls of flour
-1 or 2 cups milk or whipping cream
-1/4 cup white cooking wine (or not...whatever you prefer)
-2 tablespoons drained capers
-1/4 teaspoon dried tarragon
-1/4 teaspoon dill weed
-salt and pepper to taste
-lemon juice

+i've learned that in utah, the frozen fish is fresher (and cheaper) than the "fresh" fish, so that's what i'd recommend to anyone who is land-bound. target's market pantry wild keta salmon fillets are the best quality cuts i've found.
+thaw the fish according to package directions
+place skin side down in an oiled glass or metal pan, and brush fillets with olive oil
+broil 4-6 inches from heat, for about 6 minutes, or until the fish flakes easily with a fork. be careful not to let it get dried out. don't be alarmed if it sounds like the salmon is coming back to life in the oven. the oil pops and will make alot of noise.

+ in a saucepan over low-ish heat, melt the butter. whisk in the four and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring.
+add the milk or cream and cook for a few minutes until the sauce has thickened
+stir in the wine, capers, tarragon, dill, salt, and pepper. cook for another five minutes.
+stir in the lemon juice (however much seems good to you, taste as you go) and add more salt and pepper to taste
+pour over the salmon fillets once they are on the plate


asparagus:
+whether frozen or fresh, cook in about 2-4 inches of salted boiling water for 6 or so minutes, until tender
+drain and toss with butter and lemon

rice:
+i used short grain brown rice and just threw it in the rice cooker. make sure you get this started ahead of time, because brown rice can take up to an hour to cook.


*a note on the timing: you may have more success than i with the timing logistics, but i started the rice well ahead of time, started thawing the salmon, then made the sauce and let it simmer while i did everything else.

enjoy!

my poor, beautiful glasses

anyone who's known me for more than a few months has probably come to realize that delicate things don't do well with me. though i love them and try to be gentle with them, they always wind up broken or dilapidated long before their life expectancy would dictate. this is especially true of things i use regularly (clothes, shoes, books...computers). i'm the only person i know with a macbook pro that has dents in it and whose hardware innards seem to be trying to push themselves out of the lower left corner.

i'm beginning to see the effects of my (unintentional) brutality on one of my favorite wedding presents; my beautiful glasses. it seriously broke my heart when i shattered the first one a month or so ago, but today was even worse. it was the last dish i washed, and as i swirled the water around inside of it to rinse the soap out, my hand suddenly forgot that it was supposed to be holding onto the glass and just decided to let go mid swirl. the glass went flying into the right side sink where it shattered and a million glass shards flew all over the kitchen. it was certainly the most dramatic demise of a glass that i've ever experienced. i had to throw away a plate of cookies that was near the sink for fear of glass shards in the stomach, internal bleeding etc. so of my eight glasses, two are broken, one is chipped, and one has a tiny crack down the side that i assume came from something heavy laid on top of it in the dish drying rack thing. i wonder if i would break things less if we had a dishwasher.

at least the flatware is durable.

the bike of my dreams will soon be the bike of my real life!

see that beauty up there? that is the gary fisher simple city 3 women's. that is the bike i've been coveting for months and months. that is the bike that my birthday bike fund was for. that is the bike that's back-ordered (in my size) through the end of january. that is the bike that, thanks to my incessant weekly (sometimes more frequent than that) calls to all the local bike shops to check on the availability dates, will be mine within the next seven days!

after being shot down by racer's who said they couldn't get it until january (even though my name is third on their list), i made a routine call to mad dog's on friday to see if they could tell me any different. and they could; september 29th! i made a note in my planner to call on the 26th, and ten minutes later they were calling me back. the employee (who must have been new because i'd never talked to her before) said that the owner would be able to special order it for me and it would be there within the week.

i was flabbergasted.

how could that be possible? why are so many people suffering through the waiting pain when some store owner can just make a call and have the bike within a week? i don't know where the logic in bike production is. maybe there's some big secret i just wouldn't understand. maybe they just wanted me to stop calling them and by a week they really meant four months.

when i went into the store to order it, i questioned the owner. would it really seriously be here in a week? he seemed confident.

as i was checking out, he said to me "you've called on this bike quite a few times, haven't you."
i may have blushed slightly and laughed a guilty laugh.


persistence pays!

the apartment

i finally got around to taking some pictures of our apartment for those of you who are far away and haven't seen it. it's a studio and we love it. i think we determined that it is 300 square feet or so (does that sound right?). but the kitchen is a perfect size, we're above a garage and don't share walls with any of our neighbors, and there is tons of light to keep my tons of plants happy.

sorry the panorama is so small, click for a bigger view

yes, we do indeed have a balcony

our kitchen wallpaper has pears on it, and our fruit bowl has apples and grapefruit in it.

some favorite windows and details...

kitchen window

bathroom window

this is an awesome cloissonne bird that my grandpa gave me this summer. he bought it in india for his dad.

this is by far my favorite of all my plants. i like it because it has fleshy leaves and it smells kind of good. andy says i only like it because it's yoshi in plant form, and yoshi is my favorite. either way, it's the cutest.

in case you are wondering, all of our furniture is from ikea, except the tall table and chairs (bed, bath & beyond), and the ottoman (target).

awww!

how can you not have a good day when the first thing your husband says to you when he wakes up is "wow, you look amazing!"?

shower philosophies

while i was in the shower tonight, i did some deep philosophizing. alot of thinking goes on when you're in the shower, you know. or maybe it's just me and my occasional 45 minute extravaganzas (only on the days when i wash my hair and shave my legs).
so anyways, i was humming a dan potthast song to myself in the shower. i haven't listened to him for ages, so i'm not sure why the song popped into my head. i think it's called "how to suffer." i started thinking about a certain line that seems like it's supposed to be dialogue. i won't quote it, but my interpretation of it is that someone asks him what his regrets are, and he responds by saying he's not done yet, which to me means that he's not dead yet, so why would anyone assume that he has regrets (or at least regrets that can't be amended).

that got me thinking about how everyone has the possibility of living life entirely without regret. i'm referring to the haunt-you-on-your-deathbed kind of regret, not the regret you have for your most recent embarrassing moment or for having picked at that zit and turned it into a monster. but seriously. we all do stupid things, but what's glorious is that no matter how far from perfect we are, if we understand and take advantage of the atonement, we should never have to live with regret. that may seem kind of ironic since regret is a necessary step in the repentance process, but god forgives completely the minute you repent earnestly, so regret only has to last as long as you allow it to.

i firmly believe that every single experience you have contributes in a big way to who you are, and without those experiences you and your life might be totally different. in that sense, we'll always have to live with the memory and consequences of the things we've done, but we don't have to live in regret.

jesus is the best.

just some thoughts at the end of a long day...

cannellini bean dip

alright, if you were a little grossed out by my last recipes, here's a new one. andy said this is one of his favorites out of all the food i make.

cannellini bean dip:

-1 can cannellini beans, drained
-lemon juice
-chopped/minced garlic (about 2 teaspoons)
-salt
-cream cheese, softened
-dill and parsley
-salt

+ in a bowl, combine all ingredients
+crush beans partially with a processor or some kind of mashing device
+mix in garlic and cream cheese
+add lemon juice to taste
+add herbs and salt to taste
+serve with toasted pita slices or tortilla chips

it's what's for dinner.

so, about these recipes.

when we got home from france, andy was deathly ill for a couple of weeks (food poisoning? parasites? stomach ulcer? the doctors still don't really know). since he's had his appetite back, i've been cooking some really awesome stuff, and i've decided that i want to share the love.

so from now on, whenever i find or make up an awesome recipe, i'll post it with some photos so maybe some of you can enjoy it as well.

tonight, i made a very interesting dinner. i'm a little wary of posting it as my first recipe, because it's not the best dinner i've ever made, but i thought it was good.

garden pea soup and olive pasta

both of these recipes are from a just 10 minutes cookbook i have, but since i can't follow recipes for the life of me, i kind of made them my own.

a warning pertaining to my lack of recipe following: i never really measure, so my directions are always approximate. in french we call it cooking au pifomètre; pif is a slang term for your nose, so essentially it means cooking by your nose-o-meter.

if you actually decide to try any of my recipes, feel free to get as creative as you'd like.

pea soup (makes two good sized bowls):

-2 cups vegetable stock
-1lb peas (i used frozen)
-heavy whipping cream
-coriander
-dill
-salt & pepper to taste

+bring the stock to a boil in a large pan
+add the peas and boil for 5 or so minutes
+remove from heat and transfer to a food processor, blending until smooth-ish
+replace in pan, add herbs and spices to taste, and mix in cream
+serve warm or cool, but cool might be a bit too reminiscent of baby food

olive pasta

-short pasta (i used mini bowtie)
-salt
-olive oil
-1 jar kalamata olives*
-crushed or minced garlic
-fresh or dry basil
-fresh shredded parmesean (not the powder stuff!)

*only use kalamata olives if you really really like the taste of olives: they are very strong.

+cook the pasta according to the package directions, in salted boiling water
+meanwhile, chop up the olives and garlic. sautéeing the two is optional.
+when the pasta is cooked to your taste, drain it and replace it in its pan.
+add enough olive oil to coat the pasta when you stir it well
+stir in the olives and garlic
+add the basil(to sweeten it up a bit) and parmesean to taste
+enjoy!


if you don't like the sound/look of these, there are better things to come. i promise

fall

i've been storing up tons of thoughts and ideas over the past couple of weeks, and haven't quite gotten around to writing them down. but now fall seems to be here and school has begun, which means i now have a schedule, which means (unless i get crazy busy) i'll probably be blogging more often. i'm the kind of person who gets alot more done when i'm on a schedule and have to do productive and enjoyable things with the time i've got left over.

one of the biggest things i want to start posting is recipes. more on that soon.

so, andy and i started school this week. we both have some really interesting classes. it's going to be a busy semester, but we're both really excited.

oh, and to add to the fall feeling, the leaves outside the window above our bed are starting to turn, and the mornings have been freezing.

ps: the leaves here are not as colorful as in the photo yet, i took that one two years ago.