A Weekend Jaunt in SLC

The semester is over! Hallelujah! It was a crazy end to the semester, as always, but everything got finished. Aaron and I have been off of school for the past couple days, and boy we've loved it!

We had a fun excursion in Salt Lake City on Saturday. We started off with a live session at the Salt Lake Temple (my first time inside!) and I loved it! It was, if possible, more beautiful inside than outside! Aaron and I both needed that break from the world.

I dream of one day having a gardens that are a fraction as beautiful as the temples'.

Photogenic.

Love this kid.

When we left the temple, my stomach began to whisper, "Take me to Settebello. We wants it. We needs it." I couldn't say no.

Yes, these are leftovers. I wanted to take a picture of the full pizza, but my stomach took over.

Settebello is this incredible Italian restaurant that serves authentic Italian pizza (this ain't Pizza Hut). The chef is actually from Italy, and they ship almost all of their ingredients straight from Italy because they are a part of this sweet Napoletana society that works to preserve the authentic pizza of Napoli. Boy, is it magnificent! My brother Jared signed off on it, and he served a mission in Milan, Italy. Wonderful. They actually have a sister restaurant in Orem called Terra Mia, which is also excellent, although in my heart, I am still partial to Settebello.

As part of our end-of-the-semester celebratory meal, we got some gelato next door! A wonderful decision.

Mango & sweet cream for Aaron

Mint cookie & sweet cream for me

One of Aaron's cousins had a hotel room in Sandy he had bought, but he wasn't able to use it so he offered it to us! It's a rare treat for us to stay in a hotel room, so we couldn't pass it up. Hello cable television!

It was a wonderful celebration between semesters. The next term starts on Tuesday. Oh boy.

However, on a happier note, today marks the one year anniversary of the day that Aaron proposed to me. What a wonderful, surreal day that was! I can't believe we're starting to hit these year marks! I'm feelin' like an old married woman! Love you, husband.

Carbo Load

The end of semesters are always interesting. I have 2 more papers to finish up and I'm hoping that the print shop doesn't screw up the printing of my recipe book. (Sending good vibes to BYU Print and Mail. Don't mess up my pet project!) No matter what, it all ends on Wednesday. In better news, I start my new internship with BYU Religious Studies tomorrow! I'm excited to meet a new staff and gain new skills! I hope it goes well!

There is nothing like finals (or the procrastination of final papers) that makes me want to eat massive amounts of carbs. We had the Andersons over tonight, and we made tasty mini deep-dish pizzas and garlic bread. Oh deliciousness.

I made my favorite Martha Stewart recipe for both the pizza dough and the mini pizzas. Have I mentioned how much I love Martha Stewart? When my friend Emily asked me how I found this recipe, the honest answer was I probably found it when I searched through the Martha Stewart website for hours looking for recipes and craft ideas. This happens occasionally. I love making these when we have company over because people get to help us make their own specialized dinner.

Look how cute it is. They are surprisingly filling!

Martha's Pizza Dough

Ingredients
1 Tbsp. active dry yeast
3/4 c. warm water
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, plus more to coat bowl
Directions  
Leave in a warm place until dough has doubled in bulk, 45–60 minutes.

Combine yeast with warm water; let stand 5–10 minutes, or until foamy. Stir well.

Combine flour and salt. Add yeast mixture and olive oil, and process just until dough comes together.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface, knead for 1 minute, and shape into a ball. Place in a well-oiled bowl, turn to coat with oil, cover loosely with plastic wrap.

Leave in a warm place until dough has doubled in bulk, 45–60 minutes.

Mini Deep-Dish Pizzas   

Ingredients
Olive oil, for muffin pan
All-purpose flour, for rolling
1/2 lb. homemade or store-bought pizza dough
1/2 c. shredded mozzarella (4 oz.)
1 large tomato, coarsely chopped or tomato sauce
Desired toppings (I love ham & pineapple)
Coarse salt and ground pepper

Directions   
Preheat oven to 450˚ F. Brush 6 standard muffin cups with oil.

Roll out the dough until it's about 1/2-inch thick. Use a mug or bowl to create 6-inch circles. Fill each cup with 1 round gently pressing the dough into the bottom and sides of the cup. Season with salt and pepper.

Add in cheese first (this is important so the sauce doesn't seep through), and then add tomatoes or tomato sauce. Add desired toppings and more cheese.

Bake until dough is golden brown and crisp, around 10–12 minutes. Let cool for 2 minutes before removing from cups.

Ooh and aah over how cute and delicious they are.

Tasty Pieces of Meat

Last day of winter semester today. I have 2 papers, 2 projects, and 1 hymn to write, and I will be one semester closer to graduation! Everything will be over by a week from tomorrow. I can make it 'til then, right? And if I don't, I guess I'll just eat tasty, unhealthy food. That'd be OK, too.

I would like to introduce you to one of Aaron's favorite foods: Stromboli. This has about every awesome and delicious kind of meat in it, and I was pleased to find that I could easily manipulate the recipe to match my food allergies. (Did you know that almost every processed form of bread has high fructose corn syrup? That is, except for a few tasty bakery loaves from Smith's, and they didn't make my favorite kind this last week. Ergh. Not that I'm bitter, or anything.)

Anyways. Here it is!

I used a different bread dough recipe, mainly because the original recipe's dough was so-so, and I have some amazing dough recipes. I decided to make "Our Best Bites" pizza dough because it's perfectly soft and chewy. I love Our Best Bites. I live on the recipes from their cookbook. (Thanks for getting it for me for Christmas, Mom!)

Stromboli
Adapted from The Taste of Home Baking Book and Burn Me Not

Dough
Makes 2 loaf recipes. 

1 1/2 c. warm water
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. active dry or bread machine yeast
1/2 tsp. salt
3–4 1/2 c. flour, divided

In a large bowl (using a Kitchen Aid is handy, if you have one), combine water, sugar, and yeast. Let stand for 10 minutes or until yeast is bubbly.

Add salt and stir. Add 1 1/2 cups flour and mix well. Gradually add more flour (usually between 1 1/2–2 1/2 cups) until dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl and it barely sticks to your finger. 

Spray a glass or metal bowl with cooking spray (or if you're like me, your metal popcorn bowl) and place dough in the bowl. Cover and let rise for 45 minutes or until doubled in bulk. 

Filling

Makes enough for 2 Strombolis. Double the filling amount if you want to make both loaves at the same time, or pop the other dough recipe in the freezer.

1/4 lb thinly sliced ham (I found a nice honey ham from the deli. No HFCS! Win!)

1/4 lb pepperoni

Dried basil

Dried oregano

4 slices provolone cheese

1 c. shredded mozzarella cheese

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Punch the dough down. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide in half. Roll one portion into a 15 x 12-inch rectangle.

Arrange ham slices lengthwise down half of rectangle. Place pepperoni on top. Sprinkle with a little bit of basil and oregano. Arrange provolone slices over the top and then add the mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle with a little more basil and oregano. Fold plain half of dough over filling and seal ends well. Brush with oil. Sprinkle with oregano.

Bake on a baking sheet at 400˚F for 20–25 minutes until lightly browned. Cool slightly and cut into 1-inch slices. It will be toasty and delicious and everyone will love it!

Food Blogger Wannabe

I'm a food blogger addict. I admit it. It's where I find about everything I make, and I like to think that maybe one day I'll join their ranks. Of course, that means I should work on posting more of my recipes that I make. I'll try working on that.

In my Chum class (Print Publishing), my final project is to make a book of some sort. I immediately thought of making a recipe book for all of my favorite food blogger recipes! Of course, it has taken a loooooooooong time. There's so much formatting and nit-picky details to look at, but it's almost done and I'm pleased with the result! Here's a little peek into my hard work!

Not only am I working on that project, but Aaron also showed me how to manipulate HTML so that I can create food pages on my blog. It's so much easier than all of the other ways I was trying to create them before. Take a look at the pages on the top of my page and see if you like it! I can't wait to add more dishes!

Lovely Easter

My parents raised me to have a healthy admiration for many sports, one of them being baseball. Yes, my sister and I may have spent the first couple years of baseball games playing with dolls and coloring, but after a while, we finally started looking up every once in a while. Baseball was unlike any other sport I had been exposed to. It wasn't fast-paced like basketball and it didn't have the testosterone-induced aggression of football. It was calming and refined and I found it charming that the players wear perfectly white uniforms.

I've grown to love baseball, and I'm lucky enough to have married a man who loves baseball, too! BYU's baseball season started a few weeks ago and last weekend was the first nice weather we've had all season! Thank you Provo for throwing us a bone every once in a while.

We stopped by the Wilkinson Center to buy a tasty Navajo taco, my first one since my first one at the New Mexico State Fair. We shared one of these beauties and I only spilled a little drop of chili on my shorts. I call that a success. 

The weather was perfect and we had to move under the overhang because it was too warm. Can you believe that? Too warm. We didn't win, but the weather was wonderful.

After we went to a delicious dinner at Aaron's great-aunt and great-uncle's house, Aaron's brother Travis came over and we watched Avenger's while we dyed Easter eggs. I love this Kool Aid method that Bri used last year. It smells a lot better, that's for sure.

One of my eggs turned out a little . . . unexpected. However, I think it looks like a dinosaur egg. Dinosaurs are cool. Don't mock.

We ate way too many Cadbury eggs and we made Travis stay up way too late for his early morning job, but it was a wonderful Easter with my family!

I've got to share this recipe. Easter morning, I woke up early to make these incredible cinnamon rolls. I don't make cinnamon rolls very often because they take so much time, but these cinnamon rolls were super easy and only required about 10 minutes to rise! I may have almost killed my Kitchen Aid (Just kidding. But really.). You've got to try these.

One Hour Cinnamon Rolls

Adapted from Valley Ridge Recipes

Makes 24 cinnamon rolls

Ingredients

Dough

3 1/2 c. warm water

3/4 c. sugar

1/2 c. vegetable oil

6 Tbsp. yeast

1 Tbsp. salt

3 eggs

10 1/2 c. flour

Cinnamon Sugar
1 c. sugar
1 Tbsp. cinnamon

Frosting
1/2 c. butter (seriously, don't substitute the real stuff)
2 dashes of salt
2 tsp. vanilla
6 c. powdered sugar
milk

Directions
Mix together the warm water, sugar, vegetable oil, and yeast.

Then add the salt, eggs, and flour. Mix together for 10 minutes, then let it sit for 10 minutes.

Combine the sugar and cinnamon together.

Oil your counter (make sure you've got a big enough space), and dump out dough. Divide in half. Roll one half out into rectangle. Spread with 1/4 c. melted butter and pour it onto the dough. Spread it out across the dough (turns out using your hands is a really fast way to spread butter!) Sprinkle cinnamon-sugar mixture.

Roll up tight, but try not to strangle it. Roll it gently. Slice the dough into 12 rolls and place on greased cookie sheet. Repeat with the other half of dough. Let rise until the dough is as big as you'd like. Bake for 12–15 minutes at 400˚ F.

While the cinnamon rolls are cooking, mix together the butter, salt, vanilla, and powdered sugar. Add enough milk to reach whatever consistency you'd like. As soon as the rolls come out of the oven, spread the frosting with a rubber spatula over the warm rolls until they are warm and gooey, or wait until they are cool before frosting. The frosting is enough for both batches, so be generous!

The rolls are frozen very easily. Place in a freezer-safe container, and when you're ready to eat them, microwave a cinnamon roll with frosting on it for about 1 minute. It's pretty handy to have breakfast for about a week!

Cooking Rut

I'm usually a decent cook. I mean, I can follow a recipe. However.

I have now failed 2 recipes in a row. 2 of 'em.

First, I tried to make these homemade oreos. They just didn't work. I made the dough, let it chill for the right amount of time, and for the life of me, the dough wouldn't roll out right. So disappointing.

Then I made these yesterday. These biscuits are my standby! They are cheesy, fluffy, and delicious! This time, they were tough and salty and just plain ol' nasty. 

What is happening to me? I just need a recipe to work, folks. Just one. Here's hoping to a better culinary week than my last weekend!

A light at the end of the tunnel

After nearly 5 years of unidentified stomach pain, (gotta love terms like functional disorders) I finally have a specific reason to blame! Food allergies! Can I just tell you what a relief it is to find out I'm not crazy? Or undefinably abnormal?

Instead of just telling you what I can't eat, I thought I would write a few haikus:

Juicy, dripping, pink.
Gandalf's Elvish word for friend.
Spit out the black seeds.

Nebraska's cash crop.
Steamed, creamed, grilled, boiled, cobbled, and shucked.
Fields of golden maize.

It's the poor man's steak.
I like it Kentucky-fried.
Bawk bawk bawk bawk bawk.

The only green nut.
Nutella's glorious nut.
These nuts grow on trees.

'Loping melons.
No more of these in a pod.
Pink freshwater fish.

There. Those are the big ones. I have also have a slightly smaller allergy to bananas, string beans, carrots, coconut, mushrooms, oats, potatoes, rice, rye, sunflower seeds, peanuts, walnuts and chicken.

I have gone through what I call the stages of allergy acceptance:

1. Acceptance. (OK, so this is what's going on!)
2. Excitement. (Finally, I know what's wrong with me!) 
3. Sadness. (I can't eat. Or that. Or that.)
4. Anger. (Stupid body. Why would you be allergic to all of those things?)
5. Second acceptance. (Sorry about that, body. I know it's not your fault.)
6. Hope. (Yes, substituting turkey for chicken could work. So could substituting quinoa for rice! This could be OK)

In the end, I believe that it's better to know why I'm feeling pain. I'm very grateful for modern day medicine that can me what's going on with my body.

In other news, I made this tasty cookies for choir today:

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Ingredients

1 c. unsweetened cocoa powder

2 c. white sugar

1/2 c. vegetable oil

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 c. all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c. confectioners' sugar

Directions

Mix together the cocoa powder, sugar, and vegetable oil in a large bowl. Beat eggs into the cocoa mixture, one at a time. Stir in the vanilla extract.

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. Stir this mixture into the cocoa mixture.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a baking sheet.

Fill a shall bowl with confectioners' sugar. Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Roll the balls in the confectioners' sugar and place on the baking sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from  the oven and allow to sit on cookie sheet for 1-2 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Thank goodness I can still eat these. Mmhm.

Insect War II. Bring it!

I had a lovely weekend.

Up first, I worked with my group to finish a magazine group layout project. We created a layout for The Sweet Tooth Fairy, this delicious little cupcake shop that started in Orem. I think it turned out pretty good! What do you think? 

Of course printing this little beast was a different matter. First, I didn't print out the bleed correctly, and then I cut out the last page a little wrong. When I tried to print off the last page again, they were working on that printer, and I had to use a different printer which printed out a slightly different version of the colors. Thankfully, my professor allows us a few freebies on printing. She wasn't kidding when she told us printing was going to be the bane of our existence.

On Sunday, I made these delicious beauties:

Soft-baked Peanut Butter Chocolate Swirl Cookies. Oh, these were tasty. Yes, it does involve making 2 different cookies doughs, but they were both so easy to make that it only took me about 20 minutes total to make both of them! You should know before you start out that it requires a little refrigeration to help the dough not be too sticky. I'll definitely make this recipe again! I'm even considering what other smash cookies I could make: mint with dark chocolate? Snickerdoodle with sugar?

Check out the recipe here.

Choir practice yesterday was a huge success! We had a 200% increase in turnout. Of course, ward choir is still mainly a women's choir, but hey! Aaron's got an actual choir to conduct! We were giddy with excitement. Maybe word got around about how delicious my cookies are. Yeah, I bet that's it.

Also, I found 3 different spiders in the apartment on Sunday. Aaron was there, mercifully, so they were killed swiftly, but it's got me on edge. They weren't huge. I'd classify them as a small-medium, one as a baby-size, but if the small-mediums are showing up, then there could be some big Grandpas and Grandmas hanging around, too. I'm going to grab that insect spray and keep it out in the open. I'm sure Bri will be excited by the spiders return, but I'm not. They're going down.

Maybe Mondays Can Be OK Too?

I found an amazing Snickerdoodle recipe. Seriously, they turned out perfectly. I've been working on bribing people making cookies for ward choir to help Aaron get more choir members. We've been advertising the different cookies we're making, and this week's cookie was a hit.

I found this super easy recipe. Throw the ingredients in a Kitchen Aid, and you're good to go!

Snickerdoodles
Makes about 18 delicious, mouth-watering cookies

Ingredients
1 c. white sugar
1/2 c. firmly packed dark brown sugar
3 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
3 eggs
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Additional, for coating cookie dough: (I only used about half the amount of the mixture)
1/4 c. white sugar
1 Tbsp. cinnamon

Directions
The first step is browning the butter. (I didn't even know you could do that!) Melt 1 1/2 sticks of butter in a skillet over medium heat, and stir continuously until the butter starts to form and turns a light golden brown. Immediately remove from heat and add remaining 1/2 stick of butter to pan and set aside to cool.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper (we sprayed the pan with cooking spray) and preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Get out your lovely Kitchen Aid, combine sugar, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Mix the dry ingredients on low speed until it's just combined.

Add cooled butter, eggs, and vanilla and mix again until it's just combined.

Scoop out about 2 tablespoons of dough and form into a ball. Roll balls in cinnamon sugar mixture to coat and place on cookie sheet. Flatten the cookie dough balls slightly by using the back of a measuring cup.

Bake for about 7 minutes and let cool. They should be really undercooked when you take them out so they can finish cooking on the pan and are a nice, soft texture.

Recipe adapted from No. 2 Pencil

What else is great about Monday?

It's the beginning of March, which means that we're smack dab in the middle of the semester. This winter semester is flyin' by! Hoo boy. 

Aaron let me pick out new shoes for my birthday, and I picked out these little beauties. Navy-blue polka dots, how can I resist?

WCC starts this week and I'm hankerin' to watch our Cougars kick some butt!

Maybe this week won't be so bad after all!

Oh, you say February's almost over?

It has been a busy month so far! Time to catch up on all the fun things in February!

First up, Aaron turned 25 at the beginning of this month! A whole quarter-of-a-century old! I love birthdays! We had a fun, food-filled day! Breakfast started out with these beauties:

I bought this adorable donut pan from Target last year, and I'm finally finding some recipes that I enjoy to make! Baked donuts are so much better than glazed donuts (unless you decide to buy Krispy Kreme), so I highly recommend them! They're healthier than fried donuts at any rate. These were sweet and cake-like, and because they were in donut form, I could pretend that they were breakfast food and make them for Aaron's breakfast. 

Chocolate Baked Donuts
Makes 12 donuts
Adapted from Prepared Pantry

Ingredients
For the Donuts
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/3 c. cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking powder
1 pinch salt
2 large eggs
2/3 c. granulated sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. milk
2 Tbsp. butter, melted

For the Glaze
1 c. powdered sugar
2 Tbsp. water
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a baked donut pan.

Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk the eggs with the sugar, vanilla, milk, and melted butter. Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture a third at a time, stirring after each addition. Stir until the batter is smooth.

Fill the donut cavities 2/3 full of batter. Bake for 8 minutes. Cool for several minutes in the pan and then place the donuts on a cooling rack.

For the glaze, mix the water a little at a time into the powdered sugar until it is the desired consistency, adding the vanilla.

Glaze the donuts and let the glaze dry while the donuts are sitting on a rack. Be sure to store in an airtight container so they don't get stale.

We invited some of Aaron's cousins over, and made a mountain of food for dinner. We made 3 spaghetti loaves, 2 1/2 batches of Bri's famous breadsticks, corn, broccoli, and oven roasted potatoes. Mountains of delicious food.

In my family, we grew up eating Dairy Queen ice cream cake for our birthdays. I found a great recipe to replicate it, and bought some of Aaron's favorite ice cream from the BYU Creamery, Graham Canyon. It started with a layer of fudgy chocolate wafers, a layer of ice cream, a layer of chocolate ganache, another layer of ice cream, a final layer of ganache, and topped with milk chocolate shavings. We about died of joy when we took our first bites. Here's the recipe I used: Tin Roof Ice Cream Cake. Very doable! I highly recommend it!

We ate and we ate. Oh, what a feast it was!

It was wonderful to spend the day with my best friend and to be surrounded by friends and family! I love you Aaron, and I can't wait to spend every birthday with you for the rest of our lives!

I'll do some more catching up in the next few posts!

For the Love of Cereal

Don't be alarmed. Yes, these bags of cereal are larger than an infant, and yes, there is a good chance that these 2 bags will be gone in the next month. What can I say? We really love cereal!

Did you even know they sold off-brand cereal in the "gigantic size?" America, you've outdone yourself this time!

Buffalo and Cookie Dough

 It's been a busy couple of weeks. For a few weeks now, my midterms have been gnawing on my leg like a rabid dog I can't get to leave my house. Seriously, stop biting me. I love when I hear people complain about their midterm week. Week, as in a singular form of the word. At BYU, the only times most of us take a break from midterms is the first week of classes and finals, but even that isn't a guarantee.

While we're busy running and studying, Aaron and I have developed a few favorite and not-so-favorite food. Here are a few that make the list:

What we love:

This beautiful, mammoth container of ice cream that I bought at Smiths for half of its regular price has already earned its price in the happiness it brings. We both love the cookie dough chunks the best and our ice cream is filled with pits where we've tried to find a delectable morsel of cookie dough. Don't judge.

   

What we strongly dislike:

We bought this on sale thinking, we love Wheat Thins! Let's branch out and try this Spicy Buffalo kind! Bad move. When they wrote spicy, they probably mean to call it Bitter With a Smidgen of Tabasco Sauce. And it does nothing to remind me of this guy. Fail. However, despite our distaste for it, it has since ended up in the car and has become our "last resort food," the food that you eat only in desperate situations where you can't exist a moment longer without food. 

What I'm making this week:

Barbecue Chicken Empanada. This delicious beauty of an empanada is filled with shredded barbecue chicken, red onions, and cheese and is covered by more barbecue sauce and cheese. How can it go wrong? Oh so good.

In my dreams:

Lobster Mac and Cheese. It's no secret that I am in love with all things mac and cheese (oven baked, stove-top, crockpot, Kraft, Velveeta), and when I saw this on one of my favorite blogs, I started to salivate. Of course if we ever had the desire or means to spend the money for lobster, there is no way we would use that precious piece of meat in something like mac and cheese. One day, when we have made our fortune, I will make this beautiful dish. Besides, Aaron has never eaten lobster. That is a travesty that must be rectified. 

What a Sweet Night

I had my bridal shower last Thursday, and well, it was simply lovely. My wonderful sister-in-law Bri sent out beautiful invitations and graciously planned and cooked, with the help of a great family friend, April Blodgett!

 

Check out these beautiful poppy seed cake and white chocolate drizzled strawberries. Poppy seed  cake has to be my favorite type of cake. I would make this all the time if poppy seeds weren't so dang expensive!

 

Bri made a variety delicious cocktail-style drinks (minus the alcohol, of course. No need to be concerned.), complete with Kool Aid edges on the glasses!

This drink was probably my favorite. Apparently, you can separate colors in drinks according to their sugar content! It's kind of like this! And it's in my wedding colors. Adorbs.

Staying classy.

Are you ready for this? Banana split bites. Yes, there is actually ice cream inside those frozen bananas. Oh my goodness. So delicious! Apparently they are not an easy feat, but well worth the taste!

Refreshing.

 Chocolate pudding+raspberries+whipped cream+many delicious things. So good.

A castle of little salt taffy containers to take home.

Lights in jars everywhere. In love. It was simply a dream! I'm so grateful for everyone who came! 13 days!