Happy...

9 months of life!We're so happy to have this happy smiling boy in our lives. We love you Eli!

Fire in the hole!

Or in my oven.

So yeah, I had a fire today. Crazy! Here's the story. I was making some crispy tortilla strips to go on top of a salad we were going to have for dinner. So I turned on the broiler, chopped up some corn tortillas, stuck them on a pan and put them in the oven. I set the timer for 3 minutes. Timer goes off, I check them, and they aren't even brown at all so I set the timer for 1 min. 20 sec. Then I pick up Eli who was playing on the floor, go get the mail (our outside excursion of the day), come back in and set the mail on the counter. Then the timer goes off (Eli is still in my arms). So I open the oven and the first thing I see is black tortilla strips, then the oxygen from the room hits the inside of the oven and everything bursts into flames. Yep. Huge orange flames. AH! Here's my train of thought (all within about 2.4 seconds): Fire! Where's Jeremy? (he was at work) - Okay, need to put Eli down - First close the oven - Water? No, fire extinguisher! - Grab fire extinguisher from under the sink - How does this thing work? - Right, pull the pin and squeeze the handle - Open the oven and extinguish! - Wow! It really works! - Whew, we're alive.

So that's basically how it happened. I had never actually used a fire extinguisher before. I was so glad we always keep a fire extinguisher under the sink (and under our bed, in case you were wondering). I only had a split second of panic (that was the "Where's Jeremy?") but then I did it! I felt like it was a coming-to-know-yourself kind of experience. I am capable of acting calmly and rationally in the face of an emergency. Good to know. Of course, if my whole house was on fire, that would be another matter entirely. But it felt good anyway. And all the fire alarms in our house went off and there was smoke everywhere, but now we know they really work. :) I took a picture of the oven after the fire was put out and most of the smoke was gone:Luckily no real damage was done. My heart-rate is back to normal and everyone is safe. Whew. It was a wild ride.

Husband?

It has been a crazy week. Poor Jeremy has been workin' like mad lately. He runs this big machine at work called an autoclave and it's been having problems lately. Something went wrong in the boiler room on Saturday (I say these things like I know what I'm talking about, but I don't), so he was on the phone a lot trying to get that fixed. Then he went in at 6 am on Monday and Tuesday; Tuesday night he had bishopric meeting then Wednesday was a normal work day; I went to Enrichment that night, then at 11:45pm he tries to inform me (I'm asleep) that he has to go into work. So he was at work from 12am-3am on Thursday morning, then came home and slept for a bit, went back into work at 9am, came home at 5pm, went back into work at 6pm, and got home at 1:30am this morning, and then went back to work at 8am this morning. Yuck!

Luckily it's not ever like this. Occasionally he has to go in for a couple hours on a Saturday or something, but that's it. So we haven't seen much of each other lately. Good thing I have Eli to keep me company. We have great conversations. :) I'm just very grateful Jeremy has a job. And he has a great boss. He said this week would have been sooo much worse if his boss wasn't the nice supportive guy that he is, so that is a great blessing. We keep praying this thing will get fixed! And hopefully he can get some rest this weekend. So that's what's new.

French Apple Tart

(picture above is before it's cooked)

It's another one from the Barefoot Contessa cookbook! And a darn good one too. Yesterday my sis Heidi and her roommate Brianna stopped by for dinner on their way home from Idaho. They'd been visiting our sister Amy for the 3-day weekend. So I made these teriyaki meatballs for dinner, which were really tasty, and then I'd been really wanting to try this dessert out from my new cookbook, and it did not disappoint! The crust was super flaky and delicious and the fresh tartness of the apples was so tasty. It's hard to go wrong with her recipes, because she gives very detailed specific instructions. Try it out! (Oh, and I forgot to take a picture of the whole thing after it came out of the oven and before we devoured it, so you just get one piece).

French Apple Tart
For the pastry*:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 T. sugar
12 T. (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, diced
1/2 cup ice water

For the apples:
4 Granny Smith apples
1/2 cup sugar
4 T. (1/2 stick) cold unsalted butter, small-diced
1/2 c. apricot jelly or warm sieved apricot jam
2 T. Calvados, rum, or water (I used water)

For the pastry, place the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowls of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Pulse for a few seconds to combine. Add the butter and pulse 10-12 times, until the butter is in small bits the size of peas. With the motor running, pour the ice water down the feed tube and pulse just until the dough starts to come together. Dump onto a floured board and knead quickly into a ball. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a sheet with parchment paper.

Roll the dough slightly larger than 10x14 inches. Using a ruler and a small knife, trim the edges. Place the dough on the prepared sheet pan and refrigerate while you prepare the apples.
Peel the apples and cut them in half through the stem. Remove the stems and cores with a sharp knife and a melon baller. Slice the apples crosswise in 1/4-inch-thick slices. Place overlapping slices of apples diagonally down the middle of the tart and continue making diagonal rows on both sides of the first row until the pastry is covered with apple slices. Sprinkle with the full 1/2 cup sugar and dot with the butter.

Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the pastry is browned and the edges of the apples start to brown. Rotate the pan once during cooking. If the pastry puffs up in one area, cut a little slit with a knife to let the air out. Don't worry! The apple juices will burn in the pan but the tart will be fine! When the tart's done, heat the apricot jelly together with the Calvados (or water) and brush the apples and the pastry completely with the jelly mixture. Loosen the tart with a metal spatula so it doesn't stick to the paper. Allow to cool and serve warm or at room temperature.

Right before I put it in the oven (not as beautiful as hers, but close):*She also says if you need to do it faster, you can use frozen puff pastry (defrosted), but you'll want to eat in an hour or two after it comes out of the oven. I made the crust and it was AWESOME!

What we've been up to

I've been a terrible blogger lately. I have no excuse. And I make no promises to be any better, because it might not happen. Terrible, I know. We've finally all recovered from our illnesses. Eli was the last to get sick and he is finally better, with the exception of a few lingering sleeping issues. (Yippee!) But we're getting those worked out. It's amazing how 3-4 days of being sick and off the routine can ruin months and months of good sleeping habits. But we're slowly getting there.

Anyway, enough about that. Here's what we've been doing:

Jeremy

• Working
• Churching (that's what we'll call it)
• Studying (more on that later)
• Daddying
• Husbanding
• Being all around superman
  

Sarah

• Organizing closets. Why? I don't know. I just felt that they needed to be organized.
• Sleeping when possible
• Cooking
• Cleaning
• Teaching: 4 piano students, 1 voice (wish those were reversed)
  
• Mothering
• Wife-ing
• Reading (I've added a new list of books I've read in 2010; 2 so far!)
• Obviously not blogging

Eli (he gets pictures to go along with his)

• Pulling off socks and eating them and then playing with sock still in his mouth. Weird.
• Breathing out of his nose again. YAY!
  
• Playing with dad's shoes (and making awesome faces while doing so)
• Reaching farther than I've ever seen any kid reach. He prefers this to actually getting off his bum and moving. :)
• Bathing and loving the bath toys Santa brought
• Babbling: na-na, da-da, ma-ma (on occasion), ya-ya, and his usual low growls
  
• Being super cute and well-loved

That's what's new with us. Thanks for stopping by!

Herb-marinated loin of pork.

So my mom gave the "Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics" cookbook for Christmas and it is great! This is the first (and only) thing I've tried so far, but I've got my eye on several others. Anyway, this pork is so tasty. I've decided pretty much anything marinated/cooked in garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and herbs is delicious, so it's hard to go wrong there. This was super easy and very tasty.

Herb-marinated loin of pork

Grated zest of 1 lemon
3/4 c. freshly squeezed lemon juice (4-6 lemons)
1/2 c. good olive oil, plus extra for brushing the grill
2 T. minced garlic (6 cloves)
1 1/2 T. minced fresh rosemary leaves
1 T. chopped fresh thyme leaves
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
Kosher salt
3 pork tenderloins (about 1 pound each)
Freshly ground black pepper

Combine the lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, rosemary, thyme, mustard and 2 tsp. salt in a sturdy 1-gallon resealable plastic bag. Add the pork tenderloins and turn to coat with the marinade. Squeeze out the air and seal the bag. Marinate the pork in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours but preferable overnight.

When you're ready to cook, build a charcoal fire or heat a gas grill. Brush the cooking grate with oil to prevent the pork from sticking. Remove the tenderloins from the marinade and discard the marinade but leave the herbs that cling to the meat. Sprinkle the tenderloins generously with salt and pepper. Grill the tenderloins, turning a few times to brown on all sides, for 15 to 25 minutes (depending on the heat of the coals) until the meat registers 137 degrees at the thickest part. Transfer the tenderloins to a platter and cover tightly with aluminum foil. Allow to rest for 10 minutes. Carve in 1/2-inch-thick diagonal slices. The thickest part of the tenderloin will be quite pink (it's just fine!) and the thinnest part will be well done. Season with salt and pepper and serve warm, or at room temperature with the juices that collect in the platter.

A few things: First, I bought my pork in a pack of 2 loins, each a little over 1 pound, so I just did two. Second, I have fresh rosemary in my backyard, but I didn't buy thyme, so I used dried thyme and halved the amount. And third, we don't have a grill (yet) and even if we did it's freezing here, so I cooked my loins (haha) in the oven at 425 degrees for 10-15 minutes and then I turned on the broiler to brown it on all sides. It turned out really tasty, so I guess it worked. Of course a grill would be better, but this worked out. Oh, and her picture in the book looks way more appetizing than mine. Oh well.

5 minute No-Knead Bread

Maybe one of these days I'll get back to actually posting a recipe every Tuesday. Oh well. Last night I made a delicious (if I do say so myself) beef soup/stew and I tried out this recipe for bread to go along with it. I wanted something nice and hearty and this did the trick. It had a hard thick crust and it was dense and delicious. And it really was less than five minutes to mix together. It does need to rise for a couple hours, but it was extremely easy. As for the soup, I was kind of winging it, so I'll just give you the general idea. I cooked a big chuck roast on Sunday and had gravy with it and I had a lot left over, so I (with the inspiration of my mom) used the gravy and added some water. Then I chopped up potatoes, onions, and carrots and cooked those in there and just added a bay leaf and some garlic, salt, and Worchestershire sauce to taste (and of course I chopped up the beef and added that) and it turned out really tasty! So there's an idea for you if you have leftover pot roast or some type of big piece of beef. :)

And here's the recipe for the bread. I got this from The Sisters' Cafe.

5-minute no-knead bread

1 1/2 T. yeast
1 1/2 T. kosher salt (it's coarser than table salt)
3 cups lukewarm water
6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Stir together all ingredients until you have a nice thick dough (really, I just used a rubber spatula). Make sure you stir it enough that there are no dry pockets of flour left in the dough. Cover well (I used plastic wrap) and let rise for 2 hours on the counter.

Sprinkle just a little flour over the dough and divide into 4 parts. Sprinkle with a little more flour to keep your hands from sticking and form into a ball. Place seam side down on parchment paper sprinkled with a little cornmeal. Allow loaves to sit for 40 minutes.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees with a baking stone inside. Also, place a pan Also, place a shallow pan full of warm water on the bottom shelf of oven to make steam during baking. This creates a crusty exterior to the bread. (I didn't do this and mine was still very crusty). Sprinkle loaves with flour again. Using a serrated knife, make several slices across the top of the bread to allow for expansion. Lift parchment paper with loaves on top and place directly on hot stone. Place baking stone on middle shelf of oven and bake for approximately 40 minutes.

*FYI: I don't have a baking stone, but I just used a cookie sheet, and I did preheat it. Also, I halved the recipe because I didn't think we needed 4 loaves for the 2 of us. However, we did polish off 1 loaf at dinner last night. Hehe...

New art for a new year

Jeremy and I have been searching for a nice picture of Christ for the last few months, and we finally got one. I'm really excited to have this in our home. It took us awhile to decide on one but we're really happy with the one we got. It's called "Ye are the light of the world" by Simon Dewey. We knew we wanted a Simon Dewey one (we really like his stuff), but we were deciding between a few. We love the tenderness between the Savior and the little boy in this one, so I think that's what settled it. And it looks great in our family room! Take a look:
I said to Jeremy last night after we put it up, "I feel like we have to be better now that we have this up" and he said "We do. That's why we got it". So I think it's a great way to start off our new year with this painting in our home. We're excited for what this year will bring. 2009 was an exciting year of changes for us and we look forward to new goals and new challenges. Happy New Year everyone!