Just a brief update mostly in pictures

We went to Color Me Mine, painted some pottery, and had a good old time. We got our completed projects back yesterday, and we managed to crack Tony's before we even got it out of the car. Then I proceeded to get a shard of ceramic from the crack jabbed into my finger . . . ouch.

My results from homemade quinoa and corn chowder. So good and so quick. Check out the recipe here.

This picture may seem a little strange, but these two items combined caused the biggest conundrum I have faced in quite some time. It all started over a week ago when I pulled my computer out of my backback and clunk. Something was rattling around in my computer. I turned my computer on it's side to confirm and yet again there was a rattle and a clunk as some unknown heavy object hit the side of my computer. Tony took the bottom off of my computer, but there was nothing there except a whole lot of dust. So for the next few days I was content with the mysterious rattling. But then in class the other day I pulled it our and clunk . . . I heard it hit next to the mysterious slot on the side of my computer. Please tell me if you know what it's for because I still haven't figured it out. See picture below for a visual:

So I pushed the slot open with my finger, tipped my computer on it's side and out fell the nickel on my desk. Who needs to take their computer to the Mac store?

Food Stuff

I do love baking. It was a hobby I kind of lost touch of last year with the first year of graduate school kicking my butt and all. And let's not forget about how disheartening Tony's debacle of a birthday carrot cake was!

But I have had some time recently to get back in the habit, and I have realized that I missed it a lot! For me, making something beautiful and tasty out of just a bunch of ingredients is awesome! So in honor of my return to the world of baking I present to you the evolution of a red velvet cake:

Can you say yum?

And how about that cheesecake I made on Sunday:

Maybe not the prettiest thing but it was delicious. I was daydreaming about it all morning and afternoon during my Sherpa training only to walk home today in the hot 95 degree weather (my cheeks are burnt!) to discover that my husband and his best friend had made quick work of it for lunch today. :(

Oh, and I made caramel creme brulee the other day as well. I don't know if it was because I added too much water to the sugar while caramelizing it or the fact that Tony and I decided to make it at about 11:00 p.m. or a combination of the both but it remained in a liquidy state even after an entire night of cooling in the fridge. So you know what we did?

We covered it with some raw sugar, torched it with my fancy new butane torch, and ate it just the same. It was delicious!


***All recipes curtesy of Bon Appetit Desserts cookbook. It was a good investment! Even if it is making me a bit fat.

Summer Tastes like . . .

Watermelon.

Or maybe watermelon tastes like summer. Needless to say, I love watermelon. It is one of my favorite things to eat in the summer. I mean if summer had a taste it would be the taste of watermelon.

I fully enjoyed having watermelon (cut two ways) at our late night BBQ on Monday.

Tony likes his watermelon with salt. I do NOT. Yuck!

And a few more shots from the late night BBQ. Taken with my new iPhone hipstamatic app! Awesome huh?

*

* Consuming raw or undercooked meats, poultry, seafood, shellfish, or eggs, may increase your risk of foodborne illness, especially if you have certain medical conditions.

This steak was by far the rawest piece of meat I have ever eaten that was not Sushi. I think the thing was still mooing. I suppose that's what happen when you grill in the dark and guess as to the doneness of the meat. Oops. Luckily it has been four days, and I have no foodborne illnesses to report.

And here's a little treat from my ward's sidewalk chalk party yesterday. Sidewalk chalk . . . doesn't it bring back memories?

Wand

A wand (a mascara wand that is) was the start of my troubles today. In the morning I am hardly coherent, and putting on mascara is definitely not the safest thing for me to in that impaired state. However, I must do what must be done. I braved the danger and put the mascara on anyways. Alas, it was fated to be an unsuccessful attempt. I proceeded towards my eyelashes with the brush and then I proceeded a bit too far.

You got it.

I poked the darn thing right into my eye (with no contacts if you please). My eye has not been the same since . . . who knows it may never be.

Ok . . . it will be.

On a bright note though, I did score well on my quiz. 22 out of 24--my best yet.

Oh, and my favorite new winter food:

A cup of Stephen's Milk Chocolate Cocoa with one spoonful of Stephen's Pumpkin Spice

and (here's the kicker so get ready for it)

Thin mints.

You use them as straws! You bit a bit off of one side and then another bit off the opposite side. Then you suck the hot cocoa through the cookie. The cookie gets soft and then you eat it (all at once or it will fall apart and get messy). It is like melted minty chocolaty heaven in your mouth.

It will certainly make your bad day better. I promise!

So will this song:

And hopefully this picture:

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Ok . . . so that title was way too overdramatic. It just popped into my head and I went with it.

It has been quite a long day though. You know those days that just don't seem to ever end? It's not a bad day or anything just a ridiculously long and boring one and you keep thinking that it has to be later than it really is and every minute seems to take about five and when it is going to be bedtime already days . . . oh you know!

Since my day has been so unbearably long I figured I might as well be productive and blog for the first time in . . . well way too long.

First of all (and unfortunately I have no pictures to post for this thought) I love my job. I most certainly do! In might be one of the few places here in Provo where I really, really feel like I'm needed and appreciated. Of course, it does not take too much to win the admiration of 1st graders but they make you feel like what you're doing is worthwhile.

We played kickball on Wednesday and it went so well. It was without contestation the best day we've had in sports class so far. I will credit myself with a rather fantastic ability to wing it. It was supposed to be bocce ball day but due to unforeseen circumstances (all the music stands had been moved into the equipment room) I had to use only what I could reach from the doorway. We played Kickball, Jr. . . a sport I invented as we went.

Rules:

Every member of the kicking team got to kick once.

If you're in the field get the ball to the pitcher.

If you're running, run until the pitcher gets the ball.

The End.

It was a fun time.

We made salsa with my K-3 health class on Thursday. It was so much fun to see the kids get so excited about cooking (something that I love too!) They kept calling the ingredients recipes and it was adorable.

"Hey teacher are there more recipes to put in?"

"Can I stir in the next recipe?"

We made salsa. Surprisingly enough, only 1 of the 15ish kids didn't eat it. That's pretty amazing considering how picky children that age are and the fact this recipe had raw onions, avocado, green onions and red pepper in it.

On Friday, we launched rockets in my space science class. I will admit I was more than a little nervous about how this was going to go. I personally have only launched one model rocket in my entire life and I barely remember it. Luckily, it went awesome. It was a fun activity and I love seeing the kids get so excited about learning. One of the smartest and most interested in science kids in my class is also one of the youngest. He is only in 3rd grade. His rocket for some reason unbeknownst to me (I am not a scientist you know) veered off course and landed on the roof. I could see the crushed look on his face and he was trying hard to be brave and hold back his tears. I felt so bad for him and just wanted to give him a hug (he looked so darn sad), but of course that's not allowed. I did, however, assure him we would take every possible measure to get his rocket back. He still looked like he had just lost his very best friend. It really is tough to be a kid. Everything is so dramatic.

Even though I have been much to busy to blog lately, I squeezed some time in for cooking. Not a ton . . . but some. Here are some of my new delicious favorites:

Carrot Ginger Soup : I tweaked this recipe a bit. I used skim milk instead of cream, powered ginger and I didn't use any butternut squash. I think it turned out just fine. Delicious really!

Chocolate Chip Cookies (with coconut oil):

Pizza: Homemade pizza is so much fun because you have to follow the recipe on the crust but you can do whatever in the world you want with the toppings (within reason of course) and it is still delicious. I made three different ones but my favorite was definitely the BBQ chicken with gouda cheese and red onions.

Apple Cake: This may be my favorite so far. It's not too sweet and just tastes like fall in cake form! YUM!

Ok last topic change I promise:

Halloween! I went to a pretty rocking dance party on Friday night. It was slightly more exciting because we crashed a stake dance that wasn't ours. I am blown away by some people's creativity when it comes to Halloween costumes. There was a Quail Man there. That's all I'm saying! JulieAnn and I looked pretty fantastic too.

Happy Halloween dear friends . . . and family! and strangers and random blog stalkers!

My happy song these days:

crushcrushcrush

I watched A Street Car Named Desire tonight. While he was a complete jerk in the movie, I must say I have a big, big crush on Marlon Brando. I just can't help it. Look at the guy:

Of course he did get old and all godfatherie and was born in the 1920s but nonetheless he was a stud in his youth.

But don't you agree?

There has been some exciting cooking going on in my place lately, and I'll be sure to post both pics and recipes soon. Two words to get you excited in the interim:

Pizza

Pumpkin

Enough Said.

On the streets of Pasadena

Today it rained . . . it rained hard. But where's the surprise in that, huh? I've gotten rather used to the unexpected and somewhat ridiculous amount of rain that's been going on pretty much since I arrived in California.

We finally got to sally forth from our home today and do the work we were hired to do. Which is to say we went around to restaurants to talk to them about styrofoam recycling. We traipsed about in the rain for several hours today, and I can rather confidently say we were successful. We visited about 15 restaurants, gave out and hang up posters, and gave out stickers.

I must say this website needs some work, but I'm up to the challenge and have some good ideas.

The downside to my job: we are walking in and out of restaurants all day. Some of which have some very delicious looking food. Hot dogs, Thai, Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. etc. Yum Yum! My peanut butter and honey sandwich I made for lunch could hardly stand up to that try as it might.

The sunlight in the rain of today:

I was inexplicably drawn (ok so not at all inexplicably to those who know me) into a cupcake bakery during my sojourn. It was called polkatots. How cute is that? I wanted to buy a little cupcake as an afternoon snack, but I didn't have any cash. There was a minimum purchase to use a debit card. What a predicament I was in! Then the wonderful, beautiful, fantastic worker told me since it was my first time there it was on the house. What more could a girl such as me want than a free cupcake?

P.S.

I don't care what Cakewrecks says. Cupcake cakes CAN indeed be cute.

A Classy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was WONDERFUL! I love my family and my friends, and it was altogether a good time. I was very happy that my sister got of work and came to the cabin. I was worried I wouldn't get to see her.

Gage got sooo big. I picked him up when I saw him, and he is so much heavier now than he was in August. He is hilarious too!

At our Thanksgiving dinner, Travis, Stephen and Phillip realized that Gage would do pretty much anything you asked him if you would laugh after. This led to him prancing around the kitchen singing about how people are crazy. He also downed an entire packet of spicy brown mustard. I love him!

And speaking of huge, take a look at my 16 year old cousin David:

He's got another 5ish years to grow and the kid is already 6'2''. WOW!

Rebecca cut my hair too! She is quite the hair stylist and I enthusiastically recommend going to visit her after she graduates in just a few weeks! (Give her your money please! You won't be disappointed!)

Don't worry, the look of terror on my face in this picture is purely a joke!

And of course:

LOTS OF FOOD!

I enjoyed just sitting around talking with my cousins I don't get to see very often. I find them all very entertaining. We discussed Turk Bass, Jamestown staple celebrity, and how he once did a live report on the radio about a fictitious tornado. It went a little something like this:

"I can see the funnel cloud. It's touching down. God help us all!"

And speaking of Jamestown, here is there local news from the Wednesday the day before Thanksgiving.

• There was a car wreck last week. One driver received minor injuries and the car was moderately damaged.
• They announced the entire flag football league schedule, including the names of every single one of the teams. (My favorite name was the long shots.)
• Tickets to ride the coach bus to the state semi-finals for YAI (the local high school) are $40.
• The end.

Jamestown is a happening place. Obviously!

The discussion then turned to a bar fight Stephen and Travis got into the other night. Stephen (drunk I presume) started a fight with some other drunk guy in a bar and Travis stepped in to break it up. He got punched in the forehead (who punches someone in the forehead?), and the marks were still there. Then we talked about Travis' tattoos and recent ear piercings. He told us he had decided on the specific size of gage's he had because it was the most classy.

"Yeah, if our family is anything it's classy," I said.

to which Travis replied, "Shut the hell up!"

Altogether another awesome Patton family Thanksgiving!

Culinary Arts

I cooked dinner tonight for some friends: chicken and dumplings, asparagus, carrots, biscuits, and cherry pie. Might I just say I love to cook. For some reason, I find joy in making food for other people (particularly food they like). I get the "I feel bad" line a lot from people, but I'm here to say stop it! If I didn't want to give you my food I wouldn't. I honestly enjoy cooking and how will I ever know if I'm any good if other people don't eat it!

Experimenting with new recipes, wearing an apron, standing over a hot stove, using a rolling pin--I love it! Cooking is always a fun time for me. I feel like it's about as close as I'll ever get to an artist. Running around the kitchen while cutting, stirring, chopping, steaming, baking, etc. multiple dishes at the same time while managing not to burn anything AND on top of that to make it still taste good qualifies as art to me.

I decorate cakes/cupcakes too, don't ya know!

Yes, those are squirrels and acorns for our favorite little actor Tiny Elizabeth Walker! And thanks to Jessica and Wewe for lending a big hand in the creation of these particular cupcakes.

So yeah, I've spent the past four and a half years studying to start a career as a public relations professional. I am fixing to move to Los Angeles to spend another four months interning for a PR firm, and then I plan on attending graduate school here at BYU in the fall to receive my MPA with most likely a human resources emphasis.

However, I would absolutely love to go to culinary school some day. Yeah!?

Why not make the world a happier place by baking cookies like Maggie Gyllenhaal in Stranger Than Fiction? I think that is a job I could be proud of.

To Tennesse: Tuesday

Thanksgiving with the family in Jamestown: Thursday

New Moon/Posh Thanksgiving ft. Star Trek: Friday

Dad's Birthday Party: Saturday

This week is looking wonderful!

Song O'the Day:

An Ode

To Nutella!

I love this stuff. It has become a staple in my cabinet. It's also very versatile. I can eat it for breakfast on toast or just plain bread when I'm in a bit of a hurry. When I'm in a big hurry, it's also good to just grab a spoonful for a quick shot of fat and sugar to get me through to lunch!

It goes on fruit. My favorite ones to eat it with are bananas and strawberries. It's good on crepes and even on tortillas, which are afterall only a slightly thicker version of a crepe.

The other day when I realized there was no chocolate syrup for the frozen yogurt I bought, it tasted pretty good on that too!

I sure do have lots of things to be thankful for!

On a completely different note, I'm going to Las Vegas tomorrow. I should not go to Las Vegas tomorrow. I have a homework assignment due Monday morning that requires access to inDesign to finish it, and a major sewing project due on Wednesday. Not to mention the fact I need to get started on a 10 page and a 15 page paper.

While next week may find me curled up in a ball contemplating whether it's really that important to graduate college, I intend on having lots of fun this weekend.

Throw that caution completely to the wind! Pictures on Sunday!

Fun Day

Saturday was a super productive and fun day for me. Those two usually don't come in pairs so I consider myself lucky. I went to yoga and Zumba in the morning. Had time for a short nap and showered. Visited the Bijou Market where I bought this wonderful thing:

I probably would have found even more stuff if I had went when they first opened instead of waiting til half an hour before they closed. I would at least have been in time for a sample from the huge empty table that once held free cookies.

After that I went to campus and finished my book chapter project due on Monday.

Later I watched On The Waterfront. I love this movie. It is a classic that everyone should see and some point, and can I just say Marlon Brando is a stud!

Watching this classic also let to the establishment of our own The Office-esque finer things club. Food and good movies: How can you go wrong? Those are two of my favorite things after all!

The night culminated in playing at a park (swinging is also one of my favorite things) and hot chocolate. I also ended up with some whip cream on the ceiling in the course of making hot chocolate. I'll leave how that happened up to the imagination...it's probably funnier than the real story.

All in all an excellent day!