Yummy recipes

These are for all of you Cafe Rio/Costa Vida pork/chicken salad lovers....plus a few extras. If you have never had one of these salads before, make either the pork or chicken and the rice and dressing. Serve with romaine lettuce, tortilla chip strips, queso blanco or feta, and black beans (I used canned beans and heat on caste iron with fresh garlic and onion) Or you can make them into burritos fairly easily.

My mom is the type that if she has something in a restaurant that she loves she goes home and figures out how to make it. So here goes some samples. What I love is that most of these are crock pot or stovetop so you don't have to heat up your house in the summer

CAFE RIO/COSTA VIDA
SWEET PORK
1 c. favorite salsa (I like pace the best)
1 c. brown sugar
3-4 lbs pork roast (bone in or out)
Put all in crock pot, cook and then shred (usually all day...if it looks dry just add equal amounts more of salsa/brown sugar. I have a more involved recipe using Adobo sauce and Coke, but this is just as good I think - make a comment if you want me to email you the more involved one

CAFE RIO CHICKEN
I am not a huge lover of the chicken so I can't really attest if this is a true likeness or not, but it is really good
1 sm bottle zesty italian dressing (I use Kraft)
1 T chili powder
1 T cumin
3 cloves garlic-minced
4-5 lbs of chicken breast
Cooke all together in crock pot for approx 4 hrs, shred then cook another hour

GREEN LIME RANCH
3 fresh medium (golf ball size) tomatillos cut into quarters
juice of 1 lime
1 c fresh cilantro - i usually just use half the bunch in the dressing and half in the rice
5 stalks of green onion with ends
2 cloves crushed garlic
1/4 to 3/4 t salt
1/2 c buttermilk
1/2 c mayo
1/2 c sour cream
1 pkg dry ranch buttermilk dressing mix or 3 T of the bulk
1/4 t crushed cayenne pepper
1 jalepeno chopped
Put all ingredients in the blender and blend well. If you like it a little more mild, use less cayenne pepper and less of the jalepeno seeds. I usually only use 5-6 seeds & a tiny piece of the core. My mom uses the whole pepper seeds and all.

GREEN RICE
Juice of 1 lime
4 t chicken bullion
2-3 minced garlic cloves
1/2 bunch cilantro
1 can green chilies
2/4 t salt
1 medium onion, chopped
Chop above coarsely and then fry in 1 T butter or oil
Add 1 1/2 c rice and fry
Add 3 c water, bring to rapid boil, turn down as low as possible, cover and simmer.
According to my friends in our Spanish branch, the trick to separated mexican style rice is to not stir and to cook as low as possible. If you want stickier rice, stir occasionally and cook faster.

RECIPE COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO ABOVE: GREAT FOR SUNDAY DINNER
MUSHROOM STEAK
2-3 lbs of boneless pork meat or beef steak(i like sirloin for this)
1-2 cans of cream of mushroom soup
1-2 T Worcestershire sauce
2-3 minced garlic cloves
Put all ingredients in crock pot and cook until tender. Serve with mashed potatoes or rice and all your Sunday dinner fixins

GREAT "COMMUNITY" DESSERT
PIZZOOKIE
Cookie dough of any kind, choco chip, toffee bits, white choco chip, oatmeal raisin, etc.
ice cream

Spread cookie dough over a large caste iron pan. Cook in oven until not quite done. Remove and immediately top with vanilla ice cream. Dribble caramel and fudge sauce over ice cream. Serve with lots of spoons.

HOMEMADE FUDGE
Coming soon....can't find the recipe right now...totally beats Mrs. Richardsons any day!

Ok Jamie tagged me....

...I have been reading about this whole tag thing on everybody's blog and would have felt slightly left out except that I am not so great at giving lists of things about myself especially if limited because I really have a hard time with favorites...So here goes Jamie :)

4 Jobs I've held:
1. Independent Court Reporter (heard some weird stuff in my time)
2. "Safety Girl" at Agrium - I know, title borders on sexual harassment but lucky for them, I didn't mind the tradition, established pre-politically correct days
3. USU Distance Education Facilitator
4. Accountant/Bookkeeper for Chinese broker
5. I am definitely with Jamie: mommy to Conner and Bella definite favorite

Movies I Can Watch Over & Over:
1. Pride & Prejudice (any version, BBC, Hollywood, Bollywood - try it!, LDS)
2. Freaky Friday - I am a closet Lindsay Lohan fan
3. Oceans 11(still waiting for Steve to take me to Oceans 13)
4. Just Like Heaven

Places I Have Lived to many to list but here goes most of them, a few were repeats:
1. Pocatello, Idaho (2x)
2. Alabama (2x)
3. Fort Sill, Oklahoma
4. Dugway, Utah
5. Fairbanks, Alaska,
6. North Pole, Alaska
7. Eagle River, Alaska
8. Soda Springs, Idaho
9. Logan, Utah

T.V. Shows I Enjoy - um, literally not a TV watcher but have been know to check out these occassionally - we are movie watchers
1. The Biggest Loser (1st Season)
2. Dancing with the Stars (1st & 2nd Season)
3. Extreme Makeover Home Edition
4. AFV:American Funniest Home Videos - because Conner laughs so hard he makes me laugh

Places I have Been on Vacation:
1. Mexico
2. 4 provinces in Canada
3. 36 of the 50 states (still waiting for Hawaii(I know, I know) Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Minnesota, NC, Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Rhode Island)

Favorite Foods
1. Chips/Salsa - roommates will attest that I survived on that in college
2. Cafe Rio Pork Salads - see recent post for recipes
3. Mushroom steak - also posted (easy)
4. Chicken Lime Caesar salad - Cafe Sabor or homemade
5. Pizzookies
6. Pollo Durango also Cafe Sabor...also have recipe
7. Can I go on?

Websites I visit (almost daily)
1. Favorite blogs
2. www.msn.com
3. LDS.org
4. Email accounts (hotmail, gmail, yahoo, etc.)


Places I'd Rather Be right now
1. Boating or Swimming
2. My house... only clean
3. BBQ with tons of friends

Now I get to pick 4 other blog buddies to do this!
1. Stacey Kouldelka
2. Natalie Cottle
3. Kristin - been tagged?
4. Denae- been tagged yet?
5. Erin
6. Nikki
Sorry for the extras, but I didn't know if a couple had been tagged already and wasn't quite anxious to check all their archives :)

Now you 5 copy this and tag 5 other people! Have fun!

Coconut

Here is Conner with his Coconut package from Nana...
What is it daddy? Look its nemo and dory...(the paintings that Nana put on it)

Look out anal mom coming through,,,

...ok, so I am paranoid when it comes to mommy stuff. We drove with my parents, Alisa, Jordan and Rachel and Rachel's little girl Rylie in an R.V. from my sister Rachel's house near St. George to North Rim Grand Canyon and then up through the Navajo reservation to the south end of Lake Powell. And I made Conner's car seat be buckled in, with him securely strapped...the WHOLE WAY. Thankfully he was a good sport and didn't really mind. Rylie on the other hand, didn't particularly want anyone but her mommy sitting by her for too long.
I think they would have both rather helped Bompa drive.

Unexpected result of serving a 3 year old ice cream

We are big ice cream eaters at our house. Mostly some version of Dreyer's Vanilla Bean and bananas and hot fudge, maybe a hot cookie or brownie in a bowl. Not too creative but totally tasty. Conner, however, has branched out of vanilla land. This week we had chocolate...his request.. ice cream twice. But that isn't the entertaining part. The entertaining part comes when you serve chocolate ice cream, on a cone to a three year old. We have had the top scoop fall off, roll down his shirt and on to the floor. We have had the dripping, soggy cone mess. The totally covered face and hands and shirt etc. We had all of these things, in fact, I think they are to be expected and are a perfectly normal part of the learning curve for eating an ice cream cone.


Really, we expected that we would have to clean up after him and that we were probably in for a mess...especially since we have a deprived child who had never had ice cream on a cone BY HIMSELF before this week. I know...no comments on that please :) No, the unexpected part came later, after the clean up...after the goo and sticky was gone. It went something like this...

Steve (real concern in his voice): Honey, what happened to Conner's nose.
Me (freakin' out): What do you mean? - followed by me rushing over to inspect what appeared to be dark build up in Conner's nose
Steve: Did he hurt himself or something? Get a bloody nose?
Me: Conner, are you ok? Did you fall down? Did you get an ouchy? What happened?
Conner: No. I'm ok. (Squirming, let me go you crazy kooks and quit interrupting my play)

The culprit...dried chocolate ice cream build up, neatly hidden up inside each nostril. Must have been saving it for later!

I definitely was not expecting that!

For all my digi-scrapper friends...

...ok, so maybe most of you know this already...seeing as you are leaps and bounds ahead of me with this stuff. But in case you didn't I am launching a preemptive referral for a company I looked up today, preemptive because I have yet to actual order one of their products. I was interested in doing some photo books, you know the hard-bound kind. Anyways, all the other places were relatively expensive and you had to use their layouts. This place allows you to create your own layouts (in Photoshop, etc..even powerpoint) and then just upload them exactly as you want them. Voila! Hardbound printed scrapbook. Prices start at $14.99 + .25/pg for 8.5" square or $14.99 + .40/pg for 10" square. The only downfall for you scrappers is that I didn't see an option for the most popular 12" square. But in reality for a hardbound book that doesn't exactly fit as nicely on the shelf. The website is: http://www.viovio.com/wiki/Book+Binding+Specifications

Stay tuned for how the actual product works out. Or let me know if any of you have tried something like this!

Our grand adventure...

....I like to call our family excursions adventures...sometimes they really are and sometimes they aren't. But either way it is just what I like/want them to be. Conner and I just got back from our latest adventure. The one we went on daddy-less. We won't be doing that again anytime soon, for reasons I will have to expound on later. My family was going to Grand Canyon and Lake Powell and wanted everyone (all kids, spouses, grandkids) to come with. Steve wasn't able to make it but encouraged us to go without him. We missed him greatly but also had really good time. I think pics will be coming forthwith!

Is it possible?

I want to know if it is possible to break your toe and never even bruise. I swear that is what I did last Thurs...it still hurts. At first I couldn't put any weight on the pinky toe side of my foot so walking was difficult. Then I could walk a little better, but still with a big gimp. Then Sunday I couldn't wear heels because it made my toe just ache...and then every night since then I have trouble falling asleep. All because of my little bitty toe and a tiny in sheer size, but huge in pain ache....only my Pilates instructor has had any sympathy for me because she said the same thing happened to her once. Other wise, no bruise...no hugs and sloppy kisses from Conner. No bruise....no poor Emily from Steve. No bruise....no reason to still be hurting right? Ha!

Something to think about..

I spend quite a bit of time updating the world on my darling son. But there is someone just as special, maybe more, that I haven't blogged about. Yep, if you haven't guessed...it's Steve.

As we were talking in our Strengthening Marriage class about "Loving Communication" (p.s. look for one in your area...supposedly service missionaries are called just to teach this class-- in our case, Bro/Sis Cottle from the Institute--they're great)....anyways... I was thinking about how much easier and more fulfilling it is to strengthen and build one another, as opposed to trying to fix problems later...you know the cliche, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And that thought led me to think about how loving communication reinforces the love that is behind all the "dutiful" things we do for our spouses....we all know that list...anyways....that is what prompted me in this blog.

What an amazing, wonderful husband I have...I mean, I really think I got extra lucky (oops...blessed) to have him in my life. He is always doing what ever he can to make our family and marriage better and stronger.

So cheers to my husband (and all the other husbands out there) who make their wives feel like a million bucks, support them in all their well-intentioned, if not slightly neurotic endeavors, and most of all just do the best job they can at loving us.

Loves to you honey!