Oct 25, 2010

The Witches **Cackle Cackle**

Witches tea party!

So my lovely mother-in-law planned a girls night with all of us last Thursday. We went and seen the Gardner Village Witches. If you haven't been here you are totally missing out. Gardner Village has the cutest little shops, all of which are very expensive and I never buy anything at any of them, but they are fun to look at. But the best time of year to go there is Halloween time because they put up all these cute little witches all over the place and they are just so fun to look at. So that is what we did, we looked at the witches. My so me and my wonderful mother and sister in-laws went and got some dinner and then took the cutest pics by the witches, and of course ended our visit at the sweet shop, which makes yummy fudge and great chocolates. Mmm... My mouth is watering thinking about it. I also went to Witches night out with my Aunt and cousins on Saturday night, Gardner Village has a big party and you dress up as witches and they have a lot of fun activities and stuff for girls. But I didn't take any pics and I am waiting for some people to post them on Facebook, hopefully they do so soon. But it was a lot of fun! If they give me some pics of it I will post them too.
Witches sure know how to eat cake!! 






Oct 15, 2010

Park City!

Park City, View from Main Street


     So Thursday and Friday were Jeremy's fall break from school. He was so happy he didn't have to work. So we decided to do something fun. We booked a hotel in Park City and drove down there Wednesday night after he got out of class. The road mapquest told us to go down to to get to our hotel was closed, so we had to like take back roads and stuff, we need a gps, or just internet on our phones or something. So we drove around a bit looking for it and we finally found it, the only problem was, we got there and no one was at the front desk, so that was quite strange. It was only 7:15 at night, so its not like it was way late or anything. I mean the earliest they said you could check in at was 4pm... So I had to call some phone number, the guy on the phone gave me some code to get in their safe and get our room key out of. Crazy huh? What type of hotel does that?! So we got to our room and it was nice and clean which is always a plus right, but they gave us two double sized beds instead of one queen bed. Which made me super annoyed!! And there was no one to complain to since no one was working at the front desk. Plus the parking lot was super super dark by our building and there were all these trees by it, I totally felt like I was in a slasher movie. But we watched our cute little wedding video and a another movie and got some pizza and it all worked out. The next day we returned our key -- Still no one working there!! So while we had a great time and made the best of everything, and I am sure it could have been far worse, but I was still irritated that this hotel was so unprofessional.
Cute little bridge by chair lift

I love this girly bench. Also do you see Jeremy's reflection?


But anyways, we walked around Main Street in Park City after check out and got some yummy chocolates at Rocky Mt Chocolate Factory and took some cute pictures. Then we were going to see a movie, but there weren't any playing that we really wanted to see (what is it with there being no good movies out lately?) So we went to the outlet mall and bought some clothes. I wasn't finding a whole lot there clothes wise. So we just decided to go home. We went to Kohls and bought me some cute sweaters and stuff and so I was appeased. Then we got home and just relaxed, sleeping in a hotel makes you tired, I wake up a gagillion times during the night when I am not in my own bed so I came home and took a short nap. Later we got some yummy dinner and then watched our newest Netflix movie. Life is good.
The Lovely town of Park City, Utah
Haha we took one more last pic and some stupid truck decided to interrupt our kodak moment.

Oct 4, 2010

Greek Food!

Last week I made a traditional Greek food, Dolmades.These are grape leaves filled with a meat and rice mix and cooked with lemon juice. My dad's family are Greek, and so when my grandma was alive she would make these things all the time. I am a super picky eater but to everyone surprise I absolutely loved these, even when I was little. I have had them from a restaurant once, but I think this recipe was better, I haven't tried them from anywhere else, no one will ever get Greek food with me! Anyway, Jeremy doesn't like these a ton, but I love them and so does my Dad, I know they sound a bit strange, but they are just so good!! Both my grandma's died when I was young, so I don't have alot of recipes that were handed down from them (cause somehow grandmas are always great cooks) but this is one of the only ones I have, so it is pretty special.
But here is my tutorial on making Greek Dolmades: (Full recipe is at the bottom)

Step One: Make the filling

1 lb. Ground beef.
1/2 c. rice (uncooked)
1 med. chopped onion
1 15 oz. can tomatoes (diced, or chopped, anything sorta chunky)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 T Parsley
1 T Mint
1 T Dill

Mix it all of this together in a bowl.

Step 2: Put filling in grape leaves



These are the grape leaves. You just buy them in a jar at the store, usually they are by the olive and pickles. They can be a little tricky to find. They are not sold at Walmart, you can find them at like Smiths or Harmons if you are in Utah, or just your local smaller chained grocery store. But anyway, the picture on the left is how you want to place the leaves when you are wrapping them. You want the 'pretty' side to be on the outside of the dolmada. So when you are wrapping them. First put the leave down on your surface (I just did it all on a large cutting board), place the leaf pretty side down. So the pretty side is the side where the veins don't stick out and where you don't see the little stem. The pretty side is shown in the right hand picture.


Now after you have arranged your leaf you place the filling you made early on the grape leaf. The amount shown is about the amount you need, so it fits comfortably in your leaf's boundaries. Put more or less in to compensate if your leaf is a bit bigger or smaller.  








Step 3: Wrap your leaves


Now You will want to wrap the leaf around the filling. First you pull the bottom parts of the leaf up over the filling.

Now you  wrap each of the sides over to the other side as shown above, so that your meat is covered


Lastly you wrap the top part of the leaf up so that it is secure. I do this by bringing the bottom part up to meet the top of the leaf.

Now that you have done one, do the rest until all of your leaves and/or meat filling is all used up, whichever one comes first. When I did this, I used them all up at the same time, but its not exact since you fill them differently depending on your grape leaf sizes, but it should be pretty close.

Now that you have them done, you want to put them securely in a pot like shown above. you want to fit them in there a bit tighter so they won't move around or anything.
Continue packing in the dolmathes until you have one layer done in the pot.

Now that you have one layer/row done and in the pot pour some lemon juice over it.
Put the lemon that you just squeezed into the pot over the dolmades. Place the rest of the dolmades on top of the other ones so they are stacked and make another row/layer and do the lemon thing again.

Step 5: Cook the Dolmades
Now you will cook the dolmades. So pour in one can of beef broth and 1/2 can chicken broth until liquid covers all but a 1/4" of the highest layer in the dolmades. Cover, and cook on stove top on Medium heat for about two hours until rice and meat are cooked and the leaves are a bit more tender.
Here is what your lovely finished project will look like! They really are super good.



 Full Recipe:



1 lb. Ground beef.
1/2 c. rice (uncooked)
1 med. chopped onion
1 15 oz. can tomatoes (diced, or chopped, anything sorta chunky)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 T Parsley
1 T Mint
1 T Dill
1 15 oz can chicken broth
1/2 c. beef broth
1 small jar of grape leaves
2 lemons. .

Mix all ingredients except broth, lemons and leaves.
Put ingredients into grape leaves, near the stem of the roll, roll up. So first tak in the two sides, and then roll.
Also when rollling make sure that you put the meat mix on the side of the leaf that is uglier... The side that has the Stem and the leaf lines more pronounced, so you have the pretty side showing.
Arrange stem down in a bigger sized sauce pan. Make sure they are packed togethr tightly, and squeeze lemon juice over each layer as you go.
Pour broths over and add a bit of water until its about 1/2 " from the top of domades, cover and simmer for about an two hours. remove when rice is tender.