Tempura: Japanese Heaven

A couple of weeks ago Ryan and I attended a sale at a man's house. He was selling everything he had because it was his second home and he just needed to get rid of his stuff. We picked up a plethora of new treasures, one of which was a deep-fryer. I must admit that I told myself once that I should never own one because of the food it would allow me to make. But I have since gotten over that. It isn't like we will use it ALL the time after all!

We decided to break it in on Friday. We had a couple of friends over and we made tempura with chicken, broccoli, carrots, and mushrooms. And then we ran out of tempura batter. :( We still had onion rings to do, so we made those with just eggs, flour, and milk... of the vanilla almond variety. And they were delicious!

It was all totally amazing - all four of us really enjoyed it. I have loved tempura since the very first moment I tried it, but hardly ever have it due to its "fried" status. But this treat was perfect! I think I'm going to enjoy having a deep fryer. :)

Ben's Graduation

When I was 9 years old my younger brother was born. A few memories of growing up with him:

He called me "Mimi" when he was little because one day I was getting him up from his nap and he was crying and I said, "Don't cry! It's me! It's me!"

We got him a basketball hoop and ball for his birthday when he was three or four. We have a video recording of him shooting the ball and when he would make it he did the cutest little victory dance.

At his second or third birthday party he blew out the candles and said, "I did it!" with the most excited face you can imagine on a little boy. I still want to squish his little face when I remember that. :)

I took him to the park with me once for a picnic. He fell off the twirly thing and got his leg caught underneath it. It was quite the nasty gash and my mom had to meet us at the emergency room.

Last summer we went on a bike ride together and we saw a snake on the trail. It totally freaked me out!

He went mountain biking with Ryan and me last summer and I was impressed by the fact that he isn't a little kid anymore.

The fact that he is 9 years younger than I am kind of meant that memories got a little more sparse when I moved out when he was 10. But it has been fun to come home and see how much he's changed. Between getting braces and glasses and getting tall and trading in those glasses for contacts and being able to drive alone and going on dates, it has been fun to watch him grow up into a man.

And now, before we all knew it, he has graduated high school. Seriously, years just pass by like it's nothing. Some family came from Utah to take part in the graduation celebration. We had a BBQ Saturday afternoon and then went to the ceremony at 5:30.

Congratulations, Ben! You have grown into a great young man, and I wish you the best of luck at BYU-I !

Some of the food at the BBQ - this is like a quarter of what we had.

That is Ben walking after receiving his diploma

Ben and his buddy

Holly, your face in this picture makes me happy. 

Loving Those Purple Mountain Majesties

Ryan and I got to spend the day in Estes Park this past Monday. The weather was absolutely gorgeous -  not too hot or cold. And the crowd was limited. We picked a couple of short-ish hikes that led to waterfalls to fill our day. It was so beautiful. And we were the only ones at both waterfalls! We had so much fun.

Our first hike led us to Chasm Cascades (I think that was the name). We tried to put our feet in the water, but it was super duper cold. In fact, I was squealing as the picture with our toes in the water was being taken. 

Our second hike was to Alberta Falls. We saw several elk practically on the trail. They were so close! It scared me a little, but it quickly became obvious that they were quite domesticated and weren't going to hurt us. Seriously, I think their butts were higher than my head. That was really fun to see.

We had dinner at Mama Rosa's, the same Italian restaurant we ate at for my birthday when we first started dating and the night we got engaged. We have never been absolutely blown away by the food, but the place means something to us so we enjoy going anyway. At the end of our meal Ryan decided to do a little trick with his cup. He picked it up, twirled it around, scattered his ice all over the floor and the poor woman sitting nearby, and then caught his cup midair. It was extremely impressive, and if he hadn't been so spontaneous about it, I might have even gotten a picture! 

All in all the day was fabulous. I hope that we have the time to have many days like it this summer.

Exuding Deliciousness

A few days ago I pinned a recipe that I could not stop thinking about. I am a sucker for anything cinnamon-sugar; be it toast, snickerdoodles, doughnuts, churros, monkey bread... you name it, I'm there. It is such a delicious combination.

The recipe I pinned is called Cinnamon and Sugar Pull-Apart Bread. I keep calling it Cinnamon-Sugar Pull Apart Bread. Whatever. A rose by any other name...

Anyway, it is from this blog here. She has snazzy pictures that are fun to look at if you prefer that while you are baking. :)

So yesterday afternoon I was sitting in our bed (it was Sunday. It was allowed.) thinking about this bread. I knew I had everything for it so the only thing I had left to do was make it. So I did!

I think it took about... 2 hours-ish start to finish. I really don't know though, I didn't time it. At the end of the process this is the beauty that I pulled out of the oven:

It reminded me of Monkey Bread, only not as syrupy or sweet. Not that this isn't sweet...

The only modification I made to the recipe was to use Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk in place of the whole milk. 

Ryan and I proceeded to eat a lot of it, which led to fruit smoothies for dinner. If you love cinnamon-sugar flavored things as much as I do, you will love this bread. It was easier to make than it looks. If you find yourself confused on any of the steps, I recommend checking out the pictures on the blog with the original recipe. Enjoy!

Cinnamon and Sugar Pull-Apart Bread
recipe from www.foodsnots.com

Dough
2 3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast (1 packet)
1/2 tsp. salt
4 Tbsp. butter
1/3 cup whole milk (I used Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk)
1/4 cup water
2 eggs (at room temperature) - if you don't want to wait for your eggs to come to room temperature, simply place them in a bowl with lukewarm water and let sit for 5 - 10 minutes
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Filling
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
4 Tbsp. butter, melted

In a large mixing bowl, mix 2 cups of flour, sugar, yeast and salt. Set aside.

In a small sauce pan, melt the butter and milk. Once the butter is completely melted take off the burner and add the water and vanilla. Let the mixture cool for 5 minutes.

Pour the milk mixture into the large bowl with the dry ingredients and mix well. Whisk together the eggs and add to the batter. Keep mixing. Add 3/4 cup of flour and mix well. The mixture will be very sticky which means it's perfect. Place the dough in a medium greased bowl. Cover with wrap and let it sit in a warm place to rise for about 30-45 minutes. Once the dough has doubled its size, knead in 2 tablespoons of flour. Cover the dough again for 5-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, start on the filling. In a medium bowl, mix together the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a small bowl. Set aside.

Once the dough is ready, roll it out on a floured surface. Brush the melted butter on the dough and add the sugar mixture. Make sure everything is covered. Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut the dough into equal sized strips (about 2 to 2 1/2 inches wide). Then cut the strips into equal sized squares. Stack the squares on top of each other (make 5 - 6 piles) and place them in a bread pan. Top with any cinnamon sugar that fell off on the counter. Cover the dough for another 10-15 minutes to rise.

While dough is rising, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Place a cookie sheet under bread pan and bake for 30-35 minutes until outside of bread is golden brown.

New Arrival

If you might recall, back in November we moved into our new house. There was some empty-ness that was pretty quickly filled with new furniture. We ordered it all out of a catalog, and luckily enough we really liked it all when it was delivered. Except for one thing. The wrong accent chair was ordered. What we had paid for was a cute striped chair. What we got was a nasty 70's style flower chair. I was, to say the least, upset. We were promised that the correct chair would be to us within the month.

We waited. And we waited. And the guy kept making more and more excuses as to why we still did not have the chair we wanted. I don't really get mad very easily, especially at people with whom I am not well acquainted. But I was super duper peeved at this guy. I wanted Ryan to chew him out!! But he felt that it was important to stay on Jeff's (that is the man's name) good side since the chance of us getting the chair was completely in his hands. Fair enough.

Last week I had had enough. I wanted my chair. I wrote a carefully worded email making it painfully obvious how unhappy I was. I may have used words like "disgusting", "nasty", "fed up", and "unacceptable". I sent it to Ryan to forward to Jeff since I did not have his email address. Ryan rewrote the entire thing (which later proved to be smart) to make us sound less bitter. Basically gave him a deadline of setting up a plan of action to actually fulfill the promises that he made.

The next day Jeff called. He had the audacity to be mad at us! What?!? He said he didn't like where it was headed and straight up refused to put anything in writing. Hmm... sketch much?? But he did promise to get everything taken care of - I took that with a huge grain of salt.

So this morning, 6 months later, we had a lovely delivery at 7:15. Our new chair! I wouldn't go downstairs because I just knew that I would not behave in a lady-like manner. He was in and out pretty fast, but not without first trying to sell us the gross chair at the price it costs him so that he wouldn't have to take it back with him. HECK no!

Here is a picture from when we first moved in. The chair I do not like is in the bottom right hand corner.



Here is our cute new striped chair:

And here it is in our living room:

(dark picture sort of, sorry)

I am so glad that is all over with!!