Goodbye Smurfville...for now.

We have moved from the home of the Smurf Turf and on to the next best thing...wineries! We have moved to WA and are nestled amongst some of the finest wineries and vineyards the Columbia River Basin has to offer.  So, now that we're out of Smurfville and in Shirazville, follow our shenanigans at:  "Sarrazollas in Shirazville"

See you there...or be square.

Trip to Mars

I'm going to Mars...well, at least my name is!

Work in Progress

We've been in our new house almost 5 months now and though almost all of the boxes are finally unpacked, the decorating of the house is a work in progress.  The first thing I had to do was get rid of the color on the interior walls in the great room.  While a nice enough color, I was having difficulty quelling my craving for butterscotch pudding, so the color was changed.

The greyish-greenish-taupe-like color now on the walls, while a little on the dark side, is much more pleasing to the eye and comforting to the psyche (not to mention better for the wallet...no more late night trips to the grocery store to buy pudding).  

While I'd LOVE to get rid of the Kermit-the-Frog green out of the bedrooms sometime soon, I think next on deck will be repainting the master and guest bathrooms (and then the exterior, when the weather improves in the Spring).  At some point this winter I might even install some moulding in those bathrooms (I envision crown at the top and perhaps some beadboard or picture frame wainscoting).  One of the great benefits of this small house is that all those projects can be done within 1-2 days instead of 1-2 weeks!  Yee haw!

NY-Style Pizza a la Nate

Here's our adapted recipe for pizza, NY-style!

NY-STYLE PIZZA USING EASY STAND MIXER PIZZA DOUGH 

(Adapted from Food.com recipe)

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup hot water (I microwave 1 cup cold water for exactly 1 minute on high).
1 packet fast rising yeast
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon honey (or sugar)
3 cups all-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS:

1. Put hot water in mixer bowl and sprinkle yeast over water to dissolve.
2. Mix water and yeast with whisk attachment on medium until foamy.
3. Add honey and whisk on medium-low 20 seconds.
4. Add olive oil and salt and whisk on medium until fully blended.
5. Add 1 cup flour and whisk until fully blended.
6. Remove whisk attachment scraping sides into bowl and attach bread hook.
7. Add remaining flour, ½ cup at a time, and mix on low speed until all flour is well incorporated
8. Mix dough on medium speed for 12 minutes, making sure dough stays on hook and not on side of bowl.
9. Remove dough ball from mixer and fold over by hand three to four times to release any bubbles.
10. Place ball on lightly floured surface and cut in half.
11. Knead each ball individually and make sure each ball is well rounded and has little to no seams.
12. Place each ball on lightly floured surface, cover with damp towel and allow to rise for 1-2 hours at room temperature (or for quicker method, place balls on lightly floured oven safe surface, cover with damp towel and place in oven that has been heated to 120 degrees and turned off, or in warming drawer on bread-proofing setting, if you have one).
13. When balls are ready, they should spring/snap back when you lightly press on them.
14. Either roll the balls on a lightly floured surface to 14-16” or toss, pizza cook style (see video of Nate for throwing technique).
15. Preheat oven to 500 degrees F. 
16. Place crust on lightly-oiled perforated pizza pan.  If you have a pan which is smaller than 16” then you can either cut off extra dough or roll the edges for a larger crust on the end.  
17. Top each crust with slices of mozzarella cheese (do NOT shred cheese, use slices of cheese that are 1/8” thick)
18. Spoon small amounts of sauce or pesto in between each cheese slice (traditional NY-style red sauce is just tomato puree with a small amount of sugar), but feel free to use whatever sauce you’d like…just use it sparingly, otherwise you will have a soggy pizza.
19. Top with additional toppings as desired (for best results, only use up to 3 toppings plus cheese, see pictures for example of how to sauce and cheese the pizza, New York style).
20. Top with blend of shredded Romano cheese, sea salt and Italian spices, to taste.
21. Place first pizza on bottom rack of oven and cook for 5 minutes
22. After 5 minutes, move pizza from bottom rack to top rack and place second pizza on bottom rack.
23. Cook pizzas for 5 minutes (watch pizza on top rack to make sure it doesn’t burn…may need to be removed sooner than 5 minutes).
24. Remove top pizza when it looks done (see picture) and move second pizza from bottom to top rack and cook an additional 3-5 minutes until done.

If you don't know how to throw dough, here's a video demonstration of Nate showing you how:

For sale

 

 We are moving...at least trying to move.  After 2 1/2 years of living in the Treasure Valley, we've discovered it would be much more convenient if we lived closer to Boise, if not in Boise itself.  We've acclimated to the traffic patterns here and where we used to laugh and scoff at those complaining about the "traffic" (we did come from SoCal after all where the state name is synonymous with transportation snarls and road rage), we now find the commute times, the endless road construction and the wait time to drive east through Eagle Road most annoying.  So, the house is on the market (actually for the second time...second time's a charm, right???).   I do need to develop a thicker skin though because the irritation of a buyer's agent giving us feedback that the house is "very cluttered" and that we "should consider putting things in storage" royally ticks me off.  I don't know why I'm mad...that realtor is clearly either mistaken or stupid.  Other than things we use on a daily basis that are nicely tucked away in closets, cabinets or drawers, there is really nothing more we can eliminate.  Unless that agent thinks we should be sleeping in the tub and using the toilets for seating?  Sheesh. 

This house better sell and sell quickly.  It's only been on the market two days and I'm already exhausted from the constant cleaning...so tired of it in fact that I'm almost ready to throw in the towel.  It's a good thing I'm  REALLY enjoying the clean, de-cluttered house.  







 http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/4169-N-Desert-Breeze-Pl_Meridian_ID_83646_M27901-88046?source=web

Spring in Meridian

I think it's called Spring because the weather bounces around from cold to hot to windy to rainy to sunny to dry to humid around here.  As pretty as the trees are when they get their early season blooms, I'm not sure I particularly enjoy the fickleness of the weather this time of year...Mother Nature can't really make up her mind if she's winter or summer or something in between.  Just a week ago, I was waking up in the middle of the night shivering under a single sheet and a single blanket.  Last night, I threw all the coverings off of me, not able to sleep due to the still, humid, hot, oppressive air.  Ugh.  Wish I could just flip a switch every now and then that would enable me to bring the temperate Spring SoCal climate here.  But only the weather. And maybe my family and friends.  And maybe my old parish.  But nothing else.  California, you can keep the rest of it.

Everything's better wrapped in BACON!!! (Bacon-wrapped stuffed pork chops for your gastronomic...and viewing...pleasure)

After going to the store just before Easter and being greatly disappointed in the high prices of traditional Pascal dinner fare (turkey, prime rib & ham prices were exorbitant)...I decided to do a little something different.  I made bacon-wrapped stuffed pork chops for our feast.  They were, how shall I say this...um...FREAKIN' AWESOME!  Some have asked for a recipe, but alas, I didn't use one...I made this one up all by myself, my friends (and yes, how adventurous of me to try it out on my unsuspecting family on the one day it would be difficult to go out to eat should the meal turn out to be a disaster).  Though I don't have a written recipe, I have recreated the dish in pictures, just in case you are interested in trying these on your own family...

First, you start with a whole bunch of ingredients....feta cheese, smoked sea salt, onion, one large bag of spinach, asparagus (or mushrooms...more about that later), olive oil, THIN pork chops, seasoned salt and onion powder, and those items not pictured (thinly sliced bacon, dried cranberries, provolone cheese, the kitchen sink...).

Finely chop the asparagus.  On Easter, I used mushrooms, but for this demonstration, the mushrooms had gone bad (I have no idea how a fungus can go bad, but trust me, it does)...I opted to use asparagus for a variation and because I was too darned lazy to go back to the grocery store and buy mushrooms.

Finely chop 1/2 of an onion of your choice (red, yellow, white, green...it doesn't matter).

Put into a large stock pot with a little olive oil (about 1 tbsp) and saute.

Cook until the asparagus and onions become a little tender and the onions are a bit translucent.

After cooking, turn off heat to pot, and transfer onions and asparagus to small bowl.

Empty your large bag of spinach into a bowl big enough to hold all of it.  

Using this handy-dandy-really-fun-makes-chopping-easier salad chopper from Pampered Chef, chop your spinach.  Of course, you could chop your spinach the old fashioned way with a knife on a cutting board, but really...who wants to be old fashioned?  Or risk cutting off a finger? (This salad chop can be ordered through my buddy and Pampered Chef rep, Tracy Varin, at http://www.pamperedchef.biz/tracyvarin)

This is what your spinach should look like when you're done.

Put the spinach back into the stock pot and cook down over medium-high heat with a little onion powder and a pinch of seasoned salt (to taste) until it looks like....

...this.  Make sure to stop cooking it before it starts to look really dark green or gray.  If your spinach begins to resemble a compost pile, you've gone too far.

Squeeze out the excess liquid from the spinach...you should have about this much...and discard (unless you have a use for spinach fluid).

Chop up some feta...the amount is up to you.  I used sheep feta here, about 1 cup of it, but any feta or even crumbled goat cheese will do.

Grab some dried cranberries (I used about two handfuls) and...

...toss them in with your onion-asparagus mix, the cooked spinach and crumbled feta.  TIP:  Before cooking with the cheese, make sure that ALL excess liquid is discarded from your vegetables, otherwise the stuffing won't set up as nicely in your chops.

Heat this mixture up until the cheese starts to melt a bit and everything is nicely combined.  Turn off the heat and set the pot aside to cool slightly. 

OK, here's where it gets fun and a bit messy...it helps to have some pent up rage for this next step or even an unnatural affinity for beating things to a pulp.  Just kidding.  For the pork chops to be thin enough to roll, it is best to use a meat tenderizer to smack them down (I think "smack" is the proper culinary term...well, it works for me, anyway).  

I hit these things until they are super thin...the surface area of each chop just about doubles in size when I'm through with them.   Do not be alarmed if bits of pork make their way across your kitchen...this is par for the course.

Sprinkle a little smoked sea salt (I used salish)...and I mean A LITTLE...like the smallest pinch you can think of...the salt can be eliminated altogether if you don't want to add any extra sodium to your diet...I just happen to like the smoky hint that the salt brings to the meat.

Add about one large spoonful of the filling (which should be room temperature by now).

Roll the chop so it looks like this.  Tuck any filling trying to escape back into the roll.  

Wrap the roll length-wise in bacon (this helps keep the filling inside the roll when cooking). 

When you're done with bacon slice #1, it should look like this.

Next, wrap another piece of bacon around the rolled chop so it looks like... 

...this.

For the non-cow's-milk allergic people in my family (that would be everyone but me, thank you very much), I added a half slice of provolone cheese to the filling.

Put all your rolled chops in a baking pan (this is a cheap pan, I would recommend using a glass casserole dish or baker...these thin metal pans warp, as I found out, during the broiling step at the end...but, I, however, was covered in bacon grease and could only reach the lightweight  pans in the front of my cabinet instead of the glass ones in the back...I should've known to pull everything out beforehand...oh well).

Bake for 25 minutes at 375 degrees F, turning them over once halfway through the cooking.
If you are not using a convection oven, you may need to cook these a little longer.  Once the pork is done, the bacon won't look fully cooked.  That is OK.  Because now you get to tempt your smoke detectors.  At this point, you will turn your oven up to broil and broil each side of the chop until the bacon looks fried...about 2-2 1/2 minutes per side.  Oh, and yes, I set off my smoke alarms!

By the way, if you are a clean freak, heed this warning...this recipe does spew out a lot of bacon grease...all. over. your. oven.  This is why originally I cooked these outside on the BBQ.  However, during extremely windy or rainy days, using the grill is impossible.  Luckily for me, I'm not a clean freak AND I have an auto clean function on my oven that I'll be using real soon....

When the chops are done, serve immediately.

Yum!

By the way...

You will have a lot of left over filling...do not fret about this.  I used this the next day in a pasta dish...

Cook up the extra bacon left over from the pork chops and cut it into bits.  Reheat the extra filling in the microwave and then combine it with the bacon bits and 2 1/2 cups of orzo, cooked.  I also added about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and about 1/4 cup of additional feta cheese.

This hearty combo makes an excellent side dish or main dish.
You can add other diced protein (salmon, chicken, leftover stuffed pork chops)
to this to make a more balanced meal.

 You can also use the stuffing in other recipes:
Toast an english muffin, put a little of the stuffing on top, cover  with a fried egg and...
Voila!  A wonderfully filling and balanced breakfast!

Or, scramble the stuffing up with some eggs or use in an omelette...

Or,  try the stuffing in stuffing!  This would be a delicious and unexpected treat in your turkey stuffing.

Oh, and by the way, you can substitute different meats for the pork chops (I've used chicken and salmon...though I don't pound the salmon--I slice it very thinly). And the filling tastes just as good with mushrooms instead of asparagus.  

Enjoy!

OMGGM!!!!!!!!!!

OMGGM!!!

What?

That's right...OMGGM!!!!  Oh my goodness gracious me!!!!!  (ok, so I'm taking a few liberties with text slang).

Where has the time gone?  Could it really be almost through March of two-oh-one-three?  Really?!?

It seems like just yesterday that I was writing 1997 on my checks...well, perhaps that's because that may have been the last time I actually wrote a check in our plastic debit card driven land.  But, I digress...

I've come to experientially appreciate that ol' axiom that time seems to fly by when you're having fun...or is it when you're getting old?...or when you're busy?  Luckily for me (or unluckily if you're a glass half-empty kind of human), I've got a bad case of all three going on.  This is one white-knuckled ride and I'm being catapulted, at warp-speed mind you, to significant anniversaries that I never thought would arrive so quickly. Let's see...there's the almost two-year time span between now and the of selling our house in Carlsbad, Nate's 16th birthday, my TWENTY-FIFTH wedding anniversary.  Egads, I'm not completely sure I like the velocity at which things are rushing by.  I guess I shouldn't have bought into the notion that moving to Idaho would slow life down...I actually imagined an idyllic life of unhurried being where time slowed to a crawl.  Ha ha ha ha ha.....how crazy was that?!?

What's the one thing that is worth more than gold, platinum, heck anything in this God-given universe? Well, that would be TIME of course...our most precious commodity.  And, whether you spend your time on what is important (or not so important as to appear that you're wasting it)...do it intentionally.  You will never get back the time that rushes by like a swollen river after winter's melt.

Sometimes I'm just glad to have to "waste time" in traffic on the commute to drop Damien off at school so I can sit by this beauty for a few seconds longer.  So, remember, when you're think you're in a hurry and obstacles are slowing you down...smile.  It's God's way of giving you the opportunity to stop and breathe and experience a different way to measure time...not by minutes but by memories.

40 is the new warm

I never thought I'd actually say this but it is going to be warm today...that is 42 degrees Fahrenheit warm.  After a month of acclimating to very cold weather, I don't actually need to don a big jacket, a balaclava, several scarves, ear muffs, a thick hat and ice pick cleats just to feel comfortable enough to walk around the block. The ice and snow have almost all melted, save a few stubborn patches that live predominantly in the shade, and amazingly, the grass is green.  Well, mostly green.  If it weren't for the fact that the trees and bushes are barren, I would almost think it's early Spring.

I'm thinking it might just be warm enough to tear my lazy self away from the computer screen and go find some outside things to do.

We've got ourselves some hoar frost!

From what I've been told by the locals around here, we've been having unusually cold temperatures and the snow is sticking around much longer than normal...we've had a blanket of white for nearly two weeks now.   The other day, a friend of mine who is also a California transplant and who has been living in Ada County much longer than I have, told me to "just wait until you see the frozen fog...no, really there is such a thing!"  It was almost as if her words had magic because here I am, a few days later and I've experienced this thing called "frozen fog," and something named frosty hoar...wait, reverse that...hoar frost.  I was mesmerized yesterday when I stepped out of the local Fred Meyer and saw that I was no longer on earth but in someone's glitter globe that had just been shaken.  All around me were sparkling specks floating as if they had no where to go and nothing to do but entertain me.  It was simply breathtaking.  The other shoppers seemed not to notice, grumbling, "geez I can't believe it's snowing AGAIN!"  But it really wasn't snow but the droplets of ground-hugging cloud freezing up in the single-digit temperature and dancing around without a care in the world.  As I drove home, I noticed how each barren branch of every tree in the vicinity was coated in white; a veritable winter wonderland, much like those fake trees of people's porcelain village scenes they put out every Christmas.  I remember having one of those villages and wanting so badly to be able to live in a place where the trees looked sugar-dipped and the snow glistened like pave diamonds.  Now, I do...I live in a most magical place where the seasons enchant me and I look forward to the stark beauty that each winter day brings, even if it's so cold I can only bear to be outside for a fraction of a moment before my fingers and nose and ears start to feel like they are the victim of freezer burn.

And, that was yesterday.

The dense overnight and early morning fog brought even more frosty bounty (or hoar frost as it is known) today.  After getting over my initial glee and doing my little happy dance (nope, no one caught that on YouTube, thank you very much), I grabbed my camera and shot a few pictures so I can better remember this extraordinary moment in my history...

I see an asterisk, actually several of them...do you?

Snow crystals forming on our patio chair...up close, everything is spectacular.  Forget stopping to smell the daisies...we need to stop and look at the beautiful world through a macro lens!

Wispy and wonderful!

Snowflake "peek-a-boo"

The crystalized frozen vapor almost looks like little budding leaves on the end of this pine branch.

The view across the street from the gas station.

Even this large tree did not escape Jack Frost's touch!

I don't know why I think this is amazing, but how many times have you heard of frosty icicles?

A  most unusual shaped crystal.

If you look closely, you can see that even the snowflakes have frost on them.  

Just imagine if the ice on this branch was not so fragile...I'd feel sorry for the birds that would have to land there!

Let it snow!

I think it was good luck putting out my "Let It Snow" garden flag last week because since doing so, we've had more snow here than all of last year.   Despite the weatherman's prediction that the snow was done accumulating, we awoke to yet another 1"-1 1/2" of frozen flaky fun today.    Taking advantage of the time we had before the sun came out and the snow started to melt, this morning we went outside to play...

Need to do some shoveling...

A little fog added to the snow...the plows haven't been by yet.

This is a little closer to a blanket and less like a powdering...

Damien making a snow angel before the shoveling begins.

Damien's snow angel.

The fog and snow combo sure is pretty!

I really think this is one of the most lovely neighborhoods we have lived in...there's so much character, all year round!

Time to work!  Damien shoveled the driveway (at least what Carl didn't do this morning, Damien finished).

Nate piled up the snow...giving us a bounty to play with.

Sierra LOVES snowballs...she thinks they're cookies.

"Oh please, oh please, oh please.... can I have some snow?"

"I got me some snow!"

"I don't care if I smell like wet dog for a week...I LOVE to lay in this cold stuff!"

"Yum!  Snow treats!"

Damien making the base for a snowman.

St. Francis looks a little frosty.

Don't know why this bush wants to form a rosebud in this weather.

Snowball baseball...He swings...

...and he hits it!

Nothing says "FUN" like catching snowballs on your face.

I'm not sure if it's more fun for Damien or for those watching.  :-)

Nate gets into the act...

You'll notice Mom did not get into the act.

It's starting to look more like a snowbird than a snow man.

Our new mascot, Santa Snowbird.    

The view of the backyard.  We did not have to shovel here.