Life and Adventure

New Recipes!

2011-08-14T12:16:00.009-06:00

So I've been in a cooking/baking mood lately and have been trying out some new things!
Here I am with my fancy new apron that Janece gave me for my birthday!

So as I mentioned before, I have been in a cooking baking mood! So here are a couple of recipes I tried out.

The first is this very delicious Verde Pork Pazole!
It was really easy too! Here are the ingredients:

Verde Pork Pazole

1 Pork Roast
2 cans of hominy
1 big can of Green enchilada sauce
1 small can of green chilies
1 tsp ground cumin
1 white onion
Dash of Salt/Pepper

I took everything and put it in my crock pot. Then I let it cook all day on low. (I think it was 11 hours) But you don't need to cook it that long, I just worked all day. Then you take the pork roast out and shred it and then throw it back in.
You can eat it plain or with corn chips or tortillas. My favorite was mixing some sour cream in and putting it in a tortilla. But it was very yummy!

The other recipe I made, I found from this website: http://www.banana-bread.biz/peach-banana-nut-bread/

Peach & Banana Nut Bread

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups white flour
1 cup wheat flour
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 ripe mashed bananas
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 cup mashed tinned peaches (You can substitute fresh peaches as well)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a medium loaf pan.

2. In a mixing bowl, mix together the white flour, wheat flour, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir together until completely mixed.

3. In another mixing bowl, beat the eggs and add the lemon juice, milk and mashed bananas. Drain the peaches, keeping the juice for step 4.

4. Slowly mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. If the mixture is too dry add a little of the peach juice. The more peach juice you add the more moist the banana bread will be. However, be careful not to add too much juice.

5. Mash the peaches and stir into the mixture along with the walnuts.

6. Pour the mixture into your prepared loaf pan and bake in the middle of the oven at 350F for about 60 minutes. Oven times may vary especially with fan assisted ovens. Check the loaf is done all the way by inserting a toothpick or knife into the middle of the loaf. It should come out clean when the loaf is ready.

7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the loaf pan for 10-15 minutes. Then carefully remove the loaf and place on a wire cooling rack to cool fully.

This bread came out very very moist! It's soooooo tasty! It's definitely one that I'll be making again!

Today I'm trying out a new chicken noodle soup recipe in the crock pot. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Quick Chunky Chili

2011-02-13T17:24:00.007-07:00

My latest adventure in cooking! It was a really cold night, so chili seemed like the way to go. It was super easy too.

The Cook! I just need to get a apron now! =D

Quick Chunky Chili
1 pound lean ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
Salt/Pepper
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 cans (16 oz each) diced tomatoes, undrained
1 can (15 oz) pinto beans, drained
1/2 cup prepared salsa
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
3 TB sour cream
4 tsp sliced black olives

Instructions
Combine meat and onion, and some salt and pepper in 3-quart saucepan; cook over high heat until meat is no longer pink, breaking meat apart with wooden spoon. Add chili powder and cumin; stir 1 minute or until fragrant. Add tomatoes with juice, beans and salsa. Bring to a boil; stir constantly. Reduce heat to low; simmer, covered, 10 minutes. Ladle into bowls. Top with cheese, sour cream and olives.

Browning Meat

Yummy Chili!

Ta-Da!

It turned out really good! And was really easy! Feel free to add any other spices or flavoring to your own chili. Enjoy!

Albacore Corn Chowder

2011-02-01T18:12:00.009-07:00

So! I've decided to review the new recipes that I'm trying! I decided to do this half/way through this recipe, so next time I'll have better pictures!

Albacore Corn Chowder Recipe:

Ingredients:
2 Tbs Butter or Margarine
1/2 cup sliced Celery
1/2 cup chopped Onions
3/4 cup chopped Carrots
2-3 Tbs Flour
1 tsp dried Thyme or Italian Seasoning
1 (17 ounce) can Cream-style Corn
2 cups Milk
1 (12 ounce) Starkist Solid White Tuna, drained and chunked
1 cup Water
1 tsp Chicken Flavor Instant Bouillon

Method:
In medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat; sauté celery, onion and carrot about 3 minutes. Add flour and thyme; blend well. Cook 3 more minutes. Add corn, milk, tuna, water and bouillon, stirring to blend. Cover and simmer (do not boil) 5 minutes to heat through, stirring occasionally.

The sauteed vegies + flour/seasoning

Simmering Chowder!

Finished Product!

Getting Ready to Test It

Thumbs Up!!

Over All! I accidentally added some extra Italian seasoning.... but It still tasted good! Probably not one that I'll make all the time, but still delicious in its own fishy way. =)

It's Official!

2011-01-13T10:53:00.002-07:00

So it's official! I really DID graduate!!!! My diploma came in the mail and here it is!

I'm officially a College Graduate!

I haven't decided if I'm going to walk or not... but I'll let you all know if I do!

A New Year!!!

2011-01-01T22:22:00.010-07:00

Well! It's 1-1-11 today! Who would have thought it would be a new year already! Wow time has gone by fast this last year!

My biggest accomplishment of the past year I would have to say is graduating from UVU with a Bachelor's Degree in Hospitality Management!!!!!!!

What I'm supposed to do with it now... that's another question... haha but I'm sure I'll figure something out. I'm still working in the same place - but I'm thinking about branching out and trying Hotels out to see how I like them, I'm not sure if they will be as exciting as the restaurant business, but I'm willing to find out!

With the new year starting, and being down with school, I'm sure that I'm going to have a lot more free time on my hands. I really want to take up crocheting and Thanks Clint and Nat! for giving me the stuff to get started. =) I'm really exciting to start making stuff!

As some of you may know, I acquired some Sugar Gliders this past year. What are Sugar Gliders? you may be asking... well! Sugar Gliders are small gliding marsupials originally native to eastern and northern mainland Australia. Here is what they look like:

This is Azuca and Goliath.

Even more recently.... they had a baby! It was quite a surprise! I was looking in their box one night when I saw something that I was not expecting at all! It was a baby!! It was my Christmas Miracle. =)

The baby is on Mamas back. I haven't came up with a name yet, but I'm pretty sure it's a boy.

Here's one of just him!!
=)

I also will try to update my blog more than two times a year. ( Apparently I only posted once last year... that's pretty sad!)

I've had a lot of good times and experiences this past year, and I plan to have many many more great times this new year. =)

I love you guys! And hope you're all having a wonderful day!

What? An update?

2010-07-05T21:30:00.026-06:00

So after much badgering, I finally decided to check out my lil' ol' blog that I've neglected for.... 10 months? or so.... so here is some updates! I'm sure a lot of things have happened - but here is what I have pictures of! so enjoy!

So I've moved into a new apartment - it's a nice little place right by my school, so it makes walking to school very easy! (These are some pictures from the beginning, it's changed a bit in some spots)

Here is the Dinning Room/Kitchen

This is the Living Room and my Room

And here is me on my 22nd Birthday! hurrray!

Saul's Mom and friend also came up and visited for a day and we went to Bridal Falls and up to Salt Lake

Here is Saul and I standing in the waterfall

I also went on an adventure with Saul, Rindy, Shane, and some of their friends. We went hiking to a cave!! But... we couldn't find the cave for awhile, so we hiked across the hillside! It was pretty fun, till I got a migraine, and started feeling really sick, and I think dehydrated, and yeah..... I still love you guys! Even if you try to kill me every time I go with you =)

Saul and I at the beginning

The group starting up one of the tall hills

Half way up this huge hill!

Enjoying the view on the rocks

Taking a little sister sister time

I'm up so high!!! (And so far from the car!!)

We finally found the cave!!!! (In the top left of the picture)

Sitting in the cave waiting for the others to squeeze through

Saul squeezing through

Chilling in the Cave

After the cave - I don't remember a whole lot... just getting water poured on me... extremely cold!! but felt really good. Also sliding down the hill side with Rindy and her friend... but I survived! And give me a couple of days and I'll be ready to go again!

Other than that - I've just been working a lot! My typical work schedule involved opening at 5:30am in the morning and closing at midnight that same day and repeating it over again. Not the most fun... so I made a decision and decided to leave one place and just stick with one. Hopefully that will be happening next week! Then I'll have more time to.... update this blog! hurray! and to go out and enjoy the summer before I go back to school.

I hope you all enjoyed this update! And I'll try to do it a little more often than 10 months. =)

love you guys! Have a wonderful day!

New Places!

2009-08-14T11:39:00.002-06:00

Hello Everyone!!

As most of you know I'm now currently living in Orem! I'm loving it! I love the change, and the different pace, and pretty much just everything here.

Work has been going great, I'm working at a 24/7 store, where it's actually busy sometimes. Which makes it pass faster and more fun. And I enjoy bossing people around. =P Well, for the most part I do.

I finished my summer classes last week. It's nice having a couple of weeks of actual summer without school, but I start again August 26th. I'm taking 19 credits, so that means I'm going to have to cut my work schedule down. (Currently I work 40+ hours) So I'm thinking maybe 20 hours or so, we'll see how it goes. I just need to go down to the institute sometime and get a class there, and see how credit transfers and whatnot.

That's about it that's going on right now. I love you guys!

I figure it's probably time for an update!

2009-06-16T14:09:00.003-06:00

hah! So I'm finally getting around to updating. I think I'm just a tad to lazy to do it all the time, not to mention I don't get on the computer as much as I used to. Weird! huh. =P

As you all probably know by now, my Sonic shut down so I'm working down in Washington. It's actually not that bad, and it's nice having a new group of people to hang out with and to get to know. Generally my schedule goes as this: I drive down tuesdays and then stay till saturday and spend my weekends here in Cedar. I stay at my boss's house, where I have my own room and bathroom and I pretty much never see him and his wife. They go to sleep at 8 which is wayyy to early for me to be home. haha

Other than that I've just been working on my online classes and enjoying being a kid still (I may be an "adult" but I can still act like a kid!) before I have to actually live in the real world.

Last night I went ice blocking with some friends. My friend Skye and I had never gone so we decided to try it out. For those who don't know what it is - you buy a block of ice, go and find a really big hill and bring a towel. Then you put the towel on top of the ice and slide down the hill. It's actually really really fun! I think my favorite was sliding down on my stomach. =P
What was even better was we had a cop stop by, wondering what we crazy kids were doing and we almost got him to do it with us. He said if he wasn't on duty he woulda done it. hah!

We also all went to a dance saturday night. It was very.... interesting. It reminded me of HS. Probably because all the people there were IN HS. But that's okay, we had a good time nonetheless.

Anyways! I need to start packing and get ready for work. I'll try to update more often than once every 2 months!

Have a Wonderful day!!

My 21st Birthday!

2009-04-10T13:05:00.002-06:00

So I had an awesome Birthday!!

One of my classes was canceled so Travis took me out to breakfast at Ihop - which I got a really tasty steak burrito. Then I got sung to in my Math class and got candy in my HRHM class. It was awesome.

I also got birthday wishes throughout the day. =)

Mom and Dad also came to visit - which was really nice of them. =D Mom, Dad, Travis, and I went to Ninja, a Japenese Sushi and Grill. It's probably one of my favorite restaurants. We got a hibachi table where they cook in front of you. It was great. They also sang to me and let me bang the gong once. We got what I think was sorta like fried ice cream for my birthday treat, but it also had like cake too. It was really tasty!

Travis also bought us sushi to try. I was so proud of dad he tried some even though he said he rather jump out of a 2 story building. =P
And mom was impressive too! She had the cooked roll and the RAW spicy tuna roll. She's a lot braver than me I think. =)

I also got an ice cream cake. Yum!! We put my candles on it and sang after dinner. It was all very very yummy!

I also got some great presents. I got a camera (which isn't quite here yet - but I hear it's hot pink. Woot! I think it'll be awesome!) and a memory card for the camera, also season 1 and 2 of heroes and yes man, and a nice jacket and a sweet strobe light that you hook into a lamp. I haven't tried it out yet, but I think it's going to be really cool. And also some pretty little roses.

All in all It was a great day. Everything just seemed right and happy and beautiul. The weather was very nice too!

I'm sad to have it over - but back to work today at 4. But I'll have another break soon with Rindy's wedding coming up! Where I'll see all of you!!

Have a fantastic day! I know I will! =D

Updatey

2009-04-02T20:45:00.003-06:00

Well an update on the money -- we have none. Still nothing, and I really don't think we'll be able to find out. It's just slightly eerie that there is a theif among us and they could do it again anytime. I just hope guilt finally gets them to turn themselves in.

Anyways! I got 3rd place last week out of all the marketing directors. It's based on giving out samples on saturday and I did a good job! Hopefully it'll go good again this saturday. Specially since it's conference and there will be a lot of people traveling through.

School is going good! Took a scary math test today... don't know how I did. But we can fix our tests and get half the points back we lost. But I'm hoping I did pretty well!

With school in mind there's only 4 weeks left! It's crazy to think that another semester is almost over. I have an apointment set up for Monday with my school advisor, so hopefully I'll be able to figure out how much longer it'll take me to graduate, and to make sure I'm on the right track!

I think I'm developing a slight cold. My through has been really sore and my stomach has been unhappy on and off all day. Hopefully it's just something small and it'll pass.

Well! Time to get back to some homework.

Hope you're all having a wonderful day!!

Back to real life and all it's drama

2009-03-27T23:58:00.002-06:00

Well! I had a wonderful spring break. I got to go home and visit the family and friends. It was nice, everyone wanted to buy me lunch! =D

I was sad to go back to the real world. While I was gone our little hand mixers at work broke (the main big one broke a couple weeks back) and so we were all mixing everything by hand, and when you get a rush with lots of ice cream and all you have is a little metal spoon it's no fun!

But that's not the all of it. Aparently someone stole $460 from one of the deposits. We don't know who or how but it's gone, so things have been a little unsettling. The police are involved.. but really I don't know how much they can do, or want to do. Also we're down 33% in sales from last year. So we gotta figure something out. We've had tons of fun meetings and changes going on. So hopefully things will start looking up!!

Other than work - it was back to school too. I had one test that I think I did pretty good on and then just lots of fun homework. I'm very confused in math. I can't wait till I don't have to take any more math. Ever again!!!!!! ( I hope)

Other than that - that's about all that has been going on.

Hope everyone else is having a wonderful day!

Spring Break! Woooooooo!

2009-03-15T01:14:00.002-06:00

It's Spring Break for me! Hurray! A week with no school and mostly no work!!! I'm excited. It'll be a nice break. And!!!! I'm going home for a few days! I'm leaving tomorrow and comin back wednesday or thursday, I'm still not sure....

It's going to be a good time cause some of my other friends will be down on their spring break also. It's going to be fun! =) And maybe I'll get some good halo time in too.

Image Tag!

2009-03-03T00:08:00.004-07:00

1. go to your my document/my pictures

2. go to your sixth file

3. go to your sixth picture

4. blog about it

5. tag six people

Haha! This was the night before my big Castlerock climb with Rindy and Shane. My father learned that I didn't really know how to repel so he figured I should probably practice. And where would the best place to practice be? In the living room!

I tag Rindy, Clinton, Natalie, Dad (if he ever makes a blog) and... anyone else who reads this!

Yay Pancakes!

2009-02-24T23:47:00.004-07:00

Alas - another day of free food! It was national pancake day today. Free pancakes at Ihop. So of corse I had to stop by and get some pancakes. Now I'm not a big fan of pancakes, but they were pretttttttttty darn tasty. =D

On other new things - It was half price burgers tonight. Even though we couldn't put up any balloons (we're out of helium) we had quite a good business day.

And then the day before that I gave blood! Hurray!!!! I don't know why, but I really enjoy giving blood. I guess I figure it's one way I can help out other people. =D

I drained myself in 4:38. woot! Go me!!

The only problem is that I didn't get a whole lot of sleep the night before that (which probably wasn't a smart thing) so giving blood + little sleep = crazy Jenny. I think I might have scared a few people haha

Anywho. That's my tiny update, not a whole lot of newness going on.

So I hope you're all having a wonderful week!!! It's time to do some more awesome homework!

Hope you're all having a great day!!

mmMmm breakfast

2009-02-04T14:06:00.002-07:00

How long are you willing to wait in the cold for a free breakfast?

I don't know how long I would be willing, but tuesday morning bright and early... around seven. (Which is way to early for me) I went down to Dennys with Travis and his family. When we arrived there was a nice line out the doors and down the sidewalk. Instead of going back home - we decided to get in line and wait... and wait.... and wait. It took us probably about an hour to get into the doors and another 15 minutes to get seated. Being around 8:15 and seeing a table that had been sitting there for awhile get their food I realized that I should probably run home get dressed (I was in my comfy pants) and grab my spanish book so I could study for my test at 9. So when I got back it was around 8:30 and the food still hadn't gotten there. After about 5-10 minutes studying the food came and we hurried and ate it down, and then ran off to class. I would like to say that I made it to class on time. Or.. exactly at 9. Woot!! All in all I thought it was worth it, I really like free food. =)

It was also 1/2 price burgers at work. Hurray! Buy a burger! hah. We put up a bunch of balloons and made it a good time. We made this long string, that was a lot longer than we were planning and ended up stretching it over the entire building. It was pretty sweet to look at and see our balloons waving up high. And I think it worked cause right after we put it up we got a nice little rush. And I must say - trying to get people to buy something that they weren't planning on is fun. =) I forgot to check the burger count but I think it was higher than normal tuesdays.

Anywho!!! I got a new movie loaded up so I think I'm going to do some spanish homework and watch it. Hope you're all having a lovely day!

Waiting for Lost

2009-01-21T23:14:00.002-07:00

Well... here I am. waiting to watch lost. I'm hoping it'll be a good season, and things will finally get sorted out. Speaking of lost. I miss the good ol' lost days where my brother and sister n law and cousin's would get together every wednesday to watch it. Even though it wasn't the best season it was a good time to get together with family, and I really enjoyed it. Now it's just me... sitting on my computer waiting. Atleast it'll be a commercial free and good quality.

My poor computer is having difficulties trying to charge. I'm hoping it's the power cord and not the actual part in my computer. My friend is sending me her old power cord soon hopefully. It's for the same computer, except she broke her computer. I'm just hoping it gets here soon, cause I use my computer quite a bit.

School is becoming more work. And if I slack for a day, it messes up the rest of my week with me trying to catch up.

So I got a haircut yesterday. I'm still not quite sure how I like it. I guess I'll just have to give it a few days and grow into it. Maybe I can get a picture up, we'll see.

I made some delicious funeral potato's and ham tonight. I must say, it was probably one of the best batches I've made. It turned out really good!

That's about my excitement for the week so far. But the week isn't over! so we'll see what else will happen.

Learning a new skill

2009-01-11T23:23:00.000-07:00

I can now prouldy say......... I can drive a manual!

For the most part.... I realized tonight that I'm actually a pretty good driver, for the little experience that I have. And I do pretty good except when I'm arguing. If I'm arguing, I have a higher tendency of killing the car. So as long as I can stay calm I can drive well. =D
I also have only driven at night. So I'm going to have to try some daytime driving. When theres actually other cars around. So I can get used to other people.

But on to other things!

I start my 2nd week of school tomorow. The first week went pretty well. I have homework everynight in atleast 2 classes, and sometimes more depending on the day. But so far my classes seem like they will be alright. I think my hardest class will be the Management class. But we'll see what I think in a month or so.

Works been going alright, except for the occasional stupid people who come in. Really - if you want to find out what people are like, work in a job where they feel that they are better than you and see how they act and treat you. Some people are nice, but others you just wish you could share a few words of advice with them, and just hope they grow up.
But! There are also a lot of good people out there, I just wish the negative people wouldn't stand out as much.

Well, thats my tiny rant about mean people. I'm pretty content now, and it's time for homework and sleep!

Hope you all have a wonderful day!!

The start of something great!

2009-01-08T23:50:00.000-07:00

I'm not really one for writing. That is... writing on paper with a pencil. But give me a computer and I'll have a field day! Since we all get old and forget things - we might as well record some fragments of our lives while we can, right?

Well here it goes.

I had an amazing break from school. It was beautiful. I got to go home to see all of my family with no responsibilities to school or work. It was a very nice break. But now I'm back in school and starting to hit the upper division classes. Meaning I can't really just wing it anymore - I have to actually buck down and study and put some actual work into it.

College has taught me a few things though. One of which is that it's not worth failing classes. I hit a moment in life last year where I didn't know what I was doing or where I was going. I kind of just stopped paying attention to classes and stopped putting work into them, and resulted in failing two of them, which I had to retake last semester. It put me back some and taught me a lesson, so atleast I got something out of it. Right? I just wish I could have learned a lesson that didn't cost so much.

Other than school what also takes up a lot of my time is work. For those who don't know I'm a manager at Sonic. And I have put a lot of hours into that place, but have also gotten a bit out. I've made some pretty good connections up the line that I know will help me in the future if I choose to pursue farther in this career. I mean I have the chance to become the General Manager, and I've been offered the Cedar store, St. George, or Washington store. But I choose to go to school instead. Which I think is a good decision because I don't think I'm quite ready to become a GM. But - I did accept another responsibility. I'm now the one in charge of Marketing in Cedar. It'll be very interesting and we'll see how well I do.

Anyways, I think I've shared enough for tonight. I hope you all have a wonderful day!