In the Kitchen: Bean and Rice Bowls

This is a staple in our home, especially when we are running low on food (i.e. money--you know the whole "plenty of nothing" thing). We are from Oregon and my family loves to go to Ashland, OR for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It is my favorite little town. I would totally live there if the opportunity came. Anyways, there is this little outdoor creekside cafe that serves these rice and bean bowls that are delicious. It starts with rice, with black beans on top, then this is where is can get all creative. You can have grilled chicken, or shrimp as well, then you can add avocado, lettuce, tortilla chips, cilantro, tomatoes---really whatever you think would taste good. Then there is the sauce that is poured over everything. Yum.  We have tried to recreate theses bowls at home. I made up/adapted this sauce a few years ago. We really like it so I'm sure you will. Also, this whole meal comes together in a flash and it is very filling.

Spicy White Sauce
This recipe makes enough for about 2-3 bowls, so I would double this if you are making this for 4-6 people.


1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup mayonaise
juice of 1 lemon or 2 small limes (limes are preferable)
1 tsp. dried dill or even better---about a tbsp. fresh dill
1 1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/8 tsp. cayenne
salt and pepper to taste

Mix the yogurt and mayonnaise together. Add in the lemon juice. Add in all the spices, stir well. Taste and add more spice as necessary. Refrigerate until needed---flavors are enhanced in the fridge so allow it to sit in there for at least 15-20 min, longer is preferable.

The bowls are pretty easy to make: cook your rice, heat up some black beans, chop up lettuce, tomatoes, cilantro, grill chicken if using, defrost or cook shrimp if using, grate cheese, if using, etc.  You can put together your bowl however you like and then pour on the white sauce! Make sure to mix in the white sauce well. so its flavor gets everywhere. Enjoy!

P.S. Sorry about my lack of pictures.... I meant to take pictures (I even measured out the spices so I could tell you how much to put in the sauce), but then I just forgot.  I will be posting some pictures from the zoo soon, so look for that post in the next day or two!

In the Kitchen: some pins

Ok, so I'm a little lame, as I have no actual recipe to share. I am however, going to share a few of my favorite food pins from pinterest (for anyone who does not know pinterest is a website where you can organize your web browsing and also look at other people's pins). So, here are a few favorites that I have made in the last week or two.

Lemon White Chip Cookies---these were really tasty! I loved the combo of lemon with white chocolate chips. Yum. I happened to have extra lemons and also extra white chocolate chips (for the rose cupcake frosting) from the tea party. So these, were prefect to make with the left overs.

Chocolate Frosting Shots-- these are not really frosting, but instead coconut milk and cocoa. Coconut milk will get really thick if you leave it uncovered in the fridge and then you simply whip in good quality cocoa. I loved these! They were extra good when left in the freezer for a bit, as they were almost like ice-cream.

Quick French Bread---This recipe only takes an hour. It is pretty yeasty, but also quite tasty. I think a "real" recipe would taste better, but for the amount of time it takes to make these two loaves they turn out pretty yummy.

Honey Spiced Glazed Chicken-- We have made this a few times because it is quite good. We make it with whole chicken legs though, not thighs, mostly because Whole Foods sells whole legs for really pretty cheap. The chicken has just the right amount of spice and sweet.

Rose Water Cupcakes-- I have given you this link several times, because I love it so much. These are such delicate, fancy, delicious cupcakes.

I hope you enjoy these recipes!

It was also our anniversary this past Thursday. We had dinner, saw "Snow White and the Huntsman" and rode around on Tyler new scooter/ moped thing! We have been married for 4 years now, have and 18 month old baby, have moved two times (cross country), and are so in love. I love Tyler so much and love him more everyday. I am so thankful for him.

Here are a few pictures from our wedding day, June 21st, 2008. We were so young. These picture were taken by our friend Alex Nguyen. The pictures from the actual photographer I only have in print version, but these photos of Alex's are beautiful.

All About Elanor

Elanor hit the 18 month mark on June 10th. I cannot believe she is already 18 months and going to nursery at church (she has actually been going since she was 16 months). She is so full of life. She is talking up a storm! I am not even sure how many words she is saying now, well over 20 or 30. She is putting together words as well, plus she copies a lot of what I say. She is quite funny and laughs all the time. She loves giving hugs and kisses to almost anyone. She loves other babies and kids. Elanor is really into her baby doll and other dolls. She loves to put them to sleep, feed them, put them on her little potty and rock them in her cradle. It is so cute. Her newest obsession (and no that is not too strong a word) is Winnie the Pooh. When she was sick a couple weeks ago we let her watch Winnie the Pooh (she had previously not watched TV). She fell in love. She asks for Pooh all the time. Winnie the Pooh is a wonderful show, so I do indulge her obsession occasionally. 

Her "smile".

With her good friend Malachi, whom she calls, "Mali".

Like I said, she loves babies and she loves giving hugs!

We have been slowly sort of potty training Elanor for awhile now (she did great before Christmas, and after that she sort of gave up on the whole potty thing, but we still encouraged her to sit on her potty). We bought her some underwear a few weeks ago and I started by putting them on her during her nap, since she always wakes up dry from naps. I would give her a small treat for waking up dry and I think that helped her to start getting it. This whole week she has mostly been in underwear (which she loves and calls them "undies!!!!") and has successfully gone in her potty three times and has only had accidents outside, which is much better than inside. She seems to be getting it and definitely prefers wearing underwear to diapers. We still have a long way to go, but it is a start!

Elanor on our backpacking trip

Elanor is starting into this whole toddler thing. Tantrums. She has not thrown any terrible ones, but she does go from crying to smiling or vice versa in seconds. I am busy reading some books as how to best help her in these situations. I am no fan of whining or crying for what you want. I think a lot of it is that she is trying to communicate something and she can't or she is not getting what she wants and does not understand why. Luckily, she was very well behaved at her doctor's appointment. She threw a fit at her 12 month and I have since changed a bit of what I do at the office to make it go more smoothly. Distraction and books are great tools. She hardly cried when she got her shots, which completely surprised me. Speaking of her appointment, her are her stats :

I can't actually find the paper right now and it is probably in Elanor's room, but she is sleeping, so my memory is going to have to suffice.

weight: 21 pounds--10th %

height: around 30 inches--50th %

head: I don't remember, but know it was the 20th %

So, she is still quite small. She is healthy and strong though, just petite.

When Elanor and I were in Oregon, my mom paid for Elanor to get her pictures taken at Yuen Lui. They did a great job and the photographer was really good with her. Here is one of the pictures, hopefully we will be getting more soon!

Love her little teeth!

Birthday/Father's Day Backpacking Trip

Tyler and I were able to buy the backpacking gear we were missing this year (thanks tax return). We have slept in our new tent a few times, but this was the first time we took it backpacking! I asked Tyler a day or two before his birthday, "What would you like to do for your birthday", he said, "Go backpacking", so we did. It was a pretty spur of the moment thing. Tyler had hiked with his work to Red Pine Lake last summer and we had mentioned to some friends of ours that we should backpack up there together. However, Tyler could not remember how hard the hike was and if there were many places to camp, so he wanted to check it out before we brought someone with us. It was a good idea we did. There was still quite a bit of snow, so it was slow going for the last 3/4 of a mile. We were not really expecting that.... It was really pretty warm, but my feet got soooo cold. It was a pretty strenuous hike as well. The trail was not very easy (as in tons of rocks, half the time the trail was a stream, etc.), but it was worth it. The lake was beautiful, gorgeous, perfect, idyllic. We also found the perfect campsite a little up hill of the lake. Elanor was a trooper. She did great in the backpack and hardly complained at all. She also slept pretty well (though she got to bed a little later), and for the first time she stayed in her sleeping bag the whole night! They only problem was that we had just barely enough water. We are going to bring more next time.

View of Little Cottonwood Canyon on our hike up

Red Pine Lake...beautiful.

In the Kitchen: Custard Sponge Cake

...or "Sandwich" instead of cake, which is how they would say it in Britain for these sort of cakes with custard or jam in the middle.  I made this cake for my tea party and promised I would share it. It is very simple, but also very delicious. Yes..... I know it is Saturday and not Friday (the day I am supposed to post a recipe), but we went on a backpacking trip on Friday for Tyler's birthday and got back today. I meant to do it before we left, but I never got around to it. I suppose I should just not mention the fact that I am a day late and nobody would notice, but then that just would not be very "me", hehe. Today, is Tyler's birthday and I would go on about how wonderful he is, but our anniversary is next week, so you can hear all about that then. Let's get to that recipe!

Tea Party

Again......sorry about being a rather spotty blogger. Last week, I was pretty busy with dress rehearsals and   a dance recital (I teach ballet and the show was last Thursday). I also had my fancy tea party this Saturday, so I was busy with that as well. I have been thinking about, planning and pinning (as in on pinterest) about this tea party for months. It finally happened and was quite a success! I just wish a few more people would have come. There were four, including me, but I invited eight. The four of us had a lot of fun!

I spent Friday night and Saturday morning getting ready, baking, and decorating. Tyler was so much help. He trimmed the hedges, made the lemonade, set up the tables, set the table, and helped me set up this tulle curtain thing. I could not have done this without him. We had quite a lot of food. I made a sponge cake with custard filling (from my Harry Potter cookbook), Rose Cupcakes (the same ones I made for the Doctor Who Party),  My Mom's Scones served with clotted cream and jam, cucumber sandwiches, strawberries and freshly whipped cream, and of course tea (mint and lemon ginger).

The Table

Food Table (sandwiches covered to keep them from drying out--it was quite windy)