A winner of a dinner

Last week I made one of my favorite dinners I've ever made, ever.

So I'mma share it with you all because YUM.

Unfortunately, I have no photos because we are at the time of year when it's dark outside before I even get off of work. And goodness knows that the lighting in our apartment is not very conducive to food photos. I need more natural light in my life!

Okay, that was off topic. Food. We were talking about food.

Basically, I made these spicy peanut noodles from A Beautiful Mess, and then since I had thawed chicken waiting to be used, I added some of this curry chicken from McCormick. But because I apparently disdain following recipes word for word (seriously though, I think I have some problems respecting authority in the cooking world...), I made some modifications.

How I changed the peanut noodles: 
:: I used penne noodles because who even cares.
:: I did not use natural or sugar-free peanut butter as recommended. It seemed fine?
:: I dunno what "chili garlic sauce" is (is it sriracha?), but I added some red pepper flakes to the sauce and cooked my chicken with some garlic in its place. Seemed fine to me but clearly I have no clue what it would have been like otherwise.
:: I added just a bit of brown sugar to the sauce since somebody suggested it in the comments section. Probably was unnecessary because of the peanut butter I used, but whatevs.
:: I definitely used sesame oil to saute the bell peppers because I love it.
:: I doubled the recipe because. Just because.

How I made my curry chicken:
:: Goodness knows I wasn't gonna go freeze outside to grill this, so I just cooked it in a pan on the stove. 
:: As mentioned above, I added a few cloves of garlic when I cooked the chicken. 
:: And I cooked it in small chunks instead of as one big breast.

And then I threw everything in a huge bowl and stirred it up and ate three servings. No really, I filled my bowl three times that night. Joseph liked it a lot too! And we ate it for lunch and dinner (and a late night snack on one night) for the next three days. 

So yeah, this dinner is probably the best life choice I've made to date.


So go try it out! Lemme know how it goes! If you want to save it for later, you can pin it from my food board here. It has some of these modifications and the link to the curry chicken right there with it. Hooray!

He's home

I often (always) get homesick when I'm not on my own turf for longer than about 12 hours. It sounds pathetic when I put it in such short and clear cut terms, but I've never claimed to be adventurous, so whatevs.

This weekend, I spent my first night at home without Joseph next to me (he went on a mini-tour with the Young Ambassadors). I felt that same bout of homesickness that usually comes from leaving home, and it totally took me by surprise, kind of like, "What? I'm not the one who left! I'm here! I'm here in my own home!"

When Joseph came home from his mission, I knew I wanted to Instagram a picture at some point during that day to mark the end of one era and the potential start of another. I didn't want to post some stupid caption like, "Can't believe this guy's back already! #missionary #mexico #lovehim," so I drafted potential captions in my head in the days leading up to his return. (This is a full disclosure blog post, apparently. Does anyone else in the world pre-draft social media photo captions? Anyone??)

The only problem was that I wasn't sure how I would really feel when he got here and I saw him and we hugged or shook hands or avoided eye contact or whatever. I had no idea what to expect for me or for him! So I also saved a little blank space (NOT a Taylor Swift reference here) in my list of potential captions to fill in if inspiration struck. 

And that blank space caption was the one I ended up using. I filled it in like this:

"He's home. And it feels like I'm home."

It was a good description then, but apparently it's downright perfect now. He's currently sleeping in the other room, and any semblance of my homesickness from this weekend is gone. Home is back to being home because he's here.

I love that guy.

In other news, apparently I will insist on blogging about our dramatic reunions every time we're separated for any amount of time, until the end of time. #sorrynotsorry

Ed does it again

For our anniversary last month, I pre-ordered the second Hobbit movie, extended edition, on DVD, for Joseph. It arrived early this week, and although he's watched it probably three or four times since then (he watches while he practices guitar in the afternoons), I just barely made it to the end for the first time yesterday (I am always at work in the afternoons). 

Now. The genre of fantasy isn't usually my thing, and really long movies aren't usually my thing, so all things LOTR are kind of a foreign world for me. But I enjoyed the first Hobbit movie much more than I would have ever anticipated, and the second wasn't bad either. Mostly I just love little Bilbo Baggins! He's adorable.

There's one other thing I love about these movies: the music during the credits. Whoever put together the last few seconds of each movie with the first few seconds of the credits knew what they were doing. And since the credits we watched yesterday began with some Ed Sheeran, I've been listening to that ever since. 

So, like, yeah, that's why we're here. Enjoy!

Stuff I learn 7

:: In my finance class, I feel like much of what I learn is pretty common sensical (is that a word?). However, whoever wrote the textbook has a talent for simplifying financial principles down to good one-liners. Some from lately: 

"Developing patience is a lot more valuable than paying interest." Do you need that thing right now? Are you willing to pay substantially more for it to afford yourself that luxury?

"HALT: Do not make major purchases if you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired." I knew this was true in grocery shopping, so it makes sense to extend it to major purchases. But I also just like using this acronym when I catch myself feeling frumpy. Am I hungry, angry, (hangry), lonely, or tired? Can I snap out of this?

"Spending less is a road that is always available." Good to remember when I want to start complaining about being a poor starving student. Even though I do feel like we live preeeetty cheaply...


:: Background story for this one: My family went to Mexico a few years ago. After one of our dinners, the waiter brought out brownies with nuts on top for dessert. Since my sister Mattea and I both have nut allergies to some nuts but not others, we asked him if he could find out what kind of nuts were on top. He came back and told us they were "just regular nuts." We had a good laugh about that because what even does that mean?? 

Fast forward now to last week, when Joseph told me that the Spanish word for "nuts" is the same as the Spanish word for "walnuts." So in Spanish, walnuts are literally just "regular nuts" because they are not peanuts, or pistachios, or macadamia nuts, all of which do have their own names. And since walnuts are regular nuts, they don't have a direct English translation other than "nuts." Cool, huh? In any case, it was good that we didn't eat those brownies.

This is me, not eating that brownie. I was like, "I should put a Cancun pic here!" and so I found this.

:: Elections. I learned some stuff about some candidates so I could vote. It's probably boring to anyone who doesn't live where I do (oh wait, I'm the only person who gets easily bored by politics), so just know that I learned it and enjoy this toothy picture proving it:

Happy Friday, everyone!

Currently

Deciding :: what's for dinner this week...in advance!

Wishing :: Joseph didn't feel like mud this week. Poor guy.

Waiting :: for the next set of 101 free prints. (This is how I'm getting hard copies of all our wedding pictures.)

Hoping :: next week's primary program goes off without a hitch.

Marvelling :: that anybody finds time to vote. I am going to have to rearrange my entire day on Tuesday...

Wondering :: what scenarios might be in this book, if it existed.

Loving :: our radiator-heated apartment. Mmmmmmmm.

Pondering :: the implications of the end of daylight saving time on my homework habits. Do I get to go to bed earlier because it's dark outside earlier? Do I get to skip stuff I don't want to do?

Cooking :: with my Crock Pot? Maybe this month? Maybe?

Playing :: Folt in sets of 5 lives at a time (because then I have to wait 2 hours for more lives).

Considering :: Bountiful Baskets? Anyone have any comments on these?

Knowing :: that I need to organize my time more effectively to finish this semester strong.

Admiring :: all of the sisters I have the opportunity to visit teach. Also, my companion.

Giggling :: at the expense of this poor orchestra.

Needing :: milk before tomorrow morning. 
(Knowing :: it'll never happen but that's okay too.)

Feeling :: blessed to feel physically, emotionally, and mentally healthy and secure.

Gourds in my baked goods + Halloween spirit

In the last week, I have made zucchini cookies and pumpkin swirl bread. Both were quite good, but I'm not sure that gourds make for the best textured desserts. I am pretty sure Joseph is beginning to wish I would stop making treats out of veggies. (Plot twist: zucchini's actually a fruit.) And I think I'm gonna be with him on that for a bit now. I get an itch to try new stuff every now and then, buuuuuut that pumpkin swirl bread was enough adventure to last me a while. (It called for a real pumpkin, so it was DIY pumpkin puree...)

Can we just chat for a minute about what this pumpkin bread symbolizes, though? I have pretty much always hated Halloween, but for some reason yesterday, I experienced just a lil twinge of Halloween spirit. It kind of took me off guard (or maybe OFF GOURD HAHAHA), and I didn't know what to do. 

So I have here listed all of the things about this Halloween that I liked! Of course.


:: I decorated our apartment a little. My mom gifted us a cute little pumpkin earlier in the month, so I stuck it on a cinder block outside our front door as an outdoor decoration. And then last week she scored a decent sized ceramic jack-o-lantern at an estate sale and offered it to me. And instantly in my head I was like, "I want to put a plant in that but will it look dumb?" I tried it and looooved it. It looks like he has an afro!

Mr. Pumpkin is still smiling down upon me as I write this. I think I might do some November harvest-y decorating by just turning him around so it looks like a plain pumpkin. Is that cheating or frugality? 

:: That outdoor decorating pumpkin was small and held up well, so I used it to make tonight's pumpkin swirl bread. When we hung out with the Moores a few weeks ago, we talked about the gourds Miranda had decorated with in the dining room and about how James thought they should get gourds they could actually eat later. So, like, they were planning on eating their decorations! And I thought that was awesome. So I copied it. Thanks for the idea, Moores!

:: The night before Halloween, Joseph killed a huge black widow on our porch. This was totally freaky and not actually an enjoyable experience, but it definitely made Halloween feel authentic.

:: The weather was awesome this year. Usually, Utah decides to drop the first snow in the few days before Halloween, which makes for miserable trick-or-treating. I could probably blame the weather of past years for a portion of my Halloween disdain, so the lack of bad weather this year made me ever-so-happy.

:: Thriller came on the radio as I was leaving work yesterday. So, like, Halloween to the max. 

:: Math ed majors can choose to get class credit by trick or treating to their professors' offices. I took advantage of this (I always do), and this year somebody was giving out Halloween shaped pretzels! And man, I love pretzels.

:: We played with our friends Jeff and Alyssa until the wee hours of the morning, and by "played" I mean that we really just made root beer and talked and talked and talked. And this is the best kind of playing, as far as I'm concerned. 


So, like, Halloween spirit, right?! Except it took all of these things together for me to experience my little tiny twinge of Halloween spirit. But at least I can finally say that I understand (a little) why people go nuts over this holiday. It may never be my favorite, but I guess I don't have to hate it. 

Remind me that I said that when next Halloween hits, mmkay pumpkin? Thanks.