Weekly Update

Sorry for the lack of blogging this past week. We have really been pretty boring - just work and school taking up our time.

We have invested in 24 Hour Fitness memberships, so Chris has been taking advantage of that all week. They have locations in Fort Collins and Kansas City. We are going to check out one of the KC facilities today.

Erica's volleyball team has continued their losing streak, with losses to last semesters league champs on Thursday. She has been sporting a sweet (and rather large) bruise on her knee for over a week now.

We have both filed our 2008 taxes! Kansas passed legislation this month to delegate funds to pay state employees and state tax returns amidst their budget crisis.

Front door view this morning

Chris has eyeballed about 5 inches outside so far. It was 70 here on Thursday and it will be in the 50's next week, so it will not stick around long. It is a nice change, we have not really had any snow here this year. I can imagine all of the WI folks are so sick of snow by now...

Don't Forget!

ABC will broadcast the USA Sevens rugby tournament presented by Bridgestone as a one-hour special, on February 22 at 5 p.m. EST. The USA Sevens event was held February 14-15 at San Diego’s PETCO Park and is the fourth of eight annual global tournaments in the annual International Rugby Board Sevens World Series circuit. Sixteen elite international teams competed in 44 matches over the two days. The one hour program is hosted by longtime rugby announcer Dave Sitton and international analyst Jonnie Cox, as well as a noted team of commentators for the match calls featuring Nigel Starmer-Smith, Wyn Gruffydd, Gareth Rees and Ray Viers. The program will also feature an interview with IRB Chairman, Bernard Lapasset, regarding the IRB efforts to have Rugby Sevens added to the Olympic Games in 2016. “Having a chance to showcase the premier event of one of the country’s fastest-growing sports is an enormous opportunity,” said Ray Peterson, managing director of the USA Sevens LLC. “Rugby fans across America will now be able to watch their favorite teams compete and many new viewers will also be introduced to the dynamic game of rugby sevens.” USA Sevens and USA Rugby are encouraging all current and former players and fans across America to support the growth of rugby in this country by tuning in to watch this broadcast - be sure to check your local listings for time.

www.usasevens.com

I Love Jesus But I Drink a Little

This is SO funny. Please take 7 minutes out of your day to watch this clip from the Ellen DeGeneres show. I laugh so hard I cry every time.

Rugby on ABC this Sunday

There are people out there who just love Dunkin' Donuts coffee. We are not so sure we do, but they have a new dark coffee that sounds promising, and who doesn't like free samples in this new economy? Plus, they provide this cool little logo for your blog, so get your sample of the new dark DD coffee today!

Intramurals

I am on an intramural volleyball team with some grad school classmates this semester. Supposedly, it was "invite only" so I was pretty flattered to be asked to be on the team. Our name is Prestige World Wide (it is a reference to the movie Step Brothers).

We play every Thursday through the end of March. We had our first game last week and it was not good. I hate to say it, but I might be the best player on the team and that is not saying much. It's a good thing Chris and I got some backyard volleyball reps in this summer!

Wish us luck tonight, our game starts at 7:45pm.

Back Blogging - Ben Taylor

Nate mixing the show.

My hometown friend Nathan was in KC last Wednesday. He is touring with Ben Taylor and mixing his shows.

My friend Angela and I got to hang out on the tour bus for a couple hours with Nathan and the band and then see the show. Everyone was super friendly (probably because I brought them KC BBQ for dinner ;) and the show was really good. Some guy even proposed to his girlfriend on stage.

Ben is the son of James Taylor and Carly Simon and he sounds like both of them. At one point, Ben was talking about his dad when he was little and it was crazy to think he was talking about JT. I wanted to take more pictures but I didn't want to be weird. Nobody else was taking pictures.

One thing is for sure, it is not a glamorous life. Nate said they had done 11 shows in a row and he hadn't showered in 3 days. They might get 1 hotel room every few days just so everyone can clean up. The back of the bus was lined with 12 bunks where they sleep.

Happy Valentines Day!

Our Valentine's Table

Fresh fruit, chocolate fondue, red velvet cupcakes, crescent rolls, asparagus quiche, orange juice spiked with Orange Muscat and Framboise.

Asparagus Quiche

This turned out great! I cheated and did not make the crust from scratch. The very center seemed a little runny when it came out of the oven, but it firmed up after it sat for a few minutes.

Ingredients

1 bunch of fresh baby asparagus (you'll need about 18 stalks depending upon size)
1/3 cup: chopped scallions (2 or 3 stalks) or 1/3 cup fresh sliced chives
4 slightly beaten eggs
1-1/2 tablespoons flour
1-1/2 cups of half-n-half, light cream or milk
1/2 box of frozen spinach - drained really well of its water and thawed
1 cup shredded cheese, use a combination of two or more cheeses such as goat, swiss and gouda or swiss, cheddar and monteray jack for some pizazz.
1 pie crust (pre-made ok to use...so it's ok to cheat on this step my peeps)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh cracked pepper
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg (preferably fresh if possible)
*****for homemade rustic pastry shell:
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup chilled shortening
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons freshly grated parmasean cheese
Equipment Needed: One working oven at 450 to start, fresh chicken eggs just laid (just kidding), bag of dried beans out of their plastic, tin foil to help with baking pie shell blind (not you but the pie shell of course), steamer for asparagus, couple of bowls to make work easier and a cookie sheet to make clean up easier by placing cookie sheet under pastry shell when baking quiche in avoiding any spills that may occur.

Directions

To Make rustic pie pastry:
Place flour and shortening in food processor and pulse five times, add chilled water and pulse several more times creating pastry dough.
No need to roll out, simply press pastry dough into pie pan - like you would when making shortening bread. One bottom is "filled" continue pushing up sides of pastry pan. Great to have kids help you on this part.
Preheat oven at 450 degrees and take pre-made (or just made) pastry shell, and prick bottom with fork all over. Either use blind cooking method (bag of dried beans inside tin foil and place inside pastry shell to help prevent pastry shell from puffing up on bottom) or take empty pie shell and place on top of pastry shell.
Bake pie shell for 5 minutes till pastry shell is set slightly.
Take out of oven and let cool.
If you have a steamer, steam asparagus for five minutes - keep them whole at this point - or blanch them in boiling water for three minutes then place in cold water bath to stop cooking. Reserve up to twelve pieces whole and chop up rest to have up to one cup of chopped asparagus.
Take shredded cheese into a bowl and stir in flour, salt, pepper and garlic powder, stir till well incorporated.
In other bowl, place eggs and whisk. Add half-n-half , chopped asparagus, chopped thawed out spinach, chopped scallions and shredded cheese mixture in with eggs.
Turn oven down to 325 and place entire mixture into pastry shell.
Take remaining whole steamed asparagus stalks and place on top of of unbaked quiche having the top part of the asparagus pointing towards pie shell rim (see photo).
Take nutmeg and sprinkle it on top of quiche evenly as possible.
Place unbaked quiche on the center of cookie sheet and place in oven on the middle rack.
Bake quiche at 325 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes. It's ready when a knife inserted comes out clean.
Let quiche set for at least 10 minutes prior to serving.
Call troops to table - serve warm or at room temperature and enjoy telling your troops how you stole the fresh eggs from the local farmer.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Here they are! I was afraid they would not be red enough, but they baked up beautifully as you can see.

Yield

2 dozen

Ingredients

• 1 (18.25-ounce) package yellow cake mix
• 2 tablespoons cocoa
• 5 large eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 (1-ounce) bottles red liquid food coloring
• Cream Cheese Frosting

Preparation

Beat cake mix and next 5 ingredients at low speed with an electric mixer 2 minutes. Spoon batter evenly into 24 paper- or foil-lined muffin cups, filling two-thirds full; bake according to package directions. Remove from pans immediately, and cool on wire racks.

Spread cupcakes evenly with Cream Cheese Frosting.

Source: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=521850

Chocolate Fondue

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (semi-sweet, dark, milk, or white. Your choice.)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla

optional
you can doctor this up with:
1 T Grand Marnier
1 T rum
1 T Peppermint Schnapps
1 T Bailey's Irish Cream
1 tsp peppermint, orange, coconut, etc. extract
pinch of espresso powder

Put ingredients in Little Dipper Crock Pot and plug in. In an hour you will have delicious fondue.

I found this recipe at http://crockpot365.blogspot.com. The writer vowed to use her crock pot everyday for a year, and she did. Even though we LOVE our crock pot, I don't think we could pull this off. Mostly because it is just too much food for us. I guess we would have to start entertaining...

Wii be fit

Either I am really out of shape or this Wii Fit stuff really works. Let's just say I was feeling my workout the next day. I think Erica will agree. I really need to keep at it because my Wii Fit age is 44! Erica's is 36 :)


The workout gets even harder when you can't stop laughing because a certain someone decides to start taking pictures!

Another Crock Pot Creation

We tried out another recipe from our new Crock-Pot cook book. We used boneless pork loin back ribs, an entire 8.5 oz jar of hoisin sauce, and thinly sliced a half red onion over the ribs before covering and cooking.

Best Asian Style Ribs

2 full racks baby back pork ribs, split into 3 sections each
6 ounces hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
1/2 cup maraschino cherries
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
1 cup water
4 scallions or green onions, chopped

Combine all ingredients (except scallions) in Crock-Pot. Cover and cook on low 6-7 hours or on high 3-3.5 hours. Remove ribs. Thicken sauce by cooking uncovered or cook in saucepan until consistency of barbecue sauce. Sprinkle with scallions.

We made this last night and had it for lunch today with french fries. We tried to reduce the sauce in the crock pot, but it did not work very well. In the end, we transferred the sauce to a sauce pan and added about 2 teaspoons of corn starch.

Phalaenopsis

Here is Erica with the pretty orchid Chris bought her today. Now Chris just needs to keep it alive while Erica is away. We killed off our fish, we are hoping for better luck this time. Fingers crossed.

Maybe the cupcakes were not the best idea...

Everybody having a good time at the Super Bowl Party

Then Libby has a cupcake. She was the first to indulge. It immediately turned her teeth and lips black!

So, Chris had one too.

As did Erica.

Go Stillers!

The Steeler Cupcakes we are taking to the Super Bowl party today.

We are heading to Libby's house tonight for a superbowl get together with the KC crew. Erica has never really watched an entire Super Bowl before, she goes for the socialization. In fact, she didn't even know who was playing until 2 days ago. Chris doesn't care who wins because he doesn't like either of the quarterbacks and just wants to eat cupcakes.

We will be cheering for the Steelers because Keith & Christina are big Steelers fans (Keith is from PA). It isn't pronounced Steelers either, it is "Stillers". Keith is making pierogies which are traditional Pennsylvania fare.