Nilla Wafer Apple Crisp

I'm still sick. Too sick to eat. Food doesn't even sound good (foodie's worst nightmare!!!) so I'm just going to share a recipe I love.

NILLA WAFER APPLE CRISP

4 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, thinly sliced
1/2 c. firmly packed brown sugar, divided
2 tsp. ground cinnamon, divided
1/3 c. old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats
1/4 c. cold margarine
25 Nilla Wafers, crushed
Cool Whip or whipped cream

Preheat oven to 350° F. Toss apples with 1/4 c. of the brown sugar and 1 tsp. cinnamon. Spoon into 8- or 9-inch baking dish. Combine oats, 1/4 c. brown sugar and 1 tsp. cinnamon in medium bowl. Cut in margarine until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add wafer crumbs; mix well. Spread evenly over apples. Bake 30-35 minutes or until apples are tender. Serve with a dollop of Cool Whip.

Sick again?! Oh and Mini Maple Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Pancake Muffins

Seriously? Now I'm beginning to wonder if it WAS strep last week since apparently it's come back?? You guys don't need the gory (well, not really, just boring) details, but I'm sick. And tired. And sick and tired of being sick and tired. At least I'm hungry again... yesterday I couldn't eat a thing (couldn't even watch food network!) and that's a foodie's worst nightmare!

So now that I'm hungry again (but can't really eat anything cause I'm still a sicky) I'm scoping out recipes. I find and create my best recipes when I'm hungry. Up on the menu / to-do list are the following:

• Cinnamon sugar cake doughnuts
• Veggie burgers (don't gag, I have an incredible recipe for them)
• Roasted red pepper hummus
• Oatmeal bread (thanks, Dad, for the huge bags of food storage oats)
• Oatmeal raisin cookies (for my big brother who loves them)
• Chicken with apple, onion, and cider sauce
• Vegetable Stuffed Pork Tenderloin en Croute with Creole Mustard Cream Sauce
• White Cheesy Chicken Lasagna
• Peanut Butter Pinwheels (a nod to my childhood / my grandmother)
• Pumpkin (pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin pound cake, pumpkin roll with cream cheese filling... I heart fall)
• Chicken and Peppers Pasta
• Chicken Scallopine with Warm Vegetable Salad

One of the other things I'm going to do is buy the book the Bread Baker's Apprentice. It's an incredible-looking book teaching you all about bread. I want to buy it and two of the top recipes I want to make from that book are the homemade bagels and an herbed foccacia. Mmmm. I love bread and I'm really excited that I'm learning to bake.

Look for some updates in the coming weeks on the new recipes!!

For now, enjoy Bakerella's Mini Maple Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Pancake Muffins:

(see here for pictures)

1 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. sugar
2/3 c. buttermilk
1 egg
2 Tbsp. pure maple syrup
2 Tbsp. melted butter
1/2 c. milk chocolate chips
Warmed butter and maple syrup, for serving

Preheat oven to 350° F and grease two mini muffin tins. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar in a medium bowl. Sift together with a wire whisk. In another bowl, stir buttermilk, egg, maple syrup and melted butter until just combined. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir with a spoon until combined. Spoon batter into greased muffin tins. Add chocolate chips individually to each muffin (to avoid overdoing the chocolate). Bake 8-9 minutes.

Let cool slightly and remove from the pan. You may need to use a toothpick around the edges to separate the pancake muffins from the pan. Serve immediately with warmed butter and maple syrup.

(Note: I overdid the chocolate chips - and this is coming from a choco-holic. Remember that these mini muffins are TINY and any more than 4-5 chocolate chips per muffin is too much. But they are absolutely DELICIOUS. Trevor was sneaking them off a plate 4 or 5 days after I made them. Delish!)

BBQ Baked Potatoes!

If you're in the mood for a very hearty, delicious, EASY (with easy clean-up!) meal, try this man's-man fare of BBQ Baked Potatoes. Crazy good, crazy easy, and the food coma afterward? Yep, crazy.

1 pkg pork short ribs (I'm sure you can try beef but I haven't yet)
1 bottle Famous Dave's Rich & Sassy BBQ Sauce
4-6 Idaho potatoes, scrubbed clean
Salt and Pepper
Toppings: Shredded cheese (whatever your favorite is), Sour cream, Butter, Chives, BBQ sauce

In the morning, throw all the ribs and 1-1.5 cups BBQ sauce into a slow cooker (eyeball measurement). Turn to LOW and cook 7-8 hours (up to 9-10 if needed). 1 hour before you're ready to eat, sprinkle the potatoes liberally with salt and pepper (may need to wet potatoes to get S&P to stick), wrap in foil, and bake in a 500* F oven for an hour. 15 minutes before potatoes are done, pull the ribs out and shred, discarding fat. (You can skip this step if you're feeling lazy, and just let everyone shred their own.) Add another 1/4-1/2 c. BBQ sauce if needed. There are two ways to serve:

Martha Stewart way: Once potatoes are done, allow to cool. Cut tops off potatoes, scoop out flesh, mix with toppings and BBQ, stuff into potato, add more toppings on top, replace potato top, and bake at 350* for another 10-15 minutes or until heated through.

Sarah way: make a "Build Your Own" potato bar. Set everything out and let everyone go to town building their own.

You could probably serve a side with this, but my boys who ate it (Jacob, Trevor, and Steve) thought the loaded potato was more than enough. Delish!

XOXO,
S

(PS, This is the first dish I've EVER made that Jacob complimented me... twice. He really loved it. And this is the first time I've ever tried BBQ that I felt like I did a decent job. The slow cooker is the way to go for ribs, definitely! And I'm not brave enough to make my own BBQ sauce just yet.... let the pros handle it, I say!)

Pumpkin Bread

Yumm! I made Jenn Golden's Pumpkin Bread this weekend (with slight alterations since I don't really care for great quantities of nutmeg), and it was a real hit. I also made Ginny Betley's White Chocolate Macadamia Nut cookies and whooaoaaaaaa, were they amazing!!! I shamelessly took them to Priesthood in my Singles' Ward. (No, I didn't get any dates out of it... sigh. Maybe I'll do it again next week.... SHAMELESS!) And sorry, I can't post the recipe for the cookies, because I was sworn to secrecy. I appreciate people keeping my "Secret" recipes a secret, so I'm returning the favor to a fellow chef. But if you're near me or Ginny, ask for a batch. I know she would be happy to make them and so would I :) It was a good weekend otherwise.. I just relaxed away the rest of the strep. I don't want to talk about the BYU game. So that's it, enjoy the pumpkin bread! It's super easy. Love you guys!


Pumpkin Bread

2 c. sugar
3½ c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1½ tsp. salt
1½ tsp. cinnamon
2½ tsp. pumpkin pie spice
2/3 c. oil
1 c. water
4 eggs, beaten
15-oz. can pure pumpkin

Preheat oven to 350° F and grease 2 loaf pans. Mix sugar, flour, baking soda, and spices together and make a well. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Fill prepared pans half full of batter. Bake for 1 hour or until done. (At high altitude, bake 40-45 minutes.)

Variation: Mix in 1 cup nuts, chocolate chips or raisins with wet ingredients.

Strep Throat, Nesting Instincts, and Hula Hooping Champ Pictures

Hey friends. Unfortunately, paradise is fleeting, and my wonderful life as of Monday went south fast, just like I wished for (oh wait...). I am pretty sick with strep, which is the worst while in school. I missed classes Tuesday AND Wednesday, and didn't really even feel well enough to go today, but law school doesn't permit a ton of absences. Soooo... I bucked up and went today. Luckily, I'm a planner / neurotic / type A, and unluckily I get strep just about every year, so I was well-prepared and had the antibiotics on hand (thanks Dad!) and was able to start a course lickety-split... still not feeling great, though. Mom told me to take a smaller dose than what I should have taken, but actually antibiotics don't speed up recovery, according to WebMD. Strep takes 3-7 days to get over, but antibiotics help you actually HEAL rather than recover (since strep can do some nasty things in the long-term) and shortens the amount of time you are infectious. Just FYI, for the next time you get strep.

Funny thing - while I've been sick, I have gotten a lot done around the house. Laundry, dusting, dishes, de-cluttering, vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, cleaning out the hamster cage, bathing the hamster (too funny), cooking (yes even while I'm sick), ... all but cleaning out the fridge, a chore I dread. I just think it's funny that I get that nesting instinct when I'm sick. Or maybe it's that I'm restless and I need mindless things to do to make myself feel better about not studying.

Being sick also means that I didn't get to go to the fair today (sad) and I have to cancel my double date for tomorrow (also sad). But I'm proud of myself for being able to recognize that I'm sick enough to make myself stay home. I guess I'm mature now.

Bedtime... it's 9:15 and I am waaay tired. :)

xoxo
S

PS - Pictures are up. To see ALL of them, go to law.byu.edu, click on the picture in the bottom left corner (of the hula hoopers), then click "View Slideshow. " So funny! (Thanks for pointing it out, Em!)

Winner!

Chicken Pot Pie

Sorry I don't have pictures, I left my camera in Tennessee. Oops. But I really had to share this recipe with you guys. Steve and Emily came over for dinner tonight, and this is probably the first meal I've made where everyone raved over it. Well, except for Jacob, who gave me a "It's pretty good," which for him, means an 8.5 or so. Steve went back for seconds and thirds... which is a great sign. Four people cleared out a 9x13 casserole - good signs!

I give this meal a 9-9.5 because it's easy, relatively cheap, I didn't have to go to the grocery store to get more ingredients (because I had everything on hand already), and it was really quick with easy cleanup.

Chicken Pot Pie (adapted from a Paula Deen recipe)

3-4 chicken breasts, cut into 1/2" cubes
Salt and pepper
Poultry seasoning
3-4 carrots, peeled, sliced
8 oz. sliced fresh mushrooms (1 normal package) - I use cremini mushrooms, never white button
1 smallish onion, chopped
1 small baking potato, peeled, chopped
1 c. fresh or frozen corn kernels
1 c. frozen green peas
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 c. chicken stock
1½ c. Bisquick
1 c. milk
2 Tbsp. melted butter

Preheat oven to 350° F and lightly grease a 9x13 glass baking dish. Season chicken with salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning, to taste. In a large sauté pan over medium heat, brown chicken with carrot, mushrooms, onion, and potato (and S&P to taste) until chicken is browned, onion and carrot are tender, and mushrooms have released their liquid. In the last 2 minutes, add FRESH corn. (If corn is frozen, just add it with the peas.) Remove from heat and allow to cool a few minutes. In prepared 9x13 dish, layer chicken mixture with corn and peas. In a separate bowl, whisk together soup and chicken stock, and season with salt and pepper. Pour over casserole. Whisk together Bisquick and milk, and pour over casserole. Drizzle butter over casserole. Bake until the topping is golden brown, 30 to 40 minutes.

Note: to make this easier, you can substitute frozen for a lot of these vegetables, but I enjoyed the taste of fresh, and it didn't take a whole lot longer to prep and sauté the fresh vegetables. Also, you can substitute shredded rotisserie chicken for the raw then sautéed chicken. Just heat it in the sauté pan with the poultry seasoning. DON'T LEAVE OUT THE POULTRY SEASONING. It makes such a big difference! I use it in quite a few chicken dishes. It's a mixture of sage, thyme, marjoram, cloves, pepper, parsley, onion powder, salt, rosemary... each brand will have a different mixture, but those are the general ingredients. Oh my GOSH is it delicious in chicken dishes.

Enjoy this! I am LOVING it. Steve kept saying, "That dinner was good... you need to make this again..." Good times. Let me know when you make it!

Life is SO good!

Seriously! Life is amazing right now!

1. Apparently, I'm a pretty good negotiator. My partner Doug and I won the entire BYU Law Negotiation Competition this weekend. We'll be going on to regionals in November (in Provo, so lame! Last year's team got to go to California and every now and again it's in Hawaii!) and then if that goes well (cross your fingers!) we'll be going to Nationals in Orlando! Pictures to come.

2. I went to a CIVIL WAR RE-ENACTMENT. Seriously. No I'm really serious. Not joking at all. It was great. I loved it. Pictures:

Me with some Rebs (go Dixie!)

Me and Emily enjoying the battle

The whole group (Brad, Danielle, Union [yuck], Em, Union [yuck], Eileen, Steve, Lisa)

So that was a blast. We spent the afternoon up there enjoying This Is the Place. We also ate at Ruth's Diner (featured on Food Network), which was REALLY good - just don't try the brownie sundae!

3. The food plan is really working out! I've been clipping coupons (shock I know) and shopping based on sale items, which is really exciting. This week I'm making:

• Shepherd's Pie with Mushroom Onion Gravy (oh my goodness. and chock full of veggies! Zucchini, onion, bell pepper, carrot, potatoes, mushrooms, yummm...)

• Grilled chicken with rice and steamed broccoli (simple and pretty cheap)


• Stuffed Chile Relleno Casserole with spicy rice (mmmm... spicy rice.)


• Slow Cooker BBQ Ribs with grilled potatoes

These are all meals for 4+, and that grocery bill including food storage (frozen pictsweet veggies are on sale at harmon's right now, 1-lb. bags for $.69!), lunch stuff (I get deli meat... yum! so worth it, motivates me to bring my lunch), and peaches for peach cobbler (YUM), and the whole bill was only $100. I think $100 for 4 adults (I live with my brother and we always have guests for dinner) for 4-5 meals plus food storage, lunches, and snacks is really reasonable! (Am I wrong? Have I just been way overspending for too long?) If you want recipes, message me. I'm still working on this blog thing, especially inserting a link without just copy/pasting the link.

4. I have wonderful friends. Life without wonderful friends doesn't have to be terrible, but life with them is just amazing.

5. I made fresh 'sourdough' bread today. It was delicious. I brought it to school for kicks... two loaves gone in a few hours. Always makes a girl feel good!

6. I have a double date this weekend. I'm hooking up one of my freshman buddies with one of my law buddies. They are both super adorable and I'm hoping this will go somewhere great! (Not counting on it but it can't hurt to hope!) My date is an MBA who works with the FDIC. (I think.) I'm excited about that too!

7. I'm going to renew my temple recommend tomorrow, which is always exciting!

8. It's thunderstorming today. I love stormy weather.

Overall, things are wonderful. That's the update. Hopefully things won't go south fast.

XOXO,

S

"New Year's" Resolutions

K, so it's not technically a new year. But I don't think Jan 1 is the only reason to create resolutions. There's the new lunar year, the new fiscal year, the new school year... SO I'm using the new school year as my excuse.


FIRST, I'm going to make myself exercise. I was originally going to buy a gym membership but hellloooooo, $200 when I might go twice a week, and will be gone starting in April for 4 straight months? Yeah, I don't think so. I have recently discovered my love for hula hooping (see below post!) and I have long had the Carmen Electra Aerobic Striptease videos... now, before you go judging me, there are 5 DVDs. One of them is called "fit to strip" and it's just a workout video. And believe me, it is a GOOD workout. I can only go 10-15 minutes without getting horribly out of breath! So I'm going to buy a hula hoop and just hula hoop for 15-20 minutes and alternate that with doing the Fit to Strip. I really do recommend those videos... they're amazing! But since I have no "personal life" to "spice up," I'll stick with the exercise portion.


SECOND, I'm going to spend a lot less money on food. I HAVE to stop eating out. It's such a great temptation for a student. I just have to make cooking a priority (which is easy for me!) and make myself eat more healthy foods (which goes along with New Year's Resolution [hereinafter labeled NYR] #1). Emily and I came up with a few really good rules - eat out only on the weekends, no soda after 2 pm, and only eat something if it has some nutritional value. (This is how I justify cheese and ice cream - DAIRY.) This NYR also brings me into new and very unfamiliar territory. Coupon... clipping. I've NEVER done it before. But I did this past week, shopped at Harmon's only for sales, and came home with $80 worth of groceries, including (3) 3-pound packages of chicken breasts, a 2-pound package of pork chops, a 2-pound beef roast, tons of fruits and veggies, and even some more expensive staple items. SO exciting! But if anyone has any tips on saving money on groceries, please share! I'd LOVE to get some help!


THIRD, I'm going to answer my phone more. This is weird but if you know me, I'm horrible about answering my phone. So I'm going to answer it more. This is a big thing. Don't laugh at me.


FOURTH, I'm going to actually do my calling. Last year the bish gave me a calling that didn't really matter and I didnt' have to do it (rest hymn coordinator... so easy to do without) but this year because I'm a Gospel Doctrine teacher, I want to make sure I'm well-prepared and can engage my class. I'm excited about it.


FIFTH, I am going to live by a budget (which relates to NYR #2). It's SO hard for me to make myself regulate my spending. I made a budget sheet, which involves putting a significant amount of money into savings every week and limiting my free spending money. I'm excited about it. Hopefully I can stick to it.


SIXTH, I'm not going to do homework on Sundays. This is sooo hard when you're in law school. But I've realized that it's do-able. I just have to focus during the week and not put it off until Sunday.


FINALLY, I'm going to live by the 9-5 school schedule. School is so much easier to do if you force yourself to get on campus at a reasonable hour and stay until 5. I've been amazed at how much I get done, how much better prepared I am, and how much more focused I am. I highly recommend it.


That's about it for now. The BYU-Oklahoma party went incredibly well (hello, did you SEE the game?!). I realized I left my camera at home, so I'm going to try to get my mom to send it out. I'm also going to start posting some of the recipes I'm making. If there are any specific requests for a recipe, let me know and I'll post it!


Tonight's dinner is Slow Cooker Beef Roast with Mushroom Gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans. (2-2.5 lb boneless roast, cut into 6 equal pieces, put in slow cooker, mix together: 2 can cream of mushroom, 1 pkg lipton onion soup mix, 1/2 c. water, pour over, cook on low 7-8 hours. Thin gravy with water to reduce saltiness then thicken back up with cornstarch before serving.) The whole dinner is going to end up being around $8, if that. I bought the roast on sale, the potatoes on sale, the green beans in bulk, and the cream of mushroom in bulk. Yummm! PS, who doesn't love slow cooker meals?! They're my new favorites. I found a rare gem - a reader-submitted slow-cooker cookbook (in LOWE'S of all places!) and I'm working through the ones that look really good.

Tomorrow's dinner is Lime Baked Halibut with Almond Rice Pilaf and Sauteed Zucchini and Carrots. Soooo healthy, soooo yummy. The original recipe calls for Tilapia but the last time I made it my dad got mad and told me no more tilapia - "DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY EAT?!" So I've upgraded to halibut, a similarly firm-fleshed white fish that will hopefully hold up to the lime bake-age just as well.

photos courtesy foodnetwork.com

XOXO
S

Two Words:

GO COUGS!!!!!

Hula Hooping CHAMP!

Yes, friends, that's right. I won... no, I DOMINATED the hula hooping competition. Pictures to come shortly. But rest assured, I did it in 4-inch heels and with some serious style.

So far this is the only picture I've gotten! I'll try to get more. But I'm on the far left, dominating.

Law School Olympics

As a non-introductory note, tomorrow is the SBA (Student Bar Association) Opening Social and Law School Olympics, where I will represent the 2L class in the hula hooping competition. I will kick some 1L and 3L trash, and I'll do it wearing 4-inch stilettos.

This is my life.

So I finally caved, again...

So I started to make a blog a few months ago, and just couldn't figure it out and gave up. I blame it on the first year of law school, which was a lot harder than the second year is (so far). Plus, it doesn't hurt when a lot of your good friends encourage you to make a blog... not that I feel like my life is interesting at all!

I just started my second year of law school. It looks like it's really going to be a blast. I'm taking Evidence (from the most hilarious professor on the planet), First Amendment, Administrative Law (my only really boring class), Criminal Trial Practice (which is going to be my favorite class of all), and Professional Responsibility (ethics class). I interned with the U.S. Attorney's Office this past summer, and I feel like I finally found my calling - I want to be a federal prosecutor. I'm hoping to intern with the USAO next summer again.

In addition to being a law student, I'm also a serious foodie. Part of the reason I started this blog is to share some of my fun new recipes. I've finally started to venture into the world of making my own recipes instead of just using others' creations, and I would love to document my fun food adventures!

So this is the culinary law blog. Enjoy!