Obsessions

So, I think I have kind of an obsession problem. I go through spurts with things (food, TV, clothing, etc.) and can't get enough of a particular thing for weeks at a time. For example, during strawberry season, I went through an oatmeal obsession and ate oatmeal with fresh strawberries everyday for over four weeks.


Here are my most recent obsessions:


1. Bunheads. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this show! I'm actually watching it as I am blogging. If you haven't watched it, catch up with it online. It was created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, who created Gilmore Girls. Anyone who knows me knows that I can't get enough Gilmore Girls. I'm still going through withdrawal and the show has been cancelled for years. Sutton Foster is an amazing actress, singer, and dancer and she is even a Tony award winner. Okay, seriously... GO WATCH IT! NOW NOW NOW! New episodes every Monday at 9pm :)

2. Brussel sprouts. A couple of weeks ago, my boss brought me lunch and there were brussel sprouts involved. As of today, I have had brussel sprouts for at least one meal for the past four days. 

2. Claussen dill pickles. I have one dill pickle spear every day when I get home from work to hold me over until I am done making supper. Can't just be any dill pickle -- MUST be Claussen, "never heated," dill pickles.

3. Starbucks Pike Place roast K-cups. I actually don't like Pike Place roast brewed from Starbucks, or even when I brew it in a normal coffee pot at home, but I LOVE the K-cups. I think that when it's brewed normally, it's a little stronger than I like my coffee, but since I don't think normal K-cups are strong enough, the Pike Place K-cups are perfect. 

4. My Smith+Nephew Bone Healing System. It is a low frequency ultrasound machine that I strap to my leg with the hopes of my Tibia actually healing. The theory behind it is that the low frequency ultrasound increases blood flow to the area, blood flow promotes bone healing, and (hopefully) heals my stubborn Tibia. I have to do it at least once a day, preferably two, for 20 minutes. It's a $4,000 machine -- THANK GOD for health insurance. 

5. My "heatwave orange" broken in straight fit khakis from the Gap. I change into them when I get home from work several times a week. Jordan made some comment about me wearing the pants three or four days in one week. I am considering getting a second pair, but it's hard to think of another color to get when I already have the best color the pants came in. LOVE them, and even though they are orange, they go with a lot of colors. It's weird that I own orange pants because for the most part, the only colors I wear are white, black, navy, and gray; but all those colors look cute with the orange. Hah!

Anniversary Cake

As I mentioned in my previous post, Pap and Grandma celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary last month. I didn't know what to get them, so I decided to make them a cake to celebrate! Making a cake is truly a labor of love for me because I really don't enjoy making cake, or cupcakes, or anything cake like. I'd make 8593085943 pies over making one cake. 


I decided I was going to go balls-to-the-wall and make a really special cake that Aunt Lori always makes her family. It's a toffee cake that she got from Taste of Home. I LOVE it, but it is a lot of work. It's not hard at all, just a lot of tedious steps. I probably wouldn't make it again unless someone specifically asked for it or if I just wanted it myself -- HAH!

Tiramisu Toffee Torte


Ingredients


For the Cake:
1 package (18 1/4 ounces) white cake mix
1 cup strong brewed coffee, room temperature
4 egg whites
4 Heath candy bars (1.4 ounces each), chopped


For the Frosting:
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup chocolate syrup 
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups heavy whipping cream
6 Tablespoons strong brewed coffee, room temperature
1 Heath candy bar (1.4 ounces), chopped


Directions


Line two greased 9-in. round baking pans with waxed paper and grease the paper; set aside. In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, coffee and egg whites; beat on low speed for 30 seconds. Beat on medium for 2 minutes. Fold in chopped candy bars.


Pour into prepared pans. Bake at 350° for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool.


For frosting, in a large bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Beat in chocolate syrup and vanilla. Add the whipping cream. Beat on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.


Cut each cake horizontally into two layers. Place bottom layer on a serving plate; drizzle with 2 tablespoons of the coffee. Spread with 3/4 cup frosting. Repeat twice. Top with the remaining cake layer. Frost top and sides of cake with remaining frosting. Refrigerate overnight. Garnish with chopped candy bar. Store in the refrigerator. 


Yield: 12-14 servings.

It's Been Too Long...

I know... I have REALLY sucked at blogging lately. I really have no excuse. I went back to work after being off for over 8 months because my car accident, and the last thing I want to do when I get home is blog. Not because I don't enjoy it -- mostly because I don't have the mental capacity to think of anything to write about after working for 8 hours, making dinner, and cleaning up. 


Today, Jordan and I, along with the rest of the family, made a last minute trip down to Aunt Lori's house to bring some of her old furniture up for my brother-in-law who recently moved into a new house just down the road from me. It also happened to be her husband, Jeff's, birthday, so she had a little party for him, too!

Happy 55th Birthday, Uncle Jeff! 

We had BBQ pork sandwiches, BBQ ham sandwiches, meatball sandwiches, steamed clams, potato salad, chips and salsa, etc. And for dessert, Aunt Lori made a home made coconut cake, oreo cupcakes, and had ice cream from the Penn State creamy to go along with the cake. Everything was amazing and I practiced absolutely no self control. 


She also had an "anniversary pie" for Pap and Grandma's 55th wedding anniversary. Pap and Grandma's anniversary is actually in June, but this was the first time the majority of the family has been able to get together to celebrate.

Pap, Eve, and Grandma blowing out the candles on the 55th Wedding Anniversary Strawberry Pie!

Anyway, it was a looooong day for me. It was hot and humid out, I definitely over ate, and sitting next to a talkative 3-year-old for a 2 hour car ride is exhausting. Eventually Eve tired herself out, too!

Sleeping Beauty :)

Eagle Family

Earlier this Spring, my friend, Stephanie, showed me a bald eagle's nest down at the Northeast Fishery Center in Lamar, PA. I think Stephanie and I went down a couple of times and I only saw the nest -- the eggs were impossible to see from the ground. Since Stephanie and her family live close to the fish hatchery, they walked down one afternoon and she snapped a couple of pictures of their newest neighbors! (Thanks for letting me steal your pictures, Steph!)

Big nest with the mama eagle kind of popping up. 

Biggest nest I've ever seen!

Naturally, I told Pap and Grandma about the nest because they love to watch birds and it is so exciting to have a little eagle family so close to home. Apparently it has been years since Pap and Grandma have seen an eagle in this area. They went down to the hatchery once to try to find the nest, but were unsuccessful because of my bad directions!

Well, the eggs hatched several weeks ago and there are TWO baby eagles! Pap, Grandma, and I have gone to the hatchery several times and really only saw a little movement from the babies in the nest and no signs of mom or dad. But, yesterday afternoon we hit the jackpot! We saw the babies moving in the nest and both mom and dad perched on nearby branches! It was amazing! Each time we go, it is on a whim while we're on our way home and we are always unprepared. Here's the crappy shot I got on my iPhone.

iPhone fail. See the spot of white on the middle tree? That's the daddy eagle's head.

There were several other people there just bird watching and snapping pictures of the eagle family and I noticed a man that had a big, fancy camera. I thought maybe he was from the local paper or a professional photographer, but he was just a fan of the eagle family who happened to have an awesome camera. He had a folder of beautiful images of the eagles and other animals he had captured while spending time down at the fish hatchery. 

Sometimes I have a stroke of genius and I happened to just ask the man if he would be willing to e-mail me some shots of the birds. Thankfully, he said, "Sure. Do you have a piece of paper and a pen you could write your e-mail address on for me?" What a nice guy, right? His name is Butch Keen and he lives in the area. He could have easily said no, but I got lucky and asked a generous guy who was willing to share his pictures! Here are the beautiful shots he e-mailed me last night. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

The two babies in the nest.

Mama eagle. Her head has some brown in it because she's still young.

Daddy eagle. So beautiful and majestic.

Ceviche Success

So, I'm sitting here contemplating whether or not I'm going to go outside and put our tomato plants in the ground by myself. Jordan has been working nearly 12 hour days at work and it has been rainy in the afternoons, so who knows when he'll get the chance to help me. Either way, I'm going to need coffee in my system before I start moving.


On Monday night, I got home from the grocery store and decided I was going to attempt to make ceviche. I've been craving it because Mommy told me she was going to make it for me when she came in for the wedding; unfortunately, she didn't have the time to do it with all the crazy stuff going on between the wedding and my surgery. I e-mailed her and asked her how to make it and this is literally the response I got back from her:

"I half thaw the fish and then cut it into squares.  Marinate it in vinegar for 2-3 hours and then drain the vinegar.  I chopped onions finely, cilantro, Jalapeno and tomatoes.  Then mix the cilantro, onions, jalapeno and tomatoes with the fish and squeeze some lemons. Salt and pepper. Sometimes I add the imitation crab meat.

Momma"


Story of my life... anytime I ask my mother how to make something she gives me vague directions with no measurements. I think that is a sign of a good cook and I am definitely not past measurements yet. So, I Googled some recipes and found one that had similar ingredients to reference for measurements. I used a recipe by Marcela Valladolid for her Tilapia Ceviche from the Food Network. I ended up having a hybrid of my mom's recipe and the one from the Food Network. Here's what I got:


Nicole Joyce's Ceviche


Ingredients:
2 pounds tilapia filets, diced (This is about 4 good cups. Also, it is easier to cut when it is still partially frozen.)
3/4 cup lemon juice, divided
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup seeded, chopped tomato
1/2 cup finely chopped onion (I used a sweet onion so it wasn't as strong)
1/2 of a jalapeno, finely diced
1/4 cup chopped, fresh cilantro leaves
1/4 cup Clamato juice
Salt and pepper to taste


Directions:
Put the diced tilapia in a medium sized bowl. Pour over a 1/2 cup lemon juice and 1/2 cup white vinegar. Mix gently to combine. Cover bowl and chill in refrigerator until the fish is white throughout, approximately 2-3 hours.


Remove from the refrigerator and drain off the lemon juice and vinegar, gently squeezing the fish with your hands. Add the tomato, onion, jalapeno, and cilantro. Season with salt and pepper. Add 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/4 cup Clamato and gently toss. 


Serve with tortilla chips or on a tostada.

My pretty ceviche!

I thoroughly enjoyed the ceviche, but Jordan didn't like it too much. I don't think he likes the consistency of the "raw" fish, which is why he doesn't like sushi. Surprisingly, Pap and Grandma liked it so I definitely think I'll be making this throughout the summer. 

A Few of My Favorite Things

On Saturday afternoon, Jordan's great uncle, Barry, and his wife, Cindy, stopped by to drop off our belated wedding present and visit with us for a little while. They gave us a bottle of homemade Gewurztraminer wine in a handmade leather wine box and this AWESOME bowl that they had made by their neighbor who is into pottery. First of all, Jordan and I really like Gewurztraminer wine because we learned a lot about it when we went up to the Finger Lakes in NY last year. We even came home with a bottle of it from our favorite winery up there.


Second, the bowl is lovely! It is so unique and I am anxious to go to Michael's to find something I can use to help display the bowl upright.

My Betsy Ross flag for memorial day made it in the pic too! (Kinda)

The bowl is essentially made up of a bunch of leaves that overlap one another to make a bowl shape and she put a bundle of grapes and grape leaves on the side of it. Barry and Cindy told me that their neighbor even used the big oak leaves out of their yard to imprint the clay. Cindy originally picked it out because we were supposed to get married in the fall and she thought it would be so great because of the big leaves, but this present is wonderful any season.  Also, the grape accent is PERFECT because we have two huge grapevines on the west side of our house. 

See the grapevine under the tree? This picture was taken early spring, one of the first nice days of the season!

Barry kind of apologized to me for not getting us anything really "practical" for a wedding present but, in my opinion, this "impractical" kind of present is even better. Jordan and I lived together for two and a half years before getting married so we, along with A LOT of help from his grandparents, my parents, and Aunt Lori, have accumulated the practical stuff that is essential to running a home. Even some impractical and frivolous items, too!

I was looking around the house yesterday and realized that I had another unique piece that Aunt Lori bought me as a bridal shower present. She didn't want to get me anything off my Crate & Barrel registry, so she bought me a unique and functional art piece last summer at the State College Arts Festival.

Love that get I use this piece of art daily.

It is a kitchen utensil holder made by Melissa Carpenter of Claytime Studio, right here in State College, PA. She mostly works with stoneware and porcelain and all her pieces are FUNCTIONAL! They are meant to be used and are dishwasher, microwave, and food safe. Lori really wanted me to have something different that no one else had and it is even more special because it was the first REAL art piece we owned. I think that my little kitchen utensil holder really kick started my appreciation for unique pieces.

Jordan and I are so blessed to have such nice, thoughtful people in our lives who have taught us to appreciate one-of-a-kind, quality work. But don't get me wrong, I'd still take a Crate & Barrel gift card any day! ;)

Crazy Sunday

Man, what a Sunday Jordan and I had! 

We thought it was going to be a pretty low-key Sunday and we were planning to get some stuff done around the yard and in the garden, but sooo much more happened. The end result is a dead horse in our yard. I'm not kidding! There is LITERALLY a dead horse behind the red shed in our yard.

At about 1 in the afternoon, Jordan and I went outside to get started. As usual, it was mostly Jordan doing the work and me "helping." He took the weed-eater and trimmed around the house and edged the flower beds. Then, we went to the garden and it needed to be weeded in a bad way. We had a few rainy days followed by warm, sunny days and the weeds in the garden just exploded. Most of the stuff we originally planted is looking good, but we had to re-plant our red beet seeds because they didn't germinate. Jordan and I also decided to plant row of spinach while we were out there. Then, we figured out where we were going to put the tomato plants and all the pepper plants, cleaned it up, and put down the garden fabric.

My onion sets are getting bigger!

Row of lettuce and the new garden fabric where the peppers will go.

Great Lakes lettuce.

Butter crunch lettuce.

Two different kinds of cabbage, but I forgot the names!

Here is the first blog post about our garden if you want to compare the pictures and see how big our veggies have gotten!

Two hours into working in the garden, Pap came down on his John Deere Gator and told Jordan that his dad needed him to bring another hay wagon up to the field where he was baling. So naturally, I wanted to go for a ride and I hopped on the Gator as well so I could see what was going on up in the fields. Jordan brought up the empty hay wagon and then took the hay wagon that had been filled back down to our house so that he could back it up into the red shed until they were ready to unload it. 

Pap and I stayed up in the field and watched Jeff finish baling the last of the hay, and as we were on our way back down to the farm, Jordan called Pap on his cell phone and yelled "GET DOWN HERE NOW!!!" We had no idea what was going on, but Pap went flying down to our house and when we got closer, I realized that Jordan was holding on to a horse. The horse had a saddle and bridle on, and part of a bit in her mouth still. 


When we finally got to Jordan, I noticed that the horse was in bad shape. There was clearly something wrong with her left shoulder and front leg. There was a little blood on her, she wasn't putting weight on her left hoof and it was just kind of dangling limp. Jordan was on the phone with the police and with the SPCA trying to figure out what happened and where the horse came from when her owners drove up. The owners are our neighbors and they live on the other end of the road from us. I refused to take pictures of the horse because 1) it wasn't my horse and 2) it was in so much pain and it was kind of gruesome so I didn't think it would be right to do that. 


Here's the story about what happened from our neighbor, Joyce, who was riding the horse. Joyce said she was riding her horse through the main road in Tylersville when something drove by her and startled the horse. The horse whipped around and bucked her off. The horse ran off, and apparently must have been hit by a truck. Some of the people that live along the main road in Tylersville helped Joyce up and helped her find the horse which had turned off and came down our road. They tied up the horse to a bush until Joyce could get home and get her husband to figure out what to do with the horse. By the time Jordan got down, the horse got loose and was in the middle of the yard. The most horrible part of this story is that whoever was in the truck that hit the horse didn't even stop!!! What kind of person wouldn't stop?!? 


Unfortunately, they had to put the horse down because it was in such bad shape and there is nothing you can really do for a horse with a broken leg. Since the horse could barely walk and they wouldn't be able to get her up into a trailer, they had to put her down in our yard and cover her with a tarp until they could get someone to pick up the horse today. Thankfully, our neighbor seems to be OK, but she was going to the ER just to make sure because she landed on her hip and had scratches and scrapes on her arms and face.

Here's the proof that there's a dead horse in the yard. Thank GOD they had a tarp to cover it.

RIP horsey.

So that's how our quiet Sunday ended with a dead horse in our yard. Ooooh, the joys of living in the country. Although I'm pretty sure that his is a bizarre story for country people, too.