Spring at Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge

Saturday was such an incredibly beautiful day that we had to get outside for the afternoon. We decided to head down to Noxubee to see what it looks like in the spring time. So far there isn't much growing, but it was still really pretty. The trees here have just barely started leafing out, but any fruit trees around here have been blooming for a week or two now and are so pretty. There are Asian Pear trees (I believe that's what Ethan said they're called) all over town that are just covered in blossoms and they make me think of a certain primary song every time I see them.

I looked out the window and what did I see...

When we got to Noxubee we were amazed at the difference in the water levels from the first time we were here. There's a small stream that you cross over right after you get on the refuge that was just a trickle the first time we were there. This weekend it was bigger than most of the rivers I grew up around. We stopped by the boardwalk that we took our first time there, and here are some pictures from both this visit and our very first visit.

The swamp this weekend.

The swamp in August.

Submerged log this weekend.

Unsubmerged log in August. Notice that the water level is high enough for this to have moved several feet. The tree in the bottom left corner in this picture is the one near the middle of the log in the picture from this weekend.

One of my favorite things I've seen around here this spring is the Red Bud tree. It grows wild out in the woods around here, and is so pretty! It just pops out at you from among the bare brown branches when you least expect to see anything pretty. While there are some of these growing in people's yards, most of them are just out in the woods. I love them!

Once we'd finished sitting on the boardwalk looking at the swamp and the lake, we headed over to the picnic area to have some dinner. We threw a blanket out on the ground, fired up our Volcano Grill, and just enjoyed the afternoon. Erik was loving getting to be outside. He was fascinated by everything going on around us, especially the cars driving by.

Somehow we made it down there with only one plastic fork between the two of us, and it was too wimpy to cut our pork steaks anyways, so we ended up just eating caveman style. We both got a kick out of it though. The very first cook-out we did after we moved to Idaho the same thing happened, so we thought this ended up being perfect. Apparently it's now a tradition to have no flatware for our inaugural cook-out when we move somewhere new.

Did you notice what Erik chose to eat for his dinner?

 

After we finished eating, we just hung out there on our blanket and watched the sunset over Bluff lake. It was a perfect afternoon.

Revolutionary Mac & Cheese, Testing a new Recipe

I recently became a follower of the blog Pinstrosity, which I'm loving so far. If you don't know what it's all about I suggest going and checking it out. There's some really fun stuff on there! A few days ago they posted a recipe for Revolutionary Macaroni and Cheese, and after reading through the recipe I was intrigued. I decided to give it a try for lunch today and see what I could find out about it.

Since it was just me at home I decided to only make a half a batch, so that I wouldn't have mountains of questionable mac & cheese on hand. Then I split that half batch between two pans, one to make following the original directions exactly (the control batch) and one that I could play around with (the test batch).

For the control batch I followed the directions from the recipe as exactly as possible. The only deviation was that I think I ended up using almost twice as much milk as it said to. If I had let that pasta go for 20 minutes without adding some milk, it wouldn't have had enough liquid to cook the pasta and it would have burned to the bottom of the pan. I'm not sure exactly how much I added, I just put in a few drops every time it got too dry. The recipe says to add the mustard to taste so I put a little in at a time, but for my taste preferences it needed all the mustard. I also followed the recipe's suggestion to add more milk at the end to make it more creamy, otherwise it would have been inedibly dry. I was skeptical about the need to cover it and let it rest for 5 minutes after cooking, but the pasta seemed to absorb even more liquid as it sat and that may have enhanced the richness of the pasta, though I can't prove that.

For the test batch I made several changes. The original recipe says to cook your pasta for 20 minutes, which seemed like a huge amount of time to me, so I only cooked my test batch for about 15 minutes. I also made a few other changes like adding the salt to the pasta while it cooked instead of afterwords, adding more cheese, and using ground dry mustard instead of the prepared Dijon mustard. I skipped the step where you let your pasta rest for 5 minutes.  

So what were the results you ask? Well, here we go. I'll start with the test batch. I think the pasta itself had more flavor from being cooked in the salt instead of the salt being added at the end. I thought the more subtle flavor of the ground mustard would be better for this dish but I didn't end up liking it. Granted, I do think I got too much in there, but I still think it wouldn't have been that great. The texture was rich and creamy, but tasted incredibly bland (except for the overpowering mustard) even though I added extra cheese. This recipe could be called Creamy Macaroni, but I wouldn't add cheese to the name. That's more than a little misleading. What surprised me most was that the noodles were definitely under cooked, despite the unusually long cooking time. I realized though that instead of boiling your pasta like usual, you're just simmering it so it makes sense that you'd have to cook it longer. Duh! 

Now for the control batch. It was rich and creamy, the hint of Dijon mustard was a nice addition. Again, the flavor was incredibly bland. If it weren't for the mustard there would have been no flavor at all. There is such a small amount of cheese that I really couldn't taste it at all. The pasta was cooked to just about the perfect doneness and yet still had a really odd texture.

After thinking about it and doing a little research, here's my hypothesis as to the weird texture. Pasta contains starch which normally cooks out into the water and is drained off. What little starch remains stays in the pasta to help give it texture. Since there was no liquid to drain off along with the starch it all stayed right there in the sauce. Also, if the starches in pasta are similar to the starches in rice, than the more you stir it the more starch is released. That is how risotto gets its creamy richness. This means that not only are you not getting rid of the starch that comes out during cooking, but because milk requires frequent stirring while cooking, you're actually encouraging the release of MORE starch into your sauce, hence the bizarre texture.

So my final conclusion? The original recipe is just not that great, but it makes an edible product if you're not too picky. The sauce is too starchy, there's not enough cheese, it just isn't great. If you want good Mac 'n' Cheese, then either stick to the beloved blue box, or make your own with a tried and true recipe (once I've finished scraping pasta starch off the roof of my mouth I'll have to make my mom's recipe and post it here for anyone who's interested). Honestly by the time you stand there and simmer the dumb stuff for 20 minutes, you've put in enough time to have done a quality job, so why not do it right to begin with?

A New Toy, a New Outfit, and a Day at the Park

 Some of our friends here in our branch invited us over to hang out and play games the other night. They felt bad that their little one was enough older than Erik that they didn't have any baby toys for Erik to play with, so they pulled their son's old jumper out of the closet for us to borrow. Erik fell in love with it immediately. That evening he was pretty worn out, so I think he mostly just played with the toys on the tray and didn't realize the jumping that he could do. The next morning I set him up at our house and it took him just a few seconds to realize what he could do. It was really fun to watch.
Sorry about the blurry pictrues, but he didn't want to hold still for any longer than he had to.

"Mom did you see what this thing can do?"

This is soooo much fun!

Erik is a pretty quiet kid, and it takes a lot to get him excited enough to make any noise. As he was figuring out how to work this he kept laughing and squealing. It was really cute!

Before Erik was born I started hitting all the yardsales in town picking up baby clothes for cheap. This is my all time favorite find ever, and I've been waiting pretty impatiently for him to finally grow into it. I got this entire ensemble for $1.00! Isn't is adorable?! Erik just wants to eat the camera and doesn't care that he looks awesome.

The other day Ethan was going to be home all day and the weather was beautiful, so we decided to go play at the park. We started out by going to the park that's right by our house, but there weren't any baby swings. We tried one a little farther from home, and again we had the same problem. We finally ended up at the park that is farthest from where we live, but atleast it had baby swings! Erik wasn't too sure what he thought about them at first. He looked up at me and started to tear up, and then when he saw my smile he decided to re-evaluate the situation. Luckily, on second thought, Erik decided that this wasn't too bad. In fact it was down right awesome!

Had it been up to him, I think Erik would've stayed in the swing until he puked, but I wasn't a huge fan of that idea. So after a little while we decided it was time to move on. We tried out the slide, which was a complete flop. He was completely uninterested in it. Not scared or excited. I don't think he really even noticed it at all. Next we moved on to the musical toys. Our park has a neat set of toys that are set up so you can actually play music on them.

He had a hard time with this one. The mallet was just a little too big to hold in one hand, and he's not great at using both hands together. He played around with this for a few minutes, and then he saw a toy that looked ten times more fun.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Please can I eat the camera?"

It was a really fun way to spend an afternoon. I'm looking forward to more days like this one.

 

Our Valentine's dinner recipes...

So it took me more than a few days, but all the food we had for our fancy dinner is now finally up. Here are the recipes and some pictures for anyone who's interested.

Caprese  Salad Skewers

Potage Crecy

Pomegranate Glazed Cornish Hens with Wild Rice Stuffing

Chocolate Tiramisu

Happy Birthday to Me!

I'm really bummed, as I was getting ready to post this I accidentally deleted about half the pictures we'd taken of all our fun and I'm too cheap to pay for recovery software to get them back. So you'll have to make do with the pictures I got and imagine the rest.

Ethan took me out for a birthday lunch on Saturday. We went to The Little Dooey, a BBQ place that has won the award for the best BBQ in Mississippi, as well as the top 5 lunches of 2011 in Maxim Magazine. It was pretty yummy, although we've been to another less well known BBQ place in town that we thought was just as good if not better. I had the Brisket, which we pretty good, but Grandpa Llyod's is better.

Ethan had pulled pork and ribs. I think he really enjoyed it.

Mixed in with our onion rings was a southern favorite. Ethan ate one at first on accident, and so I had one too so that I could at least say I'd tried it. This is a deep fried pickle. Yuck! Now I can say I've tried it and I never have to eat another one!

Erik was a little dissapointed that all he got was water and some nibbles of bread, but he was willing to take as much of that as I'd give him. He just loves to eat and will eat anything you give him, whether it tastes yummy or not.

The view from our table was kinda fun. This cemetary is just across the street and looked really cool. Ethan's wandered around in it and says there are parts that look like nobody new has been buried there in over a hundred years. One of these days Erik and I will have to go check it out!

We went to lunch on Saturday becuase I wanted to cook a big dinner for my birthday. I had planned on doing this menu for Valentine's day, but things were just too hectic that week and we had to postpone it. So for our combined Valentine's/Birthday dinner, we had:

You can see the Caprese Salad Skewers in this picture of our table setting, but you'll have to go to the Mower family cooking blog to see the rest of the food. It may take me a day or two to get all the posts up, so bear with me.

And here end the pictures. I'm really not sure how I managed to delete half the pictures on my memory card, but oh well. We waited until Erik had gone down for the evening to start our dinner, and it was really fun. After dinner, Ethan brought out the presents he'd gotten for me. He got me new pillows for our bed(our old ones were so flat and tired they barely did anthing. Ethan was always stealing mine to double up with his so that he'd have a thick enough pillow, so I told him that this was on the top of my bday list), two cake pans to replace my old worn out ones, a strainer (ours got left behind in Rexburg, oops!), and a reed diffuser for our living room. Maybe none of these things sound great to anyone else, but they were exactly what I wanted so it was awesome!

After presents and dessert we watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and called it a night. It was a great birthday, exactly what I had wished for!

My goals for this year...

So I know that it's well past New Year's Day when most people set their resolutions for the year, but I guess I'm just a little slow. I've seen several people make lists of up to a hundred things they want to do in a year, and the more of them I read, the more I think I want to do that too. More than anything it's just a fun way to keep track of what you've accomplished and what you still need to work on. So, despite how silly I feel for copycatting everyone else, I'm going to post my goal list for this year. You'll probably notice that I stopped a ways before 100, but it's taken me a long time to come up with these goals and I wanted to get them posted before the year was half way over. I also wanted to leave room to add new goals throughout the year since you never know what's going to happen and what new opportunities will pop up. So here's my list, wish me luck!

1.       Finish everything I’ve been assigned for a month for my Relief Society calling.

2.       Stick to my daily cleaning rules for 1 month.

3.       Put names to faces of 70 Relief Society sisters

-35 on 1/17/12

4.       Grow a successful garden

5.        Make a special gift for Ethan, just because I love him.

6.        Cook a new food once a month

7.        Sew three articles of clothing

8.       Make/do something from pinterest every week.

9.       Read at least one book a month

-January: Jacob T. Marley, by R. William Bennett

-February: Being George Washington, by Glenn Beck

10.   Reach my weight goal and maintain it until the end of the year.

11.    Reach a weight of 150 lbs. by Easter

12.    Reach a weight of  145 lbs.  by July 4^th

13.    Reach a weight of  140 lbs.  by Halloween

14.     Reach a weight of 135 lbs. by New Year’s Eve

15.     Make a new decoration for the following holidays: Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, 4^th of July

16.     Visit three new places in MS

17.    Read the news once a week

18.   Exercise every weekday for a month

19.     Attend the temple at least twice

20.   Practice piano at least twice a week

21.     Perform a random act of kindness for a stranger.

22.   Go on at least three hikes

23.   Make a fruit or vegetable side dish with every dinner for two weeks

24.   Do something nice for Brenda and her family 6 times.

-Took them cookie dough brownies

25.   Get my visiting teaching done before the half way point in the month.

26.   Invite people over at least once a month

27.   Sew Erik's Halloween costume

28.    Expand our year supply at least once a month

29.    Eat three servings of fruits and veggies every day for a week

30.   Eat three servings of fruits and veggies every day for a month

31.    Drink at least 6 glasses of water everyday

32.    Host a meeting for each RS club

33.   Sew a shower curtain

34.   Have a special dinner for Valentine’s Day
        Our Dinner

35.   Go camping

36.   Make a new kind of cake from scratch

37.   Finish Reading the New Testament

38.   Read the Book of Mormon

39.   Have family scriptures every day for one month

40.   Have family prayer everyday for one month

41.    Follow our Christmas Advent Calendar

42.   Read the entire Ensign every month

43.   Learn 6 new hairstyles

44.   Go on a picnic/cookout

45.   Complete one quilt

46.   Read my scriptures every day for 2 weeks

47.   Read my scriptures every day for a month

48.   Teach Erik at least 6 signs

49.   Stay within our budget in every category for one month.

50.   Cook a three course meal for no reason but the fun of it.

51.    Knit something

52.   Make a decoration for each room of the house.

53.   Keep my porch swept clean for 2 weeks.

54.   Visit our family

55.   Have FHE every week for a month 

56.   Take “formal” portraits of Erik

57.   Visit New Orleans

58.   Visit Atlanta, GA

59.   Post on my blog at least once a week for a month

60.   Visit Nauvoo, IL

61.    Write in my journal at least once a week.

62.   Exercise daily (weekdays) for two weeks

63.   Exercise daily (weekdays) for one month

64.   Get a scholarship for Ethan

65.   Make a Christmas present for all my family members

66.   Write a letter to Steve once a month

67.   Call and write to Betsy every month

68.   Become better friends with the neighbors

69.   Make a pillow case to match Erik’s quilt

70.   Use the vinyl lettering from Aunt Melanie to make a wall hanging for Erik’s room

71.    Finish Erik’s stocking

72.   Learn enough sign language to have a conversation

73.   Have a conversation with Judy in sign language

74.   Read the lesson for Relief Society every Sunday for a month

75.   Write or call both my sets of Grandparents every month

76.   Complete this list (to 100) of things I want to do this year.