I don’t know what’s come over me lately. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have the opportunity to nest while I was pregnant, but lately I’ve had this powerful urge to get our home in order. I’ve posted about some of my decorating endeavors. Emergency preparedness has been on my mind lately, especially after the fire. And I’ve been buying food and water storage like a mad woman.

Anyhoo, this week I made bread. Really good bread. I got the recipe at a from a lady who did a presentation for our Relief Society. I’m telling you people, this bread is awesome! When I tried a piece, I knew I had to get the recipe. It’s light, chewy and peanut-butter-sandwich worthy. Not like the wheat bread bricks I’ve eaten before.

So I thought I’d spread the love. I’d give ya a loaf if I could, but sharing the recipe will just have to do I guess. If you’re not into grinding your own wheat, remember you can buy wheat flour! The first batch I made was with store-bought white wheat flour. I’ve also tried red wheat, but we prefer the white wheat. Both work with this recipe, but we liked the taste and texture better of the white wheat.

I sat in a CPR class for 7 hours today. I had to become certified for work. I forgot how exhausting it is to just sit and listen to someone lecture. I think since having Link my attention span has gotten shorter. I was so ansy by the end, I could have screamed! I kept thinking I should have packed more snacks. And a coloring book would have been nice too.

Oh and tonight we went to Pei Wei for dinner. Have you seen their fountain drink dispenser? Seriously one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. I felt like I was in “Back to the Future.” I think they called it the Coca Cola Freestyle. Anyway, it’s this pod thing that has a touch screen where you select your flavor of soda. Sounds kinda simple, but here’s the thing, there are more than 100 combinations to try. Tonight I had peach-Sprite, vanilla-Diet Coke, and my favorite was orange-caffine-free-Diet Coke.

Miles and I have been trying to consume less meat lately. No it’s not just because we’ve turned “Californian,” it’s mostly because meat is just so darn expensive. And there are health benefits to not eating as much meat. Anyway, it’s been a fun challenge trying to find yummy vegetarian recipes. I’ve actually found quite a few we like. Here are just a couple we really like and are bordering on being in love with. Not really, but you get the point.

Red Lentil and Sweet Potato Curry

This one is awesome, just ask Hope.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
Coarse sea salt or kosher salt
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks
1 (1 inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
 ( I used minced ginger from the jar)
1 large or 2 small garlic cloves, chopped
1 tbsp curry powder
1 bay leaf
1 ½ cups red lentils (Red lentils seem a bit hard to find so you might have to look at some sort of specialty store. They sell them near us at Wholesome Choice. Let me just tell you that red lentils are way better than your average lentils! You must give them a try to rid yourself of all your preconceived notions about this wonderful legume)

Directions:

1. In a saucepan or kettle, bring 3 ½ cups of water to a boil.

2. In a large saucepan over high heat, warm the oil. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and sauté, stirring occasionally, until the onion softens, and 3 to 4 minutes.

3. Add the sweet potato, ginger, garlic, curry powder and bay leaf and sauté until fragrant, about 1 minute. Pour in the boiling water and stir in the lentils. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until the lentils break down and the sweet potatoes are tender, 18 to 20 minutes. Season with salt.

4. Serve with warm pita bread. Serves 4.

The second recipe also calls for sweet potatoes, so it would be smart to include both of these meals on your menu for the weeek.

Addictive Sweet Potato Burritos

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
6 cups canned kidney beans, drained
2 cups water
3 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
4 teaspoons prepared mustard
1 pinch cayenne pepper, or to taste
3 tablespoons soy sauce
4 cups cooked and mashed sweet potatoes (suggest peeling then boiling the potatoes. Don’t microwave them like I did—it was a mess)
12 (10 inch) flour tortillas, warmed
8 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. Heat oil in a medium skillet, and saute onion and garlic until soft. Stir in beans, and mash. Gradually stir in water, and heat until warm. Remove from heat, and stir in the chili powder, cumin, mustard, cayenne pepper and soy sauce.

3. Divide bean mixture and mashed sweet potatoes evenly between the warm flour tortillas. Top with cheese. Fold up tortillas burrito style, and place on a baking sheet.

4. Bake for 12 minutes in the preheated oven, and serve.

The past week has been incredibly eventful and fun!

It started when my sister and her family arrived last Sunday night. She, her husband, and three girls came to celebrate her two oldest daughters’ birthdays. On Monday we spent the day at the beach. Laguna Beach. My favorite beach. Parking usually stinks at Laguna, but this time of year it’s not too bad.

And of course they spent the mandatory two days at Disneyland. Miles and I devoted an entire day to Disney (using our beloved annual passes). The second day, I sent my sister with her husband and two oldest girls and I offered to watch their youngest (almost 3-year-old). Watching two little ones wore me out more than spending the entire day at Disneyland! I don’t know how mothers with more than one do it! By the end, I was counting the minutes until they walked through the door!

On Pirates of the Caribbean. Link freaked out on this ride and clung to mommy the whole time!

Link enjoys the carousel.

Waiting in line for the Pinocchio ride. Link didn’t dig this one either!

We found that using the backpack was much easier than a stroller. Link enjoyed just hanging out.

10-year-old Kiarah was brave and went on Space Mountain with me and her mom.

The birthday girls!

The girls’ favorite part was meeting the Disney Princesses: Ariel, Jasmine, and Belle.

Bell was their favorite.

My try-out pose for becoming a Disney Princess.

And this is Nate’s pose.

And here are the girls showing off their new princess merchandise. Notice Avery posing in her new Belle flipflops.

Here she is again.

And again

It was so much fun to see my sister and her family. I love my nieces to death. Nate is a stud and is so easy to be around. Their visit flew by. I miss them. Good thing I’m planning a trip to St. George in June!

So my sister’s family and my parents basically passed each other on the freeway. My sister left of Thursday for home, and my parents drove in to California Thursday night. My mom and dad were kind enough to watch Lincoln while Miles and I went on an overnighter (our first night away from Link) for our fourth anniversary. It was perfect! Link was an angel which made it so much easier to be away.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We stayed in the Hyatt on the Back Bay in Newport. We ate at an amazing seafood restaurant (The Cannery) which is right on the bay. You can literally drive your boat up and park (if we had a boat that is). I had the crusted halibut with these purple sweet potatoes and champagne sauce, and Miles had the swordfish that had a nummy mustard sauce. Both dishes were incredible. We had two desserts that night. Decadent Chocolate Molten Cake from the restaurant and a Reese’s Chocolate Peanutbutter Carmel Apple from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. We had the left overs for breakfast in the hotel room!

Then, because we didn’t have our normal 7:00 pm curfew (Link’s bedtime) we went to a late showing of Star Trek. Miles loved it. And it was just alright for me. Just not my kind of movie I guess. But good for what it was.

We didn’t get to sleep until 2:00 in the morning! Then, we got to sleep in, but couldn’t sleep later than 9:00am. I guess that’s what happens when you get up at 6:00ish every morning (including weekends) for the past year. We were meaning to go for a run around the Back Bay loop trail right from our hotel room, but Miles forgot his shoes. Luckily we were close enough to home where we could swing by and pick them up. We finally got on the trail at about 1:30 in the afternoon. The run was hot, muggy, long (10.5 miles) and there wasn’t much water along the trail so we were miserably thirsty. I seemed like the worst run of my life! We did it though and afterwords we went straight to the closest gas station and bought 2 gallons of liquid (water and gatorade). Then we went and relaxed in the hotel hot tub and took a refreshing poolside nap. Ahhhh. Perfect!