Iron Chef Battle: Erik vs. Gina

Battle: Erik vs. Gina with sous chefs Missy and Amanda!

This Iron Chef battle was intense considering I have never battled Erik before. It was nonstop action! Missy and Amanda chose the secret ingredient: Cashews! Yum! What a delicious secret ingredient. Who doesn't love cashews? Missy was Erik's sous chef and Amanda was my sous chef. It was so wonderful to have a sous chef to bounce ideas off of and force to chop nuts for you :). In the grueling hour, we made the following dishes.

Erik:

• Cheesey cashew chicken with cashew olives. This dish was an appetizer course. The chicken was breaded in a cashew mixture and fried. The olives were very interesting. Erik made a sweet cashew spread that he put inside the green olives. That was a creative idea.
• Cashew tacos. This was by far the most creative use of the secret ingredient. Erik mixed cashews, refried beans, and taco seasoning to create a protein filling for tacos. Then Erik and Missy created a little taco bar to make your own tacos. The cashew refried bean mixture was actually good.
• Caramel cashew tart. This was a layered phyllo dough pastry with cashews in between each layer drizzled with caramel and baked. As a finish he put ice cream and whip cream on top. While this was good, it was a little burnt.

Gina:

• Cashew fruit salad with honey lemon dressing. This was a light refreshing salad with a sweet dressing. This salad had pineapple, mandarin oranges, strawberries, blueberries, coconut, and cashews of course.
• Trio of nut scallop pasta. This dish had crushed cashews, almonds, and pecans in a light butter sauce. I also added tomatoes and basil for color however they ended up taking the spotlight where the trio of nuts should have shined. This dish was yummy, however I could have made it better without the tomato and basil.
• Cashew Caramel Creme parfaits. When Erik tasted this dish he gave me a look. The look said "you're going to win". This dish was so awesome. I mixed cream cheese, butter, cinnamon and powdered sugar and layered it with cashews, caramel, and crushed snickerdoodles. It was absolutely heavenly.
• Cashew buckeyes. For this dish I combined peanut butter, cashews, butter and powdered sugar (the usual buckeye ingredients) and dipped it in semi-sweet chocolate. Then I sprinkled some cashews on top. Amanda made little graham cracker cashew smores to balance out the plate. This was heavenly to me but after 7 heavy cashew dishes, this one was almost too much.

The score was very close. Out of a total of 40 points (since both Amanda and Missy were scoring us) I earned 32.25and Erik earned 31. I couldn't believe I was victorious! Erik was a tough competitor. This was so much fun and even Missy and Amanda enjoyed themselves.

While Missy and Amanda were here, Missy tapped with Jenna and Sarah (see picture). Missy takes tap dancing so they were able to all tap together. It was so cute.
In other exciting news, we bought a new 7' long dining room table and now we actually have a dining room instead of two playrooms. This table is so massive it takes up the whole dining room. It should be great when we have family over and for our Tuesday night Bible studies. Tomorrow I'm making sun dried tomato chicken pasta. Yum!

Today I did terrible at Quiddler 68 points and lost the z and j. Who likes those letters anyway?

Iron Chef: Pecorino Romano

You would think I would do really well with the secret ingredient of pecorino romano. It is a delicious, salty, rich cheese. But I think I dropped the ball on this one. I was overly ambitious - trying to make a pavlova but it ended up not working.

For iron chef pecorino romano, I made:

• Greek style couscous with a twist. Couscous + 20 month old daughter = disaster. Sarah got into the couscous and it was everywhere. EVERYWHERE. However the dish I made had pecorino romano cheese, tomatoes, and green olives. Which is a twist on the greek olives and feta cheese. At least that was what it was meant to be ;).


• Three cheese pizza. So this was fabulous! I shredded pecorino romano, fresh mozarella, and fresh provolone cheese on top of fresh basil, diced tomatoes, pepperoni and spices. YUM!


• Pecorino romano stuffed chicken. I put chicken in breading and then stuffed it with the cheese. I thought this would be amazing and it was good but not amazing.


• Roasted pear pavlova. So this was a flop. I made a cheese filling and roasted the pears. Then I made a meringue base for the pavlova. The ingredients separately were good but together they really didn't mesh all that well.

Erik and I both rated my iron chef as 14.25 a rather low rating considering the awesomeness of the secret ingredient.

In much more exciting news, Erik got a new job. He won't start the new job for a few weeks but he got a nice raise and will be working from home all the time. Boo-yah! This will result in much less laundry for me to do and I'll be able to see Erik more (which is actually better than doing less laundry). Since I also got a promotion and a fancy raise (I'm a senior professor now!) Erik thinks we will be able to pay the house off much faster. Even though I'd rather keep the same rate and give and spend more!

I just finished reading the Black Unicorn by Terry Brooks and it was fantastic. I'm really liking this series.

Our Bible study season has started again with the church. We will be discussing Twisting the Truth by Andy Stanley. It is a video series. This year for Bible study I've also decided to make dinner every week. I actually really enjoy it and it alleviates the stress of trying to feed families and get to our house in time. So I'm setting up a menu. This is something I enjoy.

68 on Quiddler today and I got to make the word bidden.

"Playing" Bible study

Today I babysat Nicholas for a few hours while Jenny took her other two kids to the Doctor's office. I was playing with Sarah and Jenna and Nicholas were playing Bible study. Ummm.... how many 4 and 5 year olds play Bible study :). It was so awesome to hear them playing Bible study and talking about all the things God made. Jenna and Nicholas were the leaders and me and Sarah were learning about God. It was a very educational study.





Since I got the Starbucks cards to hand out at the clinic I was sure I'd have tons of women coming to me and lots of "saves". No. Every week I come home sad that no women turn around or want to save their baby. It is disheartening but I will keep pressing on. There must be some reason God has me here.

In other news:

1. At night before bed, Erik and I started reading The Reason for God by Tim Keller. It is more of an "intellectual" book (I like putting random words in "quotes") as the author makes logical claims against some of the big skeptical issues with God (eg. what about other religions, why is there pain and suffering, etc). It's a great read!
2. I've also started reading Startide Rising by David Brin. So I can finish my list of combined Hugo and Nebula award winners. It's pretty interesting but when I have a choice, I go back to the Black Unicorn by Terry Brooks. That's a more interesting book and I'm almost finished with it.
3. I've also started reading the Host by Stephenie Meyer the author of the Twilight Series. I've heard mixed reviews on this book but I hope it will be good.
4. Erik and I are planning on doing Iron chef and playing racquetball this weekend - I have the best husband in the world!
5. 83 points on quiddler today and got to make the word "goat". Not really sure if that's news.

Iron Chef Erik: Lemons

On Monday Erik was the Iron Chef with lemons as the secret ingredient. Erik wowed me with his ideas as they were completely different than what I would have done with lemons. Erik made:

• Sweet lemon scallops. Erik cooked the scallops in olive oil and lemon juice and served them in lemon rinds with a sauce made of lemon juice and sugar. I love scallops so this was a big hit for me.


• Fruit salad with lemon. Yum!! Lemon is a fruit but is much more tart than traditional summer fruits. However Erik had the right balance of tartness and sweetness in the fruit salad. He also served the fruit salad in a scooped out watermelon.


• Lemon and sweet pepper sushi. Sushi? Erik? Huh? Yes, Erik bought sushi wrappers when he went to the store which made me curious. He even used jasmine rice that was flavored with lemon and a little sugar. Then put cut lemon rinds with peppers in the middle. Erik had never made sushi before, and this sushi was wonderful. Creative, fun, and delicious!


• Raspberry lemon tart. This tart consisted of phyllo dough baked and layered with lemons, mandarin oranges, and rapsberry jam. Yum! We couldn't get enough of it.
  

Erik rated himself a 16.125 and I rated him a 15.25. Overall it was a fabulous iron chef competition!

I was looking at the family picture we took in Florida and thought something was missing. Yes - a third baby. No I'm not pregnant, but I wanted to see what our family would be like with a third baby. I think our family looks awesome! What? Me? Photoshop? You can't tell can you?

Now that we are members of lifetime again, I met with a personal trainer who calculated my body fat percentage. It was approximately 90%. So she wanted to put me in this class for $500 that meets three times a week at 6am so I can get fit. No thank you. I'll stick with the 90% body fat.

In even more exciting news, my EQ2 character has dueled Erik's several times and he has never beat me! It's like the opposite of when we play squash :). I never thought my paladin would do so well against his awesome wizard.

76 points on quiddler today. yor is not a word. who knew?

09-09-09

Today is 09-09-09 and I feel to the nines today. Today was Jenna's first day of her pre-ballet/tap class. She has never done tap dancing before so I wasn't sure if she'd like it. She loved tap dancing! The shoes make noise - what's not to love? It was also her first day of preschool. Today we moved Jenna to a pre-k class. This class meets 4 times a week M-R in the afternoons. Apparently the class has more academic rigor (as much as preschool can have).

On Saturday, the girls and I drove up to Canton for Amanda's surprise graduation party. She got her Bachelor's degree from Walsh University - Yea! I snapped a picture as she walked in - she was SO surprised! The party was awesome too with chicken parmesan and lasagna - yum. Megan made a delicious cake and we got to see the Canton Vineyard up close.

On Monday a salesman came to our door to sell us Clean and Simple cleaner. Now this salesman was a high pressure salesman and I have trouble saying no to people even when they are very pushy. Not sure what my problem is. Anyway he tried to sell me this product for $224. Umm...no. The product did seem to clean everything well. Finally I gave in and bought one gallon for $75 (the guy would NOT leave!). After he left I told Erik that apparently this stuff is supposed to save us money, at which point Erik told me we usually buy a gallon of 409 at Sams for $10. So I decided to test Clean and Simple on my horrible carpet. As you can see, it did clean the carpet - but $75 worth?? I'm not so sure.

Right now, I'm coordinating the seating for the Pregnancy Decision Health Center banquet in October. It's been quite a task as they are expecting around 800 people. Alan Keyes is the keynote speaker so it should be an interesting event. What I've noticed as I've been registering people for the event is that of all the cities around Columbus, Powell is the most represented (not even counting me since I have to teach that night!). I find this very interesting and happy that my city is pro-life :).

Today I thought I was doing well on Quiddler until I got to this combination of letters (that apparently can make a word): C, R, B, CL, S, X, R, T

What can you make with that?

Shapes!

As Jenna and I were talking about shapes, I realized I hadn't made a list of my favorite shapes. What a huge error on my part! I left you hanging as to if I like a parallelogram or isoceles triangle more! Well the wait is up - here is my list of top 10 favorite shapes.

1. Right triangle. This made the top of my list because of the Pythagorean theorem. a^2+b^2=c^2. That's good stuff. Even better is when you have nice round numbers like 3, 4, and 5 as the lengths of the sides.
2. Circle. The circle is such a perfect shape and provides lots of jokes such as pi r square, no pi are round.
3. Figure 8 (infinity symbol). This has sentimental value to me. At the beginning of our relationship when Erik and I would drive somewhere separately, we would always sign the infinity symbol in the rearview mirror. The infinity symbol to us meant everlasting love.
4. Annulus. This is a circle within a circle and is thus a donut shape. The area for this is equal to pi*(R^2-r^2). I just like donuts.
5. Square. I always felt in life that "it's hip to be square". And have always loved the Heuy Lewis Song - it's pretty much the story of my life.
6. Isosceles trapezoid. This shape has two equal length sides and has a nice line of symmetry down the middle. Also, who doesn't like the name trapezoid.
7. Octagon. A stop sign is in the shape of an octagon so this is a shape we see all the time. It's bright and red and in your face.
8. Ellipse. This is a circle that has been stepped on. Another name for an ellipse is an oval and I think it is a perfectly good name for an ellipse. When Jenna identified an ellipse as an oval in preschool, her teacher marked her wrong (ellipse = oval in the mind of a 4 year old).
9. Isosceles triangle. This triangle has two equal sides. While not nearly as cool as the right triangle, it has a line of symmetry like the isosceles trapezoid, so it's pretty cool in my book.
10. Triquetra. What is this shape you might wonder? The triquetra is a shape that can be best described as a glorified triangle. Check out the link. It was used as an early Christian symbol to represent the Trinity. It is also used in Celtic art quite a bit. I think it is pretty.

Well here is my list of favorite shapes. You can now rest easy that you know this.

In other news:

• I have started a new semester in which I'll be teaching Mon, Thurs, Fri. Who wants to take classes on a Friday night?
• In an attempt to be completely confusing, we've decided to join Lifetime again. I really miss playing squash with Erik. So what if it's a hundred dollars a month (ouch!)
• I'm reading a new book by David Baldacci called The Winner. My Mom reads his novels and I'm enjoying it quite a bit.
• We are planning an Iron Chef competition soon so you can be on the edge of your seat waiting for it.
• Got 77 on Quiddler today. Not a very good score. I really think "denny" is a word.

A Tropical Oasis!

A tropical oasis is the best way to describe the house we stayed at last week in Orlando, Florida. It is a house provided by Missy's company: Hyland Software as a perk to the managers. What an awesome perk!! The house had 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a Wii, pool table, air hockey, and an outdoor paradise! The pool was connected to a hot tub and the whole thing was enclosed in a screen to keep the massive Florida bugs out. My Mom and Dad, Missy, Me, Erik and the girls all went on this trip.

Erik and I relived our childhoods in the pool with our numerous challenges. We were shocked that the rest of the family did not want to participate! Here is a list of our challenges in the pool:

1. Waterfall challenge - this challenge involved swimming behind the waterfall in the deep end (6') without touching the wall or waterfall. It was actually quite difficult. Erik achieved 96-4 (96 successful attempts and 4 touches) and I went 97-3 so I was the victor.
2. Breath holding challenge - in this challenge, we had to see how many times we could swim the width of the pool before taking a breath. Erik went 6 laps and I only managed 5. So he was the victor.
3. Ball catching challenge - now it is getting exciting! This challenge involves jumping off of the wall and catching a beach ball mid jump and surfacing still holding the ball. This challenge we tied with 10 attempts apiece. We were just too good at that one :).
   
   So we had a blast in the pool. Besides the goofy challenges we went to Sea World ($75 per person! Yikes!) and downtown Disney. At downtown Disney we spent just as much money as Sea World on toys. Even so, Jenna absolutely loves her My Little Pony Build-a-Pony. Here we could stuff as much My Little Pony paraphenalia (crap) as we could into a little box for $18. It was a great deal and I've had more fun playing with it than Jenna has :).

57 on Quiddler today. Apparently myd is not a word??