5 Course Meal

Ok, so I love to cook and not everyday cuisine...I LOVE foo foo food. Fancy food using ingredients a few years ago I didn't even know exsisted. Here is my Sunday dinner. I made a 5 course meal for Mimi and I. 1st course was a pancetta wrapped shrimp with basil, garlic and lemon zest. 2nd course was my favorite salad. Spring mixed greens with goat cheese, green apples, pine nuts, and dried cranberries. Its topped off with a balsamic fig dressing...my favorite!!

3rd course is a salmon filet with pea puree and lemon garlic butter broth.

4th course was a lemon basil pasta with white truffle oil and asiago cheese!

Dessert course is a trio of cheesecake bits. Plain, white chocolate raspberry and turtle.

My kids get a little scared at some of my creations, but I hope I can expand their palates a little more so they like more than just tater tot casserole! :)

Tagged...

Thanksgiving 2007...what more can I say. A picture is worth a thousand words!
I tag Wendy, Chandra and Stasha...5th folder, any picture...make it good! LOL

Vincente Stop Growing...Please!

I am so sad because my baby is growing too fast for me. I love his smile and his personality that is coming out. His laugh is incredible and melts my heart. I love this little man of mine!!

This is Vincente and Gavin eating Cheetos at our grocery store yesterday...cracks me up how mature he is!

I caught him standing up at the coffee table and I started to cry..."Sit down!" My kids thought I was crazy. He ended up falling over side ways, that'll teach him to stand up...:(

The Golden Birthday Celebration

This year Nohemy had a pretty horrible birthday. She was staying with her mother during her "Golden Birthday". For those who don't know what a Golden Birthday is, its when you turn the same age as your birth date. Anyway, on her birthday, she broke her toe and was in the hospital for the better part of the afternoon...pobrecita! She didn't get any cake or presents. Needless to say she was depressed about that. Well, a few weeks ago she wanted to go out just her and I to celebrate our Golden Birthdays, it just so happened my was this year too. I took her to my favorite resturant called the Pair. We had a very grown up cheese plate and mocktinis. She had such a great time, we got all dressed up and stayed out till 10:00. Mimi thought it was cool to be in such a fancy resturant. I love that girl and now I have someone who loves the Pair as much as I do!!

I look exhausted...10:00 is about as late as I can go...hehe!

My New Passion

I have always loved Italian breads, but they can be soooo expensive. Well, I ordered this DVD from off the internet on how to make Artisan bread. So, I have started making my own bread at home. These breads take about 12 hours to make, but they are so delicious. Tonight I made 5 loaves and these were the last 3 to come out of the oven. The top photo is pancetta, provolone and mozzarella. The bottom two are tyme, oreagano and asiago cheese. The smell in my house is so amazing right now, I wish we had smellavision so you all could experience this. Yum!

The one on the left is the pancetta. Look at those herbs on the right two loaves, how pretty is that!

The kids want me to leave the light on in the oven so they can see when the loaves start to turn golden and they can see the cheeses begin to bubble.

Check out all the oozing cheese! Not a low calorie food!!!

I Have A Confession To Make!

So since Devan has been in Canada, I've been a little bit obsessed with anything Canadian. The last few weeks, I've seen a lot of Canadian flags being flown around town...and well let's just say I've stocked a couple of people. The first photos I am sorry to say the lady was quite afraid of me taking pictures of her. Notice her handicap sticker in the rear view...oops! The picture of the semi was less scary for him and more so for me. He was swearing and flipping me off for taking pictures of his truck. What can I say? I miss Devan so much and seeing a flag makes me think of him, and this is now my new obsession!

I've been Tagged...

1. I have a birthmark on my toe
2. I LOVE all the annoying Mexican Mariachi music and I know how to dance to it. I have about 100 songs on my Ipod.
3. I'm on the PTO to prove to myself that I can hold a church calling responsibly. LOL
4. I flashed Bret Michaels at a Poison concert.
5. I've practiced acceptance speeches in the bathtub or shower holding shampoo bottles.
6. I won first place in two categories at a seven state gymnastic tournament.
7. I think my living hell would be if I had to drive a minivan...seriously alot of my pride is in the fact I've been able to avoid this pitfall with as many kids as I have...hopefully my lucky streak will not give out on me!

Couldn't Resist...This One's For Kassie

Guess I shouldn't have made fun of Mimi...

Green Ghost

So last night I taught the kids how to play Green Ghost...why, cuz its Halloween!!! Dominic and Riley had gone to their Dad's house, so Mimi and Gavin invited over some friends to play. It was very scary for them and exciting at the same time. Gavin wasn't quite getting the jist of the game because everytime he would hide and be the ghost, he would jump out too soon and people laughed instead of being scared. You could hear him giggling as he hid, so it was pretty easy to find him. Here are some of the best photos I took and one of them was totally staged for the blog...can you guess which one it is????

Dead Bodies and Fly Paper

Since getting Pancho and Sancho, we've had a little issue keeping the back door closed. Subsequently, I now have a small colony(when I say colony I mean about 100...no joke) of flies buzzing around my kitchen...and to make matters worse, I've caught of few of them "mating" on my wall. I'd gone to the grocery store to buy a fly swatter and to my surprise, 3 stores didn't have them. I was frustrated because, I was a little uncomfortable in my own kitchen. Every time I would walk by my back wall, all those little bastards would get spooked and dive bomb me. Anyway, so I bought fly paper out of desperation and hung it from the chandelier. I kept telling everyone to watch out for the paper because its sticky. The kids were fascinated with the flies, they went straight for the paper and would flop around and die. This is the GREATEST invention ever, right? Well, it was only a matter of time before someone got stuck, and it was my most dramatic child!! Maybe I'm a Mother with a blogging problem, but instead of helping her...I sort of ran for my camera and told her to hold still. She kept screaming, "Are there dead bodies in my hair? Oh my gosh get it out, get it out!" I couldn't stop laughing, but she was finally rescued by Dominic. Sorry Mimi. The first step is admitting you have a problem!!

Girl....I wanna Shoup!!

So I am driving along on a nice trip with Juan to Salmon, Idaho. We stopped to check out a map and what do I see? A town called Shoup, so we decided to drive there. We are listening to my I-pod and driving down this dirt road to get to Shoup. We pull up to this sign and as I am getting out to take some silly pictures, I'm not lying...Shoup comes on my radio. I think that it is such a coincidence and start laughing hysterically...Juan doesn't think the coincidence is as strange as I do, but anyway I am chalking it up to fate!!!!

Outside Shoup...gorgeous scenery!!
This is the map I saw of Shoup!!
I know, I'm a big nerd, but I made him leave the car on so I could hear the song!