I love getting new things.  Maybe more specifically, I love unboxing and using something for the very first time.  It doesn’t have to be something expensive or complex…just new.

I hope that doesn’t make me sound like a complete materialist…I also have grown to love making my things last, reusing, and recycling.  We actually turn our ziploc bags inside out and wash them every time we use them, and have somehow managed to not have to buy new ones since we’ve been married!  At first it seemed tedious (and a little ridiculous) but now it’s paid off.

Back to new things.  At work we hold our cooked biscuits and occasionally party trays that are soon to be picked up in a holding cabinet called a “c-vap”.  We pour water in a tray along the bottom and the c-vap uses this to create an artificial humidity (thus the vap means ‘vapor’ or ‘evaporate’ perhaps). Our old c-vap was falling apart–the door struggled to stay closed and the temperature was difficult to maintain.  We just got a new C-vap in and it is shiny and new and makes our biscuits fresher than ever!  Sometimes being excellent means spending money on new equipment.

This summer Chick-fil-A is launching it’s spicy chicken sandwich chainwide!  We’ve already remodeled our kitchen to accomodate the incoming equipment, but we still have one more thing we are adding–a new pressure fryer that will only be used for cooking our spicy chicken.  Look for it this June!

Let’s be honest, we all have moments of psychosis. Take Brian for example — he felt compelled to take a bite out of this leaf one day after church. Despite momentary lapses of sanity,  I can’t say I have a desire to develop a new disorder…

Which is the reason I found this interesting section in my textbook for Psychopathology: Exercises to Create the Sensation of Panic. Why this is in a book on how to overcome a psychological diagnosis, I don’t know.

It served for a good laugh and diversion from my studies and thought it was worth sharing!

1. Shake your head loosely from side to side for 30 seconds.
2. Place your head between your legs for 30 seconds and then lift it quickly.
3. Take one step up, using stairs or a box or a footstool, and immediately step down. Do this repeatedly at a rate fast enough to notice your heart pounding quickly for a minute.

4. Hold your breath for as long as you can or about 30 to 45 seconds.5. Spin in a chair for 1 minute. If you have a chair that spins, such as a desk chair, this is ideal. It’s even better if someone is there to spin you around. (this can also produce feelings of nausea)
6. Hyperventilate for 1 minute.
7. Breathe through a straw for 1 minute. Don’t allow any air through your nose. Hold your nostrils together.
8. Stare at a small spot on the wall or stare at yourself in the mirror for 2 minutes. Stare as hard as you can to produce feelings of unreality

I’ve tried number 5, and can personally recommend that it works in creating panic! Pick a couple and let me know how to it goes!

Yes.  We’ve had a lot of food posts lately.  No.  We’re not going to relent from them.  Although we did have a conversation about starting to blog about things that we also do.  Like counseling.  And chicken.  Wait, that’s cooking again.

Once of our wedding gifts we received at our family shower was a George Foreman 360 grill (thanks again Mom and Gramps!)  Which has come in handy, is versatile and easy to clean, and is also a great fix when it’s too cold to go out and use the public grill right outside our apartment.  The GF Grill also came with a little booklet that included several recipes for some healthy and GF-grill ready dishes.  The very first one caught our eye because it was so unique sounding that we couldn’t help but try our hand to see if it would turn out.  It delivered.

We’ve put the recipe below for your own cooking and eating pleasure.  We think you could substitute mango for the papaya, just make sure you get two of them.  We served it with basmati rice and steamed peppers on top as you can see in the picture.  You could also serve with a cucumber avacado salad and it would hit the spot.  The mint for garnish is a must-have!

Hot, Sweet, and Awesome Thai Shrimp with Fresh Papaya

The Marinade
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
¼ tsp. dried red pepper flakes
2 tbsp. Thai fish sauce
1 tbsp. lime juice
1 tbsp. orange juice
2 tsp. honey
1 tsp. peanut oil (or vegetable oil)

The Good Stuff
1 lb. jumbo shrimp, deveined
1 ripe papaya (or 2 mangos), peeled, seeded, and sliced

The Garnish
1 tbsp. minced green onion (we didn’t use this b/c we didn’t have any!)
1 tbsp. chopped fresh mint

Place all the marinade ingredients in a 1-quart plastic bag.  Seal bag and squeeze between your fingers to blend ingredients.  Add shrimp; reseal bag and shake to coat shrimp with marinade.  Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Once ready, remove shrimp from marinade and discard the marinade.  Grill shrimp until pink and cooked through.  Serve shrimp on a bed of papaya; garnish with green onion and mint if desired.

Serves 2.

After months of theorizing, biting our nails, and dreaming of Jack, Kate, and the whole gang — the time has come. Today is the premier of season 6  — the last and final season. The end will be bitter sweet for us, and LOST has been apart of the past 6 years of our lives. (which is longer than Brian and I have even known each other!)

Our latest theory is that the premier’s occurrence on Groundhog day is no accident. Ever seen the 1993 movie Groundhog Day where the same day is repeated over and over and over again? Well, it sounds a little LOSTish to me. Coincidence? I guess we’ll find out!

When the finale of season 5 aired, Brian and I threw a LOST party, complete with a Dharma experience and fortune cookies with the LOST numbers inside. (some nice waiter at Bonzai gave us a handful for free) I was Kate and Brian was Richard  — I think we made quite the pair!

What are your theories? What’s this whole LOST thing about and is Juliet still alive???

I think we’ve blogged about this before, but as a rule we try to have a date night once a week.  We place a high value on our marriage relationship and both crave quality time with each other, so thankfully it actually happens too.  Sometimes it’s as simple as saying ‘this is our date night’ and making a special dinner and watching some shows on our computer (we don’t have cable or a converter box for our antenna).  Other times we go do fun things away from our apartment.  Since we’ve been skimming the barrel in the cash department the last few months, it’s really forced us to be creative with our ideas.  Since we’ve been doing a little better lately thanks to my weekly freelancing position with Church of the Apostles (I run the words on the screens on Sunday morning) we’ve been able to really spice things up: using coupons and going out to eat!, going to the dollar theater, and last night we really dropped some cold cash and went ice skating!

Bethany is always quick to see the Creator side of God.  She commented how amazing it is that God made ice where we can make a sheet that is only a few inches thick and skate all over it.  True, true.  Bethany helped me learn how to skate backward a little better and we decided to become professional couple figure skaters.  And we’re going to wear leotards.  With feathers.

We also purchased a late Christmas gift (I couldn’t find it at Christmas time!) and stayed up late trying it out.  Scrabble is one of Bethany’s all-time favorite games, and she loves to play ’speed scrabble’ as well: an overwhelming frenzy of a game where you grab letters one-by-one and make your own rearrangeable ‘board’ on a table.  UpWords is a newer scrabble type game that allows you to stack letters on top of letters that have already been played.  It has some different rules, but is overall a very intriguing top-off to the game.  It’s growing on me.

First, I have a confession. It’s about a new obsession. And it’s all Bethany’s fault. Okay, maybe not entirely…

I LOVE the Pioneer Woman’s website. She has amazing recipes, detailed photographs for each step in cooking, and also blogs about life, photography, and homeschooling on the side. It’s like she does 5 blogs all at once, updating them everyday! Somehow she also raises four kids and manages to keep a marriage with her cattle ranching husband whom she lovingly dubs the “Marlboro Man”.

Last night Bethany and I tried out the first recipe I had ever seen on her site–Chicken Tikka Masala. It is uniquely ethnic Indian dish that uses Garam Masala–a mixture of spices you can buy or make yourself. As we together cooked this delicious dish, my excitement grew as I took in all the progressive smells of sauteed onions, ginger, garlic, and diced tomatoes basted in heavy whipping cream, all covered in our wonderful Garam Masala mixture of coriander-cumin-pepper-cayenne-fennel-cardamon-nutmeg-ginger-clove goodness. Speaking of spice ’splosions.  To top it off…yogurt basted chicken chunks stirred in and served on top of a bed of rice and peas. If only there was some way to record smells I could share it with you, but alas, technology has not yet advanced there. (Olfactography? Smellovision?) And eating it–absolute spicy, herby, bliss.

Check out this awesome dish and all of the PW’s stuff on her website.

Although I’ve never been there, this has got to be the best of our 50 states! I recently decided that the state of Montana is now on the top of my “places I want to live” list. Martha Stewart (I love her) just visited Ted Turner’s Ranch and got to horse back riding, fly-fishing, hiking, etc… I’ve spent a good deal of time on Montana’s travel website since then, and am convinced — this state tops them all.

All four seasons, mountains, wide-open spaces… what more could you want?! Friends of mine, if you have been to Montana (or better yet live/lived there), what is it like??? What part of the state is the best? From my research it looks like I’d prefer Russell County, which has the mountains and the prairies. I think I vacation trip for Brian and I is in order!

Much to my surprise, it seems others found my Cheesy Garlic Chicken ‘n Spinach Twist worthy of an award (of sorts).  The Pillsbury website put it in the top 4 of the latest and greatest on the web. With a short write-up, they listed my recipe  as an “original creation featuring some optional ingredients and room for personalization.”

I’m honored they selected it! Now if only there was a cash prize….

The day I’m able to open the fridge, pull out ingedients and whip up a delicious meal WITHOUT consulting a cookbook, I will have arrived. I will be a cook in my own right — able to concoct a meal that tantalize tastebuds. But, until then, I’m tweaking recipes to my own liking.

Tonight I made a recipe loosely based on a Pillsbury recipe and Pampered Chef recipe.

Cheesy Garlic Chicken ‘n Spinach Twist (I made that title up myself)

prep time: 25 minutes
start to finish: 45 minutes

1 box frozen spinach
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup garlic, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic (or less if you are a pansy)
3 slices bacon, crisply cooked, crumbled
1/3 cup chicken, finely chopped & cooked
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup Garlic Parmesan salad dressing
2 cans Pillsbury refrigerated crescent rolls
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup sliced almonds (optional)

1. Heat oven to 375. Spray cookie sheet with cooking spray. cook spinach in microwave as directed on box. Drain spinach, cool 5 minutes. Carefully squeeze with paper towel to drain well.

2. In skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; cook until crisp-tender. Remove from heat. Stir in spinach, bacon, chicken, cheese, and dressing.

3. Unroll dough on cookie sheet and pinch seams to seal. Following this method, spread mixture on rolls and add almonds on the top, seal, and twist. Brush with egg.

4. Bake for 15 minutes. Serve warm.

I want to introduce you to one of our friends, as mentioned in a previous post. We had the honor of hosting Nick last week as he came stopped in Atlanta, which makes him a timely friend to feature.

Nick and I go back to our days at Asbury College, but he’s currently finishing his degree at the University of Cincinnati. Mulitalented, he’s worked on various degrees, but is currently pursuing art/architecture.

Nick is an expert barista at Starbucks, but prefers tea to coffee. (I don’t quite understand how that works — being employed at a coffee shop and drinking tea, but that’s a unique thing that makes Nick, Nick.)

In the last year he finished a stint with the Marines, which included some time in Iraq.

Born in Korea, he has an excellent palette for Asain food and foreign films. We made some sushi for our dinner with him, but doubt it matched the authentic rolls!

Brian and I are thankful to have Nick as a friend, and pray the Lord directs him in this next year!