Jared's Food Post

I should preface this story with the following fact which may stun many of you: according to my coworkers, I'm a pretty quiet person. One of the reasons for this is that when I was getting training for my job, one of trainers told us (and I quote): "First year staff should probably just be seen, and not heard". That means that when I'm out at a client, I generally don't talk to anyone except the person I'm with, and I talk to the client if I'm spoken to.

This last week, the audit manager for this client took our engagement team and the executives of our client out for lunch. My audit supervisor told us about a place he ate at called the Honduran Kitchen. We all decided to eat there, based on his recommendation.

Just before we left to go eat, it occurred to me that Honduras is really close to Colombia, where I served my two-year mission back in 2007-2009. While I was there, I ate a dish called "Coconut Rice", which turned out to be my favorite food that I ate while there. I don't like coconut, and I didn't really like rice, so it made no sense that coconut rice should be as delicious as it is. Since I've been home from my mission, I participated in three attempts to make this rice. It's never worked out quite right, and I've been stumped as to how to make this dish.

I realized that since Honduras is in close proximity to Colombia (specifically, the northern part of Colombia), it would make sense that they would have a similar cuisine. I decided to see if they had coconut rice. I actually informed all of my coworkers of this beforehand because I was getting excited to see if they served it. They told me that they were rooting for me to be able to get the meal that I wanted.

After we sat down, a waiter asked for our drink orders. They had a few fruit drinks that I didn't recognize, until he said "And we also have guanabana". I jumped in my seat, startling everyone seated at the table. I yelped in surprise. "You have guanabana?" I asked. They certainly did. Guanabana happens to be my favorite fruit from Colombia, and it makes a delicious juice. "Give me some of that!" I declared affirmatively. Everyone laughed, saying things like "I thought he was so quiet!" after now seeing me in my excited state. When my drink came, I was entranced. It was like I was back in Colombia.

After looking through the menu, I realized that I could order steak and onions and fried plantains, just like we would eat on a nearly daily basis in Colombia. Lo and behold, they also offered "rice cooked in coconut milk and mixed with beans". I wasn't sure about the "beans" part, but that sure sounded like coconut rice to me! I ordered the plate, and now everyone could feel my anticipation. Like I mentioned, I'd been burned in the past when it came to getting this food, and I was hoping that everything would turn out all right.

When I got my plate, I knew they'd done it right. Everything looked just like I'd remembered. When the moment came to taste the coconut rice, everyone watched as I lifted the fork to my mouth. I savored the taste; the beans were there, of course, but they didn't block out the true taste of coconut rice. I had finally found it. Everyone at the table was excited for me.

After cleaning off my plate (I didn't eat the ensalada, like a good little Barranquillan missionary! Some habits die hard!), I walked up to the waiter and ordered an additional side of coconut rice, to-go. I wanted an order for myself to take home and share with my wife, just so she would know what it tasted like. It was truly one of my favorite meals of all time.

Remove Rust from Your Knives

Just last week I was pouting over the rust stains on my knives that are only as old as my marriage. Today I saw some tips online for how to remove rust, so I gave them a try and am very happy with the results.

How To:
Soak your rusty knife in lemon juice, then scrub away at the rust with the rough side of a sponge until it comes off! I didn't fill my cup all the way because I didn't want to waste lemon juice, and it's a good thing because there is an even more effective method.

I found that by pouring baking soda directly onto the knife, then using a wet sponge to scrub the rust stains, removes them almost immediately. There is no soaking required!

Beautiful knife, happy me.

Our Valentine's Tradition

We have a Valentine's Day tradition that we have kept up for three years now (go us!). It came about because we really wanted to make Alice Springs chicken, which is basically chicken smothered in cheese, honey mustard, and bacon, but we were in college and didn't want to spend a lot of money on one meal. We decided to save the recipe for Valentine's day and not worry about how expensive it would be, because it would be cheaper than any other restaurant we might have gone to that night. Since then it has been our tradition to replicate a restaurant meal at home. 

This year we went the Olive Garden route. It may just be soup and salad, but it was delicious. We did have plans to make the bread sticks but we didn't account for the fact that the dough has to rise for 45 minutes and we'd have to roll it out, cut it and blah, blah, it was just too much work. Together we made Zuppa Toscana soup and a simple romaine salad complete with Olive Garden Italian dressing, thank you Walmart. 

After dinner we raced to the theater to catch an early showing of the Lego movie, which is by the way, pretty weird but hilarious and worth seeing. Plus it's only an hour and a half, which I love. That's how long I wish all movies were!

After the movie we made a "fancy" dessert at home: the pizookie! My sister Ami introduced me to these just a week ago so I passed the favor along to Jared. Technically a pizookie is a giant, round cookie topped with ice cream and shared by all, but we don't have a pie pan so our cookie is a rectangle and my ice cream is tucked into the corner. Still delicious.

And of course, here are my flowers! I picked them out earlier in the week and Jared "surprised" me with them. Thanks love!

I'm Peanut Butter & You are Jelly

For our anniversary last year I bought PB&J keychains from an etsy shop. I had been singing, "I'm peanut butter and you are jelly..." for a few weeks in preparation for the reveal of this cute gift, and Jared would even sing the song to me. Well those stinkin' keychains both broke within a matter of weeks and we were left with two little pieces of bread and nothing to do with them. Until now. 

Introducing: an anniversary fail turned into a Valentine's day success!

I have had this idea brewing for a long time, and of course waited until the day of to put it all together. Wait til you see it. It's precious. 

Materials:

I measured and cut the fabric and pillowcase to fit the frame using my new rotary cutting set that Santa gave me. It is awesome! Then I brought back my old stitching skills and got myself a hand cramp as I stitched some of the song's lyrics onto the pillowcase piece.

After that I indulged in some peanut butter m&ms, tested out a few new styles of stitches on my sewing machine, and sewed the two pieces together.

After that, all it took was some super glue to attach Jared Peanut Butter and Lauren Jelly - I'm not about to be the chunky one - and now I'm waiting for Jared to come home and open up his gift!

I really shouldn't point it out, but see how the word "bread" slants upward? That is proof that my left hand was completely cramped and almost useless at that point. But I'm very happy with how it turned out and that I could still get my money's worth out of those two keychains.