Insanity Workout

Work has been keeping me busy these past few weeks, I haven't even had much time to do some drawing. I did decide to start working out though and unfortunately for me my husband chose to Insanity Workouts of Sean T.

I am on day 2 of 60 and I don't really feel like doing it today lol. I am one of those people to HAS to see results fast to really appreciate a workout. Maybe I will post some pictures up later on. . . I don't think anyone wants to see me so maybe not. Kidding, but I am curious to see if this workout actually does anything good for me, supposedly it will give you endurance and get you into really great shape.

I have seen so many commercials on other workout videos that it seems like Sean T is everywhere, and for a while I think he was indeed everywhere. In the meantime before I start todays 30 minute exercise I think I will get some pork stew made and play around on the computer. I have tons of pork in my freezer still from that hunt and I am constantly trying to find new interesting recipes to make with it.

I won't bore you all with anymore of that exercise junk. Crazy news is that I might not stay in Florida for too much longer; the husband is looking for a better job and if he gets something then we will be out of here. I can't wait! It will open many opportunities for art that I do not have here in Florida, lots of different scenery that is. Anyways, that's all I've got for today.

Cooking Club - White Trash

Every month there is a small local group of women that get together to eat some grub. These dinners are for cooking club . . . a theme is chosen as well as a location. One month I agreed to do the meeting at my house and I chose the theme based on a topic of discussion the previous night. White trash.
It took me a little while to figure out what to make since I didn't really know any white trash dishes except maybe mac n' cheese with hot dogs in it. But, I came up with kebobs.

For the kebobs I chose to use cheap hot dogs, fish sticks, pineapple, and tater tots. They actually turned out pretty good since I grilled them! There was an assortment of other foods such as hostess cakes, potato salad, hot dogs, beans, and my personal favorite for the night - homemade twinkies!

A good friend of mine made these from scratch and they were AMAZING! I do not even really like twinkies but they were really really good. Everyone was so surprised to see them and they all liked them as well.
For the evening I pulled all my lawn chairs in doors after wiping them off a tad, and I used a mismatch set of plastic forks, paper plates, and cheap napkins. It was a fun night with new experiences.
I can't wait to go again next month, I will have to look for some strange and new recipes to try out.

In the meantime I am hard at work finishing up school, working part-time, and drawing like a mad woman. There will be plenty of posts to come with art.

German Pancakes

Sometimes my husband and I have eaten German pancakes twice in a week! Both times it was not breakfast either. The first time I ever went to Utah my boyfriend's mother made these for breakfast on Sunday. I had never had them before and I was pretty impressed. Since then I have had them many times. I love that it is so simple to make but it tastes great and there is plenty of it to fill my belly.



What you need first is a blender and your 9x13 pan.
In the 9x13 pan put the butter in there and put it into the oven to melt.
Everything else goes into the blender.
Once the butter it melted and your mixture has the crud blended out of it you dump the contents into the buttery dish.
Put back into now heated oven and bake.
Remove and smother with syrup!

Super easy and a great breakfast.

German Pancakes Recipe
(for 9x13 pan)
1 Cup Milk
1 Cup Flour
5 Eggs
6 TBSP Melted Butter
1/2 tsp Salt

450 degrees for 15-20 minutes. For half the recipe use 3 eggs.
The mix will rise up in funky bubbles in the oven and shrink down when removed from the oven.

Gingerbread Houses

Who said that gingerbread houses were only for kids? Well, they surely aren't! I like to have fun from time to time doing things I haven't done in a long time. Tis the season to be creative and eat lots of junk food.

First I got a recipe from online from foodnetwork.com
"Ingredients

* 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
* 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
* 1/4 cup light molasses or dark corn syrup
* 1 tablespoon cinnamon
* 1 tablespoon ground ginger
* 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 tablespoons water
Directions

Gingerbread House:

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, brown sugar, molasses, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and baking soda together until the mixture is smooth. Blend in the flour and water to make a stiff dough. Chill at least 30 minutes or until firm.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Cut paper patterns for the gingerbread house:" (I found a template online and printed it to the size I wanted the houses to be.)

"Roll gingerbread dough out to edges on a large, rimless cookie sheet. Place paper patterns onto the rolled out dough. With a sharp, straight edged knife, cut around each of the pieces, but leave pieces in place.

Bake at 375 degrees F for about 15 minutes until dough feels firm.

Place patterns on top of the gingerbread again and trim shapes, cutting edges with a straight-edged sharp knife. Leave to cool on baking sheet.

Place royal icing into pastry bag with a writing tip and press out to decorate individual parts of house, piping on decorations, windows, door, etc., as desired. Let dry until hardened.

Glue sides, front and back of house together at corners using royal icing. Place an object against the pieces to prop up until icing is dry (it only takes a few minutes).

Glue the two roof pieces to the pitched roofline of the house. Then, similarly, glue the sides and roof of the entryway together with icing. Attach the entryway to the front of the house.

Continue decorating the house, glueing on gumdrops, licorice and peppermint, as desired.
Royal Icing:

* 1 pound (3-3/4 cups) powdered sugar, sifted if lumpy
* 1 to 2 large egg whites, or substitute 4 teaspoons packaged egg whites and 1/4 cup water
* 1 teaspoon almond extract, vanilla or lemon juice"

Mix all of the ingredients together using an electric hand mixer, until the icing is smooth and thin enough to be pressed through a pastry bag with a writing tip. Add more lemon juice, if necessary.


It was dffinitely time consuming and difficult at times but I had a lot of fun and got to be a pig and eat lots of candy from the house while watching Greys Anatomy.
I did a test run a couple of days before and it went horribly wrong, I learned that the recipe is there for a reason and that is to give you specific directions so that the house actually turns out looking like a house! :)

Zombie Apocalypse

I know it is July but, I was browsing through Etsy and found a whole topic that I didn't know existed on Etsy and that is ZOMBIES. There were so many neat things on there and I couldn't help myself.

Those who have a male significant other knows that men are . . . inclined to believe that zombies will one day take over the world. There are many movies out there about them within the past ten or so years. Shawn of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, ZombieLand, 27 Days, etc. I loved the items I saw and thought that would be a perfect gift to anyone who loves to hate zombies. Or, to add to your own zombie paraphernalia.

The first is this Zombie Pea Pod Necklace by asphyxivix. Both my husband and me laughed when we saw this, we though it was very cute and clever. I know my younger sister who is a teenager would really love this necklace.

 These mugs are the items that made me want to do a post about zombie merchandise. After I saw these I started looking up all items zombie and put aside my favorite ones. Mugsleys has an assortment of mugs that can interest anyone in my opinion. My personal favorites are these above and some of the funnier ones. I like witty mugs.

I am a student so I use USB's ALL the time and I like to see unique USB drives. There are so many out there, but I have never seen any like these before. Patrick Hand is new to Etsy and has just a few items. These handmade USB drives are my favorite from the shop. They are simple but functional and definitely part of any zombie fanatics gear.

Now this item actually creeps me out a little bit! lol. ChrisandJanesPlace has an assortment of creepy, hilarious, and unique for sure Gnomes. If you were scared of gnomes before you have reason to be scared of them now! Although they kind of scare me I would put this in my yard for Halloween, it is just what I would image gnomes to do if they became zombies. They go for the rest of the lawn ornaments.

For this steampunk Tesla zombie pistol I had to do some searching. I wanted to include a gun and I wasn't sure if anyone on Etsy even sold toy guns. Well, there are sellers and this is one of those guns. OldJunkyardBoutique has an assortment of steampunk and special made items. I don't know how, but they do an awesome job on these and the result is a futuristic and neat pistol for shooting up those zombies.

For more zombie items you can do a search of "zombie" on Etsy or go to these sellers shops and see what they have. I enjoyed looking through the items and I am glad that these sellers allowed me to share their merchandise with those who visit this blog. A big thank you to them!

Cookie Crust CheeseCake

So a friend from Church invited my husband and me over to dinner and we were bringing dessert. I have been craving cheesecake for SO long now and I just bought a ton of cream cheese a few days ago. The problem was I did not have the ingredients to make a lame regular cookie crumb crust. I figured, what the heck, why not make a crust out of chocolate chip cookies.

I used a cookie recipe that has been a long time favorite of mine, and a cheesecake recipe that I found randomly online that I knew had the ingredients for. I did some tweaking though so it kind of became my own new recipe!

Crust
2 C flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 C melted butter
1 C brown sugar
1/2 C white sugar
1 TBSP vanilla
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 C chocolate chips

Mix together butter, salt, sugars, egg, egg yolk till creamy. Add in rest (except chocolate chips) of ingredients and mix together. Add chocolate chips.

Filling
4 eggs
3 bricks cream cheese
2 TBSP lemon juice
1/2 C milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 C sugar

Make sure to whip up cream cheese after it has warmed - should end up smooth. Then add all other ingredients and whip the crap out of it.

I put the cookie dough into the pan as thin as I could get it with my hands, then I poured the filling in. I baked at 325 degrees for about 50min.

It was SOOOO good. The only and best cheesecake I have ever made. I will definitely make this again in the future.

Utah Scones

It's been a little bit busy recently so I haven't had much of a chance to do a new post till now. I can't wait till I am done with school and I will have a little more time to do the things I want!

I found a new treat that I LOVE to make and eat till I feel like barfing. They are called Utah scones; different than the usual scone.I found the recipe from a Pinterest pin . . .


Here is what a usual scone may look like:

I have never had this kind before but I thought that all scones were cakey or like a sort of cookie. Turns out that not all scones are created equal. The kind I am in love with are specifically Utah scones and they are more like a doughnut.They have yeast in them so you let them rise and then you roll the dough out, cut it up and deep fry it in veggie oil. They are easy to make, do not require too many ingredients, and they are very tasty.

One batch makes too many for just one person so I try to do half the recipe if its just two people eating them. I am definitely going to be making these a lot over the years. Already I have my family hooked on them. There are many toppings that you can eat them with such as syrup and jam/jelly. But, what my husband likes and I completely agree with is that honey butter makes them oh so delicious!

Utah Scones

1 cup warm water

1 cup warm milk

1 Tbsp. dry active yeast

3 Tbsp. granulated sugar

1/4 cup melted butter, cooled

1 Tbsp. salt

5 – 6 cups bread flour

Vegetable oil for deep frying

Combine warm water and warm milk.  Stir in the sugar.  Add dry active yeast and stir lightly.  Allow yeast to activate, about 10 minutes.  In a stand mixer, fitted with a bread hook, add milk mixture and melted cooled butter.  Add the salt.  Start the mixer and add the flour one cup at a time until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.  Dough should be slightly sticky but workable.  Cover the dough in the bowl with a towel.  Set in a warm place and allow raise until double.
Pour your oil in a large pan (with sides deep enough to fully immerse the scones) or a deep fryer and heat slowly over medium to medium high heat.  While the oil is heating, roll the dough out onto the counter, without flour, into a large rectangle about 1/2 inch thick.  You may choose to butter the counter lightly.  Using a pizza cutter, cut into squares or triangles.
Heat oil to between 350 – 400 degrees and cook scones until golden brown.  Serve immediately.

(Website recipe is retrieved from: Make it Do)

Hog Hunt

For Memorial Day I went out with a big group of people and spent the day hunting wild hogs in Okeechobee. We had a GREAT time. It was my first time hunting anything and it went quite well I thought.

We has a large group of about 11 people and 8 of us were interested in taking home a hog. We woke up at 3:15a.m. so that we could make it there by about 7am to go out on the buggie.
The location is Little Lake Lodge in Okeechobee, FL.
We go out on the big vehicle, learn some safety instructions, release a dog and go out to find some hogs. The hide in the bushes and when the dog finds them you have to crawl through to see the hog. I had to go deep into the bushes (got scratched up just a tad) and leaned over a bent tree to see the hog  in there. I got mine with just one shot in the head like most of our group that day. It was tough to drag it out though.

The picture above is me going towards the bushes to find the hog. I shot it with a H&K 45, one shot to the head. My husband said the guy in orange looked a little skeptical about my shooting skills.

We had a great time, lots of sunshine, a nice breeze, a relatively quick hunt, and the only time the weather was not nice was when they were cutting up the hogs at the end - it started poring like the end of the world.
Each hog was about $180 which includes the hunt, and cutting up of the hog.

To fit my husbands and then my hog as well (since we both shot one each) we had to cut the pieces up a little smaller. We probably have enough meat to last us a year! I don't know if I would do it a ton, but maybe in the future I will go and do it again. It is definitely something to try at least once. Plus, the meat is VERY tasty!!! (We had ribs for dinner last night)

Utah Food

Today I am talking about food!
I recently went to Utah for a visit to the in-laws during the Holidays and I got to go around to a couple of neat places.

The first place I went was Gossners Cheese Factory in Logan, Utah.

I didn't think to get a picture of the place but it is a big building in practically the middle of nowhere. There is ice-cream, milk, candy, and of course . . . cheese! There is also a couple of windows where you can see some employees working on packaging huge bricks of probably 150ibs of cheese. Its sort of like a a quick stop of dairy delights. And pretty amazingly cheap goods at that! Buy it from the source and of course it is better tasting and a great price. We got a few of things there which included squeaky cheese. If you don't know it by that name then you should know it by the name of cheese curds. They were orange, fabulously tasty, and squeaky when chewed.

The second place we visited that day was Pepperidge Farm in Logan, Utah.

I also neglected to get another picture while traveling, but it is a huge plain building as well. Inside is a small shop of leftovers of their products. This means that there are cookies, and goldfish, and tons of other things made by Pepperidge farm on the shelf and in the fridge that have defects like broken cookies in the bag. We got so man cookies! And sadly we left pretty much all of them in Utah when we went home (which makes me sad). Unfortunately we will have to drive back there one of these days and keep all the cookies :) These items are also at a discounted price and my favorite item was a raspberry jam sort of cookie that we got 3lbs of for about $4. A very splendid cookie.

Finally, the last note worthy place of food we went to was a Birthday dinner at The Roof Restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah.
It is a 5 star restaurant I believe, up high in the Joseph Smith Memorial building right next the LDS Temple. They take your hats and coats at the entrance and seat you in comfy chairs (reservation only). It is not a terribly big restaurant, it is pretty pricey though (about $78 for 2) but worth the bill in my opinion. It is indeed a buffet, though it is stocked with a variety of delectable foods you don't get at any other buffet. Sirloin steak, seasoned salmon, some exotic peppered and sauced chicken, other great foods, and an array of amazing desserts like cheese cake, pies, creme brulee, mouse, etc. A pianist plays through the evening by the buffet tables and will even play a requested song. And the view is absolutely stunning. This is of course due to the fact that the LDS Temple is right outside the window and is quite a sight at night with the lights on around it, christmas lights bellow in the trees, and the city all around. Bellow is a picture I took although it may not be amazing and doesn't do justice to reality, it shows what you can see.

So, these are just a few places I visited that I wanted to share. I had a great time, and think that anyone would have fun trying things out and visiting these places for themselves.

Siesta Key, Florida

I haven't died or forgotten about the blog! I just have had no clue as to what to update about, and I am even still a little unsure right now. I have found a good topic, so don't stop reading yet. I remembered a long time ago that I decided I would post things about local places and things as well as stuff about where I travel.

So, I am sharing with you the tidbit of information and views I have from Siesta Key, Florida. My husband and I went there a little while back for a few days to relax, go to the beach, and try out some fishing on the West coast of Florida. (Which is very different from the East coast.)

Siesta Key is a beautiful area with long beaches with the softest, most powdery white sand I have ever felt. The wet sand reflects the sky, the water is chill, and people walk, ride bikes, sun bathe, and run along the beach all day.

The sunsets are different too. They are strangely clear and pretty. I am used to seeing sunsets with purple and pink colors across the sky, but this is just as pretty on the beach because the sunset reflects on the beach as well.

Although we did spend some time at the beach, we also tried out some fishing. We chose a random charter on our drive to Siesta Key and made some calls to see if there were any availabilities to go out on the water.

What we found was Captain Chads charter called: Hook and Ladder Charters. It was a fantastic 4 hours! Although the water was a little bit choppy, we had a great time. While waiting on the dock for Captain Chad we saw some dolphins playing out in the water and we did a little fishing. Once on the boat we went out to a spot and didn't have much luck at first. We did see a TON of rays in the water, they were everywhere! It was very neat.

Once we moved around a bit we got some fishing done. We mostly caught catfish which I didn't know was possible in that area, and some other types. I got about 10 catfish, it was pretty neat. I also caught a huge sea trout - which tasted fantastic! (The picture my husband took was blurry as heck - the picture bellow is one that Captain Chad took)

Our last stop was a little further out where we were aiming to catch a shark. Unfortunately we did not catch any sharks. We did however fight with some gigantic sting rays! We brought one up onto the boat for pictures, it was so neat.

All in all, it was a great time for us. The area is beautiful, lost of neat things to try out, some nice shopping areas, a large variety or restaurants, and probably more than I can tell you.

HLC: http://www.hookandladdercharters.com/