Bulk Cooking

Hello Dear Readers!

Wow, I can't believe it's the start middle of a New Year already, I hope that you all had a wonderful Holiday season!

So one interesting thing that we've been up to is The First Bulk Cooking Day of 2013! Two of my very sweet friends, Anna and Gracie from over at Gracie's Tasties came over and made us about 27 meals! It was a pretty wonderful day, full of laughter, shopping, searching for a Starbucks, and cooking.

So we made Chalupa, Corn-Hamburger Casserole, Lasagna, Italian Enchiladas, Crispy Bake Burritos, Sloppy Joes, and Chicken-Rice Casserole. Our house smelled soo good.

 This, dear readers, is a 43 lb block of Cheddar cheese. 

We got it at the Business Costco near us, and we finally opened it up today. It's a really good quality, so we were happy about that.

 Chalupa is really yummy. Trust me.

 ^ Cooking Necessity

Here's Gracie (The Other one!!) She's going to put up all of the recipes 

on her blog, so if you would like to make any of the wonderful foods that we made, just go to her blog at Gracie's Tasties

Here's Anna being a doll and washing the dishes. I love these girls. <3

Ok, so my older brother played a prank on Anna, so to make it even, while we were having lunch break, this is what we did to his room:

It was really funny, he laughed pretty hard when he saw his newly decorated room. =)

How was your New Years? What did you do?

Blessings,

~Gracie

This past weekend.....

Hello everyone!

How has your weekend been? Mine has been hectic, but in a wonderful way, if you know what I mean. We had a birthday party for a very sweet friend of mine, and almost all of the 35ish people were crammed into our front room singing and playing music.

 

We had various instruments, Guitars, Penny whistles, Violins, an Accordion, a Bass, 

a Cajon, a Melodica, and a Tambourine. It was really really fun.

Kind of hectic finding a song we all knew and could all play in, and that was in the

 vocalist's ranges. =)

And then today I went out with some other friends to go walk around in Old Snohomish while our moms had their monthly lunch/catch-up talk.

We saw this on one of the bridges, 

 So we went to investigate. It's a house or some type of shack built under the railroad tracks.

                                     I decided that we really need to do a photo-shoot on the tracks. The tracks are disconnected, so there's no danger of trains coming, which is nice.

This is Gracie (The other one) from over at Gracie's Tasties

I love her website and cooking, it's soo de-lish-ous. I approve of it very much.

But in this picture, her sister Anna and I were going to walk all the way out into the middle of the railroad tracks to go down the ladder into the house. But she's smart and said that since the moms had said NOT to get arrested (I kid thee not!) we should wait until next time. So she persuaded us to wait. 

                                            Here's a herd of Herefords grazing in the field that we could see from on top of the bridge.

                             A fun thing about the streets of old Snohomish is that there are all of these old clocks everywhere.

 

 Then we went here for pie-before-lunch. Right after diagonally jay walking. Such rebels. =]

It was a bit of a wait, but it was worth it. I got Strawberry-Rhubarb, Anna got Cherry, and the other Gracie got Raspberry. We all agreed the Raspberry was the best.

 Afterwards we went here for our lunch, it was wonderful. These people make THE best BLTC ever. 

They toast sourdough, then layer tomatoes, caramelized onions, bacon, Provolone cheese, and mayo on it, then I think they toast it again very lightly. It is the best sandwich I've ever had in my life.

 And they include a pickle on the side, and their pickles are beautiful. They have a lovely crunch and are *slightly* spicy and just the right level of salt and sour.

We ate our lunch in this charming gazebo. (In case you were wondering...)

 And this week is actually Hanukkah, which we celebrate, even though we are not Jewish. We celebrate Christmas somewhat, but our family prefers Hanukkah. 

Tonight us kids exchanged gifts, and my little sister Emmy got some new lipstick. She's a budding beautician. I just know it.

And this is what I got. Isn't she just BEAUTIFUL????? It cuts everything like butter. I love it. I have a thing for sharp kitchen knives, I'm going to have so much fun cooking with it!

What in your your past week has been wonderful? Or at least nice?

 I hope that this next one will be filled with God's blessing upon you!

Happy Hanukkah!

~Gracie

Awkward & Awesome

Hey y'all,

How's your day been?

Mine's been pretty wonderful....*happy sigh* You'll find out why by scrolling down =)

On to Awkward & Awesome...

                                                           *Awkward*

• My little brother had a teaching on this past Sunday, and my parents had stayed home due to illness, so I was the one who had to say "Darius has a teaching for us today" which I was fine with, except that the adults were having a conversation, and I thought they had finished, so I said "Darius.." rather loudly but the adults apparently weren't done and started talking right then, and nobody really noticed except for 5 or six 10 to 14 year old boys who knew what I was doing and were practicially suffocating from trying not to laugh out loud at me

• Baking the cookies from the last post, and wiping my hand with melted chocolate on it across my chin, and not knowing I had chocolate on my chin and walking around our house for about an hour. It was funny =)

•  When you're whispering something to someone, and they can't hear you, so they say, "What?" and you say it again, but this time they could hear you but they didn't get it, so they say "What?" and so now you have to explain it to them, and THIS time they can't hear you explaining it so they say "What?" and you just kinda give up, and they think about it and realize what you said and start laughing, which makes other people curious, so you have to repeat the whole process over 3-4 times. *sigh*

•  Climbing on top of counters, sinks, couches, and various chairs in order to take pictures of food, and being thankful that none of your neighbors can see you

•   Saying to one of my friends "Can I borrow your head for a minute?" 'cause another friend wanted to show me a new hair trick.

• Talking about all of the weird body/lip/head/finger piercing's you've seen with people you just met 10 minutes ago

                                                                      ~Awesome~

•  Being a helper at our Choir program, nchmp.org  

•  The little kids at choir randomly coming up and saying "Hi!" and giving me hugs =)

•  Making new inside jokes with people

•  Singing Christmas Carols with revised lyrics (Deck The Halls with Poison Ivy, 9-1-1, etc.) 

• Salted Dark Chocolate. So wonderful.....

•  Sitting in bed after a wonderful day full of friends, music and laughs, listening to Christmas carols on the radio and looking at the stars.

•  Being able to think of more awesome things than awkward!

•  Playing the piano again! I stopped playing for a while, but now I'm getting back into it =)

•  The Piano Guys. If you haven't watched/seen/heard of them, I HIGHLY suggest going on to YouTube and looking them up, they are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. They are one of my motivations for playing the piano again.

•  Our Choir Concert is in 2 weeks! I'll hopefully be able to get pics up...

• Having my Constitutional Law Midterm exam essay FINALLY done!

 What was awkward or awesome about your week?

Blessings,

~Gracie

Cookies

Hello All, and Happy (Incredibly Belated) Thanksgiving!

First of all, I need to apologize for not posting again sooner, and for not replying to all the people who commented on the last post. I tried to reply, but blogger isn't letting me for some reason. =[
 I'll reply to y'all at the bottom of this post.=]

I decided to post a recipe for all of you, I got it from this website, to see it Click Here

                                         ~Salted Dark Chocolate Espresso Cookies~
 10 oz unsweetened chocolate
¼ cup coconut oil
⅓ cup all-purpose flour ¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
 4 tsp instant espresso powder ( I used Instant coffee)
1 tsp vanilla extract
sea salt 



 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Step #1.
 Finely chop 6 oz. of the chocolate

 and melt it with the coconut oil in a double boiler, while stirring over medium heat.

When it has reached the liquid state, remove from the heat and let it cool to room temperature. Set aside.

Step #2:
Chop the remaining 4 oz into large chocolate chip size and set aside

Step #3:
In a bowl, whisk to combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Step #4:
In a mixer bowl with the paddle attachment, combine the eggs, sugar, coffee powder, and vanilla extract.

Beat on medium high for about 5 minutes, until pale and fluffy and the batter looks like this

Then take a picture of your mom and sweet little sister. <3 <3

 Fold in the flour mixture,

followed by the cooled melted chocolate mixture, then fold in the chocolate chunks.

Cover and chill until firm, about 1 hour. (Or do what I did and chill in the freezer for about 30 minutes.)

Then while it is chilling, survey your kitchen. If you have done it properly, your sink should look somewhat like this:

I like our sink, it's so wonderfully big. =)


Step #5:
Preheat oven to 350° F. On lined or greased cookie sheets, drop 1 to 1½-inch balls of dough, leaving about 2 inches between each ball. Sprinkle the dough balls with salt flakes

Step #6:
Bake  for 8 to 10 minutes. The centers should still be soft when you remove the pans from the oven. Let the cookies cool briefly before enjoying hot, or store in air tight containers for about two days. Serve with lots of milk.


These are REALLY rich, and have a lovely bittersweet/dark chocolatey taste. They are especially tasty with milk. =)

If you make them I hope you enjoy!

To the people who commented on the last post, we did get to try the fruit, and it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! It was very sweet, from the Spinach to the Anise to the Blueberries. Thank you all of you have started following me! I have gotten to my first goal of 15 people! Thank you again!



Blessings,
Gracie

Back to Eden Gardening

So just recently we heard about this amazing gardening technique, it's very simple and has amazing results. It's called Back To Eden gardening, and what this guy does is add a cover of woodchips to his garden, and it keeps the moisture in the ground, doesn't blow away, and the it stays dry on top so no weeds can grow!  It's pretty neat really, So part of my family and some other friends went all the way to Sequim to see his garden!

 

                                                   The ferry on the way over                                
 .

We were joking that these are the "Cliffs of Insanity" from The Princess Bride =) 

  Here's a picture of some of his chard

 These are Dwarf Apple trees that produce so much that the branches are bent down.

This 'Scare-Crow' that hangs above his garden. Every year he goes out & shoots a crow w/ his .22

and then hangs it up. All of the other crows see the dead one and think "This is not a safe place" and move on. Isn't that smart??!?

This is a dwarf apple tree that's 1 YEAR OLD and has been planted 6 MONTHS. Normally it

would take about 2-4 YEARS to get fruit, and he got some within 6 months.

This is a his water fountain that comes straight up from his well.

 Here he is talking about his garden, while in his garden.

He has over 60 sheep on 1 1/4 acres, and the sheep aren't able to eat all of the grass down because of

all the nutrients in it. 

Isn't his lettuce so nice and clean and pretty looking?

Your's Truly looking at the water

                           Pretty landscape on the water while we were waiting for the ferry to take us back home. If you want to know anything else or you have questions post them on the comments!!

Thanks!

~Gracie