FHE

Last night was the first of, hopefully many, "Family Home Evenings" with some newly made friends here in AZ.  We were each assigned something different, and our assignment was dessert and a spiritual thought.  For the thought, I went straight to the Ensign (church magazine) and picked an article.  You can find it here .  For dessert, I went straight to pinterest (where else?), and found TWO recipes that I wanted to try...oreo cake truffles and apple caramel cheesecake bars.  They were both a hit, which made me really happy!  I'm always wanting to try new dessert recipes, but I never have enough people to eat the dessert, so this was a perfect opportunity.  The cheesecake took about 40 minutes to prepare and 40 minutes to cook, but the cake truffles were SUPER easy, and probably took a total of 10 minutes for prep time.  Try them if you need a good recipe!

No Bake Oreo Truffles (from "chef-n-training.com")

Ingredients

• 1 package Double Stuffed Oreos
• 4 oz Cream Cheese you may add up to 8 oz, I just like the consistency best with 4 oz.
• Dipping Chocolate (about 12 ounces)

Instructions

1. Chop Oreos up finely in a food processor. Save some of the finely crushed Oreos for garnish later and set it aside. You don't need too much.
2. With hands (or a spoon, I just think hands are faster), mash softened cream cheese and crushed Oreos until well combined.
3. Roll into 1" balls and place on a wax covered cookie sheet. Put in freezer for 15 minutes.
4. While balls are in freezer, melt chocolate according to directions.
5. Pull the Oreo Truffles out of freezer, and dip into chocolate. Garnish with reserved Oreo crumbs before the chocolate sets up.
6. Let chocolate set, refrigerate and enjoy!

 Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars (from "the-girl-who-ate-everything.com")

Ingredients:

Crust:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

Cheesecake Filling:

3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons, divided

3 large eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Apples:

3 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Streusel Topping:

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup quick cooking oats

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1/2 cup caramel topping

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, combine flour and brown sugar. Cut in butter with a pastry blender (or 2 forks) until mixture is crumbly. Press evenly into a 9x13 baking pan lined with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Bake 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese with 3/4 cup sugar in an electric mixer at medium speed until smooth. Then add eggs, 1 at a time, and vanilla. Stir to combine. Pour over warm crust.

In a small bowl, stir together chopped apples, remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Spoon evenly over cream cheese mixture.

For the streusel topping: 
In a small bowl, combine all ingredients. I like to really combine it by using my clean hands to thoroughly combine the butter into the mixture.

Sprinkle Streusel topping over apples. Bake 40-45 minutes, or until filling is set. Drizzle with caramel topping and let cool. Serve cold and enjoy!

What I've been up to lately

Besides becoming crafty (well, a little bit crafty), I have been cooking a LOT.  I have a lot of free time on my hands, and a hungry husband every night, so what better than to cook a good meal each night.  These last 2 weeks I've been pretty good.  Tyler and I really want to STOP eating out during the week (we did this a lot while we were transitioning from UT to AZ), and only eat out (maybe) during the weekends.  Well, I'm off to a good start b/c we didn't eat out at last week or this week :)

A few of the the meals I have made:

• Chicken penne pasta with red bell peppers
• Mashed potatoes with chicken
• Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas
• Chicken, onion, rice, cream of chicken mixture in the crock pot
• Southwestern chopped chicken salad

I think that's it so far.  Fortunately when you only have 2 people eating, you have LOTS of leftovers so we usually eat them for the next days lunch, and sometimes dinner.
And, if you noticed chicken is in EVERY meal around our house.  We buy the humungous bag of chicken from Costco, which makes it SO much cheaper than ground beef.  If you have places where you buy your beef for a good price, I would love to know where they are!

I've also baked a few things in the last couple days:

• Chocolate chip cookies- FINALLY found a recipe that I LOVE!
• Snickerdoodle cookies
• Banana Chocolate Chip Bread
• Pound cake with whipped cream and strawberries

I've really started to enjoy cooking/baking lately, and have gotten better at making the most of my time.  A few tips I've learned:

• When I have time during the day, cut any veggies I may need, and refrigerate (this saves time at night).
•  Bake chicken (in the oven), rather than cook it on the stove- this is SO easy b/c you just stick the chicken in the oven and let it cook while you do other things
• Clean as I cook- put the dishes in the dishwasher while I am cooking.  This makes cooking so much more enjoyable b/c you're not doing a whole lot of dishes at the end of the meal.

Something I really hate is being rushed, and this goes for anything, not just cooking.  When I prep during the day, it really helps me to enjoy dinner time more, and my husband more :)

If you have any recipes that you love, please share!  I get most of mine from pinterest (who doesn't??), but would love any good recommendations. 

Becoming Crafty

Since we've moved to AZ, I've had a lot of free time.  I haven't started at Gap yet, and school hasn't started (so I can't sub yet), so I have a lot of projects on my mind (thank you pinterest).  I've completed 2 already... the first one, painted mason jars. 

I acquired mason jars from Tyler's grandma during their move, and started on them pretty soon after we got here.  I bought several different colors of paint, and all you have to do is pour the paint into the jar, and spin it around a lot.  Super easy!  The hard part is waiting for them to dry.

These are the ones on top of the piano

The next project on my list was painting our piano.  We got our piano about a year ago from somebody up in ID who knew Tyler's grandparents.  Again, we got it for FREE.  It needs a tuning, and it was a yellow color before, but besides that, it's in great shape!  We decided on the color RED, b/c we wanted something bold.  All of our walls in our apt are a very light beige color (almost cream), so we wanted something that would pop.  Well, I can't take all the credit for the piano b/c Tyler did an AWESOME job at the small details, and I'm certain he did more work than I did.  Luckily we painted it before school got crazy b/c he's SUPER busy now. 

Haboob

Haboob:

a thick dust storm or sandstorm that blows in the deserts of North Africa and Arabia or on the plains of India.

This isn't our place, but this is EXACTLY what it looked like!

We just experienced one of these TODAY.  We had just gone in to Michael's, and it was only stormy looking when we went in to the store, but literally 2 minutes after we walked in, we looked outside, and it was pretty much pitch black.  We stayed in the store for another 5 minutes or so, and the dark color went away, but the wind and sand did NOT go away.  

It was crazy, to say the least.  I felt like I was in the movie Mission Impossible 3 when the sand storm happens.  You know how in the movie the sand storm happens in a matter of minutes?  Well, that's exactly how it was here.  

While we were in Michael's, a tree fell on an employee's car (see below).  Sad day for that employee..

 

White Coat

Tyler had his "White Coat" ceremony today for dental school.  He officially became a "student doctor."  While Tyler became a student doctor, I sat with the fellow wives of other students.  We really are fortunate to be members of the church...we have instant friends in dental school.  We even went out to dinner with 2 other couples.  It's nice to meet other girls who will be lonely for the next 4 years with me :)  Here are some pictures from the ceremony today.

waiting for his name to be called

getting his white coat

Tyler with the dean of dentistry

Tyler with the class of 2016

other dental students (and their wives)

Me with the doctor :)