October Recipes

I keep making pancakes every weekend because Ashkon LOVES them :)

Giant pancake!!

I also made what Ashkon said to be The Best Weisser Cookies he had ever had :)

 

 

But, now on to NEW recipes...

Oatmeal Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 4 ½ dozen

Ingredients

3 cups rolled oats

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup light brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup pumpkin puree

1 cup dried cranberries

Directions

Preheat oven at 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl combine rolled oats, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt and set aside.

Using an electric mixer combine butter and sugars and cream together until light and fluffly.  Add in eggs, followed by vanilla and pumpkin.  Mix in flour mixture until combined then stir in cranberries.  Drop tablespoon size spoonfuls onto baking sheets.  

Bake for 10-12 minutes in a preheated oven.  Cool for a few minutes on baking sheet before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.  

Southwestern Chicken (Crock Pot)
Makes 6 servings (Ideal slow-cooker size: 6-quart)

Two 15 1/4-oz. cans corn, drained
15-oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained
16-oz. jar chunky salsa, divided
6 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1 cup low-fat shredded cheddar cheese

1. Combine corn, black beans, and 1/2 cup salsa in slow cooker
2. Top with chicken. Pour remaining salsa over chicken.
3. Cover. ook on high 3-4 hours or low 7-8 hours.
4. Sprinkle with cheese. Cover 5 minutes for cheese to melt. (We left this step out)

Note: This dish goes well with rice.

Homemade BBQ Sauce (Made BBQ chicken with it in the Crock Pot with the extra)

Ingredients:
2 tbs oil
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 onion diced
4 cups ketchup
1/2 cup nutmeg syrup
1 bottle carib beer
1 stick of cinnamon
4 bay leaves
1/2 cup brown sugar
Dash of salt

(Makes a lot)

1. Heat oil in a saucepan over medium-low heat
2. Add the garlic and onions and cook for 5 minutes, stirring, being careful not to burn them
3. Reduce the heat to low
4. Add the ketchup, beer, brown sugar, cinnamon, bay leaf, nutmeg syrup, and salt, then stir. Allow to simmer for 20 minutes
Taste after simmering and add whatever ingredients it needs

*Sorry for the ambiguity- I got this recipe at a cooking class, a Grenadian cooking class :p

October in a Nutshell 10.1.12 - 10.31.12

So...I have gotten very behind on my blogging, so I am going to do a quick overview of our month of October! But...a lot has happened!! So, we'll see how quick it really is :)

• Lots of PILATES and YOGA

• Tried new RECIPES (See Post: October Recipes)

• A lot of FACETIME-ing with Jess, Jorde, Reese, and Zeke...They are getting so big!! It has been such a blessing to get to see them grow up even though we are so far away!
-One of the times I even got to watch one of Jorde's favorite shows-Franklin- with him while Jess got ready one morning lol...Technology is amazing!
-I also have been getting some kid books on the Ipad so that I can read to him while we are talking

•BIBLE STUDY- I have been learning such amazing things as we go through the book of Hebrews

•I finished the first WEDDING PHOTO BOOK

•MIDTERMS!
-Ashkon had his first set of midterms for medical school. He studied a TON and did really well!! And the benefit for me was that once he was done on Friday, he had no school work all weekend!
-Unfortunately, midterms landed on the same week as the Giants Playoff vs. the Reds (However, they WON so Ashkon was pretty excited that he would get to watch more Giants baseball!!
- This week, I went to the farmer's market which was fun! I also did origami for the first time (for my friend Jo's surprise baby shower) *you will hear/see more of this later*

STUDYING AWAY!

Farmer's Market 

        • Friday night: We went to Rick's Cafe which is one of the restaurants we had been waiting to go to but mostly because they have ice cream!! Unfortunately, we got a milkshake that was just different than we were expecting and different than home. It had sort of a protein/soy flavoring to it so we weren't sure if it was how they make their ice cream here or if it was the milk that the put in it. So, we'll probably go back and try something else but it was still fun to go out with some friends and try a new place in our new home! Then we had a game night with friends! We played rounds after rounds of Catch Phrase with plenty of laughs - it was lots of fun!

        • Since we didn't get our ice cream fix filled the night before we wanted to try out a new FRO YO/burger place in "the mall" called Yum Yum Cafe. When we got there, we were very surprised to see their advertisement picture was of IN-N-OUT BURGER, FRIES, and a DRINK! What?!? We haven't decided yet if we are going to order burger and fries and see if we really get in-n-out or if we are just gonna call their bluff with the picture ;)

          • The rest of the day we just HUNG OUT and played games!
          • Sunday night, after making french toast for the first time, CSA and some more hanging out at home, we went to the BEACH to try to see the SUNSET. We weren't exactly sure how well we would be able to see it from this beach but we decided to go anyway! There was a bit of a cliff in the way but we still were able to see some of the colors!!

Our awesome new mixing bowl!

French Toast!

                         

                                         

 

 

 

                                          

•The beginning of the 3 of the most exciting weeks: GIANTS beat the Cardinals in the National League Championship Series!!!!!!!!!! Giants are going to the World Series!!!!! We were soo excited!!!!!

Rally cap!

•Island Tour: This was an SO (Significant Others) Adventure that my friends and I went on with a lot of the other wives/girlfriends. We went to:
     -Pearls Airport which was Grenada's first airport opened in 1943 and was in use until 1984 when Point Salines International Airport opened (Now Maurice Bishop International Airport named after the Prime Minister). Pearl's Airport was abandoned after the 1983 US invasion of Grenada. The airstrip is now a field where cows and goats like to hang out and there's a police/military training facility nearby. Russian and Cuban planes still remain in the field. 

 Here we go!
 

 

 

 

I finally took a picture! Whenever I say that I took the SGU bus this is what it looks like! :D

     - Belmont Chocolate Factory (this was my favorite)- We got to see how the chocolate was made and get some tasters too!! It is on a beautiful piece of land where they also have monkeys, turtles, goats, and more!

Our Tour Guide

 

The beans fermenting

Heating in the sun

The Group! 

We got to try amazing hot chocolate- but it was SO HOT!
But delicious!

Free samples!!!

 

Monkeys at the chocolate factory!

- The Rum Distillery

I loved this little house with the flowers growing up it!

 

Some men found this baby whale on the shore and brought it back to show us...
They think that it got stuck under a boat :(

Yuck!

Made one more stop to Grand Etang to see the monkeys!! If you stand there with an unpeeled banana they will come grab it from you!

• Mom's Birthday!
We got to facetime with her to say happy birthday and hear about her AMAZING birthday weekend plans! We celebrated from afar by getting ice cream at the mini mart on campus! Happy Birthday Mom!!

•WORLD SERIES!!!!!

This was such a fun world series to watch and see the Giants DOMINATE!!! For those of you who didn't watch it [which would be un-American ;) ] the Giants swept the Detroit Tigers! (They won the first 4 games out of 7 for those of you who don't know what swept met!) It was so great!!! We were so excited!!

We're #1!!

"The Giants should thank me for my Rally Beard!"

The Rally Face

• Steph's birthday celebration! We decided to go to lunch at La Boulangerie (this was my first time here  to eat). I shared a cheese pizza with Jo and it was great! We then of course had to get dessert so we went to Yum Yum Cafe for some Fro Yo! YUM ;)

• Grenadian Thanksgiving (October 25)
Grenada Thanksgiving is to celebrate the US invading Grenada to stop Cuba from taking over in 1983.  So, yes we were being celebrated :) There is even a monument on the SGU campus to remember the US soldiers who were killed in the invasion.
Ashkon had school off so I got to take him to the pool for the first time! :) He still had to study a little bit so he wouldn't get behind but it was really fun to get a little break and be able to HANG OUT!

We forgot to take a picture at the pool so this is us celebrating his day off :)

 -The crazy thing about their thanksgiving being so early is that as soon as it's over, they get ready for Christmas! The next day on Friday, there were wreaths, Christmas trees, Santas EVERYWHERE! I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't missing out on Christmas at home, that Halloween had not even happened and there were no Christmas festivities happening without me...yet! I am getting pretty excited for Christmas though!!

•Halloween Party & Halloween
Our goal for this Halloween was to come up with a costume out of the things that we had brought to Grenada and spend minimal, if any, money! What we came up with...

         

In-n-Out Worker & The Menu!! (We have been missing In-n-Out if you couldn't tell!) And we didn't spend any money!! It was great!

There was a little Halloween party that we went to with costume awards, fun Halloween treats and then the movie Ghostbusters, which I had never seen before! People got pretty creative with their Grenadian costumes! It was fun!

Halloween was a couple days later, however, Grenadians do not celebrate Halloween. Ashkon was sad but he still wore most of his costume to class (Red soccer shorts and a white t-shirt) and then took the hat just incase any of his classmates decided to dress up! But they didn't...he actually said that he didn't really see any around campus dressed up. October 31 was also the Giants World Series Champions Parade in San Fran! I was soo sad that I couldn't be there. But, I did get to watch it on the Ipad which was pretty fun! Then, at about 9 pm Ashkon just didn't feel right about not having candy on Halloween so for the first time ever, we went to the mini mart and BOUGHT CANDY ON HALLOWEEN- that just doesn't sound right haha but we did!  And yes, we put our costumes on to walk down to the mini mart :D

He was really excited about the candy!

So, there it is- October in a nutshell :)