6.13.2008


I made something yum this week.  I have no idea what to call it.  Here's the recipe: 

Artichoked Peppered Pasta with Chicken (?)

1 can quartered artichoke hearts drained and rinsed
fettuccine (how ever much you want) 
1lb chicken
salt and pepper
olive oil
2 cloves garlic minced
1 c chicken stock
1/4 c white wine
2 T butter
1 t basil
salt and pepper
1 tomato diced 
1 marinated canned red pepper

Marinate artichokes in a little olive oil.   Put on a pot of water to boil and salt the water generously to get the pasta going.  Prepare the chicken (breast or thigh) by brushing a grill or cast iron skillet with olive oil and season to your personal liking.  I usually salt and pepper both sides and grill.   Drizzle olive oil in a large sauce pan on medium heat.  Warm garlic for about a minute in the olive oil and add chicken stock, white wine and and butter waiting for each to reach a boil before adding the next.  Let the liquid boil off by half allowing it to reduce down to a sauce.  Season with basil, salt and pepper to taste after reducing sauce to a simmer.  Dice tomato and slice pepper into bite sized pieces, drain off the olive oil from the artichokes and add all three to the mixture.  Coat in the sauce stirring well.  Remove chicken, when cooked through, from heat and let rest five minutes.  Drain pasta and put in a large serving bowl.  Slice the chicken into bite sized pieces and incorporate it into the sauce.  Pour mixture onto fettuccine in serving bowl and gently toss.  Voila!  

In other news, Eric and I took a bite of the seductive Apple and bought a Mac.  HA!  It's great.  We walked into the store and after we walked out I had spent my entire summer wages on ONE purchase.  A year ago I was unemployed, eating ramen and cheerios and selling my plasma.  I don't think I've ever spent that much money at once.  I looked at him in horror and said, "Imagine what it will feel like to buy a house."  Three months of work to put a five year old, runs for ten minutes, melt your pants off, besides the ridiculously loud fan, laptop into high school graduation present history.  It feels good.  Eric and I don't have a TV, we usually watch our favorite shows online, so we opted for the 24" to watch movies on.  It is gimungous.  I was standing in the store asking myself if we were crazy, desperately hoping I wasn't going to have buyer's remorse.  So far so good.  Get a Mac.  They give out free iPods like planned parenthood does condoms.    


Our Family! haha

Last weekend we also went on a hike with Aden and Jaehee.  The day before I had gone to an intermediate yoga class and I thought my arms and legs were going to drop of my body.  Then we went on a four mile hike up American Fork Canyon.  Whew!  Up at the top there was snow that covered the trail and on the way back we skied down the slopes.  Jaehee and I were not equipped with Eric's size 14 shoe skis.  We weren't as graceful or adventurist as the boys: we mostly butt scooted and rolled down.  I rowed with my walking stick.  I almost survived the hike except for the stream I tried to leap across and instead slipped on the rock, broke my fall by breaking my walking stick and rolling over found my right leg dabbling in the stream barely 100 ft from the end of the trail.  As the wife of an adventurist geologist I attempt to look like I can handle the outdoors.  I thought I could delicately leap across that stream just like I thought I could mountain bike a little elementary trail recently after not riding a bike in almost ten years.  The fourth time I fell I found myself upside down in a bush after being unable to find the breaks to slow down whilst descending down a small hill.  Why couldn't I find the breaks?  In my previous fall, at the top of the hill, I was so out of it and determined to press on that I didn't notice that as I got back on the bike that the front wheel had done a complete 180 degrees and was backwards thus the breaks weren't where I thought they were.  ...I make attempts.  It makes Eric laugh at least.  That's enough for right now I think.  


Wednesday we leave for Pennsylvania to take photos for Nicole, Eric's cousin's, wedding.  We're excited.  Family in PA, the two of us, two cameras, a flash, six lenses and 10 GB.  That's a good recipe.   

6.02.2008

We have jobs.


Finally. We both have jobs, so now we both get to pay taxes. I've been busy as a teaching assistant for BYU's geology field camp class. We're doing a big mapping project where each of the students is assigned a few square miles out in the mountains west of Utah Lake and they are to make a professional style geologic map. It's actually a lot of work, but its a lot more fun when you're the T.A. and you're getting paid to go hiking in the mountains while helping the students and pushing the occasional boulder off a remote cliff. Meanwhile Sarah is working for a chiropractor. She takes care of a bunch of office stuff like scheduling appointments, doing the insurance claims, developing x-rays of spines, and most importantly-- improving the music selection on the doctors ipod which plays throughout the office. Of course, I'll probably end up paying her a visit if the geologist boulder pushing instinct in me is not soon suppressed.