51 & 52: The end

51: Ginger-soy Pork Tenderloin

From Our Best Bites Cookbook

1-1/2 pounds pork tenderloin
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 cloves of garlic, minced (love to use from a jar)
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger or 1/2 tablespoon fresh minced ginger
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1. Whisk together all of the ingredients (except the pork).
2. Place the tenderloin in a Ziplock bag (at least gallon size) and pour soy sauce mixture over it. Marinate for 4-10 hours.
3. When you are ready to eat: preheat oven to 400 degrees. Take pork out of the bag and place on a tinfoil-lined baking dish. Spoon the rest of the marinade over the pork.
4. Place in oven and bake about 20-25 minutes. If you use a meat thermometer, roast until the middle is 160 degrees.

Rating: 4 for Jacob. 3 for me. Jacob loved it. I realized that I don't love pork, so it's not the recipe's fault. Aaaaand I didn't pull the pork out of the freezer early enough so it took a bit longer to cook.

52: Oh, snap! Gingersnap Cookies

From my sister's foods class at BYU

Makes: 2 1/2 dozen

3/4 cup oil
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soad
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cloves
2 tsp. ginger

1. Cream oil and sugar; beat in egg, then add molasses.
2. Add dry ingredients to oil mixture and mix well.
3. Place on un-greased cookie sheet. Bake 350 degres for 8-10 minutes. (ok if it still looks a little raw)
4. Cool slightly before putting cookies on a cooling rack.

Rating: 4. Pretty tasty if you love gingersnaps. However, I would bake for just 8 minutes. My cookies are a tad too crunchy. But the cookies made my house smell delicious. I wish it could smell this good all of the time. Also, I'd probably add a bit less of the cloves. It was a little strong.

Christmas-time

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve.
While I was still in denial that it was already Christmas, we spent the morning relaxing, took a spin at the gym (a preemptive act knowing we would eat plenty over the weekend) and a last minute stop to Target to tie up loose ends.

Christmas Eve at my home is all about traditions.
It is very special to me and I long for the comfort that it brings.

Christmas Eve is spent eating in candlelight. (Those little votives are from our wedding!)
We eat Chicken Royale, a chicken dish with ham, stuffing and a mushroom cream sauce. Korianne provided Christmas Jell-o which is a a three-layer gelatin in Christmas colors. Yum.

Cute Stacie wearing her Christmas sweater.

After dinner we reenact the nativity.
Bath robes and scarfs are the costumes for almost every character.

Reagan is always the most tender Mary. She gazes lovingly at her Baby Jesus and holds him close, even after the pageant is over.

Jacob the scared shepherd.

Jacob and his sheep.

Sisters: Korianne/narrator/angel, Malorie, me and Stacie as the wisemen.

The whole cast.
Minus dad who was behind the camera this year.
And who also incidentally missed his entire scene as the donkey.

 After the pageant I got to snuggle with one of my favorite little people.

Malorie and Stacie entertained us with a rousing rendition of Feliz Navidad.
(Does "Let's get together" come to anyone else's mind?)

If only Charlie's Angels used guitars and tambourines as weapons of choice.

The family band entertained the rest of us with some Christmas songs.

Santa knew we didn't need anymore jammies for Christmas Eve so he surprised everyone with subscriptions to our favorite magazines. (How did he know?!) Kiki and I got twinner gifts.

We were blessed to have Christmas on a Sunday.
I could not think of a better way to celebrate our Savior's birth.
Luckily, it was my mom's choir Christmas program and I loved celebrating Christmas with music.
Since church was at 9 a.m., and we didn't have any kids at the house, we postponed the usual festivities until after church was over.

We came home, switched back into our jammies, and ate breakfast, my favorite meal of the entire year.
Then we called video-chated my aunt in Greece.
And then we were finally sequestered back upstairs while we waited for mom and dad to put out the presents.

So in all actuality, present opening did not start until after noon.

Here we are so sleepy because we stayed up late the night before doing a puzzle.
Balla's.

 Super-duper excited for Christmas morning.

 Mom, the present czar, sitting in a pile of presents.

 Moo wearing the cute ear warmer I made for her stocking.

Mom crying when she opened a gift from my dad: Neil Diamond tickets.
She claims Neil was her first love.
(Next time I need a warning, Dad! I would have videotaped the reaction)

 Mom and Stacie.

The day moved by so quickly, as the best days usually do.
After winding down from the day we watched "A Christmas Story" on TBS (where else?).
That movie makes me laugh so hard I want to cry.

We had just enough time to run home, shower and heat up our soup for dinner with the Bensons.

 Two of our cutie nieces. Piper (the blonde) showcasing the sparkly clothespin magnets I made her. (We had her family for the Christmas exchange.)

 Aunt RoseAnn with the newest Benson addition, Ivy Rose.

Jacob teaching the kids to play a game.

In addition to a real gift we gave the Bensons, we included a little treat: stick-on mustaches of course.
And everyone got in on the fun. 

Excuse me. I mustache you a question.

I'd love to stay and chat, but I really mustache.


Merry Christmas!

49 and 50: Ok and worse

New recipes are cyclical in our family.
Every other one turns out fabulously, and the others... well.
Not so much.
This week brought a bit of both.

Week 49 brought out Wild Rice with Chicken and Grapes.
The flavor was bland and neither of us really liked eating warm grapes.
A bit of a dinner fail.
Rating: 2. Not disgusting but the leftovers sit in our fridge over a week later.

Week 50 was a spin at artisan bread.

My mom makes delicious artisan bread. She has had a lifetime to hone her breadmaking skills, so it is discouraging when mine didn't turn out perfectly on the first go.

Mine was a bit dense because I didn't raise it long enough. If you want to get into artisan bread, go for the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. The recipe I got was from a blog that adapted the recipe from that book and her adaptations were for the worse. (No offense.)

Rating: 3.5 for the recipe I tried, but I know that artisan bread can be well over a 5. I did, however, love the crunchy crust. And I just got a pizza stone for Christmas so I can perfect this recipe. (And I will! That is my personal challenge!)

From Autumn into Winter

The insanity that has been December has prevented me from documenting our last few months.
Here is a little snippet of the latest haps...

I convinced my sisters to skip out on school (such a good example) to go to the store opening of H & M, the first one of its kind in Utah.

Someone asked if we were twins.
For the record, I got dressed first.

The line behind us.
We almost were in the first 500 but our dreams were thwarted.
The people in line with us were great and even bought us hot chocolate.
Sadly for them, they thought the store opened two hours before it actually did.
They were in for a loooooooooong wait.

An H&M opening is usually a pretty big deal. Fire code with hit early on, so the line continued to grow as shoppers filtered out. There was a line to get in all weekend.

We made up for the wait by shopping our little hearts out.
This is just my bag for trying things on.
My wallet's only relief is that the store is not close by.

Our annual Young Women in Excellence featured a cooking theme, hence the aprons.

I am currently working on my Personal Progress award (I was a delinquent youth and never earned mine).
For my first project I stitched two dresses, one of them entirely on my own! (If you don't look too close, you won't find any mistakes.)


And on to the hour we had a kitten....

We found this adorable little kitten outside of our church one night.
She would meow and peek her little head against the glass door.
Jacob said if she was still out there when we came out we could think about taking her home.
And would you believe it? He let me take her home!
At least until we found her a home.

We had her for a whole hour before we found a neighbor who would take her. 
But in the short hour we had her our lives were halted.
We ridiculously followed her as she explored the house.
And in that short hour she already knew the personalities of the house. She would snuggle with me and play with Jacob.
Nothing got done. Is this how parents feel?

Note: I'm glad she was able to find a good home. Within the first 2 minutes she had eaten a Cheerio off our floor. I don't think we are ready to be cat parents.

 The real kick off for Christmas was visiting Temple Square for the lights with Young Men/Women.

My car full of girls was hilarious.
I kind of wish we could ride together every time.

Jacob and I drove up to the Pioneer Theater for "Annie," our annual holiday show.
Thanks JoEllen for picking us up the tickets! (We are accepting applications for U of U students who will pick up tickets for us when JoEllen graduates. Any takers?)
The show was as wonderful as always, and continues to be one of my favorite ways to get in the holiday spirit. Previous holiday shows at the Pioneer Theater have included "White Christmas" and "A Christmas Story."

We spent a few Monday nights at Thanksgiving Point for ice sculpting.

 Each week the sculptor hauls out a 300-pound chunk of ice and starts pounding away to the delight of the crowd.

Two weeks worth of sculptures.
I'm kind of dying over the intricacies of the sculptures.
What a really cool talent.
"Hello, I'm a professional ice sculptor."
Now that's a conversation starter.

And the Christmas spirit was kicked up a notch with reindeer.
That just laid there amid the shrieks of children begging them to fly.
(Really. The kids loved them.)

Once inside the Thanksgiving Point store Jacob found an elf hat.

Thanks to Loralee and DJ for coming with us!

We finally attended our ward Christmas party. The Young Women were in charge of the decorations.
(See the little paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling?)
The food was good and the entertainment hilarious, provided by the Primary children.

We've started a new family Christmas tradition.
When given an ornament that doesn't fit on our tree theme (red and gold) or is unsavory, we secretly stick it on the trees of our friends and families.
Without them knowing. A reverse stealing, if you will.

Beware if you invite us over during the holiday season.

No tree is safe.


* The photo above is of an ornament we left on my sister-in-law's designer tree. Read: fancy tree with all alike ornaments. We stuck this right in the middle before we left, sticking out like a sore thumb. And somehow no one has accused us yet. And no, I don't think she reads this blog.

A Fail for Week 45 and Persimmon Muffins for Week 46

I wouldn't call it a fail, per se. However, dinner for week 45 would not be considered a triumph. We had 5-spice pork with roasted orange and broccoli. No need to post a recipe that I threw away right after dinner. I will say that the pork was tender and perfectly moist (yes, moist) but I hated the flavoring and the roasted veggies were not that great. I hate warm fruit and that includes oranges. Now we are fighting over who has to eat the leftovers next week.   

Thankfully, week 46 gave us a complete 180.

A few weeks ago Bountiful Baskets, our local produce co-op, was filled with persimmons, which are weird little Asian fruits. They are only weird because I honestly have/had no idea what to do with them. I couldn't quite decide what to make of them when eating them raw.

So there they sat. Alone and unloved on my counter.

Imagine my delight when I found a recipe for persimmon muffins in December's Food Network Magazine (seriously- one of my favorite Christmas gifts. Thanks, Mom!)

PERSIMMON MUFFINS 

Ingredients

• 2 to 3 very ripe persimmons (or 1 cup smooth applesauce plus 1/4 cup carrot baby food)
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest (didn't have lemon, so a splash of lemon juice?)
• 2 large eggs plus 1 egg white
• 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, or vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup plain yogurt or sour cream
• Brown sugar, for topping

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan or two 24-cup mini-muffin pans with paper liners. Cut the persimmons in half and scoop out the pulp into a food processor; pulse until smooth.

2. Combine the all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon and lemon zest in a large bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined (it's fine if the batter is lumpy).

3. Divide the batter among the muffin cups, filling each three-quarters of the way. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar and bake until a toothpick comes out clean, 20 to 24 minutes for regular muffins or 14 to 18 minutes for mini muffins. Cool slightly in the pan, then transfer the muffins to a rack.

Note: This made at least 18 regular sized muffins, instead of just the projected 12.

Rating: Jacob gave them a 5. I would give the muffins a 4.5. Delicious, interesting and very sweet. It was a fun twist on a traditional muffin. My only hope is to find out a way to make it healthier. 10 tbs. of butter? That is enough to put this into treat category instead of pretending that it is a good breakfast.

A weekend of thanks

Wednesday and Thursday night we piled into one cabin at Aspen Grove for some serious cousin time. We played games, ate treats and laughed into the wee hours, and I was reminded how much I enjoy my cousins. Visiting each other every four years is not nearly enough.

The morning of Thanksgiving Jacob and I took a walk around Aspen Grove.
We had not yet been blessed with snow at our house (yes, I said blessed. I adore snow) which made the snow up there still a novelty.

We were all excited to show off our mountains and snow to my cousin's boyfriend who had never seen either before.

The Alpine Loop now is closed for cars, but we hopped the fence and trudged through the snow.
The Loop was ours for a moment. Untouched from other humans.


We set up Thanksgiving at my parent's cultural hall in their church.
The location gave tons of space for the kids to run around, easy clean up and we pulled in the couches for comfier seating.

Dad had to show off the bike car which was the the preferred transportation from our house to the church (oh, about 1 block).
With cousin Alex towed behind.

Even Aunt Reva got in on the bike car action.



Brand new Baby Molly.
She was the most popular person at the reunion.
She was passed around and eagerly snuggled by anyone who could scramble for a turn.
And she barely made a peep the whole weekend.
Perfect baby.

The actual meal was a whirlwind. 
That ended with the traditional and obligatory family photo.

Mom.
The center of the show.

The whole Mickelson clan.
We had everyone there at one point during the weekend.

Our entry to Awkward Family Photos.

Thanksgiving is fine and all but my most anticipated event is post-dinner games.
This is the one time of year that we bust out Bunco.
It was great. Except when they decided to end the game when I had finally made it to the winner's table.
I think it was rigged.

We ended the night with a family talent show.
Grandma stole the show by performing "Skeeters," a bedtime song that she used to sing to the grandkids.
Its origins are unknown to me, so I will attribute them to Grandma.
When in doubt, attribute to Grandma.

We ended the night by piling back up to the cabin to play Things, Ticket to Ride and thinking about how glad we were to not go Black Friday shopping.

 Moo, Stacie and Victoria.

Friday morning we moseyed about the cabin until we realized we had to book it down the canyon in order to make it to Thanksgiving Part Deux.

The Bensons kindly do T-giving dinner on the Friday after to allow each kid spend time with their out-laws. And so we have no excuse not to make it to both dinners. (Just kidding.)

Honestly, we underestimated our time and were unfashionably late.

In my defense, cooking 6 pounds of cooked carrots took a bit longer than expected.

Katelyn and Jocy.

Dinner round two was delicious as expected.
But after two days of non-stop eating I hit my brink.
My limit. I could eat no more.
Which meant no pie.

Those whose waistbands were not bursting at the seams played Twister (Jacob, Jenessa and the kids were the only ones who dared) followed by the ever popular Pit.

We hibernated on Saturday, recovering from a wonderful (and busy) week of family and fun.
It was, in my humble opinion, one of the better Thanksgivings.