Does our life revolve around food?

I was taking a nap after a very long day and woke up to something smelly. Don't worry, it was a good smelly, not like a Boyd smelly. Even though he was making the smell. Anyway, as I walked into the kitchen I saw a recipe up on our computer for Pierogi. . . Pierogi is something you always hear of on a cooking show, in a restaurant, something not at home, so I asked Boyd if this is a family recipe. "no" something you made on your mission? "no" something you have ever made before "no" . . . . . "But I have eaten pierogi before, and it is to honor my red headed Italian friend" (Boyd). I'm only a little hesitant when we eat something new. I like doing it, but something that I have never really heard of before. . . slightly questionable. But it smelled really really good, so why should I be worried. Then I hear Boyd chuckling. . . and then he says "super pierogi!" Notice the real size of the pierogi on the left and Boyd's super pierogi on the right.
Thas a one big a pierogi!

Personally I think they look like pot stickers.

Just in case you were wondering, they turned out great! They were super yummy!

Flour

Just because my last blog was about a disaster, I decided to tell you about an interesting evening we had one Sunday a couple months ago. I bet your freezer isn't full of bags of flour.
We had just come back from eating Sunday dinner at Allison's parents' house. They're always so kind to send us home with some food for the week. While we were putting away some (-side note: Allison just screamed bloody murder. I almost had a heart attack. The cause of the blood curdling scream. . . an earwig in the artichoke. Yuck. Now she won't go anywhere near the counter where the dead bug is.) (Allison says "Bugs are yucky, if we ever have kids that like bugs I honestly don't know what I'm going to do. If they come walking in the house with a bug in their hands, there will probably be another blood curdling scream") food in the pantry, I found a puddle of water on the floor. Our jug of water storage leaked everywhere and got our flour storage all wet. So much for being righteous. We thought our flour was ruined forever to be consumed by nasty weevils. (Notice the word evil in their name. You think Allison freaks out over finding an earwig on a piece of food that she is preparing. Imagine if she were eating when she found the bug.) Then, we did some research and found that if you freeze the flour, it keeps the bugs from hatching and surviving. So I made a near midnight run on a Sunday to Walmart for freezer bags. We then proceeded to prepare our freezer for about 6 bags of flour. What a fun eventful evening.

Tyrants of my Known Food World

Some things you just can never get away from no matter how hard you try. Hostile dictators may come to mind, but I was alluding to something even more enveloping. I like to refer to them as the three tyrants of the food world. You know what they are but might not have ever had their true identity revealed to you: syrup, honey, and molasses. You got it. Syrup and honey so sweet and savory. Good on just about everything, if you really think about it. Including molasses might leave you in question, but then phrases like "slow as molasses" or "sticky as molasses" come to mind and you're quickly enlightened.

Catastrophe struck the corner cupboard of our kitchen last night. Molasses you gooey icky substance! Why did you have to spill everywhere and get all over everything? You are so delectable in ginger snaps and the like. To quote Mulan's father, "I know my place. It is about time you learned yours," Molasses.

So why call these yummy delicacies tyrants. Because no matter how hard you try, they always end up getting on you somehow. You can't get away from their clutches. Have you ever finished eating pancakes with syrup, trying ever so hard not to get syrup anywhere but on your plate, and suddenly its on you arm just below your elbow. What?! Or the times you make a peanut butter and honey sandwich and suddenly there's a big ole spot of honey on the counter and your knuckles feel like somethings trying to glue them together. No matter how hard you try to stay clean and sticky free, they always seem to goop you somehow, most often in odd places. Just ask any mother who's giving her child a bath after grandpa decided to make pancakes for family breakfast on Sunday. Luckily for us water is the master cleaner and those tyrants are no match for its awesome powers.

The molasses we keep in the corner cupboard got knocked over sometime yesterday and had been spilling its guts all over the shelf throughout the night. It looked like those environmentally devastating oil spills that used to show up all over the news when we were kids. The poor duckys and geese. I decided to take pictures and blog about it while I cleaned up the mess. Even though I was wearing gloves, somehow molasses oozed it way onto our nice camera. I don't know how it does it.

Allison got really upset with me for getting molasses on our camera. Who wouldn't? Although an accident, who knows what that sticky goop would have done if it had gotten in a crack or something. I was fortunate it was a surface problem only, and my carelessness didn't cause any damage. I would've taken a picture of that too for effect, but it would have kinda tough. With all that said, we won't mention who spilled the molasses in the first place.

The Many Adventures of Allison and Boyd

First of all Boyd wants me to put that he HATES cilantro. I second his opinion. I think it is too strong and if you put it in anything, everything tastes like it (and I don't even like the taste that much). Anyway, our current adventure: Mexican Sauces. At 8 o'clock tonight Boyd decided that he really wanted a chicken burrito from Taco Bell. We figured, why not make an adventure out of it and googled how to make the green sauce in the chicken burrito from Taco Bell. Right before we left I double checked the ingredients and thought our original sauce we were planning on making didn't seem quite right. I found another website that said it was an avocado ranch sauce, instead of just a "green sauce". So Boyd said we should just try both and see which one it really is. After we went shopping and came home our little adventure began. The recipe said to boil the jalapenos and tomatillos for 10 minutes, then combine it in the blender with an onion, 2 cloves of garlic, and cilantro. After we blended it I took a whiff and I swear I burned my nose hairs off! HOLY MOLEY! To give you an idea, I have had sever allergies for the past month and haven't been able to breath out of my nose. When I took a smell, I sure did smell it!Apparently having a stuffy nose and really bad allergies comes in handy when you are trying to cook crazy things that burn your nose. I was able to endure the strong, eye watering smells just fine. The recipe then said to heat up some oil in a pan and then pour in the mixture, so we did and when Boyd did this, poor thing, it was so strong his eyes got all watery and it made his nose super runny. He couldn't even keep his eyes open it was so strong. Once again, allergies do come in handy sometimes.

The next thing I knew Boyd ran away and came prancing back into the kitchen with his chemistry goggles on!

"Everybody needs a good pair of chemistry goggles"(Boyd).
They did the trick and he was able to endure cooking this crazy green sauce! As it was cooking it was nothing like what we were expecting. We really wanted the avocado ranch dressing (good thing I had checked before we left) So as Boyd was cooking his sauce, I was doing mine. Too bad our whole house smells like this super crazy tomatillo/jalapeno sauce. Anyway, as this sauce was cooking I thought it looked familiar. Turns out Taco Bell and Cafe Rio apparently have the same recipe! The green sauce was actually the mild sauce Cafe Rio puts on their burritos! Crazy!



If you are wondering, after more experimenting and trying to get our recipe right, we did end up making the yummy chicken burritos like we had originally planned. They were really great after we did a little tweaking. While I stepped away to take my contacts out, apparently Boyd put something in the avocado ranch dressing because he was giggling when I came back. Oh well, it was still good and I trust him because he really is the master chef.
















"Now our house smells like smelly cilantro, that is all. Goodnight." - Boyd.

Shopping Splurge

We FINALLY went shopping for clothes this weekend, after about 9 months of no shopping! I finally got jeans that were not from Aeropostale. World, you should be proud of me. While we were shopping at Ross I got bored and went to the baby section just for kicks. As we were looking around we found the CUTEST onsies ever! They had monsters on them and we just could not pass them up! Even though, we don't have a baby, and I'm not pregnant yet we still couldn't resist. Boyd loves them and I think they are just adorable. I guess we are just preparing for the future. Come to find out during break the fast today that our friends, the Sandbergs, actually have the same ones for their baby! It must be cute!

Conference

We were very fortunate to get tickets to conference this year. Thanks to mom and dad Bills we were able to go to the Sunday afternoon session for probably the last time, since we are going to be moving in a few months. Conference was awesome and our company was great! Shaun and Nicolette were able to go with us, since they are moving as well, it was probably their last time to go to conference too. We are super glad they were the ones that came with us because we had to park in a parking garage and were stuck there for quite some time after conference was over. It is a good thing Nicolette was smart and made us take a bathroom break before we got to the car or else we all would have been in BIG trouble. Too bad we didn't bring snacks. We literally parked our car in the line to get out for about 40 minutes, and then we finally started to move. Like I said, it was a good thing we like Shaun and Nicolette!