A story of rice krispie treats and a Tres Leches cake

A few Sundays ago, it was my turn to teach the 8-11 CTR class (I take turns with another girl since its a crazy, enormous class). The lesson was on Nephi's vision of the tree of life and the iron rod. I don't know about you, but the most exciting part of church when I was little (and, lets be honest, to this day) is when someone brings treats. So when I'm the teacher, I make it a point to bring treats.

So what kind of treat fits in with the tree of life?

A tree of rice krispie treats, that's what.

This was not mine. Mine was lopsided and dried out. Also it had M&Ms in it (you know, fruit that is desirable above all else).

So I brought all my lesson stuff to church on Sunday, and I put the Rice Krispie Treat Tree in the church kitchen, and I went into Sacrament meeting. I came back out at the end to get my stuff...and the tree was gone. Just snatched off the plate. The entire thing. Gone.

Not gonna lie, I was pretty mad. The funny thing was, once I told my class what had happened, it actually bonded us together against the treat thief, and we had an awesome first lesson.

The rest of church passed, and I kind of got over it (the entire ward's anger on my behalf helped). I didn't think too much about it until a few days later when I heard a knock on my door. I opened it to find four older boys from the ward accompanied by the scout master holding a cake in a box from Eatzi's and a cookie that said "I'm sorry"

It was well received.

The boys looked super nervous, so I hugged them all and told them this cake was way better than dried out rice krispie treats.

Jamie agreed.

Quiet-ish mornings

Every morning, after McKay kisses us goodbye and leave for work, Tyler, Jamie, and I carry bowls of steaming oatmeal topped with brown sugar and frozen blueberries to the dining room table. Jamie reigns over us from her high chair smearing oatmeal on everything in reach; Tyler picks out all his berries, puts them on the table, and carefully spoons out the top layer of dissolved brown sugar on top ("DON'T STIR IT MOM!!!"), eats it, and leaves the actual oatmeal more or less untouched. I sit back in my chair and look out our dining room window, which I would show you if I knew where our old camera's cord was.

Our backyard is magic in the morning. The sun at 7:30 just starts to filter over the trees into our yard through all the leaves.

This is not our backyard, but this reminds me of it. I love sitting there for the ten minutes that Jamie will let me, just soaking in the goodness of green and light and life, thinking about big life decisions that have to be made and diving into some good news:

A friend from BYU whose blog I stalk regularly shared her wonderful idea/goal for this year, and I am doing my best to keep up:

http://alicianstephen.blogspot.com/2011/08/goals.html

I am almost through with Acts now. I'm amazed at how much more sense the scriptures make when you read them more than a chapter at a time. Also at the gems I never noticed before like Acts 17:27-28.

Que soul resonation.

Feasting With the Prophets VI

Week #6: Joseph F. Smith (remember the F!)
Favorite Dessert: Custard Pie

Unfortunately, me plus polygamists equals frowny face, so it's best to just leave the prophet life facts alone until we get past the Manifesto (which actually happened during Joseph F. Smith's presidency. Hurray for monogamy!)

So while his life will remain a blank for me until I can calmly deal with the idea of polygamy, we will enjoy this gem:

This is Joseph F. Smith and his freaking enormous family, with lots of grumpy faces and one ray of sunshine just to the prophet's right:

I love this kid. Makes me happy everytime these ol' polygamists get me riled up.

On to the dessert!

Custard Pie

Ingredients

1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust
3 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg white
2 1/2 cups scalded milk
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 drops yellow food coloring (optional)

Directions

1.Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C).
2.Mix together eggs, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Stir well. Blend in the scalded milk. For more yellow color, add few drops yellow food coloring.
3.Line pie pan with pastry, and brush inside bottom and sides of shell with egg white to help prevent a soggy crust. Pour custard mixture into piecrust. Sprinkle with nutmeg.
4.Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on rack.

It actually tasted a lot like flan, only less delicious. We did top it with caramel sauce, so it was pretty delicious.

Feasting With The Prophets V

Week #5: Lorenzo Snow

Favorite Dessert: Yorkshire Pudding

Apparently, the writers of the news article didn't seem to think it was a problem to list Yorkshire Pudding as a dessert. Neither did I, until I realized:

Yep, that's roast beef and gravy. Not a dessert.

So I looked ahead at some of the other prophets, and things like oyster stew and boiled wheat (what the) are popping up everywhere. To keep the dessert train going, we'll be replacing those weeks with fun alternatives.

This week, we were watching Julia Child making a crazy chocolate cake and laughing at the weird things she used to say ("It's smells chocolate-y." "It's so shiny!"). Later, I was sitting at computer, stumped at what to do for dessert the next day, and I remembered Julia's cake, and thought it would be fun to try. And so, six hours later:

Raspberry Chocolate Genoise Cake!

This is a three layered unleavened cake, filled with chocolate creme fraiche and raspberries, topped with whipped cream, covered in a chocolate shell, topped with chocolate ruffles, and dusted with powdered sugar.

I am not going to post the recipe on here because it's just ridiculously complicated, but here's the link to it:

If nothing else, just go to it and listen to Julia talk as she bakes. Totally worth it.

Feasting With the Prophets IV

Week #4: Wilford Woodruff
Favorite Dessert: Cherry Nut Cake

Wilford Woodruff didn't seem to have an overly active sweet tooth, but he did lead an interesting life. He was likely the first fly fisherman in the Rocky Mountains, and he was the prophet to whom the American Founding Fathers appeared:

"Before I left St. George, the spirits of the [Founding Fathers] gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them. Said they, “You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years, and yet nothing has ever been done for us. We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God.” These were the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and they waited on me for two days and two nights. . . . I straightway went into the baptismal font and called upon Brother McCallister to baptize me for the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and fifty other eminent men, making one hundred in all, including John Wesley, Columbus, and others."

So cool.

Wilford Woodruff Cherry Nut Cake

Cake:

2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups buttermilk
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 cups walnuts, chopped
1 cup walnuts, whole
1 pkg. candied cherries

Filling:
1/2 cup butter
3 cups sugar
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup corn syrup

Preheat oven 350 degrees F. Grease and flour three 9 inch cake pans; set aside. In bowl of mixer, cream sugar and butter until fluffy. In a medium bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add to sugar and butter mixture alternating with buttermilk. Fold in nuts. Pour batter into prepared cake pans. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until the cake tester comes out clean. Invert cake onto wax paper and cool. While cake is cooling prepare filling. In a medium saucepan on medium heat, melt butter. Add sugar, milk, and corn syrup. Cook until a soft boil stage or 240 degrees on a candy thermometer. Once filling has reached soft boil stage, take off the burner and beat until golden and thick enough to spread. Spread filling on first layer of cake (not on sides). Sprinkle whole walnuts and candied cherries over filling. Place the next layer of cake on top of the walnuts and cherries and repeat the process.

(Sadly, the cake did not survive long enough for me to take pictures of people enjoying it.)

Feasting With the Prophets III

Week #3: John Taylor
Favorite Dessert: Applesauce Cake

This was our first sugary dessert! President John Taylor was known to have a sweet tooth: in fact, he was a big reason that the sugar beet industry started up in Utah. Regular sugar was too expensive to import from the U.S., costing almost $1 per pound to transport. So the Utahns tried their hand at processing sugar beets into refined sugar, which didn't turn out well. But we got an Applesauce Cake out of it all and Sugar House, Utah, where (funnily enough) my friend now lives and works in a bakery.

Applesauce Cake Recipe:

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup chilled applesauce
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Cream butter or margarine with sugar. Add applesauce; beat well. Stir in flour, soda, and spices. Add nuts and raisins.
2. Pour the batter into a greased and floured 8 inch square pan. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 40 minutes, or until done. Serve warm.

We topped ours with cream cheese frosting, and it was delish.

Feasting With the Prophets!

A few months ago, I came across a website called "Feasting With the Prophets," a website with all the prophets' favorite desserts. I mentally shelved the idea until the holidays were over and life calmed down a little bit. Well, holidays were over three months ago (although our presents to the Eatough family are still sitting in our closet and patiently awaiting a trip to the post office. Seems to be a pattern here, doesn't it?) , and life is about as calm as it will ever be around here, so it's time to get our prophet feast on!

Week #1: Joseph Smith

Favorite Dessert: Johnny Cake w/ butter and syrup

Joseph Smith's family ate Johnny Cake so often that one of his children, when asked to bless the food, prayed "We thank Thee, Lord for this Johnny Cake, and ask Thee to send us something better. Amen."

We forgot to take pictures from that week, but it was yummy. A little plain, but Joseph wasn't exactly dining with kings during his turbulent life.

Week #2: Brigham Young

Favorite Dessert: Buttermilk Doughnuts

Brigham Young learned to make these doughnuts as a young man while caring for his sick mother. Later on, in Utah he ate two or three of these every morning during the "second course" of breakfast, which took place after the morning chores were done.

Tyler was itching to dive into this sugary goodness all afternoon while we baked them. He was soooo excited when it was finally time to eat.

Grandma and Grandpa enjoying their donuts (doughnuts?)

Tune in next week for John Taylor!

A Name and a Blessing

Our beautiful girl was blessed in church yesterday:

Ms. Jamie Addison Claire Hinckley

He was joined by our bishop, our home teacher, a few friends, and McKay's dad and brother. We are so lucky to be in the church, to have our little babies blessed by the priesthood so early in their lives. It's also a wonderful reminder to us as parents that we are not her only parents, that Heavenly Father loves her as well and is watching over her with us, and helping us to know the best way to raise her.

McKay gave her a beautiful blessing, and she didn't cry (unlike Tyler who yelled all through his). According to her grandpa, McKay's dad, she grabbed the pinky finger of the man holding the microphone for McKay and held his hand all through her blessing, and that is so like her. We are so happy she is in our family. We already can't imagine our life without her sweet little smile.

PS: Our couches look really gross in that picture, but remember, we just had them cleaned last week in the great poison ivy purge of 2010.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We celebrated with scrambled eggs, ketchup and heart shaped toast:



White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake to soothe my itch to bake:


A Rose and Tums for my after-dinner fire burps (from McKay). Note that he picked out all the red ones that I don't like them because they are spicy and make my heartburn worse.


And a Chinese New Year's Party:

Happy Love Day! I love my boys!

Halloween Pictures Are Here!

So we're blog-slackers! We've been pretty busy the last few weeks with getting our contract sold (but we did!). Here's the Halloween rundown.

We kept it pretty low key this year, and went to a few Halloween parties. In celebration of a magnificent yard sale find (a pair of adorable toddler sized cowboy boots), Tyler was a cowboy.

He spent half the day discarding accessories, like his hat, and his cute little sheriff badge:

As a stake, we planned a Halloween Primary party, and I think it was a hit! We had trick-or-treating stations set up in the gym (which Tyler LOVED the concept of: run up to the girl manning the station and demand "bites")

Here's some of our friends from the ward who came to party with us:

We also had a Ghost Hunt, where some of the other girls in the stake wrapped suckers up in napkins to looks like ghosts, and stuck them all in the ground outside, and let the kids lose on them:

Tyler got a bit distracted in the middle of the hunt:

A big thanks to everyone who helped with the party! We also went to the ward Halloween party, which was lots of fun. After all those parties, we decided to stay cozy at home Halloween night and have fun handing out candy to all the trick-or-treaters.

It was a fabulous holiday, but Halloween is one of those holidays that's sort of exhausting, but we are definitely getting geared up for Thanksgiving, which is in California this year!

Hope everyone else's Halloween was fun too!

New Calling

Last week, the stake presidency asked to meet with me, and as of today, I am officially the second counselor in our Stake Primary Presidency.

I am so, so nervous.

I am being set apart on Tuesday along with the president, first counselor and secretary, and then we are going to be trained for a couple of hours afterward.

Holy smokes!

(disclaimer: I know it's all going to work out fine, like it always does, but man oh man this is a very scary thing to me.)

Pool Party!

We threw a party at my Uncle Craig's pool last week for all our friends in the ward.

We sent summer out with a splash...

...and we're welcoming the cold! Wednesday's high is 54 degrees!

It's a Mormon Miracle

This last weekend, we trooped down to Manti to see the Mormon Miracle Pageant. McKay had seen it when he was little, and apparently, it's a pretty big deal. It's a play depicting the restoration of the Church, and key events in the Book of Mormon. It's performed on the hill in front of the Manti temple, and they've done this every year for about 30 years. This year, there were about 900 people involved in the production, and each night, the attendance is at about 14,000. They still use the same recorded narrative that was made in the 70's, so none of the actors speak; they just mime out what the narration says. And because it was made in the 70's, it has that awesome cheesy dramatic tone to it.

I think the real fun was the fact that it starts at 9:30 every night, but we got there at 6:30 to get good seats, so the three hours in between were spent just milling around. At about 7:00, most of the characters came out in costume to mingle with the audience, and to pass out referral cards. I probably should have been more into the cards, but man oh man, I was so excited to get a picture with some Nephites.

We've been collecting pictures of us in front of temples. Manti makes eight! (Only 120 to go...)

Fun times! From right to left, we've got two generic pioneers (I can't remember their names), Captain Moroni, Young Joseph Smith, and a generic Nephite warrior (who told us he makes it through all the battles).

Holy smokes, it's Mormon!

The play was getting close to starting, and Tyler was winding down. He made it about halfway through the pageant, and then passed out in his stroller. Our pictures of the actual pageant didn't turn out very well. Our camera has night issues.

We didn't get home until about 1:30 AM, thanks to traffic, but overall, we had a good time, and I'm glad we did it. But it's kind of like hiking the Y. You do it once for the experience, and then you don't go again until you've forgotten what it was that made you swear it off. In McKay's case, twenty years.

And I did find me some Nephites.