Cameras

So we are looking into getting a new camera - a DSLR one. Does anyone have a camera they LOVE or any advice on getting one?

All tips are welcomed :)

24

After searching for an appropriate "24th birthday picture" and not finding one I liked, I searched "24" to see what came up.

And this was one of the first images. 

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This cracks me up because this definitely is not how I feel.

As intimidating as this next year wants to be with the changes coming up in our lives, (graduation, moving hundreds of miles away for the summer, not knowing where we will actually be in 6 months, etc) it is not how I feel I think about everything.

I am excited for our adventures, and yet still trying to savor these last 2 months we have in Provo.

It's hard to convince time to stand still, but there are wonderful things that happen day-to-day at our house that I want to remember before life changes too much.

I feel so incredibly blessed to be where I am right now.

 It's not anywhere close to where my naive, 16-year old self thought I would be. 

It's even better.

I'm happier now than I ever dreamed I would be.

I'm even more excited for what 24 will bring.

Sparks

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Sometimes I get a glimmer of an idea that escapes me just as I'm reaching out to grasp it and let it grow.

Like a dress waiting to be created.

Some fabulous way to redecorate the apartment.

The blanket pattern waiting to be drawn out.

A design for a blog that needs a facelift.

And then the phone rings or the door opens and that glimmer is gone.

I wish I could have a lot of these sparks of ideas back.

And I need to figure out how to move them from my head to reality.

I have a feeling lots of good things could happen if I could just figure out how.

What I've Learned

So far in my attempt to train for this half-marathon, here's what I've figured out.

You make the time if you really want it.

It is still hard to get myself to do it every day - even when I know I'll be glad I did.

I don't love it yet. Maybe someday.

It's far from 7 or 8 minute miles. 

It's not even 10 minute miles. 

From Day ONE I felt healthier.

(I think this goes for any exercising.)

Days 2, 3, 4, and 5 - it was really hard to get going.

I want to run more - endorphins are teeny bit addicting.

I can run for longer periods of time now. 

I still have absolutely zero mental willpower.

 I sleep better.

 I eat better.

I'm happier.

I guess maybe I'll keep going.

tumbler...

Chinese Jiaozi --- aka Potstickers!

*After Will asked about making potstickers, I started craving them so badly. So I made them the next day!

 I tried to take pictures of every step (with my not-so-good iphone camera); this might be a long post.

 I had to run to the store to get ground pork, soy sauce, wrappers and cabbage (already had green onions).  [**This recipe makes a lot - more info at the bottom!]

round potsticker wrappers - found in the produce section by the tofu/salads (this one came with 60)

ground pork - you can do ground beef, but it is almost always pork; this is about 1 lb.

a head of cabbage

soy sauce

not pictured -- garlic (minced), salt, brown sugar

First, chop up the cabbage. You want it really, really finely chopped. I got smart and remembered I own a food processor, but using a knife works too. You just keep chopping until it is pretty small.

Put it in a bowl and pour salt over it until it is coated - this draws the water out of the cabbage. Mix it in well. If you think you didn't put enough, mix more in.. I probably ended up doing at least 1 tablespoon, probably more like 1.5 - 2. 

 Let it sit for at least 10 minutes (we try to do more like 30). Basically, the longer you wait, the more water comes out.

After you're done waiting, you start squeezing the water out of the cabbage - meaning you pick up a handful of cabbage and squeeze really hard. I usually have another bowl to put my squeezed cabbage in.   

You'll be surprised at how much water you can get out.

This is how much water I had left after I couldn't get anymore good handfuls of cabbage to squeeze.

That's what my squeezed cabbage looks like.

You squeeze the water out of the cabbage because you will just be adding more liquid to the cabbage later (ie. soy sauce). More liquid in the potsticker means more of a chance to break open when you cook it. Plus, it gets way more flavor this way.

Then you start adding all your other ingredients. 

Here's what I put in (you can customize it however you want!)

 2 cloves of garlic

2 green onions

1/2 c brown sugar (you add more later...)

ground pork

soy sauce (I started with a few shakes but you add more later too.)

This is the part where you stick your hands in the whole mixture and squish it together.

Then you add more brown sugar and soy sauce -- this picture doesn't  quite show it, but you want it to be a dark red/brown color. 

(I tried to keep an eye on how much I used and it was close to about 3/4-1 c of brown sugar, and  about1/3-1/2 c of soy sauce.)

Now comes the bao-ing part!
[Bao in chinese means to wrap - so you bao these, but you can also bao(hug) a person!]

You will need a bowl/cup of water to dip your fingers in, a spoon, and a plate.

First, you take one of your wraps and put a small almost-spoonful of the meat mixture on it.

(I actually like to do this all in my hand, not on the plate. But do whatever is comfortable!)

Here's a picture of my spoonful.

(The more you put in, the trickier it gets to bao it. Start small so you can get the hang of it at first.)

Next, dip your finger in the water and wet the rim of the whole circle.

This picture is without the meat, so you can see what I mean. 

(The meat would be right in the middle of the wrap.)

Don't soak it; you just want it wet.

Now you fold it up the middle and pinch it closed. 

This is the way to bow the sides and create that curved shape.

You already pinched the middle, so each side should look like this:

Now it looks like you can kind of push the middle up and closedthe sides to create almost a T or a Y shape fold.

You aren't going to do that, but you do fold one side closed.

Here is what it should look like:

Logically, you just close both sides and use the T/Y shape fold, but it doesn't create that nice arc/bowing shape.

Instead, push the little circle towards the rest of the wrap like this:

(Sometimes it is easier for me to use two fingers.)

This is what it looks like when you've pushed it down all the way:

Then you do the same thing on the other end of the potsticker - try to keep the folded-in parts on the same side.

It should look like this:

(the other side should be flat)

Does this make sense? PLEASE let me know if it doesn't. I can try to explain it better or take better pictures.

On to the cooking part!
This part might sound a little weird, but this is the way we've had the least amount of breakage during cooking.

Bring a pot of water to a boil (first time). Once boiling, add a good amount of the potstickers (one website says to add 1.5 times the bottom of the pan. We did about 10-15 each time in our pot.).

Let it come back to a boil (2nd time), then add 1 cup of cold water.

Once it comes back to a boil for the THIRD time, you can take them out (a slotted spoon works great!).

We put ours on a plate to cool -- try not to let them touch each other.
They tend to get sticky.

You can be done here if you want!

 Some restaurants have boiled OR fried potstickers. We like to do both. We found that boiling cooks them faster and it is easier, then we just fry the side to get it crispy. 

Enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan. 

PUT IT ON MEDIUM - it cooks slower, but it won't burn as much.

Then put them in the pan with the flattest side down -- usually the side that does not have the folds.

Traditionally, restaurants only fry one side - we found that is easiest for us to do too.

Fry them until they are a golden-ish brown.

This one is maybe just  a little too golden, but you get the idea...

There are tons of options for dipping sauces kicking around the internet. If you made the tiny spicy chicken sauce, that is a good option too!

Or I'll just pop them in my mouth without dipping. 

There is enough flavor inside, you don't need to if you don't want to.

A little extra info:
1. This recipe makes A LOT! We only make about half of our mixture and we freeze the rest. Just put it in a ziploc. The wrappers freeze too. This is nice because the next time you want them, you just defrost it and bao them. None of the mixing/chopping/squeezing nonsense. :)

2. You really can put in whatever you want  -- some people just do ground pork and soy sauce and sugar. Or skip the garlic and onions if you want... It is really up to you!

3. It is better not to stuff the wrappers when you are bao-ing. They will be more likely to burst open while boiling. You want to be able to close them fairly easily.

Also, a random story: David said sometimes on his mission making these would be their P-day activity. They would go over to a member's house and make tons of these and then have them for dinner. He said sometimes they would end up eating like 45 each. That is A LOT. We made 30 last night and it took 5 of us to eat them.

But seriously, any questions? 

If you want to make them with me, let me know! I have all the stuff in my freezer!

Yes, I do act like I'm 13 sometimes.

Remember how girls in middle school/high school (and college....) write their name with their crush's last name? 

Well, I kind of maybe took that a step farther.

Right after (or maybe right before? I don't really remember the exact time. We did know we were going to get married though.) I made a whole bunch of different email addresses with my new last name/variations on it.

I honestly don't know what my logic was..... I guess maybe naive little me thought that I should save them now in case one of those was the one I wanted later. haha 

Did I tell anyone about this? Nope. 

Did I wait to start using them until after we actually got married? Mostly...

Did David just find out about this two days ago? yes.

Chinese!

David went to San Francisco's Chinatown on his mission, so us making Chinese food has kind of become a regular thing around here. [Along with pizza and breakfast burritos for dinner...:)] Want to learn how to make it too?

We found a realllllly good wet batter that makes the chicken just like the restaurants do.

I'm going to let you in on one of our best discoveries of the year (that I now can't find the source for, sorry).

Here's our wet batter recipe:

½ cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg (beaten)
½ cup water (or as much as needed to make batter smooth)
3 tablespoons cornstarch
salt (to taste)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Cut the chicken into normal bite sized pieces and then put in batter.
We usually let ours sit for at least 30 minutes - usually longer.

We slice our beef really thin and coat it in cornstarch..

Let this one sit for a long time too - the beef soaks up the cornstarch and makes it extra crispy.

(Don't do the beef in the wet batter. We tried it once and it just didn't quite stick to the beef. Cornstarch is better, trust me.)

We use our smallest sauce pan to fry everything (about an inch deep with oil maybe? - we strain ours afterwards and save it for another time) and let it stay warm in the oven on a cookie sheet with a paper towel to soak up the extra oil.

We usually just pick whatever veggies we have and saute them. This time was red, yellow, and orange peppers, onion, and broccoli. 

It's pretty standard from what you find on the internet but here's our tiny spicy sauce:  (we only make 1/3 of it and it makes TONS)

• 2 tsp. sambal chili paste 
• 1 1/2 C sugar
• 1 C ketchup
• 1 C chicken broth
• 6 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 1 C white vinegar

Place all the ingredients in a pot and cook on medium heat until sugar is dissolved stirring constantly. 

We actually like to thicken it up with a little bit of the  1 Tbsp cornstarch/ little bit of cold water trick.

We also wait until we are ready to eat to put our fried chicken in the sauce so it is still crispy when we eat.

I tried to find the recipe we used last night to make the Hunan beef (it was so delicious!) but alas, David made it, so I don't even know what to look for. I'll have to save that for another time.

That wasn't blurry on my phone.....

Now that I have written all about this, I am starting to get hungry!

Let me know if you want to make it and you have questions or if any of this didn't make sense. 

Because we really love this dinner and hope you do too!!

Sometimes v3

I watch guilty pleasures like Revenge. It's really not that great. But maybe I've watched almost all the episodes? just maybe....

I'm glad it's cold outside because now I crave a bagel every morning

I wish I could just pay someone good money to coordinate everything for us to move to Dallas. Sometimes I love thinking/planning it all out. Sometimes I just don't want to deal with it anymore.

I love discovering unexpected movie gems like That Thing You Do.  Well, correction - my family owns it, but I hadn't seen it for 5 or 6 years, until I re-discovered it one Sunday afternoon.

I feel like a 5 year-old when the whole bag of Tootie Fruities is almost gone because I've been mindlessly eating it on the couch while absorbed in netflix. 

I feel like it's one of the world's great injustices when I can't blow-dry my hair in less than half an hour. There are cons to having a lot of thick hair - like when I go to bed with my hair wet and it is still wet when I wake up.

I write a blog post and realize that sometimes it might not be as funny as I think it is. But then I push publish anyway.

I feel inspired to be a better person when I read stories like this about good people. If you don't read anything else today, at least read this. Seriously, I was bawling at work when I read it. 

linking up here today!