Welcome Home PandaMae

Last year I went with my oldest daughter to Girl’s Camp.  Back then I thought it was for her.  I felt that it would make it easier for her to be away from the family for a whole week.

Let me explain, in the LDS Church many there is an organization for the teenage girls.  It is called the Young Women’s organization.  It’s primary focus is teaching the girls the gospel of Jesus Christ.  But the “young women” often learn life skills and have fun.

Each year as part of the learning about Christ, and having fun, and learning life skills, each local organization hosts a camp out.  It is simply called “Girl’s Camp.”  However, in our local church group, girls who are 13- and 14-years old have an extra opportunity to go to Oakcrest.

This camp is filled with crafts, hikes, games, and a night out under the stars.  there are lesson on life, religion, family, and more.  I have never been so I have only a small figurative peak at what they do, but from most girls I get nothing but rave reviews.

Well, if you follow my twitters, then you know that PandaMae left our home for week to go to Oakcrest.  She was very excited and couldn’t wait.

While I sensed some hesitation at the drop off, I knew that she was happy to go.

However, as I think it over, I suspect that the hesitation was mine.  I didn’t want her to go.  I miss my little girl.  Even though she is very quiet, and sometimes she can be in her room for hours and no one notice she is gone, something is different in our home.

Something is missing.

Today she comes back.  And I can’t wait to get home and see her.  I can’t wait to hear about her adventures.  See her pictures, and hopefully get a glimpse at a testimony that has grown.

It’s funny.  My wife is the one who can’t stand the thought of our children growing up and leaving the house.  I often comment on how much I can’t wait tell all the birds have flown the coop.  Yet, it is my wife who has been stellar.  She seldom comments on PandaMae’s absence.  While I don’t think a day has gone by without my mentioning her as gone.

I will probably be the won crying at her wedding too.

Reflecting back to last year, and to the hesitation at the drop off for Oakcrest.  I think that it is me who is more worried about these adventures.  My little girl that used to wake me up with her respiratory alarm at 3 months, the little girl who used to ride her big wheel in the balcony of our apartment, the little girl who used to think that I could fix anything including the credit card in the 3.25″ floppy drive is not my little girl any more.

She’s my big little girl now.

Welcome home PandaMae, I hope you had a fun time.

SODO: First Time Baking Bread

For Father’s Day my wife more than took care of me. Actually, if you ask me, she went a little over board. But, I finally have some items that I have been wanting for a very long time. So, I forgive her.

I received two things that I really wanted. The first was a Camp Chef Dutch Oven Table to make it easier to cook. Now I don’t have to bend over and risk hurting my back.

The other thing that I wanted was Charcoal Lighting Basket (I didn’t get the one pictured, but you get the idea). This will hopefully help me to get my coals to cook more evenly, and thus have a better cooking experience.

Finally my wife got me something else that was on my list, but not as high as those two. She got me a second 12″ Round Dutch Oven. This will be especially nice when I want to cook two things at the same time.

So, that’s what we did. Yesterday, we cooked up a roasted chicken. Nothing special there. Just clean a whole chicken, season it (we use seasoning salt), and then cook it in your oven.

But we complemented the chicken with some fresh homemade rolls. My wife for years has been using the “refrigerator” bread dough recipe. It will keep in the fridge for up to about a week. So, you can have fresh bread almost all the time. Just let it rise, then bake it.

FRIDGE DOUGH

1 Pkg. Yeast (abt 2-3 tsp)
1 cup cool water
2 eggs
½ cup sugar
2 tsp salt
2/3 cup shortening
1 cup Hot water
About 6-7 cups flour

1. Mix Yeast in 1 cup cold water
2. Mix eggs, sugar, salt and shortening
3. Combine ingredients of 1 and 2 and Hot Water.
4. Mix in flour until dough is no longer sticky. (Dough will not be firm, but not sticky)

Store covered in a large greased container. Dough will raise some in the fridge so be sure to allow room for growth (Use within 10 days or it will get to tasting a little ripe.)
Makes about 3 recipes worth.

Sandy mixed all of the ingredients, and placed them in a tinfoil lined Dutch Oven. Then we let them rise in the heat of the sun for about a half-hour to 45 minutes.

Then we cooked them in the Dutch Oven. It should have taken around 30 minutes, but my coals were damp, and they didn’t get very hot. I think I have finally learned my lesson to bring my unused charcoals into the garage to stay dry.

I was really nervous that the rolls would be burned on the bottom. But they were, They were just shy of being perfect on the bottom. The top, however, wasn’t done as well as I would have liked. Yes, they were very edible and the flavor and texture was just fine. The only problem was that they didn’t brown on the top. They were as pale as when they were put in the oven.

So, I am going to have to research and figure out the best way to brown bread on the top in a Dutch Oven. Otherwise, the meal was fine (accept we ate late again today).

SODO: The Great Chicken Dinner

Okay, the title to this post is a little misleading. Because last night’s meal was nothing great.

I guess, I felt that because I had been home all day that I would have enough time to start some dutch oven. But I didn’t start until 5:00 in the evening. And we had kids that needed to be to various church activities. So, I was thinking that this would have dinner done well before 6:30pm.

I was so wrong. At 6:30, the chick was still raw and the potatoes were crunchy. It really wasn’t ready to eat. So, we fed the kids a small amount of left overs and sent them to their activities.

Pride having set in, I decided to keep them on the coals for another half hour or hour. But somewhere in there, I knew that I needed hotter coals. So, after the hour had expired, and American Idol was half over, I broke down and put them in the oven.

I know, it’s horrible. We were hungry and needed to eat.

After another half hour, it was finally good enough to eat. Still some of the potatoes and carrots weren’t fully cooked, but the were still edible.

So, after that disaster of a dinner you my be wondering why the title of this post. I call this recipe “The Great Chicken Dinner” because it was perhaps one of my first exposures to dutch oven, and the chicken usually tastes great. So, here is the recipe:

1-2 lbs. of bone in chicken (last night we did legs and thighs)
1/4 cup of butter
1/2 cup of flour
2 tbs of seasoned salt (to taste)
10-12 small potatoes cut into about 1/2 inch slices
1 lbs bag of baby carrots (medium carrots cut into baby carrot size is okay too).
1 small onion sliced
1 can of cream of chicken soup

First of all start melting the butter in the pan. Then remove the skin from the chicken. In a large bowl or plastic resealable bag mix the flour and seasoned salt. Coat the chicken with the flour mixture then brown in the melted butter. After both sides are browned, leave chicken in dutch oven and top with potatoes, carrots, onions, and cream of chicken soup.

Looking over the recipe, and after a pleasant comment from my wife, I realized that I had forgotten the cream of chicken soup.  There wasn’t enough moisture to cook the potatoes and carrots properly.

Also, the charcoal that I used had been slightly moist from all of the rain that we had yesterday.  Combine that with the wet ground, and I don’t think that my coals were hot enough to reach the needed 350 degrees.  So, yesterday was definitely a learning experiences.

We’re Debt Free!

Two and a half years ago, my wife and I moved into our new home. After that move, we had one goal. That was to get rid of our consumer debt.

We started out by paying $700 extra on the one consumer loan that we had. It was a student loan that totalled somewhere near $32,000. Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either. Somehow, I managed to ignore the fact that I was that deep in debt.

I also started this process by reading Dave Ramsey’s book “The Total Money Makeover.” While reading it I felt pretty good. I had not car loans. Our credit card was paid off every month, and I felt that I was on the right track.

Then came the section on Student Loans. That when it hit me hard that I was not different than other people. Sure, my interest rate was less than most. But the reality was that it was still that terrible four-letter word, DEBT.

Eventually, through pay raises and some other tightening of the proverbial belt, we started to pay $1000 every month towards the student loan. We also used the tax refunds and part of a company bonus to help us pay down our debt.

Finally on April 15 2008, I made my last payment on the student loan. I was debt free (at least on the consumer side, I still owe on my home).

I say was, because I then did something sort of stupid. I bought a new computer that cost almost $1000 dollars. I did this because I knew that buy the time the credit card bill came due we would have the money, and because our last computer was literally on its last leg.

Thus, I am waiting until today to officially announce that I am debt free. I paid of the computer and other credit card balance (like I do every month), and I can honestly say I am debt free.

Our next step is to build our financial reserves and my wife and I are adding food storage.  But we need a break from discipline.  So we are buying a few wants over the next few months.  These include a tent trailer (already purchased), a new computer (also purchased), a new washer and dryer, some furniture for our family room, a safe, and some other incidentals.

I just hope these next few months of “frivolity” don’t have us regretting our decision.  But starting in January, we will get really serious about our financial and food stores.

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Just as a final note. Dave Ramsey does not condone the use of credit cards, and for the most part I agree with him. However, after 14 years of discipline has shown, my wife and I can handle credit cards. We don’t use them, unless we have the money to back up the purchase, and we always return to a zero balance at the end of each month. I only recommend credit cards if you KNOW that you will pay them off each month, and will use them wisely.

Spring/Summer of Dutch Oven (SODO)

About a month and a half ago, our office had a Chili Cook Off with a $100 cash (well, Visa Gift Card) prize for first place. I decided that I would enter with a Dutch Oven Recipe that I found on the Internet thanks to the good people at Utah Association of Geocachers.

I won. $100 that I still haven’t decided how to spend.

But that isn’t the point of the post. Since then I have cooked one dutch oven meal every week for my family. This will be a little bit of a challenge, because as of yet, I own one and only one 12″ dutch oven. It is great for casseroles, deserts, and roasts. But if I want to do a meal of separates, we might just have to use the conventional oven.

The meals that I have cooked have ranged from the pre-cook off test run of chili for the family. To this weekend we had breakfast before Conference out of the dutch oven. I cook the typical but always delicious peach cobbler. It wasn’t as brown on the top as I would have liked, and some of the peaches were a little burnt. They weren’t too burnt, just too far beyond caramelized.

Then to end the Conference we had a delicious Beef Roast with potatoes and carrots. Again it was excellent. The beef was a little too crispy on the bottom, but honestly, it tasted great. It almost added a little jerky flavor to the meal, and everyone liked it.  Hmm… I see a new family tradition starting…

Both of the recipes for this came from the Better Home & Garden’s Checkerboard Cookbook that my wife and I received on our wedding day (or she got it at a wedding shower). I mention that because in future posts, I hope to share the recipe. But since I am at work, I don’t have the recipe, so I am offering up the source.

As I just indicated, this is my first in a series of post about my adventures in dutch oven cooking. I hope to keep you posted weekly on which recipes I am using, and how it turned out. So, keep your taste buds under control this Spring/Summer, because I am going to be sharing some culinary delights. Just keep your eyes open for the SODO preface to indicate that it is about tasty goodness.

Eight is Enough

On Wednesday Morning, my lovely wife woke my up and said that she couldn’t sleep. She wasn’t sure if it was or wasn’t happening, but after 20 minutes of wavering back and forth, we finally decided that it was time to head to the hospital.

About an hour and a half after arriving at the hospital, “Flash” Grant joined our family. He weighed 9lbs. 2.8 oz. and measured in at 19.5 in.

Here are a few pictures for you to enjoy.

Minutes after the birth
PandaMae and Flash
Miss Jo and Flash
BO and Flash
Miss Kay and Flash
Capt. Z and Flash

With this latest edition to our family, we have completed our family. That makes eight people in our family, and thus eight is enough.

2008 Calendar

They are done. Actually, I still have one more, but I have until Dec. 31 to finish that.

Every year for the past several years, I have taken photos from my wife’s family and used them to make a personalized calendar. You have probably purchased them as gifts, and they are wonderful to hang on your wall.

However, as you know I am cheap. So, I make them myself. However, in making them myself, I have also decided that I would put important dates on the calendars. Primarily, I include all of my wife’s parents children and grandchildren’s birthdays and anniversaries.

However, I usually make three different calendars. I usually use the same pictures, but I include different birthday’s depending on the recipient. My wife and my calendar includes birthdays for her family and for mine. The Calendar for my wife’s grandmother includes birthdays for her brothers and sisters and all of her progeny. That’s three different but similar calendars.

If that wasn’t enough, I decided that this year, I would make a calendar for my side of the family. However, they wouldn’t be interested in photos from my wife’s family. So, I had to have different pictures. Past attempts at getting them to send photos have completely failed, so this year, I used photos that I have taken from my travels this past few year.

Unfortunately, I  have made a few mistakes.  The calendars that I mailed out a couple of days ago, went out without my brother-in-law’s birthday on it.  Also, the calendar that I printed for me doesn’t have any of my wife’s family on it.  I just wasn’t thinking and I was happily printing away.  Also, a few of the calendar’s for my family have the wrong photo connected to the wrong month.  I was just too cheap to print them again.

So, I have had to make 4 different calendars this year. And trust me, if you want to put your printer to the test make 13 calendars on cardstock using extensive color.

Some of My Favorites Photos from the Calendar:
Duck in a Pond
Wild Flowers of Idaho
Flag on “Blue” Bridge, Kennewick, WA
East of Park City