Breakfast for Dinner

Last week while we were watching the BYU game with the Brandleys (yeah, the one that didn't go over too well in overtime), we decided to whip up some breakfast for dinner.

Fruit was involved...both strawberries & blueberries...

and then a big pan of Swedish pancakes. Yum. (side note: I know some people call these German pancakes, but in our house growing up they were Swedish pancakes. We have Swedish heritage, so apparently we wanted our ancestors to get credit for this wonderful breakfast delight...)

But unlike your average breakfast, I wanted to try something a little different. A fruit shake. With spinach. I know it sounds a little bit granola, but it was quite tasty! I've seen a couple of blogs with a similar spinach smoothie concoction and I've been wanting to try it! I got the recipe from here and I would definitely recommend it. It really did taste just like a fruit shake!

I told Chad, Mark, and Laci that they all had to at least try a sip before they passed judgment on this very GREEN smoothie. Chad, Mark, and I all enjoyed the experience and finished the whole thing! Laci, on the other hand needed a little more coaxing and convincing.

it was a chocolate bavarian kind of weekend.

My life will never be the same because of this cake. It is the perfect combination of rich chocolate cake with chocolate chips mixed in and a delicate frosting that melts in your mouth. Seriously, to die for. I truly believe a weekend can be marked by what kind of food you make. This was a chocolate Bavarian weekend.

Chad was obviously trying to study and all I could think about was this beautiful chocolate masterpiece we were about to partake in. Clearly we have our different priorities.

Who better to share this most wonderful cake with? Our forever friends. The ones I grew up and love me even though they know absolutely everything about me. Every time we get together, we always slip back into talking about memories from our childhood. It's only a matter of time before we talk about hiding in the Lamprecht's laundry chute, boating expeditions, being 'Soul Skaters', cinnamon rolls by 'Barbed Wire', that one time that Jason ran into a buoy while wakeboarding (that one comes up EVERY time), and pretty much everything in between.

little sister

I know these aren't the best pictures in the world, but I just love them. This is my little sister Riley and I believe the best way to describe her is:

"A kick in the pants"

When she was little, we used to call her "Smiley Riley" because she had such a HUGE smile. She's hilarious. She speaks her own language, making up words to better describe the way she feels. She always keeps us laughing and she always will.

I love that she just shows up at our house every once in a while, like this occasion. She and her friend Kim decided to buy skirts from DI and re-purpose them. This was Riley's skirt before the transformation... it was a little on the large side to state it lightly. Kim and Riley decided to try it on... together.

We love Riley and always will.

Weekend Galavanting

Friday night: Homemade Grilled Pizzas
Delicious.

The Saltzmans came over and helped us whip up some pasta sauce and toppings for our GRILLED pizzas. They were quite tasty.

Can you tell which 2 are the girls and which 2 are the boys' pizza?

After the pizzas, we headed over to the brand new Yogurtland in Orem. Lucky for us, the Daily Universe had coupons for a dollar off, so we were pretty stoked. It was amazing, everyone has to give it a try, immediately. I mean, drop everything and drive over there as soon as possible. Provo is full of frozen yogurt establishments, but this one is a cut above the rest. Their yogurt is delicious, they've got awesome flavor & flavor combos, the spoons are bendy (according to Laci), and overall, it's not that expensive. Especially with the dollar off coupons. According to the owner, they will be appearing in the Daily Universe every Friday for the next 4 weeks!
We even ended up going back there on Saturday night, we couldn't live another day without Yogurtland. Laci and I may or may not have driven over to campus on Saturday night during halftime and picked up a HUGE stack of newspapers in order to purge them of their Yogurtland coupons. Also, Laci may or may not have come by our house last night in order to pick up some of these said newspapers so that she and a friend could go to Yogurtland last night. Its THAT good. I recommend the Devil's Food Cupcake Batter mixed with Mango. Divine.

After a yummy dinner and amazing dessert, it was back to our house to hang out and just chat for the rest of the evening. Gotta love friends.

Saturday Grocery Shopping

There's a great sale going on at Smith's right now, so I decided to take advantage of it and stock up on a couple of essentials. Details on the sale can be found here.

Who can say no to completely FREE pasta? Not me!

Overall, I saved about 65% on my overall grocery bill... not bad for a Saturday morning.

Weekend Outlook

I'm so excited to have a free Saturday this weekend... the past couple of Saturdays, I've had clinical which kind of takes over the entire weekend, but this Saturday is all mine. Hurrah for the weekends! Here are some of the activities on the agenda:

• Friday night game night with the Saltzmans- we're making mini pizzas on the BBQ (I'll update you on how they turn out) followed by a trip to our brand new YOGURTLAND in Orem! They have Yogurtland in Cali and it is simply devine.
  
• Body Pump class Saturday at 9:00 a.m. Love it.
• A thorough cleaning of the house- the works. Sweep, vacuum, mop, bathroom, etc. I love the feeling of a fresh clean house.
• Laundry- actually my favorite chore.
• BYU Basketball game Saturday at 5:45 p.m. Go Cougs!
• Chocolate Dipped Strawberries during the game.
  
• 3rd Sunday Supper- big party after church on Sunday. I'm in charge. How the Bishop knew that the perfect calling for me would be to be in charge of the food, I don't know. Actually I do... It helps to have your husband in the bishopric.
  
• Costco trip- have to sop for all of the food for the above mentioned Sunday activity.
• Possibly a crafting/sewing activity of some sort with the beautiful Laci Brandley... it's been a crazy week and there's just something that's therapeutic about crafting.
  
• Cooking- Homemade lettuce wraps on Sunday.
  
• Baking- Banana bread OR muffins OR cookies. I'm not sure yet... the possibilities are endless!

Also, Chad and I went to Sunflower last night and they had a wonderful sale going on. We ended up walking out with:

• 3 containers of STRAWBERRIES
• 2 containers of BLUEBERRIES
• A bunch of GRAPES
• 2 bunches of BANANAS
• 4 ORANGES
• 5 FUJI APPLES.

I think we got a little fruit crazy. That will happen when Spring is right around the corner, we love fruit. But seeing as we now have

berries coming out our ears,

we will need to be creative. If anyone has any ideas on what we should make with our overabundance of strawberries and blueberries, let me know! I'm always up for suggestions.Happy Weekend.

Orzo Stuffed Bell Peppers

Last week I tried making these orzo stuffed bell peppers and loved them! They weren't too hard to make, were extremely delicious, and were actually pretty low in calories. How, may you ask, would I know that? I discovered an awesome app where I can input all of the ingredients in a particular recipe and it will calculate how many calories are in one serving. It's awesome! Any guesses on calories for an orzo stuffed bell pepper? 250 calories! Not too bad. So here are a few pictures and the recipe. Yum.
Orzo Stuffed Bell Peppers
Two Peas and Their Pod

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups fresh spinach leaves, roughly chopped
1 (28 ounce can) can diced tomatoes
4 cups vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups orzo
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, plus more for sprinkling on top
1/3 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese, plus more for sprinkling on top
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
6 sweet bell peppers (red, yellow, or orange)

1. Preheat the oven to 400° F.

2. In a medium skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until tender, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for two more minutes. Stir in the spinach. Cook until spinach is wilted. Remove from heat.

3. Pour the tomatoes into a large bowl and stir in the spinach mixture. Set aside.

4. Meanwhile, bring the vegetable broth to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add the orzo and cook for five minutes. The orzo should be only partially cooked because it will finish cooking in the oven. Strain the orzo pasta, making sure you save the vegetable broth.

5. Stir the orzo into the tomato spinach mixture. Stir in the cheese and season with salt and pepper. Stir in the basil.

6. Pour the vegetable broth into a 3-quart baking dish. Slice the tops off the peppers and remove all ribs and seeds. Cut a very thin slice from the base so the peppers will stand up in the baking dish.

7. Place the peppers in the baking dish and spoon the orzo mixture into the peppers. Cover the dish with foil and bake for 40- 45 minutes. Remove the foil, sprinkle the top of each pepper with additional cheese and continue baking until the cheese is golden, about 15 minutes.

8. Remove from the oven and let peppers sit for five minutes. Serve warm.

Makes 6 stuffed peppers

our lives have been changed forever...

That's right... I now have an iPhone. Things will never be the same. This afternoon I went for a run, mapped my run, listened to an audiobook, answered a phone call without taking my headphones off, and then just went right on running. All of this, and all the time just carrying my little blue iPhone. Amazing.

In the last 2 days, its proven its value as I've been able to use it to check my email, listen to as an ipod, use as a calorie counter, browse the web, take pictures, find directions, and so much more. I was so excited that I had to take a few pictures...
This was the face Chad made because he wanted his own iPhone.
Apparently he couldn't live another day without an iPhone of his own, so he went tonight and bought one for himself. Happy iPhone day!

Sometimes we like to make rainbow cake.

My sister decided that she wanted to make a rainbow cake, so we decided to give it a try. I used my mom's basic cake recipe (included at the bottom) with a white cake mix for the base. Let me just tell you, this cake recipe will change your life. It's super easy... really just a doctored cake mix...but it's the best recipe for cake! You can use any combination of cake mix/pudding mix to make any kind of cake you want. Its awesome.

We then separated the cake batter into 6 bowls and dyed each bowl of batter a different color. In order to make the rainbow stripes, you just progressively pour each color batter into the round cake pan, one color on top of the other. In between color layers, you can tap the pan on the counter in order to help the batter spread out. [steps pictured below]

In the blog I was reading for instructions, they recommended that you wrap a wet towel around the cake pan while it's cooking in order to help the cake cook flat on top, instead of rounded. I thought this idea sounded a little dangerous and I omitted the 'wet towel in the oven' step. I wish I would have listened though, because my two layers came out very rounded and were kind of hard to stack on top of each other. I'll listen better next time.

Yum!

Basic Cake Recipe

1 box cake mix
1 pudding mix (coordinated with the type of cake mix)
1 c. sour cream
1/2 c. oil
1/2 c. water
3 eggs

Pour batter into a greased cake pan and follow cooking instructions on the back of the box. Easy.