The Review Board: Pita Bread

...and hummus...sort of.

About a month or two ago, I attempted to make pita bread. Why not? It's tasty! Well, here's why not:
-With an oven above 400 degrees, I almost burned myself. A lot.
-They poof up, which makes them very hard to handle once cooked.
-I don't have a nice fancy oven stone, so I had to use a cookie sheet that loves to bend and warp during cooking.
-The recipe required you to flip the pitas half way through. Again, with the burning myself. (When baking, it's really better for me to keep my hands out of the oven as much as possible.)
-As I was trying to retrieve the now-sphericalish pita from the oven, I dropped it. Into the oven. Backstory: I started out this semester by dropping an oven mitt onto an oven coil. It caught on fire a little bit. In another adventure, I hit my hand against the other oven coil and had a very large, decently severe burn. I love baking, but I'm kind of afraid of our oven now. Flashfoward to...the last time I made pita bread, when I dropped the pita. I'm flying through drawers, whipping out spatulas and tongs and forks, trying to figure out the best way to rescue this little demon before he burned my apartment complex down. Finally, the pita was nestled out of the crack of the oven and onto a plate, where it looked perfectly done. Of course.
In it's defense, the batch did turn out tasty and I didn't have to spend money on it. It was just very labor intensive and turned out rather crispy.

Today, I decided to try a new recipe. This one had slightly different methodology. It can be found here.
I don't remember the actual recipe for the first batch, so I couldn't tell you if they were different or not. I can, however, tell you that in this recipe, I:
-Used honey instead of sugar
-Kind of wished I'd used wheat flour, because I eat white breads too much
-Needed probably a full extra cup of flour than called for. That's Rexy for you though.

This recipe didn't require me to flip the pita, which was a huge plus. I'm still amazed that the little buggers cook in 3 minutes! It also recommended using the bottom of the cookie sheet, which seemed a lot better for this task. I now have a stack of delicious pitas sitting on my counter, perfectly done, and without a single burn on my hands. Now, for the hummus.

I hesitate to really review this because I question it. Even though I sit here eating it with carrots while I type, it still concerns me. Part of my thriftiness comes from the bulk bins at Winco, which is the place to get spices, grains, (candy) and other things that you want in greater or lesser quantities than you can find on a shelf. In our last jaunt, I found hummus mix. You add water and EVOO and suddenly, hummus. I don't know if it's the right texture or anything. I just know that powdered hummus makes me suspicious, but I added red pepper flakes and it masks the carroty taste of these carrots quite nicely. If anyone tries it out, let me know what you think?

Happy eating!

The Review Board

I kind of have this desire to start reviewing things, on top of the regular blog posts (that I haven't made in four months, oops.) I mean, I have no idea what I'd review. Everything? Books, recipes, products? Everything sounds good. But where to start?

Well, in an effort to be more thrifty, I've been trying to homemake a bunch of stuff. We go through a healthy amount of salsa in our home, and our neighbors brought us some of their scratch salsa which made me crave the not-jarred stuff even more. I started with a recipe: Alton Brown's Salsa. I usually choose Alton Brown recipes for things I've never made before because the videos that accompany them are really helpful and they are typically simple and delicious.
We hit a few snags (WinCo didn't have jalapenos or regular limes. What's up with that?) Jared substituted a couple other chiles (he can't remember what kind) for the missing jalapenos, and ended up putting the juice of five key limes in. The salsa filled the biggest bowl I own on Saturday. Today (Tuesday) we finished it off. It took about a bag and a half of chips. I meant to freeze some of it so we could have salsa whenever we needed it, but it just kept getting better the longer it sat. So, without further ado, here's my official review:
It really did get better every day. When it was first assembled, it wasn't my favorite. It was kind of...bitter? Regardless, by the time we finished it today I was inhaling it. Definitely respect the "let sit for 12 hours" instruction. I wish we'd added more heat. We weren't sure how it would turn out, so we mellowed out half the jalapenos. Next time I make it, I'll have to separate and freeze half of it before announcing that it's done.

Tada! I reviewed something! I'll get better as I go, I hope.

As far as home-life is going, Jared and I have enjoyed our little apartment. It's definitely coming together. Plus, college apartments are never dull. When I had to bail on our neighbors because I wasn't feeling well, she asked if I was positive sick, or negative sick. Nope, I'm not preggers. Funny way of asking, though! Rexburg is covered in snow, and has been for a few weeks now. We got a white Christmas! I'm (still) job hunting, and Jared starts school next week. Back to the grind we go!

The New Home

Hi everyone! You'll likely have noticed many changes around the blog. I figured, hey, new family, new home, might as well give the blog a fresh coat of paint. However, it's not just KT anymore (nor are my initials even KT anymore) so I logically also had to change the blog name and address.
But Katie, why didn't you just create a new blog? Wouldn't it have been easier?
No.

Anyway, to the point of this entry. Jared and I, after our wedding on July 28th, had been living with my parents up until last week. Now it's time to start a new school semester, which means moving into married student housing up here at the Y of I. We're incredibly happy to call this little place home. 

I worked in California until Thursday night, we drove all day Friday and then again Saturday beginning at 6am. By 10am, we had the keys to our apartment, and by 11, we had unloaded our first car-full, met our neighbors, and scored a free tv.  We then proceeded to dash to the nearest bed store to ensure that we had somewhere to sleep for the night. Then we hopped back in the car, drove to Idaho Falls, and picked up a vacuum, a microwave (what kind of apartment doesn't have a microwave these days?!) and a million other little necessities. By Saturday night, our bed was made, our bedroom free of clutter, the bathroom had a shower curtain and towels, the kitchen had basic tools, and the rest of our apartment made us look like hoarders. On the plus side, the first trip home from the storage unit filled our car once again, but attracted the attention of half our building to help unload. It took maybe five minutes. 

Sunday was our first day in a married student ward. Unlike the single student wards, where everyone goes by their first names, we're Brother and Sister Allen. Also, there's the constant drone of a few rattles. Regardless, it was kind of fun.

Today was our first day of school, and Jared's birthday. We had a religion class together with a teacher we've had before, so that was really nice. Other classes were the basic first-day routine. Nothing too exciting. We were both done by 12:30, as we will be every day, which totally rocks. Jared will usually have work after that though. 

After school, I took my first stab at baking an Angel Food cake (from a box, of course). I now have my first oven spill to clean up. Yummy. The cake soon became part of a Strawberry Shortcake trifle. Because, you know, why not?

Jared, the greatest chef of our age, called it the best Strawberry Shortcake he'd ever had. Score!

And what birthday would be complete without Sparkling Cider in plastic champagne flutes?

The flowers were from Jared today.
"Happy Birthday!" he said with a grin as he presented them to me.
"But Jared, it's your birthday."
"Happy My Birthday!"
I love him.

So those are our latest adventure. More to come, I'm certain. Hopefully next time I post, we'll have the last two rooms assembled. Maybe.

-Katie A.

Remind Me Again: What is Sleep?

Home again. Well, back in Temecula. Home is where the heart is, which means for me, it's wherever Jared is. So I guess right now "home" is an hour from here. But I'm with my mom and sister now, so "home" is here too. I've definitely missed them.
Finals always seem to drain the life out of me, especially when compounded with having to make my apartment "white glove" clean at the same time. I think I got about fifteen hours of sleep all week, and that's including half the drive home. But you know, I'll take what I can get.
Six days, eleven hours.
That is how long I have until I become Mrs. Katie Allen, and gosh dang, six days and eleven hours is far too many. So much is happening this week, I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever get to settle down. Oh well, it's totally worth it.
Anyway, just thought I'd let everyone know that I'm back in California safely, and
I'M GETTING MARRIED IN A WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!