Jealous? You should be!

Quick post to let everyone know that we are leaving for New Zealand tomorrow! Jer is doing 1 day of work, then we are having 9 glorious vacation days! Wooohooooo! It will be quite the adventure considering we don't really know what we are doing there, but it will be fun! I can't wait to share lots and lots of pictures!

Jealous? :)

Recipe Winners!!!!!!!

I know, I have been terrible at updating my blog! What can I say? I could lie and make up an excuse, but there really isn't one! Sorry, I will probably neglect you again in the future, but for right now, you have my full, undivided attention (well, maybe not undivided. I am listening to music, after all . . .)

So, in honor of Cinco de Mayo (late, I know, but just allow me my delusion) I am extremely pleased to announce

2009 Kasie and Jer Recipe Winners!

Thanks a ton to all of the people who entered my little contest - it was so much fun to eat all of your yummy recipes! I had mexican food for like a month straight! (Pure heaven). It was hard to choose, but here (in no particular order) are the winners!

Ashley Smith's Green Chicken Enchiladas!
I actually am not a huge enchilada fan . . . they always sound good, but then I take a couple bites and feel sick. THESE delicious beauties, on the other hand, I could NEVER get sick of! Yum Yum good! They are a little more work then the enchiladas I am use to, but SOOOOOO worth the effort! And the leftovers are yummy, too! Here is the recipe!

Ingredients:

4-8 Chicken breasts boiled and shredded
1 cup grated cheese
3/4 cup chopped onion
tortillas
1/2 cup butter
1-2 cups chicken broth
1 small can chopped green chilis (I couldn't get this, so I just chopped up a mix of green chilis and green bell peppers)
1/3 cup flour
1 cup sour cream (Ashley doesn't use this, but I did!)

Melt butter add flour and broth-stir- add sour cream and chilis -stir. heat tortillas in microwave and coat both sides with a little pam to prevent sticking. put 2 Tablespoons of sauce in each tortilla along with some onions, chicken and cheese. roll up and place in baking dish. When dish is full pour leftover sauce over enchiladas and sprinkle cheese on top. bake 350 for 30 minutes.

I like them best served with a pinto bean/salsa mix and tortilla chips on the side!

Jeff Payne's Homemade Salsa!
I am a salsa junky and this one really hits the spot! So easy and sooooo yummy! Best part, you can really play with it to make it however you want! Be warned - it makes a lot of salsa! Invite friends over before you make it!

Ingredients:

1 can of diced tomatoes - fire roasted (I just used plain diced tomatoes)
1 small to medium onion minced (I used yellow but you can use purple, too)
1 clove fresh garlic, minced
2 bell peppers (I picked a green and a yellow one because they made the salsa pretty!)
1 to 2 small jalapenos seeded and minced
1 Tbsp vinegar
1 Tbsp lime juice (I love lime, so I squeezed a whole lime in and added some of the zest, too!)
Cilantro 1/8 cup (I didn't have this so I used watercress instead!)

This all should go into a small sauce pan and be brought to a simmer just long enough to let the flavors mix but not to 'cook' then put the pan in a larger pan with water and ice in it to cool, stirring until the mix is chilled. This will stop the 'cooking' process, you can serve now or put in a container in the fridge for later.

Jeff Payne's Healthy Pumpkin Cookies!
These are to die for good - sooooo yummy. I love pumpkin cookies, but don't really like how squishy they are. This recipe is a good mix - it almost tastes like a mix between a pumpkin cookie and a no bake cookie! If you can get about 35 cookies out of the batch, then it works out to each cookie being only about 75 calories! Yum!

Ingredients:

1 cup canned pumpkin (I didn't have this, so I boiled some pumpkin then mashed it!)
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup applesauce
3 cups oatmeal
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
Dark chocolate chips (this wasn't in the receipe originally, but I just couldn't resist adding it! I used a small bag of extra dark chips - they are healthier and taste so yummy in the recipe!)

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together the pumpkin, sugar and applesauce.
In a separate bowl, combine the remaining ingredients, then add to the pumpkin, mixing well.
Drop by spoonfuls onto a baking sheet. Bake for 13-15 minutes or until done.

Congrats winners!

I hope you all enjoy these yummy recipes - they really were all so good, it was hard to choose! Ashley, I need your address (e-mail me?) so that I can send you your prize from Australia!

I love you all and will post pictures soon! Happy cooking!

Pictures!

Finally, here are some pics! There are like a trillion that I haven't blogged, so I basically just randomly chose ones for your viewing pleasure :) So, without further adieu, here are some of the amazing events happening in the lives of Kasie and Jer!!!!!!!!!!!

Mom and Stephen came to visit us in Australia and stayed for one week of vacation bliss!

We visited the St. Kilda Pier . . .


Admired the local art . . .


And the locals . . .


We ATE yummy yummy food . . .


We saw spiders in the museum . . .


And were entertained by Jer's amazing ability to discover the unusual . . .


We played with koalas . . .




And trees . . .



And saw giant kangaroos in the wild! We saw this huge mommy with a baby in her pouch . . .


And a field with 22 kangaroos in it!



We went fishing in the ocean on this boat . . .




And Mom caught a fish!


We had a night out on the town at Cirque Du Soleil's Dralion which was so freaking amazingly wonderful that I must have peed my pants!


Anyone up for a photo shoot while waiting for the train?



We went to the chocolate factory where Jer made his very own chocolate concoction - white chocolate with cola filling!



We went to the beach even though it was freezing . . .


Took this amazingly corny beauty . . .


And wrote this message for my stinky sister :)


So true, so true.

Today . . .

I know that you all want to see pictures and hear updates about Australia . . . but I just don't feel like blogging those much needed updates. Instead, I thought I would share some of my new thoughts with you . . . so here it is. Kasie's profound thoughts/reflections/feelings of the day.

1- I have a serious love/hate relationship with popcorn. Love the delicious low-calorie-ness, hate the fact that no matter what I either end up with hundreds of kernel duds or gross over-cooked and black popcorn. Seriously people, why can't there be a better way? I end up stressing out for the two minutes that the popcorn is cooking - trying to count seconds - just to stop it either too early or too late and open up the bag to reveal disaster. Today I was preemptive - poor little unpopped kernels - they will never know their full potential.

2- My success for the day - beating everyone's score on Bejeweled - a facebook game. Failure of the day - not doing one productive thing. What does that say about my life?

3- Why can't finger nail polish just stay on? I hate painting my finger nails, but (suprise!) I have actually stopped biting them and they are long! Still - they chip in, like, 2 hours! Puuhhhllleeaasseee!

4- Today the thing I miss most about Utah is Costa Vida - actually that's the thing I miss most almost everyday (sorry family)!

5- Lately I've been feeling like there is something super amazingly awesome and cool that I should do with my life, but I can't think of it. I don't want to be a teacher, poet, writer, lawyer, dentist, FBI agent, dancer, mom, fashion consultant, marine biologist, t.v. producer, or truck driver. Weirdly enough, the ONLY thing that I want to do for the rest of my life is be a student . . . anyone want to pay me to go to school?

Well . . . I guess that's enough for now. Maybe tomorrow I will find the desire to post pictures, or maybe not. I never can tell these days!

I still care, I promise!

I haven't forgotten about ya'll or my recipe challenge - I just seriously have not found the time to blog! (I'm a loser, I know) I just uploaded my massive amounts of pictures to my computer, so watch for an update! Also, we only have two more recipes to try for our mexican/pumpkin recipe challenge. Winners to be announced soon!!!!!!!! And . . . we have our return date (kinda). Jer's last day of work in Australia is Friday, July 10th! We will probably be taking a vacation in New Zealand before we return home, so more than likely we will fly out that next weekend, the 18th-ish. I will let you know as soon as it is finalized!

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

Random Post . . . I have been looking at these adorable baby headbands ALL MORNING trying to possibly conceive of any reason I might have to buy some . . . but, alas, I came up with zilch. I even asked my mom if she could think of any reasons, but she couldn't. So . . . I thought that I would live my life vicariously through my friends and ask you guys to take a look and buy some of these adorable flowers. They have TONS of cute styles! Hurry! They are only on sale until the end of April! (Psst, sorry Becca for stealing your pictures! Hopefully you won't mind!)

http://petalprincessbecca.blogspot.com