My Best Friend's Wedding, Part I

Last weekend, my best friend from school (Renai) got married.  She lives in Arizona, and I thought, "You know what?  It's really not that far away, it's the perfect time of year to visit, and I haven't been there in a long time.  What better excuse to visit Arizona than my friend's wedding?"  So I filled out the RSVP card and said I was coming.  She seemed pretty thrilled that I was going to come!  Apparently, one of her OTHER best childhood friends (from New Jersey) was coming out, too!  "How awesome is it that my best friend from Arizona and my best friend from New Jersey are going to be at my wedding!" she gushed.

On Wednesday evening, we drove down to Richfield to stay with my grandparents.  It would cut off about 2.5 hours from the total length of the trip, and it's always nice to stop and visit with family for a while.

Kids get restless after spending long periods of time in the car, so we took a few breaks at rest stops to change diapers, eat snacks, and run around.

For the record, scorpions are arachnids, not insects.

She's just so cute ... I can't resist!

We got to Phoenix early Thursday evening, and I took the opportunity to go by the house I lived in until I was 8.

We used to have bunch of cacti and stuff in the front yard.  It looks a lot like the last time we came by (about 8 years ago) ... I'm disappointed they haven't gotten around to landscaping the front yard.  It looks terrible.  But they DID put a pool and a hot tub in the backyard.  I wanted to peek over the fence to get a good look at the yard, but there were a few ladies in the hot tub out back and that would've been awkward ... "Um, hi, I lived here 15 years ago and I just wanted to see what you've done with the place!  Don't mind me ... can we steal some of your neighbors' lemons, too?"

After making that quick trip down memory lane, we went to Ahwatukee and had dinner at my friend Carmen's house.  Yes, that is the Carmen my little Carmen is named after.  We met her sweet boyfriend, James, and her scaredy rottweiler puppy, Eza.  (I'll refer to my friend Carmen as either Big Carmen or CJ from now on ...)  Carmen was so excited to meet them both she learned a bunch of new words quickly.

CJ had fun playing with Carmen.  She and her mom (Gina) showered Carmen with gifts - clothes, a bead necklace CJ made when she was little, and a pink Beanie Baby bear.  Gina tried offering Carmen TWO Beanie Babies, but Carmen soundly rejected one.  (Like, smacked it onto the floor saying, "No!")  Carmen's favorite activity was bouncing down the stairs with Big Carmen.



Soon, it was time for bed so we went to Jeanni's house, where our family was going to sleep.  Jeanni was my piano teacher and Beehive leader when I was 8-13.  She's pretty much one of my other favorite people in the world ... but Mark won't let me name a kid Jeanni.  Yet.

I had baked a big batch of tasty oatmeal chocolate chip butterscotch cookies (with coconut, too!) to give as a gift to Jeanni when we arrived.  The bag of cookies made it the whole trip and Mark and I enjoyed snacking on them ... then something must've happened on that final stretch to Phoenix, because when we got to Jeanni's house the cookies were totally smashed up.

Mark walked into the house with the bag of mooshed cookies and said, "Hey, was I supposed to give these to Jeanni?" and she was standing right there in front of him.  I was thinking, "Oh, great presentation there, Marky." and Jeanni looked at him, looked at the bag of cookies, and totally cracked up.  She graciously accepted our offering and went into the kitchen to get some milk.  "Brian," she called to her husband, "Would you like some incredibly tasty cookie crumbs?"  We still managed to find several intact cookies!!!

Speaking of that particular batch of cookies ... when I was making the final pan of cookies, I turned off the oven when the cookies were almost done and forgot to take the pan out of the oven.  They weren't really burned, but they were incredibly crunchy.  Want to know something I learned from this experience?  FEED THEM TO BABIES.  They'll be highly entertained because they're getting cookies, but it will take them forever to eat each cookie because they're so hard!  Our trip to Phoenix was made a lot easier because Carmen was kept quiet in the back seat with her crunchy cookies. ;)

Or, just don't overcook your cookies in the first place.
You know.  Lemons, lemonade.

Recipe for Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies:
2 c butter
2 c sugar
2 c brown sugar
--cream ingredients together--
4 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
--cream ingredients together--
4 1/2 c flour
4 1/2 c oatmeal
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
--mix ingredients together--
12 oz chocolate chips (if you want butterscotch, make it half and half)
(If you want coconut too, you can put in about 1/2 c coconut flakes.  I didn't measure it ... I just added the stuff that was left over from making coconut shrimp the week before.  hahaha.)

Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes, like you do with just about every other cookie recipe.

I decided to invent this recipe because I bought butterscotch chips at Winco and didn't have the right ingredients for magic cookie bars.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about the wedding and how much I love Renai's new husband!

The Best Smoothies Ever

Back in middle school, I fell in love with Zuka Juice (which then became Jamba Juice).  I loved smoothies.  At my 15th birthday party, we tried to figure out how to make strawberry smoothies by mixing together ice cream, milk, and fresh strawberries.  It didn't work out so well - the smoothies were still pretty runny, and I was pretty sure just adding ice cubes wouldn't make the smoothies better.  When I was 16, I got my tonsils out, and my friend's mom gave me a recipe for fruit smoothies.

What?  You add FROZEN FRUIT?  That makes a lot more sense than fresh fruit and ice cubes!!

So that's the secret.  Frozen fruit.

Since then, unless I'm wanting some kind of exotic smoothie, I can't get myself to pay a premium to go to Jamba Juice and get a smoothie when I can make (a healthier!!) one at home for a fraction of the cost.  Okay, I can pay a premium to go to Jamba Juice, but nowhere else -- I'm afraid they'll add ice cream or something with lots of high fructose corn syrup to make the smoothies sweeter.  At home, I discovered I don't need to add any sugar to my smoothies to make them sweeter.  The fruit alone is good enough!

My favorite smoothie of all time was Jamba Juice's Peanut Butter Moo'd - which is just a chocolate peanut butter smoothie.  But I think it made its way onto the list of Worst Foods to Eat or Eat This, Not That! or something.  Yep, a quick Google search confirms that Men's Health hates Peanut Butter Moo'd.  Truly, what could be more high-cal in a smoothie than peanut butter and chocolate?  And why would you ever settle for peach when you're in the mood for peanut butter and chocolate?!  "Hmm, today I really want a Reese's Peanut Butter cup, but I think I'll just have a peach instead.  It's kind of the same thing, isn't it?"

So I decided I would go home and make up my own slightly healthier smoothie recipe.  Peanut butter, chocolate ... how would I get it frozen?  Bananas!  Frozen bananas are a great base for any smoothie recipe!  That got me thinking about Reese's peanut butter cups, bananas dipped in chocolate (and peanut butter), peanut butter and banana sandwiches, strawberry and peanut butter sandwiches (ever had a pb&j with fresh strawberries?  divine!), strawberries dipped in chocolate ... and somehow, strawberries, bananas, chocolate, and peanut butter sounded like the perfect combination for a smoothie.

And it was.

So here is my very precise, very exact, peanut-butter-chocolate-banana-and-strawberry-smoothie recipe.  I have yet to come up with a good name for it.

Ingredients:
~A frozen banana (I chop fresh bananas into halves or thirds and freeze them in sandwich bags)
~Frozen strawberries
~Peanut butter
~Chocolate syrup
~Milk

Directions:
~Put the frozen stuff into the blender, top it with the peanut butter and chocolate.  Fill the blender with milk until the frozen stuff is barely covered, then blend till smooth.

I don't provide any exact amounts because all that matters is that you decide how much smoothie you want and fill the blender with that much frozen fruit.  So if you're just making a little bit for yourself, only fill up the blender 1/4 of the way with frozen fruit.  If you're sharing with all of your friends, maybe you want to fill it up to the top.  If you don't add enough milk, the smoothie will be too thick and your blender will have a hard time mixing it and the smoothie will be really chunky.  When you have enough milk, it blends really easily.

When you're making a smoothie with all different kinds of fruit, it's really easy to put too much fruit in the blender.  "I'll just have a few strawberries and a few peaches and some pineapple and oh I should add some frozen orange juice concentrate, and .... wait!  The blender is completely full!"  Really, a single strawberry will be good enough.  You don't need half a cup of everything  It took me a long time to learn that.

When making smoothies, I hear you can add yogurt and stuff to make it thicker.  One thing I really like about making smoothies at home is that you know exactly what's in it and how much is in it.  My smoothies consist of real fruit and 1% lowfat milk (and the occasional chocolate syrup and peanut butter, which will soon be Adam's 100% natural peanut butter) - can you beat that ingredient list?  I think not!!