recipe:: spiced pear cake

Spiced Pear Cake

• 1 large can (29 ounces) Bartlett pear halves in syrup (used a bottle of home canned pears)
  
• 1 cup quick cooking oats
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 3 tablespoons melted butter
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Preparation:

Drain pears and reserve 1 1/4 cups of the syrup. In a saucepan, heat pear syrup to the boiling point. Pour hot syrup over oats in a bowl and let stand for 20 minutes.

In a mixing bowl cream 1/2 cup butter with 1 cup brown sugar and the granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Blend in eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. Add to the creamed mixture along with oat mixture. Blend well. Pour batter into a greased and floured 9-inch square baking pan. Bake at 350° for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a wooden pick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean.

Cut each pear half lengthwise into 4 wedges. Arrange pear wedges on top of the baked cake. Combine the 3 tablespoons melted butter with 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg; spread over the pears Place cake under broiler for about 2 minutes or until pears are hot and glazed. Serve warm with ice cream.

recipe:: cupcakes

This recipe is based off a recipe from my dear sweet friend Windy in France. These homemade cupcakes are amazing! I will never be making a boxed cake again!

Better than Betty’s Cupcakes

¾ c. softened butter ½ tsp. salt

1 ¾ c. sugar 3 tsp. baking powder

2 eggs 2 ½ c. flour

2 tsp. vanilla 1 ¼ c. milk

Beat butter and sugar together. Mix in eggs, one at a time, blending well after each egg. Add in vanilla and mix. Add salt and baking powder. Mix. Add part of the milk and flour while mixing. Add the remaining milk and flour to the mixture, beating until fluffy.

Bake at 350F for 17-20 minutes until golden.

For almond cupcakes add 1 ½ tsp. almond extract (and only ½ tsp. vanilla).

For chocolate cupcakes replace ¼ c. flour with cocoa powder.

Buttercream Frosting

3 C powdered sugar 1/3 C butter, softened

3-4 TB milk 1 tsp vanilla

Combine powdered sugar, butter, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla in large bowl. Beat with electric mixer at low speed until blended. Beat at high speed until light and fluffy, adding more milk, 1 teaspoon at a time, as needed for good spreading consistency.

I'm back...with music musings!

To welcome myself back to the blogging world, I thought I'd share one of my new favorite videos with you. It may now be on my to do list to learn how to do this. If anyone wants to learn this awesome little hand jive with me, let me know. The song in the background is pretty spectacular. The song, We No Speak Americano is incredibly catchy and a remake from the original song made in the 1950s.

Some of my new favorite music since I've gotten home...
Priscilla Ahn
Mindy Gledhill
The Muse
Mumford and Sons
Mat Kearney

It must be an M thing.

Backpacking in Europe and a week in New York

So, as most of you know, after my mini-mission stint I spent two weeks traveling with my brother Mark, my brother Erik and his wife Julie, and my darling niece, Ginny. We had an amazing time in Madrid and San Sebastian Spain. We then went to Bordeaux, Nice, Eze Village, Ville-Franche-Sur-Marne, Strasbourg, Annecy, and ended our amazing trip in Paris.
Here are photos from the trip:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=184769&id=724808512&l=8e444d129f

Afterwards we met up at my brother's place in New York and my best friend Amber came along for the fun. We had a blast touring NYC and visiting several beaches and just having fun!
Photos from New York:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=188633&id=724808512&l=a7fe066c2d

I then got home on the 24th of July and spent the summer happily playing with friends and working at the research farm.

I'm alive!

Hi everyone! I made it back to Utah safe and sound.
My backpacking trip with brother Erik, sister-in-law Julie, niece Ginny, and brother Mark went great. Sadly for you it was my vacation so I didn't write about it.
Happily for you, Julie did so you can check out her blog if you want to know what we did...
http://erikandjulie.blogspot.com/

Mini-Mission: Week 5

14 juin 2010 (Day 293)

We had a fun day doing stuff around the house babysitting the plumber. He is a really nice man and quite funny. We only worry that he did nothing about all the mold he found behind the tile. Our Indian internet friend said that we could move into his house today (oh boy) and I made some rocking real pain perdu…yum!

15 juin 2010 (Day 294)

Today the plumber was here tiling over the mold….er wall. We had the elders come babysit him and we went off to see Fran and Stan. Only Fran was there so we had a discussion about prophets. We found out that she had seen a member who had came to teach one of the lessons with the missionaries smoking. She also had a lot of other examples of people who were very religious who were not “good” people. It is really sad because the example of these people is hindering her progress. Oh how important it is to be a good example because people are watching!

So the plumber mysteriously disappeared and he didn’t put all of the shower together. It is quite the mystery. We had dinner and then went over to the Kuseling’s to talk to the Relief Society President about less active members. We ended up doing that for about 5 minutes and got persuaded to eat another dinner. It was a really delicious dinner with their 500 children (okay, not 500 but 5 or so). We were then going to go to the Elders house who live close to the Kuseling’s to take a shower, but Sr. Hulet forgot to bring the towels so we called and went over to Loli’s around 9:30 pm. We got home after 10:30 and then baked a cake for Elder Rogers’ birthday while we waited for Sister Hulet’s family to call.

16 juin 2010 (Day 295)

Today was a very fun day. After frosting the cake we went out and met some of Sister Hulet’s family to go around Paris with them for the day (yes, we had permission). We met up with Gramma Graff, Uncle Carey (an ex-member of the church), Aunt Jenny & their daughter Missy (16), cute Uncle Graham who is mentally disabled, and our charming Josh, Sr. Hulet’s brother. They were all really neat people and we had fun showing them around Paris. All in all we saw: the Eiffel Tower, Monmartre, Sacre Coeur, The Moulin Rouge, the Madeline, The Arc de Triomphe, Place de Concorde, and the Notre Dame. I got lost from the group on the subway (not my fault), but luckily I found the group again My favorite thing was probably getting Italian gelato and going to the Shakespeare and Company Bookstore. It is the coolest bookstore that I have ever been in and we actually got to see the very very very old owner George. He lets people stay in his bookstore if they don’t have a place to stay as well as offering a piano to play on, a type writer, and hundreds of books to read upstairs that are not for sale. Josh was completely enchanted with Paris after coming here. We had a nice dinner in the Latin Quarter and then we tried to catch the RER home. It took a while because a greve (strike) had started so the RER wasn’t running very regularly. And yes, we got home late again.

17 juin 2010 (Day 296)

Not sleeping is wearing on me. 10:30 bedtime sure is inspired. The plumber came back today to finish the shower. We had to leave district meeting to come watch him. It is a bummer because we had a nice lesson about charity and then we were having a birthday party for Elder Rogers with decoration, cake, and raclette. They did bring over the leftovers though and we not have an absurd amount of potatoes and such.

We then went running off to catch our train to Belgium. We are going on splits with the sisters there. We had to leave really early because of the strike; there are not a lot of trains running. We got up to the platform and were waiting for the RER to come and we realized that Sister Hulet didn’t have the train tickets to get to Belgium!! We went back down to find them and I handed her my bags and went running (literally,,,you know you are tired when it is easier to run than walk) and found our tickets which had gotten dropped and ran back to catch a RER. Sadly, while stepping on the RER I realized that admist my super-star running to find the tickets my name badge came off. I’m still quite distraught, especially since Sr. Hulet said we couldn’t go back to find it and waited at the train station for 90 minutes. To console myself I found a very delicious blueberry muffin and then we went off to Belgium! To make my day more unpleasant whilst on the train I couldn’t find my ticket when they asked for it! I was in quite the panic. Luckily the train conductor didn’t kick me off. We got into Charleroi around 9:30 pm and went trekking up the hill to get to the apartment. Charleroi has a very cute apartment with an awesome loft and desks and chairs for everyone! I slept on the couch.

25 juin 2010 (Day 297)

Today was the official start of our exchanges and I was with Sister Burgoyne. We all studied and then at 10 am Sr. B. and I went off to teach this cute old lady Anne Marie. She is such a positive little old lady and had the cutest twinkle in her eyes. His husband is ill and she was talking a lot about life and death so we decided to skip to the plan of salvation which she believed with ease. We then went back to the apartment to have lunch and then we went to visit Valerie. Valerie is around 30 or so and she recently got reunited with her childhood friend who just joined the church. She has a walking disability, but she is a sweetheart. She believes in God and Jesus, but she doesn’t really have a religious background and she has never read the Bible. She is so willing to learn and know everything. She had some basic questions but it just so open. She was asking us if someone could drive her to church (she can’t walk well and the bus by her house doesn’t run on Sundays). She informed us that she understood if we couldn’t find a ride for this Sunday (seeing as it was already Friday afternoon), but that for sure for next week. She also wants a hymn book and told us that she’ll need to know and understand things better before she can be baptized (did I mention that we didn’t mention baptism).

We then went off to do a couple of passbys. We never found the houses though. One was kind of Harry Potteresque. We found 90, 92, 96, and 98 but not 94. I found this cute old man who had does some genealogy at the church while looking for house 94; he made me smile. The next house was also a bad address so we decided to do a consecrated hour in that area (an hour devoted to finding people). Before going porting (porte = door in french, porting = going door-to-door) I REALLY needed to go potty. We went to a member’s house, but no answer! We then called. Thankfully she was home. I got to use the bathroom and we gave a spiritual thought. My bathroom break ended up being an hour long, but Julie needed a visit from us today. Our consecrated hour went well. Lots of doors didn’t ever open, others got open and then shut, but for some we got to stay and talk a while. We learned that the more questions you ask, the more you can get them to talk. We had one “old fox” (his words, not mine) inform us that when we were older we would understand, had an old lady tell us we were insulting her great great great great grandmother who was catholic by asking if we could just sing her a song about Jesus, spoke to a nice man who believed in God but didn’t feel comfortable at church, and several people who just believed in themselves.

We then headed home and got some frites! Belgium fries (the birthplace of French Fries) are delicious! They have about 20 sauce flavors and a small (that feeds two people dinner) is around 2 euros. Sister Burgoyne is really nice. She is a really hard worker and has really long legs (aka she walks super fast). I had a lot of fun being with her and seeing her diligence. Belgium is really pretty. It was nice to have some “mountains” (hills from the mining done in Charleroi back in the day) and see all the brick buildings. It was a good change from France and all the white houses with the closed off yards.

26 juin 2010 (Day 298)

We slept over in Charleroi again last night and then woke up early (well at least some crazy person set an alarm for 5:30 am and didn’t tell me it wasn’t our alarm to wake up, nor that it wasn’t 6:30. We bought some chocolate and then speed walked down to the gare to get on our train just in time. Once we finally got onto French territory we checked our messages and I found out that I get to give a talk in church. Tomorrow morning. Yay. Naturally a mad study of my scriptures ensued until we got to Paris and then went home, had lunch, and then headed off to a baptism in Torcy. The baptism was good. The font didn’t get filled up early enough (as usual) so we were throwing bowls of water into the font that was still very very shallow and the man was very tall. The poor kid just about floated on the top so they had to baptize him twice and quite literally looked like they were trying to drown him.

We went to Sr. Simba’s and taught Kalvin and Jennifer about the restoration. Sr. Simba had a daughter-in-law that watched the film and really liked it. She is going off to Congo on Monday though. We actually got in on time today so to calm my stress about my talk I made banana carrot bread and then worked on my talk. Sr. Hulet was going to help me, but she fell asleep at 9:30. Her friend Sr. Bagwell called her at 10:30 and told me to wake her up and they talked until 11:30. All this time I was working away in the HEAT (it is so hot and they don’t have A/C) and decided it was time to call it quits at 11:30.

27 juin 2010 (Day 299)

I was not feeling well when I first woke up this morning. I actually woke up around 4:30 to relieve my bladder (my kidneys are just so efficient) and ended up with a bloody nose and almost passing out. Due to my lovely circumstance we sluffed DMP meeting and I finished my talk. We stayed awake by fanning ourselves in church and my talk about being a covenant people since the beginning went relatively well, all things considered (time constraints, language constraints, heat, fatigue).

We came home and I made Chinese and then took a nap. During the rest of the day I got 1.5 more nosebleeds and chewing gum stuck all over both of my shoes. Sr. Hulet and I went out to do a passby and then a consecrated hour that wasn’t as successful as the last one. Sr. Hulet is actually really good at shoving pamphlets and such into people’s unwanting hands though. Going to Belgium was good for her. You could see a change and she was so ridiculously happy there. When we got to Belgium her eyes just lighted up and I felt like I was taking a six-year-old to Disneyland for the first time.

It took us a really long time to get home from our consecrated hour, but we met a lot of neat people on our way home and got a couple of numbers.

Week 4 - mini mission

Hidey Ho Neighbors! Another week has just flown by. I have now been on a mission for 4 weeks! Crazy. I am actually currently using my laptop writing this email whilst babysitting the plumber who is tearing down the shower that is mold infested. I am trying not to choke on the mold spores that are floating throughout the air making it difficult to inhale without gagging.

14 juin 2010 (Day 286)

Today we met up with Sister Fischer-Laudenbach and Sister England to see the Sacre Coeur. When we got out of the metro there was a humongous thunderstorm! We huddled under the three umbrellas we had (after buying two) and made the trek up to this gorgeous famous basilica. Inside we were stopped by Serge, one of the ushers. He asked us what we do and asked about the church and where it is, when we have “mass”, etc. He said that had seen our young men with the same tags and white shirts and ties, but he had never asked them nor been stopped by them. He had never seen sisters and so he talked to us and wants to meet up and talk one day. Never in my wild and crazy dreams would I imagine testifying truth to a religious man in the Sacre Coeur in Paris. It was a very special experience. We walked around the basilica and then went down to the crypt which is essentially their storage area.

Sister FL has lost 9 kilos on her mission, so afterwards she wanted to go shopping for clothes for her to wear at home since this is her last transfer. We didn’t find her anything, but we did find Sister Hulet a new shirt.

We came home and taught Sister Pete and had a great lesson that was exactly what she needed to hear and not at all what we prepared. God is so funny; I love how he works. I even made my first French bread pizza with REAL French bread tonight!

times up!

15 juin 2010 (Day 287)

Today we had zone conference in Paris. It was super fantastic. Sister Staheli started a discussion about pride and self esteem and about forgetting ourselves. The Assistants to the president made up a hilarious rap about planning (including Elder Abraham McKay). President Staheli talked to us about how we need to be pure vessels. We had pizza from Pizza Hut and then we had some more meetings which included learning about the Holy Spirit and the Natural man. President got into some stories about the first presidency (he was Gordon B. Hinckley’s personal secretary for many years) and how the only way in which the natural man got to them was with fatigue. Someone mentioned a great analogy by C.S. Lewis about how the flesh is like a piano and that all the keys are okay to play as long as they are played at the right time. I love the missionaries in our giant Paris zone. There are all so great and they are all becoming my heros…I have so many people to look up to here (and at home).

16 juin 2010 (Day 288)

Today we visited Fran and talked to her about the sacrament and coming to church and then hopped into the backyard and said hi to Stan her husband and invited him to church as well. They didn’t commit, but they did say that if they weren’t busy they would come. We did some great contacting today. Sister Hulet met this Brazilian woman named Tatjana who we had the Portuguese elders call to explain us and she is super interested. She is just going on vacation for a couple of months starting on Saturday.

We had a “fun” adventure on the bus today. Sister Hulet and I were sitting talking to each other on the bus and this odd older looking man came over and asked up if this broken bracelet that he had just picked up was ours. We told him that is wasn’t and continued to talk. He then began to make this odd Gollum-like rasping sound so Sister Hulet looked back. This man was clutching his chest and looked very much in pain. We asked if we needed to call the ambulance and if we should tell the bus driver. We frankly weren’t quite sure what to do. Two other crazy looking people then approached. One never spoke a word and just looked around and would slyly grasp one pole and then the next. The other was in a purple shirt and he is the one who spoke and asked Mr. Heart Attack if he needed help. Mr. Heart Attack then proceeded to yell at purple shirt and said some rude things and his heart attack had just magically stopped and he got off two stops later. Purple shirt then came closer and leaned in to inform us that he would help other people but not our crazy heart attack friend because he had offended him so he would just let him fall to the floor. I love people possessed by evil spirits that make the spirit completely leave a bus.

English class today went well. We just had two “students” and we played a hilarious game of word association in which I ended up crying because I was laughing so hard at the jokes they were making.

17 juin 2010 (Day 289)

Today we went to visit Windy and she taught us how to make her amazing almond cupcakes that taste just like a little bit of heaven. I have the recipe and look forward to making these masterpieces. Windy seems to be doing okay, considering her recent miscarriage but she is still struggling.

So today Sister Hulet was sitting on the bus by some young men performing their first drug deal. We know it was their first because it was the most obvious drug deal and we all saw the multiple bags of marijuana. Sr. Hulet is allergic to marijuana and started to have an allergic reaction. We ran over to Windy’s (Windy having been a nurse in the US) and she gave Sr. Hulet some drugs and coca cola to activate the medicine faster. My favorite part was in the elevator going up to Windy’s. Sr. Hulet said, “It would suck to have terminal cancer. I couldn’t smoke the pot.” After Sr. Hulet stopped swelling up and could breath we had a really great discussing about trusting God.

We then went on our way to Loli’s to have a long meeting about less active ward members. On the way we ran into she-who-does-not-want-to-be-named. We have never been to Loli’s and couldn’t find the right street so Sister Hulet asked this middle-aged woman where it was. This small framed woman with her short brown hair and curt face told us, while clutching her bible that she would show us. Naturally Sister Hulet tried to make small talk with this woman who kept on calling us “Soeurs” (sisters). At one point Sr. Hulet asked what this woman’s name was, to which she replied, “Why do you want to know? You don’t have the right.” Apparently I laughed outloud, although I don’t remember doing this. After this awkward moment she-who-does-not-want-to-be-named told me to walk in front of her. She then proceeded to stay approximately one half block behind us. We stopped at a cross-walk to cross because the house was just on the other side. She yelled up that we needed to cross the street (duh, that is why we stopped walking). We then went walking towards 96, Loli’s house. The woman began to scream across the street, “It is right there! Number 94 is right there! Oh, you just passed the door!” “It is 96!” “Oh it is there, it is there!” I rang the doorbell and waited for what seemed to be an eternity. Loli opened the gate and said, “Who is that?! Do you know that man, er woman?” “No. Just wave and shut the gate.” This woman had stopped and waited to see if we got in and was like half hiding behind some bushes!

18 juin 2010 (Day 290)

To make life even more entertaining, we saw she-who-does-not-want-to-be-named on the bus this morning on our way to church. Luckily we were in our gym clothes since it was 6h30 and we were just going to drop off some things and the church and then jog part-way home.

Sr. Hulet is getting smarter. She didn’t tell me where we were going today to do some pass bys. She first took me to a great pastisserie and then we started walking. And then I saw the Pablo Picasso Place, which I call Azkaban. I would never let my children live in this area. I wouldn’t let my enemies live in this area either. Great patisseries are some bribe and a good protection against dementors because we survived. Sr. Hulet didn’t even have a reaction to the pot that was being smoked in a bong being passed around by people sitting on a turned-over shopping cart.

Today we talked to Hortense about the 5 steps to make it in this life, focusing on repentence. Her cute little disabled 2-year-old Marie-Andrea wanted to wear my plaque (badge) so I let her. She kept touching it and pointing and me and then touching the name tag and then touching Sr. Hulet’s. It was adorable.

We got kebab-frites from our kebab friend by the church. It was all actually super good this time.

19 juin 2010 (Day 291)

The highlight of today, after running in the rain and making no-bake cookies was going to the ward barbecue and swap me (aka free yard sale). We had lots of chips, chicken, saucissons, and a couple of salads. I ran into my institute teacher from Nantes. Her son is actually one of my DMPs!

Sister Hulet and I made a scripture treasure hunt for the primary kids which they loved. They all read so well…better than me in French and they were like 7!

We went to go visit Bob afterwards, but he was stuck in traffic so we just waited outside in the balmy (not!) 56F weather.

We did meet a fantastic couple thanks to this lesson that didn’t happen. On the way home we scurried away from the door we were going to go in to on the RER because there was this creepy homeless man staring at us and ended up being by this great black couple. The husband asked us for a bible and we told him that we weren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses and we gave him a pamphlet instead. He started reading it, completely ignoring the conversation we then had with his wife. She is Catholic and goes every week, but doesn’t get much out of it. Sister Hulet gave her the Finding Faith in Christ DVD which she said she was going to go watch right away. She then told us that she likes movies and that is how she learns. She then took down directions of how to get to the church, our phone number, and our names. I think that we will be seeing them soon.

20 juin 2010 (Day 292)

Today was Sister Hulet’s worst day ever. It was not her day. We went to church and had a great short meeting with one of our DMPs who told us about the World Cup and how he is embarrassed by the French team. The world cup is really the world here. Restaurants have it and you can’t contact anyone or even call when the big games are going on. Even the members watch the final match that is always on Sunday and the bishopric expects less attendance in priesthood during each world cup.

We then went and met Claudia, a black 18-year-old at the gare to take her to church. We gave her the little tour that we have been working on and then she went to Relief Society. And then she left and said she’d come back for the young single adult family home evening that night. She didn’t (strike one for Sister Hulet).

We then called our other investigators to see where they were. Sabrina was at home with a sick little Lenny and Hortense called, extremely upset because her boyfriend didn’t come home last night or in the morning to take them all to church for Marie-Andrea’s 2nd birthday. She was very distraught and according to Sister Hulet, very drunk. (couple more strikes). The bishop then kicked us out of the investigator/new converts class since we didn’t have any amis (investigators). Sacrament was nice since it was about the temple.

After church Sr. Hulet met a woman who is flat mates in England with a girl who went on a date with the boy she likes. Snap. So needless to say the day kept getting worse for her (I won’t recount all the gore) and by the end of the day she was telling me that Nogent was going to get closed because she’s doing something wrong so we aren’t having success.

21 juin 2010 (Day 293)

Luckily the sun comes out tomorrow! Sr. Hulet seems to be doing better today. I made her French toast for breakfast and we are now getting tile placed over our moldy walls…mmm great idea.