muffin & turkey recipes -(no your not supposed to make them together)

i have a few cooking magazines which i have been trying to make good use of the recipes in them and have found 2 really good ones i thought i'd share. one is a moist yummy muffin and the other is a quick roasted turkey that is so easy.

Tuscan Lemon Muffin

(taken from cooking light magazine may 2011 edition)

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup part-skim ricotta cheese

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon grated lemon rind (i used a little bit more of the rind s well as the juice)

2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 egg lightly beaten

cooking spray

2 tablespoons turbinado sugar (the big crystal kind)

1) preheat oven to 375 degrees

2) combine flour and next 3 ingredients (through salt), make a well in center.

3) mix ricotta and next 5 ingredients (through egg). add mixture to flour mix, stirring until moist.

4) place 12 muffin liners in tin and spray with cooking spray. scoop batter into sprayed liners, sprinkle with turbinado sugar.

5) bake 16 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. cool 5 minutes in pan then remove muffins to cooling rack.

 Accidental Turkey

(taken from food network magazine november 2012 edition)

salt & pepper

1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary leaves

grated zest of one lemon

1 (12-14 pound) turkey

1 large yellow onion unpeeled and cut into eighths

1 lemon quartered

8 sprigs fresh thyme

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter unsalted melted

 (i used all dried herbs and just eyed it to how much i wanted on it)

1) now the recipe says to coat the turkey with the melted butter and herbs a few days before when turkey is thawed, let it marinate in fridge. but i just brushed the butter on and sprinkled the herbs on it just before i put it in the oven - it was a last minute turkey.

2) preheat oven to 450 degrees, make sure oven is clean.

3) place the onion, lemon & thyme in cavity of turkey.

4)roast turkey for 45 minutes. lower temp of oven to 325 degrees and then roast for another hour. 

5) remove from oven and cover with foil, let rest for 20-30 minutes. carve.

hope you like!

Home sickness

at one time or another i think most of us have had home sickness, and to each of us it may mean something different. in the case of my husband it is his friends that he has known forever and the great guam food. so in lew of that i want to ask all two favors. if you can, send josh an email or skype with the latest of guam or even just a hello (i know he hasn't been the greatest about keeping in touch but he is working on it). and if you have any good guam food recipes please send them our way (he is really looking for a short ribs marinade).

he has been such a great person with making sacrifices and being adventurous with coming stateside with me. i really appreciate it all and hope that with some help we can help him make it through his home sickness. 

we miss you all and will post more pictures soon.

chop, chop.....

i know this isn't a very good picture but it's ok for now. i cut my hair!

more pictures (better) to come later.

Fall time

So as you know Guam doesn't really have much of a season change and not so much with Florida, but the temperature has been a little different. It's my first experience in "winter" weather in Florida and I'm quite enjoying it. It has been between 50s to 60s in morning and evening from time to time. One of the days out field service it stayed in the 60s the whole day! I actually have a reason to wear a  sweater now. Aside from that our house is pretty much done! We just need to do finishing touches like painting and decoration. We'll give you more of that later. Here's some pics for now.

At our Circuit Assembly "Safeguard your mind"

The front of our house. If you notice our header picture and this one, the grass is more green now!

Our guest bathroom.

We went for a walk one day on a pier

First few days twisting pretzels at Auntie Annes.

almost done.......

so the house is almost done on the inside and is really starting to feel homey. we just need to hang pictures up and figure out what spaces need filling-my living room is one i can't figure out which way looks best. we also now have a bed in our guest room so all are welcome to come and visit!
not sure if i mentioned it before but josh and i both started a new job working at auntie anne's pretzels, which is working out really good for us and we are enjoying it.

we forgot about you all!..... not really

so sorry for not writing this past month has been crazy! went had c.o.'s visit, convention and job changing. we hit the last convention of the season, it was our friend Casey's so we didnt know that many people there and there were soo many people at it. attendance friday was 5,ooo, saturday was 6,000 and sunday was 8,000!

convention in september

casey & alashia - had to babysit them cause they are dating :)

sitting opposite end of the stage

sitting behind the stage

We also went to a baseball game with some friends in our hall, it was a minor league game that is held in its own field like 15 min. from our place. they host for spring training the major league team of pittsburg pirates. so its a smaller field get to be more up close.

sunset at my parents

Josh was stung red wasp and his hand swelled up and his knuckles disappeared.

here are a few of the meals we have made lately. we are always trying new things...

shark - very yummy would recommend to anyone

pretzels we made at home, practicing for josh since he will be working at  auntie anne's pretzels!

bathroom done & family visits

It's been a crazy weekend but great to see the family.

a little added color to the new bathroom

total transformation!

jr, aiden, malia, ben, janeiyah, josh, abby

jr cooked eggs benedict for us

the house is moving along....

Much apologies for not posting or emailing much to anyone. July turned out to be a bit of a transition time for us, but things are finally starting to settle down. Since we have some family coming to visit in a couple of weeks we have been trying to get a couple projects at the house finished.

my laundry! i for once get to do laundry anytime i want in my own house-i love it!

the rest of the room will be a hobby room once the floor and trim are done.

our other bathroom that was gutted- we should have all the fixtures in by next week

our river-stone shower floor that my mom picked out

the painting that was idea for paint color in our bedroom- josh just put it up

floor in the kitchen & dining room floor is going good, our friend had to take a break from it to do the bathroom

josh had never seen mushrooms this big. 

a wildlife sanctuary - they have trails and this is where the mushroom picture was taken.

July News

Has it been over a month since our last post? Well all we can say that it has been very busy. Where do we start. Our job with the food trailer business was difficult to continue due to we didn't have enough customers coming in as we expected. So the plan was that we would move the trailer back to the chef's restaurant and revamp it and station it in the city. Though it wasn't gonna be another month to 2 months until it was open again for business. Since we are tight on budget we had depart to look for other jobs. Abigail was able to go back to a pizza place where she used to work before moving to Guam. Whereas I was able to find one with a brother who runs his own business doing carpet and tile cleaning focusing more on residential homes than commercial business. So we're trying to get back in the swing of things again. Our home is coming along, slowly but surely. Right now the sister is working on tiling our guest bathroom, which originally planned was to tile the dining and kitchen first. But we got news that my brother and sister and her family will be coming down to Florida for a visit and JR will be staying with us for a couple days. So we at least need another bathroom fixed before they come which is the mid part of August.
Now with the ministry, we finally have a study! A few weeks ago, we did a follow up call from a brother that came down to visit and he found the call when he was here. So the first time we visited we met the husband and explained that we were asked to come and continue our visit with them and we discussed the magazines. Very nice guy. The second time was just this past Sunday and he was there again but watching his little daughter. There were a few distractions with the daughter and dog but he was very nice and patient with us and we were able to go over the study article in the June Watchtower about the importance of using God's name. At the end we tied it in that it leads to using the bible teach book and next time we will come back with it. He seemed excited and said Saturdays are better days to catch him and told us that we'll see him next Saturday. So we know he'll be expecting us to come! Okay enough of our stories for now, the reason why you came was for the pictures. It's not much but it's a little update:

An unknown bug was hanging off the branches in the front of our house

We finally have a dining table!

We decided to make use of the bi-fold doors instead of throwing it away

Added some primer paint...

And turned it into a headboard!

Tiles in the guest bathroom... almost there!

We finally have a microwave! No more taking 30 minutes to reheat food!

One of our hibiscus plant. It's biggest flower from it so far.

Moved in!

This past weekend we finally moved into our new place! Last week we were trying to get as much done as possible so that we could move in and it was not easy. We also had a visit from a friend we have not seen in a while and it was nice to have a fresh face around. Now that we are moved in we still have to finish the dining room and kitchen which will be done soon. There is also the laundry room and other bathroom but I think we are going to wait a bit before trying to finish those-give everyone a breather.

One of the things I have shown below in the pictures is the process of how we textured our walls. This really covers imperfections on walls (which we had many). This method is using regular tissue paper (like what you would use when wrapping a gift), and paint. We love the look and are so happy how much imperfections it covered.

We also start our job this week, training and setting up. I also have pictures of our new work home below. We got to go out to the site yesterday and look at the trailer.

Just so you all know we do not at the moment have internet at our house but do on our phone so we can check our email and that’s about it, so forgive us if it’s hard to reach us. We would like to skype/gmail video chat with anyone who can, so just email us so we can set something up.  

For all of you in Guam we miss you guys a lot and hope to hear from you soon. Until next time………

this part is next

moving in

tissue paper process- need paint for your wall (it takes the amount of two coats so makes sure you have enough, rollers and tissue paper). 

take your sheets of paper like this and scrunch them into balls as see below

undo the balls and layover something as here. you then paint a square about size of tissue paper, then place your piece of paper on wall and smooth but also make your wrinkles - can make it more or less wrinkly. then you roll over it again with paint (so basically your putting 2 coats of paint on the wall). make sure you put plenty of paint on the wall since the paper will soak some up. once dry check over walls and touch up with paint, you wont see the brush marks from touch ups. 

our food trailer that we will be working out of

the inside - on the left side are the windows we will serve out of