Cheese Making

Well, this is my latest cooking exploit. It was pretty cool. Jens was a great helper. (He is saying cheese in the picture).


First you add citric acid to your milk and heat it to 88 degrees.



Then you add the rennet and let it set the curd for 5 minutes.



My curd didn't form very well, but we kept going. I drained it using cheesecloth and heated it up in the microwave.



Then I stretched it like taffy. I was VERY excited that it was working!


I formed it into balls and put it in cold water to set up.


It actually looks like cheese . . .


Jens liked it! As you can see, it left my kitchen in total shambles, but that is partly because I was also trying out a bread recipe today (WHITE whole wheat bread) and Jens got bored with the cheese thing and decided to help me "wash" dishes, which is why he isn't wearing clothes and there are towels on the floor. At least he had fun, right?


In case you all are wondering where the idea to even do this came from, I read about it in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I ordered the kit from cheesemaking.com, and it tastes very good. I will try it again! I also have a recipe for my own ricotta. I'll let you know when I try that one.

November 29th

The pictures are:

Jens with his Thanksgiving finger puppets
Our festive and personalized napkin rings
Jens watching Granpa's train (2)





Hi Everyone.

We enjoyed a very nice Thanksgiving in Utah. We saw everyone we wanted to see and got lots of face time with family. We also ate a lot of treats and had a delicious dinner. I even made scalloped corn. Why is that so good? Is it the crackers? I look at the recipe and wonder sometimes why we all like it so much.

Friday Mike and I escaped the little one and went up to BYU campus hoping to see the inside of the new Alumni building, but it was locked up. So we wandered around the WILK and felt old and bought Mike some new pens.

Saturday was the BYU vs. Utah game AND the UF/FSU game, so mostly we vegged out. The drive home Sunday was not one of our better ones. Jens spent at least two hours screaming and whining 'Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!' And when I would turn around and ask him what he needed he wouldn't say anything, but as soon as I turned around he started screaming again. It was exhausting. We made great time, though, because we really only stopped once. Usually on the way home we stop in Elko and Reno, but Jens was fast asleep when we got to Elko, and still asleep when we passed Carlin, so we ended up just stopping in Winnemuca. We did have to make a short stop just at a pull off because Jens was screaming 'I have to poop!' in the backseat, but we only stopped long enough to change him.

We were happy to finally get home, and Jens was happy as could be to see all of his toys, which suddenly all seem new. On Tuesday when he woke up from his nap, though, he said as soon as I went in 'I want to see Grandpa's train and go to Grandma's house.' I told him it ws too far away.

Jens is suddenly looking and acting very grown up to me. It seems like he is suddenly a boy! We got out our Christmas decorations when we got home and I have a little stuffed snowman that he took an immediate liking to. On Tuesday he was carrying it around and pushing it in his shopping cart (sitting in the baby part, not thrown in the basket) and was changing 'her' diaper.

Yesterday we met Kristin and Matisyn Johnson at the Train Museum. The kids had a great time, and afterwards they came over and stayed until after dinner. It was so nice to see them and pretend that we lived close together! Mati and Jens had a good time, although there was plenty of grabbing and tusseling for toys.

Last news, I have been sick all week and feel crummy. Every night I think that I must be getting better, but every morning I wake up feeling worse than before. I am not going to excercise today and see if that helps me perk up. I'll send a couple of pictures from Thanksgiving, but we hardly have any!

Love,
Alison

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It was a fascinating read--not a novel! But a year long account of her family's attempt to live "locally." They grew as much of their own food as possible and bought all the rest locally through neighboring farms and farmers markets. The point of the book, she said, was to encourage us to think about where our food comes from and be responsible consumers. She made a very good case and I am hoping that I will be able to follow her advice, at least a little bit. I probably won't raise my own turkeys and chickens or grow 400 pounds of tomatoes or anything, but we certainly have good farmer's markets in California. The other big case she made was for eating free range meat. She was very factual about commercially raised meat and now I feel really guilty and kind of grossed out about eating it. It wasn't a fast kind of read, but it was very interesting and really made me think. I enjoyed it.

November 21st

Hi Everyone.

We are in freezing cold Utah! We left early on Friday which means I spent Thursday packing and getting ready. Jens had a friend over, so they played happily and I was able to get a little bit done!

The drive was pretty unremarkable. Our car was comfortable and felt safe. We got 30 mpg over the mountains, which I don't think has ever happened before, so that was nice. Jens did pretty well overall, although he did kind of a funny nap thing. (one at 9 am and one at 5:30) He loved his little video player. It was definitely a wise move! I am picturing that it will be perfect for the plane ride a t Christmas. This was the first trip where I've felt like Jens has understood the concept of the trip. He knew we were coming to Grandma and Grandpa's house, which made the drive more worthwhile for him. He didn't cry when he had to get back into the car after a stop--he would climb in saying "We're going to Grandma and Grandpa's house!" So that was nice. He was very excited to get here and immediately got out toys. He knew exactly where they were and what he wanted to play with.

Since then we have been doing our usual Utah thing--seeing friends and family and eating way too much. We ate at Los Hermanos last night, which is always a favorite thing to do. Loren is coming down tonight, so we are looking forward to seeing him. I am sure Jens will be very excited.

We are looking forward to Thanksgiving tomorrow--it is such a delicious holiday. I am making corn, of course, and Loren is making cranberries. I am making Brenda's sweet potatoes on Friday to go with ham and leftovers. Yum.

I am thankful for all of my family and friends. I really am blessed in that regard--I like you all so much! Have a wonderful holiday wherever you are tomorrow. Or, in Brenda and Dale's case, have a good regular day tomorrow.

Love,
Alison

November 14th

Hi Everyone.

It has been a busy week! Thursday, of course, we dropped Jens off at the Littles' house and went car shopping. I couldn't believe how long it took! We got to the dealership at 9 and didn't leave until 12:45. We went planning on buying a used Camry and ended up leaving with a new one. It had 5 miles on it when we left the lot. Now it has 130. We are excited to have it and know that it will be dependable, and, well, if it isn't, it has a great warranty. It feels comfortable to drive because it is so much like our old one (but a lot better) and we really like the new body style, which we weren't sure of when we bought it. Tomorrow it is going back to the dealership to get an alarm system and tinting on the back windows for our kid who hates the sun in his eyes. And in case you are wondering, the dealer wasn't feeling all that generous with trade in values, but we took what they offered because we didn't want to sell the falling apart Camry ourselves.

Also on Thursday we had the missionaries for dinner. Every night in his prayers Jens blesses the missionaries to come over, so I always sign up when I actually see the feed the missionaries calendar. We also went to the Harrisons' house to babysit. Jens loves their kids, and all the kids had a great time playing with Mike.

Saturday we tried a new restaurant here, Pei Wei's, which is like PF Changs, but less fancy and less expensive. Also, I got new running shoes on Saturday night. I noticed last weekend that I had worn the whole sole off my last pair in 6 months. I am getting used to my new shoes--they have so much support under the ball of my foot! They are better looking, too--light blue accents instead of hot pink.


Sunday I was in charge of sharing time. It is so hard to plan activities for Jr. sharing time that will keep the kids attention the whole time. They were all really attentive during the discussion at the beginning, but once we did the activity, (sort of a puzzle thing) they got loud. Oh well. I don't have to do another one until next year sometime. Sunday night at about 1 am, Jens started crying this sad sad cry. I ran into his room and he looked up at me tearfully and said "Mommy, I have boogers." I wiped his nose and he went back to sleep, but woke up feeling pretty cruddy Monday morning. He takes colds pretty seriously! It is so tricky when they are so little because really, what they need to do is lie down and rest, but Jens is so busy he can't slow down. So. Monday morning I strapped him into the stroller and we went to the Veteran's Day Parade. It consisted of 3 fire trucks, one band, 50 or so veterans (these interesting things were all at the beginning) and was followed by a million cub and girl scouts, people walking their dogs, and some cheerleaders. It lasted for almost an hour and Jens was as happy as could be. Then we went for our normal morning walk, so he had lots of good stroller resting time.

Sadly, it didn't help him feel better and yesterday he was even worse. I had to run errands, so I was carrying him everywhere and he sounded like he was going to hack up a lung. He felt so bad that he lay his head on my shoulder to rest the whole time we were at the post office. So we hung out around home the rest of the day.

Today he woke up (at 6:30) wild and hyper and out of control, yelling at the top of his lungs. He doesn't seem to have a low volume, or even a normal one for that matter. He talked loudly and non-stop for our whole walk. Now he is being cranky and whiney and hitting a lot. It is going to be a fun day.

We head for Utah on Friday--we are excited to see everyone, although we are not looking forward to the drive. We got a tiny media player for Jens to watch movies on. As he doesn't watch tv or movies all that often, we are hoping the novelty will keep him entertained for a little while.

Have a happy week, everyone!

Love,
Alison

videos!

Here is a video of us at the Sea Ranch and another of Jens reading to his vacuum. enjoy

Sea Ranch

Reading to vacuum

New Car

Well, we finally did it. We traded in our old, tired Camry for a brand new, very shiny Camry. We are very boring--it is even the same color as our old one. We didn't think we would ever have a new car, but we do and it is very clean and nice!

Good bye, old girl, you took us many wonderful places!

November 7th

A beautiful sunset!



Hi Everyone,

We had a lovely vacation at The Sea Ranch. It was just as beautiful as we remembered it and the weather was even better than when we went in August. It was sunny and warm all three days, totally cloudless for good star viewing, and the house we were in was very clean. We got in Thursday afternoon and got to the shore in time for sunset. Friday and Saturday we went to the beach, took naps, and walked down to the bluff trail to watch the sunset. Our friends the Littles came on Friday night, so we played games and had popcorn after the kids went to bed. Jens had a great time--he loved playing with Cassie. We got home Sunday afternoon and felt very rested. So rested, in fact, that we haven't quite finished unpacking and cleaning up. That is the one problem with going somewhere, I guess.

In sad news, the trip spelled the death knoll for the Camry. Something happened to the transmission on Route 1--it doesn't want to downshift into second, so whenever you slow down to turn a corner, stop at a light, etc, it feels like the car is going to stall. As we just had the transmission rebuilt last August, and that was the second time we have done so since owning this car, we have decided it is time to let it go. We are buying a new car tomorrow. Cross your fingers for us that the dealer will feel like giving us a great buy and that they will be feeling extra generous with trade-in values.

The rest of the week has been pretty average, except that I am off sugar again until we go to Utah for Thanksgiving. Halloween was not good for me, so I am taking a little rest.

There are lots of pictures posted at helquist.com of our vacation: http://helquist.com/gallery/album29

I will send one along just to show you how pretty it was, plus a family picture and a picture of Jens's cranky sad face. It is pretty heart rending.

Have a good week.

Love,Alison

October 31st

Our little chicken with his friend, Snow White (aka Cassie)





Happy Halloween!

Our little trick or treater is actually very excited this year, and looks very cute as a chicken. He melts hearts wherever he goes and people keep trying to give him more than one piece of candy. I keep saying, "No--really! One is plenty!"

This week has been busy. We have been planning our Sea Ranch vacation, which we go on tomorrow! We invited another family to come with us--I have mentioned them before, the Littles. They have a little girl, Cassie, who plays with Jens pretty well. We are looking forward to it.

Last week I went to my last watercolor class for a while. I am missing the official last class tomorrow, but the teacher said that I could go to a different class session and make it up. I have been enjoying it so much. I really forget sometimes how much I enjoy artwork! I keep thinking I should get my teaching certification in art so that if I want to go back to teaching sometime I could be an art teacher.

Friday our ward had trunk or treat. We took chili, which I tried to make a little spicier than usual. Jens had a great time running around and mastered the art of saying "trick or treat." It all ended sadly, however, when he broke open one of those glow sticks and got the stuff in his eyes. I had to flush his eyes with water, which I can assure you, he did not like at all. Fortunately, he got to try out his first ever sucker on the way home, which cheered him up considerably.

Sunday night we carved pumpkins with Natalie, which is fast becoming a tradition! JP missed out this year, so no intel pumpkin, but Natalie and I both carved cute ones, and Jens painted his pumpkin, which turned out cute. Mike painted a little face on one side, which Jens embellished upon by adding eyebrows. (He announced this as he was painting them on--"Look! Eyebrows!" and we all thought it was very cute.)

Monday Jens spent the morning at the Harrisons' house, something I think we are going to do every Monday. He is going through a rather difficult time which makes me feel like tearing my hair out sometimes, so since I watch Sarah on Wednesdays, Michelle Harrison is going to take Jens on Mondays. I am very happy about this arrangement and enjoyed the peaceful morning. He didn't want to get out of the car when Michelle brought him home, which makes me think he had a good time, too. I guess sometimes we both enjoy a break from each other.

Yesterday was our usual except that Jens played in our bathroom (a big no no) and turned my blush into a fine powder that covered everything.

Today we took Jens to the doctor because he has been having prolonged "tummy problems" for the past month or so. The doctor took him off the BRAT diet which he has been doing on and off for the past week and told us he can go back to regular milk instead of rice milk, which he drinks but doesn't love. Tonight he had chili, milk, peaches, and a pumpkin muffin. He ate with gusto! Sadly for us, if it doesn't get better in another week we have to take in (gag) samples. Let's all hope he gets better.

Hope you all had a lovely Halloween! We are going to spend the rest of ours packing for vacation . . .

Love,
Alison