I never showed you our new digs!

Several months ago I posted pics of our moving experience from lovely Denver...but I never posted pics of where we moved TO! I was so stuck on how sad I'd be to leave Denver that I totally forgot to give props to the new place. I sure do miss Denver and I consider it my home-sweet-home after being there for so long...

But any-who, La Junta is where we moved. It's definitely like no other place I've ever lived. It is a perfect place for anyone that is going to nursing school because there isn't much to do here; it works to our advantage because there are less distractions. The end of town is about 2 blocks from our house which is pretty awesome when we want to do some sunset bicycle rides on endless roads with endless skies. Working out with a view of the beautiful outdoors is the way to do it!

The people here are all very nice. We've met some of the locals in the nursing program and they've all been nothing but kind to us. Everyone we know is busy with school and families so we spend most of our free time (when not studying) at home watching movies or at the school gym, which is brand spankin' new and only 2 blocks from home. On occasion we will go to one of the local bars or to the bowling ally but that's pretty rare and we consider it our 'going out' nights. During the warmer weather we camp at Picketwire Canyonlands. Now THAT is something La Junta should brag about because there are dinosaur tracks that you can hike or bike to. They are SO awesome! REAL DINO TRACKS, people!

Picketwire is about a 40 minute drive down a dirt road from our house. It's perfect for weekends when we want to get away from the house and camp for an evening.

Our house is almost twice the size of the Denver triplex and we pay way less.

And you know what else is awesome? We don't share walls with neighbors! Here are some pics of the inside. We work with what we've got and try to make it cozy.

So this is where we will be for about another year and a half. It's nice to be here for a season of our lives while we grow and learn not only about nursing but also about each other and our relationship. It's been a challenging experience living here but it's also been super awesome and I wouldn't change it.

I should be studying but trying new recipes is way more fun

My wonderful mom bought me this cookbook at the Goodwill yesterday by Cara Hobday:

So instead of studying this evening, I spent some time in the kitchen with my honey-buns and we made spring rolls with almond sauce (instead of peanut sauce) and noodle, mushroom, & ginger soup. The soup recipe is from the book. The peanut sauce is from my super-pretty-and-badass friend Amanda. The spring rolls are basically a mix of ideas from different spring rolls I've tried. They are just easy-peasy and anyone can do it.

In this post I'm gonna show you how I make:
marinade for Asian chicken dishes
peanut sauce
spring rolls
noodle, mushroom, & ginger soup

I started by soaking the chicken breast in a marinade. This is the chicken you will use for the spring rolls. I took 1 chicken breast and sliced it into two filets and soaked it in a bowl with equal parts soy sauce and vinegar with a sprinkle of corn starch (to thicken the marinade so that it'll stick to the chicken) and a dash of garlic powder. Then I set it aside to work on everything else.

Next I got everything ready for the soup. Here is what the book calls for but I had to tweak it because I was missing ingredients:

Serves 4:
1 1/3 cups field or crimini mushrooms
4 cups hot vegetable stock (I used chicken stock)
4 oz thread egg noodles (I used flat rice noodles because it's what I had on hand)
2 tsp sunflower oil
3 garlic cloves, crushed (I used 3 TB minced garlic b/c we love garlic so much)
1-inch piece ginger, finely shredded
1/2 tsp mushroom ketchup (I didn't use this)
1 tsp light soy sauce
2 cups bean sprouts (I didn't have this on hand but totally wish I did for this dish!)
Cilantro leaves to garnish
Chopped green onion to garnish (This wasn't in the book but it was a delicious addition)

First I cooked the rice noodles and set them aside. Then I shredded the ginger. If you don't have a mini shredder, you can use a zester or a garlic press

Next I made the chicken broth by using this. You can either use your own homemade chicken broth or a premade vegetable or chicken broth.

Then I made sure I had everything ready before I started putting it all together in the wok. Once you have all of the ingredients ready, the rest is pretty fast. Here, you can see I had sunflower oil, mushrooms, soy, chicken broth, rice noodles, minced garlic, and shredded ginger.

Next I heated the sunflower oil over medium high heat and added the ginger and garlic. It smelled so freakin' good. I let that simmer for about 30 seconds and then I added the mushrooms. Then I let that simmer until the mushrooms were a little soft. Maybe 2 minutes.

Then I added the chicken broth and the soy sauce and it ended up looking like this (this is the point when you'd add the bean sprouts, if you had them). Bring it to a light bowl and let it simmer for about 5 minutes:

Don't be fooled! It didn't look pretty but it was so good. It's not really a main course type of soup since it's so simple but it pairs great with something a little meatier. It is a very light and watery type of soup which went perfect with spring rolls. When you are ready to serve it, put the noodles in a bowl and pour the soup over the noodles. Don't add the noodles to the soup because then they will get too soft and it'll be kinda gross if you want to re-heat it as leftovers. I set the soup aside to get started on preparing the spring rolls.

Time to cook the chicken! Preheat a pan with oil over medium high heat and cook both sides of the chicken for 4 minutes each. You'll end up with something like this. Slice it into strips.

For spring rolls, you need rice paper OR you can use lettuce leafs and make lettuce wraps instead. I personally prefer lettuce wraps because rice paper is a little too chewy for me. However, I didn't have lettice so I used this rice paper.

Slice up all the veggies for the spring rolls. You can get creative here or just use what you have. We went with cucumber, carrots, cilantro green onion, and avocado. Normally I'd use bean sprouts and bell pepper, too. So the spring rolls will have any or all of the following, along with some strips of the chicken. Gather all the spring roll ingredients on a platter.

Now it's time for the peanut sauce-inspired almond sauce! As I mentioned before, my super awesome friend Amanda gave me her recipe for peanut sauce which is as follows. I substituted peanut butter with almond butter because I think it's just better for you:

4 TB soy sauce
2 TB peanut butter (or almond butter)
2 TB white vinegar
1 TB honey or sugar (I prefer it less sweet, so I added about 1 tsp sugar instead)
garlic powder (I used about 1/2 TB minced garlic)
1 tsp sesame oil
Chinese hot sauce (I use Sriracha)
black pepper
Chicken stock (add to your liking - if you like it thick, add less, and if you like it thin, add more)

Mix all of the above in a microwave-safe cup for about 30 seconds, then stir and microwave for 30 more seconds. That's all there is to it!

So, at this point you pretty much have everything ready to serve. So now you can add the noodles to the bowl so that you can get ready to add the soup and sprinkle with cilantro and green onion!

For the rice paper spring rolls, you have to wet the rice paper right before you are ready to use them. I usually just run the sheet of rice paper under warm sink water until it is completely wet and then set it on my plate like a tortilla. You are basically filling it and wrapping it the way you would a burrito. You have to work kinda fast once you wet the rice paper because it will be difficult to work with and tear easily if you wait too long.

Once it is stuffed and wrapped, it looks something like this:

And here is the entire dish!

What I would do different:
I think next time I will use lettuce instead of rice paper. I go back and forth with rice paper spring rolls. I really don't like the texture of the rice paper. Plus, lettuce has less calories.

With the soup, the flat egg noodles were kinda difficult to eat in the soup. They were too slippery and I ended up dumping the noodles because it just got annoying. I think that flat rice noodles work better with pad thai or drunken noodles or something along those lines. Next time I would probably use ramen noodles. Actually, if I had the bean sprouts, I would just not add noodles at all.

What do you think? Would you make this dish? I think I'll definitely make it again. Especially after the heavy Thanksgiving dinner week and upcoming Christmas goodies!

I made not just ANY pot pie!

Not only did I make chicken pot pie...I made mini chicken pot pies! What else is so awesome about that, you ask? They were Southwestern-style mini pot pies. I'm sure it's been done before but I must say that this was pretty dee-lish.
Please don't be mad, you traditional pot pie lovers! My intention wasn't to replace the original recipes. I didn't have the traditional chicken pot pie ingredients on hand but with the chilly fall weather, I wanted to use the oven to help heat up the house. That's how I ended up with Southwestern chicken mini pot pies. Here's how I made it happen. At the end of this post, I will tell you what I will do different next time. Keep in mind, this was my first time ever making any pies, mini pot pies, and pie crust...so you can substitute any way you'd like!  Enjoy!

Yields: one dozen mini pot pies

Crust: 
I made the crust from this recipe.
I doubled the recipe (but I should have tripled it to have some extra breathing room to make the pies fuller)

Filling:
I boneless skinless chicken breast (I would've used 2 if I had 2)
1 bag of frozen Southwestern style vegetable blend
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 TB sour cream
1-2 TB half and half
1/3-1/2 cup of fresh chopped onion

First I got my chicken breast and sliced it in half, filet-style. So one chicken breast equals two filets (I cut off any excess fatty pieces before I did this):

Next, I lightly sprayed the chicken breast filets and seasoned them with a blend of seasonings.

Here's where you can get creative. I normally don't buy seasoning mixes but you can either use any taco or fajita seasoning or you can make your own (to make my own, I use garlic powder, cumin, chili powder, cracked pepper, and salt). Next, I added a little oil to a wok and let it heat over medium-high heat (higher than medium) before I added the chicken filets. You HAVE to let the oil get hot before you add the chicken to the pan. If it doesn't sizzle when you add the chicken, it's not hot enough. With chicken and fish, I (personally) always cook each side for 4 minutes. With that trick, I've always ended up with fully cooked, super juicy chicken and fully cooked non-fishy fish. It's never failed for me when I use the 4 minute rule. Don't wash your pan because you are going to re-use it later.

 Once that's done, you end up with pretty chicken that looks kinda like this. It was so juicy when I cut into it:

Next, you chop it up! Chop it to whatever size you'd prefer to sink your teeth into when you take a bite of your amazing pot pie! I also chopped some fresh onion (optional) because onion is just so delicious.

This is the part where I add more seasonings but you can add more at any point or not add any at all. I varies for me. Sometimes I add more to the chicken, sometimes I add more to the entire finished mix of whatever I'm making. In this particular case, I added more seasoning to my chicken because I didn't want to have to mix up the veggies too much to toss the seasoning because it tends to make the veggies all mushy, especially beans and corn. Set it aside.

Cook your frozen Southwestern blend veggies according to the package and set aside. Next, I made a creamy broth (in place of the cream of chicken soup you'd normally use in a traditional recipe). I made a half cup of chicken broth, added approx. 2 TB of sour cream and approx 1 1/2 TB of half and half (I would have used heavy cream if I had it).

Now, you have everything ready for the filling! Preheat your pan (that you used for chicken) on medium heat with a teenie bit of oil (spray, preferably to use less). If you decided to go with extra onion like I did, add that to your pan first and let it soak up the drippings from the chicken. Next, you can add your veggie mix:

Let it all simmer together for a few minutes, maybe 5-10. Don't mess with it too much, otherwise it'll get all funky. Now it's time to make it all creamy! Add your chicken broth creamy mix and it'll look kinda gross, but it's good! I ended up sprinkling about 1 TB of corn starch to thicken it a little.

The filling is the most important part! So this is when you should taste it with a spoon or a chip (even better!) to make sure it's delish all by itself! If it's not, this is the time to spice it up some more.
Pie crust dough is really difficult to work with. It crumbles up a lot and doesn't really stick well. I didn't know that since it was my first time ever working with it. Most recipes I found online for pot pies always called for a pre-made rolled pie dough. But anywho, I made it from scratch and it was annoying. This is when you'd want to preheat your oven to 350 F. I made the filling and dough earlier in the day and when I got ready to start making the actual pies, that is when I preheated my oven. I molded the dough into the cupcake tins (didn't add spray) and filled them to the top like this:

Topping them with the pie crust dough was the hardest part because like I said, the dough falls apart so easily. So I wet my hands with warm water to work with the dough. If it got too sticky, I'd add more dough to my hand. I made little balls (size of my palm) and flattened them and just placed them over the top of each little pie like this:

My mini pies weren't pretty. Which sucks because I wanted them to look super cute! Maybe next time. Here's what they ended up looking like (I sprinkled them with pepper jack cheese and let the cheese toast in the oven. Then I topped them with sour cream, avocado, and chopped onion). I cut one open so you can see the inside after it was done:

I think he liked it, so that's good :)

Hey, what'd you think?

So, even though it was good, there is always something I'd do different when trying a new recipe. Here is what I would do differently!
- Add more chicken! There wasn't enough chicken in the mix. It was the last piece I had on hand but next time I will plan to add more chicken.
- Make it creamier! I think next time I will add 3/4-1 cup of chicken broth and heavy cream and more sour cream to the broth mix. Again, I just used what I had in the kitchen. It was still good but it could have been creamier.
-  Spread the pie crust over onto the top of each cupcake tin. If I had done this, I would have been able to add more filling that flowed higher than the tins and it would have been more delicious and more cupcake-like. It would have given me a chance to pinch the borders to look much cuter, which would've made me happy :)

I'll be fun to get creative with the filling every time I make mini pot pies. Maybe next time I will do a cheesy potato ground beef mix, yum!

Let me know if you try this recipe and what you did to personalize it!

A little over a month

In a little over a month, the first semester of nursing school will be done! It has been tough. The toughest part is trying to find a groove on how to go about it all. Hopefully we will be able to jump right in more easily by next semester. I can't believe how much more info is in my brain now than there was two months ago. I can't imagine that it's all going to stay in my head and be readily available when I am out in the field as a real nurse. That's kinda freakin me out a bit, to be honest. Nurses are amazing people, let me tell you.
So far our clinical hours have been done in nursing homes. I can't help but fall in love with all the residents. They are so cute and interesting.
Today in lab we are going to learn how to administer shots...I thought administering shots consisted of 'Who wants a shot of whiskey? Come on, let's round 'em up, wooo!' hee hee, jk.
So much info, so little time.

Nursing school

Nursing school started yesterday. We had orientation last Thursday and already had a ton to read and homework due yesterday on the first day of class, wowee wow. What have we gotten ourselves into? It's gonna be crazy and worth it. I was going to post about our second week in Michigan and about our camping trip last week before school started but I don't think I'll have a chance to do that. We camped near Aspen all last week on both sides of Independence Pass - the prettiest pass ever. It was beautiful and amazing and challenging. Then we stayed in a hotel at the end of it in Snowmass Village for 1 night and got drinky. There was a heated pool and a private balcony and a view. It was grrreat.
We have an exam in 1 week already and we will see our very first real human patients on Sept 4th. We can't get lower than 77% in our classes in order to stay in the program. I hope I'm way higher than 77%. So far, the quiz yesterday was VERY hard. I didn't know half of the words in the questions. I need to work on medical vocab. There are only 3 of us in the class that are starting in the medical field for the very first time EVER. Everyone else has years of experience in the medical field. It's all so foreign to me - a whole new language so I've got LOTS to study to even understand the textbooks.
Nutrition class is a fresh breath of air. There are more than just nursing students in there - so lots of young kids that are funny and quirky and immature - I love it. We had to draw pics of what we eat and most of the kids in the class had stuff like the McDonalds logo alone as their drawing and beer and bacon. Me and Dan are old and nerdy and had stuff like beets, hummus, fish, etc on ours.
All of the teachers seem great and the entire nursing staff seems very supportive because they know it's gonna be hard for us all. There is even a specially designated woman who focuses on JUST supporting us. Whether it's for a hug, counseling, finding a babysitter, helping find scholarships, etc. She is sweet and nice to have around, especially since my mom doesn't live at hugging distance from me. 

Michigan: Detroit week

Once we moved to La Junta, we packed up and headed to Michigan for two weeks. After a long 30 hour train ride, we were there! The train ride is fun, if you are with a loved one...which I was!

It was so nice to catch up with the family and do some sight seeing around Detroit. We hung out with Dan's nieces and nephews which is always comforting, coming from a Mexican family where kids pop out faster than weeds in the yard.

We went to DIA and saw some amazing original art, as you can see below

 Yep. That's one of Van Gogh's original self portraits. No big deal.

 No, that isn't a printed copy of Andy Warhol's work. It's the real deal, yo.

And did you know that Diego Rivera spent like 8 months in Detroit back in 1932-33 to complete this GIANT mural in the main hall? Well, he did. You gotta Google it or something to see the whole thing, it's amazing. We spent the most time admiring this room. I'll never forget it! Dan's dad even bought me a shirt that has a pic of one of these walls. Thanks Tom!

I must say, Detroit is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been to. I know it's desolate and run down but the architecture is ridiculously beautiful and detailed. Pictures don't do justice. I really reeeally hope that Detroit comes back to life in the near future. It's all too pretty and too full of history to be torn down and forgotten for good. It would be sad to see it go to waste. Some parts of Detroit are starting to get revived and it's really great to see. Dan says there has been a lot of improvement since he left a few years ago. I'm hoping that every time we visit, it becomes more and more booming with humans living there.

I'm glad Dan took me to see THIS. You wouldn't notice this if you didn't know it was located there:

Then went to a bar downtown with the best sign ever. It was right next to all of their liquor bottles:

Then we toured a little bit of the ghetto, right in the middle of Detroit. There is a lot of this:

So...there's some of the Detroit we saw this year. I love it, all of it. It's my 3rd time there and I can't wait to go back.

There's SO much to write about still...and I know I won't be able to document ALL of it. But next time, I'll tell you about our week in Northern Michigan: one of the most lush places I've visited. Once I catch this blog up on what we've been doing all summer, I plan to write all about the nursing program experience here in this tiny town. That's the whole point of this blog: to record our experience in nursing school and here in this town for the next 2 years. Bye!