Saturday, March 13, 2010

I LOVE my life.

This week was AWESOME.

Monday: For an activity, we decided to fingerpaint with pudding. I was inspired by 1st-grader Gabe. I did this in art class in 1st grade and LOVED it and ever since, have wanted to do it, but for some reason, have not. Oh but it got better. We used cakes as our canvas. Yes, that rocked. I wouldn't recommend using lemon cake though. Unless you get to watch your roommate (picture below) make it. Yes I just watched her while I sat on the counter and we chatted with our buddy Brett, who by the way, is hilarious. Boxed cake = 3 ingredients: water, oil, eggs. My roommate forgot the eggs and didn't realize this until AFTER she put the cake in the oven and I asked her why she was putting a (should-be) empty egg carton back in the fridge. Good thing she had just put the cake in the over. Good times.


TUESDAY: In all caps for a DANG good reason; the best day of the week for me. There is a certain basketball player in one of my classes that I admire from afar. I'm enamored by his skills, his humility, and the fact that he is in my bowling class. As I was walking into bowling class "said basketball player" was too.

*heart flutter*

He got to the counter first and asked for his shoes just as I walked up to the counter. He looked up at me and smiled. *MELT* WOW. Hello Mr. Attractive. Yeah I became a puddle REAL fast. I know, a very girly moment, but nevertheless, awesome. It didn't help that I also spent the rest of the class sneaking (and getting caught) glances at him. Although this is nothing new. I just think he's awesome. *sigh*

Later that night I went to a Jazz Band Ensemble to see my friend Jake play the trombone. May I just tell you that I love jazz music? It's my favorite. I love music, all music (with a few exceptions), but jazz tops it off. Jazz bands rock and this was a fantastic concert.

Then I totally underestimated the amount of time it would take to complete my clinical worksheet due the next day. I only had a few corrections to make and for the life of me it took FOREVER. It's ok. It was fun. I know, I know. I'm a nerd. I've embraced it.

Bed time: 2:30am

Wednesday: Sleep deprived Gabe (yes 3rd person) woke up at 6:30 to be to campus by the unearthly hour of 8am to complete her rockin' visual for a presentation and to print a few things since her printer conveniently ran out of ALL ink. Yes, all my ink colors are out. At the same time.

Funny story (to me): I decided to go running when I got home around 5. Ok this is funny for several reasons, the main ones being I despise running. Hate it. I find absolutely no pleasure in running just to run. None. Yet I went because I thought I need to get in shape and it's not too cold out (another flaw in my thinking). First 15 minutes were fine. I was surprised. Then I decided to slow a little, ya know, pace myself. It was then that I realized how DANG cold outside it really was and since I'm no real runner, I only had two shirts on, shirts, and my sneakers. Brilliant, I know. Well, as I began my trek back to my apartment, my thighs turned the color of maraschino cherries, my ears were pounding, and I had a bad headache. Finally I made it home and just cast myself on the floor of my apartment, feeling a little...weird, light-headed, pained, dizzy even. I stretched and then just lie on the floor feeling stupid and sorry for my poor body, which was NOT happy with me. It took a good 15 minutes before I could feel my thighs again. The moral of this tale: don't go running. And don't do it when it's cold outside. Just don't.

Watched "The Holiday" with my roommates, which gave me great hope that there are decent men in the world. I don't know why there are so few in number at BYU, but oh well. I'm peacin' out of here soon anyway! Plus it's a dang cute movie (Jude Law....WHY HELLO. Jack Black....HILARIOUS).

Thursday: I love my nutrient biochemistry class. No seriously, it's 2 hours of lots of laughing. My professor rocks too and always throws out random quotes or weird comments in the middle of lecture. It certainly makes the class move along.

In my cooking class we made homemade pasta. I have one at home that you crank. In lab we got to use the KitchenAid attachment. I have a love for all kitchen gadgets and you better believe I can't wait to own my own orange, yellow, or black KitchenAid (orange).


I love homemade pasta. I do not love my teacher. She is ridiculous. ALL she ever talks about is her sons...blah blah blah....how amazing they are....blah blah blah....Olympic camps...blah blah....and how amazing of a mother she is....ok. Oh and how all of the recipes we use are her's and since they are her's, they must be the best. And if they aren't her recipes, she makes sure to tell you as she sticks her nose in the air. Snob. SELF-centered, obnoxious woman. Drives me nuts. And she spends the first half hour of our lab reading through the recipes, yet every 3 minutes she says, "You can read this on your own," and then proceeds to read it to US AND mention more unnecessary things about her sons. REALLY? SERIOUSLY??? I CAN READ!!!! I'm IN COLLEGE!!!!! Gosh.
Anyway my friend Dave and I were making the pasta (homemade pasta, by the way, IS A BLAST to make and eat. Do it.) and we decided that for our last ball of dough, we would made the dough ridiculously thin. I'm talking tissue paper thin, just for kicks. Then we cooked the pasta, but since we made both fettuccine and angel hair, we had to cook them separately, fettuccine first. After it was done, I drained it but then decided since we wouldn't be eating for about another 15-20 minutes (waiting for other kitchens and our SLOW instructor), I put it in a bowl of water. Why? So it wouldn't stick and since I didn't have a olive oil at my disposal, water would do it. Well, Mrs-Let-Me-Tell-You-About-My-Amazing-Sons-And-How-Amazing-Of-A-Mother-I-Am-And-How-My-Recipes-Are-The-Best walks over to inspect our pasta and proceeds to look upon the bowl with a look of disdain and horror.

Tangent: I have taken a few cooking classes, not to mention both my mother and grandmothers are fabulous cooks, oh and I've made pasta about 3490284039820 times. I THINK I know what I'm doing with the pasta, THANK YOU. You are an instructor not the Goddess of Cooking. Get OFF your pedestal.

Well, I proceeded to very quickly tell her that I learned in one of my cooking classes (thank you PenCourt lab) that to keep pasta from sticking, to toss some oil in it after you've cooked it if you aren't going to serve it immediately. No oil so water will do. Don't worry. She wasn't even listening. She was APPALLED with the tissue paper thin strips (which now looked as thin and translucent as jelly-fish tentacles) of pasta and rudely claimed our pasta wasn't done.

Hello, are you blind? Yes it is. Clearly she couldn't tell the difference in thickness. Geez.

She then insisted we put the pasta back in the water. After she walked a way, with me giving her back a glare with a side of stink eye, I told them we would not because it is done. We all tasted it and it was al denté. Take that. Oh and by the way our pasta tasted just fine. Horrid woman.

8pm: Watched my friends become the Walleyball Intramural Champs and BYU beat TCU. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE basketball.

Then I went with my friends Matt and Scott to see "Old Dogs" in the dollar theatre. HILARIOUS movie. Gut-bustin' laughter. Definitely worth a buck and was just funny. Maybe it was just the good company, but I thought John Travolta and Robin Williams were very funny. Then we went to McDonald's for free smoothies compliments of the Daily Universe. Matt and Scott scoured campus and got 64 newspapers and cut out the free coupons. That's dedication. Or just being a college student.

Friday: Woke up at 9am. Went to Erinn's apartment to "do homework" and make pretzels because I found a rockin' recipe. Oh but wait. This is what she e-mailed me Thursday, a conversation between her and her husband Dave:

Erinn: "Dave, can I have a friend over to play tomorrow?"
Dave: "To play? Who?"
Erinn: "Gabe"
Dave: "Oh, do you two have some more homework to work on?"
Erinn: "Yes, and we're going to make pretzels."
Dave: "You can only have her over if I get some pretzels."

I actually laughed out loud in my room for a good 5 minutes when I read this because I could just envision the conversation. Love these two. So we worked on our survey and made pretzels. Oh but don't worry that Erinn and I drank Mountain Dew and ate strawberry Twizzlers for breakfast. Mmmmm....(we're dietitians, we know we can eat everything!). The pretzels took forever to make because we had to let the dough rise about 3 or 4 times BUT it was TOTALLY worth it. We ate 3 each after they came out of the oven. DELISH. I recommend dipping these soft beauties in pizza sauce or mustard. You can do cheese too, but I'm not much of a fan. This is not a picture from yesterday because my camera...is...dead. And I have yet to get a replacement. So I copied it from the website I got the recipe from. Don't worry, don't worry, I'll give you the recipe.

Then I came home and made MORE pretzels. YES they are THAT good. I watched a movie, did homework, and watched the BYU-UNLV game. We aren't going to talk about that. Then I went to bed at 12:30 and loved it.

Saturday (thus far): Played basketball at 7:30am. I wish I could really explain to you my love and passion for basketball. It's insane. I LOVE this game. I also love playing basketball with guys because it's just more fun and more challenging, which helps me get better. I also love playing pick-up ball. I love basketball. Then I went on a bowling double date, which was wicked fun. Game 2 the guys changed things up and we had to draw 2 skittles and whichever color we got meant we had to do something ridiculous (bowl backwards, bowl with our eyes closed, bowl with the opposite hand, shot put, etc). It was hilarious and for about 5 frames I had a total score of 9. Bowling backwards...not my thing. Good day. Good week. Good times.



And now for the recipe....plan for it to take about 2-2 1/2 hours total but it's. worth. it.

Pretzel Ingredients:

1 cup warm Water
1 package Dry Active Yeast
2 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour
2 tbsp olive oil (or vegetable oil)
½ tsp ordinary table Salt
2 tbsp Baking Soda
2 tsp coarse Salt (I used Sea Salt)

Basic Instructions:
  1. Dissolve dry active yeast in warm (100° - 110°) water and set aside for 10 minutes until foamy.
  2. Add 2 tbsp of oil and ½ tsp of salt and mix together.
  3. Add first 1 ½ cups of all purpose flour and mix in.
  4. Add remaining 1 ¼ cups of all purpose flour and begin kneading dough.
  5. Knead by hand for about 15 minutes.
  6. Place dough ball into lightly oiled bowl, cover, and set aside to rise for 60 - 75 minutes.
  7. Divide dough into 12 even pieces , roll into balls, cover, and let rest for 15 minutes.
    *We (Erinn and I) recommend bigger pieces for fatter, more scrumptious pretzels)
  8. Roll out each piece until 18 inches long, then shape into pretzel shapes.
  9. Cover pretzels and let rise for another 30 minutes.
  10. Add 2 tbsp baking soda to a pot of water and boil each pretzel for 1 minute.
  11. Place pretzels on greased sheet pan and add coarse salt as desired.
  12. Bake soft pretzels at 475° oven for 12 minutes.
  13. Dip in something or eat plain and ENJOY!

3 comments:

Ashley said...

Gabe. You need to link to my new blog. kevinlovesashley.blogspot.com
Also, I love ya. That is all.

The Meyers said...

Lol. I love that you put "cover" in bold. You also forgot the part where we drank a lot of mountain dew and ate a lot of twizzlers at like 11am... :)

Emily D said...

You are hilarious. and I can't wait to make pretzels! :)
Glad you had such a good week :)