Ruth Kaye Owen

I love Pinterest. I know a lot of people who joke about pinning things they never intend to do or make or buy, but I mostly use it to organize things I actually plan on using. My “Food” board is full of recipes I’ve made, as well as ones I plan to make soon. When I make a Pinterest recipe, I leave a comment on the pin with my review. I have long thought I should share these reviews more publicly so that my friends and even complete strangers can have an idea of what recipes will be like before they try them themselves. But there are so many that it’s seemed like a daunting task. So I’m going to start posting five reviews per post from time to time. Here’s the first installment.

Doro Wat with Quick Injera

Why I tried it

I already had tried a doro wat recipe and loved it, but the idea of being able to do it in the crock pot intrigued me. Also, I was eager to try making my own injera bread, since it’s hard to come by here. I’d love to go to an Ethiopian restaurant someday, but until then, I’ll make my own at home.

Review

Very good doro wat, though rather buttery. I made my own berbere powder rather than using the garam masala called for in the recipe. Did not like the injera, and it didn’t turn out well for me at all. Too thick and pancakey. Doro Wat: A. Injera: F.

Chicken and White Bean Enchiladas with Creamy Salsa Verde

Why I tried it

We love Mexican food at my house, and I’d been looking for a creamy chicken enchilada recipe that didn’t involve cream of chicken soup.

Review

Good, but the enchilada sauce was way too much work to be worth it for me. I will just use store-bought green enchilada sauce with cream added in the future. (Oh, and I used cream instead of sour cream for personal taste reasons.) I doubled the recipe, thinking I had to in order to feed my family of five, and we ate only half. The other half is in the freezer for another day (hooray!). B.

No-Bake Chocolate Chip Granola Bars

Why I tried it

We go through a LOT of granola bars at our house. Jonathon eats them often for snacks or as part of his lunch, and I love them too. The kids eat them less often, but still often enough that buying them gets kind of expensive. I was interested in making them myself, not just because of the cost savings but also because this way I can customize them to be just what we want.

Review

Turned out yummy, but I improvised a bit, adding peanut butter, peanuts, and puffed rice. The next day, they were really dry, so I’d need to put them in some sort of airtight bag or container if I made them again. They were easy and yummy, but I haven’t made them since. Maybe because I usually don’t have crisp rice and puffed rice on hand? I also feel the need to point out that these are NOT healthy, as the blogger claims over and over. They are essentially an oatmeal cookie without the egg and with crisp rice instead of flour. However, since I am now eating wheat and dairy and peanut free because Robo is allergic to all three (!) and I’m nursing him, it might be nice to try these again with margarine instead of butter. Most to all store-bought granola bars contain wheat ingredients, and these don’t. B.

Chile Colorado Burritos

Why I tried it

Um, that gorgeous picture? That plus the text on the blog with the recipe made my mouth water.

Review

Boring. Just tasted like plain beef with enchilada sauce. Much better Mexican recipes out there. But hey, three ingredients, so if you’re into super easy and don’t care about authentic Mexican flavor, go ahead and try it. D.

Easy Slow Cooker Recipes

Why I tried it

I teach piano until 5:00 or even sometimes 5:30 a few days a week, so the idea of crockpots is very appealing to me. But most crockpot recipes don’t appeal to my picky family, so I’m constantly on the lookout for new ones.

Review

This one is harder to review because the pin links to a list of recipes on LDS Living. I have only tried two of the recipes so far, so I’ll review those. The first is the one pictured, titled Sesame Beef in the article linked. The other is the fourth one down, Greek Chicken Pita Folds.

The Sesame Beef recipe was yummy, but I definitely wouldn’t say it tasted even vaguely like the sesame beef or even beef with broccoli you’d get at a Chinese restaurant. It was just savory and tender and delicious like pot roast, except a bit different. I have since seen beef broccoli crockpot recipes all over Pinterest. It is a cool idea, if you don’t care about it tasting like a stir fry. What I don’t get is why doing this in a crock pot is easier than taking 10 minutes to actually stir fry these ingredients. But hey, I enjoyed it, and I should probably make it again soon. B.

I would recommend the pitas if you like Greek food. I did, but my family didn’t care for the vegetable combination or the yogurt sauce. I didn’t try the yogurt sauce with mine since I don’t care for yogurt, but the chicken and veggies were flavorful without it. B.

1. Jonathon obtained a bag of tomatoes from a family in our ward.

2. I posted on Facebook inviting women from the ward to come and can if they wanted to.

3. I arranged a day and time to can with a few women, one of whom happens to be my visiting teacher. (The other two ended up cancelling at the last minute due to circumstances beyond their control.)

4. 11:00. We started an hour later than the time arranged because that’s how life with four kids goes, for both of us. (She was cleaning up a massive honey mess involving her one-year-old. I was dealing with a baby and cleaning my kitchen to pre-canning standards.)

5. 11:30. I went to the school after getting a phone call saying that Duplo had fallen on the playground at lunch and that the nurse wasn’t there so they couldn’t send him back out to play without me giving them permission to.

6. 11:45. At school, I got the details. Duplo had been running away from a bee and tripped on a rock. He was pretty badly scraped up on his arm, shoulder, and back, and he was saying it hurt a lot to move his arm. I had him squeeze my finger, which is what my mom (a nurse) did to determine if a bone was broken. He had a good grip. I was able to take his arm out of the sleeve of his shirt to get a look at his shoulder, but I didn’t see any bruising, and his range of motion seemed okay, even if he said it hurt when I moved his arm certain ways. I held him for a while as he cried and ultimately decided to check him out for the rest of the day.

7. 12:15. Finally back home. The lady who just moved in across the street and was going to can with us today came over to share some tomatoes from her garden in exchange for some of our salsa. Noticing Duplo, she sent her husband, who is a nurse, over to take a look at his arm. Her husband said he couldn’t tell but thought he’d dislocated his shoulder, and if he wasn’t using his arm within a few hours, he’d recommend taking him in.

8. Finally got to do some canning. I peeled tomatoes for a bit before taking a lunch and nursing-the-babies break.

Please note that my lovely canning partner had been working on canning this entire time.

9. 1:00 to 3:00. I alternated between productive chopping and whatnot, and caring for a VERY fussy baby, managing a three-year-old who seemed to need me every five minutes for some crisis or another (including going swimming in our kiddie pool in 60-degree weather in all his clothes, changing clothes and getting wet again, stripping to his birthday suit outside, putting shorts back on, peeing his pants, etc.), and tending to an injured six-year-old.

10. 3:00. I picked up Lego from school. THIS went uneventfully.

11. 3:15. I finally decided that there was absolutely no way that the canning was going to be done before my 4:00 piano teaching appointment. With my canning partner’s encouragement, I also decided to take Duplo to the doctor because, while he said his arm wasn’t hurting as much as before, he wasn’t using it at all either. His left shoulder was hanging lower than his right, and his arm hung limply at his side.

12. 3:30. After rescheduling the piano lessons for tomorrow and calling the doctor, I left with Duplo, Robo (who was too fussy to leave), and El Guapo (who just really wanted to come). Lego stayed home with my canning partner and her four boys. (Are you getting seriously impressed with her yet?)

13. Around 4:00. Finally got to see the x-rays: broken clavicle (collarbone), and very noticeable. Duplo gets to wear a sling until he doesn’t want/need it anymore. The doctor said that clavicles tend to heal really well, especially in children, so that’s reassuring. I feel bad for waiting so long to take him in now.

14. 4:30. We finally got back from the doctor. Meanwhile, my canning partner had finished the chopping and had combined all the ingredients into a stock pot (with a little help from me over the phone so she could find things like sugar, vinegar, and salt). It was on its way to boiling when I returned, and she was getting to work on the second double batch (we ended up quadrupling the recipe). She had also called her husband to bring over a frozen pan of chicken enchiladas she had to feed her family and mine tonight, so he was there for a few minutes.

15. 4:30 to 6:30. We both worked pretty hard. She filled jars and processed them while I chopped green peppers. I removed jars from the canner while she finished chopping tomatoes. She processed a second group of jars while I mixed together the second pot full. We both took turns dealing with dishes. And Robo was fussy fussy fussy, so I took quite a few short breaks to try nursing him, putting him to sleep, snuggling him, etc. Even when I was working, he was on my lap or on my hip.

16. Around 6:00. My friend’s foreign exchange student from Denmark showed up to help, and mostly she took over caring for Robo, which was WONDERFUL.

17. 6:45. We finally ate dinner. After dinner, we finished processing the last few jars. (Okay, she did. I was finally managing to get Robo to sleep.)

18. 7:45. She finally finished labeling everything, then gathered up her stuff and left.

Can I hear three cheers for the best visiting teacher and canning partner ever? She deserves a medal, I swear. And I deserve some chocolate, I think, for surviving this day.

Where has the summer gone? I usually don’t feel like it’s really summer unless I go camping or unless I take the kids swimming. We usually do swimming lessons, hikes, day trips.

This year? This year I had a baby, attended a wedding in Albuquerque (which was the highlight of the summer!), attended my grandpa’s funeral in Denver (oddly, another highlight because the funeral was so affirming and joyful), and moved.

Moving and I are definitely on the rocks right now. Our relationship is not doing very well. When we were young, there was something fun about moving to a better place, meeting new people, and even trying to figure out how to decorate a different space. While this move was to a much better house than our last, the move itself was so very stressful that I am not eager to ever move again. Too bad we are planning on doing exactly that in a year—to our own home, hopefully. And then we can be done. Hopefully.

As soon as I can, I will take pictures because this house really is pretty and spacious, and it has a pretty yard, and the school seems all sorts of awesome. Plus little perks like a dryer vent that is less than 30 feet long, allowing our clothes to actually dry in the dryer, as well as a stove and oven that work perfectly without any quirks. And, you guys!

WE AREN’T SHARING WALLS OR FLOORS OR CEILINGS WITH ANYBODY.

I keep thinking it’s all going to come crashing down because it’s too good to be true. Now, excuse me, I have some boxes to unpack.

April was a whirlwind. It started off with Lego’s birthday, followed by a busy spring break, Easter, a yard sale, my brother’s BYU graduation, Lego’s baptism (which I will blog about as soon as I can get pictures onto my computer), my brother’s sealing in the temple, and my niece’s baby blessing. It’s not surprising, then, that while I felt pregnant, I didn’t have a lot of time to think about the reality that a baby is coming very soon.

Now that the craziness is over, I have May to plan, prepare, clean, and make freezer meals. And I have to admit, I’m getting excited for this new little one. I can’t wait to meet him.

It feels good to check things off my To Do before Baby list too. If he was born today, the main thing I’d be stressed about would be his name. People keep asking if we’ve picked a name yet, and the answer is a big, fat NO. No, we don’t have several options we’re thinking about. No, we don’t have much of a clue at all. Yes, we realize we are really down to the wire.

The car seat, though? That I have cleaned. The crib? Cleaned, made up, and ready. The baby’s dresser is filled with his clothes, many of which were lent by my sister. I am almost done preregistering online at the hospital. I need to sanitize the pacifiers, and I haven’t bought diapers yet, but there’s plenty of time.

One more month. It feels good.