A wedding, a group of snobs, and a stormy 5 minutes

Alex sister Nicki got married on July 5, 2007. We drove up there on the 4th of July after I got off work. We drove to a little town in Utah called Parawon. It was a cute little town, very quiet and the people were just very friendly. We arrived at Nicki's house around 2:00 in the morning Utah time. The next morning, we all woke up, made breakfast, and then Alex and his dad went for a ride on their quads. When they got back, Alex took me to cedar city to show me around. He showed me where he used to live, where his friends used to live and where they all hung out. It was neat seeing all of that. After he showed me around, we went back to nicki's house and I helped his mom and her friend get the food ready for the wedding. We all left to go to where the wedding was going to be around 3:30. the wedding was at Nickis new husband, steve's brothers house. the house was beautiful, and the people who lived there were millionaires and they were rude and snobby. The wedding was beautiful. It was out side and there were mountains in the background. there were tables set up for the food. It started to get really windy and thunder and lightening. it was crazy. all the food was moved into the garage...

here are some pics from the wedding... the first one is standing the the backyard where the wedding was, they had a sports court,(whre alex got yelled at for hitting golf balls over the fence with a tennis racket)they had a play groung and a built in trampoline. it was a neat backyard.

To my mama, and all of my gramas

Happy mother's day mama, I know we go through some rough times, but I love you and I do not know where I would be without you.
Happy mother's day to ALL of my gramas...you guys are the best gramas in the whole wide world. I love how all of you support me in anything that I do.
I Love all of you ladies in my life.

Once again,
Happy Mothers Day.

Missa

A day of cooking, Angie, and the love of my life

Toady I found myself sitting alone on the couch with nothing to do. I got up and looked through the cabinets trying to see if we had anything I could make. I was originally going to make some home made chocolate chip cookies, but then I realized that we did not have sugar, so the cookies were out of the question. Then I found a box of cake mix on the very top shelf and I decided to make chocolate chip cupcakes instead.
They actually turned out moist and delicious.
I also made chicken marsala for Alex's family. Considering that I do not like mushrooms, I had to try the chicken to see how it turned out. I was impressed. My sauce came out nicely and the chicken was tender. His family loved it. My sister Angie came over to his house to eat with us, and that was kind of nice. I have not really seen her in a while, only because of my work schedule. I think she had a nice time over there, at least I hope she did. I also got to see my boyfriend today. Our day started out kinda shaky, but towards the end of the day, we were back to being our happy selves. I love spending time with Alex, he really is a good guy. Then when I came home from Alex's house, I had to make a Mediterranean salad for my dad so he can take it to work with him tommrow. It is not quite finished. This is a salad with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, raddishes, green onions, and parsley. It is tossed in a Mediterranean dressing. It also has pita bread chips, but I have to make the dressing and the bread tommrow morning. I do have to admit, it was a good day of cooking good food, it was so nice seeing Ang, and spending time with Alex.

Happy Early Birthday Davy Doo!

Today was my nephew's birthday party. He had his party at the park by our house. He will be four on the 23rd of April. Man time just flys by. I remember when he was born and when he first started talking.
Davy Doo is such a silly little boy. I love him so much. Maybe I will take him to get Ice Cream tomrow.
Any way, Happy early birthday little man. I love you and I have lots of big kisses and hugs for you.

Love always,
Missa

Dinner and Dessert anyone?

This is a picture of the dessert that I made for my mama. She saw it on the channel 3 news yesterday morning, so I told her I would make them.
They are strawberries with the tops cut off, hollowed out and the bottoms cut off so they will stand up. I filled them with a cream cheese icing.
I was just playing around with a plate presentation, and this is what I came up with.I saw some blackberries in the fridge, and I wanted to garnish this plate presentation with them. I think it is a pretty presentation.
I also helped Mama Judy (Alex's mama) with dinner. She had some of her long time friends over. I made one of my favorite dishes...Grama Patty's lasagna. Oh man, I can't wait to eat it. It is so cheesy and looks so good. It's in the oven right now as I am posting, but it is almost done. Yummy food, good life, and a nice day off.

Penne Pasta with Pesto Beurre Blanc

Tonight I decided to make one of my favorite dishes from culinary school. This was originally a vegetarian dish, but knowing that my family loves to eat meat, I decided to make changes to the recipe. This dish is Penne pasta with pesto Beurre Blanc(white wine sauce mounted with butter and added pesto.) It is tossed with grilled chicken and fresh tomatoes, and topped with parmsean cheese. Delicious!!!
This is a picture of what was left from dinner. My family and Alex loved it!

Flash Back

I was standing at work in the prep area of the kitchen, and I was trying to stay busy. I decided to peel shrimp, and this is a very long, boring process. It took about an hour and a half to finish the whole pan. While I was standing there, a flash back came to me from my culinary school. Peeling this shrimp reminded me of my Euro-Asian cooking class with Chef Watson......one of the hardest instructors at the school.
His class was ran his way, and his way only. He told us to stay busy, help each other out, or move on with the lesson of the day, but when any body tried to move on, he would yell at us and make the whole class feel dumb. He was the type of person who wanted everything to be perfect, and he was scared to let anyone take a chance because his idea of "perfection" might be ruined. Chef Watson went on and on about the history of the food that we were making, which was really neat, but then he would digress to how his trip to every European country was and how the women loved him and his money. His stories and his knowledge were very entertaining, but he did not know how to shut up. His class was the longest three weeks of school.
During the last week of his class, we were studding Asian cuisine. He was doing a demo of a famous dish that had a whole fish (but I can not remember what kind or the name of the dish).It was served on a platter with fish sauce and rice, or something like that. He put his demo in the window so the people walking around could see it. Little did he know, there was a group of elementary school students taking a tour of the school and having lunch in the student run restaurant. They walked by our class room and saw the fish in the window. Chef Watson thought it would be fun to "play" with the kids through the glass. He ran over to his desk and grabbed a pair of chopsticks and plucked the eye right out of the dead fish and ate it in front of the kids. The looks on their faces were priceless. They were so grossed out. Everyone in my class laughed.
Chef Watson was one of my least favorite teachers at LCB, but for some strange reason, I will always remember that day and the look on those poor kids' face.