Recipe of the Week: Frozen Yogurt

I'm calling this the last craving of this pregnancy:
Homemade Frozen Yogurt

The ironic part of this craving is that as you may recall, my summertime craving was the Soup Kitchen. Of course I want frozen treats in January. I've been inspired by a couple of sites: This Week for Dinner and 101 Cookbooks to give this a try. We made some Monday night and I bought some more plain yogurt because well.. I need more fro-yo. Its easy too. The recipe that I used includes ideas and tips from a couple different recipes from the above links:

3-4 cups strained yogurt or Greek-style yogurt
3/4 cup sugar (I used extrafine bakers sugar)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
1/4 t. xanthan gum (optional- helps with texture.. found in healthfood section of store)

Mix together the yogurt, sugar, and vanilla and xanthan(if using). Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. Refrigerate 1 hour.

Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. (~25 minutes for the Cuisinart)

Christie notes: I used one container (4 cups) of plain whole milk yogurt (strained for a couple hours). I think next time I won't bother straining it and see what happens. I will probably go a little lighter on the sugar next time too. It was plenty sweet. I'm sure it would be fabulous with all sorts of mix-ins. We just ate it plain (well ok, I ate some cookies with it, but not because the yogurt needed anything extra).

Christmas 08

We had a lovely Christmas with family parties and good food and plenty of time to spend at home during the snowstorms. And because of all the distractions & good times, I've successfully and fairly painlessly made it to week 37 of this pregnancy, which, according to babycenter is "full term". Yay! Not long now. Here's a few pics of our holiday fun:

The lights at temple square

Neil's new best friend

Boys and their new handmade cowboy vests & horses thanks to Grandma B.

Josh's Lincoln Log ranch (or wincoln wogs as Neil would say)
Since I got some new appliances, the boys got the best Christmas present ever.. cardboard boxes!

Neil, Bullseye and Woody sleeping in heavenly peace

Overdue tag

Overdue tag from Sarah!

8 TV shows I watch: (most of this made possible only by DVR.. I can fast forward through half of this and watch when I have a moment to fold laundry)
1. The Amazing Race
2. The Office
3. Survivor
4. Random TLC shows
5. Random Food Network Shows
6. News
7. College football (more Russ than me)
8. Nick Jr(more boys than me)


8 Favorite Restaurants: (In no particular order)
1. Blue Iguana
2. Union Grill
3. Market Street
4. Big Apple Pizza
5. Hires Big H (pregnancy related craving..)
6. Thai Siam
7. Bombay House
8. Nielsons Frozen Custard


8 Things That Happened This Week:
1. Christmas
2. Had the youth in our ward over for tacos and games
3. New refrigerator and microwave delivered & installed
4. 37 week appointment with my midwife
5. Post holiday cleaning
6. Cooked the turkey dinner on Sunday that I was supposed to cook on Christmas Day
7. Played candyland with Josh (20 times or so)
8. I updated my blog


8 Things I Look Forward To:
1. Having this baby boy in 3 weeks!
2. 2009
3. Spring
4. Having our kitchen 100% finished
5. Summer.. garden.. flowers.. sunshine
6. Vacations
7. Getting back in shape after this pregnancy
8. No more heartburn after this pregnancy :-)


8 People I Tag:
The 1st 8 people to read this.. Go!

Jolly Old Saint Neil

I had forgotten how round my baby was just 2 Christmases ago. My adorable nephew Ed gets to be Santa this year and it inspired me to look back to Neil's year in the Santa suit:

Hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season!

Updates at Last

First of all, I failed to blog a Happy Birthday to my Joshua. He is now 4 years old. He enjoyed every moment of his birthday weekend, checking regularly to see if it was still his birthday.

Happy Birthday Joshy!(Thanks must go to Aunts Cheryl and Mia who took care of the birthday cake situation with our lack of functioning kitchen facilities..)

And now, by request.. THE KITCHEN UPDATE

We've still got some projects to complete, but here's a sneak peek at how far we have come:

The empty space after demolition

Russ and his helpers

New playspace for boys..

The countertops & cabinets.. I'm in love.

No more excuses.. time to start cooking dinner again. (More thanks in order for those who fed us and let us invite ourselves for dinner while we were in shambles.)

A tag to pass the time..

Catching up on tags while the boys and I are confined to the basement. Cabinets are being installed even as I type (YAY!). Here are the rules: I have to answer the following questions with one word answers and one word only! (this was not easy) Then I must pass it on to seven others. Here are the questions:

1. Where is your cell phone? purse
2. Where is your significant other? Delta
3. Your hair color? brown
4. Your mother? Lorraine
5. Your father? Don
6. Your favorite thing? outdoors
7. Your dream last night? strange
8. Your dream/goal? success
9. The room you're in? basement
10.Your hobby? cooking
11. Your fear? failure
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? home
13. Where were you last night? Cheryl's
14. What you're not? political
15. One of your wish-list items? this
16. Where you grew up? Jersey
17. The last thing you did? amazon.com (is that one word?)
18. What are you wearing? sweater
19. Your TV? Diego
20. Your pet? none
21. Your computer? dell
22. Your mood? content
23. Missing someone? Hubba
24. Your car? messy
25. Something you're not wearing? make-up
26. Favorite store? Target
27. Your summer? gone
28. Love someone? family
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. When is the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? Sunday


I tag anyone who would like to participate..

What's cooking?

We just said goodbye to our old kitchen:

And hello to chaos:
The rest of the old cabinets come out this weekend and the new ones should be installed next week.. I can't wait!