Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Fancy Flours



This is one of my FAVORITE stores in the WORLD! It's located in a place so close to my heart: Bozeman Mt, but they ship ALL over the world! :) Their products are FANTASTIC and lovely... My friend Kristi has worked for them for over four years, and if you order, tell her you're a friend of mine! She'll get a kick out that! :)

ENJOY! Go bake!!

Monday, May 24, 2010

Dear Blog Friends...

Is this not GORGEOUS!!!!!!!!!

Pizza Pasta Cass and Home Made Ranch

Home Made Ranch

Sour Cream, Mayo, Chives, Parsley, Dill

28oz. Can Pasta Sauce

1/2 c. green pepper

1/2 c. chopped onion
4oz. can mushrooms

8oz. pkg of pepperoni

Pasta ( I use organic whole wheat
recipe calls for spiral pasta, but I used spaghetti!





Great recipe: HAD to share Serves at least 5-8

8oz medium tube pasta
1 jar (28oz) pasta sauce
1 jar (4 1/2oz) mushrooms, drained
1 pkg (8oz.) sliced pepperoni
1/2 c. chopped green pepper
1/2 c. chopped onion
1/2 c. grated Parmesan
1/2 tsp. garlic powder ( I also added yet another tsp of garlic, fresh chopped)
1/2 tsp salt and black pepper.
1/8 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 can (8oz) tomato sauce ( I used pizza sauce)
2 c. shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

cook pasta according to pkg.

meanwhile combine 2- 1/3 c. sauce, mushrooms, pepperoni, onion, pepper, garlic, red pepper
flakes, salt, pepper, par. cheese in a large bowl.

after draining pasta, add to sauce and mix well.
transfer to greased 3 qt. baking dish. combine tomato sauce and remaining pasta sauce and pour
over top of dish.
cover and bake at 350 deg. for 40-45 min

sprinkle with mozz. cheese and bake uncovered for 5-10 minutes

let stand five before serving.
Enjoy!

Home made Ranch:

1 cup mayo
1/2 c. sour cream
1/2 tsp dried chives, dill and parsley
1/4 tsp garlic and onion powder
1/8 salt and pepper

mix all and cover at least 30 min before serving


Enjoy my blog friends!!


Sunday, May 23, 2010

Hart Tree Loop











Yesterday Michael and I planned a day of fun in Sequoia Nat'l Park. A reward for a month of consistently, missing only a few days, of working out for a month straight. We're training to Hike Half Dome on Sept 3rd. So we've been working out three to four days a week, gym, bike rides, hiking near Fresno. So I had planned for us to hike a larger scale hike as a reward for all of our hard work, i know we're freaks. A long hike as a reward for smaller hikes? But we love it. So we decded May 22nd would be a GREAT day to hike the Hard Tree Loop. I'd found it on the NPS website and thought it look like a very do-able hike.

With that in mind we left at about 11am yesterday and after passing through the Ranger Station with our new shiny Annual pass for the Sierra and Sequoia Parks, we parked and began our hike. Let me explain something to you though. Our trail head was about 2 miles off the main highway, but the road to the trail head, was SNOWED over. So we grabbed our packs and bundled up, because by the time we'd parked, it'd started snowing! SNOWING! :) yes SNOWING. But we're stubborn and thought , "Heck we just drove like 1.5 hrs to get here! We're not leaving without getting our butts onto that Trail!" or something like that ;) SO we hiked down two miles to get to the actual trail head... which meant that after we were "done" with our hike, we'd still have another two miles UP hill to get to our car. Those last two miles almost killed me, I'm not serious, but it was a challenging hike in ALL aspects of my life, Spiritual ( trusting God), Physically (8miles and five hours later, and I'm not even sore today! yay working out!) Mentally ( with the snow falling down around us hard, it was tough to stay positive) and Emotionally ( It took a lot inside of me not to just break down and sit right down where I was and say I'm done, I don't want to do this anymore!)

Once we FINALLY hit the "trail" we hiked in about two miles seeing LOTS of amazing things, stopping off to have a picnic on a log consisting of cashews, Hansen's pomegranate soda's and honey and Pb sandwiches, found an old "log" cabin, literally a giant sequoia carved out with a fire pit inside, 300 foot tall giant sequoias, and amazing vista's looking out into rolling mountains covered with trees soaked in fog. It was an amazing hike, very scary at some points, but we made it out Alive! Thank the Lord!!! As we went to bed last night, my husband was talking about ALL the fun points of the trip, I told him, " Hunny, I don't want to talk about the hike. It freaked me out, I didn't know if we'd make it out, can we talk about this another time?" And look at me now, not even 24 hrs later and I'm talking about! And honestly, CANNOT wait for another life challenging hike :)

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Great Link!



If you live in the central valley and want a few hiking/backpacking tips head over here:
He's got a TON of great resources!!


Thursday, May 6, 2010

Cinco De Mayo!

top ten favorite memories from yesterday!

1.) I was off yesterday and was also a TOTAL lazy bum, when my hub asked me what i did yesterday, this was ALL i could come up with, dishes, gym for 15min, dog park... ALL DAY! lovely!
2.) Wednesday nights we have a bible study with a lot of lovely people and God really spoke to my husband and I.
3.) amazing mexican food at a place around the corner called Kings House, really called Casa Corona but that just sounds lame ;)
4.) The fact that even though we didn't get to the restaurant till 5:20 ish, we got in, ate, so unhealthy, but it's ok :) and got out and to bible study promptly at 6:59pm :)
5.) one word: Guacamole!
6.) talking about having kids over dinner with my husband... it's just thrilling thinking about having a family!!!
7.) The weather, we're in CA and it's brilliantly beautiful here in Spring.
8.) making Yarn dolls with the little girls at bible study!
9.) Having a heart to heart with my dear friend, crying, and being honest.
10.) Last but certainly NOT least, eating ice cream with my man, watching community.
Great Cinco De Mayo!
I rest my case.

I'd LOVE to hear yours! Please post!

Have a great night!!
Rachel Ruelas