Christmas 2007

Christmas here was very low key, my mom and dad drove down from Idaho to spend a week with us. Alex was very excited to open her presents on Christmas morning. She had a hard time waiting for everyone to finish breakfast. She had a princess Christmas (for the most part), she got three princess dresses, an Ariel doll, a Cinderella baby and a Princess pillow snuggler.
Logan was more interested in eating the paper than playing with the presents. He got some cars, books and a little piano. The rest of his Christmas comes when we move. We are getting him some stuffed animal heads and a bear rug for his room from Cabelas.


Other than opening presents, we relaxed and played games. We had a nice ham dinner with mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and rolls. We didn't have any snow, but I have a feeling next year we will have a white Christmas.

Pudding on the Rice - Ty and Erin Style

I've been looking for a rice pudding recipe ever since Mom and Emily introduced us to Pudding on the Rice.  Until PotR, I never realized just how good rice pudding could be, and now I'm addicted.  Below is the best rice pudding recipe I've found - really good, really easy, and super rich!

Ingredients:

3/4 Cup uncooked white rice

2 cups milk, divided

1/3 cup white sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Other flavorings in combinations only limited by imagination

Directions:

1:  MAKE RICE:  In a medium saucepan, bring 1 1/2 cups water to a boil.  Add rice and stir.  Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.  (Prep Notes:  we had rice for dinner, and I had some left over which I used to make the pudding - worked great.  Also, since water didn't show up in the ingredients list and I can't read...I started with 1 1/2 cups milk in the saucepan instead of water.  It didn't mess anything up, since I used it in the next step - but still...)

2:  MAKE PUDDING!!:  In another saucepan, combine 1 1/2 cups cooked rice, 1 1/2 cups milk, sugar and salt.  Cook over medium heat until thick and creamy (15 - 20 minutes).  Stir in remaining 1/2 cup milk and beaten egg.  Cook 2 minutes more, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla.

3:  EAT PUDDING!!!!!!!!!:  We let the pudding cool for about 1/2 hour in the fridge (freezer would even be better).  Then, we rough-chopped some chocolate chips and stirred them into the pudding.  The pudding was just warm enough to melt the chocolate as we were eating every bite of the batch!  Next time, I'm going to get some ameretto extract to make my favorite PotR flavor, but it I don't make some chocolate chip for Erin, she'll strangle me.

FINAL NOTES:  This is one of those recipes that is simple enough to experiment and play with.  Next time, I think that I'll use a little less sugar, since ours turned out a little sweet with the addition of chocolate.  

Try it, and please let us know what you think!!

San Juan Finale

I'm really going to miss fishing the San Juan River. That has been one of the most rewarding and adventurous things that I've done while in New Mexico.

Last Saturday, five co-workers and I drove up for a proper finale event. We left at 4:15 am on Saturday morning in one of the hardest rains that I've ever seen. I didn't think it rained like that in Albuquerque, but we could hardly see to drive. The weather cleared up as we headed north, but we were a little concerned about the weather for the day.

By the time we reached the river, three hours later, it was cloudy and dry. The river was really low, and we had trouble finding fish. We fished all day in on-off showers before I finally figured out the program. I found a nice channel with trout all over in it, and caught three nice rainbows before calling it a day.

That night, we all had pitched in for a lodge on the river. We stayed at a place called the Stone House, which wasn't too bad (adobe and rock walls). Dinner was an event. We ate at the only place in Navajo Dam, NM - The Sportsman. This place had character, from the clientele to the waitress to the decorations to the music. They had some of the weirdest Christmas music playing that I've ever heard (and it was blaring). Oil truck drivers were lined up at the bar. The waitress could have passed as an oil truck driver. And I had a chicken fried steak where the gravy could have passed as oil.

The next morning was cold and clear. I went back to my special spot and had an all-time day on the river. I caught seven trout in about three hours, and some of them had really good size. The jewel of the trip was a beatiful brown trout that I caught while stripping a big black leach through that channel. It was my first brown in a river, and was a special send off for me. We headed home a little after noon - what a trip.