Rice Paper Cold Rolls

I finally gave these a go! I was inspired to try them after I tasted some that a friend made. They sure don't look professional quality, but they taste yummy and are really easy!

They make a great snack, lunch, or dinner, depending on what you fill them with and how many you want to make. I just used cucumbers, carrots, and chicken.

Step 1: Slice up your veggies

Step 2: Cook the chicken [ I cooked it with a little soy sauce, salt, and pepper ]

Step 3: When the chicken has been cooked and all your stuffings are prepared, it's time for the rice wraps.  They start out very brittle with a cross-hatch pattern.

Step 4: Fill a plate [that has a rim] with water. Soak the rice paper for about a minute, or until it goes limp and the pattern disappears. Then gently transfer it onto another plate to fill.

Step 5: Load it up, and then fold it burrito style! I drizzled a little soy sauce over the top of the fillings before I rolled it up.

Step 6: Enjoy!

I enjoyed my "fancy" [not really] cold rolls for dinner, while Chris chose a good old fall back of bean and cheese nachos. . .

I promise I'm not making fun of him! Nachos are delicious too , just not as pretty :]

Healthy Substitutions - do things really turn out the same?

I'd always heard that you could substitute applesauce for butter in cookies, but never tried. Several weeks ago Chris wanted chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, and I decided to split the batch in half and try out all the tricks on one half, and keep the other half regular. 

I wan't sure I could buy what people say about them still tasting the same. . . I wanted to know for myself how the "healthy" substitutions actually affected the look and taste of the good old tried and true. 

I made two "healthy" changes to the experimental half:

- applesauce for all the butter

- whole wheat flour for white

- I also added dried cranberries, but that's just cause I like 'em!

Pretty simple changes, but here's the results:

I'm pretty sure you can tell which ones are which. So, obviously the alterations do affect the cookies' appearance. 

And yes, the taste is definitely different. . . BUT. . . I liked the "healthy" ones just as much! They're just different. If you're Chris and craving only the goodness of a regular chocolate chip oatmeal cookie, then anything else just isn't gonna cut it. That's understandable. But to me, the "healthy" ones were moister and had more flavors all together. I couldn't help eating them for breakfast as I told myself how good they were for me ;]  Because of their "health factor" I think I ended up eating more than I would have eaten the regular ones! That probably defeats the purpose I know, but what can I say? I LOVE cookies!!!

I know there are many more alterations/substitutions you can do to "healthify" things. I just wanted to share the one I'd been wondering about lately. 

Take your pick!

"Los Jakartos" White Chicken Enchiladas with Green Chili & Sour Cream Sauce

YUM!

I made these enchiladas last night and boy were they good! I'm including the recipe, because you should probably make them :] Chris said there's no need to try any other recipe again!

I got the recipe from Six Sisters' Stuff - they're always posting delicious looking things!

My notes and additions are added in green :]

White Chicken Enchiladas with Green Chili & Sour Cream Sauce

8 soft flour tortillas

2 cups cooked, shredded chicken [the 2 cups barely filled 7 tortillas so I'd make 3. I also poached my chicken in chicken broth so it would be moist, and added some cumin to give it some extra flavor]

2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese 

3 Tbsp. butter

3 Tbsp. flour

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup sour cream

1 (4 oz) can diced green chillies

1 tsp dried cilantro [didn't have any]

1/2 tsp onion powder [substituted Lawry's]

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp black pepper

[I also added 1/2 tsp Chili powder and will probably add some jalapenos for Chris next time]

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9x13 pan using non-stick cooking spray.

2. Mix cooked chicken, chili powder [optional] and 1 cup of cheese together.  Roll up in tortillas and place in pan.

3. In a medium sauce pan, melt butter, stir in flour and cook 1 minute.  Add broth and whisk until smooth.  Heat over medium heat until thick and bubbly.  

4. Stir in sour cream, can of chilies, cilantro, black pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder.  Make sure that you don't bring this to a boil- you don't want to have curdled sour cream!

5. Pour over enchiladas and top with remaining cheese.

6. Bake 20-22 minutes and then place under high broil for 3 min to brown the cheese.

From Chris:

It is a well known fact that husbands around the world often times lie, especially in their first year of marriage, about how good the food "actually" is.  I have received permission from my pastor to do so :)  However, I am not lying when I say that these enchiladas were restaurant quality watch out LaHacienda kind of enchiladas.  Katie did not ask me for this note in her blog, I demanded a little space so I could let you all know that it tastes even better than it looks.  Dinner, lunch, and dinner again for me.  Not by necessity, by choice! Good work Katie~

First Week Back in Grade 1

I just realized that I hadn't posted much about school or my classroom lately, and the first week back happened to be a pretty fun one! 

The main project we worked on was Box Friends! I saved all of our boxes over Christmas break so the kids could start right away on Monday designing their own personal Box Friend. The point of the activity is to encourage creative thinking and writing. We spent one day painting all of the boxes black, and then the next day was devoted to decoration. 

There weren't many rules because I wanted to see their imaginations. They just had to have a name, a face, and be a character. For example, if they made an airplane, it still had to have a character. . . think Thomas the Tank Engine - if only I could have used that example to explain it to them. I am now old enough to "date myself" by referring to things in my childhood. . . sad day.

my example is the one on the right with the blue hair and green skirt :]

Here are several close-ups

This next week, they will be writing character bios and imaginative stories. At the end, they'll get a chance to stand up and share their stories and box friends with the class. I'm excited to see what they come up with!

And here was our art project of the week:

Fireworks drawn with oil pastels, then covered with black watercolor paint 

These were so fun, and I think they turned out awesome! Probably my favorite art piece we've done so far this year!

Close-ups:

Ta-Dah! 

They are now displayed proudly on our class bulletin board! 

How I've spent every extra minute of the past week. . .

I get emails from Shutterfly sending me weekly deals. Since I've only used Shutterfly once, I've been tempted to delete my subscription, but I'm so glad I haven't! Minus the shipping 

[ $8 ] we're getting this book for free! I love a deal like that! I have literally spent the entire last week working on it too. 

I can be SUCH a perfectionist with stuff like this [ so you better not find any mistakes! ].  I might have neglected some other things because I spent so much time working on it, but I was enjoying myself too much to feel too guilty :]  It's a recap of our 2011 into ten main events --- Hope you enjoy!

                   Click here to view this photo book larger

Prayer and Paper Airplanes

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." 

 {Philippians 4:6-7}

Last night Chris and I tried to prepared our hearts and minds for school to start back up again. We've spent a lot of time reflecting lately about our jobs, living here, liking it here, not liking it here, amazing times, amazingly stressful times, friends and family [of two] here, and friends and family at home. We spent some amazing quality time together over this break, both traveling and staying home. We found ourselves laughing [ a lot ], and seeing more of the beauty and joy in our relationship. Not that those things hadn't been present before, but sometimes they're much harder to see and experience when extra pressures and stress are added to both of us -- and this break was such a retreat from so many of those things! We thank God for that. 

We decided that we should take one last time before going back to just sit together and pray - thanking God for that time and the many blessings we're thankful for. Then we wrote down some things that we wanted to give up to God. . . things like stress, worry, perfection, comparison, and the feeling that we haven't done enough [life and teaching related]. We wrote each of these things on a blank piece of paper, and then took turns throwing them off our balcony as a physical representation of letting them go, and trusting in God to help us overcome them and give us His peace that "transcends all understanding" {one of my favorite verses}. I'm thankful for such a godly husband who will lead me in prayer and throwing of objects off our balcony ;] 

It was a successful and refreshing activity. . . my condolences for the guy living below us who was the unfortunate recipient of "worry". 

Jungle Adventure to Kalimantan Borneo

If you've seen our facebook pictures, you probably have a good idea of what our Kalimantan trip was like, but I'll give a little recap that includes more details.
I've realized that a lot of the blogging we do will actually be great for us years down the road, since this has kind of become my form of journalling. I'm assuming that 50 years from now [ pending that we can still see ;] Chris and I will be able to look back at our adventures and all that God as brought us through, via this blog! That is my motivation [ and sharing with all of you of course ] for keeping up on it!

Now, about our trip!
We flew with 30 other teachers from SPH [ Kemang and Lippi ] to Kumai, which is a city in Kalimantan, the Indonesian half of the island of Borneo. There were six klotoks
[ river boats ] in all, each housing a family, or in our case, the two of us and our "basically family" Erik and Amanda. We lived, slept, and ate on the boat except for when we docked at random places along the river to go on hikes or go Orangutan searching. At night and when it rained, our guide would pull tarps down to cover the sides of the boat, and set up mosquito nets to sleep in.

one of the other boats in our group

Amanda and I getting settled in

our two 'hotel' rooms

Here's a pic of our guide {left} and captain {right}

They took good care of us! We didn't have air conditioning or walls around us for four days, but they served us every meal, cleaned up, and had lots of river knowledge and humor to go around!

Our main destination and stop along the river was Tanjung Puting Reserve. It was about four miles down the river and then a 1 kilometer walk into the forest [aka, not just anyone can go see them ] That was the coolest part about this trip: We didn't go to a zoo and see Orangutans in cages or any form of captivity. We got to see them in their own habitat! Borneo is the only island where Orangutans are still living naturally. 

They were pretty funny, and definitely had their own personalities!

Here's the big guy swinging in to say hello.

Fruit was set out for them to eat which helped guarantee visitors to see them, but we also saw them outside of this time as well. A female on one of the paths walked ahead of us as if she was leading, and then she'd stop, look behind her as if to make sure we were still following, and then continue to walk. We had our own tour guide!

This one gets me every time!

We also saw Proboscis monkeys in the trees as we'd float along. Our captain would stop every now and then for us to observe and take pictures. There were three groups of monkeys in this one tree -- each led by one male that you can pick out by his long proboscis [ nose ]. If you look closely, you can see there's a little bit of tension going on, and the guy on the left is about to invade the other guy's territory.

If we weren't animal observing, we spent our time relaxing on the boat. Chris and I did more reading for pleasure than we've done in a long time! That was refreshing in itself! Chris read a book given to him by one of his favorite college professors, and I almost finished the second book in the Mitford series. Floating through the jungle, soft breeze blowing by, good friends, good books. . . relaxation at its finest!

beautiful reflection

favorite adventure buddy

 Besides seeing all the Orangutans and other monkey species, I think there were two other main highlights to our trip.

{showering in jungle rain}    
Tropical showers come in an instant and then downpour! As soon as the guys felt one drop of rain coming, they hurried to put on their swim trunks and headed for the back of the boat with shampoo and soap in hand! It was their first and only shower of the trip - with warm tropical rain! They were seriously having the BEST time. I would have joined them, but there was no way of knowing how long it would last, so I just knew the second I got a good lather going, there wouldn't be enough water to rinse my hair out. I made a good decision. I was happy to be the photographer and also snag a quick video.

 {catching fire flies}

I wish I could capture the beauty I witnessed in seeing fire flies that night. I was the only one who'd never seen them before, and couldn't take my eyes off them! How incredible! As we were floating down the river at dusk, with the silhouetted jungle on each side, small sections of it started dancing with lights -- as if they were giving us the Christmas lights that we never saw in Jakarta. You could see faint colors of blue, green, yellow, and even purple. It was pure joy. I LOVED it. Then we caught some in a water bottle :] When we opened it to let them out, some stuck around so we just left the bottle on the table. By the time we went to bed, we had about five fire flies in the boat with us for the night. . . I didn't mind one bit! 

Last picture together on our boat! We were sad to leave, but excited for AC and a nice shower!