Stetson Salad

My sisters and I had this wonderful sweet/savory salad long long ago at Cowboy Ciao - a now-gone restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was SO good, one of those meals you keep thinking about for years. My sister Saydi found a good copycat recipe and it's now a favorite family dinner. We especially love it in the summer but it's good all year round!

Cowboy Ciao’s Stetson Chopped Salad

Dressing
1/4 cup basil pesto (use prepared pesto from Costco or grocery store or use your own homemade pesto)

1/2 shallot, roughly chopped (or 1/4 small onion)
1/2 cup aioli (Aioli is like garlicky mayonnaise. Look for it in gourmet food stores, or make your own by blending together 1 to 2 garlic cloves, 1/4 cup olive oil and 1/4 cup mayonnaise)

1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1-2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4-1/2 tsp salt (to taste)

Directions for the dressing: Combine pesto, shallot and aioli in a food processor; blend thoroughly. With motor running at medium speed, add buttermilk, pepper, salt and lemon juice; blend to combine. Makes about 1 1/4 cups.

Salad (4 entree-sized salad servings)
2 cups cooked, drained and cooled Israeli couscous - also called pearl couscous (you can use "frog eye" pasta or orzo pasta if you cant' find the pearl couscous)

1 tub or bag (about 8 oz) of baby arugula, coursely chopped or whole
3-4 diced Roma tomatoes or 2 cups of cherry or grape tomatoes, quartered

1/2 cup crumbled or shredded Asiago cheese (parmesan)

1/2 cup toasted pepitas - green pumpkin seeds (buy the raw ones and toast until slightly brown in a frying pan on the stove)

1/2 cup dried currants (or Craisins if you can't find currants - but the currants are really good!)

1/2 cup super-sweet dried corn - available on Amazon or at Harmons (or regular frozen corn, thawed)

1 small chopped avocado (optional)

1 chopped red pepper (optional)

1-2 cups diced smoked (or grilled) salmon (or cooked bite-sized chicken) - leave this out if you want to do a vegetarian salad or side salad to go with grilled fish, chicken or other meat

Directions for the salad: Arrange ingredients in separate rows on a large platter. Toss salad at the table (so people can see how pretty it is before it's tossed or toss in advance if you'd rather) with most or all of the dressing (depending on how dressed you like your salad). You can save extra dressing in your fridge for a week or two.


Adapted from: http://archive.azcentral.com/style/hfe/recipes/articles/1212restreq1212.html

Overview of Easter 2024

 

Now that my kids are all grown up, I really miss doing all the Easter Week activities we used to do. I had a bit of a hard time as I looked back at all the fun things we used to do for each day of holy week and wondered if much of that sunk in. It's sure hard to tell what efforts really paid off when you have "baby adults" who are still figuring a lot of things out. But I'm so grateful for the excellent people they have become and it's nice to catch glimpses once in a while of some things I taught them or showed them that they have really embraced. I'm so grateful we were able to have ALL our kids together for Easter morning and a few of them around for other parts of Easter weekend.  A couple of the kids were able to help with our traditional neighborhood Easter egg hunt on Saturday. I was pretty stressed out about the weather forecast but despite the rain, we had a great turnout!

Eliza helped hide the eggs and Ashton starred as the Easter Bunny this year:

On Sunday morning, we watched a couple quick and beautiful videos together (there are so many good "Because of Him" videos - this is one of my favorites) then the kids got their Easter Baskets. While I don't do new church clothes along with their baskets anymore, I still like to give them some sort of clothing item as a symbol of the renewal of Easter. This year I decided to do shirts with some sort of a nature theme to further the symbol of new life and celebrate the beauty that God created for us. I also gave them nice hand soap as a symbol of the unconditional cleansing and renewal offered by Christ's atonement. Now that they are all living on their own, having some fancy hand soap is a fun little luxury!

We finished our Easter morning with our traditional eggs benedict brunch which is always a big hit! They all pitch in to make it and it's so nice having everyone working together in the kitchen then enjoying a tasty fancy meal together.

Then my oldest and his wife took off to be with her family and the rest of the kids stayed on to go to church, dye Easter eggs, and do a little Easter egg hunt for eggs filled with candy and money. We added "money eggs" to the mix a few years back and the high-stakes eggs brought new life to our egg hunting! With all the rain and snow as well as a time crunch, we did our traditional Easter after-church pictures via self timer and inside the house this year - and our attempt to get the dog in the photo made for some good smiles!

We finished the day with an extended family dinner at my parents' house where it was snowing like crazy - felt more like Christmas than Easter! In the midst of all my planning and executing and trying to figure out who could come for what when and what to do and not do, I sometimes felt totally stressed and overwhelmed. I felt a lot of pressure to make this year extra special since we didn't have Liza with us (she was on a mission in Chile) and we won't have the twins with us for the next 2 years (they'll be on missions in Guatemala and Mexico). But when I had the presence of mind to remember the message of Easter itself - "God is in charge and it'll all work out in the end" - everything felt much better. Lots of things turned out differently than I might have envisioned, but it was a beautiful Easter!

The latest with me

I haven't really felt the desire or found the time to post here in ages. I used to feel so compelled to write here so I could share pictures and happenings with my extended family who were scattered all over the place plus I wanted to keep a family record. I just went back over some old entries and it was so fun to see photos and remember the special occasions and every-day life involved in my kids' growing-up years. I'm so glad I somehow scraped together the time to record all that. Then Instagram came along and it was easy to jump over there to record and share plus I was really busy working on Power of Moms and Power of Families posts and retreats. Plus it was easier and felt right to just share the happy fun stuff on Instagram rather than trying to figure out how to share on a deeper level here on the blog while respecting my kids' privacy as they got older.

This this blog got more completely shoved to the back burner once I started working at United Way of Northern Utah about 5 years ago. I had felt a real draw towards working with people face-to-face and focusing on helping more directly in my own community. I started off running an AmeriCorps tutoring/mentoring program to support struggling students across the state of Utah then moved on to support all the UWNU programs for children and families which included the tutoring/mentoring program, a "Welcome Baby" program providing home visits for families with children age 0-3, and a playgroup program that helps parents build connections with each other and helps kids prepare for kindergarten. I cared deeply about my work at United Way and thought I could do it all but ultimately realized that I was never going to find time to prioritize Power of Families with all the demands of my United Way work and that I really had to choose between United Way and Power of Families. My heart said Power of Families was the right way to go.

So here I am at my new work station - a little desk in Silas's old room - a lovely room with windows on three sides looking out at beautiful snowy mountains.  

Over the past couple weeks, I've been  working to revive Power of Families (update old posts, get my emailed newsletters going again, polishing up some programs that got a little dated, etc). Today I'm working on a slide deck for the Momivate Conference where I'll be presenting about Family Systems on Saturday in Provo. I feel like it was really providential that I was able to step right into helping out with this conference just as my United Way work wrapped up. 

I'm absolutely loving having more control over my schedule and generally doing things at my own pace. I'm still helping out with some things at United Way (doing Welcome Baby visits as a volunteer, helping on various advisory boards, helping with a "Read Across America" event later this week...) but it is SO NICE not to be locked into all the meetings and the inevitable bureaucracy that is part of any job. It was really nice to have the extra income from my salary to allow for more fun "extras" in our lives but Jared has a great job that pays well and I'm so grateful that I get a little time to breathe and plan and think and enjoy without the immediate need to make money. I do hope I can get to where Power of Families can cover its own costs and even make some decent money down the road a ways. But I'm not in a huge hurry for once in my life.

I'm realizing that I've been way too worried about cramming every possible second of my life with work, learning, and activities that are "virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy," I've been able to accomplish a lot, learn a lot, help a lot of people, and gain a sense of accomplishment and meaning through all my do-gooding. I've consistently chosen hard paths and lofty ambitions with a cheerful can-do attitude and that has served me and others around me well in many ways. But by not routinely recognizing my boundaries or prioritizing relaxation and fun, I've brought a lot more stress and anxiety into my brain and heart and my family life than was positive and healthy. 

So now I'm moving into a new chapter of my life where balance, joy, fun, creativity, and rest are going to be prioritized alongside helping others, learning, and making a difference. We'll see how it goes! And I'll share bits of my journey here. 

I'm also going to be updating the recipes I have on here. Now that my kids are grown up and out on their own, they often ask for recipes for family favorite and it's great to be able to refer them to this blog so they can find a tried-and-true recipe anytime, anywhere. But some of our favorite recipes aren't on here so I'm going to start adding recipes again. The flavors of home can bind hearts across space and time plus I love that my kids all enjoy cooking and eating healthily. 

Indian Butter Chicken

This has become an absolute family favorite! It's so easy and truly delicious. Everyone loves chicken tikka masala but that involves marinating and grilling the chicken which takes some serious forethought and effort. We've found that we like butter chicken just as much and it's way less work. It works great in an Instapot but could also work fine in a crockpot. 

Many people in my family make variations of this recipe quite regularly and we often have it at family reunions at Bear Lake - it feeds a crowd very nicely!

Ingredients:

2 14-ounce cans of crushed tomatoes (or 1 28-ounce cans)

6-10 cloves of minced garlic (can use 1-2 tablespoons bottled minced garlic, depends on how much you like garlic!)

2 tsp turmeric powder

2 tsp garam masala (fresh ground if you have it)

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp ground ginger (or fresh grated ginger)

1 tsp cayenne pepper or pepper flakes (a little more if you want it more spicy, a little less if you aren't crazy about spiciness)

2 tsp smoked paprika (or regular paprika works)

2 tsp kosher salt

2-3 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts (or use thighs if you like) - some people like it more saucy, others like more chicken in it

4 tsp (half a cube) of butter (cut into small pieces)

12-16 ounces (or 1 1/2 to 2 cups) of heavy cream (or full fat coconut milk to make it dairy-free) - use less to make it more tomato-y and spicy, more to make it more creamy

1 cup chopped cilantro (or more if you like cilantro - we use about 2 cups for this size recipe)

4 cups Basmati rice (or more if you like a lot of rice with your sauce)

Instructions:

Place all ingredients prior to the chicken in the order listed into the instant pot. Mix the sauce well then push the chicken into the sauce, making sure the chicken is well-coated and mostly submerged. Close the cooker and set for 10-20 minutes on high (20+ for thick frozen chicken breasts, 10-12 for defrosted chicken breasts) then let it release pressure naturally for 10 minutes. After that, release all remaining pressure. 

Open up the pot, remove the chicken and place on cutting board.  Chop up the chicken into small bite-sized chunks. Let the tomato mixture cool a bit while you chop the chicken. Then stir the butter, cream and 1/4 cup chopped cilantro into the sauce. Stir the chicken into the sauce. If the sauce is really thin, don't worry, it'll thicken as you let it cool a bit. 

Cook the basmati rice according to the rice package or your rice cooker's directions. Cook the rice with about 1/2 tsp salt per cup of rice. Mix in some cumin seeds and a splash of oil or some ghee (clarified butter) after cooking if you want to make it fancy and extra flavorful.

Serve the curry and chicken sauce over the basmati rice (or used riced cauliflower or chopped spinach if you like).

Makes 6-8 servings

* Adapted from a recipe my sister Saydi got from my sister-in-law Julie and I'm not sure where it originally came from!