Sushi Time!

So, I was going to post this delicious oatmeal french toast recipe that I made this morning, but it didn't really work out. Don't get me wrong, it was really good (Mom thought so too), but it ended up being more of a baked pudding(isn) thing. 

So, to redeem myself :) I made sushi this afternoon!!

It is once again...SUSHI TIME!!!!! I've been thinking about making sushi again for a while, and today was the perfect day because we didn't have school. It only took me 1 1/2 hours this time instead of 3! 

I've also been researching more about seaweed and how amazingly good it is for you. Benefits of seaweed include:

• High in essential amino acids-good source of protein.
• Contains Vitamins A, B12, and C
• Rich in potassium, iron, calcium, iodine, and magnesium.
• Contains no fat.
• Good source of fiber.
• Can be used instead of salt to reduce sodium intake.
• Balances blood sugar.
• Digestive aid-high fiber content creates "bulk" creating bowel movements to eliminate waste (this is an important one for me) :)

This is just a quick summary of seaweed's benefits, but I must say, that is a pretty good lookin' list. I reckon it's a superfood!! 

 I've become slightly obsessed with it and love to experiment with it. I've found that cutting Nori into strips, brushing them with coconut oil and salt, and then toasting them in the oven is my favorite!

NORI CHIPS!!

It's quite obvious I think, but I also love eating it in the form of SUSHI!

Hope you have a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious day (I know I certainly am!)

Oatmeal Cookies

These are REALLY good!

You have to trust me on this one. 

Anything with oatmeal is beyond fantastic. I think oatmeal should have its own section on the food pyramid. It's certainly a staple in my diet. I eat it basically everyday. I'm also a huge advocate and promoter of oatmeal with flax. I now never eat oatmeal without flax. 

These are also conveniently gluten and refined sugar free. I also made one batch without eggs and one with just to see the difference. It was a close call, but I think I'll have to go with the eggless one (mom thought so too) :) 

Oatmeal Cookies

Yields: 15 cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup oats
1/2 cup flax
1/2 cup oat flour
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. soda
1 flax egg* (measure out 1/2 cup of flax and then take out 1 Tbsp. and mix in a small bowl with 3 Tbps. water)
1/4 cup oil

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2, Make flax egg and set aside for 10 minutes.
3. Mix together oats, flax, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and soda.
4. Add oil and flax.
5. Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray. Roll the dough into about 1 Tbsp. worth of dough and place on cookie sheet.
6. Bake for 10 min. When it has been almost 10 min. flatten the cookies out slightly with a spatula.
Enjoy!!

***If using eggs replace flax egg with 1 egg white. Add only 1/4 cup + 3 Tbsp. flour.

 YUMMY!!!

UVU Acceptance!

This has been a good week. I'll just say it flat out. I don't know why, it just has! I think it has something to do with the fact that I'm starting to figure things out. Before I get into that, I have to say, CHANTELLE!!!!!! I'm so excited for you! It just hit me how you really are going on a mission! That's so exciting! Do you know when your call is supposed to come?I want to be skyping - even if it's in the middle of the night!! :)

Okay, so something really exciting happened on Wednesday! I had emailed BYU's dance department to ask if I could send in an audition video, and on Wednesday I got an email back saying that would be fine. It really isn't all that exciting now that I'm writing it, but at the moment it was because now it all seems real to me! I'm actually auditioning for a college company! I've been dreaming about this day since the day I started dance, and now the day is here! Weird. I doubt I will get in since I'm only a Freshman, but I thought, "Hey, it's not gonna hurt to give it a try!" So, I'm gonna do it! My dance teacher here is going to help me with choreographing a 2 min. solo as well as 2 more shorter combinations. At first I was a hesitant to ask him since sometimes his modern dance is SO balletic, but it's the only thing I've got. No one showed up for contemporary class on Thursday, so we started working on stuff then. We did one combination and half of my solo. Whew! That was by far the best class I've had since I was here! We worked so hard and it was so fun! The choreography is turning out to be really good and also pretty challenging. I think it'll take a lot of work to master, but I think it will look really good for the audition. It's due by April 4th, so I really don't have a lot of time considering mailing. 

I also received some other good news about college that some of you already know about. I got accepted to UVU!!! I know it's not super wowy because pretty much everyone who applies gets in, but still, I thought it was exciting! I've gone back and forth for a little while between UVU and BYU, but now I am set on BYU. I feel like it's the place for me to at least try to get into and hopefully go. I will probably hear about BYU towards the end of February. I've also gone back and forth between doing dance or culinary arts, but I've decided to do dance. As much as I think culinary would be awesome, I'm worried that I would get sick of cooking because it would become a stressful thing. And I REALLY don't want to get sick of cooking/baking because it's what I want/will be doing the rest of my life, and it's what I do to relax. I feel like now is the time for me to dance. So, there you go! 

 Other happenings include: going to lunch with my friends at the Sushi Bar on Thursday and barely making it back for class-it was a close one! We had a departing missionaries dinner on Friday. Mom and Dad were gone on Saturday and Sunday for a district conference in Kampong Cham. It was my first time sleeping overnight all by myself and I wasn't even scared!! (I'm so grateful for guards!). Since yesterday I have absolutely fallen in love with seaweed (Nori)!! Nori chips (homemade)  are excellent and extremely good for you (I can't believe I'm saying this, but it competes with popcorn)! Mom and Dad have had a busy and exhausting week with conferences, coming and going missionaries, etc. so I decided to make them a really nice fancy(isn) dinner tonight and I'm hoping they will relax when we eat in a little bit! 

I'm sorry this is already so long, but one more experience. I'll make it quick. So in my history class my teacher made a sarcastic statement like, "I'm feeling charitable cause I read the Bible last night" (he's extremely atheist). Someone asked him if he actually read the Bible and he said, "no of course not". So then I said, "How do you know it's not true if you haven't read it?" He then said he had read the Doctrines OF Christ (Matt, Mark, Luke, and John), BUT, I thought he said the Doctrines OVER Christ. I thought he was referring to another random book that talked about the Bible, so I just kept making these remarks like, "That's not the actual Bible though". Later when I realized what he had really said I wanted to beat myself up! Now everyone is going to think that Mormon's don't think the Bible is the Bible. I was so mad at myself. That's exactly why I am don't like opening my mouth-I always say the wrong thing! Oh well. 

That's about my week in a nutshell! 

Kenzie

Chewy, Gooey Brownies

These are without doubt the BEST brownies I have ever made in my entire life!!!!!!!!!! I have spent the the last couple of days in brownie heaven. I love chewy, gooey, fudgy brownies, and I was desperately craving some. These more than hit the spot. I think I overdid it a little with the chocolate (i.e. cocoa) intake and my digestive tract is not thanking me for it. I think it's gone into chocolate shock. 

If you make these, then you will understand how I managed to inhale one at breakfast, lunch, in-between lunch and dinner, and after dinner. 

A layer of peanut butter on and/or banana on top... oh man, oh man. 

I can only imagine this with a nice big scoop of Coconut Bliss vanilla ice cream...ahh.

I'm going to stop now.

I would strongly urge you to go to: www.oatmealwithafork.com/2012/12/19/fudgy-guilt-free-brownies/

(I don't want to plagiaries, so I'm not going to copy the recipe over, but I did everything the same.)

 They were also really fun to photograph.

Chewy.

Gooey.

Goodness.

(Oh, and I forgot to mention - these are extremely healthy!! I have no guilt about eating them!)

Flops and Flips

Hello!

Krista, I am right with you in that when I am about to write an email, nothing comes to mind about my week. I always think of so many things to write about during the week that completely leave my mind by Sunday. That being said: my week was fairly normal. I had some big tests this week that were kind of stressful. I wasn't worried about them until my friends said they were freaking out about it, and then I felt like I should be really worried so I was! The fact that I didn't have long to study the days before because of dance didn't help either. Needless to say,  I am very glad they're done. I'm going to shoot myself in the foot later for saying this, but I was thinking how I kind of like busy, stressful weeks because that makes the weekend ten times better! I feel like after those kind of weeks I deserve and feel better about relaxing and watching a movie!

So, yesterday was a big day at my school. We had the annual International Day from 10-2pm. It's basically just a day where people can showcase their home country since we have so many different nationalities at our school. I must say, it was really fun! There were some nationalities that I had no idea were here: Peru, Fiji, Kuwait, Butan, Finland, Sweden, and many, many more. Each country had a little booth where they had authentic food, games, or just info. There were also lots of restaurants and NGO booths as well as performances (my friend did an Indian dance and I did a couple of Zumba dances with a group). It was pretty sudden, but just about a week before I decided to sell homemade bread at the American booth to raise money for a local orphanage. Mom was a life saver and made 3 batches of bread and stayed at the event to help me the whole time. I was so grateful for her!! Unfortunately it was a flop (see title :)). The US booth was pretty pathetic to be honest, clear at the end, and right next to the Mike's Burger House booth. I blame my unsuccessfulness on those factors! :) I didn't sell a single slice or loaf until about the last hour. And then I think people bought them more out of pity than want. Oh well. I ended up raising about $97. It's a good start I guess (I'll be fundraising this whole semester). Besides that it was fun to walk around the booths and try different foods and such. I was going to go to a movie with friends after, but we were all tired and had homework so we didn't. 

Friday evening I spent about 3 hours making cupcakes with my friend for her fundraiser at International Day. She's Khmer so she doesn't have an oven, so I offered to help her. It was a lot of fun but exhausting too. I have to say I was a little jealous because her cupcakes sold a ton better than my bread. I kept thinking, "Hey, half that money should go to my fundraiser cause I made half of them!!!" Oh well. It's not the end of the world :). 

Today was our first Sunday with a Young Women class. There's only two of us and we're both polar opposites: I'm 17, she's 12; I like baking, and homemaking type stuff, she's a total tomboy. Despite all that though, the class was good and it was fun to have our own little class. They said they are thinking of starting to do youth activities with the three of us (there's one boy too) so that will hopefully be fun! 

To explain the rest of my title, the weather here has flipped. The infamous "10 days of coldness" are upon us! I'm not exaggerating either! I had to wear a jacket while I rode my bike one morning and I wished I had worn long pants and a scarf! My nose was honestly froze!!! The days have been nice, but the mornings and evenings are chilly!!

This has been my greatest lesson I am learning here: "We shouldn't wait to be happy until we reach some future point, only to discover that happiness was already available-all the time! Do not wait until you are ready to die before you truly learn to live!" Elder Uchtdorf, Oct. 2012 Conference.

Well, that's it for this episode! Stay tuned for next week!

Love,

Kenzie

'Sleepless in Seattle' & English Muffins!

Hi everyone! 

I just have to say that I think my favorite day of the week is now Monday. Weird, I know. The only reason I say this is because Monday is the day I get all of your emails, and it's definitely the highlight of my week. Thinking back on this week, it's been kind of a bland week. I struggled coming up with a title, and usually I've already come up with a title days ago. 

Anywho, school started back up again on Tuesday. I was very happy to have Monday off because it was Shawn and Brinai's last day here and we got to spend even more time together. We didn't do much besides pack and go to the market to get a suitcase. It was nice to just be together, play games, and laugh though. We went out to eat at a Vietnamese restaurant called "Magnolias". The food was divine... but then again it was Vietnamese cuisine, so it was bound to be amazing! I realized the next day though, that I had gotten 46+ mosquito bites just from that one sitting. Yes, there were 5 other pairs of legs under the same table, and yet I was the ONLY one who got attacked (I think, unless Shawn and Brinai have some and I don't know)! It's been an itchy couple of days. :)

I didn't have dance again this week which was good and bad. It's nice to be home in the evenings and not have to dance after dinner, but then I don't want to get even more out of shape. I'm starting to feel a little bit of the pressure and anxiety of college auditions,etc., and I don't feel like my evening dance is doing enough. So, in order to prepare more for college in strengthening my technique, etc. I've decided to start doing my own little class at school. Our school has a dance studio, which is so perfect for me (it even has AC!), so I go in there during my free classes (I have 3-4/week) and kind of do a class by myself. I've only done it once so far, but I really enjoyed it and I think it will help. It's nice to get my body up and moving during school instead of just sitting all day. 

Dad went to Battambong on Friday and comes back tomorrow. Since it was just mom and I, we decided to watch Sleepless in Seattle and eat popcorn on Friday night. Rachel and Chantelle: thank you so much for including that movie!!! I know I will be watching it several times! :)  

I had invited my friends to come over on Saturday and watch a movie or something, and for a while there it sounded like it was going to happen. But then at the last minute everyone said they couldn't (I'm discovering that quite a few parents are very strict about not letting their kids do anything). I'm sure glad that mom and dad and I have such a strong trust in our relationship that they don't need to worry about me getting in any trouble with friends. Since they couldn't come over I decided to make homemade English muffins! It was a very spontaneous decision, but a nice break from studying. I made them gluten and dairy free, however, I added just a little bit of wheat flour because I'm trying to slowly incorporate that back into my eating and hope my stomach doesn't hurt! I didn't really think they would turn out because it seems like that kind of thing never works, but I tell you, IT WORKED!!! I was so elated the rest of the night! They are so good! Anyway, sorry, I tell you - I'm crazy about baking! Mom and I walked down to the Olympic Stadium that night. There's not much to see there other than lots of people exercising, but it's such a good representation of Asian culture. There's tons of groups lined up on the top of the stadium and they are all doing the same type of "Jane Fonda" exercises ( step-touches, arm waving). It was really fun to see! We were pretty impressed when we learned they do it for 2 hours! 

Sorry this is kind of long. Last thing - today at church they made a youth sunday school class and next week they said they would start Young Women's. There's now 2 of us YW and one YM. That's super exciting!! 

Angkor Wat!

It was the last week before school started, so we decided to take a trip up to Siem Reap to explore Angkor Wat. We spent about 2 1/2 days at the ruins and during the nights or Kalia's nap time we would swim, go to dinner, etc. It was a nice get-away. 

Before I went I didn't think much of it; just some cool ruins. But then I saw it and it blew me away! It's incredible! It's inconceivable to think that humans built all that so long ago! Everything is so intricate and massive. 

Disclaimer: I'm sorry, but it's impossible for me to post every single picture I took, so maybe I'll have to show you when I get home. :)

 All four sides of the big famous Angkor Wat temple are covered in these intricate stone carvings depicting stories.

 There were so many stairs. By then end of the second day I never wanted to see another stair again!

 You could pay these guys to take a picture with you, but I just snuck one as we were passing!

                                            Yes I know, I'm a very artistic photographer. :)

                                                 This is the cutest picture of dad and Kalia!!

 The cowboy :)

 I think this is one of the most famous pictures of Angkor Wat with the tree trunk around the window.

 Dead-end?!  (We felt like we were on the Indiana Jones ride.

     Kind of interesting: the only dinosaur carving in the whole place. Hmm?! Maybe...

                                                    Don't show this to the grandkids!! :)

 So one of the best things of the trip was getting a fish foot massage. We'd heard about these before we came, and I was so happy to actually try it! The little tiny fish "bite" your feet and get all of the dead skin off. It doesn't hurt though...it just tickles EXTREMELY bad! It felt so weird, but now my feet are so soft! No one else dared do it except me. Wimps. :) Dad and Brinai got a little queasy so they went shopping along the street.

                                                           The doorway to heaven?

 So, the first time we saw Angkor Wat, the AP's told us that these little houses were built by the King for his seven daughters. Well, as it turns out, they were actually prison houses. I like the daughters story much better.