Strawberry Salad with Red Wine Vinaigrette

So this is my craving for today. I saw a strawberry stand on the side of the road today and decided that the season had come sooner than expected :) This recipe is AMAZING. Randy and I could eat it everyday! I'm bad with portions, so just use good judgment on the ratio of red onion to spinach and strawberries. Everyone has different tastes. Personally, I like a bit of everything in each bite!

Strawberry Salad:

2 bags of baby spinach
1 bag of baby greens
½ cup moon-shaped sliced celery2 sliced red onions
15 sliced strawberries1 cup sliced, caramelized almonds*
1 cup crumbly goat cheese

Toss baby spinach, baby greens, celery, red onions, and strawberries. Once portioned on individual plates have each guest take their own wanted amount of caramelized almonds, goat cheese, and dressing!

Dressing:

1 cup sugar
2 tsp. salt

2/3 cup red wine vinegar (I like the Pompeian gourmet brand. Makes a big difference!)
2 tsp. dry mustard
2 Tbsp. poppy seeds
1/3 cup grated red onion
1 and 1/2 cups of olive oil

Mix all ingredients EXCEPT olive oil. One mixed well, continue mixing fast (blender works well to mix) and SLOWLY poor in olive oil. This allows the vinaigrette to stay blended with the oil. The faster you mix the vinegar mix and the slower you pour the oil, the less separation there will be between the vinegar mix and the oil. Not a big deal, but its annoying to shake constantly.

Caramelized Almonds:

Buy a bag of sliced almonds

1-2 cups of sugar

In small pot heat sugar on low. Stir constantly throughout process. As soon as sugar starts to clump and melt into light brown liquid, get prepared with sliced almonds. As soon as all sugar is melted, stir almonds in really quickly and take off heat. When all almonds are covered, spoon out a thin layer in to a ceramic baking pan or, preferably, a flexible brownie pan. DO NOT USE WAX PAPER. The wax will melt and stick to your almonds. NOT tasty. Let the almonds harden and cool for fifteen minutes, use a spoon to loosen from holding dish, then sprinkle over salad! Or just buy some at the store :)

FOOD

FOOD
So Randy and I were talking the other day and we made an extensive list of our favorite foods that we make and a list of foods we want to work on. I want to post some of our favorite recipes but first I'm going to list our favorites and their categories (for fun, and as a kind of menu)

Foods we feel we have mastered...

BREAKFAST:
Blue Berry Pancakes and Waffles (recipe courtesy of Diana Hulme!)
Buttermilk Pancakes
Swedish Pancakes
German Pancakes
Omelets
Breakfast Burritos
Eggs Benedict
Eggs in a Basket
Fried Eggs on Toast
Egg Sandwich
Cornelius (When we have access to a double boiler)
French Toast
Sour Dough Pancakes (When we have a sour dough start!)
Smoothies
Bacon
Sausage

DINNER:
Meatloaf (Hour long and half hour versions)
Tacos
Thai Fried Rice
Chicken Stir Fry
BBQ Chicken
Hamburgers
Tritip
Onion Soup Mix Potatoes
Pizza Marinara (great for bread stick dipping!)
Basic Deep Dish Pizza
BBQ Deep Dish Pizza
Spaghetti Sauce
Guacamole
Smashed Potatoes
Zucchini (steamed)
Asparagus (steamed)

SALADS:
Cesar Dressing and Croutons
Strawberry Salad and Strawberry Vinaigrette (Can't wait for strawberry season! Only a week to go!)


DESSERTS!!!!!!!!!:
Homemade Oreos
Pazookies
Funfetti Cookies
Half Microwaved Brownies and Ice Cream (thanks to Jessie Sieminski!)
Lemon Cake
Toll House Cookies Dough
Quaker Oats Cookie Dough

Foods we LOVE but aren't mastered...

Tomato Basil Soup
Pot Roast
Curry Goat
Squash Soup
Twice Baked Potatoes
Spicy Chicken (as in SPICY)
Asian Chicken with Peanuts
Green Beans and Almonds
Toni's Pasta Salad
Orange Rolls
Prime Rib
Chicken Noodle Soups

Foods we unrealistically dream about making someday...

PF Chang's Mongolian Beef
Cafe Rio EVERYTHING
Chipotle's Stake Marinade
Panda Express EVERYTHING


So now that I've got that down, the recipes will come soon!

Graduated, Moved, Employed!

After 8 months of marriage I am finally piecing together an update :) Here is a month by month up date:

May: Got married! Receptions in SD and SB. Went to St. Thomas for our fabulous honeymoon. Felt like we were living in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies!

June: Alyssa continued with her 12 week internship at Northrop Grumman while we lived with her parents in Carlsbad, Ca. She rocked the Communications and Business Development sectors. Wrote for Aerospace Now and created Global Hawk marketing materials! Randy took a well deserved break from his internship at Oberon Securities, an investment bank in NYC. Also worked as a temp for a local lay office.

July: We moved to Manhattan, NY for 6 weeks so that Randy could finish his internship. Our apartment was only a couple streets away from Time Square, which Randy walked through each day to get to his office. We enjoyed meeting up for lunch, visiting TONS of Randy's missionary families/converts/companions/haunts, and walking all over NY. Our favorite places were the Museum of Art, Ellis Island, and a local Chinese place and their General Tsou chicken!

August: We hosted some friends on two separate weekends (thank goodness for the second bedroom!) and Randy finished his internship. We were approached by a friend of Randy's to drive their daughter's car from NY to BYU Provo to save them money on shipping it across the state. Being the clever pair that we are, we turned the cross country trip into a fabulous church tour starting in Palmyra, NY and commencing at the very end of the Pioneer trail in Utah. Our favorite place was Adam Ondi-Ahman. So fabulous! There is a very beautiful spirit there. We did a little of our own research and found out a lot about the history there and the preparations going on now for the future. I can't explain it all here, but I have a book on it all I highly recommend if you are interested! After hitting Utah, we dropped the car off in Provo and hitched a ride with Alyssa's parents back to Carlsbad were we packed up a large U-Haul truck and drove back to Utah (yes, we drove across the states and then a third of the way back again in a week and a half. We now hate fast food).

September: Moved into our tiny apartment in Provo and started school up again! Randy started job hunting and securing interviews

October: The month of interview preparation and execution! Alyssa quizzed Randy incessantly and it paid off...

November: After several offers, job offer at LEK accepted! Randy officially accepted the offer to be a financial analyst at one of the top 10 consulting firms in the nation located in Los Angeles (Westwood). Randy's job will start in July 2011! Thanksgiving with the Hulme's and Sumsion wedding celebrated with much joy and relief.

December: Final undergraduate classes completed for Randy and Alyssa (with the acceptation of one online class for her). We completed the packing/cleaning/moving process with lots of help from friends and headed back to California to move into our current apartment and to spend Christmas with family!

January: We are currently unpacking, seeking employment, and enjoying the warm weather! Alyssa is employed at the Lifetime Network as a fact checker for a new pilot episode that will be disclosed at a later time :) We are both tutoring families in the ward. Randy is teaching surfing lessons (the poor guy), music lesson (both guitar and piano), and just got a data entry job for the next couple weeks! We have a very random, continually changing schedule and are enjoying living on the brink of financial uncertainty (until July at least). But we aren't scared at all because we know that we are being blessed for choosing to put our faith in God and move down here. So far, so good! We have a fabulous apartment that is literally the closest to the LA temple as we could get. As Brandon Farmer puts it, "God is [our] neighbor!" We got to spend last weekend with both our parents and were able to enjoy a short visit with Brandon and the future Mrs. Farmer! We sneakily filmed the entire visit until it ended with Brandon proposing to Marianna...FINALLY! (lol, look who’s talking...) And of course she said "yes"! We still have one more week to go in January but that's all for now!

We will get some pictures on here ASAP. Wouldn't want to miss out on the opportunity to point out that in mid-January we enjoyed the beach and a light tan! Come visit soon! We make really good food...