A couple hours after we got back from the retreat Nate got a call that there was a great opportunity to go fishing. A member of the church's uncle was draining a pond on his land and in this process realized it was full of fish. Nate and the pastor and some other members of the church went over there and started catching fish, lots of fish. These fish were huge. To catch them, the guys waded in the water, mostly mud, that was up to their waste. They got filthy. Nate caught a fish that was around 50lbs! Then I joined them and they cleaned the fish. Nate and I had never seen fish cleaning before. It was definitely a new experience. After they finished, the fillets of the fish were about 150lbs total. That is a lot of fish!
Before we went on the retreat we went to a Barbecue cook of that a couple of the members in our congregation entered in. They cook mostly pork ribs and brisket. They cook in these huge wood burning smokers that they build themselves. It is really quite impressive. One of the members came in first place overall with his pork ribs. The ribs really were delicious.
The vicarage house got new windows! These windows are wonderful for a few reasons. We can actually keep our windows open because they have screens. They also have sealant around the windows which decreases the draft and creepy crawlers. We can now open and close the windows without breaking a sweat, they didn't slide very well. We are very grateful for these new windows.
I subbed again at Jackson Jr. High. This has been going very well. The students usually are good for me. I really enjoy it there. I have been doing a lot of reading there because I am mostly supervising while students work on an assignment. I have a couple more dates lined up there this month still. :)
I have been trying some new recipes because I don't know a lot of things to make as a newly married lady. I am also working on portion control as well. I tend to make too much. Last night I made Rosemary Chicken from Rachel Ray's recipes. It was really good. I overdid the rosemary a little bit because I didn't use as much meat as the recipe called for but it was still really good. The chicken was incredibly moist. I used low sodium chicken broth instead of wine to make it healthier too. Here is the link.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/garlic-roast-chicken-with-rosemary-and-lemon-recipe/index.html
If you click on this picture it blows up the recipe and you can read it. Same with the recipe below.
Tonight I tried a new pork chop recipe. It is a smothered pork chop recipe that turned out well. I have always found pork chops hard to cook because they tend to be a very dry meat but these turned out pretty good. Here is the recipe.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/smothered-pork-chops-recipe/index.html
Not only did these two recipes work out but I have been on a mission to make vegetables bareable to eat. Tonight I succeeded with broccoli. Nate was sleptical at first but then he was like "This isn't bad!" He was right. It wasn't bad. I sauteed the broccoli in olive oil with garlic and then sprinkled it with salt and peper but only cooked it for about a mintue. I was very happy with the results and I will continue to try to find more ways to make veggies taste good.
Today I finished my second project on my sewing machine which was very exciting. I made quilted coasters. I found this idea on marthastewart.com. Here they are!
I have started my decoration collection for the fall with some kitchen towels from the dollar section at target. More to come I'm sure.
That's all for now! Good is good.
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