Wordless Wednesday: Halloween Part 2

Wordless Wednesday: Halloween Part 1

I Wanna Soak up the Sun!

It was sunny today for the first time in a very long time. As you can see, Nandi was blissed out.

Wordless Wednesday: How Summit Helps Me Study OChem

Wordless Wednesday: My First Baby

I love them!

That is all.

Tulips!

Jeff and I went to the same Tulip Festival that we went to last year today. It was fun! The best part was that it's dog friendly, so Nandi got to go along with us. She had a blast and lots of love from strangers. : ) Here are the pictures that made the blog cut (there are more on facebook). They're all straight out of the camera without any editing.

































Isn't Nandi a super cute tulip?

P.S. In case you were wondering, the ducky races were incident free, unlike 2009. ; )

Unexpected French Kisses

We have an awesome pet store. I absolutely adore the staff, and the store is cute. It's a small local franchise. They only carry good food. Our store pulls random cats from the local animal shelter and sets them up in their window display cattery. The cats get out of the shelter environment and get to live in a cool setup where they can people watch, play with toys, and relax. People see the cats and want to adopt them. It's win-win. Nandi loves visiting the store.

Today, we were picking up some food for the local shelter. (Thank you, Nature's Variety for your buy one, get one free coupon. Some animals at Bonnie Hays just got bonus food and will be very happy!). Nandi and I were checking out the food in the aisle, and we heard:

*squeeeeeee!*

"Mommy! Can I pet the pretty dog with the pink lips?"

"I don't know, honey, you need to ask first," his mom answered.

"Lady, can I pet your dog please? She's very pink!" this little boy asked me.

"Of course! Just let me have her sit first. And watch out because she likes to give kisses, OK?" I said.

"Kisses?! My dog won't give kiss----" the little boy started to say, before he was interrupted and thoroughly smooched by Nandi.

*uncontrollable giggles*

Yep, Nandi totally French kissed a little boy that was about 4. : ) On the upside, he thought it was great. And his Mom was cool with it, too, because she requested some kisses.

It made Nan's day!

My new favorite food: Carnitas!

A friend was talking about carnitas awhile back, and they sounded amazing. I convinced Jeff that we should try them. They are oh so wonderful! I combined two recipes to come up with the one we love from Hot Sauce Blog and the Homesick Texan's blog. Jeff and I half this recipe, and we can get about 4 meals out of it. You'll need:

• One pork butt, about 7 pounds, cut into large chunks
• 1 onion, quartered
• 6 cloves of garlic, crushed
• Peel of 1 orange & the juice
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon coriander (we usually use whole so I can pick it out; I'm one of those freaks who thinks cilantro, and thus it's evil little seeds tastes like soap)
  
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 2 bay leaves
• enough chicken broth to mostly cover the pork

Chuck everything in a large stock pot.

Here's a picture of everything chucked into the pot.

Bring to a boil, then decrease to a simmer. Simmer for 2 to 4 hours, uncovered. Add more chicken broth if needed, and occasionally move the meat around so it all gets exposed to the brothy goodness.

Here's how ours looked after simmering for a few hours, right before we cranked up the heat. And also Summit. Apparently the stove was nice and warm and a great place to nap. Did you know she can open the dishwasher now? That'll be a new post, soon.

About an hour before serving, crank the heat up to medium high. Allow the liquid to boil off. Stir the carnitas occasionally in the beginning. When the liquid is almost evaporated, start stirring the carnitas more often, scraping the bottom of the pan. This will keep the carnitas from sticking and will let more of the meat get wonderful and crispy as it fries in the fat that was rendered out of the pork. Near the end of cooking, I usually let it sit for a few minutes without scraping, then scrape like crazy, stir, and let it sit for a few minutes. The stirring and scraping should cause the pork to fall apart; if it's not, shred it.

Here are the carnitas after being crispified. See those lovely darker brown pieces? Those are the ones Jeff and I fight over.

Serve as burritos, tacos, quesadillas or whatever your preferred method of eating the deliciousness is!