Happy to be Home

We arrived back in Boone yesterday afternoon, and I've already started using all the awesome things we stocked up on in Thailand. I finally bought a roasting pan (how have I got along without one for 1 1/2 years?) and some spices (chili powder, liquid smoke, meat tenderizer) so on a whim I bought a rack of ribs from the meat market today. I brought them home and had to get Scott to chop them down to size for our tiny oven, and then slopped some "Smack Yo Grandma" Barbecue Sauce on it (which is my own creation): Plain Barbecue sauce, Honey, Tabasco, Chili Powder, Liquid Smoke,Vinegar, Spicy Mustard, and Worcestershire Sauce
(no grandmothers were harmed in the making of this sauce)

This was my first time to try ribs in Asia and I was a bit nervous. I looked at a few recipes to see how to cook it only to find out I don't have the right pan for it. :-( So I just put it in the roasting pan with the sauce and cooked it at 350 for about 1 1/2 hours.
They were tender and verry spicy, which is why Scott named the sauce "Smack Yo Grandma"- and it didn't make a difference to put them in my roasting pan without a rack.

Also last night I 'busted out' my new cook book Scott got me for Valentines Day- it's a cook book of breads from around the world. I only had ingredients to make bagels, so that's what I made. These bagels turned out much better than the ones I made from the International Cook Book. I melted some butter and added a tablespoon of honey and brushed that on about five minutes before they were done.

Last but not least, when Scott came home with the veggies today, he was also carrying a JUICER!!! I had been asking for the juicer for a while since we are trying to incorporate more veggies into our diet that aren't stir fried. And now I'm sipping on carrot/zucchini/pineapple juice and my tummy is rumbling it's thanks for not eating anymore cheesy fries from Outback.

Scott and I have a deal about buying new things- we ask two questions: 1. How did we get along without it? 2. Will it drastically improve our daily life? So before Scott bought the juicer he considered carefully that with a possible pregnancy in our midst, the more veggies the better! And also that the veggies I ate before were mostly slathered in Ranch dressing. Even though we lose a lot of the nutrition when the pulp is gone from the vegetable, I'm still getting more vitamins than before. Let's face it- it's easier to drink our vegetables.

I was so excited about the juicer, I begged Scott for us to run back out to the open air market before people packed up and we bought 3 kilos of oranges, 1 kilo of carrots, 1 kilo of zucchini, 2 pineapples, and 3 tomatoes. I love it when Scott surprises me with things- he's so sweet!!!!

THANK YOU FOR MY JUICER, SCOTT!!!!!!