IRON CHEF! date night

Our most recent date night was with Mike and Mari. We went to the store and picked out three "secret ingredients". For Mike and Mari, we picked out 1. dough 2. salad dressing powder, and 3. bottled red peppers. I forgot what they're called, but they made some awesome little casseroles. They were great!
For Chelsea and I, we got 1. A whole pomegranate. 2. Two cups of plain yogurt 3. Asparagus. We made a dish that we call "Chicken yogurt grenadine". The two condiment bowls are the sauce and blended cashews. The chicken is sitting on top of Mustard greens with pomegranate seeds on top. We wanted it to look good.
We made our asparagus as a side dish with shredded cheese melted on top. We put it on this red place to make the whole Christmas theme stand out. This will have to be a new Christmas dish each year!
I loved this meal! I even bought some pomegranate 7up to go with it! Here is our recipe. This is a rough draft so hopefully it makes sense.

CHICKEN YOGURT GRENADINE:
you'll need

2 chicken breasts
2 cups of plain yogurt
1/2 cup POM juice or juice of 1 pomegranate. (save some seeds for presentation)
1 tablespoon of Xylitol sweetener (can substitute sugar)
3 teaspoons of honey
1/2 cup cashews
1 1/2 cup of bread crumbs
1 Tablesoon of flour
2 drops of lime juice

Cut the chicken into strips to desired size. Using 1 cup of yogurt, dip the strips into the yogurt and roll them in the bread crumbs. Set this aside

Make a cup of flour and water mixture for thickening the sauce. Use about a tablespoon of flour. Set this aside.

Mix the pomegranate juice with the remaining 1 cup of yogurt in small blender. Add lime juice, honey, xylitol, and a handful of cashews. Mix well. Pour the mixture into a sauce pan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Slowly add flour and water mixture until it reaches a desired consistency. Remember it will thicken as it cools. Turn off the heat. Put in a bowl and set this aside.

Gently saute the breaded chicken strips in a skillet over medium heat until thoroughly cooked.

Coarsely grind the remaining cashews. Place in a bowl and set aside.

Place any green leaves over a serving platter, Then place the two bowls of sauce and cashews in the center with the chicken strips on either side. Put Pomegranate seeds for decoration. If you would like, you can drizzle sauce on top and serve them on individual plates with the seeds and ground cashews on top. Remember, presentation is everything! Enjoy!

The Red Iguana Restaurant

Chelsea and I went to Red Iguana. We saw on Food Network that they make seven different kinds of mole. I love mole and so I wanted to try it out.
Here is a flattering picture of Chelsea eating her burrito. She thought it was really good!
Chelsea got me back with a great photo of me eating my Mole Negro. I thought it was great, but I'd like to try the other moles. The Cardenas Family runs this place and they put a lot of ingredients into their mole. I thought it was a fun place. I also got a chile relleno, which was good as well. I would like to eat there again. We are still on the look out for great mexican food!

Fall Hike

Before it got too cold Aaron and I went with my family on a hike. We did it the fun way: we drove up to the top in one car and left another car at the bottom. So we started our journey through the Butterfield canyon.
Aaron leads the way as we follow his behind:)
Aaron had fun taking some pictures. We held Ryanns hands so they wouldn't get too cold.
Here we are walking along the trail. This is by one of several cars down in the ravine. It's tradition when we go on this hike to hit one of the cars with rocks. It's simple fun!
We all had to enjoy a break with some scenery.
The leaves had all fallen and filled the trail with their light brown color. It was pretty. The only green was from the pine. Can you spot the red hoodie!
If you see our blog often then you know Aaron always has to do something crazy for fun. One of his favorite things to do in kindergarten was to balance on the board they had in the classroom. It's good to know he hasn't grown out of having fun!
Everyone is looking at Aaron walking over the trail. Boston has his cute little dinosaur beenie onHe's crazy.
I stole the camera from Aaron! Say hello! It started to get colder. If you can't tell what that white stuff is on the ground that is snow, you'll see a lot of it next week!
We ended the hike by having a fire that Aaron and Dave started with a spark and some bug repellent spray. We cooked up some s'mores, starbursts, twinkies (which didn't work very well). Ryan found a rock that she picked up and said, "look a hat rock!" So I said, "wow, let me get a picture. That's awesome!" She was so proud. It was great to be in the mountains, they are so beautiful. We hope to spend more time in the great outdoors next year!