Italy

Italy has been amazing! We've been to venice, florence and are now in the Cinque Terre until heading off to Rome!

London and Paris

Our trip is going just perfectly! This week we went to London and are halfway through our stay in Paris!

Did It!

I graduated! Many of you (me included) didn't think I'd make it through! 

It was a wonderful day. Everything was quite the blur!

And monday we head off the Europe for the month! I'll go ahead and say so long for now! 

Parmesan Quinoa

I love Quinoa. I've been trying to find new fun ways to cook with it, and this may be a new favorite recipe. Few ingredients, and tastes delicious. 

I found this great recipe online and tried it out this week. This was delicious, and I want to share it with everyone else that loves Quinoa! These are all her instructions! This worked amazing. Honestly, I left out the onions...I don't really like those. But this was delicious! Also, I've never heard that washing your Quinoa first helps with any tummy issues. I must say, I'm going to start that more often!

What you'll need:

1 cup quinoa, rinsed

2 cups water

1 medium white onion (cut in 1.5 inch strips)

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cloves of garlic (minced)

2 teaspoons dried basil

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese (part of which for garnish)

Step 1: RINSE YOUR QUINOA. Don't be lazy. It takes two seconds! Rinse in cold water. Your stomach will thank me later. I won't get graphic but that's all I'll say.

Step 2: Heat up your olive oil in a large sauce pan and saute your onions for 4-5 minutes. Throw in your garlic for a minute, stirring so it doesn't burn.

Step 3: Add in your water and quinoa and cover the pot, bringing the water to a boil.

Step 4: Bring down to low and allow to simmer. Quinoa should take about 15 minutes to cook or so- but you'll know when there is a ring around the outside and the center is clear- plus about all of your water should be absorbed!

Step 5: Mix in your salt, basil, black & red pepper, and 1/3 cup of your cheese. If you want it a little more creamy, go ahead and add more!

Step 6: Dish it up while hot and sprinkle with pepper and cheese for garnish!

Spoon Coffee Stirrers

Before we head off to Europe on Monday, we are trying to get anything done that we can for our reception we're having when we get back. This was a practice run for coffee stirrers. I really would like a coffee bar at the reception (I'm a coffee drinker) so besides some starbucks syrups that we will have there (you know you can buy those Starbucks right? One of the things I learned when I worked there) we wanted to have other little coffee treats, like these simple coffee spoons. 

1 bag of choc chips (melted in microwave and dipped) makes about 46-48 spoons. I went ahead and did the milk chocolate on the bottom layer. Then drizzled white chocolate on the top for decoration. I used less than half a bag of white chocolate. 

Why not dip some strawberries with the extra chocolate! Yummmmy! I had plenty of the white chocolate left over for these! 

And you're done! Total cost of about 46 spoons was $7-$8. 

Easy Homemade Yogurt

Did you know you can make your own yogurt? It is delicious, and I must say, even better than the store bought. It is a pretty easy process (but time consuming as there is a lot of time where it just has to sit for hours) but if you're like me, you love the idea of getting things done while you're doing other things..so this works perfect!

My Aunt from Vegas shared her link to what she used to start making her own yogurt, and then made a few small alterations! That is what I'm sharing here! 

(my finished yogurt!) 

You need a crockpot, saucepan, milk (I used a half gallon, but you can probably make a whole gallon if you have a big crockpot) and some starter yogurt (you need this for this to have live active cultures in it! just check the label) After you make it once, you can use some from the last batch as a starter. You'll want some towels, and a thermometer. 

First. Turn your crockpot on low. (you need it to be warm) 

(you don't need the cofffee, unless like you're like me....and its the morning...and lets be honest,  you need the coffee) 

Put your milk in a saucepan. My aunt suggests medium heat (which is what I did), and use a thermometer to heat it to 185.  You'll need to stir it as it will burn on the bottom. Just do it as needed, you don't need to stand and stir the whole time. 

While this is going on, you'll want to fill your sink with cold water.

When it reaches 185, cover the pan, pull it off the heat, and place it in the cold water. You'll want it to cool to about 80-110 degrees. (stir occasionally here)

While you're letting it cool, get out your starter yogurt. I used 1/4 cup start yogurt (since I was making 1/2 gallon of milk). Put that into a bowl, and when your milk has cooled, pour a cup into there and mix it up. 

Place the rest of the yogurt in the warmed crockpot. When the starter is mixed with the cup of yogurt, pour it in the crockpot with the rest. Put on the lid, cover it with towels, (to keep out the light and stay warm).Turn the crockpot off, unplug it. And let it sit 6-10 hours. (I did mine for 8.5 hours- don't peek!)

Pull it out, and if your crockpot has the removable pot, just stick it right into the fridge to cool it down! 

My aunt said that they like a thicker yogurt, so after the yogurt has set in the fridge, she will scoop a corner out.  That fills with mostly clear liquid and then she will drain that off with a turkey baster.  Apparently, you can take off quite a lot of fluid. When she is done (a day or two, the yogurt has dropped an inch or more from the original height) she will mix it all together and put in plastic containers.  

But for me, I just let mine cool, and tried it in a couple of hours when I returned from having coffee with friends! 

Add some fruit (as I love plain yogurt, but everything is better with fruit) 

It was delicious. Perfect for smoothies, breakfast, everything else! (and the best is I felt so domestic! Not a feeling I often get!) 

The Last Final

I have one last final left. I have over 1 week to complete it. Which sounds like it would be easy. But here is the catch, it is a take-home 30 hour final. And it is going to be HARD. The minute you open the exam, you have 30 hours to complete it. Its all essay, and because you have 30 hours, they expect more from you...and you have to include citations and all of that good stuff that you get to avoid usually in timed exams. 

This was my challenge class of the semester. It was the one course where our professor last semester announced that this class is good for 3Ls because its hard, and by then you don't care about your grades so getting a bad great wont matter. Yes, she warned us that it would be awful...and I took it anyway. There are 9 people in our class, (she scared the rest away) and it is all about Employee Benefits. Basically, its an entire ERISA class that talks about pension and healthcare plans and where things are going in the next year or two. I've found usually a class is much more difficult when the professor is the one who wrote the book (not a figure of speech) on the topic. 

The other students in the class will be working in the ERISA portion of their law firms. Me, on the other hand, just thought this would be fun. I had no prior experience, and if you weren't with me through this whole law school journey you may not know I went to law school with the intent of possibly going into HR. So it isn't that I'm not interested...its just that it is hard. 

So here I am, trying to study up before opening my very last final exam. I have to balance the dread of taking the exam, and really push down that "this will be my very last exam ever so lets just get it over with" attitude. 

Juno has been helping me study too. 

She helps with a lot of things lately....like cleaning Hearsay's fish tank. 

Goodluck to all of my fellow law students and other college students dealing with this less than thrilling time in  our lives. Finals are awful, I'm with you! But eventually...hopefully in the not too distant future...you'll be in a position to say that you are about to take your very last final exam! Goodluck to  you all!