Category: McBride

I guess that it is a pretty nice time to be driving in to work. While stopping to gas up on the way out of town I snapped a picture of the beautiful sunrise, as well as out cows in the meadow.

Amanda is 14 weeks pregnant now, and the NP wanted to have Amanda get a sizing ultrasound to verify how far along she is. The baby looks healthy, but the technician would not give a definitive answer on the gender. We will have the gender ultrasound in another six weeks so stay tuned. Here’s a few pictures to keep you at bay until that appointment.

I’m sure that I enjoy Monday mornings about as much as the next person.  Getting up at 4:30 to get ready, get my son to the babysitter, and get to work with an office that is humid and hot isn’t exactly what we jump out of bed for.  This morning while driving into the office I did have a moment of goodness. While listening to The Count of Monte Cristo (we set up an audible.com account last week, and are really liking it) on the road to work the sun was coming up, and this is what it looked like.  It doesn’t get much more beautiful than that.  The picture came from a Palm Pre Plus that I’ve been using as a mobile hot spot from Verizon Wireless, and I think the color is pretty well represented.  Anyway, enjoy the sunrise I got to see this morning.

Wes

We enjoy cooking with cast iron skillets. They are interesting to clean. While watching Food Mob! there was an email question someone had about cleaning and using cast iron. I asked my mother-in-law for her steps in proper cleaning and maintaining cast iron. Enjoy!

If it has any rust It must be completely cleaned of rust. I did this by putting it upside down with the lid on top, on the rack of my self cleanning oven and setting it to clean for two hours. Allow the oven to completely cool before removing it. after removing it from the oven you need to scour it with steel wool under hot running water without any detergent until all surfaces are completely clean.

To season your skillet I recommend using an outdoor gas barbecue in a well ventilated area. Using the kitchen oven will smoke up your house. Preheat your barbecue or kitchen oven to 375°. After your skillet is dry, place it on the barbeque or center rack of your kitchen oven with the lid ajar. Allow it to warm slowly so it is just barely too hot to handle with bare hands. This preheating does two things, it drives any remaining moisture out of the metal and opens the pores of the metal.

Now, using a paper towel or a clean 100% cotton rag, apply a thin layer of vegetable oil. Make sure the oil covers every inch of the skillet, inside and out and replace it on the barbeque or oven rack, this time upside down with the lid resting on top . This will keep oil from pooling in the bottom of the skillet. Bake the oven for about an hour or so at 375°. This baking hardens the oil into a protective coating over the metal.

After baking, allow the skillet to cool slowly. When it is cool enough to handle, apply another thin coating of oil. Repeat the baking and cooling process. When the skillet can be handled again apply another thin coating of oil. Do not leave any standing oil in the skillet! Standing oil can turn rancid ruining the protective coating you just applied. Allow the skillet to cool completely. Now it should have three layers of oil, two baked on and one applied when it was warm. The skillet is now ready for use. You can do this same procedure with dutch ovens.

I never wash my cast iron with detergent. You have to be careful the first few times you use the skillet, because cooking with sugar or tomatoe based food can remove the seasoning. I use it at least three times applying a thin layer of oil after washing in hot water only, before cooking with tomatoe or sugar. I hope this helps.

Here’s the video that was shown at the Stake Center.  it is not the finished product, but something to show with lots of footage.  I’m working on polishing it and cleaning it up to send out to everyone that bought a copy.  Remember to get with Clif Browning if you haven’t ordered yoru copy yet.  928 245 1150

So I am going to rebuild my laptop tomorrow, and I decided to make a list of the stuff I needed to reinstall.  Here’s that applications outside of the factory installed applications that I use on a daily basis.  Anything else I should be using?

Friday ended up being a pretty busy day.  We started out running over to St. Johns to get a colt that my mom had looked at.  (Was trying to pull the pictures from my BlackBerry, but it appears Verizon is working on the EVDO here) (UPDATE: BlackBerry is happy again, picture added)  We pulled him home, and went home to get ready for Rustyn’s party.  He got a hoopy (spelling?) car from Grandma, and he ended up spending the rest of the time in it, so we aren’t sure what else he got yet.  After that we went to the Flashlight Vigil for the Ulrich family.  We got home and hooked up the projectors to the PS3s and played Modern Warfare until it was time for the main event.  The Goonies!!  Check out the video to see our setup.