Goal #72 Try 100 new recipes (20/100): Zuppa Toscana

Last night I tried a new recipe with my dinner group, and it was a winner! Recipe cred to my friend Laura, who shared it with me after she made it for our grad program's weekly soup kitchen. It was easy, healthy (ish), and my dinner group LOVED it! Definitely 5/5 stars.

Fry together:
1 lb mild Italian sausage
1 onion, diced
3 tsp garlic
some red pepper flakes

Add to:
8 cups chicken broth
2 cups water
Red potatoes, with skin, cubed to fill up the broth (I had 6-7 big red potatoes)

Cook until potatoes are tender.
Add salt and pepper to taste.

At the end add 1 bunch of kale (ripped into little pieces) and 1 pt heavy whipping cream

...then text your dinner group to come right away, because apparently bad things happen if the kale and cream are cooking too long (kale can get mushy and cream can curdle--yikes!).

Goal #16 Go to 5 festivals (4-6/5): Chalk Art Festival, Festival of Trees, Christmas Market

One of my favorite things about living in Utah is the community events. They have festivals all the time. I love things that bring the community together--marathons, parades, festivals--it makes me feel united with the people I live among, but don't necessarily know. I don't know if I can explain it, but I love it. Here are the last festivals I went to, exceeding my goal of going to 5 new ones!

Chalk Art Festival
Put on at Riverwoods mall every fall, raises money for charity. Some of the artwork was stunning. I enjoyed it, but if choosing between this one and the Chalk Art Festival at the Gateway in SLC, choose the latter.

Festival of Trees
Hosted in the Sandy Convention Center each December, raises money for the Children's hospital. Such a blast! It totally exceeded my expectations. The most ornately decorated trees and insane gingerbread houses you've ever seen!

Photo Credit

Inmates at the women's prison made this Frozen-themed gingerbread house

Christmas Market
The second year Provo has put this on. It was supposed to be a German Christmas Market. Honestly I expected more. It felt just like a farmer's market you'd see any time of the year. I probably won't go again. Here were the only Christmasy parts:

As I leave, who is on their way but the Grinch?

Carving an ice sculpture before our eyes

Overall I've enjoyed going to these new festivals, and I'm glad this goal pushed me to go to some obscure ones (like the lawn mower races in Lindon!). My dollar for completing this goal goes to the GoFundMe account for Mrs. Sanchez, who I have seen on the street selling tamales and wished I had cash to give her.

Goal #22 Visit 5 new temples (4-5/5): Redlands and St. George

One of my goals was to visit 5 new temples. I was intending to just go to the other temples in Utah that I haven't been to before, but I ended up doing a few out of state. These last two were Redlands, CA and St.George Utah. (If you want to know why Mormons build temples and how they're different from chapels, click here.)

Redlands California Temple:
This one was SUPER cool because I had just written an article about its history for the new temple website (it'll be published soon on mormontemples.org). The temple is built on land that was part of the original Mormon colony in San Bernardino. The land used to have orange groves on it, and at the ground breaking they served all the guests orange juice from those oranges. Now they have baby orange trees growing on one side of the property. There's a painted glass artwork of the First Vision right when you walk in that has quite the history. It was such a rich experience, attending the temple just after writing its history.

Photo Credit

 St. George Utah Temple:
This one was also really cool, and I got to go with my awesome friend Tiffany. This was the third temple built, and thus it has pioneer handiwork all over the inside!

Beehives as decorations

Can you see me? I'm super tiny.

#besties #wind

 So now I've been to 19 temples total:

• San Diego California Temple
• Los Angeles California Temple
• Redlands California Temple
• Newport Beach California Temple (just on the grounds)
• St. George Utah Temple
• Vernal Utah Temple
• Provo Utah Temple
• Mount Timpanogos Utah Temple
• Draper Utah Temple
• Bountiful Utah Temple
• Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple (just for the open house)
• Salt Lake City Utah Temple
• Manti Utah Temple
• Seattle Washington Temple
• Rexburg Idaho Temple
• Nauvoo Illinois Temple
• Manhattan New York Temple (just outside)
• São Paulo Brazil Temple
• Campinas Brazil Temple

After writing temple articles on another 10-20 temples, I think I want to make going to each of those temples a life goal. Some of them are really far away (Ukraine, the Philippines), so it'll take a while. But I feel really connected to those temples after writing their histories, and I'd really love to go.

My dollar for completing this goal goes to the GoFundMe account for Mrs. Sanchez, who supports herself by selling homemade tamales.

Goal #2 Capitol Reef National Park

There are 5 national parks in Utah, and I had been to all except this one...until Martin Luther King Jr Day (aka free National Parks Day!). I honestly didn't expect it to be that cool. Maybe because of the name. But I was wrong.

My favorite view

It was gorgeous.

It had all sorts of cool eroded rocks.

Michael brought his nice camera!

Yoga...

On top of an arch!

and a rock

And it was zen. I highly recommend it.

I also highly recommend winter hiking, turns out. Reasons why winter hiking is the best:

1. No mosquitoes 

2. You don't get sweaty

3. Your body heat warms you up, so you're actually a perfect temperature all the time

4. Not tons of tourists

5. You don't need to carry as much water with you

6. The snow on the red rocks is gorgeous

My dollar for completing this goal goes to the GoFundMe account for Mrs. Sanchez, who sells tamales for a living.

Goal #92 Go to the Utah Symphony at Abravanall Hall (see Chihuly glass sculpture)

For my birthday I decided to go to the Symphony, and it was marvelous! It made me feel cultured and fancy.

Part of the point was to see the red Chihuly glass sculpture...

I learned afterward that the 30 foot glass sculpture was purchased as a memorial of the 2002 winter olympics hosted in Salt Lake City. The artwork, originally called "Chihuly 2002" is now often referred to as the "Olympic Tower."

Another part of the point was to listen to the Symphony, which was amazing! I've never heard such impressive musicianship! We heard two pieces: Shostakovich's Symphony No. 15 (his autobiography, which definitely shows how hard his life was in Russia) and Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker (which was light and delightful). I'd definitely recommend going to the pre-concert lecture -- I wouldn't have appreciated the Shostakovich nearly as much without that background info!

Afterwards we got French pastries at Gourmandise. Super fun night with some classy people. :)

My dollar for completing this goal goes to the GoFundMe account for Mrs. Sanchez, who makes a living by selling homemade tamales here in Provo.

Goal #71 Eat 5 vegetables I've never tried (2/5): Okra

This goal may seem strange, but if you knew me as a kid, it wouldn't! I was the pickiest eater you ever saw! My diet consisted of cereal, lemon or lime yogurt (the only kinds without chunks in that day), bread and butter, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apples and pears (the only fruit I liked), chicken nuggets, and occasionally I could manage to eat a baby carrot. Eeeverything gave me the gag reflex. My parents used to make me eat mixed vegetables at dinner, and I'd crawl under the dinner table to "eat" them (usually I'd stuff them under the legs of the table) there, because I had to plug my nose and swallow them with water. True story.

So now I like lots of food. Actually, I'm the most adventurous eater in my family now! (I'm kinda proud of that!) But there are still several things I've never tried. Like okra. Until last night.

We had okra and jambalaya (another dish I'd never had)! I really enjoyed the jabalaya. The okra was...a little mucus-y. But ok. I would eat it again if someone else made it, but I don't picture myself ever making it.