striped kalles

I love the little food and snack martket inside IKEA. Every time we go out there I'd manage to pick up a couple fun Swedish foods.

A while ago I bought a tube of Kalles spread, and I liked it. It was a bit salty for my taste, but with crackers it was pretty awesome.

This time I saw a new Kalles spread. It's spriped! It has its original smoked roe, and cream cheese.



The striped spread doesn't taste as salty as the original one, and is tasty on crackers. I'm loving the Ritz roasted vegetable crackers these days.


Yumminess.

Thank goodness for IKEA!

loveland bunnies

John and I were at a drive-through very late the night we arrived at Loveland. After we got our sandwiches we saw a bunch (really!) of little fluffs bouncing across the lawn in front of the us.

Out of curiosity, we pulled up to park and watched them.


A few of them saw our headlights and stopped.


These were wild bunnies!


They just stood still the whole time.

I think they knew they were being watched, and therefore really tried to stay still so they could blend in with the tan-ish lawn as to not be noticed at all.

But I spotted them, and they were cute!

The next few evenings we saw a few more near the hotel partking lot, too.

Cute Loveland bunnies!

the sky and the windmills

The sky and the windmills are the best things that made my drive to Colorado (through Wyoming) lovely and pleasant.

These pictures were taken while driving (!) inside the car (and behind the windows.)


We were lucky. This time the weather was nice. The sky was blue, and the clouds were fluffy.


Ohh! See the windmills yet?


They were huge.


Every time I saw these windmills my heart would pound fast!


Oh my. The sky and the clouds were so beautiful.

Ahhhhh.

yogurt melts

OK you are probably going to think I'm silly, but I'd really like to share this delicious snack with you because it's really convenient and good!


(photo from Gerber web site)
These are the "Gerber Graduates Yogurt Melts Snacks."


They are little drops of freeze-dried whipped yogurt! I bought some because a-gui needed some active cultures when he was not feeling well in his stomach, and I thought these little drops would be good as treats for him.

He does like them, and after I tried them, I do, too!

So far I've only tried the strawberry ones. They are tasty, and yes they do taste like regular starwberry yogurt!

back in town!

John and I had a lot of fun at the Mountain Regional Barista Competition in Loveland, CO! We were happy we made it into the finals, but were also a bit dissappointed to learn how drastically our espresso changed within a couple of days, and that we didn't win. But Greg was awesome!

The USBC is going to be held in Anaheim this year, and I really want to go! John didn't think we would be able to afford it, though. I'm actually pretty optimistic. We can always find ways to raise money to go!

Anyhow, I learned a lot during this trip and experience. I am very proud of John and myself for getting into the finals. I am especially honored to hear Gianni say that John's espresso was the best he'd had. You rock, John!

Thank you for your love and support. We will do even better next time.

loveland

John and I are in Loveland, CO for the Mountain Regional Barista Competition this weekend! We're loving it! I will post the fun stuff later on.

P.S. Shouldn't everyone be in LOVEland for Valentine's weekend? :D

behind the slightly-open kitchen door

John bought a dog nail filing trimmer and we used it on Nuki the other night.

Of course there were quite some treats (dehydrated duck tendor strips,) and me singing (!) to Nuki involved for him to lie down and stay almost still as requested by us.

I must say the nail trimmer worked quite well. At least we didn't have to worry about clipping the dogs' nail and accidentally draw a bit of their blood.

While we were trimming Nuki's nails in the kitchen, Yama and a-gui were asked to stay out of the area.

But they really wanted to come into the kitchen to see what's going on.


Yama said, "Please let me in, pleeeeeese!"


"No?"


"But I really want to see Nuki right now! Can my head fit through this?"


And a-gui said, "Oh oh oh allow me. I'm only about half your size. I may be able to go right through."

It'll be nice if they still want to come and stay in the kitchen when it's their turn to have their nails trimmed.

sticky rice with shitake mushrooms

I love sticky rice... both round(short)- and long-grain kinds. (From what I know, round-grain sticky rice is normally used for making mochi, or rice cakes, and long-grain sticky rice is usually used in "actual" rice dishes.)



I made some long-grain sticky rice with fried scallions and shitake mushrooms, but the result was still a bit more mushy than I'd like it to be. Generally for this kind of sticky rice dishes the rice:water ratio is 1:0.6, but I guess I should lower the water ratio a little more next time.

Anyhow, with some sweet chili sauce on the slightly-mushy sticky rice, I'm still loving it!

gringo

There's a nice lady Molly that comes to the caffe. The other day she brought Gringo with her!



Molly rescued Gringo about a month ago. He was abused and then neglected. He's a bit skittish when he came in to see me, but then he warmed up very soon! I gave him a big biscuit and he loved it. Yay!

He looked very skinny when he came in, but according to Molly he was even more skinner before she got him! Poor Gringo.



I hope Gringo will trust and love people again very soon!