My Best Friend Got Married!!!!! :)

I made a quick trip to Salt Lake over Spring Break to attend my bestest most awesomest friend Malayna's wedding.  As Malayna is pretty much the coolest person ever, and works frequently with animals of a wide variety, there were, of course, live birds at the reception:

 Zorro is the Kookaburra on the left, and Chicken is the Macaw.  My only bridesmaid duty was to help wrangle the birds, and I fed Chicken hazelnuts.  I felt quite responsible.

It was really flipping bright the day Chris and Malayna got married, but we managed to get some pretty amazing pictures.  My favorite is the one on the right.

 It was so bright, the little girls were having a rough time, as was the bride.  So, we were finally merciful and moved the pictures to the shade, but to the relief of all involved.

It was a really fun trip out to see her - they are an adorable couple, and make each other laugh.  I couldn't have wished for a better match for my bestest friend, and I am so thrilled to see her happy. :)

Ice Castles!!!

We got some free tickets to head up to the Ice Castles exhibit in Breckenridge.  It's a seasonal thing, so we dashed up for a quick weekend getaway, and made a mini-vacation of the whole thing.  It was awesome!

We ran out of windshield wiper fluid on the drive up, it was pretty scary there for a few min.  Other than that, though, the drive was gorgeous, and we lucked out with really great weather, despite all the snow!

 The icicles were beautiful - the company that makes the castles uses over 30 million gallons of water to make all of the sculptures.  It basically results in a frozen playground:

 Demonstrated so well by the ever-so-lovely Taggart. 

 Yes, it was cold!

 Every day, the workers "harvest" new icicles to ad to the formations and haul them to their new spots.

 Some of Taggart's camera handiwork.

 We had a really fun weekend, and it was a well needed respite, even if it was only about 24 hours. :)

Josh Groban!!!

Wow.  I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to sing for so many amazing opportunities as it is, but this one has to be the cake topper of my musical career thus far.  My choir director emailed me at the beginning  of the week prior to this to ask if anyone was interested in singing at Red Rocks with Josh Groban and the CO Symphony.  It was an amazing experience (I obviously obliged), so I thought I'd put up some pictures of the events.

 Four of us singing backup on "Brave".

 He had an amazing band of world renowned classical musicians.

 Ellen and me hanging out in the green room before sound check!

 The view from the stage.  It was mind blowing singing for a sold out 10,000 seat amphitheatre.

 Me backstage dressed in my "hip black" haha

 And the whole choir at the meet and greet we had before the show.  It was an incredible experience.

The Re-Vamp of my "Asian Kick" of 2013!!!

Of course, I am overdue for some food posts, since I am pretty much a giant Foodie and love to cook.  I have pretty much mastered the following recipe with making a few tweaks along the way, so it's to the point where I feel like I should share it.  It's also really easy to do once I figured everything out. :) There will be more to come of these in future posts as well.  Enjoy!

Baked Egg Rolls

Ok, so a basic list of ingredients that you will need are:

- About 3 chicken breasts

- 1 package of egg roll wrappers

- 1 can of water chestnuts

- Fresh minced garlic

- Salt, pepper, and fresh or ground ginger

- Chopped onion

- Various filling vegetables (I am using carrots, cabbage, and snap peas)

- Cup of cold water

  Now, if you don't have a food processor, the prep will be a little bit longer, however, it's not bad to do by hand.  Since I have a Cuisinart, it all takes about 5 seconds to chop everything.  I grated the cabbage, and then chopped the vegetables, minced, the garlic, and sliced the chicken into tiny stir fry sized strips.

Cabbage, about 1/2 a head

Water Chestnuts

I only use about a 1/4 of an
 onion, but you can use more

This is Elephant garlic, of which I
only used 1/2 of 1 clove.  Regular garlic works fine, though.

Chicken after going through
 my slicer tool on my Cuisinart.

A view of everything prepped.

I mix all of the vegetables together with the garlic and onion, leaving the chicken out for now (since I think about having to potentially accommodate vegetarians), and toss in some salt, pepper, and ginger.  Then I get my work space ready.

 First I put about a teaspoon or so of veggie mix onto an egg roll wrapper, and make it into a line.  Then I add chicken on top of this.  The ratio can vary if you like, and again, it becomes more of an eyeball game than anything else.  The cup of water is to stick the wrapper ends together.  I also have a wet cloth nearby, as your hands can get gummy from the starches of the wrappers.

 Once the filling is in place, I pull the two side ends together and stick with a dab of water. (Note thatb this is the orientation for rolling that works best for me, but feel free to adapt it to whatever is easiest.)  I then pull the bottom edge up and over the filling, sort of tucking under and tightening as I go.  I tuck the bottom corner under and roll the wrapper up a little to hold it in place. 

 Then with my finger I wet the edge of the top corner all the way around so that the egg roll will stay shut.

And I finish rolling! 

 So pretty.

The next step is to brush them with a little olive oil, or something similar.

 (Since I'm on a grape seed oil kick right now, I used that instead of EVOO)

 I bake them at 375 for about 10 ish minutes or until they start browning, then flip and repeat.

 After the baking process is done, I like to quickly pan fry them just to brown and crisp them up a little more.

Viola!  Egg rolls which are super easy.

For dipping sauce, again I don't usually measure, but here is what I've found we like best:

- 1 Part soy sauce

- 1 Part teriyaki sauce

- Splash of EVOO or something similar

- Splash of lemon or lime juice

- 1 Part stir fry or szechuan sauce (this is where you have some freedom again, since you can decide what flavor you want to add)

 - Sometimes if I really feel in the mood for tons of garlic, I throw 1/2 a clove in as well.

Mix thoroughly and get eating!

First Official Commission

I made a Mulan costume for the Denver Comic Con for a girl I work with.  It was officially my first ever commission!  Definitely took me a lot longer than I anticipated since I drafted the pattern myself, but I was pretty tickled with the finished product.  Here are some in process pictures as well as it all done: